It’s time to hit the road again! After just a couple short camping trips this summer, we are heading out for a 26-day, five-state adventure!

But first, a quick update on our blown fuse/refrigerator issues. Mark contacted the dealer where we purchased RoVer Too and fortunately they said they could look at it pretty quickly and it shouldn’t be too difficult to fix. The dealer is about an hour south of home, so it’s a bit of a drive, but we took it there as soon as we could to get it into their queue. Since we weren’t sure if they’d have to replace the refrigerator completely, I decided it would be best to remove all of the stickers from the fridge doors (you might recall we covered the doors with peel-and-stick wallpaper last summer, with the intention of adding stickers from the places we visit.) Here’s a photo before they all came off…we did a pretty good job of filling it up, I must say!

Within a few days, the dealer called and said it was done – there were some frayed wires that our slide had been messing with. So, back to Pontiac IL a few days later to pick up RoVer Too. We turned the fridge on and then made a couple stops on the way home to confirm it wasn’t shorting out each time we did some driving.  Success!

Pontiac sits on historic Route 66, so we decided to be a bit touristy on our return trip to Pontiac…here are a few photos from the day…

With our refrigerator back in action, we left home Monday morning September 9th for a short drive to the KOA in Lena, IL – in the Northwest corner of the state, not far from Wisconsin and Iowa.

On Tuesday, we drove about 20 minutes to the town of Freeport, IL…it’s known as Pretzel City, USA because of the many German bakeries that produced LOTS of pretzels. The best part of this…the local high school’s mascot is the Pretzel…the Freeport High School Pretzels. I hope they have a wrestling team – seems like an appropriate “pretzel” sport. I’m not sure how the football team likes having a pretzel for a mascot, though.

Our first stop was Krape Park, an impressive park for a relatively small town – lots of things to do – swan boats, carousel, playgrounds, trails, disc golf, etc. We enjoyed the picturesque 44’ high waterfall. Oh, and “Krape Park” is a palindrome! Clever!

Next, we checked out out “Little Cubs Field” – it’s a replica of Wrigley Field! It’s full of actual items from Wrigley Field, including some bricks and an ivy plant. The scoreboard is a fantastic replica, and there’s a street sign for “Clark and Addison”, where Wrigley is located. And, of course, there’s a replica of the marquee sign. What a fabulous idea a local guy had to build this for little league players…love it!  

Other than pretzels, Freeport is famous for hosting the second Lincoln-Douglas debate in 1858, when Lincoln was running for US Senate against Stephen Douglas. The site is commemorated with “Debate Square” which includes a wonderful life-size statue of the two men and several plaques providing the history. Lincoln lost that Senate race, but it’s probably a good thing since he was elected President two years later.

Our final stop in Freeport was at Mrs. Mike’s Potato Chips, a small local company that’s been making potato chips and popcorn for over 50 years. We bought some of each to enjoy during our travels – and they are yummy!

We made one quick stop on our way back to the campground, at Lake Le-Aqua-Na State Park. It has a pretty lake and beach area.

On Wednesday, we journeyed West about 30 miles to the beautiful and quaint town of Galena, IL. It was a beautiful drive – this area of Illinois is full of rolling hills (compared to the VERY flat area that we live in), and the fields are a mix of green and gold as the crops die off. We thoroughly enjoyed the scenery!

The town of Galena was once a thriving steamboat hub of the Mississippi River, and now thrives on tourism, as one of the most-visited towns in Illinois. It is perhaps most famous for being the home of Ulysses S. Grant, so our first stop was a tour of his home. The home was gifted to his family by the people of Galena when he returned after the Civil War, to show their gratitude to the war hero. His children gave it to the city, and it’s now a state historic site.

We stopped at Grant Park (hmmm, maybe it’s named for the same guy?!?) and enjoyed a picnic lunch overlooking the Galena River. Interestingly, the river was once over 200 feet wide and is now only about 40 feet wide.

After lunch, we walked through the charming downtown area of Galena, starting with a self-guided tour of the DeSoto House Hotel, Illinois’ oldest operating hotel; it opened in 1855 and, despite several challenges over the years, continues to operate 55 rooms in the heart of town.

We wandered in and out of several shops, and were impressed by the hilly area with several very tall sets of stairs between Main Street and the rest of town.

At 2pm, we caught the Galena Trolley Tour, a one-hour ride through the historic parts of town (62% of Galena’s buildings are in a National Register Historic District) – the city is full of interesting and beautiful architecture in a wide variety of styles. Our guide shared some interesting stories and history about the town, and we saw much more than we would have on our own! We really enjoyed our day in Galena and will likely return, as there’s more to see and do!

On our way back to the campground, we stopped to check out a waterfall…but clearly it’s been a dry summer in Northern Illinois….it was more like a trickle….

Thursday was a pretty quiet day – we actually had some downtime this week! In the afternoon, we drove to nearby Apple River Canyon State Park and took a nice hike along the Apple River. There were some steep climbs on the trail to challenge us!

Friday took us about 40 miles East to Rockford, IL. Our first destination was the Anderson Japanese Gardens, which has been named the best Japanese Garden in North America. It was wonderful…and massive! We’ve been to a few Japanese Gardens, and this one is just so impressive and beautiful! We wandered along the paths and over the bridges to the many serene areas of the park. The landscaping is so scenic and perfectly photogenic!

Our afternoon stop was the Laurent House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. This home is unique as it’s the only one he ever designed for a person with a disability. Kenneth Laurent was a paraplegic, and asked Wright to design a home where he could maneuver in his wheelchair…long before ADA was a thing. The house is Usonian style, and has a beautiful hemicycle design with a long stretch of windows on a curve. Laurent said, “This house helps me focus on my capabilities, not my disability. That is the true gift Mr. Wright gave to me.” This was a wonderful addition to the long list of FLW properties we’ve visited, given its unique design attributes.

We made one final stop in Rockford, to check out the “Rock Men”, a creative and interesting sculpture along the river.

Saturday brought us to the impetus for this entire trip. Back in May, Mark saw that there would be a woodcarving show in Janesville, WI, so I jumped at the opportunity to plan a four-week trip around this show. As you may know, Mark is a talented wood carver, so these are his people! Mark likes to say that going to this show is taking us a month! It was about a 60-mile drive to the Northeast into Janesville, and we were very impressed by the workmanship and detail in the exhibitors’ carved pieces. There was quite a variety of carvings, from figures to ducks and birds…plus several people who did woodburning to create artistic pieces. We sat through a demonstration about carving human faces which was very interesting and gave Mark some hints and tips if he decides to venture in that direction.

Once we finished at the show, we headed south to Roscoe, IL to visit “Historic Auto Attractions”. It’s really not the best name…while there are lots of interesting cars, it’s actually a very eclectic museum full of all types of memorabilia and artifacts. There are several Presidential vehicles, plus lots of items related to the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and JFK. There’s “Gangsterland” all about the gangster era in Chicago. There’s a huge display dedicated to Elvis and a room full of every imaginable style of clock. Plus so much more. It’s like a smaller version of the Henry Ford Museum near Detroit with such a huge variety!

And this brings us to Sunday, time to hit the road again, heading Northwest to St. Paul, Minnesota! See you there!