Rend Lake Illinois

We are on the road again.  Today we are headed to Oak Mountain State Park in Pelham, Alabama.  Our last two days in Rend Lake, Illinois were great.  The US Army Corps of Engineers have got it going on with their park.  The lake was gorgeous... I wish we would've had a boat!  Diggy discovered swimming and frolicked several times in the water.  The sites were large, wooded and had paved RV pads.  Jerry said the bathrooms were nice (we paid a lot of money to bring our own bathroom... I generally don't use the park facilities).  Full hookups for $22 a night.  Love it.  Two thumbs up for South Marcum Campground! 

We made a couple Walmart runs (what trip is complete without Walmart?) and found a farmer's market.  Picked up some produce there and some longhorn steaks.  We will marinate those and grill them up in the next couple days. 

Only six hours to our next stop.  The first leg of our journey was 9 hours which we decided was a bit too long.  We also arrived after dark which was not ideal.  We should be rolling in today before supper time and in the daylight hours. 

I'll try to attach some pics from the last couple days... Still haven't figured this whole thing out.  ;).

And so it begins...

We picked up our new Bighorn back in May and spent the summer traveling here and there.  Jerry officially retired May 1.  My plans for exit from the DOC have been moved up to September 2016.  At the present time - I'm planning to go back to Tech School for a semester and get a Sterilization Tech diploma.  This degree would enable me to get certified and work in hospitals sterilizing surgical instruments.  I have found many short term temp jobs (like traveling nurses) around the country that would provide a back up plan if we find ourselves lacking in the money or health insurance department down the road. 

This morning we left on our first BIG adventure.  Our end point is Davenport, Florida. Today's travels had us leaving home headed to Madison to pick up Optimus (Prime... That is the fifth wheel... He does quite a Transformation when setting up).  Optimus needed some warranty work done and had been at Camping World for the past month allegedly getting the work done.  Upon arriving... Not so much.  They did about 1/4 of the work they were supposed to.  While I walked the dog - Jerry made a scene and got called into the office.  After Jerry unloaded on the store manager enough and as my vacation clock was ticking, we loaded up, headed out and will plan to get the work done in Florida.  We are now headed for Rend Lake in Southern Illinois where we will spend the first two nights of our journey at a Corps of Engineers campground. For those who enjoy camping - look into the C.O.E. parks.  They have beautiful, big sites on water and are very inexpensive.  We have our yellow lab Dagwood (aka Diggy) joining us on the trip.  He's old and arthritic and Jerry figured he would appreciate wintering in Florida as opposed to freezing his old bones in Wisconsin.  We will continue to update our progress on our official maiden voyage.