Kyle’s Swearing In for Illinois Bar

We started our trek for Nashville Wednesday afternoon, Nov 5th. We left at 5pm and arrived at Kamper Kompanion RV park at the I-55 Carlinville exit about 7:30. Kyle came over and had spaghetti with us in the RV and watched a new episode of Law and Order.

It was a VERY blustery night with 40mph winds. We were glad the worst of the front went through while we were parked.

At 8:30am Thursday morning Kyle picked us up (so we didn’t even have to unhook the jeep!) and we drove in to Springfield, to the state capital complex downtown.

The ceremony was much more elaborate than we’d expected with several speakers. There were 84 new lawyers sworn in this day. It’s pretty cool to have our son now part of the same professional bar as Abraham Lincoln and President-elect Obama. It had an air of great patriotism and duty to country and civil society, making it tough for Mom to keep the tears back.

It was interesting to see the number of lawyers who had a father as an attorney. Some were 3rd or more generation in the Illinois Bar. Who knows maybe 30 years from now Kyle will be back here handing his son or daughter their license to practice.

They actually took the oath as a group

Each received their licenses to practice individually from Supreme Court Justice Rita Garmon.

Following the ceremony there was a very nice reception in the ‘Hall of Flags’. We got to spend some time talking to Justice Cook from Quincy who will be retiring soon as well as Justice Garmon.

We left Kyle pick a ‘celebration lunch’ restaurant and so finished our day in Springfield at Olive Garden.

By the time we got back to the RV it was 2:30pm and Kyle needed to head back in to Carlinville.

It didn’t take much for us to unplug and head out. We planned on doing another short route as far as Marion Illinois. We’d found an RV park just off the interstate with good reviews and I’d also heard that they had the #1 BBQ joint in America in Marion. Yes, believe it or not… the restaurant with the champion title for BBQ is not in the South but in Illinois!

The place is called the 17th St. Bar and Grill. It is very easy access off of I-57 and I’d suggest if you are heading North/South in Illinois you seriously consider working this in to your schedule. Ken and I both had the ribs, and red beans and rice. I can’t guarantee it’s the best bbq ever but I’ve had a lot and can’t tell you anywhere better. A full rack of ribs, with two sides and awesome homemade rolls was $19.99.



The RV park, Marion Campground and RV Park is only one year old and very neat and convenient. It was $22 for full hookups. Very friendly and open year-round. You’ll see it soon in our RV reviews. We’ve gotten a lot of good tips from rvparkreviews.com and feel its important to provide similar input on the parks we’ve used. The more comments out their the easier it is to determine what you can expect from the parks.

Since this is a 5-day trip, I’ll be breaking this adventure down into daily installments so come back and visit soon for the next leg of our autumn adventure to Nashville.

Hugs, C