Carlinville in the Heat!

On Monday, August 2nd, we moved from Fox Ridge State Park to Beaver Dam State Park.  Beaver Dam is less than 10 minutes from Carlinville and is the perfect location for us to visit Kyle and Jenni.

We chose site 5 which is 50 amp, first-come-first-serve.  50 amp was important since temps were expected to reach 100 degrees and the two air conditioners would be needed and first-come-first-serve was important since we had no idea how long we would stay and didn’t want to run in to having our site reserved later in the week.

Site 5 has lots of open grassy area for the dogs.

Kyle plays tennis on Monday evenings so we picked up Jenni and went to Ryan’s Pub for dinner.  Ryan’s is a comfortable family tavern atmosphere with good reasonably priced food.  Jenni had a Reuben sandwich.  Ken and I had the $.6.50 fried chicken dinner special, with mashed potatoes and green beans.  Everything was quite good as usual.

When back at the house, Ken checked out a couple of handyman jobs that Kyle had on the list.  They were having problems with water getting on the floor during showers and also were frustrated with the house key situation with multiple keys needed for multiple doors. 

On Tuesday, Ken and I went back in to the house late morning.  He started work on this projects while I caught up on emails and other online work that had not gotten attention since we still aren’t carrying an air card.

At noon, Jenni and I left for Springfield.  We were meeting her Mom and Maria, her brother Josh’s girlfriend, for lunch at Panera.  We were also meeting Karen and her mother-in-law.  Karen and her husband recently moved to Carlinville from New Jersey.  As it turns out her mother-in-law is the water aerobics teacher for my sisters at the YMCA and we were able to put the couples in contact. It seems to have turned out to be a great fit and they’ve enjoyed several outings together already.  Moving from New Jersey to Carlinville is definitely a bit of a culture shock so Karen seems very pleased that they’ve found another couple to hang out with.

After lunch we were off to David’s Bridal for Jenni’s bridal gown alterations fitting.  She’s been working out a lot and the dress which fit perfectly a few months ago now needs to be taken in!  They also have to take a lot off of the length.  Because of the number of layers and the train, Jenni endured 2+ hours of standing while all the lengths were pinned and the bustles worked out.

As it turns out their will be 13 loops in the bustle!  Her Mom will have to come back with her next month to ‘train’ on how to do the bustle on the wedding day.  I’m sorry I will be on the road at that time because it will really be more than a one-person effort that day and it would be good for Donna to have someone else ‘trained’ with her. 

Before we left Springfield, Jenni and I dropped by Babies R Us for a baby shower gift.  Jenni was excited to have been invited to the first ‘girl event’ on Kyle’s side but will not be able to make the trip for the shower.  That didn’t stop us from getting in a quick jaunt of baby shopping where Mom Mindy is registered.  Jenni is in charge of the wrapping since she is the crafty one of the two of us!  It’s so nice to have another girl in the family to do this stuff with!

When we arrived back in Carlinville, Ken was already finished with his handyman projects and back at the motorhome.  Kyle and Jenni had items at home for a meal of brats, sweet corn and chips so we packed up those items and headed out to the rig to cook out.  Since it had been over 100 degrees during the day, we cooked outside but ate inside.

Since it was too hot to enjoy the outdoors, the kids brought some movies.  We watched ‘Taken’.  If you haven’t seen this movie, we’d highly recommend it, with a thumbs up from all 4 of us.

Wednesday was another really hot day so after treating ourselves to breakfast at the park restaurant, Ken and I mostly stayed in the motorhome reading, working on budget, etc. with a brief jaunt in to town to publish a blog and pick up a few Walmart supplies. 

Ken did get these pictures of a prairie wildflower he found intriguing.  He had to come back to the motorhome and figure out what it was. Although this thing is huge, its actually a member of the daisy family.  It’s called prairie dock.

Its stalks rose to almost 10 feet high allowing the flowers to tower above the rest of the prairie foliage with no blocks of the hot summer sun.  This apparently is a plant dating back to the stone ages!

The base of this plant had huge leaves. The leaves are tough and like sandpaper which makes them unappetizing for rabbits and other small rodents, which are plentiful in the area.

We met Jenni and Kyle for dinner at the local Carlinville Mexican restaurant, Sol De Mexico.  Let’s leave it that Ken and I were not  thrilled with this restaurant, although the kids said it was usually pretty good.  I guess I’m just a bit tired of all Midwest Mexican restaurants seeming to have the same tastes, the same menus, same atmosphere.  I can’t wait to get back out to the Southwest this winter as Ken and I love the Mexican food we had in New Mexico, especially the green sauces that you don’t see much of around here.

Well, tomorrow, Thursday, is suppose to be cooler so hopefully we’ll get to enjoy the outdoors more.

Hugs, C