Monday, 9 July 2018
To Lincoln Trail State Park in Marshall IL
We have a great breakfast at another restaurant C found after careful on-line research. I feel as if I won’t need to eat anything else for at least a week. By 9 am we are on the road once more. Our GPS decides to act temperamental this am and refuses to turn on. I guess he gets jealous when I use my i-phone instead. After about 10 minutes Jack (that’s our GPS’ name) decides to wake up and help guide our trip after all.
The temperature climbs steadily as we drive westward. I check my phone while O takes his turn at the helm and find a message from recreation.gov, the national park and forest reservation system. Due to the extremely dry and hazardous weather, all campfires and charcoal grill fires are banned in Rocky Mountain National Park. Even smoking is banned, unless one is in an enclosed vehicle or in the middle of a paved area and separated from any vegetation by at least three feet of pavement. This won’t affect our trip, but we are hoping that forest fires do not affect our travel plans.
We arrive at Lincoln Trail around 5 pm Eastern Daylight time. O reminds me, however, that we have just crossed into Central time at the Illinois border, so we have gained an hour. It is in the low 90’s and humid here, but thankfully, the park is wooded and shady. After a light dinner we wander about and find our way down a wooden stairway, through the woods to the lake. I send a text off to our friend, Mike the Hiker, whom we met in Canada two years ago. He lives near St. Louis and we will be driving by tomorrow. We make arrangements to meet at the Bass Pro Shop in St. Charles, located off the first exit just across the Missouri River. We three hope to have lunch together.
