Solar and Lithium Install

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This post will detail the solar panel and lithium battery upgrade we had done in late April while in Nappanee Indiana. Here's a sneak peek of the roof of our motorhome now that the solar panels are installed. One from the front of the rig and the other from the rear.

View of Rooftop Solar Panels from Front of Rig

And View from the Rear

The drive from Oakwood Illinois to Nappanee Indiana was over our normal 200 mile limit but only by 30 miles or so. There might have been some shorter routes but we knew that coming across I-74 and north on US-31 out of Indianapolis would be a rather straightforward drive. It was a rainy day but not pouring rain so it wasn’t too bad. The last stretch across US-6 into Nappanee was under construction for a paving project and had some pretty narrow lanes that weren’t quite wide enough for our rig so I got to drive straddling the shoulder for several miles. We pulled into the Solar Energy Systems (SES) parking lot and spotted the newly built RV sites on the west side of the lot. There were 3 other rigs already in spots but there was an open site for us. The power was working but the water and sewer connections were still in progress. Once they have these sites are  complete, they will have a very nice setup for RV customers like us. As it is, this will work just fine for the few days we expect to be staying here.

So why are we here at SES in Indiana? Well, we need to get replacement house batteries for our Dutch Star. We have had the same eight flooded lead acid (FLA) 6 volt  batteries since we purchased the rig back in 2015. Based on the look of these batteries when we purchased the 3 year old rig, I suspect these are the original factory installed batteries. That would make them about 11 years old! Normally, this type of battery would have a life expectancy of 5 to 6 years if you're lucky, so we have definitely gotten a long life out of them. 

We have been thinking about making the upgrade to our battery bank for quite some time. Back in the fall of 2019, we had stopped at a well regarded RV solar and lithium installation company in Oregon (AM Solar). They had provided a quote to just upgrade from our current batteries to lithium but it was $13,000! That had seemed rather excessive to us and we had sort of put the upgrade thoughts on hold. From time to time, we would research installers or talk to others that had a similar upgrade on their rig but we never came upon the right business that we felt we could trust to do this upgrade for us.

In January of this year, we had spoken with a fellow Newmar owner about the solar and lithium install that had done within the last year and even got to check it out up close. It was impressive and coincidentally, the installer they used was going to give a talk at the rally we were attending in Quartzsite Arizona. After seeing the work SES does and hearing the owner of the company talk about solar and lithium upgrades, we knew we had stumbled upon the company we could trust and we worked out a system that would meet our needs and scheduled an appointment for late April here in Nappanee Indiana. 

A little background information might help understand how our RV is configured. Our 8 house batteries power all of our 12 volt lights, exhaust fans and a handful of other items in the rig. These 12 volt loads are rather inconsequential in the overall scheme of things. But our rig is an all electric rig - no propane on board (except a small tank for our grill). Lots of RVs will have propane cooktops, ovens, furnace and refrigerators that can run off propane. By having the appliances configured to use propane, these rigs can often be used in setting without access to shore power fairly easily. But our motorhome has a standard residential refrigerator, electric cooktop (not induction) and a convection/microwave oven that all require 120 volt power to operate. Our house batteries feed an inverter that produces normal 120 volt AC electricity from the charge stored in the batteries. When we aren’t connected to shore power, this 2800 watt inverter will keep the refrigerator running and also provide power to all of our standard wall outlets - think television, laptop charger, weather radio, or the clock on the microwave etc.

Our current setup worked well for all of the low power draw items, even the refrigerator. But if we tried to run the toaster or electric tea kettle or microwave, it would start to run but after a few seconds the high current draw from the FLA batteries would cause the voltage to drop precipitously and our inverter would shut down. We had come to accept and adapt to these limitations and have successfully lived for nearly 7 years in our rig even when we were not connected to shore power.

If we were “off grid” for days or weeks, we found we would simply run our built in diesel generator that is part of many motorhomes like ours. When running the generator, we would be charging the house batteries as well as being able to run the cooktop or oven. We had found that by running the generator twice a day for about 2 to 2.5 hours each time, we would have adequate charge to keep the refrigerator going during the rest of the day or overnight. If we ran it during the morning and evening, we could tie in to the breakfast or dinner meal prep and use the kitchen appliances. Depending on the cost of fuel and how much electrical load we needed, it would cost us somewhere in the $3 to $9 per day range in diesel to run the generator. 

This had worked fairly well but we were looking for more flexibility in our electrical system that would make living in the rig more convenient. First off, we are not air conditioning people. I doubt we have run the air conditioners more than a couple of times each year. So our system did not to be so large to be able to run an air conditioner from the batteries and inverter. It can be done but would add to the cost of a solar/lithium install. Our electric cooktop was one kitchen item that was not wired off our original inverter but we did want to have the new system be able to handle this. We recognize that we won’t be able to run it and the microwave simultaneously just off the inverter but we can handle to load management aspects of adding another appliance to the inverter.

If we had simply replaced our old flooded lead acid (FLA) batteries with new ones or upgraded to absorbed glass mat (AGM), we may have been able to run some of the higher load appliances for a brief time but we were in search of better performance. Lithium batteries have been becoming more and more popular in RV applications. They out perform the other battery types in nearly all measures but they are also rather expensive. 

We had come to the conclusion that the cost and benefits of a lithium battery upgrade would be worth it for us. We went into this process knowing that the cost to install our system would far outweigh any savings we might get. Besides swapping over the house batteries from FLA to lithium, we were going to have solar panels installed on the roof that would allow us to recharge the batteries without the need for shore power or running the generator. We were also going to have a new Victron inverter installed that would bump us up to 3000 watts and have lots of cool features I will talk about more in a little bit.

So our system would include six 100 amp hour lithium batteries, eight 200 watt solar panels, the new inverter, solar charge controller and lots of other miscellaneous components to get it all to work. The install was going to take 2 to 3 days but we would be able to get the rig back late each afternoon so we had a place to stay. The estimated cost was around $17,000.

We had arrived on the Sunday evening and the following morning, Brian, the RV install manager came out to greet us and get things going. Since this was the first time they had looked at our rig and the first time we could go over some of the specifics, we talked about some of the options we might want to add as well as some of the installation details. As to be expected, there was some feature creep and we tacked on a few upgrades not in the original estimate. When it was all finalized, our bill would come in at $17,700. Not cheap but we feel it will be a much improved system and offer us lots better flexibility in our future camping options. The one thing that will make this bill easier to swallow is that there is a federal tax credit for doing solar installations. The current program from the federal government allows for a 30% tax credit for qualifying solar system upgrades. The surprising thing about the program is that this credit is applied to the full system including installation costs instead of simply the solar panels. This will drop our eventual system price to about $12,400 - still not cheap but much improved.

SES has a small waiting room that worked to give us a comfortable place to sit while the crew was working on our rig. At lunchtime we headed into Nappanee to check out some sights and get something to eat. Coppes Commons is an interesting place. Back in the late 1800's this was location of a large woodworking manufacturer - the Coppes Brothers Box Factory and Mill. As the products changed and the factory evolved, the building kept getting bigger. The 1920's was likely the high point of the factory. It was during this time that the "Hoosier Cabinet" productions took off. Today the building has been converted into an eclectic mix of businesses selling all sorts of products. We had lunch at the Culinary Mill Market and Deli. Great food and lots of interesting grocery products. Upstairs is a museum of some of the many different designs of Hoosier Cabinets. We really enjoyed exploring this old factory. I think checking out the actual building was more interesting than all the various shops that now occupy the space. 

Hoosier Cabinet Museum

Nice Oak Cabinet with Stained Glass

Unique Clock!

We also headed to the Newmar facility in town. They have a gorgeous new service facility that has a rather extensive parts inventory. Many of the more common items are actually on shelves in the store so we can simply wander up and down the aisles and see things that we forgot we could use. Some items we need to have the parts department check on and grab from the back parts warehouse. We had stopped here back in 2021 when we were having new furniture installed nearby, but we still seemed to find all sorts of items we could use.

Since we needed to be able to stay in the rig after each day of the install, they divided the tasks up into pieces that would give us a useable rig each evening. The first day they removed all our FLA batteries and the slide out tray they were mounted in. Then they enclosed the battery bay with plywood covered in white laminate and installed our 6 new lithium batteries. The 8 solar panels got installed on the roof and prepared to be wired into the system. That first night the rig wasn't all that different in operation since none of the new features were in place yet. Here are some pictures of the battery compartment before and after. I only had taken a close up picture of our old batteries so I needed to find a picture online that shows what the 8 FLA batteries on the tray looked like.

Our Original Eight House Batteries

Picture Showing Batteries on Pull Out Tray

Old Batteries Out, New In

The next day, I pulled the rig back into one of the 3 large installation bays SES has to do work. They have a rather impressive amount of inventory so there was really no issue with them having the required parts on hand. That second day, we headed out to do some geocaching and found another place for lunch - Hunters Hideaway. Near the end of the day, Brian came out to let us know we we almost done but the remaining tasks were some minor cosmetic items that could be finished the following morning. He was going to have Rana explain the operation of the system and allow us to ask some of our questions. She was fairly new to this job at SES and we had lots of questions that stumped her but we got a good overview of the operations of the components and how to work them. That evening, we played around with the touchscreen display that allows us to control all aspects of the inverter and solar. Since it was near sunset, there wasn't much solar to be had but we could still test how the inverter would handle our kitchen appliances as we prepared dinner.

Lithium Batteries and Inverter

Neatly Installed Inverter and Solar Charge Controller

The next morning, they finished up the few remaining tasks and we managed to get a few of the other members of the tech team to answer some of the follow up questions we had. We were told we could spend the rest of the day and overnight to do more testing and go in to ask questions if we need some more instructions or explanation. I won't say that this is a complicated system but it does have a bit of a learning curve. We are definitely pleased with the quality of the install, and pretty happy with training we received. I guess only time will tell how well this new solar/lithium setup works out for us.

STATUS UPDATE AFTER 7 WEEKS

The advantage of being behind on my writing of blog posts is that I have the ability to see the future or at least write about the future. We had eight nights of travelling from Nappanee Indiana to our destination for the summer season in western New York. When we are actually driving the motorhome, we are charging our house batteries. We do have a special controller in line with the alternator on the motorhome to prevent the house batteries from pulling too much current while travelling. We have heard that it is possible that the lithium batteries can try to draw so much power from the alternator that it is possible to burn it out. While we are moving, we are also charging the system from solar gains. Depending on how long a drive we have and how sunny the skies are, we will most likely pull into our evening destination with the batteries fully charged.

For the eight night journey,  we stayed at places without any access to power for three nights. We had no issue making dinner or just living in the rig as if we did have shore power. The other five nights were at an Elks Lodge where we did have access power but only 15 amp outlet. We initially plugged into the shore power but decided that if we left the rig unplugged, we would be able to get better information about how the system was functioning. The first day was a rather sunny one and we had no trouble getting back up to 100% state of charge. We then had a couple of cloudy days in a row where the solar gains were modest. Since we were still learning about our system, we would sometimes go plug the rig into the 15 amp outlet when we were preparing dinner. With a 3000 watt inverter, we can provide about 25 amps of AC power which covers any of our appliances but only one at a time. 

A nice feature of this new inverter is that it will "assist" the shore power by utilizing the stored battery power and generating more power. For instance, if dinner is eggplant parm, we will need to run the convection oven to heat the eggplant, but we will also need to use the stovetop to boil water for the noodles. If we don't have shore power, we will need to cook in stages. Cook the eggplant and leave it in the oven once it is done. Then turn on the stovetop to heat the water. This is an acceptable scenario but not ideal. In the case where we had access to 15 amp shore power, we could run both the oven and stovetop at the same time. The inverter is smart enough to use the combination of shore power and add in the extra power needed by drawing it from the batteries.

When we arrived in Waterloo NY for the next 5.5 months, we have access to 50 amp shore power. This allows us to run just about everything in the rig at once if needed. That is nice because we don't need to put any thought into what appliances we run. We can just do it all. The problem with this is that we will be sitting for months on end without getting any insight as to how well the solar panels will work under various sunlight conditions. Our spot there has no trees near the rig but does have a line of trees a few hundred feet to the east and west of us. We will be in a really good position to collect solar energy once the sun comes up over the tree tops until it sets behind the other trees. The battery charger that is part of the inverter will keep our new lithium batteries fully charged all the time. We do find that if we are using an appliance to heat up lunch, the system will utilize as much solar as possible and limit the draw from shore power, but that is about as much energy our new and expensive system will provide. Typically the sun isn't very high in the sky for the times we need to heat up breakfast or dinner so there won't be any solar gains for those meals. We could go turn off the breaker for our shore power to force the solar and batteries do do their thing, but that would be effort and in doing so, any of the things that do not run off the inverter will be without power. This would include our washer and dryer, the electric elements for our water heater as well as our air conditioners. Not that reducing our shore power usage will matter too much here since this campground does not meter our electricity but I was hoping to get a better sense of how well the system works before we truly put it to the test later this year.

In playing around with our system, I stumbled on to the fact that I can easily go into one of the menus on the touchscreen and turn off the battery charger portion of the inverter while leaving the inverter itself still working. The upshot of this is that we can run a load of laundry or have hot water for showers while having the items powered by the inverter utilize only our solar charged batteries. This provides us with lots of information and different scenarios of cloud cover, rain, etc to get a good idea of how our solar panels will work. But if we need to use multiple kitchen appliances for dinner, all we need to do is change a setting in the touchscreen that controls everything. It seems to be the best of both worlds.

We have determined a few things by using this "pseudo boondocking" mode. Even on a cloudy day, we get adequate solar gains during the day to keep the battery levels constant or rising slightly during the daylight hours. We will drop down when we prepare dinner and the next morning's breakfast so we would only be able to handle 2 consecutive cloudy days before needing to run the generator if we were truly boondocking without access to shore power. We also left the rig unoccupied for 3 nights to attend an event out of town. So we had some data of how much power is used if it just sits idle. It appears that we used about 1.2% of our battery capacity each hour on average. This is presumably the result of our residential refrigerator and a few of the other small loads that stay on all the time.

One of the other nice features of the Victron inverter and its peripherals is that I can remotely log into our system and check the status of things and even make changes to the setup as if I were standing in the rig at the touchscreen panel. All this data is also stored in a central server and the technical staff at SES can have the ability to log in to check something out if I am having problems. All this data is also able to be downloaded from the server into a file that I can then manipulate and analyze. It does produces a boat load of data. There are over 100 columns of data that includes voltages, currents, power as well as all sorts of flags or error fields. On top of the variety of data, it is all provided in one minute intervals! It has been some time since I have been able to let out my inner geek and go crazy with data analysis.

Below are a few plots from the first 7 weeks of using our system. The first plot shows the amount of power we collected from the solar panels. It is clear when it is daylight and when it is night. It also is obvious which days were cloudy and also the several days where we experienced the thick smoke from the Canadian wildfires around June 7. In early May, we initially had shore power connected for about a week and it is clear that there was practically no solar gain simply because the batteries were being charged from shore power. The second plot shows how full our battery bank was as a percentage. Again it is plain to see the week we had shore power turned on. Plus it is clear that on many days, the solar gains were adequate to fully charge the batteries but on several occasions the clouds or smoke did not allow us to gain much. The last plot show how much power was drawn from shore power. This plot is not continuous because have been running much of the time with the battery charger function turned off. Toward the right of the plot, you can see where I turned on the charger to make up for the smoke and cloudy days we experienced in early June.

Solar Gain in Watts

Battery Bank Level in Percent

Shore Power Usage in Watts

Stops in Missouri and Illinois

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We woke up Saturday morning in Harrison and had our next destination in our sights. The plan was to get to the St Louis area just over 300 miles away on Sunday night in order to get in line for our annual service of the motorhome bright and early Monday morning. We have used the Freightliner service center in Troy Illinois twice before and were pleased with the work. As full timers without a set traveling pattern, finding a service center that we feel comfortable with is difficult at times. Our first choice would be the one back at the place where our chassis was manufactured in Gaffney South Carolina. Of course that one isn’t very convenient when heading from Arizona to Upstate New York. The one in Troy would be our second choice and it fit into our route pretty easily. Since they don’t take reservations, we figure coming in on a Monday would give us the best chance to get service completed in time to continue on to Nappanee Indiana where we have a service appointment to have our solar system installed a week from Monday.

We knew there was a storm coming through the area later in the afternoon so we got an early start so we could get to our next stop and be off the road when the storm hit. The drive took us through Branson Missouri which is an area we have never visited. We know many people head there for lots of the entertainment in the town, but we were impressed with the rolling hills and suspect there might be lots of good hiking in the region as well. Maybe we can get back here someday?

Once we get to Springfield Missouri, we take Interstate 44 which will head north and east into St Louis. Just outside of the town of Cuba is the Meramec Valley Campground. It’s a big place with nearly 500 sites and being mid April, we weren’t too concerned about them having a spot for us for the night. Our site wasn’t the best, but it should work. In the late afternoon, our weather radio and phones started to sound all sorts of alarms. We watched the alert areas get closer to us and before we knew it, the campground had sounded the tornado siren located within the park. We weren’t positive exactly where we should head but the main registration building was closest so we ran there. The wind was really picking up and the sky behind us was an ominous green color.

The rain was starting just as we got into the building. There are lots of trees in the campground and this particular building had many large windows. Probably not the best spot to hunker down, but the more robust restroom building wasn’t very close by so we stayed put. We ended up having a couple dozen people inside with us. Some of the younger children were visibly concerned - as was Chris. The hail started to fall but it was difficult to see how severe things were getting outside. The wind was rather intense and the nearby trees were bending pretty good.

Sheltering in Campground Building

The storm lasted maybe 30 minutes but when the all clear was given, they shut off the siren and we ventured out. There was a large pile of hail about marble size sitting below the valley of the roof. As we dodged large puddles of water, we saw some hail that was golf ball sized on our way to the rig. We did a cursory look and it didn’t look like any trees or limbs had landed on either the motorhome or the Jeep. We had dinner and settled in for a much more quiet night now that the front had passed by. The next morning as we were getting ready to leave and hook up the Jeep, we noticed the front windshield of the Jeep had taken a strike from a hailstone that was large enough to crack the glass. Fortunately it was on the passenger side so wouldn’t interfere with us driving until we can get it replaced.

Hail Piled Up

Cracked Windshield

It was just over 100 miles to our next stop. The Granite City Elks Lodge is just across the Mississippi River from St Louis and only 15 miles from the service center where we are heading. We stayed here last year for a night with the same plans then as now. Spend the night and get up early Monday to be first in line at Freightliner. We had some extra time on our hands on Sunday afternoon so I headed out to get some geocaches in a few nearby counties. During this drive, I noticed that the windshield wasn’t the only thing to get damaged by the hail. There were some pretty large dents on the hood and roof of the Jeep. We had our old Cherokee for over 8 years without any damage like this but now our 6 month old vehicle has all sorts of hail damage! We called our insurance agent and explained that we’re were in transit and not going to be sitting still in any one location for very long but would be at our summer spot in a couple of weeks. We were told that wouldn’t be an issue and we could wait to report the claim.

Two of the Larger Dents on Hood

We got to the Troy Freightliner service center and headed into the lobby to get our name on the list. Turns out, they have changed how the motorhome service is handled since our visit last year so we had to go to a different part of the facility. Now it turns out that they do accept reservations for repairs and they were booked out a week. Yikes! That wasn’t going to work. The guy running the motorhome service area, recognized me from last year and was able to squeeze us in for our annual preventative maintenance. By mid afternoon, they were done but had found an air leak that should be fixed. Upon further inspection, there was some faulty valve that was not in stock but could be ordered and arrive first thing the next morning. We gave them the go ahead to order the part and planned to come in early Tuesday morning to have it taken care of. There are RV sites associated with this place, so we just pulled into one of the spots and setup for the rest of the night. 

The following morning, we went in to confirm the part had arrived and they were able to get us in. Yes, the part was in but another repair in process on a different bus needed to get done before we could get in. We decided to just leave the keys and they could move the motorhome when they were able to later in the morning.

We have done some exploring in the St Louis area during previous visits - the zoo, an Anheuser Busch Brewery tour and the Gateway Arch to name a few. But we knew there was much more to see so we would head out to explore while the work is finished on the rig. We remember from our visit to the St Louis Zoo, there are several museums located within Forest Park where the zoo resides. Options include the Missouri History Museum, St Louis Art Museum, and the St Louis Science Center to name a few. All of the museums are free so the price is right. The science center was our top pick, but as luck would have it, it is closed on Tuesdays. We decide to head to the history museum first, find lunch in the park then go to the art museum in the afternoon before heading back to get our motorhome. Forest Park is a very large place - bigger than NYC’s Central Park. And it is a very popular destination for locals and visitors. Parking wasn’t a problem and we go into the museum.

Missouri History Museum

Fountain

There are quite a few large rooms within the museum, each dedicated to different aspects of the history of the city and state. St Louis was the home to the 1904 World’s Fair. There were lots of pictures and displays from the fair which took place on the grounds of Forest Park. However, there aren’t many actual remnants from the fair still in the park. As we wandered around the displays, one of the volunteers came over to answer any questions and had a wealth of knowledge to share with us about the fair, the other attractions in the park and other things to do in the St Louis area.

Old Carriage

We continued through the rest of the rooms and enjoyed the displays and history lesson. At one room, a volunteer was seated at the entrance and informed us that this room was for kids but is open to all ages. And here I was concerned he might “card” us to prove our age! They definitely had lots of interactive displays for kids but we behaved and didn’t monopolize any of them since there were a fair number of kids there. Next door was a room called “Coloring STL”. This one was a rather unique concept.  The walls were a series of large white boards and on each one, some building from the St Louis area was drawn in black with permanent markers. There were lots of stations that had many colored dry erase markers. The concept was to grab some and start coloring in the drawings. A museum where they actually encourage drawing on the walls! It was interesting to see the wide area of art added by visitors. Many of them decided to draw outside the lines and add monsters or dinosaurs to the scene.

Monsters Attack The Arena?

Beer Posters

Spirit of St Louis

We spent more time here than we anticipated and decided to head over towards the Boathouse for lunch. There were a few geocaches nearby so we got them and then sat down for lunch looking out over the lake. They had boat rentals and it was a nice enough day for that but during lunch, we got a call from the service center telling us that our repair was complete and they had parked the rig back in its spot and hooked us up to power. We weren’t expecting to get out of the area this early in the day and had originally assumed we would spend a second night at the service center before heading out. But we decided if the rig was ready, we could move on. The Art Museum could wait for another trip in the area.

Rental Paddle Boats

The more direct route from St Louis to northern Indiana would have been across Interstate 70 to Indianapolis then north, but we decided to take a different route and head north to the state capitol of Illinois - Springfield. It was only 85 miles away and they have a large campground at the state fairgrounds that wouldn’t be even close to full at this time of the year. We had 5 days to drive the 440 miles to Nappanee going this route, so we would be able to spend a few nights in Springfield to check out town. It was an easy drive and the rig was driving good after the service - set for another year. The fairgrounds has about 300 sites and there are probably only a few dozen campers there when we arrive. Most of the full hookup sites were already taken but since we are staying for just 3 nights, we can survive without sewer and use the dump station on our way out. We pick a spot and get setup.  It was too late in the day to explore so we simply made our plans for the next 2 full days we would have in the area.

Our first stop the following morning was the Lincoln Home National Historic Site. Abraham Lincoln moved to Springfield Illinois in his late twenties and setup a law practice. There are four city blocks surrounding the home he lived in designated as this historic site. We arrived and headed into the visitor center to see about signing up for the free guided tour of the house. We got lucky and was able to get in the next tour group so we only had to wait a few minutes.

Lincoln Home Visitor Center

The tour starts with a short movie in the visitor center. Since I’m not a big history buff, I learned a lot about Lincoln’s early life in Springfield as a lawyer and subsequently a politician before becoming the 16th president of the USA. Our tour group was just over a dozen people and we walked down the block to the entrance of the old home. The park service has done a great job of keeping this home and the several others in the neighborhood in excellent condition.

Lincoln's Home

The interior of the home was pretty fancy for the mid 1800’s. The wallpaper, carpets and furnishings were not exactly tasteful in our thinking but some of the pieces are original from the family. Our tour guide was very well versed in everything Lincoln and never got stuck with any questions our group had. They do have the tour groups running back to back, so we needed to keep moving to not get overtaken by the next group.

Inside the House

Bedroom

Kitchen

As we made our way thru the house and into the backyard, we had a bit more breathing room to hear more stories and ask more questions. The old outhouse was a three stall unit that likely wouldn’t do so well nowadays.

Three Stall Outhouse

Side View of Lincoln Home

After the tour was over, we headed over to a couple of the other old homes that are open to the public. There are more displays and information about life here and the other neighbors that lived in the area. After exploring these buildings, we went back to the visitor center to see some more of the displays we had missed when we first arrived.

Log Cabin Wagon

We repositioned the car a few blocks away and walked over to the state capitol building for a tour. There were hundreds of people from various groups there to support whatever their cause was so it was a rather loud and chaotic scene. We eventually figured out where to enter and go thru security before finding the desk where we could sign up for a tour. We were told the next tour would start in 10 minutes and to just wait in the vicinity of the desk. There were so many people milling about the desk that I thought this tour was going to be a mess. When the tour guide came out to collect us, it turned out that our group was just the two of us, another couple and the guide. So all the people inside were simply to show support for a cause that was being debated that afternoon by the legislators.

Illinois State Capitol

Our guide got us away from the bulk of the crowd to give us some of the history of the building and how the state government is run. We were able to get into the balcony overlooking the house because the session had not started yet. But the senate side of the building was under construction so it was off limits.

Overlooking House Chamber

Dome of Capitol

Lincoln Statue

Big Crowd at Capitol

After the tour was over, our guide suggested we head back into the balcony area to watch some of the session, but apparently this session was an important one because we were not allowed in without some sort of pass. We wandered around some of the other wings of the building before deciding we had seen enough and headed outside. I suspect this might be a more pleasant visit on a less busy day but we still enjoyed seeing the building from 1867.

Fountain

Another Capitol View

Colorful Wall

There were several geocaches in the downtown area that took us on a bit of a tour of the old buildings so we did a lot of walking all around town seeing various sights. The final cache containers were hidden in a park about a mile away, so we drove there to find them before heading to our next stop.

Chris and Abe

Old State Capitol

Union Station

It was mid afternoon by now but we decided to go to one more place before calling it a day. Lincoln’s Tomb is in Oak Ridge Cemetery on the north side of town. Besides walking around the impressive building with a spire nearly 120 feet tall, visitors are permitted inside during certain hours. Out front is a large bronze statue of Lincoln’s head. Supposedly, rubbing his nose brings you luck and from the polished look of his nose, everybody does so.

Lincoln's Tomb

Abe Has Shiny Nose

Inside the monument are quite a few displays and interpretive signs. We take our time and check it all out. There are several other geocaches within the cemetery so we head to other areas to see a war memorial and the original vault where Lincoln’s body stayed while the monument was constructed. It turned out to be a rather full day seeing some of the more famous highlights of Springfield.

Lincoln On Horse

Burial Site

Original Vault

War Memorial

The next day we had one more place Chris really wanted to see. The Dana-Thomas house was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1902 and was finished 2 years later. This building is open to the public and is free to tour although you must register for a time slot ahead of time. This is a very large place - 12,000 square feet. The outside definitely has the “feel” of one of his designs.

Side View of Dana-Thomas House

Main Entrance

We’re arrived to get our tour with a handful of others. The outside of the home is pretty but the inside is absolutely gorgeous. Of course you will need to take my word for that because there is no photography permitted inside. That’s a big bummer since there were so many things that caught our eye as we toured the full house. Our guide had all sorts of stories to tell and explained so many details about how various themes were carried throughout the home. There was even a bowling alley in the basement! I have attached a few shots from the website for the interior but I suggest you make the visit here if you are in the area.

Stained Glass Doors

I’m sure there is much more to see in Springfield but 3 nights would need to suffice. We did take the afternoon of the last day to get some chores taken care of. The Jeep made it in for an oil change and rotation and Chris found a decent grocery store to stock up on since there might not be great shopping in the Nappanee area.

About halfway between Springfield and Indianapolis is Kickapoo State Recreation Area. The Plawer campground has over 150 sites so we weren’t too concerned coming in without a reservation at this time of year. The last two miles of the drive to camp did have an odd situation. As I turned onto that last road, there was a 20 ton weight limit. No problem, our rig weighs about 33,000 pounds - well under the limit. But one mile from the turn for the campground is a sign for 8 ton limit! I really didn’t have much choice but to continue since there wasn’t a side road and there was no room to turn around. We pull in and find the camp host out working in the yard. We paid for two nights and were told to just go find an open site. There wasn’t the need for anything more formal this early in the year.

Campground Entrance

We found a nice pull thru site close to some pond that looked more like a river. We got setup and then went for a short walk around the park. There were lots of spring flowers in bloom and the redbud trees were in full bloom.

View Near Our Site

Redbud in Bloom

The next day, we plan to do a hike to one of the older geocaches in the area. We had pretty good instructions on which trails to follow since it isn’t in a very popular area of the park. We pulled into the parking lot only to find a sign stating there was no entrance before 1 PM to non hunters. That would be us and we didn’t want to risk getting shot so we come up with a quick plan B and drive to a few geocaches in some counties just across the state border in Indiana. That trip delayed our return enough that we were able to get back at a safe time. We did put on some of our blaze orange gear just to be extra careful. The trail starts out by heading past Johnson Hill Cemetery. Unlike most remote cemeteries like this one, we were pleasantly surprised to find this one is maintained reasonably well.

Johnson Hill Cemetery

Start of Trail

It was a nice walk in the woods. We did come upon another couple that was just leaving the area. They said they had been looking for mushrooms but didn’t have any luck. We managed to make all the proper turns and get to ground zero for the cache. This one has been here for over 22 years!  We did enjoy seeing all the flowers. There were many trilliums blooming but they were the very dark red ones that aren’t quite as showy as others. It was decent even though the weather was quite overcast. We did manage to spot one morel mushroom. We were debating about picking it and trying to figure out how to prepare it but decided it might be too much effort for just one mushroom.

Trillium

Closeup of Redbud

Morel Mushroom

We were still 230 miles from our next stop in Nappanee where we will be having our solar panels and lithium batteries installed. More on that in the next post.