WI to IA to Il to IN

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We exit Spring Green Wisconsin after spending a total of 30 nights camping in the state this year. Roughly half of those nights were way back in July and the other half from late September to early October. We found nearly 100 geocaches in that time in 34 new counties. We stretched our stay up north as long as we dare. Not that the weather was getting cold yet but we know it’s coming. It’s always a trade off between how long we stay up north and how quickly we need to travel back south. We only have 24 more nights before we plan to be back on our lot at The Great Outdoors in Titusville Florida and need to cover over 1600 miles. We prefer to limit our travel days to no more than 200 miles so in theory, we could spend a couple more weeks in Wisconsin before rushing back just doing 8 overnight stops along the way. But we have learned that back to back travel days tend to be very tiring and there are some things to see long the way.

We booked three different campgrounds along the way with stays of 4 or more nights to help maintain a sane pace. One is in southern Indiana, another in the mountains of western Tennessee and the last in a state park just south of Atlanta. We will use 7 Elks Lodges to fill in the gaps between these campgrounds and this will let us have travel days that average 150 miles. In terms of the route, there were lots of options but we picked places we haven’t camped before just to see something different. In fact the campground in southern Indiana near Evansville wasn’t picked because there was something we really wanted to see in the area. It was chosen simply because there was a “hole” in our travel map. The nearest campground we’ve stayed at in prior travels was about 90 miles in any direction from the one we picked. How’s that for winging it!

Our first stop was in Davenport Iowa just across the Mississippi River from Moline Illinois - about 145 miles. Our destination was an Elks Lodge. They don’t have any services or at least not ones that can be reached if the lodge parking lot is busy but for one night it was fine to just have a safe place to park. We arrived early enough to get out before dark to find a few geocaches including an old one hidden in 2001. The next day we have just over 100 miles to drive to the Peoria Illinois Elks Lodge. This lodge has a single 15 amp outlet at the back of a parking lot. It was next to a golf course and I opted to turn the rig around from the direction I originally parked for fear of getting a golf ball to the front windshield. Since it was a short driving day, we got in very early in the afternoon and had time to explore. After checking in the lodge at the bar and talking with a few of the locals, we are ready to head out.

Peoria has a little more sentimental value for Chris than most of these midwestern cities since she attended Bradley University, graduating 40 years ago. But she has never had a strong desire to return to here and in past years as we crisscross the country, there have been opportunities to stop in Peoria but we always have always chosen a different route. This time, I think I was only able to convince her to make a stop because I wanted to find geocaches in surrounding counties. We did have 2 places we wanted to visit - obviously the campus at Bradley being one of them. The other is to check out Caterpillar - the construction equipment manufacturer - which is headquartered here. In fact, our visit was coinciding with their 100th anniversary this year and there were some special events taking place over the upcoming weekend in a couple of days. They also have a very nice visitor center in the heart of downtown right next to the Illinois River.

Caterpillar Visitor Center

Cat 950 Loader Out Front

We park next to the visitor center and head into to the desk. We told the receptionist where we had parked and asked about the signs regarding parking restrictions but no apparent meters or other way to pay. She tells us we must move our car and head to the free parking garage just to the west. Getting there was a bit more of a problem than normal since some streets were already closed off in preparation for the 100th anniversary event taking place this weekend. We find the free parking garage that is for both the Caterpillar museum and the adjacent Peoria Riverfront Museum. We head back in to purchase our tickets. Tickets were just $6 per person since we qualified as “old”.

Early Steam Tractor Scale Model

The tour starts with a video about the history of Caterpillar. It was good but the real highlight of the video is where the theater is constructed - in the dump body of a Cat 797F mining truck. This is a massive vehicle - about 50 feet long, 32 feet wide and 23 feet tall. After the video, we check it out. Since it it so tall, they have actually constructed a second floor up at the bed level where the theater resides. I suspect that some of the truck’s systems weren’t installed to save cost and weight but from just walking around the perimeter it looks like a real one may look except this one is clean. The 13 foot tall tires were definitely fake but realistic looking.

Back End of Mining Truck

Movie Theater Exit Door

One wing of the museum has a ton of displays with topics like design, modeling and ergonomics for equipment operators. The later one was neat because it an operator’s seat and a whole series of joysticks that are used on different types of equipment. Many of the displays have touchscreen monitors with lots of videos about all sorts of topics from design through use of all the things Caterpillar builds. You could easily spend a couple hours if you choose to watch every one of them.

Ergonomic Testing

Cutaway Engine Display

There are lots of old equipment on display dating back to the beginnings of the company. Another wing has a handful of brand new equipment. One corner of this wing has all sorts of equipment simulators where visitors can try out how good they are at driving a dozer, backhoe or road grader. Unfortunately there was a rather large group of guys that had monopolized them and didn’t seem to be close to being done.

Caterpillar Ten from 1929

Early Diesel-Electric Powerplant

View of New Equipment Area

Cat D8 Dozer

All the real equipment were closed and had signs telling people to not climb on them except for one. Chris did get a chance to try out the tractor/loader/backhoe combination. This one was much bigger than the one I used to own in western New York. Still the most impressive vehicle here is the mining truck. We spent 90 minutes exploring the museum and had a great time.

Chris Finds Her New Ride

Front View of Mining Truck

We debated about walking up the block to the other museum but it was going to be closing soon and it was such a nice day that we decided to to walk along the Illinois River. We started to work on a couple of geocaches but we soon realized that the one we were working on was a rather long walk that would be much better completed on a bicycle when we have more time. Since we still wanted to drive across the river to find a cache in another country and get over to campus and walk around a bit, we decide to head out.

I-74 Across the Illinois River

Artwork Along Riverwalk

We made it to Bradley University by 5 PM. Like I mentioned, it’s been 40 years since Chris has been here so needless to say things have changed quite a bit.

St Marks Church

Newman Center on Bradley Campus

Westlake Hall

We did find the Newman Center where Chris had lived for a few years was still there, but lots of other things were gone or at least Chris’ memory of them was quite different. I know that when I make it back to the University of Cincinnati, it always seems so different and I’ve made it back probably a dozen times in the forty years. I think it was good for her to walk down memory lane a bit. Fortunately Bradley has a fairly small campus so it doesn’t take too long to walk to all the spots she was hoping to see. It was close to dinner time and we wanted to head back to the lodge to eat dinner and then go back into the bar at the lodge and have a drink with some of the locals now that it was much busier.

Gargoyles Watching Us

Chris at Her Alma Mater

We were considering staying here two nights so we could make it to some of the special event being held at Caterpillar but we both decided we had seen enough construction equipment and displays about them that it made more sense to just move on the following morning to our next destination at the Elks Lodge in Effingham Illinois. It’s a 172 mile drive but almost all on interstates so it was a fairly easy drive and we were able to take advantage of several rest stops along the way that had geocaches to stretch the legs along the drive. We arrived at the lodge midafternoon and find the parking lot was packed. Fortunately their lot is connected to a strip mall parking lot and not many cars were there. We head into the lodge to check in and found just the bartender and 2 other people. We were confused as to why their parking lot was packed full of mostly pickup trucks and vans yet nobody was at the bar. Turns out they had rented one of their rooms to the local plumbers union for a meeting. We were told they would be finishing up shortly and once they leave, we should be able to move the rig next to the building where they had installed a 50A outlet. The bartender  said they don’t get a large number of traveling Elk but several a year do show up. We have a beer and get into position before dark. We have 140 miles more to get to our reservation in southern Indiana but not for another day, so we will take the opportunity to spend 2 nights here and use our day off to explore the area.

I’ll admit, when we tried to find interesting places to visit in this area, we weren’t finding a lot of possibilities. We decide to spend the bulk of the non-travel day driving the car instead and find caches in a few different counties in the vicinity of Effingham. But the whole day wasn’t spend simply driving around southern Illinois. Just a few miles to the west of town is Ballard Nature Center. It has around 6 miles of hiking trails and over a dozen geocaches in its 210 acres. We only got in 2 miles of hiking and found 4 caches. It is a pretty place but it was warm and humid and bugs got the better of us.

Pond at Ballard Nature Center

The next day we head south and east to Scales Lake Park in Boonville Indiana - just outside of Evansville. This stop was picked rather arbitrarily. It was close to the intended route we were taking from Wisconsin to Florida. It was in a location we have never camped before. We originally planned to stay at Audubon State Park just across the Ohio River in northern Kentucky which had some campsite availability. But after studying the maps and looking at the campsites on street view a few days ago, we weren’t convinced our size of rig would actually fit regardless of the information provided by the park. We later found this county park east of Evansville that seemed a better fit. The 140 mile drive wasn’t too bad although we did make it a bit more interesting by trying to stop for a geocache in the town of Louisville Illinois. A thirty eight foot, 32,000 pound motor home pulling a Jeep is tricky to use as a caching vehicle on travels days. But with advance planning, we suspected we could pull into the parking lot of a nearby school which should be empty since it was Sunday morning. We were right, made the find and continued on to Scales Lake Park.

Getting setup in our site became a bit of a problem. The sites here are definitely not spacious and there was a pickup truck parked in ours. Fortunately, the owner was in the travel trailer right next door and came out to quickly get it out of the way.  Somewhere in the process of backing up, she hit the power pedestal of a neighboring site across the road. I don’t think she realized she had hit it and just kept moving doing a good job scratching the side of the truck. They also had a lot of stuff just scattered across their site and into ours. They moved things so we could at least hook up our water, power and sewer lines but it always just seemed a bit strange since there was no way that everything sitting outside would even fit back into the trailer and much of it was stuff that you really don’t want to get wet, so I’m hoping we don’t have rain in the next 4 nights we plan on being here.

Our Next Door Neighbor's Site at Scales Lake

There were a few sights to see in this part of the country. One of them is the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial. We have already visited Abe Lincoln’s Home in Springfield Illinois in the spring of 2023. The one here memorializes the location where he spent bulk of his childhood. It’s only about 20 miles from camp but there was one possible snag. We are about 2 weeks into a government shutdown and it wasn’t at all clear whether the place would even be accessible. We knew that all the buildings would be closed and not staffed but we couldn’t determine online whether the gate in would be open. So we head out and hope we can at least walk the grounds, check out any outside displays and possibly peek in some windows.

Entrance to Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial

We arrived and found we could drive in without any issue. The main visitors center has some beautiful stone artwork and likely is nice inside but a sign explaining about the shutdown was taped to the locked doors.

Exterior of Main Visitor Center

We saw signs directing visitors to other sights north of the main building. We also had a geocache that would tour us around the grounds as well.

Split Rail Fence

Flowering Tobacco Plant

Footprint of Original Lincoln Cabin

There are multiple replicas of buildings that would have been here back in the 1820’s. I suspect that there would be interpretive rangers at some of them in normal times and likely would have some of the buildings open to explore inside as well.

There were railroad tracks running through the grounds and we could hear and feel a slow moving train nearby. After walking the nature trail to see the woods that Abe would have spent his youth exploring, we went over to check out the location of the old spring and discovered the other set of railroad tracks. There were two locomotives idling but no visible train cars nearby. We head back to the car by following the Trail of Twelve Stones. All along the trail are stones taken from buildings that were significant to Abe’s life. Maybe if you’re a big history buff, you would marvel at the stones. We found them to be a bit underwhelming but it did get us to stop at each one and read about the rock sitting there. The geocache we worked on while exploring the park has its final container a couple miles away so we had to stop there on our way out.

Locomotive

One of 12 Special Rocks

There is also Lincoln State Park on the south side of the national memorial. There are numerous hiking trails and quite a few geocaches we debated about heading there for some more hiking but opted to instead drive around the area to see other locations and find geocaches in a couple of other Indiana counties. One stop brought us to Lakeside Park in the town of Holland Indiana. It was definitely a pretty setting. We did the walk around the lake, found what we were looking for and also discovered a windmill reminiscent of those found in the town’s namesake.

Turtle Sunning on Log

View of Holland Lake

Windmill

The following day, we head into Evansville. Our first stop was to the Willard Public Library. We used to visit a large number of libraries during our travels. It was a place we could find decent WiFi to download movies and shows onto our phones or tablets for later viewing. But ever since we got a reliable hotspot, we haven’t needed to stop at them since we can typically just stream our shows. Occasionally we still visit a library but it’s almost always for a geocache. The one at this library is quite special. It is a webcam cache. One where you need to get a picture of yourself on the library’s website standing in the view of said webcam. Webcams are quite commonplace nowadays but ones tied in with geocaching are rather rare. This type of cache was discontinued in 2005 so only existing ones are still available. Worldwide there are about 200 remaining but only ~74 in the USA. We’ve found 31 previously. If we happen to be near one, we usually make a concerted effort to log it. The other, possibly more unusual, aspect of this library is the fact it is haunted by the “Grey Lady”! We did a little preliminary research and found a YouTube video explaining the history of the ghost sitings which started in 1937.

We knew this stop would be unique but we didn’t realize just how beautiful the building would be. Opened in 1885, this Victorian Gothic building is really incredible to see. The wooden front doors are massive and we even had a skeleton peaking out the transom light above - although it is just a couple weeks before Halloween so the decorations might be simply associated with the timing of our visit and nothing to do with the Grey Lady.

Willard Public Library in Evansville

Entrance Door

When we enter, we are greeted with some amazing woodworking. Lots of quartersawn white oak with intricate carvings and details. It was almost a sensory overload. It appears the library staff is definitely big into Halloween decorations as well with all sorts of spooky stuff on the walls, lights and banisters.

Staircase

Window with Stained Glass

Detailed Window Trim

We were so enamored with the inside beauty that we nearly forgot why we were really at the library. It turns out there are actually “ghost” cams in several of the rooms. From previous pictures, we can gauge where they are located and we pick one that should be easy to find. There was a librarian in the room we selected and we talked with her at great length. There are a lot of people like us coming in to get a photo so she is very aware of what we are up to. Like a lot of these webcams, there is a bit of a delay between when we position ourselves where we need to be and when we show up on the camera online. With a little patience we get the required photo.

Webcam Screenshot

With that out of the way, we can explore more of the library interior. One of the side meeting rooms was so pretty with a beautiful fireplace and a 10 foot tall set of barrister bookcases. We were so glad that this cache brought us here because we likely would not have stopped otherwise. Oh, no ghosts were spotted during our time wandering around.

Closeup of Woodworking Detail

Meeting Room

Massive Barrister Bookcase

Next we head across the Ohio River into Kentucky to check out John James Audubon State Park. We start at a stand alone section of the park called Audubon Wetlands. There is a 1.5 mile trail that both loops through the woods and has a long boardwalk over the wetlands area. Being less than half a mile from the river, I suspect that from time to time this area is completely under water during spring floods.

Boardwalk At Audubon Wetlands

After eating lunch, we headed back to the main state park area and into the visitor center. The buildings are pretty amazing. The park is dedicated to John Audubon - a very famous naturalist who lived in this part of Kentucky for nearly a decade back in the early 1800’s.

Museum at Audubon Park

Eagle Statue

We have visited a few places dedicated to Audubon in our travels. Many times the place is simply named in his memory so it might simply be called the Audubon Trail or Nature Center. This museum is truly a place celebrating all things Audubon. There is an $6 admission fee (with senior discount) to enter but they have a strict “no photography” policy so I can’t show you what it looks like. Your fee gets you a small device with headphones that will give you a guided tour of the museum. At each of the dozen or so stops, you only need to hold the player up to the number on the wall and you will get a full description of what you are seeing. He was a fascinating character that traveled all over the world finding and drawing  mainly birds in great detail. While his name is synonymous with conservation, today we realize that most of his drawings required the bird being documented to be killed, posed and then drawn with amazing realism. Regardless of the questionable methods of the time, his works are the most comprehensive ever published.

John James Audubon

There is more of the museum to explore where photos are permitted. We head around the various rooms and learn lots of interesting animal facts along the way.

Owl

Real Frog

There are quite a few hiking trails in the park. We pick the Audubon State Park Loop at just under 3 miles. It is definitely a pretty place for a hike.

Pond View

Wonderful Trail in the Woods

At one point we see a side trail with a sign for a scenic viewpoint. It will end up pushing the hike to 3.5 miles but the view was nice.

Shelter Along the Trail

Scenic Viewpoint

We had one last stop for a virtual geocache hidden on the north side of Evansville at Bosse Field - the third oldest baseball park still in use today only surpassed by Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago. Stopping here also allowed us to stop at the nearby Chuy’s Mexican restaurant. We enjoy their food and often will try to stop if we find one on our travels.

For our last day at Scales Lake Park, we stay close to home and actually explore this park. We start off by heading over to the small petting zoo that we have driven past multiple times. It’s just a short walk from the campground. We were still 100 yards away from the barn and animal pens but we saw a donkey heading our way walking along the main park road. We weren’t expecting that and wondered if someone had accidentally left him out and we should try to round him up. We later asked a staff member and found out that many of the animals are let out to wander the park unattended but they need to be careful about which ones are out at the same time since some of them aren’t real friendly to one another.

Escaped Donkey

The barn looks to be fairly new with multiple pens and stalls for the various groups of animals. Of course Chris found the goats to be her favorite and they definitely seemed to like having visitors possibly because we can be the source of food.

Barn at Petting Zoo

Curious Goat

Goats Like Other Visitor

Besides goats, there was also a miniature horse and another donkey. We checked them all out before moving on.

Miniature Horse

Second Donkey

There are over 8 miles of trails in the park with some of them designed for mountain biking. We aren’t up for a bike ride, but a walk around the lake seems like the least we can do. As we head from the barn over towards the lake, our donkey friend was slowly making his way back to the barn having finished his morning walk.

Donkey Returning to Barn

This park looks like it is very popular in the summer months. Besides the lake, there is a pool with large slide and a nice beach area. Even though it was a beautiful day, this was all closed for the season so very quiet.

Slide and Pool

Beach and Dock

View Across Lake

We continue the walk around the lake crossing the spillway that may not be accessible during all times of the year. It is a very peaceful place with no apparent visitors to interrupt our walk.

Crossing Spillway

Some Fall Colors

We eventually get to a section of the trail that is clearly meant for mountain biking. The large banked wooden structure looks kind of fun but may be more adventurous than we should tackle. We finish up with almost 3 miles of hiking this morning. Scales Lake is a nice park and campground. We may have been able to find a better campsite than the one we picked but we weren’t there very often so it worked out fine for us. Tomorrow we will continue our journey south, passing through Kentucky on our way to Tennessee.

Banked Bike Curve