Rantoul Illinois and New Friends!

May 18 -19, 2014

Sunday, May 18th: As we thought, we needed to back out of the campsite at the Hilltop campground in Goreville IL.  It was no problem backing out and we were off going north on 57 toward Rantoul IL at around 11:30 am.  This was an easy pull with an easy on and off of I 57 north for both campgrounds. 

We made a stop about an hour away from Rantoul to put wine in the fridge to make sure it was cold when we arrived.  Also, while stopped we got some corn chips out of the pantry too snack on while traveling.  We would not have gotten the snack out if we had not been stopped anyway. 

Anyway, getting the chips out of the pantry in our unit required that we open a cabinet door behind the slide and then slide the chips through a 6 inch slot between the slide wall and the pantry.  We just made the chips sort of thin trying to not mash the chips and pulled them out.  Anything for a travel snack!

We arrived at the Prairie Pines campground in Rantoul at 3:30 pm and were set up by 4 pm.  Remember the snack we got out en route, well it became important to our arrival. Seems I didn’t close the pantry door after getting the snack out and it got caught in the slide as it slid out.  The hydraulic operated slide just broke the door hinges at their mounting screws with no problem at all.  The door was hanging on the pantry only by the stop chain.  Patty, like all of us do, got complacent and didn’t look to see if one of the cabinet doors was ajar while putting the slides out.  She is not complacent anymore!  She needed a couple of hugs after this.
  
There was no real damage except to the hinges.  It could have been much worse if it had damaged the cabinet itself.  I took off a bedroom cabinet door that is not visible from anywhere except from the bedroom and used the hinges to replace the pantry hinges.  It now looks like it never happened!  We have been so lucky with stuff like this!  We will get a couple of spare and replacement hinges when we go to the factory for warranty repairs later in the week.

After setting up we decided to have a couple of pork chops for dinner.  We started the convection oven at a low temp and took a long walk for some exercise.  We got back and put the chops on the grille with some BBQ sauce.   That was dinner.  A little TV and we were ready for bed.

Found this sign on the closed Air Force Base behind our campsite.  I used the old military housing area to do my walk/jogs.  

Our campsite in Rantoul IL.

This airplane was outside of the Air Force Museum behind our campsite.  We wish we had of gone in to the museum but we didn't have time.  Next time through we will.

Tuesday the 19th I started the day with some resistance training (stretch bands) and our usual internet surfing.  We had a lunch date with Curt and Glenda at 12:30 pm in Bloomington IL at a Thai restaurant.  As I have said in past posts Curt and I have been communicating for about 2 years on the internet but have never met.   Our common interests were full time RVing through the community at RV-Dreams.

The restaurant is about 50 miles west of our campsite so we left about 10:20 am to make sure we were there on time.  We arrived to find out that the restaurant was closed on Mondays.  Darn!  We were really looking forward to some Thai food.  

It turned out it really didn’t matter what we had to eat as our lunch turned into mostly conversation.  It is really amazing what happens when you have people together talking about the full time RV lifestyle.  I was finding it hard to eat with all of the talking we were doing.

Curt and Glenda are a very nice couple who we could have talked to for many more hours.  They just announced the good news that their house has a viable offer on it and they are looking to start out full time in September of this year. We remember when we got our house under contract so we really knew how good they felt.  We are so very happy for them.  They are going to have so much fun.  Also, Curt really has done his homework and is really set up very well for their start out.  Congratulations Curt and Glenda, we are very excited for you two!

Curt and Glenda after our long lunch.

After a couple of hour of “lunch” we said our goodbyes and promises of meeting up again, we went our separate ways. We went to a car wash and washed the truck and then to a Wal-Mart for some odds and ends.  

We also got a money order while at Wal-Mart for the South Dakota truck and RV registration.  We send that to our mail forwarding service who handles it with the DMV there and then sends us the renewed documents. Just want to say that the SD registration has almost doubled since last year.  We paid $162 last year and $319 this year! We are still benefiting from being in SD but this was a shocker!

Patty and I were still full from lunch so we decided to have a couple of scrambled eggs and bacon for dinner.  The eggs had scallions, mushrooms, and green peppers to fill them out and make a larger meal.  They turned out real good.

Tomorrow, we head out for Elkhart Indiana for our appointment for warranty work with our manufacturer, Prime Time on Wednesday. 

Stay Tuned!