Category: Illinois

We started the day with a delicious breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Beth decided to try something new and is now in love with Eggs-In-The-Basket which is two slices of Sourdough bread, each grilled with an egg in the middle. I stuck with my standard Old Timer’s Breakfast.

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We were on the road by 8:30 AM CDT. Since we had another long drive ahead of us I decided to test my professional napping skills so Beth drove through Topeka, KS and Kansas City, MO. We switched drivers at a Rest Area just East of Kansas City. We stopped to top off the fuel tank at the Sam’s Club in Wentzville, MO so that we’d have plenty of fuel to avoid the high fuel prices in the next blue state (Illinois) tomorrow.

We arrived at the Casino Queen RV Park in East S Louis, IL (just across the Mississippi River from the Gateway Arch) at 3:45 PM CDT. We stayed here last year on our way out to Colorado, but were too tired to check out the casino. Tonight we gave it a try. We ate dinner at their sports bar Sevens. We shared an appetizer of chicken fingers with buffalo sauce and split a Philly Cheese Steak. Both were good (not great), but the price was definitely right.

After dinner we tried out the casino and weren’t that impressed. I was excited when a waitress offered me a drink before I could even sit down at a BlackJack table, however I was extremely disappointed when she returned and charged me $5. Whoever heard of paying for your drinks in a casino? So now I’m not only losing money gambling, but I’m losing money drinking too? On a positive note, the same gaming commission that allegedly requires them to charge for drinks also prohibits smoking. This wasn’t enough for me to overcome the $5 drinks, especially since there was no one else playing BlackJack which just increased the speed at which I lost my money. So I was ready to leave shortly after I started and Beth felt the same way about the slot machines. We returned to the camper (via the free shuttle) and enjoyed a couple of semi-free cocktails before going to bed.

Today we started our migration West for the touring portion of our trip. We left LaGrange, IN around 9:30 AM and arrived at the Fisherman’s Corner Recreation Area Campground along the Mississippi River in Moline, IL at around 3:29 PM (EDT). We have a great view of the river and locks from our campsite. The site is paved, very long, and perfectly level. There are no water (there are fresh water spigots throughout the campground) or sewer hookups, but the sites do have 50 amp electrical service. We have great Verizon voice and data coverage (over 15Mb/s download speed). The campground is fairly wooded, but we are able to pickup satellites 110 and 119 on the Dish Western arc which gives us the Rays baseball game and Davenport, IA local channels in Standard Definition (ESPN, etc in High Definition).

This is another great Army Corps of Engineers campground and we will stay here again when heading West via I-80.

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We started the day with a wonderful breakfast at Cracker Barrel and departed by  7:15 AM EDT.  Whenever we go on a road trip, we like to purchase large submarine sandwiches from PJ’s Sandwich Shop (our favorite sandwich shop discovered when we lived in Parrish).  Today we polished off the second halves of our subs for lunch at the Illinois Welcome Center on I-24 (just across the Ohio River from Paducah, KY).  The sandwiches were delicious.

We arrived at the Casino Queen RV Park in East St. Louis, IL (just across the Mississippi River from the Gateway Arch) at 3:40 PM CDT.  We were too tired from 9 1/2 hours of travel to donate our retirement savings to the casino, so Beth did some laundry and cooked some delicious chili which we enjoyed while watching college football.  Beth thoroughly enjoyed a hot, very high pressure shower at the campground public facilities.