Feed Me Tacos & Tell Me I’m Pretty
June 4, 2024 – Day 81
Starved Rock Family Campground, Utica, Illinois — Liquid Spring Factory Parking Lot, Lafayette IL
(Note to readers, we’ve been home for awhile. Today is September 5 and we’re just now resuming the blog, because, well, we’re on the road for more adventures! We need to find a way to keep the blog fun but less work. If you don’t read all the awesome entries we write we won’t hold it against you, honest! We’re doing this for ourselves as much as all our friends. Believe it or not we like re-reading it from time to time. Back to the blog already in progress…)
The Birthplace of James T. Kirk museum was the last “fun” thing we had planned. We just wanted to get home but we had a “business” thing to do. Let’s pick up where we last left you, our dear readers!
First we crossed the Illinois River.
No big deal, right? But it made both of use remember our dear friend Katherine Baltivik who owned the gallery in Provincetown that showed Paul’s work. After the first year or so, sales really dropped off. Paul was hanging various landscapes and Katherine would tell him, “Give me some boats Paul, give me some family boats.” Except she didn’t say family, but rather another word that also started with the same letter. So we always look for some frosty boats when crossing a river, and the passenger gets to yell out, “A friendly boat!” You get the idea. At her memorial service Paul told the boat story and everyone’s head was nodding “Yep.” and they all had smiles on their faces. Ahh, we do miss you Katherine.
We’re in farm country now and we passed by this train getting loaded.
As we drove past, we noticed the track bent away. Paul quickly got on maps and looked.
It was train loading circle! We were on Highway 18, you can barely make out the parallel track to the north, but you can also see the large, rounded-off square track for the train cars as they are loaded. It is easy to head to Market Basket and get a package of whatever you want but as we criss-cross the country it’s stunning to see all the hard work that goes toward putting food on our table.
And of course in farmland it’s considered just fine to have a railroad crossing on a 55mph road. In Texas it would probably be 75 and still have railroad crossing. Everything is bigger and faster in Texas. At least they want you to think that.
Ahh, it must be corn land, which makes since since we’re either in Iowa or near Iowa. Checking the map below, we’re in Illinois, which is like Iowa, they both start with the letter “i” (susan here: in that they’re both flat farmland with corn corn corn corn corn soy! corn corn corn cow! corn corn corn corn. One field of corn in one state looks exactly like one from another state. *yawn*)
And how do you tend to the corn in the fields? With something like this!
And how do you pass something like this? Susan was driving and was a bit (susan here: a lot) apprehensive until she realized that the Corn States have straight and flat roads and you can see down the road for 4 states (just kidding but it’s really far). She didn’t even have to wait for a break in traffic since there wasn’t any traffic to speak of.
Are we there yet? Nope, we need to stop and get another chip fixed in our windshield. This time the repair person used their lighter to heat the epoxy from the inside!
They also had a very friendly dog named Floyd, after the band of course. He loved running to get the tennis ball that we’d throw. It has hot so Susan got out a bowl of water for him. She was now Floyd’s best friend!
We were headed to Lafayette, IN to visit the Liquid Spring people. What is Liquid Spring? It’s a hydraulic suspension for various vehicles, in our case the RV. Ambulances have them too. Some people put them in trucks. Now, you might ask why one would pull a perfectly serviceable suspension system out and put another in. Short answer is make the ride better. Longer answer is these RVs are hard on you and the RV. If you recall some of the roads we’ve been on were so harsh they caused things to break. Rough roads also break the humans. We’re told by those who have them that it takes a 600 mile day and turns it into a 400 mile day. And since we cross the US so much that saves time, thus more adventures! We really wanted to see if the hype was, well, hype. Or if it was really real.
We pulled into the Liquid Spring parking lot, plugged into their 50A circuit and starting yelping for dinner. We found a great Mexican place nearby, Nom Nom Tacos & Tequila. Susan tells me it is a “taqueria” and Paul had to google that one. He’s seen it before but didn’t really think about it. For the initiated, a taqueria is a Mexican restaurant that specializes in tacos and burritos. And, cool neon signs apparently.
The tequila list was amazing. We’re both not big tequila drinkers but we described what we had liked and they made us something based on that. Very nice. The food, ahh, the food. We both had 3 street tacos. We each had one of the same ones, so 5 different types. The ranged from “ok” to “this isn’t very good” to “we paid how much for this?” Oh well, sometimes you hit one out of the park and sometimes the park hits you. (susan here: I disagree strongly here. Thought it was pretty good. Not excellent but what do you want, we’re in the middle of Indiana, definitely not the hotbed of Mex-food.)
Back to the RV to enjoy the scenic view of the factory parking lot. (susan here: Paul takes me to all the best spots, huh?)
BTW, the night shift workers used “our” picnic table for then midnight break. :- )
Oh, quick diversion, back in August, or up in August, Paul’s brother came to visit. He brought along their father’s watches, as Paul has developed an interest in watches, one of them, an old Westclox, was made in Lasalle, Illinois, which you can see in the upper corner of the map below. How cool.
Daily: 175
Total: 6,830
Driving Miles/Day: 220
Overall Miles/Day: 84