Midwest Travels with LaVern (our new camper)

Talk about  GREAT timing! We were all bored visiting my sister after several days of cold in Illinois over Christmas when SHE suggested we go look at campers near her for something to do.  AND, thinking the prices would be better in winter, we looked again in Colorado in January.  We bought our ePro camper before Covid hit, thinking we'd like to travel in the U.S. to supplement our overseas travel.  

Just 16' long inside but with everything one could want, we love that "tiny house" camper.  And we've learned so much and had some fabulous adventures in it this year when we might have been stuck at home being bored.  Yay!! 

After our first experience at LaVern Johnson Park in Lyons (thus, our camper's name), we branched out to St. Vrain State Park (E. of Longmont on 119), to Red Feathers area west of Ft. Collins, to Curt Gowdy State Park (southeastern Wyoming), and to states beyond.

SUMMER in the Midwest states:  Our first road trip in the camper.

We drove east to the Mississippi River and Iliniwek State Park near East Moline, Illinois, to visit Scott's family and our own planned but questionable bike adventure.  We finished it after several years of talking about it, BUT we will never do it again.  We rode over 250 miles, overnight 2 nights, in mud, weeds, some trail.  These canals are historically interesting and partly maintained.

Scott, his sister Robin, and his Mom 

Part of the Hennepin Canal Trail

Near the end of the I & M Canal Trail

From Scott's home town of Rock Island, we rode our bikes on the Hennepin Canal Trail and took that somewhat maintained trail to LaSalle/Peru where we had to find out way to the I & M Canal Trail, which we would ride to my home town of Manhattan.  There were too many perils to describe them all in one post, but often we were saying "where's the trail?" and "they call this a trail?" and "maybe we should find a road".  Quite the adventure on both trails but we got through it together.

Next stop, my sister Vicki's house in Manhattan.  Then on to her lake house in Mattoon, Illinois.  We left our camper and did our one-week ride on the Katy Trail in Missouri - in July!  The trail was maintained but towns along the way were all closed up, we saw few people on the over 300 miles of trail, and the trail itself was boring.  It's HOT! and flat with corn fields, soybean fields, and some tree tunnels every day over and over.  And my back tire got flat regularly. Arghh.... One and done. 

Back at my sister's lake house, we helped her build a boardwalk along her sea wall, and fished, and swam and enjoyed the sunsets.  Lovely!

We both caught some big catfish!  Fun!

Home included camping through Wisconsin and Minnesota before dropping back down to Illinois because we could not find camping on a summer weekend in South Dakota.  We learned A LOT about the camper and finding campsites. 

We enjoyed lots of adventuring on this road trip and a welcome change of scenery during Covid.

Riding in Wisconsin