Thursday, June 28

Shoutouts: Happy birthday to my sister, Amy, who lives in Huntsville, TX. I will be seeing her on our way back when our Route 50 part of the trip is finished. Also a happy birthday to Jeryl's sister, Tosca, who has a birthday today. We love you both!!

Avri, I am glad to hear you are enjoying my blog about our trip along Route 50. I have enjoyed reading your blog too. Aunt Jeri said to ask you if you could write about some good camping recipes. See, we are staying at KOA camps along the way, and for lunch we have a picnic, but for supper, we are cooking at the camp on a small electric burner or hot plate. We have a small fry pan to use and have two burners. So if you can think of anything fun, let us know on your blog. (Avri is Jeryl's 9 yr old neice and lives in NC. She loves to cook and is keeping her own blog about cooking for kids. If you would like to check out her blog, here is the web address: http://www.avristable.com/

Daisy, Heath, Austin, and Bri: thanks for following our trip. I appreciate the comment. It looks like you are having a fun summer too, from the pictures I see on facebook. Way to go on the fish you both recently caught.

Sigrid, thanks for the info on the Capitol and tours. I was wondering why it looked closed.

Now on to the Route 50 trip: On Tuesday afternoon, we left Knock-em-Stiff, Ohio after a very nice visit with Jeryl's Mom, brother and sister. Jeryl's Mom, Lorita, is keeping her dog Devo. He's a whippet, a member of the grey hound family. Devo was very sad that we were leaving but he has good company at her Mom's house with 3 other dogs to play with and assorted cats. Here are some pics of her mom and brother and Devo.

From Knock-em-Stiff, we headed down Route 50 to Cincinnati, OH, where we would be staying one night with my in-laws, Jorge and Justine Hersel. We had a great time together talking, putting together a puzzle, and eating at Longhorn Steakhouse. Here are pictures from our evening together.

Wednesday morning we headed to Indiana, where we would be staying with my son Michael, daughter-in-law Amber, and my granddaughter, Sophia, 20 months. On Tuesday, Michael and Amber celebrated their 2nd anniversary so congrats to them. They are also expecting their 2nd child, baby Noah, in August, and we are all very excited about that.

Michael is a mining engineer for Triad Mining and I am very proud of all he has accomplished. And Amber is a fantastic mother, photographer, and chef.

For supper that night, we went to The Log Inn, and were celebrating  Michael's 4th of July birthday early. This restaurant is one of the oldest original log inn and stage coach stops in the US. Abe Lincoln ate there in 1844. The food was great and was served family style. You order your meat, and then all the sides are brought out and placed on the table: mashed potatoes, German potatoes, cole slaw, corn, green beans, and rolls. You can get as many refills of the sides as you want. We had a great time and great food.

This morning (Thursday) I drove around town taking some pictures of Princeton. Those, plus some of the family, will follow. When I was taking a picture of the courthouse, I saw something a little strange. See what you think about the picture (with Jesus).

We headed out once again on Route 50 about noon and one of the interesting towns we went through was Shoals, IN, which is known for gypsum, catfish and the Jug Rock. We Googled the Jug Rock and this is the info we found: Jug Rock is a natural geological formation located outside of Shoals, Indiana, in the valley of the East Fork of the White River. It is composed of sandstone, and is the largest free-standing table rock formation (also called a "tea table") in the United States east of the Mississippi River. This unusual rock feature gives its name to the mascot of nearby Shoals High School, "Shoals Jug Rox."

Soon we crossed the Illinois state line and decided it was time for our picnic lunch. We stopped at Red Hill State Park and here are a couple pictures. It was located near a beautiful lake, part of it covered in lilly pads.

Another interesting town we passed on Route 50 was Olney, IL, the home of the biggest population of white squirrels in the U.S. We looked up the legend of the white squirrel and if you would like to read, here is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olney,_Illinois

You'll have to scroll down until you see the info about the squirrel. They are trying to protect the 200 squirrels left and have outlawed dogs and cats running loose. Also if you run over a white squirrel, you can be fined up to $500. The police department's badge even has a symbol of the white squirrel. (See, now if we weren't traveling Route 50, you might never know about the Jug Rock or the White Squirrels. :0)

Finally we crossed into Missouri and made our way past the St. Louis arch, which was a breath-taking site indeed. Our destination was about 30 minutes past the arch, at a KOA camp in Pacific. The temperature was quite hot as we drove along and at one point was 114. When we stopped and unloaded into our cabin, it had cooled down to a "pleasant" 106. It felt like my face was touching a hot stove!

And now we are ready for bed, after watching America's Got Talent, one of our favorite summer pasttimes. Tomorrow we head towards Kansas and let's hope the temperatures cool down a bit. Thanks as always for following and if you would like to leave a comment, remember you have to choose an ID, and it can be anonymous or name/URL (but you don't actually have to leave a URL). If you don't choose an ID, your comment won't get sent to me and then I can't publish it. So choose the ID, type your comment, and click on submit. If you choose the anonymous ID, please let me know in your comment box who you are so I can give you a shout out in a future posting. Happy Trails!!!