Since the weather forecast was for steady but light rain, and most of Jos family had left for home, we decided to depart ourselves on Sunday afternoon and head west to visit friends in Illinois. Driving through off and on rain on the Ohio and Indiana turnpikes, we made it to Michigan City Indiana Sunday night. Monday morning we visited the nearby Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, a part of the National Park System. Thanks to the intermittent rain, we did not have to worry about fighting any crowds at the Lake Shore. We 
had a wonderful stroll along the beautiful stretch of empty beach in front of Mount Baldy, the largest of the many sand dunes in this park. The most pleasant surprise of the park, however, was a series of homes in the process of restoration in the lakeside development of Beverly Shores. These homes had originally been built for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair and thereafter had been moved by barge to the Beverly Shore development. Many of the houses 
being restored had signs in front with pictures of what the houses looked like when in their prime. What a wonderfully varied collection of different architectural styles. After spending a few hours at the National Lake Shore we headed back to the campground and picked up our very wet home on wheels. Thankfully, the trip to our next campground West of Chicago took less than three hours, even though the frequent rain and Chicago traffic made it seem much longer. The campground in Sycamore, IL, 60 miles west of Chicago made a great initial impression with its lovely lakes/pounds and with the first sunlight we had seen in several days. The positive impression was enhanced when our friends Rick and Ann came out to visit and joined us for dinner in a very quaint little restaurant in “downtown” Sycamore. The next several days were dominated by the combination of pleasant visits with Rick and Ann and unpleasant bouts of rain.
One of our frequent topics of conversation with Rick and Ann were our plans for spending the summer of 2008 traveling together through Alaska and Northwest Canada. By happenstance, an old friend of Rick’s pulled into a nearby campsite while they were visiting us. When they went over to greet their friends, Al and Linda, they discovered that Al and Linda had themselves taken an extended trip through western Canada and Alaska in the summer of 2006. When Al and Linda joined us for cocktails later that evening, they brought along the thick notebook which had been provided by the organizer of the caravan in which they toured Alaska. We made a copy of that notebook and look forward to using it as a helpful resource in planning for our own trip.
Thursday afternoon we headed for the Chicago suburb of Joliet to visit with David’s niece Wendy and her husband Fred. Within minutes of starting that trip, we were caught in a terrible thunder storm moving rapidly from west to east. Even though we were headed eastward on interstate 88 at 40-50 miles per hour, it took more than a half hour to get ahead of the storm, only to have the storm catch up with us again as we went south to Joliet. After a very pleasant dinner with Wendy and Fred and great conversations about our planned trip to Alaska and other aspects of our great adventure, we heeded Fred’s advice as to the roads to take back to our campground. Unknown to all of us, the roads he recommended had become flooded in several spots. The first we realized this was when we hit the first patch of flooded roadway with virtually no warning since the highway was deserted and dark. Fortunately, the truck sits high above the road on its 18 inch tires and weights over 8,000 pounds. As a result, the flooded roadway caused more surprise than danger. Now that we were alert to the hazards, we were able to spot several more flooded areas on the basis of a lack of reflection of our headlights when they struck the areas of the roadway that were under water. Jo kept repeating the words “this is an adventure”, although David kept explaining that this was not the kind of adventure he had in mind.
Friday night we met with two more friends of Rick and Ann’s (David and Marge) who had also just returned from a caravan tour of Alaska and we had a great time during and after dinner talking about Alaska and looking at their many pictures.
After dropping Rick and Ann off, we had an unexpectantly adventurous time trying to make it back to our campground in Sycamore. The off and on rains over the last several days had resulted in the flooding of several roads and the damaging of a number of bridges throughout the general vicinity. On our way back to the campground, we were stopped several times while driving on dark roads amongst cornfields, by signs indicating that the roads or bridges ahead were closed. After driving through a flooded roadway adjacent to the campground we finally made it home after midnight and were delighted to discover that the flooding had not reached our area of the campground. The next morning, we were considering extending our stay in Sycamore one more day to allow time for nearby roads to dry out. When we talked to the campground office, however, they advised us that the river adjacent to the campground was continuing to rise and it might be necessary to evacuate the campground on short notice if the river overflowed the temporary berms that the campground owner was having reinforced that morning. We decided that enough was enough and it was time to head to dryer territory. After confirming that the route we were planning to take through Wisconsin and Minnesota to Sioux Fall, South Dakota was open, thanks to receding flood waters, we left early Saturday afternoon to continue our adventure westward.
(We were so busy and had so much fun with Rick and Ann - Jo forgot to take pictures)
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