Sunday, September 8, 2013

Peaceful Waters and meeting old friends…

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Turkey Run Indiana 009We left Kankakee River State Park after only a few days since we had planned to meet up with some friends from back in our daughter's college softball days. This necessitated about a 140 mile drive southeast to Rockville, Indiana. At our friends' suggestion we booked a site at Peaceful Waters Campground that had both RV sites and small cabins. Doing research on the Peaceful Waters Campground yielded nothing other than their web site. It seems that even though it is three years old it hasn’t made it into the RV web world. It didn’t even show up on Google's satellite maps but it turned out to be a pretty nice spot.

Once we found the campground we pulled in and checked with the office about sites that would accommodate our RV. There were a lot of sites adjacent to the small state road we came in on so we were a bit worried about street noise from these sites. Therefore we checked out some of their newer sites just being built nearer to the large pond on the property. These sites were more appealing but were electricity only and getting level was going to be a bit of a challenge. So we chose a site up near the road and have found it to be just fine, noise wise, with the windows closed and the AC running.

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Turkey Run Indiana 005Friday evening our friend Amy showed up and we immediately sat down to catch up on what has happened since we last saw her. We met her and her husband David when our daughter moved to North Carolina and played fast pitch softball for Campbell University. Their daughter was the go-to pitcher for Campbell’s team and she started a year earlier than Katie. As a result we got to know Amy and David pretty well throughout our softball travels across the USA following our girls. David was working late that night refereeing a football game so we weren't able to see him till Saturday.

Saturday morning our friends took us to Turkey Run State Park in Marshall Indiana. With the suspension bridge still closed for repairs from from the spring floods in this area, we chose to do the hikes along the southern side of the park south of Sugar Creek. What a gem of a park this one was with the deeply eroded sandstone bedrock leaving behind chiseled canyons and cliffs along the way. Tall stately trees such as sugar maples and black walnuts were everywhere and even a remnant stands of hemlock and white pine were found here.

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Turkey Run Indiana 019After some great hiking and chatting with our friends we decided to go over to the Turkey Run Golf Club to play 18 holes of golf. Sharon does not play and elected to ride along in the cart. I haven’t played in about two years and was surprised at how well I did play. Lots of rust on the chipping and putting but at least I could drive well. After golf we stopped by a store and picked up supplies to make dinner. A dinner of burgers on Sharon’s famous home-made burger buns along with some sides and dessert topped off a fun filled day with our softball family from years ago… Next up is a trip back into Illinois to see some of new found RV friends we met during our first year wintering in Florida…

12 comments:

  1. I spent a lot of time in the 60's & 70's with family at Turkey Run, was where I spent my first night ever in a rv, 40 years later I spent my second night in an rv and this year we became fulltimers. We are in the Mattoon IL area in early Oct to visit family. Safe travels...

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    1. Spent some time in 1974-75 in Rantoul Ill and visited Turkey Run to get away form the mental rigors of USAF tech school... caught a train out of Matoon once since all other travel was stopped due to heavy snows in Dec 1974...

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  2. This is great that you have met so many friends you can stop by to see. Sounds like they showed you a couple of very nice places in their area.

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    1. Yep Sherry seeing friends is a big part of what we like to do in our travels...

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  3. Beautiful pictures!! Rockville is only an hour from where my Mom grew up & most of her family still lives in Danville, Illinois :)

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    1. We drove right by Danville today on our way to where we are now...

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  4. Golfing tip: keep yourhead down all the way through the putt. You can't losethe ball on the green, no sense in trying to look up and watch. Turkey Run looks like a great placeo hike.

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    1. sorry John I only take tips from Phil or Tiger...

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  5. It looks like a lovely area and a nice area to kayak.

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  6. Nice to get together with old friends have fun and enjoy the area.

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  7. Dianne and I love Turkey Run. There is a great place to rent kayaks across the street from the state park campground entrance. They take you to and from Sugar Creek in a rickety old school bus. Lots of fun. Beverages are allowed in coolers in the kayaks. Too bad the bridge was closed. We love the hiking on the other side. This used to be an annual trip for us before we started full-timing.

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