May 7, 2014.  Today the drive was moderately long (250 miles) and not very picturesque.  I caught up on my pressing crossword puzzles and email correspondence.  We drove through St. Louis, which is much larger than I expected, and snapped a shot of the Arch and the baseball stadium, which the expressway runs right over!

Today’s campground is in a Corps of Engineer’s park near Benton, Illinois.  Rend Lake is huge — 19,000 acres with 167 mile of shoreline, and full to the brim — a change from all the lakes we have experienced on this trip.  The park has a comprehensive recreational complex, including a lodge (which to my experienced eye looks like a Federal prison), convention center, hunting preserve, golf course, horse-back riding facility, restaurants, boat ramps and things of that ilk.  But all is quiet today.   It being a weekday in the middle of May, we had our pick of 250 or so campsites.  We nabbed the best one in the park, as far as I am concerned.  It is on a long flat expanse of new-mown grass by the side of the lake, under a  wonderful sweetgum tree, with no neighbors and a clear view to the Southern sky for our satellite TV so we can watch the third game in the Braves – Cardinals match-up.  (Braves lost — hiss.)

Doris had a field day at the lake  — rolling in the grass, chasing sticks, and generally being out of the truck for a few hours.   We saw a couple of ski boats (the sound of them slapping rhythmically over the waves made me homesick for the Backwater), but nothing distracting from the lovely peace of the afternoon and evening.  Brad and I sat outside and soaked in the lake afternoon air.  It is so nice to breathe the familiar moist coolish air of a Southern spring and listen to the complex music of birds and crickets.   We had spaghetti for dinner and played a death match of Canasta.  This time I won, making me the undisputed “queen” for the week.  The loser has to draw a picture of the of the winner as “queen” or “king” at the bottom of the score card for each game.  We have quite a nice collection of drawings, which we will offer up to the High when we get home.

Tomorrow we head for Nashville, via Kentucky.  I hope to stop for lunch in the “Land Between the Lakes”  — more on that later if we in fact do that.

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