Day Thirty: Drive to Galena, Illinois

Today was simply spent in the car driving to our last VRBO of the trip in Galena, Illinois. We wanted to have a fun location to celebrate Eli’s birthday and the Galena Territory area looked like it would be a fun and relaxing area.

Our drive was around five hours. Two hours in we realized we didn’t have any more sandwich meat and lunch was going to be interesting. Lunch on the road are the hardest in the RV and it is safe to say we will not be having many sandwiches after this trip for a while! I found a little grocery story on our route; however, when we arrived it had turned into a restaurant on the water. We crossed the highway to the other side and went into the town of Rockwell City, The Golden Buckle on the Corn Belt. We had very slim pickings, but we found Casey’s General Store where we could not only get some lunch but also fill up the RV.

The drive was rather flat again and very, very green. And for the first time in thirty days we drove in rain, which turned into huge thunderstorms. While it was a little scary, at least the RV got a bath. It was getting rather dirty on the outside from the numerous bugs we have hit along the way.

Before arriving to our VRBO we stopped at the airport in Dubuque to pick up a rental car, for NO ONE to be at the booth! And there actually were NO people in the airport either. We waited for over thirty minutes for someone to “be on the way” for us to say forget it. We really didn’t ‘need’ one in Galena but it would have been nice to go into the little town without driving the large RV. Before heading to the VRBO we ran into the Piggly Wiggly and Walmart to pick up some items for the soon-to-be-birthday boy per his requests for breakfast and dinner.

The area where we are staying in is if Smith Mountain Lake and Wintergreen had a baby, but on a smaller scale. The rain stopped when we arrived and we could see the sunset behind the house, which was beautiful. The house has a side screened in porch and I know will be spending lots of time enjoying it! Our family loves screen porches!

Dinner was later as usual and it felt good to stretch out and have a little extra room; especially since we never got the auto levelers to work and the slides have never been fully extended since Jackson! All the kids slept downstairs, each having their own bed making it the ‘teen’ area.

I can’t believe tomorrow my baby will be 13 and we will have a house full of teenagers!!! While I wish time would slow down, I (we) are beyond thankful for the extra time with our children that COVID has given to us.