We’re 1,500 gritty long miles down our voyage.  The Merc is decorated with hundreds of smashed bugs, or at least it was before I ran it through a car wash tonight.  (The Airstream is likewise adorned, but it won’t get cleaned for a while yet.)  We’re camped in an old city park/campground in Springfield IL, the kind of place we never would have found if it weren’t for RVparkreviews.com.

The campground has a fairly crazy layout, with campsite driveways crossing each other at apparently random angles.  Some sites have water, most have electricity, a couple have sewer, but they’re just as unpredictable as the layout.  Our site has sewer and electricity, but no water.  To reach the utilities we have to block access to another site, but there’s nothing we can do about it.  Nobody cares anyway, since the place is only about 1/3 full and the atmosphere is mellow.  Fifteen bucks got us what we wanted, 30-amp power so we could run the air conditioner against the onslaught of increasing humidity and gradually rising temperatures.

Give me Tucson heat any day.  It was only about 86 degrees here, but with humidity and a flock of mosquitoes to greet us, our only thought was to hide in the Airstream.  Problem was, we were stir-crazy from too many days in the car.  Yesterday’s break in the state park wasn’t enough to make up for all the mileage, even though Eleanor and Emma took the afternoon off to walk around the park and then cruise around the almost-town of Cameron MO in the Miata with the top down.

So at today’s stop I broke with our standard policy, and unhitched the car from the Airstream on this one-night stay so that we could meander into town and hoof it around in open spaces for a while.  Once the sun went down, it was a nice night to roll down the windows and open the moonroof, and feel the damp air blowing around inside the car.  Combined with dinner, milkshakes, and a mile or so of walking, we all started to feel normal again.

We are approaching the point at which we can wind down a little.  We’ve got one more long drive, about 290 miles to South Bend IN, which will include the always-frantic stretch of I-80 from Joliet to the Indiana Toll Road.  Jersey barriers, rough concrete, rabid commuters, and plenty of toll booths are in my future.  It’s an interesting challenge for a trailerite.  Once we survive that, we’ll be able to chill for three nights in South Bend enjoying the company of civilized folk (at least as civilized as our friends get) in the shade of trees.