Rockford, IL - Aunt Leila and Uncle Danny

We went to be to the smell of wood smoke and woke to the sounds and smells of families cooking breakfast over the wood fires. Well, actually we were up a bit before we saw and smelled these fires. I don’t want you to think that we were sleeping in. Hey, remember those packs of Kellogs cereals which enable you to pour your milk into the wax-lined box and eat your cereal out of the box? Well, we saw a 50-pack on a picnic table in the next campsite. Wow, We only had 10-packs when I was a kid - and never enough of the good cereals.

Usually we are camped out in parks that cater to us old folks but it’s always fun to camp in a state park, which we are now, or a county park or a city park with all the families. This morning we can look out one window and see an extended family at one site cooking breakfast, we can look out another and see kids scooting around the park on their bikes, another direction and we can see fathers and sons with fishing poles over their shoulders heading for the lake.

And then there was the butterfly that thought the flower on our mat was real and kept lighting on it.

There are pop-up campers, there are tents, there are small and large trailers and there are also a lot of the larger Class A rigs like ours. Since many of them have an FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association) plaque on them, we thing they are doing the same thing we are, enjoying a short stop in Rockford before heading on to Madison for a big FMCA rally this coming week. We understand there will probably be upwards of 2000 RV’s there.

And how about the weather we’re having this week? Can it get any better than this? The last few weeks have been extraordinarily muggy and hot in the midwest (and all over the US as you know) but we’ve broken that string of humid days and nicer weather is heading our way. Today the temps got into the 80’s, with much lower humidity. Hot but not oppressive. Great weather and we’ve enjoyed hiking around the park in it.

Gary’s Aunt Leila and Uncle Danny live in Roscoe, a small town north of Rockford and that is actually why we have stopped here. We had called them and they are expecting us today. What a fun pair they are to visit and talk with on the phone. You can hear the laughter over the phone and know that even though they are have ing some health issues, they are enjoying life.

We must have covered everyone in the family, their immediate family, our immediate family and then the whole extended clan. Then - Leila brought out the angel food cake, the strawberries and the whipped cream. Sweet - in more ways than one. A hearty thanks, big hugs and kisses and we said our good-byes.

In the evening we walked through all the various loops with campers to see everyone at play and relaxing.

During the night, it began to rain and we were glad we were in an RV. The soft patter of rain on our roof was soothing for us. but hose in tents might not have felt as calmed.