For some reason I never wrote anything about this trip and
Jeff didn't either. This is based on my fuzzy memory a year and 3
months later.
The first leg was to
get the motorhome to Nashville, visit a friend and then leave it
there until our next trip. Florida would be it's final
destination for the winter.
We began the
journey by going to my home town of Salem, IL and spent the
afternoon with some of my Family. It was a brief visit but it's
always good to see my mom.
From there we headed farther
down state to Shawnee National Forest. As a teenager I was a
Boy Scout and we would go deep into southern IL camping, hiking and
repelling. One place that was
memorable to me was The Garden Of The Gods. So after we left
Salem we stopped in for a short visit. Did a little hiking and
just checked it out. It's hard to believe that this beautiful
area is in Illinois.
We pressed on and later that night I was driving when the road appeared to
end right in front of us...well it did. We had reached the Ohio River
at the southern tip of Illinois. Cave In Rock was the town. I am not sure if the gps routed
us this way or we choose it but the only way across was by ferry.
We talked to a local and they told us how often it
ran. The wait would be 45 minutes or so before the ferry would
be there. The alternative would have been a 2 hour out of
the way drive. When the ferry showed up it wasn't looking to good...the
motorhome has a stand on the back that we transport our
paramotors on. It doesn't do well on abrupt inclines. The ferry
had a ramp on to it at a steep angle. Jeff talked to the ferry
captain and decided we would give it a try. I let Jeff do this
one. I don't exactly remember what happened but we got it on
there.
The next morning we were in Marion KY, when the calling
for air time came. We found a place to launch on an old farm. We
didn't fly for long do to it getting late in the morning
(thermals were finding us).
A friend of ours, Phil Beck,
was expecting us to arrive in Nashville that morning. We where a
little late do to the emergency flight we had to take. We spent
a day or two there before we catching a flight back home. The Enterprise
stayed at the airport until our next trip. |
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