Thursday 4-25-24 New State, New Campground & Popeye Statues

 

Illinois

We spent the night in the parking lot of the River City Casino. According to the thermostat the temperature in the cab was 54 degrees. But officially it was in the 40's. We used our Wave 3 propane heater to keep the Minnie warm.

I crawled out of bed a little before 7:00 and made pancakes. Then we got ready to move on. We put everything away and secured. Then we walked across the street to see the Mississippi River. There were a lot of trees so we didn't see much of the Mississippi River. In a few minutes we're going to cross over the Mississippi River into Illinois. We did see the river better.

 

A tugboat going down the Mississippi River 

 

 

Bridge across the Mississippi River

Mississippi River from the bridge

 

Today we started in Missouri and ended up in Illinois. Larry drove 60 miles on two lane roads that went by a lot of farm fields. Occasionally we saw cattle, horses and goats. Our destination was Randolph County State Conservation Area.

Randolph County State Conservation Area has three campgrounds, two of them are tent sites and the other one was RV sites with power. We drove through the tent campgrounds first because we didn't know about the campgrounds. Then we drove through the RV campground, which was Pine Ridge Campground. The campgrounds were gorgeous with lots of pine trees and other trees. There are a lot of sites available for first come first serve. The center sites could be reserved but it has to be three days in advance. The bathrooms are vault toilets. There is a hiking trail right at the campground, you can pick the trail up at multiple places.

After checking out the campground we decided we would stay for a couple of nights. Before paying and selecting a site we continued on the Chester, IL, which was only five miles away from the campground. 

We visited Chester seven years ago when we did our Great River Road tour up the Mississippi River. It is the hometown of Popeye's creator, E.C. Segar's. The Popeye Museum is called the Spinach Can Collectibles. The lady, who runs it started the museum 30 years ago. She had moved from Memphis, her husband and her had collected Popeye items as a hobby. When they came to Chester they knew E.C. Segar was from here so they decided to start The Spinach Can Collectibles to advertise Popeye. People thought they were nuts. But they're still there after 30 years. They expanded the store with Opera House Antiques. Throughout the years she got the city interested in Popeye. Seven years ago they had a map of 12 different Popeye characters and now they have 18 characters. The fire department and police department have Popeye on their buildings, vehicles and uniforms. There are other Popeye murals around town. While there Larry bought me a tee shirt and hat and we picked up the map of the statue locations. We walked three miles and located 10 of the statues. We then drove around town locating the other 8 statues because they were too far to walk to. We spent a few hours locating all the statues and had a super time.

 

Top of the police station with a Popeye character on each side

Emblem on a police car door

 

Popeye emblem on the doors of the fire station

Fire station Dalmatians and Popeye

 

Popeye and Olive Oyl on display in the store

 

Popeye getting his car washed

 

I'm Olive Oyl

 

E.C. Segar's mural

Spinach Can Collectibles

Popeye character trail (Map To The Stars) gave you the location of the statues and a little bit about the statues. Below are some of the characters.

 

Alice The Goon (2012)

 

Bluto (1906)

 

Castor Oyl & Wiffle Hen (2009) and me

 

Cole Oyl (2011) at the library

 

Harold Ham Gravy (2021)

 

King Blozo (2017)

 

Nana Oyl (2018)

 

Olive Oyl, Swee' Pea & Eugene the Jeep (2007)

Oscar (2022)

 

Poopdeck Pappy (2013)

 

Popeye's Pups (2019)

Popeye (1977)

Wimpy (2006)

More statues to come tomorrow.

After searching for the statues we went back to Pine Ridge Campground. We decided to take site #1 for a couple of nights. The site was very level so we didn't have to use any blocks. Once we set up the Minnie I walked over to the office and paid for two nights. The office is not staffed, you put the money in an envelope and put it in a box.

I played my Daily Challenges in Solitaire and got caught up on them. I also played the event, which was Event: Two Game Tango of 10 games (5 Spider and 5 Tri Peaks). It took me 1 hour, 2 minutes and 36 seconds, which put me in 9th place in my group.

Before dinner I walked around the campground to locate the trailheads. I walked for a half hour. When I got back it was time for dinner. Larry barbecued hamburgers and I cooked some waffle fries.

After dinner I walked around the campground for 45 minutes to get my steps. I ended up doing 19,000 steps, which put me in 4th place in my group. Larry read while I walked around.

We had a super day.

 

          

 

Wednesday 4-24-24 Playing Pinball, Gambling & Having Fun

 

Having Fun

Today was a day of having fun.

We woke up to a brisk morning with the temperature in the 40's. The high was 68 degrees. 

I crawled out of bed at 7:00 and made mini waffles for breakfast. Then we got ready to leave. We weren't in any hurry because where we were going was 115 miles and it wasn't going to open until noon. We were on the road by 8:00.

We had a great two nights at Binder Campground Park. The drive was partly on the interstate but mainly on two lane highways in the direction of St. Louis. 

We spent the day playing pinball at two different places in suburbs of St. Louis. The first place was at a West County Lanes, it is a bowling alley and opens at noon. We got there around 10:30 so we had a couple of hours to kill. Larry found a Target a few miles down the road. We parked the Minnie in the Target parking lot and went inside. We looked at the barbecue grills. We're looking for a small grill to replace the grill we travel with in the Minnie. The last two times we replaced the grill we got them from Target. We didn't find the one we wanted so we went back to the Minnie and read. The bowling alley has a snack bar but we decided to have a sandwich in the Minnie instead.

After lunch it was time to go to West County Lanes to play pinball. It was a very nice place and well maintained. It had 15 games but one was out of order. It is quite normal to have machines out of order. These machines are very complex with lots of mechanical and electrical parts. There were also arcade games in the back. You had to use quarters to play. There was a coin machine to get change or you can put a dollar bill in the machine. All of the pinball machines cost a dollar to play. We played all the games and went through $17.00. They also have 24 lanes to bowl. Each lane was a different color. There was a bar and snack bar, they had a huge banquet room with tables and one pool table. The machines were very nice and played great. Some of the games we never played before such as Scooby- Doo and Fathom. We spent an hour and a half there and had a great time.

 

Bowling Pinball Bar welcome sign

 

Six of the pinball machines

Six more pinball machines

Bowling lanes

Thunderball

Game of Thrones

 

Scooby-Doo

 

Star Wars The Mandalorian

  

Playing pinball at the Bowling Pinball Bar

Larry playing pinball

Fathom

While walking out a gentleman, who was working there talked to us for a bit. His grandmother owned the place since 1984 and the previous owner had opened it in 1965. They started out with five machines and decided to add more because of the popularity of pinball. It is still family run.

Next stop was at The Lazarus St. Louis Pinball Museum. According to Google it opened at 3:00, we arrived about 2:00, we found a a Gyro restaurant nearby and decided to get something to eat. We parked the Minnie and walked about a block to the Gyro/Gyro restaurant. Larry and I shared a Gyro Chicken Bowl and Baklava. There were only two ladies working when we came in. As we were waiting for the food, it started to get busy so another lady joined the other two ladies to help. The bowl was in a big foil dish. We didn't eat all of it because it was too big. The bowl was delicious. When we were finished Larry went and told the waitress we were ready for the baklava. This was messy but very good. The workers were friendly, the service was fast and the food was hot and delicious.

 

Customers giving their order

 

Baklava

At 3:00 we tried to get in the museum but it was still closed. We went back to the Minnie and Larry found on their website the opening time was 4:00 not 3:00. So we went back to the Minnie and read.

The Lazarus St. Louis Pinball Museum has 40 pinball machines. The cost is $12.00 for 90 minutes, $16.00 for 3 hours and $20.00 all day. If you use a credit card it cost more. We paid for 90 minutes a piece, which was plenty of time. I lost track of how many games we played. Every games was free play. A lot of the games were old games. We played games we hadn't played in other places (Iron Maiden, Avatar, Austin Powers, Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie's Spook Show Internal). The machines were in great shape and played excellent. The place was very clean and well taken care of. I prefer to play the newer games because you have more action and things to do while playing. The owner was very friendly and helpful. We had a super time playing pinball at The Lazarus. 

 

The Lazarus St. Louis Pinball Museum

Some of the pinball machines

 

More pinball machines

Avatar

 

Iron Maiden

 

Austin Powers

 

Alice Cooper

 

Rob Zombie's

 

Independence Day

Godzilla

 

Larry playing Hurricane (Killer Klowns came from)

By the time we finished playing pinball it was 5:30. Our final destination for the day was River City Casino, which was 14 miles away. We were surprised how easy it was to drive through St. Louis with no delays and at rush hour.

When we got to River City Casino we drove around to find the parking lot designated for truck parking. It took a bit but we found it. Once the Minnie was parked for the night I went over to give the casino some money. I was there for almost two hours and gave them $20.00. The casino was great. I think half of the casino was non-smoking. There was plenty of machines to play on and self-service soda stations throughout the casino. I had a super time. 

 

River City Casino

While I gambled Larry read. When I got back we had a chocolate cupcake for dessert. I didn't play any of my games because I wanted to conserve power. I ended up only doing 4,347 steps, which put me in 8th place in my group