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.