DAY 29 ~ 10/13/21

Sunset from RV window at Rustic Acres

We spent the entire day on remote but paved country roads. A lot of the route was on route 66. We thought that was very cool! A man asked us as we passed him outside of his farm “Are you guys walking for fun?“ We told him the story and he then shared that he just recently lost his wife to cancer. Very sweet man. A little farther down the road a truck stopped with an older couple inside and asked “Hey where did you guys start walking from?“ We told them Stevens Point Wisconsin and asked them how they knew to ask. He said that we ran into his brother-in-law back there! Word travels fast in a small town! They visited with us for a good five minutes. Lovely people.

Today we walked a total of 14.4 miles without stopping. The only reason for that is there was warranty work needed on the RV and Clarence went back to Springfield to get that done so we were on our own today. We got rained on for maybe an hour. Once we reached the 13.5 miles planned for the day we decided to keep trekking since Clarence was going to be a half hour later than we thought due to a mixup with the RV shop work. When we hit 14 miles we were beat. We saw a property ahead with really nice glider chairs. Joan decided to knock on the door to see if we could sit and wait for our ride. The gentleman was hesitant but gracious enough to say yes. It was 10 minutes of bliss I’ll tell you what!!

We had two different pairs of dogs great us along our route. While visiting with the second pair, one of the dogs high tailed it back to the house and came back with his stick! Joan played fetch a few times before we moved on. Shortly after, a woman stopped in her car and asked “Are you guys OK?“ So sweet! We told her the story and she said “Oh my God do you need some water or anything? I just live on the corner up there.” That was the property we had just played fetch with the dog. We told her that must’ve been her place that we played with her dogs and showed her pictures. She said “Yup those are mine and doesn’t surprise me one bit . Charlie will play with anyone and play all day long!” Her name was Tessa. This world is really full of kind people everywhere!

On the way to our new RV spot, Rustic Acres in New Douglas Illinois, we stopped at Tilllys Tavern in Mount Olive. Clarence and Joan had horseshoes, a southern Illinois staple. It starts with a couple slices a bread, covered with your meat of choice, a gravy and then covered with fries that are covered in cheese. Looked ohhhh sooooo good. I had a loaded baked potato and chicken wings. Some of my favorite bar food!! The beer tasted so good!!!! I will sleep like a baby tonight.

The sunrise that began our walking day.