Jack and Scooter

We left Delphi about 11 this morning, knowing that we would not have far to go.  Unfortunately, we didn't plan on our GPS not having the latest maps.  When we got to Lafayette, the home of Purdue University, we spent some pleasant hours trying to decide where Hwy 25 ended and Hwy 28 started, and why are we on Happy Hollow Drive?  After a few miscues and some discussion as to how smart the GPS actually is, we somehow found ourselves on Interstate 74 going west toward Champaign, IL.  Near Champaign we turned south on I57 and found ourselves in site 2a of Camp Lakewood RV Park in Effingham, IL  Whew! Good thing it was only 194 miles....I shudder to think how lost we might have been if it had been more.

After setting up, we went into the local WalMart for some much needed groceries and a quick look around town.  Pretty much the typical town, with motels and restaurants clustered around the interstate highways.  We did, however, find a Ruby Tuesday restaurant to eat dinner at, 'cause they have one of the best chain restaurant salad bars that we've seen. YUM!

We needed to take Pris on a walk when we got back to Nessie (she had already had her walk today), so we strolled down by the lake.  Lake Pauline is a pretty little lake, some 30 odd acres of surface area, no swimming allowed, just fishing (what, alligators?).

About 1/2 way around the park, we met Jack and Scooter.  Jack is a retired Air Force bomber driver, and Scooter is his dog.  Now you've got to know that Jack has been retired from the military for 42 years, just about twice as long as he served.  He and his wife are from St Pete, Florida, and travel around the east coast visiting family.  Mostly his 6 kids, his cousins ("at least one cousin in 17 states east of the Mississippi"), his wife's family ("not my doin', it's all her kin"), and the divorced spouses of several cousins because they have large yards "we can park in".  Jack regaled us with stories for about an hour while we tried to keep our dogs from wandering off, and during the course of the conversation, it came up as to how Scooter got his name.

You see, Scooter came to Jack a bit late in life, at a time when Jack had just lost his two brothers to cancer.  Scooter had been mistreated, and his rescue gave Jack a purpose and a goal.  One of the things that Scooter and Jack had to deal with was a bad case of intestinal parasites (Scooter, not Jack).  So Scooter would drag himself around the living room carpet trying to scratch his bum while the parasite treatment was working.  Hence the name Scooter.....

Only in the south.