Hello From The Mississippi River

 Location: Thomson Causeway Corps of Engineers Campground; Thomson, Illinois (about halfway between Dubuque and Davenport on the banks of the Mississippi River)

It was a nice tow on some descent roads in Illinois to get to this campground. 

Lots and lots of soybeans and corn.

I saw this tree far enough away so I could grab my phone. I thought it may have been trimmed due to the power line, but nope, it was just the way it was. 

It's good to be back in a COE campground. This one has recently been reconstructed and is looking good. The only drawback is the water near my campground is slow-moving, almost like backwater, which has promoted the growth of a lot of water lilies. Besides it not looking really good, I thought for sure there would be an overpowering organic smell and be infested with lots of mosquitoes. Surprise, surprise, no smell and no skeeters. I'm not sure why there isn't a smell but the reason for no skeeters is there is an unusual number of dragonflies. I didn't get a close-up view of the dragonflies, but they must have some full bellies since I've only seen one skeeter.

Campsite 87. My surge guard protected me again when the 30 amp breaker went out in the middle of the night. It turned the power off but I could tell there was still power in the campground, so I used my 50/30 amp dogbone and plugged into the 50 amp plug. Problem solved.  

Nearly empty campgrounds are nice.

While waiting from Liberty to cool down I ran back into Thomson (10 minutes away) for what I hoped would be a great cheeseburger from a 67-year-old drive in. 

I was close enough and the weather was nice enough so I could eat my burger at my picnic table. Lunch with a view. 

The exploration for this area was a sawmill museum. The museum was so-so, 5 out of 10. But there was a unique and spooky display in the museum. There were four animated busts of the founders of the local timber dating back to the mid 1800's. Apparently, Clinton, Iowa was the hub of the timber industry back then. They were telling the story while their heads and lips moved. Kind of eerie, but interesting. Definitely a memorable moment.

This is the four talking heads. Very unique but weird.

 I thought I was going to strike gold with a Reuben Sandwich from a local deli, at least from the google reviews but it turned out to be only a 3 out of 10 sandwich. The search continues. Just for the record, the number one Reuben is from the Whistle Stop Cafe in Hinckley, Minnesota while the number two is from Sweet T's Diner in Freeport, Texas. All other locations don't have a ranking. I need to think about why I feel the need to rank museums and Reuben's. Besides an occasional woman, I don't rank anything else. Oh well, I guess it is just one more thing on my list to figure out. I'll start work on that as soon as I solve the time travel problem.

This is one of the other reasons I wanted to come here. It was to see this dam. It is a combination of roller gates and Tainter gates. To me, that is unusual. At my next campground I'll explore the worlds larger roller gate dam. 

Today is my 3rd and last day at this campground and it has been a nice one. Most of the time there has only been one other camper in this loop of the overall campground. It has been peaceful and quiet with one good sunset. It's been a while since I've seen a good sunset or sunrise so I soaked it up as best I could.

I liked this picture with the reflection in my door. Yeah, I planned that. :)

Same sunset. 
Night Ya'll

 Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be headed to another COE campground just south of Davenport. I have reservations for a riverboat tour around the Davenport/Moline/Rock Island area. I took that tour a few years ago but am looking forward to doing it again.

I'm still 887 miles from homebase and plan to be there around the 6th of September. 

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.