Today wasn't a very sunny day; the damp clothes and the sheets I had put on my clothesline were still damp,but it was time to move on. I ran into the campground volunteer host and asked him if he knew anything about a laundromat in the area. He had a general idea where I could find one in the nearby town. When I got close, I still didn't see a laundromat, but there was a dry cleaning store, so I stopped in there to see if they knew where I could find the laundromat. A very nice Chinese lady came outside and pointed out where I needed to go. I eventually found the place and threw my clothes and sheets into a dryer. There was a computer in the store, and I headed over to it, but along the way I got into a conversation with the lady who was running the place. She ended up showing me pictures on the internet of her daughter's recent wedding; it was her daughter's first marriage but she had two children. The man she was with originally was apparently into drugs, but her new husband is a law officer, so the laundromat lady seemed quite happy with him. We also talked some about her autistic grandchild, always a sad story, but apparently he is at least in a good school program.
After I finished at the laundromat, I had breakfast a couple blocks away at Peggy Sue's Diner.
While I was there, a man came in with a huge bag of gumballs for the gumball machine. A grandfatherly type was at one of the booths with his granddaughter who was about Miriam's age, and when the little girl saw that huge bag of gumballs, her eyes opened as big as the proverbial saucers; it would have made a perfect cover picture for the old Saturday Evening Post! The man ended up giving a her a couple gumballs - how could he resist?
Later in the day, I stopped in Rockport, Ill. and found my way to the library, where I hoped to do some catching up on my blog. I found the place without too much trouble - I've gotten very good about stopping people on the street to ask directions. Even though it's not really a man thing, I don't even feel bad about it any more. That was the good news. The bad news was that the library is always closed on Thursdays.
To console myself I stopped in at a bar and restaurant to get a piece of pie and a cup of coffee.
The waitress said they did have pie, but that they also had flan which she highly recommended. I figured I could get pie almost anywhere, but a piece of flan in the middle of Illinois seemed pretty special, so I placed my order. It was a good sized piece of something that did not seem all custardy like a flan, but more halfway between custard and a piece of cake. It cost me six dollars, but it was delicious.
I spent the night camped at El-Aqua-Na State Park.
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