Thursday, 24 August – Elgin, IL

OMG - we are up so early this morning, we will be at Georges (Champion Frame and Alignment) by 8am.  We leave the coach in his tender capable care and head off with the nice Enterprise man who has kindly come to collect us to take us to the office to pick up our rental car for today.  We got a Nee-Sahn, dark blue again!  So we have a look around Elgin.  First we find the Grand Victoria Casino which is an actual paddle boat, floating on the Fox River.  They used to have to actually leave shore to gamble here, great to supply a captive audience for a few hours at a time.

Grand Victoria Casino, Elgin IL

Then we let decadence have a hand and stop for brunch at Dunkin Donuts where we sample some of the munchkins - Donut Holes, so we got to taste three flavours - jelly, glazed and original.  But we shared so it wasn't too bad and they were only the holes!  Coffee was OK too.

The huge Spring Hill Shopping Mall is next, where I while a happy hour or three shopping and Kim contemplates going to the movies.  The one he wants to see is not on until 1.30pm so he finds a comfortable chair, buys and paper and a magazine and tries to keep his eyes open.  Eventually I take pity on him, bribe him with a yummy Cinnabon which means I am in credit so we are off to find the closest Ross Dress for Less store.  These are great shops, they sell branded clothes as well as junk so you have to pick your way through it all, so there goes another 'happy for me' hour.

George phones and says the coach is all ready to go so we head back there to settle the account, then take the rental car back and head back to our home away from home for the last three nights, Paul Wolff Campground, just 5 miles away.  We pick a site which get the evening and morning sun this time and settle in for the night.  Get some nice sunset photos from here.

From Site 60 at Paul Wolff Camground, IL

The coach handles so much better with the new bushings… but there is a story!  First  Monaco sent the wrong bushings (credit to follow), they didn’t match the one taken off.  The ones George found in his ‘box of bits’ matched the one taken off,  but…  that’s the wrong one anyway, they need to be double the width, like the other side.  So to cut the story short, the least worn correct size bushing is left in place, but reinserted, and two narrower ones are fitted on the bad side to make the right width.  Follow??

After all the rubbish we have eaten today, the plan is for a healthy dinner.   We found more of the Flat Iron steak which is really delish and we have that with salad.  Some left over for tomorrow – yum!