Tuesday,
August 2th – Monday, September 4th
Lithia
Springs Army Corps Campground, Lake Shelbyville, Illinois
Leaving Dubuque, we headed south through the back-road
highways until we reached the Illinois state line. At that point, we ended up taking interstates
heading southeast down to Lake Shelbyville. At one point we did continue on
back road highways through many agricultural areas. The small town of
Shelbyville is in south central Illinois and in a huge farming area. Just 7
miles from town is Lake Shelbyville Recreation Area, which is run by the Army
Corps of Engineers. The lake is huge with many campgrounds, resorts &
marinas available to so many locals and people traveling through the area.
Since we were arriving on a Tuesday after Labor Day weekend we were able to
find a great first-come first-serve campsite that has full hookups. So we
planned on staying a full week there.
We stopped at the very extensive Visitor Center for Lake
Shelbyville Army Corps. There were many displays explaining the local flora and
fauna, local wildlife, the history of the building of the dam and some history
of the town of Shelbyville. Very interesting to learn more about this
area.
Prior to arriving, we were aware of some mountain biking
trails that were on the lake side peninsulas and just north of the town of
Shelbyville. Before we went to the trails we were thinking, "How good could trails
be in a little local agricultural town?". We were quite surprised once we got on
the trails and found that they were very well designed, a lot of fun and not
too technical. We actually rode the trails on three different days and truly
enjoyed them. Just adjacent to the trails was a really nice city park called
Forest Park. There was plenty of parking and connector trails back to the
mountain bike trails. We were very impressed with such a nice city park for a
small town. It has a swimming pool, picnic areas, tennis courts, soccer fields,
baseball fields, an old Carousel Building that looked like it was being
renovated and a beautiful gardens area called the Sunken Gardens. There
were a lot of locals visiting and enjoying this park.
We also met some very nice local people. One of our RV
camping neighbors are from Shelbyville. Very nice people, just good country
people that love the area and love hanging out at the lake. We hope that
someday they'll come to Florida for a visit.
This campground was just such a nice place to chill out with fellow campers,
relax a little bit and have some fun with the mountain biking nearby. Every
time we stay at an Army Corps campground, we really enjoy the facilities and
the surrounding activities. We also enjoy the 50% Senior Discounts that we get for camping.
Next we will be heading south towards a campground in southwestern
Tennessee, on the Tennessee River.
No comments:
Post a Comment