Woodbine

There isn't a lot to say about Woodbine, Illinois. Its a township (not even a town) of about 75 people, located in the upper left hand corner of Illinois, most of it along the highway. Daddy's family emigrated to Woodbine in the late 1800s or early 1900s. Aunt Susan and Uncle Quentin live in the house where Daddy's grandfather was born. It's a fairly unremarkable house for the area. It's right on the side of the highway. The entire place shakes when the big trucks go by...all the time. As a native Californian, I admit I woke up a few times wondering if there was an earthquake.

Fortunately, the weather really did take a turn for the better. The rain had stopped by morning. And that's a good thing because this is what you do in Woodbine...And when you get board of swinging and chatting in the shade, you can always throw rocks or ride a tricycle very far from the street...which is the highway, after all.Mornings in Woodbine are pretty relaxed and go by slowly. I've clearly been living in Silicon Valley too long. I'm too stressed out to slow down that quickly. I'm itching to get out and do something. And lately, that means letterboxing, but I'll put all that in its own post a little later. Suffice to say the pace of Woodbine is particularly conducive to sitting around carving things.

After lunch we headed to Elizabeth, the town next door, to check out the Apple River Fort. It's not much of a tourist attraction. We were the only people there, but there were still a couple of girls in period dress to tell us a little about the place.
After our trip to the fort, we drove over to Stockton, the other town next door, and visited a couple of parks. The kids are particularly enamored with "KidsTown", an awesome wooden play structure. There's nothing like it around here...probably because someone would sue over a splinter. We went to KidsTown a couple of years ago and the kids were happy to see it again. We had a hard time dragging them away to go home for dinner!