With over 400 miles to go before stopping for the evening, we dreaded the rough roads out of Michigan, unknown commuter traffic into Gary, Indiana, and Chicago, Illinois, from the west, and questions about our route connecting to I-57 in Illinois; however, we were more than ready to leave South Haven and head south towards home. The roads in Michigan once again proved to be the worst of our trip, but traffic was not too bad. Turning south, we drove through northern Indiana, west of South Bend, and found the roads to be acceptable, and traffic light. Finally crossing into Central Daylight Savings Time and Illinois, we found I-57 to be a pleasant drive despite occasional work. Kay read somewhere that Illinois had more traffic than any other state. We only stopped three times in the 8-hour trip, and made good time to Gun Creek Campground on Rend Lake, southeast of St. Louis.

Gun Creek Campground on Rend Lake was just west of I-57, and a pleasant surprise.  e had stayed at Rend Lake before and found it to be a typically great US Army Corps of Engineers facility. When planning a stop at Gun Creek, we were under the impression that all they had was 50A electricity, but found they have full hookups, including sewer, and after finding our I was retired from the US Army Corps of Engineers, the park attendant assigned us a site overlooking the lake; we couldn’t have chosen better! Set up was quick as we only plugged in, and leveled, since we would be using stored water in the RV.