May 9th-11th, 2022 - Carri-Yals May 2022 Campout

For about fifteen years Kelly and I have been members of the Illinois Carri-Yals Chapter of the Carriage RV Travel Club. This is a group of Missouri and Illinois campers who get together for four-day, weekday campouts each summer at various places around Missouri and Illinois. We all take turns hosting and May 2022 was our turn to host once again. This year we chose Fort Kaskaskia State Historic Site campground on the Illinois river bluff just South of Ellis Grove, Illinois. We chose this campground because of the view and because there was a pavilion we could use for free in case of rain. The campground has electric to each site, water spigots at various locations, and a dump station for sewage when you leave. The dump station is old and really poorly laid out for larger rigs like ours. I conveyed this fact to our members, telling them that we may not be able to get our large rigs into the area to dump, and thus they may have to go somewhere else to dump. This, coupled with the fact that water wasn't available on each site, scared off a number of members. We ended up with seven people coming so we made plans for tours, etc. throughout the week.

Kelly and I arrived on Sunday, a day early, to get set up. We found the campground to be in a terrible condition and virtually no one there. Here are a couple of pictures.

We had a campfire Sunday night because it was quite pleasant out and we enjoyed the solitude. 

The Fort Kaskaskia Historic Site is where a fort was built in the 1700s on the bluff of the Mississippi for strategic military purposes and to protect the Village of Kaskaskia below, which was located on the Kaskaskia River. Here is a picture of what the area looked like in the 1700s.

The fort is high on the bluff overlooking the Kaskaskia River and the Mississippi River. The fort was an earthen fort, most of which is gone today. In 1811 the New Madrid Earthquake caused the Mississippi to run backwards in this area. When it did the Mississippi River changed course and cut a channel where the Kaskaskia River had been. The Village of Kaskaskia then became an island on the Missouri side of the river. Here is a picture. The red arrow shows the course of the Mississippi River today.

Because of the regular flooding of the Village of Kaskaskia over the years it was decided in 1881 to move all the bodies from three cemeteries on the island to high ground on the fort property. It is known as Garrison Cemetery. They moved 3,800 graves to this new cemetery. This had to be a monumental project back then when everything was hand dug and caskets were not in concrete vaults. Here are a couple of pictures of the cemetery today. Clearly most grave sites have no head stones. Hopefully a new ranger will mow the grass in respect of the dead.

Monday morning the other two rigs that had been in the park pulled out. We were all by ourselves. By saying the campground was in poor condition I mean that the grass had not been cut for quite a while, tree branches were laying around, the roads were not cleaned off of pine needles and sweet gum balls, etc. A fellow drove by and said the reason the park was in such poor condition was that the Ranger retired and they hadn't hired anyone yet to replace him. If I had known this I would have brought my push mower to mow our site. When we scoped out the place last summer for a campout site it was all well cared for.

Celina arrived in the early afternoon. Club member Jim called to say that his truck was still in the shop getting a warranty repair. He hoped to have it back Tuesday morning so they could attend. Their rig was packed and ready to go. When Pam and Lawrence, who are farmers, didn't arrive by early Monday evening we called. Pam told Celina that they were not coming and had cancelled two weeks ago because their planting season had been delayed. She said they sent me an email two weeks ago that they were cancelling, but I never got it. 

Tuesday morning the three of us carried on. We had a tour scheduled of the Faherty House in Perryville. It is the oldest house in Perryville dating back to the early 1800s. Kelly and I have lived in this town for forty-five years and never toured the house. Here is a picture. It is only two blocks from the town square.

The stone portion was the original house, which had a kitchen in the basement and a bedroom above. You had to go outside in the back to get from one room to the other. I don't think that would be a lot of fun in the winter plus there was no fireplace upstairs. The only heat in the bedroom was what rose up through the floor.

Here are a couple of pictures of the basement kitchen-family room.

There is now a sump pump and dehumidifier in the basement kitchen to deal with all the water intrusion through the stone foundation.

The brick portion of the house, which was added on later, consists of a living room and a bedroom. Members of the Faherty family occupied this house until 1971 when the Historical Society bought it. Over the years a kitchen and bathroom had been added on the back of the house. This portion has since been torn off to put the house back close to its original condition. Here are some pictures of the living room. It had a large piano, which was quite a luxury in those days. The family was quite musically inclined.

The added bedroom and living room had fireplaces, the original bedroom did not.

Interestingly each room had a door to the outside at the rear. I guess for quick access to the outhouse as needed.

By our standards today this is a very modest home on a small, town lot. But it was quite the home back then. The early Fahretys had slaves who lived in a slave quarters in the back of the lot. When the property was purchased the slave quarters was just a pile of stones and it has been rebuilt. Here is a picture.

After the tour of the Fahrety House we went to the Perry County Military Museum and were given a tour by John Rauh, a good friend of mine. His wife is the curator and John is the head docent and handyman. He did a great job pointing out many of the unique artifacts and military memorabilia from local veterans, including himself. Kelly and I have been to the museum several times but each time I learn new things.

We then had lunch at Ewald's BBQ to give Celina a true Perryville experience. The place hasn't changed in 70 years. (Except the prices). As usual it was busy at lunch time. After lunch we had scheduled a tour of the Missouri National Veterans Memorial, which includes a complete duplicate of the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. I had to call and cancel the tour because Kelly began feeling very ill. We drove to the hospital in Ste. Genevieve where her heart doctor practices. She was admitted to the ER and after about an hour the doctor said her blood work showed that her potassium level was extremely low. They gave her some potassium pills and started her on a four-hour IV drip. Celina and I drove back to the campground and whipped up a little supper. We then drove back to the hospital. Kelly was released feeling much better and with orders to see her heart doctor next week.

Monday evening Jim had messaged me that his truck wasn't ready but hopefully by Tuesday morning he would have it and they could come down. Tuesday his truck was finally ready but when he went to pick it up the A/C didn't work so he took it back. Their camping with us was cancelled. We did talk them in to driving down for the day and visit on Wednesday. 

Wednesday began with a drive to the Chester Visitor Center on the Mississippi River and a picture with Popeye. Here is the picture of the group.

We drove around the area along the river and then went to lunch at Reid's Harvest House, a Chester restaurant well known in the area for its large smorgasbord.  It did not disappoint. We then headed back to the campsite and visited until about three when Jim and Bev headed home. Wednesday it turned really hot with a record temperature in St. Louis of 92 degrees and 60% humidity. We had a heat index of 100 degrees because there wasn't a breeze anywhere. It was way too hot for a campfire so the three of us went inside in the air-conditioning and played "Pegs and Jokers" after supper. We then decided that with the heat continuing the next day to just leave a day early.

Thursday morning Celina headed home about 8:00 a.m. and we headed home about 9:00 a.m.  In studying the dump station layout the day before I saw where somebody had pulled in, dumped, backed up, and then pulled out across the grass rather than staying on the road to get out. I decided to try this. I pulled in and began to dump. To top off the "curse" of this campout, when I inserted the sewage hose and opened my valve, the sewage backed up on to the ground around me. I quickly shut the valve. Slowly the sewage went down so I continued to let out a little at a time. Their septic system apparently was filled up from no one being on the job to take care of it. A fitting end for this trip! I was able to back up and get out of the dump station area with no problem and we headed home.  Hopefully a better campout in June in Northern Missouri. LOL