52 Weeks....to the Real Me

Today I took Dad on a perimeter tour of the ENTIRE region.
We headed out on 57N where we saw a Semi flipped on its side, the highway was closed and traffic was backed up for miles. Luckily we were on the OTHER side of the highway. We then headed west on 36 where an insistent woman was on my tail, then passed me, then pulled over and tried to flag me down, then was on my tail again. I finally pulled onto a side street to see what she wanted -- but she kept going. We saw her about 1/2 mile down the road talking to someone else on the side of the road. She looked like she may have been lost... but then WHY flag down a car with OHIO plates? How could we possibly help? So we ventured on to Decatur.

Decatur - this was a spur of the morning trip decision. I looked at their website- they have a zoo, a children's museum, some nice apartments, so it seemed reasonable. Perhaps we came in the wrong side of town and didn't explore quite enough. We didn't see much, but we also didn't have much time. I'll give it potential, if I get to see the rest of it and it's nice. We did stop and a Burger King where I got an "Apartment Finder" that included just about all of the towns we visited! cool!

Next we traveled back to Champaign to visit Savoy, a small town just south of Champaign.

Savoy- This is my number one prospect I think. It is Champaign schools - a large district, but it has a suburb feel and many modern conveniences such as a Subway, Running Store, Movie Theater, RollerSkating Rink, etc. We drove through two apartment complexes. They were very nice, probably a little expensive, but I could easily call them home.

We drove back through Champaign and Urbana to check out Danville. On the way through we saw a really cool apartment building. You can check out their website, Burnham310.com. I bet they are very expensive, but I think I'd really like living there!

Danville- Danville looked great on the map and great on the website, but like so many other towns really rather diappointed in person. The schools weren't even that impressive (as some of the other towns') We drove around a little then headed out of town. (back to Paris) Danville was the home of Gene Hackman, Jerry and Dick Van Dyke, but I don't think it will be of mine.

On the way we passed through many small towns -- including Bloomfield -- I think it was less populated than ours! But we passed through Westville who claims to have had the first night football game back in 1928. It seemed like a very nice town, the schools looked great (from what I could see passing through on 150) It's small, but seemed quite nice.

I wanted to venture back to Paris to see if I could see all the other great things that were depicted on their website, no such luck. The downtown is virtually vacant, most of the homes were rundown -- the DQ was nice! We didn't stay long as we were being treated to a HOME-GROWN, HOME-COOKED meal in Oakland.

Oakland- Today we drove through town a little, checking out the schools, and the little town charm. They had the coolest/scariest water fountain and some really neat old buildings. We then headed to the farm to meet up with Melissa and her family and have dinner. Grandma, Tim's grandma, cooked Tim's favorite roast beef, some noodles, home grown corn on the cob, home grown green beans, home made apple sauce, and served home made banana cream pie for dessert. Yum! After dinner we went for a stroll around the farm and down the lane to the old cemetery. One guy was born in 1784!!! We had a great evening. We even got to see an OLD hanging glass fire extinguisher (you can see a similar one on ebay).

We have one more town to check out on our way back home.