Passing through Paris

 

Continuing past Taylorville, I drove through several small towns.  Some of the homes in these towns were just dreamy!

Just my assumption that I drove through Assumption!

 I was getting pretty hungry.  I still had some leftover supper from that Italian place in Pittsfield in my cooler so I looked for a park with a picnic table.

I saw a sign for Wolf  Creek State Park and I thought I'd have some luck there.

 I didn't see any picnic tables.  This was just sort of a lonely spot.  No other people around.  And hopefully not any wolves, as the name might have suggested.

There was an outhouse.  I've used worse.

When you gotta go, you gotta go!

My bum was getting pretty tired of sitting so I decided I would just eat standing up! 

 A flicker came to serenade me.

Lake Shelbyville.  Such a nice stop!

  I'm telling you, if you aren't in a hurry, taking country roads is the way to go!

I turned around to take a picture of this long-horn but by the time I got back to his fenced in pen, he had turned around.  When I first passed him, he was looking right at me passing by.  There was a car behind me, otherwise I would have stopped in the road to take the picture in the first place.  There were a few missed photo shots.  Sad.  If I had time, I would have pulled off the road and walked over to wait for a shot.

 My GPS made me take another wrong turn.  Driving through a corn field!  Clearly, we need to update the Tom-tom!  But it was rather humorous!

 Back to the right road.

 When I got to Charleston, it cracked me up that on the left side of the road, there was a cemetery.  On the right side was a place that sold headstones for the grave sights.  Hmmm.

I gave myself permission to stop one time on this trip for my favorite -

a chocolate dip cone at Dairy Queen!

This was a pretty town!

Charleston is home to Eastern Illinois University and has a population of close to 22,000.

 I got a call from Jill.  "You do know that there is a time change in Indiana, don't you?"  Oh.  I needed to meet her in Indianapolis by 6 at the latest and I was sort of dilly dallying around on this road trip.  I needed to hustle!

I drove through Kansas!

Population around 850. 

 And then I zipped through Paris! 

 I admit I was a little bit nervous about driving through Indianapolis.  I don't like city driving - AT ALL!  I prayed and asked the Lord to help me and God really calmed my soul.  I was so thankful for my GPS that got me through the rush hour traffic and to the hotel just in time to give the valet my car keys and head up to the room!