Moving day hasn’t quite settled into routine and wanting to arrive at Scott AFB before the visitor’s center closed and Sean was off work, it was once again a morning with an alarm clock. But we set it with enough time to take our time, aided by the relatively short 250 mile leg predominantly on interstate.
Wide, fairly empty highway – alternating between pot-holed falling apart, brand new smooth as ganache, and under construction – cut straight through the open farmland of southern Indiana and Illinois. It was a brilliantly sunny day. The air was hot at each rest area, filled with birdsong and buzzing insects and trucks whistling by on the highway. The land would roll up and away, or down and away, with a few old trees watching over a field or anchoring a much younger hedgerow.
From the road, we looked out of the massive windshield at similar terrain, fields with tractors and combines and corn and what looked like wheat and soy. And the miles slipped by, 10.3 of them per gallon.
Our arrival at Scott happened in stages. There was the “exit the highway onto a weird road that had a speed limit of 50, people driving 70, and a surface so terrible I didn’t want to go over 30 in the motorhome.” Then there was the access road with all of the sketchy joints you find just outside of all military bases (but not as sketchy as most places we’ve been), and then there was the welcome center and that gets its own paragraph.
The Dixon Welcome Center is a nice building, part highway rest area, part DMV, but with working A/C. The parking lot holds a lot of cars. I blocked off all but 1 entry to it with our home. Then a guy parked behind me with his motorhome and car. That sealed things up. We had to take a number inside but turns out they weren’t using that system so we were helped pretty quickly and after a bit of technical difficulty and lots of apologizing from the nice lady helping us, we were issued something that looked like the hall pass we needed when I was in high school and told to have a nice stay.
We successfully made our way out of the parking lot and to the gate, protected by a series of barricade/obstacles forcing a serpentine route back and forth across the road. Next up was the gate itself, imposing, I suppose, if you don’t already know it’s manned by extremely bored 19 year olds who can’t believe they fell for the advertising copy in the brochure and volunteered for a “security forces” job.
They looked at the “no escort required” passes and our driver’s licences and then waved us through. Welcome to Scott. Next stop, Fam Camp, a scenic few miles around the far end of the airfield, the golf course, the Illinois National Guard sublet, and an “exercise exercise exercise” field training area.
Fam Camp itself was great. Sunny fields, plenty of shady trees, and two big ponds. It was quiet, spacious, and friendly.
And as we were moving in, Sean showed up all cool on his motorcycle. Axel wasn’t the only one who ran over for a hug.
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| They were happy to see each other |
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| Scott Lake |
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| Looking back at our site from the gazebo |
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