Tonight I find myself at a beautiful Harvest Host vineyard just off I-74, maybe twenty miles west of the Indiana border, in a bucolic middle-America hamlet called Oakwood, Illinois. Sleepy Creek Vineyards seems to be well-established, with extensive vineyards, a retail store and a fairly large “function” building (for weddings and events) as well.

The retail store offers a wide selection of wines and wine-oriented merchandise. There was also a small stage area, but two folky-looking singers with a guitar were setting up there as I made my purchases, so I took a couple of quick photos and beat a hasty retreat.

There is a lovely pond at the front of the retail store, bordered by a lawn with lots of picnic-type seating.

They have a large parking lot behind the function center, where I am one of three RVs parked here for the night, along with a truck camper and a mid-sized trailer (the Little Guy, by contrast, is a small camper, albeit large for a teardrop-style trailer). The occupants seem nice enough and appear to be two couples traveling together, as they both arrived at the same time.

You can see the vineyard stretching away in the background of these photos, in front of the Little Guy.

Some hyper-zealous patriots are shooting off firecrackers as I write, despite the light showers, the fact that the sun hasn’t even set, and there are still two days remaining until Independence Day. Tonight I decided to see if I could cook a frozen chicken pot pie in the microwave (despite the packaging clearly recommending using an oven, which I did not bring), so I hooked the RV electrical cord to the generator and fired it up. The generator (a 2200-watt Yamaha) ran the microwave for about two minutes and then quit; after several attempts at a re-start, I decided to add gasoline to it despite the fact that the gauge looked full. Sure enough, what I thought was full was actually denoting empty, and the gauge quickly began to move. So I added a bit more gas and it started right up, resulting in a passingly adequate (if not superlative) supper.

Tomorrow, the plan is to ride I-74 through Indianapolis and on to Cincinnati and Leslie’s house. I will depart from there on July 5 and update the blog from my next stop.