Forty-Three Years And Counting     09/09/21

Hollywood Casino Hotel and Campground, Joliet, Illinois

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. ~ Ephesians 5:33

Today, we celebrated 43 years of wedded bliss!  That’s a long time nowadays.  And we actually met when we were five years old!  We started dating when we were 16, broke up for a few months, got back together and we’ve been together ever since.  How God has blessed us!

My grandmother, aunt and Mom made my dress and veil.
Blaine’s Mom made the flowers.

We didn’t do anything particularly exciting this year.  Not like the year we took a scenic plane ride, or drove a dune buggy on huge sand dunes, or spent time in Canada, or . . . .

Today we did a few miles through the woods at a Park near Joliet . . .

Well that’s certainly not a good sign!
We think there was some kind of a walk or bike thing recently – maybe even this morning.
I had a feeling this wouldn’t turn out well.
That brown leaf was actually just hanging mid-air over the trail,
suspended by a silk thread that you couldn’t see unless you got up close.
It was very cool looking!
How often do you see a police officer riding a bike on a hiking trail?
We’re pretty certain he was patrolling.
Tends to make visitors wonder . . .
The signage was non-existent here, so we took to following the officer’s bike tread. : )
Someone was artistic!
We weren’t expecting to come across this.
We love bats!
Can you believe that little box can hold up to 1,600 of them?
There weren’t any there today. : (
These were all over the ground.
According to Blaine’s app, it’s a Burr Oak acorn – the largest nut of the oak family.

. . . . and then drove into the historic section of the town of Joliet and walked around.  They have some spectacular buildings here!  Most seemed to be from the early 1900s.

Quick! Who are these guys?
We recognized their outlines immediately!
How many people can you say that about?
For those of you who don’t know (maybe you’re too young),
that’s Groucho and Harpo Marx aka The Marx Brothers – or at least a couple of them.
There were actually five. They were born in New York between 1887 and 1901.
Adolph (Harpo), 1893; Milton (Gummo), 1894; Julius (Groucho), 1895; and Herbert (Zeppo), 1901.
What an incredible theater! The building takes up an entire block, and now houses things like a bank, and an art school, besides being a part-time movie theater. We were wishing we could see the inside, but it was locked up.
Rialto Theater Joliet, Illinois - Picture of Rialto Square Theatre, Joliet  - Tripadvisor
So I did the next best thing – I Googled it.
Built in 1926, it holds 1,966
For those of you near our hometown,
The Akron Civic Theater in Downtown Akron, Ohio was built in 1929 and holds 2,592
These buildings were on another corner!
There were quite a few like this!
Guess what this is??
The library! See the carved inscription over the door?
The statue is of Louis Joliet – a French Canadian explorer who paddled up the Des Moines River with a priest in 1673, and stopped a few miles away and made camp for a bit.
We don’t know what this church was, it’s obviously not used anymore. : (
The infamous Rt 66 goes through Joliet.

Then we went home, cleaned up and went to dinner at Syl’s in a town called Rockdale that’s only about 1 ½ miles from the campground.  We both ordered steaks – especially because on Thursdays, you get free shrimp!  Blaine’s prime rib was delicious and ginormous and he ate almost all of it!  As well as the baked potato!  And he shared a piece of Key Lime pie with me for dessert!  It was like being on a cruise ship! 😊

I ordered a ribeye.  It was just about as tough as the ones you buy in the grocery store.  Not to mention, they’d cut away that good, soft part that makes a ribeye so good.  It was a lot of meat, so I saved my beans and carrots and took them home for dinner the next day.  Our server was wonderful and sweet, and the décor was nice too.  I know I should’ve had them try a different cut of meat, but then Blaine has to sit and wait while they make it, so I just toughed it out (pun intended 😊)  At least it had good flavor.  And we couldn’t have asked for better company!  ♥

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