I spent most of the morning repacking all my gear and catching up on news from home via the internet. After all the driving I had done until yesterday it was good to be able to catch up on some things and relax a bit.
Had some breakfast and then set off for Janesville which is my destination for today. I had one stop to make on the way though. I travelled to the town of Elgin to go to the Grand Victoria Casino. It is another riverboat casino built on the bank of the river that flows through town. I went and joined up for their players club and received a t-shirt with the casino logo etc, on it. The only game available to get a seat at was a Caribbean Stud poker so I sat and joined in the game. I only sat for 6 hands and walked away with 3x the money I started with. It was the best quick turnaround of the trip so far.
After leaving there I headed for Janesville. I have some friends from the can collecting club there, Gregg and Barbara Bozac. I met Gregg and Barb at the first Canvention I attended in Orlando. They wanted to know a bit about Australia as they were travelling over for a wedding in of their nephew later in the year in Gosford.
We spoke quite a bit and I gave them my card and said if they had any free time to contact me and I would meet them and show them around. Gregg rang me when they arrived but they had a full schedule until the day before they flew back to the USA. I arranged to visit them on that day.
I drove up to Gosford and took them up to Newcastle to see Adam & Shirley Murphy. they had also met Adam in Orlando. We had some lunch and showed them round Newcastle for the day.
In the years since I had met Gregg & Barb at all the US shows I attended and they have always said for me to visit if I come their way. Well that is Today.
They live about 2 hours from Chicago in a beautiful home. Their home is set right back from the road and surrounded by lovely setting of grassland, trees and colourful garden plantings. Barbara also has a large vegetable garden which provides them with plenty of different vegetables which she cooks or preserves as required.
It was hard for me to believe that in winter they can get deep snow falls and get snowed into the house occasionally and need to get help getting their car out to the roadway. I was shown to my room which is in the basement of the house with a lounge area, the area also has the laundry, the boiler room and a room that houses Gregg’s beer can collection. He only keeps steel cans, so therefore none of the cans he collects are current.
Gregg and Barbara are season ticket holders for the local baseball team the Beloit Snappers, which are a minor league team in the Mid Western Division; they are affiliated with the Minnesota Twins. Tonight is a Ticket Holders support night where they have asked me to join them for a free meal and drinks with other ticket holders from the club.
It was an early dinner and afterwards we went to the large liquor store in town and looked at the huge selection of beers that were for sale. I grabbed a six pack to take to the Canvention with me, I am sure someone will like to taste the local brew. We then drove around the town looking at all the older buildings and timber homes as well as the larger stone buildings in the business area. It is quite a large town of around 60,000 people.
We then went back to their home and had desert, one of Barbara’s home-made peach pie, it tasted wonderful with a bit of ice cream. Afterwards we watched the end of a baseball game on the television and chatted about their trip to Australia and that Greg and Barbara hope to come back again for a visit.
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