Road Trip to Calhoun County Illinois

Sunday my husband and I went on a road trip to Calhoun County, Illinois.  It was about a 5 hour drive down toward St. Louis, Missouri.  I had heard about this area and thought what a fun thing to do in the fall. I had a book showing 62 barn quilts.  This county is 5 miles wide and 34 miles long. It is a peninsula between the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.  The population of this county is only 5000.

This barn was # 36 located in Mozier.  The pattern is called Goosetracks. The catalog I have is wonderful.  It gave information of the quilt pattern used, if there is or was a quilter in the family, how old the barn is and gave directions of how to find the barn.

This pattern is called Nossegays, and is in Hamburg. It is actually on the side of a garage. The owner Rita Knight is a quilter.

Drunkards Path, is in Harden The family that ownes this owns several Centennial farms inyt DeGerlia Hollow were this barn is located.

This is one of the lift bridges that cross the Illinois River.  They do lift it straight up in the middle to allow the tugboats under depending on ythe height of the river.

This one is called Triangle Magic and is in Hardin.  The log struction was used as a corn crib and was built around 1920.

Lonestar of Texas quilt is located in Hamburg. This barn is on the Hurley property, and is an orchard for Apples, peaches, plums and pears.  The orginal quilt was family owned with fabric purchased in Alton, and was pieced together for $20.00 by a woman in Kentucky.

View looking toward the Illinois River from the top of one of the hills.

Wild asters were in bloom along the roadside.

We took one of the ferry's across the Illinois River. It is big enough to hold 15 cars, runs 24/7 and only takes about 10 minutes.

On Tuesday morning as we left Jacksonville, we saw the Eli Bridge Company that is home of the Ferris Wheel.

"Ma's Got a Notion" was a wonderful quilt shop in Havana on our way home.

A Heron that was kind enough to pose for me at the Emiquon Nature Perserve just North of Havana.  We even saw the white pelicans, but were not near enough to get any good pictures.

Our last stop was at the Tanner Orchard in Speer.  Could not resist taking a picture of the gorgeous mums in bloom.

The trip was three days of great weather, sunshine and blue skies,and  60 degrees.  We did hit a bit of rain just before we arrived home.  It was a fun road trip.  You never know what you will find along the way.