An Adventure in Rockford

One of our letterboxing friends, Toni, invited us to visit her at Hoo Haven sometime when we were up towards the Rockford area.  We had the remainder of our Thanksgiving weekend open and the weather was great, so we contacted her to see if she would be able to show us around. 

From Hoo Haven's Website...
"Hoo” Haven is dedicated to rehabilitating and releasing, sick, injured and orphaned, North American Wildlife. And to educating individuals to the importance of the conservation of Mother Earth, to maintain the land, clean and beautiful for all.

It was a wonderful experience to see all that Hoo Haven does to help these animals!  The kids loved it (minus the smell in some areas!) and Toni did a wonderful job of educating us on things we never knew before!

We left Hoo Haven and headed into Rockford for lunch and letterboxing.  We found a box at this medical facility - the kids thought the short stop signs were funny.

We then headed further downtown Rockford to Sinnissippi Park & Gardens.  This is one of our favorite places to visit while in Rockford!  We were excited to find two letterboxes there as well as enjoy the view of the river for a bit.  Unfortunately, once we were there, we realized that our van was not going to cooperate with us.  Between letterboxes, our van was very sluggish and not shifting correctly.  As soon as we realized something wasn't right, the dashboard lit up with error messages! 

After a few calls to the dealership (and our friend trying to track down a van to rent on Thanksgiving weekend...after 3:00 in the afternoon), he decided the best way to get us home was to send a tow truck from the quad cities with a loaner van to swap out with our van.  We were very grateful for his generosity...but quickly realized that we had 3 hours to "waste" at this park before our loaner would be there.  We got out and walked the path a ways, took a couple of trips to the bathrooms (luckily they were nice, year round bathrooms!) and got to witness the most beautiful sunset - right there on the river!  We knew that none of these things were by accident.  We knew that God was watching over us in our time of need.

Other letterboxing friends, Russ & Chris, came to our rescue with pizza and pop.  They stuck around and chatted with us for almost an hour.  The kids were extremely bummed as we were supposed to spend the remainder of our time in Rockford with Chris & Russ - seeing their horses!  We will have to head back another time.

The kids watched a movie while we waited...and then finally, we got a call from the towtruck driver!  He was almost there!  He switched us out and we were on the road within 30 minutes and heading home. 

We looked back on our day as we drove home.  We are truly blessed by friends!  Without our friends in Rockford, our day would turned out completely different.  We are also so thankful for our friend at the dealership...he went above and beyond...and we are forever thankful!