Fall Colors Tour

By Ron Steck • Photos By Gary Osborne

This year’s fall colors tour started out with a cloudy and misty October 15 morning. We pursued on with our driving. By the time we were out by De Kalb the mist had cleared. Our first stop was at what used to be a old gas station, but was no longer. Last year it was hit by a tornado and completely destroyed. They rebuilt and it now is a modern restaurant, one that would be a nice drive out to.

We continued on our tour towards Rockford and picked up a couple of stragglers along the way. Once we were in Rockford we drove on Rt. 20 a couple of miles and got off at Rt. 2 and headed south along the Rock River. Most of the group had never been on this road and were very surprised at how nice it was with the winding road. We made our way through Oregon and proceeded to White Pines State Park. We all made it safely there and had a short wait for our room where we had a good lunch.

After lunch we took a drive through the park and there are a couple of dams that you drive over and through the water. After that we all headed our separate ways to go home. All in all I think that we all had a good time. The group included Tom and Madeleine O'Donnell and their daughter, Joe Novak and Milly Olds, Gary Osborne, Stan and JoAnne Stack, Ron and Colleen Steck, John and Barb Slobodnik, John and Este Scheve, Ron and Arlene Blum, George and Dawn Zulas. Tom Buscaglia gave us a send off at the start as Judy was not able to make it.  “Would have been nice if he had brought coffee and doughnuts 🍩 for the rest of us.”  All in all it was a great day and look forward to doing it again next year.