Friday, September 18, 2020 - Goodbye to our Camping Buddies; Travel Day to Vandalia, IL; Dinner Pickup - Too Tired to Cook

Friday, September 18, 2020 -  Goodbye to our Camping Buddies; Travel Day to Vandalia, IL; Dinner Pickup - Too Tired to Cook 

I was up early to work on a couple of blog posts before we left this morning.  I finished one but ran out of time on the second one.  I had to stop to make us breakfast (shakes for the first time since we arrived), lunch for the road and get things put away for our trip today.  Last night Dean said he wanted to leave by 8.  I told him I didn't think we'd get out of here before 8:30.

After drinking his shake, he headed outside.  Once the lunch was packed I did the dishes, before starting to pack things up inside.  I've tried to simplify what we need to pack, and where items are stored, as much as I can.  It seems to go pretty quick once I get started.

I only had a couple of things left to do when there was a knock at the door.  It was Linda and Drena stopping to say goodbye.  I had them step inside as it was cool this morning.  We visited for a few minutes, and had our virtual hugs, before they left.  I quickly finished up - checking with Dean to make sure it was okay to put the slides in.  With that done, I headed to the truck with our lunch cooler, my logbook/computer bag, my purse and a large cup of ice water.  

Alvin and Keith were visiting with Dean (because again, he was waiting on a woman).  We all said our goodbyes.  To help Dean out I have started backing the truck up to the hitch, extending the mirrors that allow him to have a better view of the RV as he is driving, and getting the TireMinder out and turned on.  My next task it to get the current miles recorded in my log book so we will know how many miles we traveled in the truck this trip, plus it allows me to log how many miles we pulled the RV from one site to the next.  I keep a running total of how many miles we pull the rig each a year.  I also record the time we leave our site and when we arrive, as well as the temperature and weather, the location and address of our next stop, the campground phone number, the site we are in (sometimes I know where the site is before we arrive, but usually we don't know until after checking in at the park office), as well as the rate we pay, what type of discount card we use (Passport America - 50% off; America the Beautiful Senior Pass used at National Parks, Monuments, and Corps of Engineer Parks (50% off); Escapees (discount varies by park); and Good Sam's (typically 10% off).  They have all been worth having and we use one at most of our stops.  I also have an INFO section on each page in the log book - if we meet someone I note their name/where they are from, sometimes travel info, places we stopped, notations about the campground, cell phone coverage, or whatever else seems important.

Dean double checking things before we pull out of the campground.

It was 8:32am when we pulled out of our site at The Pines Campground and began our travel day to Kaskaskia Dragon RV Park in Vandalia, IL - 374 miles down the road.  This will be the longest travel day we've ever pulled the RV.  It's not something we want to do at all, but to get some distance behind us, and since I could not find a campground around the St. Louis area we had to drive further into Illinois.  Most of the places I called before or after SL were full, the ones I didn't call were either too high priced, they were no longer open, or reviews kept me from calling. Drena had told me about Kaskaski RV Park on our first trip to Goshen.  I could not get a site as they were full.  Since it wasn't that much further from St. Louis, I called them to see if they had any openings and sure enough - they had one site available. 

We realized about two hours later, that we should have headed straight north from Monett to hit I-44 rather than take 60 to Republic.  We wasted a good 40+ minutes on Hwy 60.  That's quite a bit of extra time on the road on an already long travel day.

Plane outside of Cuba, MO - CUBA was written on the side of it.

As we passed through St. Louis on I-44/I-55 I had to get a picture of the Arch and the Mississippi River.  

The Arch in downtown St. Louis, MO

Mississippi River

Just a few minutes later I noticed smoke off to our left and could see traffic was backing up.  When we made the curve there was a small car sitting on the shoulder engulfed in flames.  It was very upsetting as to what was going on.  I was praying no one was in the vehicle.  After we thought about it a bit, we realized the vehicle did not seem to have been in a wreck, as there was nothing about the car that indicated it had been hit.  In addition, there did not seem to be any other vehicles indicating a wreck occurred.  Traffic was backed up quite a ways and the way the car was burning when we passed it I imagine it took a little while for the fire to be put out and it was able to be moved.  

It took us 7.5 hours to get to our next stop.  It was a very long day.  We were both exhausted by the time we arrived.  Dean backed Bentley into the site, we quickly set things up, then we walked across the street to the Hardware Store, who are also the owners of the RV Park.  We went to pick up tokens that we will use later and I hope we can share a picture of how we used them.

It was very windy when we arrived and the air was quite cool.  Our original plans were to grill hamburgers after we were set up, but we decided to put that off until Saturday night.  Between the wind and the very cool weather, it would have been miserable.  However, the wind did remind Dean we needed to try and find a Dollar Tree to get some scrpaer,choppers to use on the grill.  The guys told him to get 3 for each side of his grill to keep the wind from blowing the fire out.  Fortunately there was a Dollar Tree near our campground.  We bought 6 of them.  In addition he bought some Awesome that he's been looking for.

We always try to take a ride around each town we stop in to see interesting sights.  Here are a few we enjoyed enough to take pictures of:

Vandalia Railroad

Vandalia Nations Crossroads

Pioneer Woman Statue at the Vandalia Statehouse

I was taking the picture as we drove by and didn't get quite all of it.  It was a gorgeous, immaculate home.

We returned to the RV.  We decided we were both too tired to cook, so we ordered a pizza from Embers Woodfired Pizza.  We chose chicken, bacon, ranch with cheese.  We asked to have it made Embers Way, which included the addition of ham and sausage to the pizza.  It was very, very good.  

Our pizza

As we were leaving Bentley to pick up the pizza a truck pulled up and asked Dean if he was from Parsons, KS (he saw the Labette County tag on the truck).  Dean and I walked towards the truck and he told them no, we lived in Oswego.  The driver told us he fished for spoonbill at Chetopa and Miami, and he was from Garnett.  Dean's ears perked up.  He told the young man he was originally from Garnett.  What a small world.  In fact Eric's dad and Dean were in the same class in High School.  Unfortunately, he told Dean his dad had passed away a few years ago.  What are the chances of these two being in the same place at the same time?

By the time we were done eating we were both exhausted.  I could not stay awake, falling asleep in my chair at least an hour before Dean woke me to see if I was ready to go to bed.  I sure was!  Good night!