Monthly Archive

When last heard from, your intrepid travelers were poised to set off from Iowa to head west into South Dakota. We actually got an early start (for us) and headed down the road. Then the leveler alarm went off saying that our jacks were down. This is, to us, a known false alarm that in the past was warning us that the hydraulic fluid was low. And by low, I mean like a millimeter. It went off four times in 4 miles. Now, a false alarm is a bad thing in that a) it gets my adrenalin flowing and b) if we start ignoring alarms, it will be real one time. Not good. This issue was one of the repairs we had taken care of last week, so we were a bit perturbed. Back to Winnebago we went.

Winnebago was great. They took us right in and worked on the problem. Four and a half hours later we had a new hydraulic sensor and were heading down the road for real. Great.

The plan was to head about halfway across South Dakota, stop for one night, and then finish the run the next day into the Badlands for a couple of nights. We made it to our planned stop very late due to the delay, set up, ate dinner, and checked the forecast for the next day. Which was not good. Sustained winds of 25 mph, gusts to 40/50 mph, strong rain. Discretion being the better part of valor, we extended our stay, cancelled the Badlands, and hunkered down to let the weather blow through. This proved to be the right decision since the next day was like riding out a tropical storm in an RV. More good times, but these things are to be expected, hence our motto: “Adapt and Overcome”.

The day after the storm, we took a field trip to Mitchell, SD, home of the “World Famous Corn Palace”, which was pretty much as advertised. It’s a nice venue in a small South Dakota town with huge murals, inside and out, made of split ears of corn in various colors. Strange, but interesting. We enjoyed it.

Finally, the next day, we headed to Custer, SD, for an extended stay in the region. Check out the photos below for what we found upon our arrival.

Sometimes it feels like nothing’s easy.

The Corn Palace. All of the murals are made of ears of corn. Mitchell, South Dakota, 5/19/19

The Corn Palace. 5/19/19

The Corn Palace. 5/19/19

Some appropriate artwork we found inside the Corn Palace. Mitchell, South Dakota, 5/19/19

Our arrival in Custer. We’re from Florida. Sheesh. Custer, SD 5/23/19

We arrived at our first appointed destination, Winnebago in Forest City, Iowa, parked the RV on Sunday night and checked into the hotel in Forest City that allows pets. Winnebago has a great policy of pulling your RV into the service bay each morning and then pulling it out each evening so you can sleep aboard, but we did not take advantage of it. We felt that putting a cat into a carrier for 8 hours a day, 3 or 4 days in a row, would drive us, Nora, and all those around us crazy in no time. So the Super 8 it was for 4 planned days.

Shortly after we got to the room, I asked Patti if she knew where Nora was. We couldn’t find her. In a hotel room. A small hotel room. After a not insignificant search we located her in one of the box springs. She had crawled up into it through a rip in the liner. She eventually came out bearing a face full of dust. Good times.

We dropped Sybil on Monday morning with our long list of fixes. And we were now on our own in the thriving metropolis that is Forest City. Then we got a phone call that sort of changed our plans. Patti had a family emergency in Baltimore. Tuesday we decided that she should fly out there and we made the arrangements. (Side note: we had previously discussed this contingency and what we would do, so we had already done some planning in our minds. The fact that we were only two hours from a major airport helped, but we discovered the joys of buying a last minute ticket. Now there’s an unexpected expense for ya). Wednesday I drove Patti to the airport in the Twin Cities and then it was just me and Nora. In a hotel room. More good times.

Thursday I picked up the coach, which had actually been ready Wednesday but Winnebago graciously allowed me to leave it with them (plugged in, no less!) while I did the airport run. The plan was to hunker down at a Forest City Park right next to the Winnebago River until Patti returned, but a flash flood warning killed that idea. It worked out for the best, however, since I found a gorgeous site at Pilot Knob State Park just outside of town. I moved the RV, retrieved Nora from the hotel, and spent 4 nights there. It rained much less than forecast so I was able to take several nice walks. I also drove a few miles and checked out the Buddy Holly Crash Site where the plane containing him, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens crashed on “The Night The Music Died”. Youngsters: ask your parents. It was a nice walk and kind of interesting. These weird, off the beaten path things are our bread and butter.

Sunday rolled around and I repeated the round trip run to Minneapolis-St. Paul to retrieve Patti. The next morning we rose early, did our travel day preps, and hit the road for the long but easy drive to the middle of nowhere South Dakota.

Yeah, that didn’t happen as planned.

Our nice, lonely spot at Pilot Knob, 5/16/19

The tower at the second highest spot in Iowa, Pilot Knob SP 5/15/19

The trailhead to the site of the Buddy Holly/Big Bopper/Ritchie Valens plane crash. The day the music died. 5/17/19

The “view” from the trailhead. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) 5/17/19

The memorial, 5/17/19

The young pilot was added almost as an afterthought. 5/17/19

Goose and goslings. There were geese everywhere. 5/18/19

Well, it’s been an interesting 10 days or so. Our next stop was another nice Corps of Engineers Park at Redman Creek, Mo. Nice sites, if a bit uneven, but if you’re not a fisherman, there’s not much to do. I’m not a fisherman, but that’s okay since it rained for much of the time there. Laundry, trips to the big city (Poplar Bluff, MO) and catching up on reading were our days. It was nice. We even extended our stay by a day in order to avoid driving through thunderstorms. Better safe than sorry.

Then it was on to the true big city, St. Louis. We stayed at an RV park in Illinois that was very close to town (15 minutes to the Arch), but was also very wet. There had been so much rain/snow in the mid-west that the Mississippi River was in flood conditions from St. Louis to way up in Iowa and you could tell at our site. Water was over my shoes whenever I tried to get into our storage or work on our electrical/water. Good times. We did, however, have a good time in St. Louis. It seems to be a great mid-sized city with lots of interesting neighborhoods and cool things to do. We were only there for four nights and barely scratched the surface. We did the main touristy thing of walking about the Arch, but we also tried unsuccessfully to get into the free St. Louis Zoo (no parking), went to the City Museum, and visited the Cahokia Mounds. While at the mounds, I spotted a couple of archeology students on a dig. I spoke with them for a few minutes. Very interesting.

We can strongly recommend the City Museum for children of all ages. It is more of an experience than a museum. I mean, they suggest that you bring knee pads and a flashlight. Lots of crawling about, slides, and goofy sculptures. There is an outdoor area to climb around on and apparently the roof area, still closed until later in the month, is pretty awesome. There were lots of people of all ages on a Monday morning having fun.

Our pads imprint in the gravel. Canton, MO 5/8/19

We left St. Louis looking forward to a drier site. It was not to be. Our original plan for this leg had been to stay at what looked to be a very nice Missouri State Park, but they had notified us that it was now under the waters of the Mississippi, so we needed to change plans. We spoke to a park in Quincy, IL, but they were also under water. Bummer. She recommended a park near Canton, MO, so we checked it out, it looked good, and we made reservations. When we got there it turned out it was a new-ish park and we would be in a site near other trailers and 5th-wheels. Didn’t see any other big rigs, but OK. The ground was very wet/muddy, but that’s to be expected. When we leveled, our jacks sunk into the newly laid gravel, but we achieved level and spent the night. Next morning our front end had sunk over an inch into the mud and all of our jack pads were sunk well below grade. It was time to get out of Dodge, if we could even raise the jacks at all. Fortunately they came up and we managed to get out of there without too much more drama, although spinning the rear wheels of a 33,000 pound vehicle was a first. It was a worrisome experience, but no harm, no foul, except for two very muddy vehicles. Our next place could take us early, so up the road we went. In the rain. At least the RV and truck got rinsed.

The Gateway Arch from across the river. St Louis, MO 5/4/19

The Gateway Arch, St Louis, MO 5/5/19

The Arch, St Louis, MO 5/5/19

Note the significant flooding. There’s a road down there. The Arch, St Louis, MO 5/5/19

The flooded Mississippi. St Louis, MO 5/5/19

Crawling around at the City Museum. St Louis, MO 5/6/19

Archaeologists doing their thing. Cahokia Mounds, IL 5/6/19

Tallest US mound in the background with a stockade wall segment in the foreground. Cahokia Mounds, IL 5/6/19

Loretta Lynn’s Ranch, 4/26/19

After leaving SE Alabama, we headed to an RV park just SE of Huntsville near the Tennessee river and Guntersville Lake. It was lovely, but we didn’t do much … took a walk in the woods, washed the truck, etc. We then moved on to the Natchez Trace State Park in Tennessee. Located about midway between Nashville and Memphis, it is a really pretty park with lots of boating/fishing and what looks like a lot of good hiking. We didn’t get to do much hiking since we took in a couple of local attractions, the first of which was the home of the coal miners daughter, Loretta Lynn’s Ranch. Really.

Located on a beautiful chunk of land, it is a very pretty place. We saw horses grazing in a field full of yellow flowers, a somewhat cheesy simulation of a coal mine, the outside of a re-creation of her childhood home and the exterior of her mansion. We did not spend the bucks to take a tour of the houses or the 18,000 square foot museum. We wandered a bit, then took off. As a side note, our Garmin GPS seemed to like to route us down a gravel road on the way out. Interesting.

The next day we took a field trip to the Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park. For two thousand years or so there was an advanced Indian civilization living in the midwest. Much like the Mayans did, they left behind large earthen mounds, almost certainly for ceremonial and/or astrological reasons. An excellent example of these complexes is found at the Pinson site. We wandered the museum, climbed a mound to a viewing platform on the second highest mound in the US (72 feet, the highest is near St. Louis), and took a nice walk through the grounds. It was very cool and informative and I’m glad we went.

As a side note, this was our first stop where we had no TV signal and no streaming-capable cell service, although we were able to surf/get email as long as we were patient. Hey, we’re retired and in no hurry. We spent several pleasant evenings reading and being mellow. How old school.

Loretta Lynn’s Ranch, 4/26/19

Pinson Mounds, 4/27/19

Pinson Mounds, 4/27/19

Pinson Mounds, 4/27/19

Natchez Trace SP, 4/26.19

Nora just hanging, Natchez Trace SP, 4/26/19