Silver Arches and Rain

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.