Tuesday, June 5.
Got an early start from Grand Rapids. Skirted around the Chicago metro area, happening by this impressive county courthouse in Rensselaer, IN, then plunged southward through IL via I-57, thereby avoiding St. Louis. Although there are some diagonal roads that would get us from MI to NW OK, we're making more of an ell-pattern: south then west.
Covered about 450 miles and spent the night at a KOA in Benton, IL. Had a problem for a while in that we weren't getting electricity into TuziTwo from the campground's power source. Finally discovered that in pulling heavy-duty power cord from the storage compartment I had inadvertently turned a key in a control box that cut us off. Live and learn. The key doesn't have an obvious on/off label and of course I hadn't read the manual, or even looked it up.
Not long after we got set up a van pulling a camping trailer parked in a spot just across the road in front of us. People started piling out. They kept moving and I never got a good count, but it appeared that it was two men with 9 or 10 kids ranging from toddlers to teenagers. They set up a tent in addition to their trailer. Later, though, as they ate dinner I saw that it was a man and a women with 8 plus kids. I'd mistaken one of the older boys as a second adult. Later I told Susie about this group, but too late for her to see the show. In the morning, though, just as we started to pull out, kids started coming from everywhere: trailer, van, tent - looked like a stirred-up ant hill, or circus clowns coming out of a car. It was Dad and the kids, fixing and having breakfast. Susie said, Don't go. I gotta see this. We still couldn't get an accurate count with all the coming and going - statistics means never having to say you're certain. The youngest was strapped in a booster seat that wasn't fastened to the picnic table bench and he kept falling sideways on the bench like Arte Johnson on the tricycle in Laugh-In. Dad would right him and breakfast continued. Mom never showed up. I said maybe this is her quiet time. So, we left, soon after 7 am.
As we drove south from Benton I discovered where all of Illinois's hills are - they've fallen to the bottom, like potatoes sinking in soup.
Goal today, Wednesday, was to drive across southern Missouri via Route 60. Three years ago we started west from Virginia Beach, the eastern terminus of Route 60 (historic sign shown here), once known as the coast to coast highway. I'd gotten interested in route 60 for a variety of reasons including that it runs through my home town of Tonkawa, OK, and I remember in the 50s that my dad was involved in a Route 60 Association - trying to repeat the Route 66 magic. Here's the series of reports on that Route 60 journey:
In 04, because of a side trip for repairs, we skipped the MO portion. I'd heard, also, at the time, that it was a pretty tortuous drive through the Ozarks for a motorhome, but now with more power, thought we'd give it a go.After crossing the Mississippi one more time, next picture, this time on I-57, we soon picked up hwy. 60. Made a Wal-Mart stop in Sikeston, MO, and headed west.
Turns out the much of MO's 60 is new, four-laned. They're turning it into a parkway. Our Magellan GPS, even though I updated its memory just before we left, wasn't up to date. It kept showing our position as off the road, wandering somewhere through the mountains and not on what it thought was route 60. Occasionally, we'd see a parallel road labeled as Old 60. We took Business 60 loops through a couple of towns, apparently the old road bed. But, in contrast to what we saw in other states in '04, we didn't see preserved, still active businesses, such as motels or diners, or buildings from 50 years ago or so. The buildings we saw from that era were abandoned derelicts. If only I'd launched a Route 60 Heritage Association three years ago, things might have been different. Oh, sure.
Around lunchtime I made one serious mistake. Took an exit advertising a family restaurant. It wasn't where the sign said it should have been and we found ourselves heading away from 60 on a county road with nowhere to turn around.
After 3-4 miles we came to a fairly wide intersection and I decided we could "make a legal U-turn," as Magellan is forever instructing me. Well, we couldn't, not without backing and working back and forth. Not a good situation to put the PT in, but I nursed it carefully and we finally made it - luckily no traffic during our tortured turn-around. Also, no damage to PT, Tuzi, or hitch. As I was U-turning, I could see myself stuck in the intersection, having to disconnect the PT while traffic lined up, drivers either fuming or laughing at us.
We ended up eating left-over sandwiches from Kaci's open house in the parking lot of an abandoned grocery store. I guess that should have been my featured Route 60 photo. I had been sure we would find an Ozark restaurant specializing in catfish or barbecue. Oh, well. Later in the afternoon, at a Dairy Queen break, I got us into a tight parking lot but managed to get out by cutting across a strip of lawn to an adjoining business's parking lot. Not my most pleasant day behind the wheel.
For the record, the middle 50 miles of our Missouri Ozarks Route 60 transit was two-lane hills and curves, but no problem to negotiate. Even there you can see that they're starting to clear land for a four-lane parkway.
In 2004 I had noticed a dearth of businesses with Route 60 in their name (as contrasted with Route 66 promoting businesses). Well, our Passport America campground book listed a Highway 60 RV Park in far SW MO, so that was our destination. The deal with being a PA member is that you camp for half price. This place listed at $30 regular, $15 for PA. Well, it was nothing but a pasture with hook-ups. No amenities, no ambiance. Outrageous! Maybe worth $15 period, but no way worth $30. At other PA RV parks we've stayed at I didn't have the feeling that their listed prices were phoney, but here I did. Nice manager, though, so I just said I thought we'd drive a little further. It was only around 4:00 pm so there was ample time for Plan B.
We were not far from the Big Red Barn RV Park near Carthage, MO, where we have stayed before, so that's where we headed for the night. They were sold out in their full-service sites, but we decided we would rough it with only 30 amps and no cable TV. We ordered pizza
delivery, turned on the satellite TV, and had a nice, relaxing evening.
Around 1:00 am, though, I woke up and noticed that we had no AC power. Oh, no, I thought: electrical problems again. Checked the things I know to check and found no problem. The little key was in its proper position, but the little red lights signifying power-in were not on. Outside, we could see that the campground lights were out, so the problem was elsewhere. Within an hour the power was back on and all was well.
Medical Update. Susie's foot, injured two weeks ago, is still giving her quite a bit of pain. She spent a lot of time on her feet in Grand Rapids and we think that may have delayed recovery, but there was no way she wasn't going to be in the middle of all this fun and activity. Memories are made of this!
I'm going to post this now because I'm not sure about internet access once we get to Boiling Springs State Park, near Woodward, OK, where our family reunion is taking place. At last, after all this time with Susie's side of the family, we're finally gathering with mine - I joke :-).
Susie's insert-- Actually, I said that we had done the "Hinkle family thing" we were now heading for the more sane and sedate Easterling (actually, Bennett family--Bonnie's extended family) family. I'll report later if the reunion is sane and sedate. We are very anxious to see the kids--big and little. The good news is that we will be home soon. The bad news is that we will be home soon. We have had a WONDERFUL trip.
Incidentally, I have no idea how Blogger does paragraph breaks. Every time I open a draft to update it, the breaks have changed. Then when I post, not all of the breaks translate to the posting. Also, I've noticed that dashes don't print as dashes - more like heavy dots. Oh, well.
Cheers,
Rob and Susie
No comments:
Post a Comment