OK, so it’s been more than a few days; I’ve made you wait a whole week while I tried to get into the mood to write. Sometimes I just don’t feel like writing. But I’ve kept taking notes so maybe I can catch you up to date on the mostly boring things we’ve been doing. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
When last we talked we were sitting in Kickapoo State park in Illinois visiting with our dear daughter and watching another deer. To give you an idea how close it was, that’s our awning at the top of the picture. It wandered around grazing peacefully for quite some time.
We enjoyed our afternoon with our daughter discussing what we’ve been up to and what’s ahead for all of us. Her pending move to Maine is not making me happy but it will make her happy which, in turn, makes the mother in me happy. And we are headed for a summer of Minnesota which makes me worried even though I am looking forward to seeing friends and family there. My worry is that we might not leave again and I really cannot face another Minnesota winter. I understand my own mother better now who left Minnesota back when Dave & I followed the Army’s instructions to live in Texas for a couple of years. Mom moved to Colorado then complained that we were back in Minnesota. She couldn’t come back to Minnesota, though, and now I get that.
Fuel. Our RV uses Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel fuel. That’s not available at every gas pump. We’ve learned to look for pumps that have two handles since diesel cannot use the same nozzle gasoline does. We’ve also learned to look for green handles since most diesel pumps are green. But neither of those guarantees diesel is what will come out of that pump. Nor does it guarantee it will not be bio-diesel in a percentage that makes our engine unhappy. So we must read the label on every pump to be sure we are putting the right fuel in our tank. It’s a good thing we are both readers.
We passed through an area apparently big on gun ownership. I saw several signs of the old Burma Shave type apparently sponsored by an organization called GunsSaveLives.com. I’m not sure my take on them was what they intended “When danger lurks, Remember Sonny, That rabbit’s foot, Won’t save no bunny.” Nope, the gun will kill the bunny not save it. “Here’s a thought, For you to ponder: An armed citizen, As first responder.” Shudder! If I’m in trouble I sure don’t want someone coming at me with a gun to be the first thing I see. “Shooting sports Are safe and fun. There’s no need To fear a gun.” So why does the news often contain reports of hunters shooting one another? Anyone up for hunting with Dick Cheney? I’m not a fan of guns. I refused to let our daughter even pretend to have one when she was a child. Of course, she has one now and goes to the shooting range for fun. I simply don’t understand and probably never will. Please, don’t waste your time and mine trying to persuade me otherwise.
Rainy day traveling is a mixed blessing. It increases drowsiness so we need to take breaks more often. But road work has been postponed so the barricades are off on the shoulder and all the lanes are open.
For those of you who will be traveling though Illinois and who care about such things–Illinois rest areas have recycling bins.
We saw a disconnect truck. The front half of the trailer is held to the back half of the trailer only by the load between the two. This is the second one we’ve seen recently. I managed to get some not-very-good pictures of this one.
We saw a Pilot station that sold only diesel fuel–no gasoline. That’s different. $2.449 a gallon.
We stopped for a night at a Coral Lake Corps of Engineer’s campground. They have several of them in this area. We stayed at the West Overlook which has a dump with a fresh water fill. Our site was on a peninsula so we had water views from both sides of the dinette. But we were close enough to our neighbors to hear the father reading a bedtime story to the child–There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. So I had that song stuck in my head the rest of the evening and probably will again for awhile now.
The next day we drove to Forest City, Iowa, to the Winnebago Factory where we did not have an appointment. They still got us in the next day and did all the warranty repairs and one of the upgrades on our list. Hopefully it will never again rain inside our RV and our coach door will always lock when it sounds like it did. Plus, we now have a single lever faucet in our bathroom sink so I can adjust water temperature without leaving big puddles on the counter.
Then we drove to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where we camped several nights at the Big Sioux Recreation Area, a very nice park with very private sites just east of town.
Sioux Falls is now our legal home so we did normal errands here like picking up our mail and getting groceries and learning about renewing license plates. We also visited Falls Park which is something both locals and tourists do.
We also visited EROS but that probably needs its own blog post.
TTYL,
Linda
So what happened to getting a car to tow?
My cousin’s husband was shot hunting by his step-father-in-law. It was so sad … young kids, young wife and all in the family. We’ve talked about a gun while traveling. My friend’s husband (federal agent) told me I was the worst person to have one. Any crook would turn it on me. Maybe a BB gun or something that looks like a gun that cocks. IYQ did that once and scared everyone out of the campground. I think we’ll use Duchess to scare folks off.
Fuel in Washington/Oregon is 50 cents a gallon more than New Jersey…go figure.
Sioux Falls is our home too. Only been there once and have memories of a nice house on a tree-lined street. Oops…. that was our house in Texas. Guess we didn’t have a house in Sioux Falls….just a box. It’s funny when you are using your credit card and give folks your zip code. They always comment we’re a long ways from home. If they only knew!!!
We’re still in the thinking stages of getting a car to tow. We think it’s probably best to wait until after we drive the Natchez Trace and the Blue Ridge Parkway. We hope to do those this fall. So, maybe next summer? It probably depends on what other scenic byways we decide to drive. It appears it’s better not to have a car when driving but better to have one when stopped. And there’s so many roads out there to follow!