Tue, Nov 18th, 2014 - Day #1
Arriving in St. Louis Tuesday afternoon, we found an RV Park downtown not far from the Arch that actually was a large parking lot they added electric and water hook-ups to. Nothing fancy, but the location made it really handy to be close...
to our friends Gary and Ellen on Lindell near Barnes Hospital. We took a little drive to see our friends Donna and Rich in Ladue and check our their house, which they just finished refurbishing; then back to have dinner with Gary and Ellen and say our good-byes till next Spring. Ready to escape this cold!
Not terribly cold, but the wind was pretty strong and appeared to be setting in for the day. We had a few phone calls to tie up some loose ends in Quincy, and figured it might be a good time to to make them and see if the wind would begin to calm down.
By noon it looked like things were a little more still so we took off for our next short drive down I-55 toward Cape Girardeau. The plan was to check in on my great aunt that turned 100 years old in September, and also visit with my cousins. When we were there for the 100th birthday party there were a lot of folks there and we wanted a chance to just spend time one on one with the family.
In Cape we stopped at an RV Store to pick up some supplies and called to see if my cousins Lois Lee and John were home. Lois Lee has MS and some days are better than others. She has been fighting this disease for about 40 years and it has taken a toll on her body, but she remains resiliant and amazing. Today is not a good day, as they have just returned from a doctors visit and she is very tired. We will reschedule our visit on our return trip to Illinois in the Spring and stay in touch through email for now.
On we go to Sikeston to park for the night, and hope for an earlier start in the morning. Well, you can't stop at Sikeston without paying a visit to Lamberts, Home of the Throwed Rolls, so that becomes our plan for dinner before we set up at the campground. Great meal of fried okra, fried potatoes, pulled pork, and black-eyed peas. And of course, hot rolls with butter and sorghum molasses. Yum!
Nice campground, Town and Country RV Park, located within a mile of Lamberts right off of I-55, but we broke our primary rule of always arriving before dark; just makes the process of getting set up a little more of a pain, but it was fine. Much nicer tho to see the place in the daylight than hunt for your spot after dark. Some campgrounds are not well lit from the road, like a motel would be, and you can end up driving right by without seeing them. In the morning light we found we were in a
really nice campground that I'm sure we will visit again when we return this way.
Thu, Nov 20th, 2014 - Day #3
Well, we managed to get just a little earlier start this morning...not alot...we are retired, you know! Actually, I think the stress from the last week of preparing to leave is beginning to take it's tole, and we have just found ourselves just wanting to sleep. I'm such a night owl anyway, once I get to sleep I find it difficult to get up if it's not really necessary. Once we manage to really get in some sort of routine, I think we will do better at getting our days started earlier...or not :-).
Changed our plan, which was to head through Memphis to visit with Tammy and Darrell and my other Autozone friends. The weather is still pushing us to make our way farther south, and this again will be a stop we will plan to make in the Spring when the weather is a little more inviting.
Getting off the interstate,we head off on the two lane to make our way down into Kentucky. Beautiful day, temps in the 50's, and calm winds make for a pleasant drive. Got some practice on narrow winding roads, and narrow bridges, and settled in for the evening at a KOA in Paris Landing, TN. Once again it was dark when we arrived, and this was primarily caused by difficulty in locating a campground close to our route. Most of the RV Parks in the area were around Kentucky lake, and none
close to our route going south, so we ended up back tracking a few miles to Paris Landing to the KOA. Nice park, but expensive due to the location close to the lake. Also, they were having their cable worked on and our antenna didn't pick up any channels, so we had no TV even though we were paying for cable. Actually, all we ended up using was their electric, so it was rather high at $45 just to park over nite!
Red's now hooked on Words With Friends on her new IPhone that she proclaims to hate...haha; so not having TV wasn't to much an issue.
See Ya Next Post!
Kathy and Red
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