10/6 - Home at last

After nearly 15,000 miles we are finally home.  It was a few thousand more miles than we'd anticipated, but what's an extra 2,000 or 3,000 miles?  We are just very happy that we got home in one piece.


Very few pictures today....

Douglas Lake from I-40 in east Tennessee (formed by damming the French Broad River) was the lowest we've ever seen it. It doesn't sound like Hurricane Matthew will bring us enough rain to help much.

Getting close to the mountains which were obscured by air pollution.  

We were so fortunate not to be traveling west today. One of the westbound lanes was being re-paved west of Waynesville and traffic was backed up for seven miles. 

The only shot I could get of Vistas as we came down Dogwood Road. (For those who don't live here, ours is the blue one at top left, mostly obscured by trees.)


It was so good to see many of our wonderful neighbors when we arrived and Lovie was ecstatic to get lots of belly-rubs.  The cats are very happy to be home, already settled in like nothing ever happened. 


This has been the trip of a lifetime. We wish it weren't over but we have to return to normal life now.  We're glad to have had so many friends and family traveling with us and we've appreciated every comment on the blog.  We'll let everyone know the next time we hit the road and do a blog.  

10/5 - Paducah to Crossville, Tennessee

Shortly after leaving Paducah on I-24 we crossed the Tennessee River just south of where it flows into the Ohio River. It's the largest tributary of the Ohio, meandering 652 miles from Knoxville where its source is the confluence of the French Broad and Holston rivers. (The French Broad flows through Asheville, for those not familiar with the area.)  

Tennessee River

It was a much better drive today due to smoother roads and Nashville not being as bad as St. Louis to get through.

Nashville's skyline is impressive. It's the first time we've seen it because we've always taken other routes to get around it on previous trips.

I-40 is always a heavily traveled road. The traffic got considerably better once we were past Lebanon, 30 miles to the east.

We got into our site by 1:30 which was great. It gave us several hours to clean the RV's interior so we wouldn't have to do it after getting home. The outside is plastered with a hard casing of bugs but that will have to wait until later. We also had enough time to absorb the hour lost to changing to Eastern time. We can't afford to lose an hour tomorrow so doing it a day early worked out really well.  

We'll get home mid-day tomorrow and have all afternoon to unload. We know from years of experience that saying we'll pace ourselves and not do it all in one day never works. We used to get home in late afternoon and still be unloading after dark. That's why this trip was stretched out so we'd have no more than a three hour drive the last day.

We can't wait to see the reactions of Lovie and the cats when they find themselves back in their house. They're really good about traveling but they're getting very tired of doing it every day. 

10/4 - Danville, Missouri, to Paducah, Kentucky

We started off the day with the cord reel not working again but Jim got it going by pushing on the reel. Now we're not sure if the problem is the switch or the reel's motor. As long as he can push it into working two more times we can present the problem to our trusty RV mechanic at home and he'll figure it out.


The 260-mile drive was more tiring than the mileage would imply. Traffic around St. Louis is heavy no matter what you do to get through or around the city. We took the route that was as far south of the city as we could get, probably adding about 20 miles to the trip, but there was still a lot of traffic. The other very tiring thing was the rough condition of the interstates which rattled our teeth and was very unpleasant for Lovie and the cats. 


This was a day of rivers with nothing else interesting going on.....

Not a good picture with the railing in the way, but this was the last of our numerous views of the Missouri River since June. It's an amazing waterway. Looking it up on Wikipedia, I just found out it's longer than the Mississippi River.....all of 21 feet longer! It starts in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana and winds all over the place before finally flowing into the Mississippi River at St. Louis. Lewis and Clark really had their work cut out for them finding its source.

The border between Missouri and Illinois, the Mighty Mississippi River with lots of barges in view.

And here's the Ohio, the border between Illinois and Kentucky at this point, which looks every bit as big as the Mississippi here. Big difference is that we couldn't see any barge traffic which is constant on the Mississippi.


Our campground is okay. Not a place where we'd want to spend much time but it's very convenient to I-24 and is certainly adequate for an overnight. It's on the outskirts of Paducah, only six miles from the National Quilt Museum which I'd planned on visiting this afternoon. However, once we got set up I realized we were both worn out and really didn't need to go out again. The quilt museum will have to wait for another visit.


Tomorrow we go 255 miles to Bean Pot Campground in Crossville, Tennessee, for our final night of this trip. Nashville is the only big city on the way and it's not intimidating like KC and St. Louis.

10/3 - Rock Port to Danville, Missouri

We started off the day with the power cord reel going dead. (For those not familiar with RVs, it's an automatic reel, powered by the batteries, which carries our 50 feet of 50 amp cord.)  50 amp cord is very thick, heavy and difficult to manage. There's no place to stuff the cord by hand and it doesn't disconnect from the reel.....it either goes on the reel or it stays outside. We'd look really smart rolling down the highway dragging 50 feet of cord behind us. Before we got to the point of total panic, Jim took the switch out which still didn't work, but after he jiggled all the wires around it decided to work again. The cord was duly rolled up and we were on our way, but not without the worry of "what if it happens again and wire-jiggling won't make it work?"  Then it will be time to really panic.


Besides the above, there's nothing to report today other than that we made it around Kansas City without any problems which was a big relief. (Going through there last year was so bad we were afraid to go anywhere near the city again.)  The drive was good....beautiful weather once again....but the 290 miles seemed much longer than either of the past two days. Maybe it's because the 900 miles we've just driven have worn us down after not doing more than two days in a row since the start of the trip. The cats are tired of this daily driving and Lovie has spent all three days constantly going back and forth from the back seat to the front, demanding constant petting. She has a captive petter and is taking advantage of it.

We crossed the Missouri River again today....twice for good measure....once just east of Kansas City and again about 100 miles later near Columbia (picture above). The river meanders all over, covering many more miles than the road.  We'll cross it for the fourth and last time tomorrow near St. Louis.

These bluffs right next to I-70 are very different from the gently rolling countryside we'd been passing for so many miles. They were interesting while they lasted which wasn't very long.  We were soon back to rolling farm land.

We're in another lovely campground tonight, one we stayed at on our way to Minnesota last summer.  There are very few people here at this time of year. The owner told us they stay open all year but it's mainly for the one-nighters like us who are traveling on I-70. She said Missouri is no place to be in the winter.

After we got set up, we went to an RV parts store in a town eight miles away (population 2,200) to see if we could get another switch for the cord reel. No such luck. What a place....every surface piled high with stuff and most of the floor covered with parts and empty boxes. It would be a miracle if they could find anything in there. There were three Shelties barking their heads off with no one making any effort to quiet them. A very effective way to get rid of customers.

Sunset from Danville, Missouri

Tomorrow we'll welcome a slightly shorter drive, 260 miles to Paducah, Kentucky.

10/2 - Salem, SD, to Rock Port, Missouri

Good drive today....285 miles through eastern South Dakota, the west edge of Iowa, and just into Missouri.  We've had the same beautiful weather we've been so lucky to experience throughout most of our trip.

The first thing we saw was this....

The bull's head is 60 feet high!  Not what one expects to see on an interstate. This turned out to be the Porter Sculpture Park (Montrose, SD) which was only 12 miles from where we stayed last night. The artist has done numerous metal sculptures within view of I-90 (over 50). If we're able to go to the northwest again, we'll stay in Salem and definitely go see this art collection close up. 

Typical eastern South Dakota farmland.....flat cornfields. This is the end of our South Dakota experience for this year. We've spent over two weeks here and have found it to be a wonderful place which we look forward to seeing again.

We found the Missouri River again as it forms the western border of Iowa. Here it's passing Sioux City, Iowa.

Further down I-29 (which also runs the length of Iowa's western border along with the Missouri) is Omaha, Nebraska. This is the first time we've seen skyscrapers since Salt Lake City, Utah. We didn't cross into Nebraska but it's right across the Missouri River. We were there for several days last summer on our way to Minnesota. It has an excellent art museum which we unfortunately did not visit, so we'll definitely have to come back.

This is a huge art project on a bridge going over I-29/I-80 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, which is directly across the river from Omaha.  From what I've been able to learn it has had a very mixed reception. The most common view is "Edward Scissorhands meets Council Bluffs."  

We are once again in a very nice little campground, just off I-29 at the tiny town of Rock Port, Missouri.  The owners are an extremely nice couple who have had careers in the steel industry and nursing. This is a retirement business for them, although I often wonder if people who get into the campground-owning business are really prepared for the 24/7 requirements.  We're surrounded again by cornfields (this time at least ten feet high) with a wind farm in the distance. Very quiet and picturesque. 

Evening view of the wind farm with warning lights on the turbines.

A beautiful evening glow with new moon and Venus.

Tomorrow we go south to the dreaded Kansas City (hoping it will be better than last year) and east across central Missouri to Danville (very tiny).  

10/1 - Hermosa to Salem, SD

Today's drive was the longest we've had in a while (325 miles).  We pushed our luck on fuel and nearly ran out.  With the strong headwinds we had all day, plus towing the RV, our estimated fuel range of 515 had gone down so much that our "get fuel NOW warning" was beeping by the time we found a place to get fuel just 30 miles before our destination.


South Dakota's landscape is split about 60/40 between west and east of the Missouri.  The western section is rolling hills which are mainly grassland/ranches (better for cattle than farming).... 

Last hilly grasslands just west of the Missouri River near Chamberlain

And sections of badlands.....

Northern edge of the badlands east of Rapid City

The Missouri River changes everything....

Missouri River from the I-90 bridge

And after the river you have the eastern section which is flat as a pancake....

Typical eastern South Dakota farmland

Some might find this landscape boring. We have found it to be beautiful and peaceful....when we're not being unduly jostled by the interstate's rough pavement, that is. We love the wide open spaces out here.

Tonight we're in Salem, SD (population around 1,350). It's about 33 miles east of Mitchell (15,000) and 44 miles west of Sioux Falls (165,000). Our campground is one of the nicest we've ever been in. Too bad we're only here for one night....it would be a great place to relax for a while. This picture is the view we have out of our side windows.  

The campground is surrounded by corn fields. The little town of Salem is old....a nice little mid-western town, very neat and clean. It's about the size of my father's hometown of Red Lake Falls, Minnesota. There's not much here but they do have a surprisingly well-stocked grocery store. 

Tonight's sunset from Salem, SD....

Clouds to the south over a harvested cornfield

Western skies

Tomorrow we'll travel 285 miles southeast to the little town of Rock Port, in the northwestern corner of Missouri.