Missouri, Kansas City - Wednesday, June 27, 2018 - Harrah's Casino

We are back on the road.  This year we decided to cut our visit to Indiana short so we could take what will probably be a once in a lifetime four month trip though the Northwest states and down the California coast before heading back to Mesa, AZ for the winter.  Today was a beautiful day to travel.

Right now we are sitting in Harrah’s Casino parking lot, generator is running and we have all the comforts of home while we watch the college baseball world series.  We went to the casino earlier to make a deposit and to eat dinner at the buffet.

We left our site in daughter Amanda’s driveway on Sunday afternoon to go to Whiteland Goodyear tire service center.  Since they work on a first-come-first-served basis we wanted to be first in line on Monday morning.  They started on our tire rotation, balance and alignment at 7:00 am, $325 and 8 hours later we were out of there.

We headed to St. Louis from there.  We had a reservation for the night at the Casino Queen campground, which is where we stop every time we go through St. Louis.  The weather turned bad just after we got there.  Greg looked at the weather app on his phone and we decided to extend our stay by another night instead of driving through the rain the next day.  That proved to be a great decision, we had some really strong storms come through. 

During a brief dry period Greg decided we might as well go ahead a replace the coach batteries since we were getting some flicker in our lights and the batteries we had weren’t holding charge like they should.  The batteries we had in the coach were a retirement gift to Greg from one of the vendors he worked with, they were put in in 2011 so I think we got a lot of good out of them.  Too bad we couldn’t get the new ones as a gift, we need four of them and those rascals don’t come cheap.  We had to drive to O’Fallon to get them.  By the time we got back it was starting to rain again so Greg installed them while I held a large golf umbrella over him.  I am so glad he knows how to do this kind of stuff!

In the morning we will be headed north through Nebraska into South Dakota where we will stay in Rapid City for a week seeing all of the sights around there.

Although our Indiana visit was short it was jam-packed with visits with family and friends.  Amanda had a long to-do list for us to work on to get ready for granddaughter Mackenzie’s graduation open house.  Daughter Robyn and granddaughter Maddie were home for a week from Virginia, so good to see them!  We got to see grandson Jackson and great grandson Braxton play baseball.  We saw granddaughter Braelynn compete in a swim meet.  I carved out some special time for a few lunches with my mom and daughter Desira and had lunch with a few of the ladies I went to high school with – Dinah, enjoy that great new kitchen!  Friends Mike and Susan and Bill and April and Greg’s sisters and their husbands were kind enough to work with our busy schedule so we could spend a couple of hours with them.  Seemed like we were busy all the time and still couldn’t spend nearly enough time with everyone, can’t wait to hug you all again.  Rest assured you are all in our thoughts as we enjoy our travels, wish we could take you all with us.

In addition to our socializing we got in all of our doctor and dentist visits.  We have a clean bill of health until next year.

This afterthought is especially for daughter Amanda who hates toads.  On Monday morning I went into the bathroom without my glasses on, turned on the water in the sink and something large moved in the sink – exit bathroom!  After I got my glasses on I realized it was a toad, Greg did the dirty work of getting him out.  Our only guess is that it came up through the sewer hose, hope he didn’t bring friends.  We invest in scorpion spray in Arizona, maybe we should look into toad spray for our Indiana stay.

Kansas City, MO - Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - Trailside RV Park

We are spending the night at Trailside RV Park just outside of Kansas City, MO.  This is a Good Sam Park and may have gotten a good recommendation from them, but I’m not going out on that limb.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s ok for an overnight stop.  We are off the road, safe and have the amenities that are necessary.  It’s just not a destination I would look forward to visiting again

Monday and Tuesday nights we were at our favorite location coming through St. Louis, the RV Park at the Casino Queen casino.  On Monday night we went to the casino, had supper and made a small deposit in the penny slots before walking back home.

The Cubs were playing the Cardinals last night in St. Louis and we were able to get some pretty good seats at the last minute (for much cheaper than we could have gotten them in Chicago).  The Casino Queen has a free shuttle that takes you to the ballpark and picks you up when the game is over so we took advantage of that.

This is the first blog post I have made since May and I find I’ve almost forgotten how to do it.  Hopefully, I can summarize our busy summer in just a few paragraphs.

Our home for most of the summer was in our daughter Amanda’s second driveway.  Since we have two daughters in Markleville, this is just perfect.  I have to admit my first mistake in writing this post was to delete some really great pictures Greg took of our rig and jeep at this site.  So, I’ll have to use one I took just before a storm a month or so ago.

One of the big events while home in Indiana was our 50^th high school graduation reunion.  It was great fun catching up with some old (no, strike that let’s just call them “friends from the past”).  This is just a few of us getting ready to go celebrate the 2017 class graduation ceremony.

We enjoyed meals with lots of friends and family members.  Desira treated Mom and I to lunch.

There were several breakfasts with the “girls”, always a good time!!

We were disappointed that we weren’t able to work in a visit with all of our friends in Rolling Thunder Indiana Chapter One.  You guys are still in our hearts and minds, we talk about your mission wherever we go.  God bless, ride safe and we will catch up next time.

Since everyone else was busy traveling or coming back from vacation, Greg and I volunteered to feed 27 family members for a get together.  25 years ago Greg and his family hosted a Japanese exchange student for a year.  This year she came to the United States to visit again and brought her two children with her, we spent a great week catching up with their lives.  We were glad that Robyn, Jason and Maddie could be home for this week.

We also celebrated the 70^th wedding anniversary of Jack and Carol Crosley.  All of the grandkids were there except for Maddie and, surprise, none of them were making faces in this picture.

We spent two long weeks without our motor coach after we took it in to see why the check engine light was coming on.  We took it in to be checked before we left Mesa but the Cummins facility there didn’t have the necessary equipment to do a complete diagnosis.  It was a long and frustrating two weeks staying in a hotel and going back and forth to Indianapolis, mostly struggling to get our after-market warranty to pay for the over $13,000 repair that was eventually deemed to be necessary.    I’ll make it short and say that they eventually paid most of the bill through a “goodwill” settlement which required us to surrender the remaining two years of our 3 year policy which cost $5,000.

We had another small repair done that we were really pleased with – a ding in the windshield.  Safelite came to where our coach was located in Markleville, fixed the chip and it isn’t even noticeable now.

Greg swears he isn’t coming back to Indiana.  Seems every time we come back we need a major fix to the RV or to him.  This year he was in the hospital three times dealing with kidney stones that had to be “blasted”.  We found out that the diet we were following to try to promote heart heath wasn’t exactly right for people who are susceptible to kidney stones.  So, now we are working on a combination heart/kidney-healthy diet.  Right before we left he had cataract surgery on both eyes – he says it was the easiest surgery he has ever had.  I had about a three week bout of vertigo, seems to be good now.  I think most of the time we are in pretty good shape, but other times, I wonder.

The annual Shoot for a Cure was a big success again this year.  This is such a fun weekend that raises money for The Pink Ribbon Foundation.  They provide support, wigs and other items needed by people dealing with breast cancer.  This was the 7^th year for this event which has raised just over $30,000 for the cause.  We are so proud of Desira and Dan for all of the hard work they do to make this come together.  Trap shooters from all over the state came together to enjoy a “pinked out” Fall Creek Valley Conservation Club.

We volunteer in the office keeping track of registration and scores.

While we were home we had some clean up/repair type chores to complete also.  We still have a 5x8 storage unit where we have a few things we just weren’t ready to part with and yet didn’t want to have them with us all the time.  I went through the unit this year and reduced again what was in there.  Greg and son-in-law Michael had to spend some time fixing the roof on our rental house.  The early spring rains caused damage to some shingles and a small leak damaged some wallboard inside.  We certainly appreciate Michael helping out with these DIY projects that always seem to come up.

Grandson Jackson played baseball this summer and we were able to catch a few of his games.  Here he is throwing out the first pitch at a Purdue game.

Desira and I spent one afternoon freezing peaches and corn.  Some of those peaches made a mighty tasty pie.

Last weekend we moved the motorcoach north to stay with AJ, Kim and the kids for a couple of days.  A spot in the side yard worked out just fine.  Jackson spent every free minute grilling papaw and I about the workings of the motor coach.  Love his curiosity.

Jackson and papaw had a serious talk about all of the bells and whistles in the Jeep.

We’ve had a great summer visiting Indiana.  We are now headed to Kansas to spend a while with David and the kids.  We need to be in Mesa, AZ by November 1 to start our workamping commitment there.

Missouri, St. Louis - Sunday, May 7, 2017 - Casino Queen RV Park

We left Memphis early Friday morning.  It was a nice day to travel except for the wind.  We were getting just 5 miles per gallon because of all the wind resistance.  When we were hauling the motorcycle on the lift we would get 8 mpg or a little over.  Since we have started pulling the Jeep a little over 7 mpg is the best we can do.

Had a little slow down coming into St. Louis.  We want to get into the campground early this afternoon because we plan on getting to the 69^th Annual St. Louis Square & Round Dance Jamboree later on this evening.

It’s a good thing we waited until Friday to travel.  Our route was flooded shut on Thursday, all was good on Friday.  We did see some major flooding around Cape Girardeau, MO when we came through there, but all in all we didn’t see as much flooding as we expected.  The Mississippi River is definitely up.

I know we aren’t all the way back in Indiana yet, but I’ll go out on a limb and say our trip back this year has been pretty good.  We’ve been lucky to get into good campgrounds and avoid the really bad weather.  We haven’t had any major coach problems.  We are going to have to look for a trim piece around one of our headlights, the wind blew one off on Friday.  We heard a noise when it came off, I thought it was inside the coach and got up to see what had shifted – everything looked secure.  Greg thought the sound came from a passing tractor trailer.  When we stopped at a rest area for lunch we saw what the problem was.  We also got a ding in our windshield, a truck passing in the opposite direction threw a rock.  I could see it coming and just prayed it would only ding and not shatter.

The campground where we stay when we are in the St. Louis area is at the Casino Queen Casino which is actually in East St. Louis, IL.  If trains bother you it might not be the campground for you since one runs right next to the campground.  It does run rather late, but we stay up until midnight usually so it doesn’t create any problem for us.  Also, if you plan on staying here, don’t rely on your GPS to get you all the way here.  It will get you off the interstate correctly, but from that point on be sure to watch for the casino signs.  It is correct until it tells you to make a left turn on Continental Grain Road.  There is a right turn at a stop light to get you on the road where you can turn on Continental Grain Road that the GPS misses.  There is a casino sign for the right turn so watch for it.

We got to the Jamboree on Friday night in time to dance from 7:30 to 10:30 pm.  We went back on Saturday right after lunch to take advantage of some workshops.  We took a break to watch a workshop for round dancers.  The crowd was a little sparse here.  This room was filled with square dancers from 7:30 to 10:30 on Saturday evening.  What a great time.  They had dance halls for beginner dancers, plus dancers and advanced dancers.  We are plus dancers, which is where most people are.  The callers on Saturday were speedy callers so you really had to be paying attention.

Today we are resting, doing some laundry and watching the NASCAR race – go Dale, Jr.!!

We are leaving here Monday morning heading to Indiana.  We’ll be spending at least our first two weeks in Indiana at Timberline Campground just outside of Chesterfield.

Missouri, St. Louis - Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - On The Road Again

This is our view from the RV Park this evening.  We are staying in the RV Park at the Casino Queen casino in St. Louis for the evening.

 

 

This is a fountain that is in a park across from the arch.  The security guard who brought us back from the casino told us it shoots water 600 feet into the air at 3 hour intervals from noon until 9:00 p.m.  We saw it at 3:00 this afternoon and thought maybe a huge water main was broken J.

After we got hooked up we went up to the casino for a while and quietly rooted for the Cubs.  All the televisions in the casino were tuned into the St. Louis vs. Chicago game and I think we might have been the only ones rooting for the Cubs.

Yesterday Greg had his two week checkup after getting his pacemaker.  They said everything was great and they wanted to see him again in three months – not going to happen, so they settled for as soon as we could get back next year.

He was out mowing after just a week, don’t think that should have happened but he just couldn’t sit around any longer.  At least we loaded the motorcycle before he went in for surgery so that wasn’t a temptation.  He has a restriction on riding the motorcycle until November 11.  I know he won’t ride it until we get into Mesa on November 1.  Riding on the sandy roads in Kansas is just too unsafe.

 

 

We were able to enjoy some of the changing color as we headed west.  The weather report is calling for frost at the end of the week, definitely time to get out of here!!

Last view of Indy until next year.  Kansas City is our next stop.

Missouri, Kansas City - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - Worlds of Fun Village RV Park

Our trip today was about 250 miles.  We picked this park not because we wanted to go to an amusement park, but because it was reasonable and right on our way. 

 

It a very nice park, this is us.
 

This is the view from our site this evening.

 

We walked over to get a closer look at the roller coaster – there is no way you would get me on that thing! 

 

Greg gilled some steaks this evening to go with baked potatoes.  It’s in the low 80’s with a nice breeze blowing so we are sitting on the patio watching TV and updating the blog.  Not getting too involved in anything else right now since this is just a one night stop.

I’ve got a list of things I want to get accomplished once we are settled in Sioux Falls.  I may have retired, but I still have my “lists”.  In fact, I have a major list going this evening.  Tomorrow we are going to get at least a month’s worth of groceries in one stop (might take more than one cart).  If I plan correctly, we will only have to make runs to get milk or fresh produce on the bike while we are in Sioux Falls.

The jury is still out on this mattress topper we bought that was supposed to keep me cooler.  According to the salesman, the optimum sleeping temperature for your body is 77 degrees.  We think that is too warm.  I may be staying a little cooler, but now Greg is too hot.  We are thinking of doubling it up on my side.  We have 30 days to decide if it is a keeper.

Missouri, St. Louis, Monday, July 29, 2013 - Casino Queen RV Park

We left Nashville early this morning and ran into a lot of this

 

Even at that we were only about 45 minutes behind schedule.  The drive today was a little over 300 miles and that is probably about as far as we want to go in a day.  The Casino Queen is a hotel and small casino with an RV park for guests.  A nice park but no amenities (they want you to gamble).  This is the view from our site this evening.

 

We decided to opt for a dinner out so we called security at the casino and they sent a car to pick us up.  Dinner was very good and then, of course, we couldn’t resist going to the casino for a while.  Needless to say, we are on our way to Kansas City tomorrow - $30 poorer.