Not-So-Skinnie Winnie Summits the Rockies!

A couple months ago, I decided to finally get my ‘07 Winnie weighed at the nearby truck stop’s CAT scale.  Many other owners of the 1st-generation Sprinter have reported on the Yahoo View-Navion forum that their rigs routinely run a few hundred pounds over the GVWR, so I braced myself as the clerk handed me the printed weight report.

I bought a Lynnebago!

There’s something about the 3rd week of May that just seems to make me buy motor vehicles!  Four years ago, I bought the View, and 2 years ago this same week, I bought the Tracker.  So, true to form, earlier this month I found myself searching the internet casually looking at used Sprinter vans.  Most of them were not very tempting (heavily used and abused boring white cargo vans with 150,000 to 350,000 miles and various commercial racks/partitions in the back).   But then I saw this little green beauty with no rust, no gobs of industrial racking in the back, and only 62,000 miles on it!

The “3rd week of May” curse strikes again-- time to pull out the checkbook!

It’s a high-roof 2005 Freightliner Sprinter 2500 (meaning no dual rear wheels to fool with—yeah!).  It’s the mid-sized 140” wheelbase and comes in at 19’ feet long.  Short and narrow enough to fit into a standard parking space (but still enough floorspace in the back to make a decent camper van).

My Winnebago View Sprinter came with every possible comfort and convenience already installed.  This Sprinter came with none of that.  It’s got some reflectix insulation and carpeted plywood covering the bare floor, walls, and ceiling in the cargo area, but the rest will be completely up to me to design and build.  So, I’ve decided to name this Sprinter van my “Lynnebago”!

The van was down in the northeast Georgia mountains, so my first task was figuring out how to logistically get it home.  Luckily, it had a nice Class III hitch already installed and the dealer verified that the plug worked fine.  So, I packed my towbar and suitcase into the back of the Tracker, Millie hopped into her backseat bed, and away we went on a roadtrip down to Georgia!

The Tracker is a great in-town car and off-road vehicle, but not a comfy cruiser for a 750 mile roadtrip!  But, it did it’s job to get us to our destination safely and without any mishaps.

After a final inspection and test drive, the dealer had all the sales paperwork ready to go, so the whole purchasing process from Jacky Jones Ford in Cleveland, GA was speedy and friendly.  They, admittedly, don’t see many single ladies come down with their own towbars (and dogs), so as I started getting the ReadyBrute hooked up, the dealer guy came out to watch and learn how to attach the cables!

The first 100 miles was a bit nerve-wracking through the curvy, mountain backwoods.  I realized later that this van has an auto skid control feature (that I should have temporarily turned off) as whenever I was descending a pass and making sharp hairpin turns, the van would automatically apply it’s brakes!  Pretty disconcerting for sure, but no harm done, it was just trying to keep us safe.

As luck would have it, my world-traveller and very talented and amusing blogger friend Suzanne ( Take to the Highway) was staying at a campground just north of Knoxville, so I reserved a hotel room nearby for Millie to catch up on her missed afternoon napping, while Suzanne and I headed out for a great dinner and catch-up conversation.  Who knew there was great Thai food to be found in tourist-infested Sevierville?  But we delightfully happened to find a great little place tucked into an unassuming strip mall.

After dinner, we stopped at the campground to see Suzanne’s new full-timer RV home—a gorgeous 2008 J-model Winnebago View.  Her RV has the light maple cabinetry and also has cabinets in front (rather than the cabover bed). Combined with the 2 cab swivel seats, and custom memory foam dinette cushion and bed mattress replacements, Suzanne has one of the most comfortable (and nicely functional) Views I’ve ever seen!  So happy for her giving me the grand tour of her lovely new home!

The next morning, Millie and I hopped into the Sprinter for our drive back home to Chicago.  First unexpected bonus discovery?  No need to park and walk inside to get a morning traveler breakfast--- just pull right into the drive-thru lanes!

The Sprinter towed the Tracker easily, and managed to get a decent 18 MPG towing 65-70 miles per hour through the Kentucky hills.

Millie was not quite sure what to make of this new Sprinter, but she quickly mastered jumping into the driver’s seat whenever I got out!

And she liked the big side-door easy access to jump in and out of the van!



I set up her little padded bed right behind the 2 seats and she spent most of the drive hanging out there.  But discovering she now had a big, unobstructed space to move around in, she also had fun chillin’ in the rear back corner of the van too!



The Lynnebago is, indeed, a pretty “blank slate” at this point.  But it did come with a few unexpected benefits:  both front seats already have the swivels installed (that’s one less upgrade I’ll need to make, and a $500+ savings)!  The dash radio turned out to be a really nice-sounding Alpine stereo system with 2 Alpine speakers added to the OEM dash speakers— a great van to “sing-along” with road tunes!

The only downside discovered thus far—the existing ceiling vent (and interior ceiling paneling) is a real hack job, giving it a decidely “Hillbilly Hilton” look.

The previous owner seemed perplexed by the curved roof lines and just threw whatever scrap lumber he had to finish it off.  The ceiling vent was apparently cracked at one point and rather than simply replace it, the guy decided to duck tape the outside and paint the inside of it with some kind of black sealant goop.  I’ve now ordered a new Fantastic Fan and this will be my very first upgrade to get done! 

Since there are no current auxiliary electrical or water systems, I’ll need to remove and re-do the ceiling, wall, and floor coverings anyway, but until I’m ready to do all that, I’ll initially just connect the new fan directly to a spare AGM battery, and use my old tent camping gear to make it immediately functional as a bare-bones camper.

So, why another vehicle?  Well, a girl can never have too many Sprinters …..but seriously,with my current situation requiring lots of in-town hauling of stuff from my house and my mom’s house, replacing my in-town vehicle (a Subaru Outback) with a full-sized cargo van seemed to make a heck of a lot of sense.  My brother has been after me for a few years now to buy my Subaru (as his current Outback is getting up in miles), so that took away the trade-in hassles!

I also really want to get to Mexico next winter and would prefer to take a “stealth-ier” looking van than my big white Winnebago.  This 1st-generation T1N Sprinter doesn’t require ultra-low sulphur diesel fuel (like my 2nd-generation NCV3 View does), and as Mexico is not yet known to have wide availability of ULSD fuel, it will be much more capable a vehicle there than my View.

Beyond that, this Lynnebago has serious potential as an international vehicle!  Sprinters have been widely used in Europe and in many parts of South/Central America as well.  Perhaps I can follow my friends’ Evelyn and Tessa’s leads to RV far beyond the continental U.S. borders!  Lots of possibilities for this little green Lynnebago!

p.s.  As some of you might not be interested in the new van’s conversion process, I’ll put those posts on a separate blog called LynnieViews.  I’ll continue to keep travel, Winnebago, and general posts here on this main WinnieViews blog site.

A Girl’s Guide to RVing with a Toad

 

Ever notice that many solo women RVers do not have towed vehicles (or “Toads” as they’re affectionately called)?  Seems like almost all of us start out with an aversion to towing a car—“keep it simple” we say, “don’t want to overly complicate things.”

Certainly, towing a few thousand pounds behind your RV does add some complexity and limitations to your routine.  The biggest drawback: you can never back up without unhitching the toad first.  While this can be a major limitation with longer motorhomes, I’ve found that with my 24’ View, I’m still able to U-turn out of most situations and navigate smaller gas stations almost as easily as when not towing.  I do have to avoid small parking lots that only have 1 entrance/exit though.

Hitching and unhitching a toad can be done in less than 5 minutes once you get the hang of it.  There are a variety of towing solutions and a variety requirements for each particular tow car, so some of the steps below may not apply to your setup, but in general, these are the main ingredients and steps I follow.

The RV-side:



Tow bars either usually stay on the RV or stay on the toad.  Many RVers like the former as you can collapse and cover them when not in use, while leaving the front of your tow car free of any large, heavy towing equipment (but the car-side tow bars are certainly quite cheap!).

Many RV hitch receivers are higher than most small tow cars, so a drop hitch extension is needed (the black thing under the license plate that the silver tow bar attaches to).  I also have 2 hitch locks to keep deter theft—one locks the drop hitch to the RV, and the other locks the tow bar to the drop hitch.  The tow bar weighs about 40 lbs, and drop hitch another 15, so I usually just keep it on the RV all the time rather than fool with removing it (I do unplug and stow the blue power cord – those things are easily stolen if not watched!)

The Car-side:

Ok, forgive my tow car’s dirty bumper!  Click this picture to view larger.  I’ve got a Blue Ox baseplate with a ReadyBrake braking system.  The black baseplate as well as it’s 2 black receivers are concealed behind the bumper and nearly invisible when driving around town.  Some other baseplate systems, such as Roadmaster, only mount their receiver components to the car and have their main horizontal bar out in front of the bumper.  While some folks (or some vehicles) find this more preferred, I didn’t want to fool with a heavy long bar to attach/remove and store, so chose Blue Ox instead.

The Silver and Red Loops are part of my ReadyBrake system.  There are a dozen different braking system designs for towing cars—some tap into the car’s brake system to activate it’s hydraulics, others are portable “lunchboxes” that you place on the floor between the driver’s seat and brake pedal.  These boxes have an arm that clamps onto the pedal to activate the brake.

Since my Tracker requires that I run the engine and put the transmission into gear every 200 miles of towing, I knew the portable box system would not be practical, so thought the ReadyBrake would be the least intrusive and easiest system to go with.  It basically is a small cable that runs from the silver loop you see pictured to the back of my car’s brake pedal.  When the tow bar’s surge mechanism compresses (i.e. when the RV starts braking or goes down a big hill), it pulls on this silver loop to pull the car’s brake pedal.  Simple, and no electric, air, or hydraulics required.

As an added safety precaution, a secondary brake cable is installed (the red loop) which will activate the car’s brakes if it should ever “break away” from the tow bar and RV.

The final car-side component are towing lights.  Here, too, there are a variety of solutions available.  For my car, the installer put a secondary bulb into each rear tail light housing and ran separate wiring between these new bulbs and the 12v plug on the front bumper.

The Goodie Bag:

For all the small connectors and tools, I keep these in a zippered canvas tow hitch bag.  This bag stays in the car all the time and keeps things from getting lost.

My hands used to get dirty when hitching up until I started using a pair of cotton garden gloves. Duh!  Also, the first time I went to unhitch my car and found the bent pins hard to remove (which hold the tow bar to the car), I realized I needed to also carry a rubber mallet to give those stubborn pins a whack.  All of the other items shown came with the Baseplate or Tow Bar.

Hitching Process:

1. Prepare the RV-side for towing:



The vinyl tow bar cover just has a Velcro flap and is easily removed to reveal the tow bar and various cables. I unwrap the cables to free up the bar, and then tilt the bar upward and spread it’s arms apart.

2. Prepare the Car-Side for Towing:

I get my Goodie Bag out of the car, put my gloves on, and take each of the large Blue Ox attachment tabs and insert them into the baseplate receiver holes.  The tabs are very heavy-duty (about 5 lbs each), and simply twist and lock into place.

I then drive the car into position behind the RV.  I’ve become familiar enough now to know when I see the front hood of the car showing right below the RV license plate, that I’m close enough for the extendable tow bar arms to reach the car.

3. Extend the Tow Bar Arms to rest on the Baseplate tabs:

Now if I’ve positioned the car right, the tow bar arms will be able to rest on top of the silver baseplate tabs protruding from the car.  Notice here the car is at a slight angle to the RV because one arm is extended further than another.  This is why you want to pay more to buy a tow bar with adjustable extension arms—no need to be super precise when positioning the car!  

Note also that the red levers on the tow bar are in the out position to allow the arms to extend freely.

4. Connect the Tow Bar to the Car:

Now I take the small connectors out of my goodie bag, and connect the arms to the silver attachment tabs using the bent pins.
 

Once the bent pins are in place, I put a hairpin cotter on each bent pin to keep it locked in place.

 

5. Connect the Cables:

Now that the car is attached to the tow bar, it’s time to connect all the remaining cables.

I take the pair of carabiners to attach the emergency break-away cables together:

Then clip the carabiner from the black brake cable to connect the ReadyBrake surge mechanism to the car’s silver brake cable loop.

I next plug the blue 12v power cord into the 12v plug on the car’s front bumper (to power the car’s tow light bulbs with power from the RV).

And, finally, connect the 2 coiled black safety cables into the 2 connector holes extending from the baseplate.  These safety cables keep the RV and Car connected to each other if the hitch or tow bar connections should ever fail.

 

When everything is finally connected, it looks like this:

Notice now that I turn the red arm levers forward.  This will prepare the arms to lock in place once they fully extend.  Eagle-eyed observers will see that I don’t have my safety cables “cris-crossed” beneath the tow bar.  While this would be the recommended way to connect them (so that if the tow bar ever fails, it will be “cradled” by the cables and won’t scrape the ground), my cables are still new and rather stiff, so I prefer right now just to connect them in parallel.  There is a metal loop beneath the center of the tow bar, that I feed the blue power cable through to keep it from drooping on the ground.  I’ll eventually use it for the safety cables as well once they stretch out more.

6. Ladies (and Gentlemen), Start Your Engines!:

Now it’s time to get the toad ready for “free wheelin’”.  Each vehicle is a bit different on how to do this.  Many cars just have you place the transmission in Neutral, but READ YOUR CAR’S MANUAL before ever attempting to flat tow it behind a motor home!  Otherwise you’ll be buying yourself a new transmission! 

My 4WD automatic transmission 2003 Chevy Tracker has a Hi/Low Transfer Case, so in my situation, I start the engine, put the Drive Transfer case into Neutral, and leave the Transmission still in Park.  Although this sounds completely crazy, you’re able to hear and feel the Transfer Case disengaging the drive shaft from transmission, so once you let up on the brake pedal, the car’s wheels are now free to roll.

With the Transfer Case still in Neutral, my car’s manual instructs me to put the Transmission into Drive, rev the engine to 2000 rpms for approximately 2 minutes, and then return the Transmission to Park.  This step allows all the critical parts to get lubricated before taking off down the highway.  I must repeat this step every 200 miles (which happens to nicely coincide with gas station or rest stops anyway).

Once finished with that step, I turn the engine off and put it into the “1st Accessory” position and leave the key in the ignition (this allows the steering wheel to stay “unlocked” and front wheels to turn side to side).  I had a spare key made just for this purpose so I could carry the remote lock keyfob with me to lock the car.  I also put a sunshade up to keep the car interior from getting too hot and to further visibly show the car is being towed.

7. Final Inspection
Once the toad is ready to roll, it’s time to start up the RV, check the lights, and re-check all towing connections. 

It’s ideal if you have a second person to stand behind the toad and confirm that each turn signal and brake lights work, but since I often travel solo, I turn the RV’s hazard lights on instead.

Notice my Tracker’s amber turn signal lights do not light up—only the dedicated secondary tow light bulb (in the lower red casing) does.

I drive the RV forward a few feet and then give everything a final inspection, making sure that the tow arms have now fully extended and locked into place.

Back in the RV, I turn the rear-view camera on (and keep it on) to ensure that there are no problems (i.e. tire blowouts on the toad, disconnected cables, etc)

Ready to roll!  I assure that it’s now taken longer to read this post than it actually does to perform these steps! 

Disconnecting The Toad:

So, now for a few parting tips on how to disconnect your toad properly.  You’d think it’d simply be a case of reversing the steps above (and indeed it is), but be sure to remember 2 important tips (learned the hard way from Yours Truly)!

• Before unhitching, remember to put the car back in gear (or set the parking brake). Yes, I made this dumb mistake one day.  Thankfully, my driveway only has a slight slope and my driver’s door window was open, so I was able to run and reach in to pull the parking brake to halt my runaway Tracker!   Gave my neighbor quite a good laugh with dumb move!!!
• Turn your toad’s ignition off if staying parked and hooked up for an extended period of time.  I once came home from a trip so exhausted that I left the toad hitched up to the motorhome for a couple of days before unhitching it.  Big mistake!  By leaving the key in the toad’s accessory ignition position that long, I had managed to suck all the power out of the battery and it wouldn’t start!  Thankfully, I was home and could charge it up again, but it was certainly another bone-head move on my part! 

Can I Tow a … With a …?

Legal disclaimer section!

Before towing anything with your Motorhome, check it’s weight/capacity stickers to confirm your Towing Capacity, Hitch Capacity, and GCWR (Gross Combined Weight Rating) to ensure it can safely handled your car’s weight.  Check the weight sticker for your car too!

Just because your car’s weight might be fine, that still doesn’t give you the green light to tow it.  In fact, fewer and fewer modern cars these days are able to be “flat-towed” or towed “4-wheels down” (meaning all wheels rolling on the pavement rather than via a car trailer or towing dolly).

The best references to check whether or not your car can be towed  this way are as follows:

1. Your vehicle’s Owner’s Manual  (the definitive source above all others)
2. Motorhome Magazine’s Annual Dinghy Towing Guide (published each Spring for that particular model year)
3. Remco Towing’s Application Charts (Remco makes Lube Pumps that allow certain vehicles not listed on Motorhome Magazine’s guide to still be flat-towed if their Remco pump is installed).

Also, it’s wise to read towing-related posts on popular RV’ing forums (such as the Dinghy Towing forum on RV.net) and ask fellow RV’ers you meet about their first-hand experiences towing your particular model vehicle.  A few newer-model Fords recently had some problems with transmission failures when being flat-towed (Ford has been addressing them).  But while Ford’s Owner’s Manual, and both guides above showed these vehicles to be approved for flat-towing, actual owner experiences posted on forum sites such as RV.net revealed some major problems.   So, do your homework carefully and thoroughly before making the investment and hitching up!

How Much Does it Cost?  What’s the Impact to MPG?

Two of the most-common questions I get!  

Cost-wise, most dinghy towing setups (parts and installation labor) typically run in the $3000 – $3500 range, about half the cost will be parts and other half labor.  This can be higher if you buy your parts retail from an RV dealer (rather than online), or choose the most expensive tow bar and braking solutions.

MPG impact has been amazingly minimal for me.  When towing the Tracker through the flat Midwest, my View’s MPG is only minimally reduced when towing (less the 1 MPG difference for the 3000 lb Tracker).  In the Rocky Mountains this past summer, my climbing speeds were obviously slowed with the added weight, but even at this extreme, the MPG difference was minimal (perhaps 1.5 MPG) because every hard uphill climb had an effortless downhill coast.

Toads are Fun!

So sure, the above toad is a whole lot cuter, cheaper, and easy to hitch onto the back of an RV than another gas-guzzling vehicle!   But I like all the terrific places my little Tracker has been able to get me to (where my RV alone could not).   Toads are fun!

Revisiting Summertime Scenes of My Childhood

After my long drive across Kansas, stopping for the night in the small town of Iola would seem like an unusual destination.  But actually, it was my main reason for routing home through Kansas in the first place!

My new ReadyBrute towbar with built-in surge braking, just didn’t feel like it was kicking in very much when I was descending steep passes in Colorado.  Yes, the little dash light was coming on saying that the surge mechanism was activating, but I wasn’t feeling much of a difference in braking.   My dealer had admitted they’d never installed a ReadyBrute/ReadyBrake system before, so I decided to have my setup inspected by the experts themselves—the folks who make ‘em, Night Shift Auto (NSA RV Products) in Iola, Kansas.

It just so happens that the little town of Iola also had a nice, quiet and CHEAP campground (Passport-America rate of only $11/night for full-hookups, wow!), so it was a very RV-friendly town to spend the night..

I arrived at the NSA “corporate headquarters” just after they opened in the morning:

The supervisor on duty came out to the parking lot to see my setup and turned right around to get a few hand tools.  The surge brake cable had indeed been set too loose by my dealer and was not activating the toad brakes at all.  He also noticed some clamps had been installed on the wrong side of the cables and corrected that.  Within 5 minutes, he had everything adjusted properly and showed me how to do it.  I offered to pay him for his time, but he humbly refused. 

It’s so refreshing to see an honest company making a solid product, selling it at a decent price, and then standing behind it with excellent service!  I’m so glad I purchased this towing system versus some of the bigger corporate brands. If you’re ever considering towing a car behind a motorhome, check out all the positive comments about Ready Brake on RV.net and other forums.  Highly recommended!

After leaving Iola, I took a brief drive through Fort Scott, Kansas.  Very neat historic town, but I unfortunately didn’t have time to stay long:

It was then on to the state I was born in, Missouri.  Continuing along Highway 54, the hills began to get a bit bigger as I got into the Ozarks.
 

My earliest childhood memories were of the family driving along these rolling hills to and from my grandparents’ house at Lake of the Ozarks for summer vacations.  My grandfather spent a number of years building their retirement house at the end of Lookout Point. He built a long deck that wrapped around 2 sides of the house and overlooked the first long stretch of the lake near Bagnell Dam. 

We all used to sit out on the deck in the summer watching the sun set over the lake and listening to the big tour boats go by—The Tom Sawyer, the Larry Don, and the Commander.   For a few summers, my grandfather owned a motorboat and would take us cruising on the lake.  At lake-level, those tour boats seemed massive, and the waves from their wake were the biggest and most-feared on the lake (especially the Commander’s!). 

I was eager to see “the Strip” again, where my grandparents would take me and my brother for countless hours of fun at the arcades, the go-kart track, the bumper cars, the fudge shop, and various other tacky tourist shops.  The old Frosty root beer stand, where we used to get root beer floats in big frosty glass mugs, had closed years ago when the 4-lane bypass highway was opened.  The Ozark Opry, where we’d go to hear a cheesy country musical show kind of like “Hee Haw” was also long gone.  But, there were still some familiar sites along the Strip that were still going strong, now almost 40 years later (ugh!)…. Dogpatch was still the same:


I used to spend hours there playing skee ball to exchange my long strands of tickets for desirable prizes such as plastic rings, yo-yos, or rubber snakes!

The go-kart place was still going strong as well:

My little brother used to always beat me racing at this track.  He still beats me today when racing our Subaru Outbacks too…must have been that training he learned here!

The tacky tourist shops were changed a bit, but the buildings were still the same


And the old bumper car place was still there too!


I was amazed to see the little church my grandfather had preached at for many years, Lake Ozark Christian Church, now expanded to triple it’s original size!

As I got to Bagnell Dam, I was saddened to see that most attractions there were out of business (on the positive side, it did make parking my View with tow car much easier).

All 3 of the big tour boats were still docked at the end of the Strip, but upon closer inspection, they didn’t look as if they’d sailed in a few years (perhaps the Tom Sawyer still is, but it was closed on the day I was there in the prime of August summer season, which did not seem to be a very good sign).
 
The Larry Don and Commander looked in far worse shape:


But curiously, it appeared as if their dock area was being renovated and railing was freshly painted.  Perhaps a rebirth awaits these 2 old boats next summer???  I do hope so!

The Dam itself seemed completely unchanged—still as narrow as ever to drive across, and I was thankful to do it in my “Skinnie Winnie” rather than a big Class A!

My grandmother sold the house at the lake in the mid-1980s to move back to Kansas City after my grandfather died.  We knew the people who purchased it had planned to add on to it and make some big changes.  Seems like many people were starting to do that with the original houses along the lake at that time, and new construction was absolutely insane during the 1990s and early 2000’s.  So, I was a bit apprehensive as to what I might find when I drove down their old street to see our old house.

The top of the street and most non-lakefront houses all looked amazingly the same:

 

 

 

 

 

But my grandparents’ house and the house next to it at the end of the point were completely unrecognizable.  My grandparents used to have a white ranch house with a front yard, little vegetation, and no garage.  In back, my grandfather had cleared the trees on 2 sides of the house to get large lake views from the deck.  The new owners, however, seemed to have gone an entirely different approach—no front yard at all (consumed by vegetation and a large 2 car garage), and prime lake views out back now appeared to be completely overgrown.  Strange, very strange.


In the cove across from my grandparents’, used to be a cute little motel called “The Lighthouse”.  It was low-key, surrounded by lots of trees and nature, and quiet.  Well, the condo boom of the 1990’s seemed to eliminate that kind of thing.  Now the view of the quant, quiet cove had a massive condo building with huge boat docks.  

There seemed to be monster condo buildings and big boat docks at the end of every cove along the lake, and while boat traffic on the lake always seemed to be busy in the summers I was there, it now seemed unimaginably congested with the advent of cheap jet skis.  Certainly no longer a soothing, peaceful place to spend the summer.  They say “you can never go home again” and in this case, the saying seemed painfully true.

I was very glad I’d decided not to spend the night at the lake, and instead head on to Jefferson City.  But before I got there, I took one final detour through the little town of Eldon, Mo—the one and only town my grandmother ever learned to drive to after getting her drivers license at the chipper age of 65!  She was forced to learn to drive after my grandfather had died, and she did learn how to slowly drive her big Olds 88 sedan with a V8 engine up to Eldon every few days to go to the grocery store, the drug store, the bank, and the beauty shop….no other driving destinations than those! 

Back then, most shopping was done along Eldon’s main street, and I was happy to see it looking pretty much unchanged:


In the 1970’s, Eldon was one of the first places I remember ever seeing a Wal-Mart.  They were small stores back then, and Eldon’s Wal-Mart still continues to be on the smaller side as Wal-Marts go:


I arrived at my campsite at Binder Park in Jefferson City around dinner time.  Nice little city-owned park with a nice lake that Millie, of course, had to swim in!


After dinner, we took a quick drive downtown to see the Capital.  In Missouri, you can still drive up pretty close to it:

The next morning, one of my old college radio friends drove down from Columbia to meet me for breakfast at this great little diner, the Towne Grill.  We hadn’t seen each other in nearly 30 years, but due to Facebook, got reconnected a few months ago, and our conversation seemed to pick right up where it’d left off without missing a beat!

Mary is one of only two I know from our class of Communications majors from Stephens College that has managed to stay employed in the industry all these years.  She’s currently a news reporter for the state-wide radio network and is still passionate for the pursuit of knowledge and unbiased journalism.  What an energizing way to start the day!

After breakfast, I returned to pack up camp and hit the road to head home.  It was a fairly long, boring drive along old, familiar roads.  We crossed three big rivers—the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the Illinois

Saw a neat courthouse in the town of Pittsfield, IL:


and finally ended our 6-week roadtrip with a nice sunset!