Traveling week: Heading West
May 26, 2022
This week was all about getting farther west in a slow and leisurely manner. Leaving Pere Marquette was uneventful; with full fresh water and empty holding tanks, we were ready for a series of one-night stays.
Roller-coaster hills of northeastern Missouri. (Excuse the dirty windshield!)
Along the byways of Illinois, we passed by Calhoun High School. If ever you felt the need to gripe about your high school's architecture, this one ought to make you reconsider.
They sure like their triangles.
Monday night's stay was at Sever Lake in Missouri, not too far west of Quincy. On the way, we stopped in Quincy at a Menards for camper repair parts (leaky plumbing 😒) and at a Super Walmart for groceries and stuff (because Walmarts have big parking lots).
As a bonus, we were able to stop at St. Peter's Cemetery in Quincy where Fr. Augustine Tolton is buried! It feels odd how the little cemetery is penned in by modern businesses such as KFC, a movie theater, and the like.
Day's end brought us to a very quiet free campground in the middle of not much. Most of the campers there looked somewhat "seasonal", as they didn't look like they had moved in a while. We parked away from them.
Campground Notes: Sever Lake was a decent free place to stay. The gravel pads were a bit overgrown, but serviceable. Loop A had about 4 or 5 vacant campers set up. (Locals' seasonal sites?) We ended up setting up on C loop just after it splits from B. No one else was in this area of the park. We chose the side closest to KK which turned out to be a very quiet road with hardly any cars at all. Weather wasn't great, so we didn't do any exploring of the area. It didn't look like it was all that scenic anyway. Cell signal was good, but Fred had died due to low battery that night. All and all, a fine, quiet place to stay the night for free.
The Monday night online card game/video chat with Rick's mom and our kids turned out to be a bust after we had repeated internet issues. Turns out that the way we have our internet phone wired into the router and then into the camper power is not enough power for the phone when the signal is super bad. I suspect the phone was slowly draining during our stay at Pere Marquette as the signal was just barely there and the phone would sometimes connect to towers - it was probably trying really hard to connect and was slowly draining the battery. Then when we wanted to stream video and audio during the card game, we had a similar issue with battery drain. We know all this can work because we used it at home before we left - but the signal was really strong there . . . . so I guess we learned something 😁.
On Tuesday morning, we woke up to the gentle serenade of cows mooing and birds chirping. After breakfast, we continued westward on a variety of roads, mostly county roads that were in need of some maintenance. But the advantage of these roads is the wonderful view of the countryside and a nice peek into the "local flavor" of the area that you miss when you take the interstate.
More rollercoaster roads.
Local flavor "Exhibit A". Yes, that is a lawnmower he is driving on the street.
Halfway through the drive, it started to drizzle, and the drizzle soon turned into rain. We made a quick stop for gas and a Walmart to pick up the stuff we forgot yesterday (oops - my bad). A short drive latter, we found our spot at Grand Trace.
Campground Notes: We were the only ones here midweek, and we set up in the big gravel area just before the individual sites. It was rainy and cool, so we didn’t go out and explore, but there was a pleasant view of the rolling countryside from our camper.
By the time we got settled into our spot it was pretty much just raining and looked like it would be for the rest of the afternoon and night. Great time for some tea, and a pot of soup for dinner.
Great afternoon for some tea. (Thanks for the tea, Peggy!)
Wednesday's travel day brought more rain pretty much the whole day. In Missouri and Iowa, we stuck to the back roads again.
Amish country in northern Missouri
Shortly after entering Nebraska, we made a stop at an Amazon locker (conveniently attached to a gas station convenience store along our route) to get some stuff that we had ordered (new shorts and camper parts - notice a theme here?).
Seems odd to have gaming stations at a gas station convenience store, but maybe that's a thing now.
As we approached the Streeter Park campground in Aurora, it was only 50 degrees and quite windy. The terrain in Nebraska was loosing its hilliness that it had near the eastern border, and was starting to look like, well, Nebraska. When we arrived at the campground, it at least had stopped raining, and we thankfully were able to pull into the campsite without unhooking.
That's dedication!
Streeter Park campground
Campground Notes: We got one of the end sites, so we didn't need to disconnect. We walked to the nearby laundromat which was clean and serviceable. Dinner time seems to be a good time to go. There is electric and water at the sites as well as a dump station. Adjacent to our site was a walking trail, but the weather was not agreeable so we didn't check it out. There were about 5 other campers here on a Wednesday night in mid-May. Looks like it would fill up easily in the summer. Our stay was quiet and uneventful.
That evening, we walked to the nearby laundromat to do laundry, and we continued our weekly card game with Babi and Andrew that had gotten postponed on Monday.
Thursday brought an end to the rain and some much desired warmth! We continued our theme of traveling side roads. We had traveled I80 through Nebraska several times in years past on our harried way to or from somewhere else. Now was the time to see a different side of Nebraska. Could the state prove to be anything more than flyover state? We found the answer to be "yes"!
Unique looking spherical tank
Can't beat the traffic on this road!
The sandhill region of Nebraska apparently covers about one quarter of the state.
We arrived at Thedford City Park Campground in mid afternoon. After a late lunch, we strolled around the small town.
Campground Notes: Quiet campground except for the when the trains went by. The site was easy to get into, but we needed to unhook due to the slope of the ground. Water and electric, but no dump station. We walked pretty much the entire town from the campground. It was quite hot when we arrived, but the night cooled quickly after the sun went down.
Our neighbors were from Switzerland and had been touring the U.S. since 2014.
Didn't look like the Cowpoke Hotel was accepting guests these days.
A sad story of two little girls who got lost in the sandhills many years ago
St. Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Church
The grounds of the high school football field were very well kept.
After getting a bit tired out from the walk (it was actually quite hot, ironically), we treated ourselves to root beer floats 😊, and then settled in for a quiet evening.
There is a google group email list which can send you an email when there is a new blog post. Instructions for signing up here: Subscribe OR directly join here: Google Group