Tag Archives: Coachlight RV Park (Carthage MO)

20150416-20 (R-M) MO, IL, IN

2015/04/16 (R) Carthage, MO to Edwardsville, IL

[Note:  There are no photos for these posts.]

I was awakened from a light sleep this morning by a change in the sound of our auxiliary air compressor and the pneumatic systems on the bus.  A valve that whines in a certain way as the system fills with air changed its tune and the compressor ran longer than it normally does and did not shut off.  I got up, turned it off, turned it back on and it finally completed its cycle and shut off automatically.  At that point I was up and wide awake so I got dressed.  Linda was awake by that point too so I suggested that we just get an early start on today’s journey, and that is what we did.  We pulled out of our site at the Coachlight RV Park at 7:30 AM and a few minutes later we were headed south on I-49.  Less than a mile later we looped around the cloverleaf interchange onto I-44 headed east.

The sky was overcast and we ran in and out of fog and mist as we traveled up and down the rolling hills of southwest Missouri with spring in full bloom.  The temperature was cool and the conditions made for easier driving than having a bright morning sun in my eyes.  Traffic was light to moderate for the first 2/3rds of the trip, albeit heavier passing through Springfield and Rolla.  About 200 miles into our trip we stopped at the Flying J at exit 226.  I-44 was now six lanes and we were at the fringe of heavier urban traffic and encountered a center lane closure on a bridge which brought traffic to a halt.  We patiently worked our way through that and a little farther along exited I-44 onto I-270 which became I-255 and took us across the mighty Mississippi River into Illinois, most of the St. Louis, Missouri metropolitan area to our north.

Once we crossed the river and traveled a few miles traffic thinned out but we bumped our way along as the road surface on this stretch of I-255 was very rough.  We exited I-255 onto I-55N/I-70E and then stayed with I-55 when it split from I-70.  It was a good thing, too, as I-70E was backed up all the way to the split with traffic stopped and a sign announcing long delays and advising motorists to seek an alternate route.  A few more miles and we were at our exit for IL-143, crossed over the highway, did a 180 onto the service road, and drove the last mile to the entrance to the Red BaRn RendezVous RV Park just east of Edwardsville, Illinois.

The entrance to the RV Park was a bit narrow but wide enough that I was able to swing in off the service road.  The interior gravel roads were also narrow, and I had to snake past the office, but they turned out to be just wide enough to accommodate an RV our size.  The office was closed but there was a note on the door with our name and site number.  The site had trees on either side that did not appear to be trimmed up high enough but it turned out that they were.

While not a destination park Red BaRn RendezVous is a nice little place in a location convenient to Edwardsville and Glen Carbon, Illinois, where Linda’s sister lives, and the Interstate highways that will get us to my sister’s house in 30 to 40 minutes.  The office building has men’s and women’s restrooms with showers and a small but well equipped laundry.  We had no commitments to visit anyone today and were in early enough that Linda gathered up the laundry and we carried it over to the laundry room.

Linda had some fresh blueberries that needed to be used so she made vegan blueberry pancakes for dinner.  We do not have these very often but they are a real treat when we do.  We were both tired and had headaches, unusual for me but not for Linda, and decided to drive into Edwardsville and find the Walmart.  We wanted to buy a present for Lilly and it gave us a reason/place to stretch our legs.  Back at the rig we located the OTA TV towers, oriented our front OTA TV antenna, and watched episodes of The Big Bang Theory while diddling on our iPads and computers.  I hate to lose a block of potentially useful time but I was not up to working on photos and blog posts and diddling was the best I could manage.

The only “issue” we had with the bus today involved the behavior of the air system.  There are three air pressure gauges in the cockpit—primary and secondary on the dashboard, and auxiliary to the side—corresponding to the three “systems” that operate the chassis (brakes and suspension), and accessories (belt tensioners, radiator shutters, air horns, step slides, and house components).  The air from the main engine air compressor goes through a dryer that removes moisture and then goes to the primary, secondary, and auxiliary tanks.  It sounds simple but it is a bit more complicated than that.  I returned an earlier phone call from Butch and discussed this with him.

As best I understand it (and care to take time to explain it here) a valve, or set of valves, regulates where the compressed air goes and the top priority is the brakes.  The primary tank/system supplies air to the rear brakes and the secondary tank/system provides air to the front brakes (or vice versa).  Until the air requirements of the brake systems are satisfied air does not flow to the suspension or accessories.  Once all of the systems are pressurized they are isolated from one another so that a failure of any component will not affect the other systems.  It is a clever, fault-tolerant design that works well and has stood the test of time.  The components are used on 18-wheelers, fire trucks, and all manner of heavy highway equipment, including commercial buses in passenger service.

When the system is working correctly this is what I normally see when driving.  When the systems are fully pressurized the primary, secondary, and auxiliary air pressure gauges all read ~130 PSI.  The primary and secondary gauges will stay at that pressure unless/until I apply the brakes.  The auxiliary gauge, however, will drop over time due to small leaks somewhere that I have not been able to isolate.  Once the pressure in any of the systems drops to about 90 PSI, which is almost always the auxiliary system, the main engine air compressor kicks in and brings the pressure in all of the systems back up to ~130 PSI.

What I saw for most of the drive today was different, and that is always a cause for concern and makes driving less enjoyable.  All three gauges were showing a loss of pressure and the pressure in all three systems was the same.  The compressor was still working and would kick in at ~90 PSI and bring all three back up to ~130 PSI, so that was good, but the behavior suggested that one or more isolation valves had “stuck” in a position that kept all three systems tied together, which was not good.  Because of the larger volume of air being lost through the leak(s) in the auxiliary system it took a lot longer for the pressure to bleed down and it took longer for the compressor to bring it back up.

About four hours into our six hour trip we stopped for fuel at the Flying J Truck Stop at exit 226.  When we resumed our travel I noticed that one of the gauges (primary or secondary, not sure which) was holding its pressure while the other one continued to drop along with the auxiliary gauge.  An hour after that I noticed that both the primary and secondary gauges were holding pressure while the auxiliary gauge was cycling, and this behavior continued for the rest of the trip.  Thus it appeared that whatever caused the abnormal behavior had self-corrected.  My suspicion is that a stuck valve had gotten unstuck.  Once we were parked and set up the auxiliary air compressor cycled on and off properly, confirming that the isolation valve(s) was(were) once again working correctly.

2015/04/17 (F) My Side

We were up between 7:00 and 7:30 AM, not because we had to be but because we were rested and awake.  We had a quiet, relaxed morning enjoying our coffee and granola and using our iPads to check on the world (L) and work on yesterday’s blog post (me).  We configured the bus to ensure the cats’ comfort while we were away and left at 10:30 AM to drive to my sister’s house in Bridgeton, Missouri.  We stopped for fuel just short of her house and finally arrived around 11:30 AM.

We were greeted by Patty and Maggie, her one remaining dog.  We visited for an hour and then went to a Panera (St. Louis Bread Company) not far from her house for lunch.  We returned to her house to continue our visit and await the arrival of Ryan, Amanda, and Lilly, who showed up a little after 3 PM.  They would have come earlier but Ryan had a routine work-related physical on which his continued employment depended.  To everyone’s relief he passed so everyone was relaxed.  Lilly was initially surprised to see us but immediately gave us a big smile and went to Linda’s outstretched arms.  Lilly is 27 months old and is a cheerful, happy child who interacts easily with whomever is around.

Ryan and Amanda were hungry so at 4:30 PM we headed to El Maguey Mexican Restaurant for dinner.  We had taco salads with beans instead of animal protein and everyone seemed to like their food.  It is Amanda and Ryan’s favorite Mexican restaurant.  Amanda and Ryan headed home with Lilly and we drove back to Patty’s house to wrap up our visit while we waited for rush hour traffic to subside.

Brendan called and Linda got to “chat” with Madeline and then each of us took turns talking to him.  He had received his offer letter from Eastern Michigan University and acknowledged it, so he will start his tenure track assistant professorship in the art history department in September.  The discussions about initial course assignments, however, have already started.  He also mentioned that Shawna’s application for tenure at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor is looking very positive.  Both of those pieces of information were very good news for us.

We took our leave at 7:30 PM and got back to our coach just before darkness settled in.  Having spent a long day enjoying the company of family we settled in to watch a few shows on the local PBS station’s Create sub-channel before turning in for the night.

2015/04/18 (S) LF-M-LH Day 1

Yesterday Linda (LF) talked to Marilyn (M) briefly as we (B & LF) were driving back to the rig from Patty’s house and they (LF & M) agreed that we (LF & B) would arrive at Linda H’s (LH) house around 11 AM tomorrow, which is now today.  (Hopefully the LF and LH designations will help keep straight which Linda I am referring to.  Most of the rest of this post is about today not yesterday.)

We were up this morning at 7 AM and had our usual coffee and granola.  It’s a good thing we will be getting home soon because we only have one day’s supply left of LF’s homemade granola.  It is so good that we have stopped buying commercial granolas because they do not have any taste by comparison.

After a suitably relaxing start to our day I continued plugging away at editing blog posts and selecting/processing photographs to go with them.  I dealt with some e-mails and then we gathered up our stuff and headed to (LH’s) and Marilyn’s house in Glen Carbon, Illinois.  Glen Carbon and Edwardsville flow together to form a contiguous urban area but they are distinct municipalities with Glen Carbon being to the south of Edwardsville.

We are camped just to the east edge of Edwardsville on the edge of a corn field.  The RV park is conveniently located to I-55 and just 10 minutes from LH and M’s house so we were there by 11:15 AM.  LH and M had purchased various fresh ingredients for a salad and after sitting and visiting for a while Marilyn assembled the salad.  There was something going on at the house across the street that resulted in the wife calling the police and three cars/officers being dispatched to the scene.  LH said the husband was himself involved in law enforcement so that added a certain tension to the whole situation as he almost certainly had firearms in the house.

We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting until Marilyn had to leave for a gala fundraiser for a school that her Congregation supports.  We decided to continue visiting with LH and stay for dinner.  LH had a bag of shredded vegan mozzarella “cheese” so we ordered a mushroom and onion no-cheese pizza from Imo’s and she ordered a medium supreme.  I drove into town and picked up the pizzas.  When I got back we added the vegan cheese to ours and heated it in the oven long enough to melt it.  It was very good.

In recent times Imo’s was our favorite pizza (after the demise of the Luigi’s restaurants in the St. Louis area many years ago) but the last time we tried one without cheese it was not very satisfying.  The crust is thin and crisps nicely, the way we like it, and the sauce is slightly sweet and used sparingly, the way we like it, but their normal cheese, a mozzarella and provolone mix, is (apparently) what pulls together the pie’s uniquely fabulous taste.  While the vegan mozzarella was not an exact replacement it made for a very tasty meal, bringing both taste and texture to the pizza.

We needed to do some grocery shopping so we took our leave at 7:30 PM and drove to the Dierbergs supermarket in Edwardsville.  There are three grocery stores at the intersection of IL-159 and Governors Parkway, but Dierbergs was the most likely to have what we were looking for.  Our shopping done we headed east on Governors’ Parkway almost to I-55 and took the service road back to our RV park.  We gave our cats the attention they were seeking while Linda (LF) settled in with her e-book and I worked on the blog post for our two-day visit to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.  I also proofread the final draft of the March 2015 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine and sent back my corrections.  I uploaded the blog post and then went to bed to work on the posts for yesterday and today.

2015/04/19 (N) LF-M-LH Day 2

Linda (LF) was up at 6:30 AM, earlier than usual, and I got up at 6:50 AM.  Before I had a chance to start making our morning coffee she pulled up the weather and showed me the radar.  Rain had been forecast to start just after midnight, and continue all day today and into tomorrow, but it appeared that it had not rained last night.  The radar, however, indicated that the rain was on our southern doorstep.  I needed to dump our holding tanks and refill our fresh water tank, so I took care of that while Linda made the coffee and updated her cost-of-camping spreadsheet.

The dump and fill process took me about an hour but we now have enough waste tank capacity and fresh water onboard to get us home with room to spare.  Based on Linda’s data our average nightly cost to “camp” this winter has been about $8.75.  Not bad.  Our average daily cost for our winter in Florida was over $20 which we felt was a very reasonable cost for wintering there.  We drove more miles this winter compared to last, almost double in fact, so we spent the money we saved on camping buying diesel fuel.  Fortunately diesel fuel prices in the central and western states where much lower than the prices in the southeast last year.  They were, in fact, the lowest prices we have seen in years so that was a nice break.

I updated my water usage spreadsheet while Linda got caught up on our personal accounting and bills.  Cell phones and cellular data, in conjunction with the Internet and electronic banking, have fundamentally transformed the full-time and extended-time RVing experience in ways that no one could have imagined 15 years ago.  I had an e-mail from Dropbox that Kate had joined a folder I had shared with her so I sent her a short e-mail updating her on our travel plans.  I also had an e-mail with the final draft of the print version of the March 2015 issue of BCM and verified that the corrections I uploaded last night had been made to my article.  I consolidated my blog posts for March 22 and 23 and finished editing them.  I had just started looking at the unprocessed photos for those posts when it was time to pack up and head to Marilyn and Linda’s (LH) house for the day.

The weather was overcast and gloomy and the rains eventually came, a perfect day to stay inside and eat, talk, and play games.  Marilyn has been making a real attempt at moving to a vegan diet so she prepared tomato soup and black bean burgers for lunch.  We then put the leaf in the dining room table and got out the Mexican Train dominoes game.  We brought hummus and Linda (LH) had made vegan guacamole so we enjoyed those with a few Fritos corn chips.  We also had fresh grapes and toasted almonds to munch on and a couple of bowls of popcorn.  We played 16 rounds of Mexican Train starting with the double 15 tile in the center and ending with the double “zero” (blank) in the center.  It was evening by the time we finished and everyone enjoyed having a whole day to hang out with family and friends with nothing more important to do than play a game.

We left just before 8 PM and drove through Edwardsville to get back to the RV Park rather than get on the Interstates.  There was very little on TV that interested us and we ended up watching an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  It was a very popular show in its day but is now very dated to the point of being almost silly.

Linda (LF) read and I selected/processed photos for my blog post about our visits to Ajo, Arizona on March 22nd and 23rd.  I got the post and photos uploaded and then went to bed.

2015/04/20 (M) Edwardsville, IL to Twelve Mile, IN

Linda was up a little before 7 AM and I was up a little after.  Today was a travel day, so we did not make coffee or have breakfast.  We were not hungry anyway having had our fill of food, both good and junk, yesterday.  We each had a cup of tea while we got our day started.

We started getting ready to leave around 9 AM and finally pulled out of the Red BaRn RendezVous RV Park at 9:50 AM.  We had about 330 miles to travel to get from Edwardsville, Illinois to Twelve Mile, Indiana.  Since the RV park is just off of I-55 we took I-55 north to I-72 near Springfield, followed that east to I-57 and then took that north to US-24.  We followed US-24 east and moved from Central Daylight Time to Eastern Daylight Time sometime after we crossed into Indiana.  US-24 joined up with US-35 to bypass Logansport, Indiana to its south and then split off to continue east towards Peru.  We picked up US-31 just before Peru and took that north to IN-16 where we headed back west about five miles to Twelve Mile.  It was 5 PM (EDT) when we arrived at Butch and Fonda Williams’ place.  The bus ran well except for a couple of tattletale lights that started blinking briefly towards the end of the trip.  The previous problem with the chassis air systems did not reoccur.

I checked the manual after we got parked and one of the lights was for a chassis battery voltage Hi/Low condition and the other was for the upper and lower 12 V strands of the chassis battery being out-of-balance.  Both conditions, if true, might implicate the Vanner battery equalizer but the first diagnostic step will be to check the circuit breakers.  The next step will be to check all of the battery connections, including the Vanner.  One of the things on my To-Do list is to swap the upper and lower batteries as the “24V” gauge on the dashboard usually reads 29 V and the “12V” gauge usually reads 14 V or slightly less if I have the headlights turned on.

Butch and Fonda had to take his parents to medical appointments in Lafayette, Indiana today and got home just before we arrived.  We did not realize they were there but that was OK; they knew we were coming and we have a nice level spot to park on concrete with a “50 A” electrical connection when we are here.  (It’s a 240 VAC connection with a 50 A RV outlet but we can only draw about 30 amps on each leg.)  Even though we left home on November 30, 2014 Twelve Mile feels like the place where our trip to the southwest U.S. began as we left from here in a caravan with Butch and Fonda on December 3rd.

We were settled in our spot and had our WiFiRanger connected to their Wi-Fi access point when Butch and Fonda either realized we were there, or that we were not going to knock on their door, and came over and knocked on ours instead.  They came in our bus and we talked for over an hour at which point Butch needed to deal with a Facebook group admin issue.  After they returned to the house Linda started preparing our dinner while I checked e-mail and then continued working on this blog post.

Linda sautéed onions, mushrooms, and garlic in a little olive oil and added torn spinach at the end.  She cooked two baking potatoes in the microwave oven and served them with the sautéed vegetables as a topping along with some almond milk jalapeño pepper jack vegan cheese.  A simple but satisfying dish on a cool, clammy evening.  We also had some black grapes with the meal which were tasty and refreshing.  We made two large cups of hot tea and took them to the house where we visited with Butch and Fonda some more.  By 10 PM we were too tired to be good company so we returned to our coach and went to bed.

 

20150411-15 (S-W) NM, TX, OK, AR, MO

[Note: There are no photos for the five days covered in this post.]

2015/04/11 (S) Relaxing Chores

We like to get up and go do things, but we also like not having to get up and do things.  Today we got up when we were ready to.  I used up the last four scoops of coffee beans from our first three pounds and opened the next/last three pounds; one each of Sweet Seattle Dreams, Cafe Europe, and Ethiopian Yirgacheffe.  Each of these is a half regular, half decaffeinated custom blend that Jeff at Teeko’s Coffee and Tea in Howell, MI makes for us.  Linda installed iOS 8.3 on her iPad while I made the coffee.

We had toast and jam for breakfast using some more of the English toasting bread we bought at Smith’s the other day.  After breakfast Linda played several of her word games, including Words with Friends, online with Karen.  I installed iOS 8.3 on my iPad and then worked on yesterday’s blog post and e-mailed it to myself.  (It is still the easiest way for me to get it from my iPad to my laptop, which somehow just does not seem right.)

Mid-morning Linda started cleaning the coach.  We have been in dusty environments for a lot of the winter, especially the last few weeks, and the coach needed a good vacuuming.  We don’t vacuum as often as we would if we did not have the cats with us as the vacuum is rather loud and they are afraid of it.  They do not like the vacuum cleaner at home either but they can get a lot farther away from it and have a lot more places to hide in the house than they do in the bus.

While Linda worked on the interior of the bus I got out the water softener, pre-filter, and hoses.  I first connected everything so I could run water through the pre-filter to remove any sediment and then backwards through the softener to back flush the resin bed.  I then connected the hoses in the normal forward flow direction and added 26 ounces of non-iodized table salt to the captive filter housing on the inlet side of the softener tank.  I no longer use this housing for a filter.  Its sole purpose is to hold salt for regenerating the softener.  That way I do not have handle a wet filter while trying to keep it clean so I can reinstall it.

The regeneration procedure was the same ordeal it has been all winter, taking a few minutes of my time spread out over several hours.  Most of that time I worked on blog posts and photos, but my work was interrupted every 20 to 30 minutes to attend to the softener.  I did, however, manage to get the water coming out of the softener to finally test at 1.5 gpg TH.  That should be enough softening capacity to get us home without having to regenerate the water softener again.

For dinner Linda made a barley, split pea, and lentil dish with sautéed vegetables and a hint of soy sauce.  It was very tasty.  We had the TV on the local PBS station and I finished my consolidated blog post and image gallery post for the week of the Escapade rally and uploaded them to our website/blog.

2015/04/12 (N) Edgewood, NM to Amarillo, TX

Today was a travel day and we normally skip breakfast and coffee on such days, but not today.  I was up a little after 7 AM and we did not plan to leave until 9 AM so we had time to make, consume, and digest some coffee and toast.  I turned off the electric heating element for the Aqua-Hot and turned on the diesel burner and engine pre-heat coolant circulating pump.

When we were done with breakfast we got the Dewalt air compressor out of the car and checked all of the tires on the bus and the toad.  It turned out that all of the pressures were slightly higher than where I normally set them, due in part to our altitude of 6,700 feet ASL, and that was want I wanted.  In driving from the Route 66 RV Park in Edgewood, New Mexico to the Overnite RV Park in Amarillo, Texas we will drop just over 3,000 feet in elevation.  That, in turn, will cause the cold pressures in the tires to drop.  The current cold pressures in the tires should be sufficient to allow for that, but I will check the TireTraker monitor in the morning to be sure.

By the time I finished checking the tires Linda had the interior ready for travel.  We hooked up the car, set the car to be towed, switched on the bus chassis batteries and engine accessories air supply, checked the lights, turned off the Aqua-Hot burner and engine pre-heat coolant circulating pump, started the bus engine, and switched the Level Low system to drive mode.  A few minutes later the chassis air system was fully pressurized and the coach suspension was at ride height.  We exited our site easily, pulled out of the RV Park onto Historic Route 66 westbound, and a mile later made two right turns and accelerated onto I-40 eastbound.

Once we were underway Linda called the Overnight RV Park in Amarillo, Texas to make sure they had open sites.  They did, but not many so she gave them our name to hold a pull-through site that would accommodate our bus with the car attached.  Since we are just staying one night we do not plan to not unhook the car.

We knew from our maps and what we could not see to the east that we were done with the Rocky Mountains.  We were now in the Great Plains and would be from here all the way through Oklahoma.  Not that the terrain was flat; eastern New Mexico was rolling terrain, occasionally steep, with mesas.  Not surprisingly the terrain did not change abruptly as we crossed into Texas, although the road surface and time zone did.  For lack of a better, or more official, line of demarcation I consider the central time zone as the boundary of the middle-west.

While not as dramatic as the mountain west the Great Plains are a place where grasses and low brush dominate a natural landscape that is largely devoid of trees and that have a beauty all their own.  The other thing we noticed as we moved east was the thickening cloud cover and occasional storm clouds and virga.  Linda had checked the weather forecast so we knew there was a low, but non-zero, chance we would encounter rain while driving and/or after we got parked for the evening.  We did, in fact, drive through a couple of miles of very light rain somewhere near the New Mexico / Texas border.

We only stopped once for a bathroom/stretch break and made very good time.  The posted (maximum) speed limit for most of I-40 in both states is 75 MPH.  Back east I typically limit my speed to 62 MPH or less if the speed limit is lower.  What I have discovered out west is that the bus really likes to travel at 68 MPH turning just under 2,000 RPM and so do I, at least out here in the wide open spaces.

Linda had selected the Overnight RV Park in Amarillo for several reasons.  For one, the name and description strongly suggested that this park was set up to accommodate overnight visitors passing through the area in their RVs and looking for a place to spend the night.  For another, it was on the east edge of Amarillo, so we will not have to drive through town in the morning when we pull out.  Finally, it was right across the street from a Pilot Truck Stop, so we did not have to make a separate stop for fuel.

We pulled of I-40 at exit 75 around 2:30 PM CDT and pulled in to the truck stop.  The place was crowded with trucks but we got lucky and pulled in behind a semi that was done fueling and pulled out shortly thereafter.  There was some confusion regarding the pump number so it took a bit longer than usual to top off the tank, but we were not pressed for time as our RV park for the night was right across the street.  Linda settled the charge and we followed several tractor-trailers to the exit, back to the main road, and then turned north and drove the short distance up to the entrance to the RV Park.  We turned in and stopped by the office where Linda got us registered.  As is the case in most RV Parks we got a map of the campground with our site and entrance path marked, the login for the Wi-Fi, and the combination lock for the bathrooms.  We also received information about where to go and what to do in the event of violent weather.  Welcome to the Midwest and Tornado Alley.

Overnight RV Park is an older park with a lot of long-term residents, but it was not run down and had some nice, mature trees and plants.  I was momentarily concerned about low overhanging branches and tight turns when we pulled in but the gravel interior roads were wide enough, and the trees trimmed enough, to make access to our assigned pull-through site very easy.  I did, however, lift the tag axle to allow for the tighter turns.

We went through our normal arrival routine, got connected to the Internet, and started looking at our RV park options in the greater Oklahoma City area.  We plan to stay two nights and take part of our one full day to visit my Uncle Bob and Aunt Helen who live in Norman just south of OKC.  I had not contacted them, however, as our travel plans have been very fluid.  Now that we were a day’s drive away I called to let them know we would be in the area.  I was a bit surprised that Helen answered the phone and even more surprised to learn that Bob was in “rehab” although Helen did not say why.  She did say that we could visit him so we arranged to go to their house on Tuesday morning at 10 AM, get the address/directions to the rehab facility, and possibly take Helen with us to go visit him.

I texted my sister and niece to let them know that Friday from lunchtime to dinnertime would work well for us and accommodate their availability.  Linda texted our children to let them know we had landed safely in Amarillo and then texted Marilyn to share the same information.  Marilyn called back a bit later and Linda filled in the details.

The RV Park options around OKC were limited, which seems to be typical of urban areas including St. Louis, Missouri.  The options also seemed to be less than ideal based on reviews and expensive by our standards.  In the end we decided to try the Cleveland County Fairgrounds in Norman.  We sent a message via RVillage to someone who is currently there in a 42′ motorhome and inquired about the place.  They wrote back and said it was fine but was near full, does not take reservations, and only has 30A electrical service.  All of that was fine by us.  The pluses are that it is only a few minutes from my Aunt and Uncle’s house and it is only $20 per night, so we are going to leave early tomorrow and see if we can snag a spot.

inda re-heated some leftovers for dinner, after which we went for a stroll around the RV park.  We had just exited our coach and got into a conversation with our neighbors to the north.  They were working on errands so after a good chat we left them to their work and went on our walk.  Getting out and moving around in the cool, fresh air was just what we needed after a long day of sitting and driving and invigorated us enough to stay up until 9 PM.

2015/04/13 (M) Amarillo, TX to Norman, OK

The weather forecast did not favor travel during any particular part of the day; it was going to be rainy and windy regardless of when we left.  Getting a spot at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds, however, might depend on getting there early.  We targeted an 8 AM departure for our 4.5 hour, 270 mile trip.  We were up at 7 AM and each had a cup of tea and a banana.  We did not unhook the car last night, so all we had to do was run it through the towing procedure and it was ready to go.  We pulled out of our site at 8:20 AM.

Our route today was I-40 east to I-35 south to US-77 south to East Robinson Street.  All but the last 20 miles was on I-40 which mostly ran east to northeast.  Winds were 15 – 20 MPH and gusty out of the northeast the whole way.  That meant I almost always had a headwind component and often had a crosswind component.  The headwind requires the engine to work harder so I set the cruise control at 64 MPH instead of the 68 MPH I ran most of yesterday.  The crosswind component meant I had to actively work the steering and the lower speed made that more comfortable as well.

Most of the trip was through rural countryside with good road surface and light traffic.  We encountered a few construction zones but there was no work being done due to the weather.  As we approached the Oklahoma City metropolitan area traffic became much heavier, as expected, but the highways had more lanes and everything seemed to move along just fine.  In particular I-40 and I-35 always had at least three lanes allowing me to stay in the center, away from entering traffic, and move to the left or right as needed for an exit ramp.  The whole drive would have been easier without the rain and constant fiddling with windshield wipers, but I was always able to see well enough to maneuver safely, it was just more work and bit more stressful than normal.  I seem to handle urban road systems OK; it’s just not my favorite thing to do.

The Cleveland County Fairgrounds was easy to find and easy to access.  As soon as we pulled in we could see where the RVs were parked.  I pulled up out of the way while Linda called the Fairgrounds office.  She was told to go ahead a find a place to park and then register at the kiosk or in Building G.  I pulled up into the gravel parking area that had the RVs backed along two sides, like an “L.”  One leg of the L was paved and the other was grass/gravel.  We noticed one empty site in the paved area so I pulled around in front of it (so no one else could take it) while we unhooked the car.  (When camping in a no-reservations, first come, first served campground you have to stake your claim to an empty site.)  Linda moved the car out of the way and then spotted the rear end of the bus while I repositioned it and then backed it into site #9.  We have been towed out of two fairgrounds at the end of rallies where it rained so we were glad to get this paved site.

The sites here are all full hookup with 30 A electric and include usable Wi-Fi for $20/night.  That is a much better deal than anything else we could find in the OKC area, and is also the closest place to where my aunt and uncle live, so it was a great find.  We probably won’t use the fresh water or sewer connections and the 30 A service will be OK.  Apparently there are also some 50 A sites but we did not need that much power and did not want to take the time to see if one of them was open.  Given forecasted high temperatures that will barely reach 60 degrees F we will not need our air-conditioners.  As for heat, we will use our Aqua-Hot in diesel-fired mode for domestic hot water and space heating, if needed.

Once we had the power connected and got settled in I made a pot of coffee while Linda made roll-up sandwiches for lunch.  She then checked us in to the Fairgrounds on RVillage and made our reservation for the Red Barn Rendezvous RV Park near Edwardsville, Illinois starting on Thursday.  We will be in the St. Louis, Missouri area for four or five nights visiting family before pushing on to Twelve Mile, Indiana.  She then researched places to stay near Joplin and Springfield, Missouri for Wednesday evening.

While Linda was doing all of that I finished up yesterday’s blog post and started working on this one.  I then logged-in to RVillage.  There are three other RVillagers checked in to the CCFG so I posted to the home feed and to the park feed to see if I could make contact with any of them.  One of them (Hollywood Bob) is also a member of the SKP Photographers BOF which Linda and I help run.  (I am the owner/leader of the RVillage Group.)  I sent him a friend request and then a personal message.

The rain let up not long after we arrived at the Fairgrounds but the wind continued, with gusts occasionally rocking the bus.  The bus is fairly massive but also has a lot of surface area and sits on air springs.  We do not have leveling jacks, so strong/gusty winds can, and do, rock the bus.

Hollywood Bob and his girlfriend Barb walked by so I went outside to chat with them briefly and we arranged to walk over to a local coffee shop at 8 AM tomorrow.  I then spent the late afternoon and early evening editing the text for my March 13th blog post on our visit to the Sonoran Desert Museum west of Tucson and then worked on selecting photos for the post.  Somewhere in there we took a break and went for walk around the Fairgrounds.  It is not a large facility but has nice buildings and grounds.

Linda heated up the last of the barley and vegetable leftovers and steamed some halved Brussels sprouts and finished them with a White Peach Balsamic Vinegar Glaze from the Queen Creek Olive Mill near Arizona City, Arizona.  Yum.  After dinner we turned on the front TV and tuned in PBS to watch Antiques Roadshow.  I finished selecting and processing photos for the March 13th post around 11:30 PM but did not upload it

2015/04/14 (T) Bob and Helen

I was up at 6:30 AM and uploaded my blog post for March 13th.  We had spent that day at the Sonoran Desert Museum west of Tucson, Arizona and photographed the sunset from nearby Gates Pass.  The post was brief (by my standards) but I put over 30 photos in an image gallery.

At 8 AM we walked over to Hollywood Bob and Barb’s rigs, met up with them, and then walked the short distance to the Dora Marie Bakery and Coffee Shop just across Porter Avenue from the Cleveland County Fairgrounds.  We sat there conversing over coffee until 9:45 AM, mostly about RVs and RVing as that is generally the first and easiest conversation to have with new friends.  I already knew from a brief chat with Bob yesterday that both of them are members of the Escapees RV Club and that Bob is a member of the SKP Photographers BOF.  Bob is also a Freethinker and knew that we were as well from our RVillage Profile.  We found out over coffee that they are both members of the WINs (Wandering Individuals Network) and LoWs (Loners on Wheels) which are independent groups for single RVers.  As we were walking back to our rigs we agreed to get together for SKP happy hour at 4 PM.

Our main reason for being in Norman, Oklahoma was to visit my Uncle Bob and Aunt Helen.  Uncle Bob earned a Ph.D. in micropaleontology over 60 years ago when Ph.Ds. were less common than they are now.  He moved to Oklahoma after finishing his degree and did extensive work on the Arbuckle Mountains.  A Google search on “Robert O. Fay” produced a lot of hits referencing his published work.  He was attached to the University of Oklahoma at one time and that is what brought them to Norman.

Bob just turned 88.  He and Helen have been married for 49 years but never had children.  Helen had one son, Scott, from a previous marriage.  Scott married Linda and they had two children, Tiffany and Philip.  Scott passed away a while back but Linda still lives in Norman and teaches in OKC.  Tiffany and Philip and their families also still live in Norman.

I last saw Bob and Helen four years ago on the drive back to Michigan from Livingston, Texas where I had picked up our Honda Element from Dennis and Carol Hill.  Helen was having problems with her back at the time but Bob was as sharp as I remembered the last time I saw him 26 years earlier while returning from a trip out west with Brendan.  All of our memories of that visit were a bit vague but my recollection is that Meghan and my sister, Patty, met us there so Patty must have driven Meghan to OKC from St. Louis, Missouri.

When I called on Sunday to let Bob and Helen know we would be in the area I talked to Helen and found out that my uncle was in a rehabilitation facility not far from the house but she did not say why.  When we arrived at their house at 10 AM this morning we were greeted by Tiffany, Brandy (Philip’s wife), and Helen who was up walking around and sharp as ever.  We visited briefly and then followed Tiffany and Helen over to the rehab facility.

Uncle Bob is in the facility recovering from a persistent pneumonia, which was treated with an antibiotic to which he was allergic, but he also has Parkinson’s.  He is still coherent but the decline in both his physical and mental condition was striking.  I was not shocked by that, however, and only briefly surprised by virtue of not being fully prepared.  We had a conversation nonetheless, and Bob asked, and talked, about family and genealogy which became his research passion along with geology.  Tiffany took a cell phone picture of Linda and me with Bob.  She had to get back to work so she took Helen home while Linda and I stayed a bit longer to chat with my uncle.

Bob was tired, dozing on and off, and it was getting close to lunchtime.  Staff also needed to check on Bob so we took our leave.  Although we will be back this way in future years I had the strong sense that Uncle Bob is not going to improve going forward and this may be the last time I get to see him.  It was not quite the meeting I had envisioned, but I was glad for what we had.  My dad will be 90 in June and cannot travel very far from his home so I don’t see any way he and his brother will ever meet again.  There is always a final everything but it is usually only clear in retrospect.  Such is life.

Before Tiffany and Helen left Tiffany called her mom (Linda) to see if she could be available to get together after work this evening.  Linda said she could rearrange some things with her brother and would love to meet for dinner.  We discussed meeting at the house and going out to dinner from there.

Tiffany invited us to stop by her school, which is just down the street from the Fairgrounds, so we did that right after lunch, which consisted of a couple of tofu hotdogs wrapped up in soft tortillas with mustard and relish.  Not WFPB but definitely vegan and definitely tasty.  Tiffany gave us a tour of her school and we got to meet Cody, her significant other, who also works at the school.  She had talked to her mom (Linda) and Helen and they decided that we would all be more comfortable and better able to converse at the house.  We explained how we eat and Tiffany said she and Brandi (Philip’s wife) would take care of bringing in food and make sure there were items for us.

I spent most of the afternoon working on blog posts but took time out to check the pressures of the two front bus tires.  I thought I would have to adjust all of them now that we have descended to 1,200 feet ASL, but the front tires were still close to one another and above the minimum required pressure, so I did not get out the compressor.  By 3 PM I was feeling the need for a nap and snoozed for an hour.

We walked over to Barb and Hollywood Bob’s rigs at 4:30 PM.  We were going to do SKP happy hour at 4 PM but we were not sure we could carry glasses of wine around the Fairgrounds so we went empty handed.  The Farmers Market opened at 4 PM so Bob, Linda, and I walked over to check it out while Barb started preparing their dinner.  They had to be at a dance event at 6 PM and we needed to be at Uncle Bob and Aunt Helen’s house around the same time.

Brandi has been Uncle Bob’s primary caregiver when he is at home and she brought him from the rehab facility to the house for the evening.  There was a houseful of people with laughter and energy and it was nice to see Uncle Bob and Aunt Helen surrounded by so many people who obviously love them and care about them.  Dinner was salad greens, vegetables, fresh fruit, sandwich fixings, and deserts and there was plenty for us to choose from.  Here’s how the family fits together:

  • Bob is my father’s younger/only brother (by two years).
  • Helen had one son, Scott Pelton, from a previous marriage.
  • Scott married Linda and they had two children; Tiffany and Philip.
  • (Scott passed away some years ago.)
  • Tiffany has three girls (young ladies); Alexis, Brianna, and Caitlin.
  • Brianna has a son, Liam, who is Bob and Helen’s great-great-grandson.
  • Philip married Brandi and they have three children; Cassidy, Cheyenne, and Danika.

We stayed until almost 9:30 PM and had a great visit that ended with a discussion about Linda and her three grand-daughters coming to Michigan for a visit sometime.  Tiffany texted me the cellphone photo she took of Linda, me, and Uncle Bob at the rehab facility this morning.  Caitlin set up a camera and took photos of the entire group.  When we got back to our rig I replied to text messages and provided our e-mail address and home phone number to Helen and Tiffany.

2015/04/15 (W) Norman, OK to Carthage, MO

There is always way more to do in any given area than there is time to do it, and the greater Oklahoma City area, including Norman, is no exception to that.  But our presence here proved to be the catalyst for a large gathering of people to whom we are related by marriage through Helen, my only Aunt, and only by virtue of her being married to my only uncle, Bob.  While it would have been nice to visit longer after last night’s gathering it would have been anti-climactic.

Through the serendipity that RVillage makes possible we also made the acquaintance of Barb and Hollywood Bob at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds.  As much as we would have liked to have coffee with them again this morning, we don’t usually have our morning coffee on travel days and wanted to be on the road by 9 AM.

Linda had been checking the weight restrictions on the roads in our home county and noted yesterday that they will be lifted on the 16th.  That means we have a green light to return to our house whenever we want to.  We already have plans to spend four nights near St. Louis, Missouri and visit family, and at least a couple of nights in Twelve Mile, Indiana visiting Butch and Fonda with whom we started this southwestern adventure on November 30th, 2014.  We will spend our final night at the Camp Turkeyville RV Park so we can dump our holding tanks before arriving home.

All of which is to say we had over 600 miles to travel from Norman to St. Louis, which is two day trip for us, with a reservation at an RV Park in Edwardsville, Illinois starting Thursday afternoon and arrangements to visit with family on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Linda researched possible intermediate locations to split the distance roughly in half and found the Coachlight RV Park on I-49 one mile north of I-40 near Carthage, Missouri.

We did not take the time to buy an Oklahoma Turnpike pass and decided not to take I-44 northeast out of OKC.  From the CCFG we headed west on Robinson Street back to US-77 north, merged onto I-35 north, and then exited onto I-240 east.  Somewhere east of OKC I-240 ended and merged into I-40.  As urban highways go it was an easy exit from the greater OKC area.  We stopped at a rest area just before crossing the Oklahoma/Arkansas border and took a short lunch break, having vegan cold cut rollup sandwiches.

We continued east on I-40 to Fort Smith, Arkansas and then headed north on I-540, which has been re-signed I-49, through the Boston Mountains toward Fayetteville and Bentonville, the corporate home of Wal-Mart.  I-49 did not continue all the way into Missouri and became US-77 as it passed through a narrow valley and small towns.  A few miles into Missouri the road became I-49 again.  We stayed with I-49 up to where it joins with I-44 east near Joplin, Missouri.  About 10 miles later I-49/US-77 split off to the north and one mile later we exited, crossed over the Interstate, and pulled into the Coachlight RV Park.

The weather was overcast with occasional drizzle for the entire trip but it was a beautiful drive nonetheless.  Eastern Oklahoma is green and rolling and northwest Arkansas adds small mountains to that topography.  The bus ran well all day including the steepest grades.

The Coachlight RV Park is located behind the Coachlight RV Dealership with very easy access.  Linda got us registered but then we had to wait quite a while for someone to move the motorhome in front of us.  Again, we were given instructions on where to go and what to do in the event of extreme/violent weather.  The Park is built into a north-facing slope with wide paved roads behind an RV dealership of the same same.  The RV dealership was the emergency shelter.  Most of the sites are pull-through except along the two outside edges.  All of the sites are wide, long, and level gravel with full hookups including cable TV and Wi-Fi.  The Park has its own well with a water softener so the water at the sites is very soft.  The Park allows customers to wash their rigs so we got out the hose, spray nozzle, and long-handled soft brush and rinsed off the car and the bus as best we could.

We went for a walk around the Park to stretch our legs and stopped by the office to check out the meeting room.  There is a small RV rally here and we got to see the meeting room which was very nice.  For dinner Linda made a macaroni and mushroom dish with onions, garlic, and kale followed by red grapes.  Very tasty.  We watched a few TV shows and called it a day.