Home for the Holiday

To think that I almost missed the sign! At the last second, I caught it or we would have had to go back around. Jim might have balked at that. We had planned to stay overnight in Sioux Falls but it was still early in the afternoon when we arrived so we pushed on to Vivian. Dad was waiting for us there. We ditched the camper and drove back to Presho with the car (and me driving) to have dinner at Hutch's. George and Shirley Mowry, old family friends, happened to be eating there also so we joined forces. Shirley has survived some serious health issues this past winter, including having her right wrist broken in an auto accident. She is positively thin but , as always, positively SHIRLEY. Her stories of both her and George's health problems are graphic and ribald, punctuated with wild bursts of laughter. Shirley just regrets that she can't smoke inside the restaurant. She should give it up, she says, but she just enjoys it so darn much. To her credit, she contains herself to one drink (she has full-blown diabetes). George can still tell a good story. He is hand writing his memoirs but Shirley says no one will be able to read his scratchy hand writing anyway. She plans to outlive him (they are both in their mid-eighties) and she will have the final say about what is made public. George says it will probably all be balled up and consigned to the fire with him. For once I simply forgot about taking photos. Too much talking going on!

On Easter Sunday Dad and I went to Draper for 9:00 Mass, no fuss, no music, a two minute sermon and out into the world we go. Draper has some interesting old buildings still surviving on its street that was formerly old Highway 16. Like Vivian, the modern mainstays of its Main Street are the gym and the bank. Back in our hometown, the new burger joint (Red and White, Fight! Fight!) is completed on the outside and Dad says (to his disgust) that Orville has hired a manager for it.

Since nothing in Presho or Draper was open for meals, we raided the farm for food and came up with walleye for Easter dinner. Dad isn't a big fan of fish; he would have been happier with hot dogs. Nevertheless, I cooked up a fairly decent meal out of Mike's extensive freezer collection. I don't know where the walleye came from, but it was darn good! Thanks, Mike!

After dinner we left Dad to his napping and headed down the road for home. For the first time on the trip, I swear, we had a tail wind. My first feeling of being home was when we came over the hill east of Chamberlain and sighted the bluffs across the Missouri River (West River is where I live). My next feeling was when the Black Hills rose out of the plains ahead of us on I-90.

We logged over 9000 miles on our journey and feel like we have been on an adventure. I think the good thing about getting out of the every day routine and traveling like this is that time slows down instead of blurring past with only occasional markers that catch and hold you. Four and a half months--it seems like a year since we left home. We might think about making another trip with the camper to the Northwest, but this coast to coast trip was one-of-a-kind. Last night we talked about where our favorite place was and we both agreed that Biking Sanibel was the best time of all. It was a bit out of our comfort zone at first--Jim hadn't been on a bike for many years--and finding the place to camp at Periwinkle Park was an incredibly lucky chance. Before we settled on that experience as our best one, we went through all the fun times and great places we had seen: ABQ with Tam, Scottsdale with Sarah, Chula Vista RV park in San Diego, Corrales with family, Austin and the big move, Mardi Gras in Lafayette, the panhandle of Florida with Rapid City friends,Ft. Myers Beach, Manasota, Florida, Georgia, and Alabama state parks, St. Augustine, Savannah, and Charleston--and don't forget Sleepy Holler. Our motor home was a champ and never missed a beat. Driving through the massive cities was accomplished with the help of Miss Charmin Garmin--could not have done it without her. Our children were supportive and encouraging to our mad scheme for a coastal journey; my sister Teresa and daughter Sarah, in particular, kept me writing on my blog so now I have a little book to go back to when I want to relive the trip.

Where to next and when do we leave?

Taking Two Cities

Missouri has two mammoth cities, St. Louis and Kansas City. We navigated both of them on the same day. Acting on our exacting timetable, we got going about 8:30ish and cruised
right through St. Louis without any slowdowns. It always makes our day when someone sails past us and then we see them by the side of the road with a trooper writing them up while we lumber past. That has happened several times in the last few days. Of course, they inevitably catch up to us and pass us again.

Our lunch stop was in a small burg where an interesting log slave cabin had been preserved. The lunch place across the street looked so full of potential--Frumpy Joe's--but we were bitterly disappointed. Don't stop there. Around this time we started seeing snow by the side of the road, residue of last week's storm in this region. Along with the bleak landscape of dormant trees, this is another reminder that winter is not over.


. By the time we arrived at our "scheduled" stop of the day, it wasn't even 3:00 yet, so we decided to take a chance and go ahead through Kansas City to St. Joseph, Missouri. Again, it was a pretty smooth sail, and we put Miss Charmin Garmin onto a campground that turned out to be in a busy part of town in the city that was home to the Pony Express. We had reached the desperation point of using the last of our coffee that morning, so it was a convenient place to hit the grocery store and stock up for our last few days of travel (as in wine, beer, coffee, and ready-made food).

As we were getting up and around this morning, the dreaded sound drew our attention: rain!
Thunder! Lightning! We hurried to unplug and now we are already in Iowa, headed around Omaha and back to South Dakota. Tonight or tomorrow we will have to winterize the Coach because low temperatures in Vivian and Rapid will be below the 20 degree mark for a few nights.
That's the spring we know and expect!

Sweet Alabama to Show Me Missouri

Our route yesterday was planned to avoid Memphis. We drove away from the holler knowing that it would be a long time before we ever found another campground that interesting. The mile-long back road wound past decrepit trailer houses and churches with graveyards. This area of gently rolling hills (outposts of the Appalachians) and mixed forests will be beautiful when the spring buds finally break out. For now, just a few trees have blossoms and winter still has hold.

It wasn't long until we crossed the line into Mississippi. At Tupelo, Elvis Presley's hometown, we turned north and in short order we were in Tennessee. Logging is prevalent here, and several precariously log-filled trucks passed us. We kept our distance. We stopped for lunch at a place I couldn't pass up: Greens, Beans, and Taters (without commas). How could we pass by that? One last opportunity for downhome Southern cooking, and it was worth it! Towards the end of our driving day, we came into Missouri. Last night we stayed in Cape Girardeau in a mundane campground that had the appeal of wifi, cable tv, hot showers, and a restaurant next door. We appreciate all of these luxuries, but it's no Sleepy Holler!

This morning we awoke to find that we had some puddles around us from the all-night rain. Having camped in a swamp at James Island, it didn't seem so bad. Now we are unhooked and heading to the big obstacle of the day, St. Louis. We will still be in Missouri tonight, just this side of Kansas City. The slog continues.