On the Road Again!

October 18, 2013


The last month has been hectic! We are finally on the road again and currently find ourselves hunkered down outside of Wichita, Kansas, avoiding a snow storm! No snow here, thank goodness, but it starts just west of us. We decided to stop at 1 pm and not risk getting caught in it. Tomorrow is forecast to be near 70 degrees and sunny!



We arrived back in Maryland on September 18^th. The condo in Rockville that we own was being vacated by the tenant and we decided to put it on the market. Usually we stay with our daughter and son-in-law, but they were in the middle of a kitchen renovation and we were not due there until the beginning of October. We checked into Little Bennett Regional Park in Clarksburg, and spent several days working on the condo, and then listed it. In the meantime, we caught up briefly with family.



We then spent two nights at Bull Run Regional Park in Northern Virginia, in order for us to have a quick visit with our friends Sue and Ken, our hosts from the beginning of this journey. We were unexpectedly stuck for a week at their home getting the rig repaired and ready to journey last November. Greg and Ken had a great ride on the W&OD rail trail and got to ride over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge spanning the Potomac River. Greg's job of working on the construction of the bridge took up 13 years of his professional life, caused a lot of headaches, but helped put our daughter through college!

My part of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge

View of the WWB from the Maryland end

Ken taking a break at the Maryland end of the Bridge

Hunting Point Apartments - where we installed and operated a remediation system for three years to clean up a heating fuel leak

The bike trail in front of the Hunting Point complex.

The only remnant of my remediation system: the equipment shed, now empty of pumps, blowers, separators, and filters.

Ken loading bikes back in Vienna, VA

Before we could head to Pennsylvania to stay at Ohiopyle State Park, while waiting for the kitchen renovation to finish, we got a call that we needed to return to Maryland to help with transitioning my Dad to nursing care. A few days later, after dry camping in the retirement community parking lot, (we wound up staying a total of five nights there during the past month!), we left for three nights at Ohiopyle. The state park is next to the Great Allegheny Passage bike/hike trail. Greg was able to do two day rides, one in each direction on the trail, and we both unwound in the beautiful Fall woods with the changing leaves, pesky chipmunks and campfires.

Stopping on our way to PA to visit Sideling Hill, the tallest road cut east of the Mississippi. Greg worked on this project in 1983!

Deluxe campsite with wall to wall chipmunks

Getting the fire just right for smoked chipmunk!

Biking the Great Allegheny Passage, crossing the Youghiogheny River.

Returning to Frederick, Looking east from Sideling Hill

We returned to Rockville for two weeks once the kitchen was finished. The next two weeks were consumed with rig cleaning and maintenance, doctor appointments, visits with family, helping Mom and Dad adjust to the changes in their lives, cat sitting, a quick drive through the old neighborhood, re-stocking the rig, tearing out the old RV sofa and replacing it with a large storage ottoman, sorting our stuff in storage, re-evaluating everything we carry with us to take only the essentials, eating out too much, “keeping our son-in-law company” while he was home during the government shutdown, and trying to fit in some sleep and rest!

Visiting our Grandcat, Reese.

Stopped to fill up with propane in Frederick and saw another reminder of our great trip to Newfoundland.

Removing the old broken loveseat

Removing a dubious electrical "mod" by the previous owner

Preparing the foundation to hold the Ikea ottoman

Screwing down the ottoman to avoid squeaks and rattles

Finished - storage and a place to sit

Goodyear Blimp idling about Frederick while waiting to televise a football game in DC or Baltimore.

We took one last day, Monday, October 14^th, to visit Frederick, see Dad, take Mom out for errand running, visit the Common Market, our long time co-op, get glasses adjusted, and return our old car that my brother had generously loaned back to us for our time home. Saved us getting a rental, as the rig is not good for running around! We had a late dinner in the rig, in the retirement community parking lot, and climbed in the bunk for a quick nights sleep.



Tuesday we rose early, stowed our things and bade goodbye once again to Frederick. We headed west across a fog shrouded I-70 and quickly made it to Hancock, MD, where we stopped for breakfast at the Park and Dine, Greg's favorite breakfast spot when he used to ride the C&O Canal. The fog cleared and we made good time across Maryland, up to Breezewood in Pennsylvania, and then west across the state to Ohio. Greg is like a machine when he is on a driving mission, and he kept going until Indiana. We pulled into the Welcome Station and parked with the “Big Dogs”, the trucks, and buttoned up for the night. Dinner and some Netflix streaming later, we hit the sack. Not the quietest spot, or the darkest, but we didn't have “refers”, refrigerated trucks running next to us all night like the truck stops we have dry camped in.

Heading into the morning fog

The Breakfast of Chanmpions!

We only drove through 20 miles of West VA.

Getting dark and raining hard, time to stop for the night.

We had some rain during the night, but driving west took us out of it. Rolling through Indiana, we crossed over the border to Illinois, then over the Mississippi River and into St Louis, Missouri. We saw the arch, and a huge barge on the river, and passed Busch Stadium on the other side. Down the road a short ways out of St. Louis we found a small, quiet state park campground still open. Robertsville State Park was staffed by two volunteer couples. Greg had a great conversation with an older gentleman who has volunteered all over west of the Mississippi River as a campground host. He and his wife were heading to New Mexico at the end of the month. Hosting is a great way to keep RVing. The parks give you a free site with hookups in exchange for some part time work keeping an eye on things and checking in campers. You're not paying for a site and not burning fuel. It keeps the expenses down.

Indiana countryside

St. Louis, with the arch thingie and some river

Ahhh, peace and quiet in the woods. We were the only campers there besides the hosts. I saw a deer bounding through the woods on my way to the shower house in the morning. The night before we could hear an owl. We were a little slower getting started yesterday morning. Starting to get back to the rhythm of the road, after a too full schedule. After a brief stretch of interstate highway, which is all we had been traveling on for two days, a very long time for us, we veered off onto the old “blue highways”, Routes 50 and 54. Our travel slowed down as we cruised the hills and curves of back roads Missouri. Passing through the small towns we felt our pulses slow to the tempo of the countryside.

Missouri roadcut along US 50, marine limestones

Gentleman's farm near Jefferson City, Missouri

Evening found us not far from the Kansas border at the Arrowhead Point Campground. Full hookups in a lovely park with some trees and a pond. We camped amongst two groups of RVers, the Sooners and the Elder Birds. Lots of big Class A motorhomes. We are small, but our Mercedes hood emblem gets us “campground cred”! Another quiet night with a full moon. We rose early and got on the road. We had decided to traverse the entire state of Kansas and spend a few days camping at the Cimarron National Grasslands, literally in the far southwest corner of the state. A long day of driving would take us there.

US 54, gently rolling Kansas countryside

Tall Grass Prairie

As we crossed into Kansas we noticed the sky growing overcast in front of us. Hmmm, last night's weather report called for a chance of rain, but we figured we'd drive through it and out the other side. Checking the forecast again, we realized that we were being trapped by the same unpredictable weather reporting we experienced last winter in the Southwest. Ice and snow were coming in our direction, but we would first hit rain. We checked the forecasts all across our route and tried to guess where the rain/snow line would be.

Heading into the weather. Tall Grass Prairie and old oil wells

We continued driving through the Flint Hills, an area which has some of the only original Tall Grass Prairie. The Flint Hills were not suitable geologically for cultivation, so they became grazing land for cattle. The tall grass continues to flourish the way it did before the Great Plains were settled. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, by 1 pm, we were in camp at El Dorado State Park. The park has 1,000 sites, but we only saw two trailers besides the two hosts at the entrance. It has been raining, sleeting, and mildly windy all afternoon. We are camped beside a lake with a few trees around. Tomorrow we have two-thirds of the state left to drive, but excellent weather to do so!

Entering the Flint Hills Ecozone

Camped next to El Dorado Lake near Wichita. The rain and sleet is moving out!