The Eastward Trip : Episode 4

We hope everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day and were able to celebrate in full, especially those that gave us life! Whether in person, by phone, or thoughtful meditation, it’s always important to celebrate those spectacular women who mean so much to us. We are 70 miles outside of Chicago for the next 6 days and are looking to explore a bit of the Windy City.

We put Missouri into our rearview mirror after seven glorious nights in St. Louis. Vicki was able to reunite with her long time friend and co worker in Employee Health, Deb Lamantia and her husband Jim for an evening of wonderful conversation, food, and recollections of times past at Skagit Valley and Cascade Valley. Deb and Jim treated us to a delicious meal of BBQ ribs, slaw and corn salad, which by the way will become our new mainstay for pot lucks back in Texas.

We took in the sights of St Louis to include the Arch and a wonderful Bakery Federhoffers. OMG! My new  most favorite place. Talke about a bagful of deliciousness! Sorry Ayala’s, you’ve been replaced by a German Bakery!! We did not get to the Zoo as on Wednesday, Vicki’s sore throat attacked me and laid me out for 2 days in bed. Took a Covid Test and thankfully it was negative. I’m just now on the road to total recovery, so hopefully the only issues I’ll have are allergies for the rest of the trip.

Still having generator issues, so that means rerouting some of our trip to eliminate Harvest Host sites, as most of those do not have electrical hook ups. We left St Louis and drove 150 miles to a tiny campground (10 sites) in Lincoln Illinois. We shared the location with 3 other campers and were able to see a cool roadside attraction. The Guinness book of world record’s largest Covered Wagon. A route 66 oddity that we had to stop and visit. The campsite was run by two Bohemian like dudes that were totally chill. Don’t know if weed is legal here in Illinois, but they didn’t seem too concerned. Anyway, they helped us back in and our only issue was the power pedestal. It kept tripping our surge protector, so we simply moved it to another pole and we were good for the night.

Arrived around 1 at Thousand Trails, but had issues getting in. No one was at the gate. Thankfully a gentleman camper opened the gate and we were able to get in. The park is only half full, but apparently many spots are reserved. So much for the idea of first come, first served, for spots. Not only is Thousand Trails land of a 1000 pot holes, now it’s the site of 1000 excuses. They then tried putting us in a spot that was unlevelable. I had the front wheels off the ground by almost 2 feet, so needless to say, I want back to the office, which was basically closed for the day and went into my best Seattle passive-aggressive mode. Thankfully they managed to “find” a pull through and we’ll be here until Friday where we’ll make our advance into Michigan just outside Lansing.

The weather has been a bit cooler than we are accustomed to, but then looking at the weather back in Brownsville, glad we are here. It’s looking unbearably hot down there. Got a bit of more good news, VA approved my hearing lose disability so will be getting a small stipend along with back pay from the time of application. Nice to know our last tank of gas was compliments of VA!! Other than that, not much else to report. Keep the comments coming from all the tens and tens of readers of this Blog. By the way, did I mention we’re still loving retirement.