2013-05-27, East of the Mississippi

The last time I posted was on the 21st, so, I guess it is time to do it again.  We stayed in the Blue Ox Campground until Sunday, the 26th.  During that time, we had one nice day, and one sort of nice.  Both times we walked in to town for 3 miles each time.  Besides the normal cows and donkeys, we found this little guy.  At least he is wildlife.  I enjoyed the time at Blue Ox because the wifi was pretty good, so I could work with Ancestry.com looking for some of our ancestors.  I also checked the air in the motorhome tires, as well as checking the batteries.  Marilyn got some reading and cleaning time in.

 

The weather reports indicated that Sunday would be stormy and windy.  Of course Monday through Friday were not going to be any different, so we decided to leave Sunday morning.  We drove across the Missouri River, but the weather did not cooperate with Marilyn’s picture taking.  That cold, misty, breezy made it difficult.  We were able to continue into Iowa on US-30, stopping for the night at WalMart in Ames, IA.  My windshield wiper had started to pull apart, so I shopped for new ones.  Of coursed WM does not carry the 32 or 34 inch models that I needed, so I bought the largest ones – 28 inch.  New ones mount with a J-hook that does not work on our 2006 Phaeton.  Since the Phaeton’s mount with a spacer, nut and bolt, I broke the J-hook off, and sawed part of the rivet out.  The 28 inch ones work, although Marilyn loses a little more clean area.

 

This morning, we left about nine after the extreme wind and rain had died off.  About an hour later, we caught back up with the wind.  I put on the flashers, slowed to 35 or 40, and pulled over for the occasional vehicle to pass.  As we approached Cedar Rapids, the wind slacked off so I could drive at the speed limit again.  We drove a little south to pick up I-80 again so we could stop at Speedco in Walcott, IA to get the motorhome lubed.

 

Speedco finished in about a half hour, so we decided to move on – it was only 2:30.  We crossed the Mississippi River, but the sign was missed.  However, we did make it into Illinois.  We decided to stop in Geneseo, IL for another WalMart night.

 

Tomorrow’s weather is not supposed to be much better, so we will have to wait and see if we can drive on to who knows where.

Type at you later.