Beating the Storms, Cloudy Extended Driving Day

I woke up on Wednesday, Mar. 29^th at 7:15 and Bill had already been up for 45 min. Usually on a moving day he is awake early. He had put everything away from outside last night, not that much was out. The winds picked up around 10:00 and the rain would soon follow. No point in letting things get wet.

Here Comes the sun dobedobe

After catching this pretty sunrise, I caught up on blog posts with my morning tea while Bill had his breakfast and a shower. We seldom eat the same things on moving days as we don’t want to spend the extra time for bacon and eggs and then cleanup. We just like to get going. It was 8:45 when we pulled out of the park onto US-59.

The rain was quite heavy around 8 and the sky quite dark coming from the west so we were pleased that it had stopped by the time we exited. We aren’t sure how far we’ll get today but we plan to put the push on. Tornado warnings for southern Missouri, Arkansas and Texas are enough to get us moving.

About 50 miles into Missouri, near Mt. Vernon we stopped at a Rest Stop (Truck Parking) with washrooms only for nature’s call and to make a coffee. It is 10:30, the rain has returned but nothing too heavy and so far, I-44 is a good road. 

We are in communication with my sister and her husband who are travelling with their Montana on #50 to Kansas City, north of us. Probably about a day or less behind us in our journey home. They will be at home base before us since we are stopping near London at our home park for a week. It is nice to know that we are relatively close in our travels.

The sun was up there but fighting a tough battle and losing

Interesting, we just passed a business called Executive Coach Builders. Wish I’d got a picture but instead looked it up on line. Large black units that look like a modified Class C motorhome. Never heard of them before but the black ones were really impressive.

 East of Richland, MO and the sky is brighter and the rain is non-existent here. I’m not a sailor but the route seems pretty smooth sailing from my point of view. My driver looks quite relaxed too.

Just for the record, after the 10 hour day, he looked pretty much the same.

Just east of Jerome we hit a slow down with the right lane closed. No worries, most everybody is respectful of each other and glide into the left lane. There are always those who, of course, are 'special' and need to go as far as they can past all of us. I like it best when a transport truck puts a stop to that by riding up the middle of the highway.

As it turns out, we first notice this construction truck with a Wet Paint sign. Hmm, but then we see 3 huge wreckers in the right lane that I was too close to to get a picture of. Now it is clear what the holdup was. A tractor trailer was down over the side in the ditch. Oh my, how did that happen? We certainly hope the driver is okay. This didn’t slow us down too much and we were on the move again to the next Love’s Truck Stop.

Stopping for another pit stop but mostly to top up the fuel and to top up our tummies since it is 1:00. Clemson is such a great little traveler, it is nice to give him the opportunity to do his business and stretch his little legs too.

We have the best little traveler

Sunshine has made an appearance as we pass by Sullivan, MO. Driving into St. Louis keeps Bill on his toes and me watching for our eventual exit for I-70E. At 3:00 on hump day, the 20 minutes through the city made us glad not to be traveling through this city in another hour or two. We are now in Illinois and can breathe easier and look for a stopover.

Had another fun drive around the Pilot Gas Bar/Lot trying to get in
and ended up coming out onto Route 66 to turn around

So we got our kicks on Route 66 again with this old beauts and a fenced in area full of them with
the old time gas pumps too
Some of these large travel centres are not rv accommodating even though they think they are

At 4 we were ready for another pit stop and leg stretch. Bill says he wants to keep going, after getting out for some fresh air. I’m game, especially when it is just a sleep over. He’s calling the shots here and until I notice fatigue, I don’t interfere.

Coming up to Effingham, IL we saw another tractor trailer over on its side off the highway. The cause doesn’t seem like anything other than a driver falling asleep at the wheel, no other visible obstructions or vehicles involved. It isn’t nice to see and again hopefully he got out okay.

Traffic through St. Louis at 3 pm was where we needed signs painted on the highway!

Well, like those truckers, luck isn’t on our side this afternoon. We started looking for a place to overnight around Effingham but it is a hot spot for sure. No room at the Inn, so to speak, and we tried many ‘Inns’. Not to be discouraged we hopped in the truck since it is still daylight and drove on down I-70 towards Terre Haute, IN.

some great architectural buildings along the highway

Halfway across the bridge we crossed the state line into Illinois

Love this bridge across the Mississippi River

The St. Louis arch way back there in the photo

Our situation may be different than others with the need to open 2 slides to get into our bedroom, or at the very least, one slide to get to our recliner chairs. This limits us to where we can park safely without getting clipped through the night. It all ends well though, we traveled on until my gps showed us a Walmart at Marshall, IL.

It was a lovely reward for coming this far to see an empty lot over by the Garden Centre. I checked in with the Customer Service desk and was given a pleasant “Of course!”. Thank you. After being on the road for 10 hours we decided to walk over to McDonald’s for supper. The short walk felt pretty good in the brisk air although it was still about 55F.

Our spot for the night and it was still daylight! Yay!
Goodnight from a Walmart in Marshall, Illinois

That is it for today, just one more overnight before we hit our home province. I hope you had a good day.

Thank you for reading! Your comments are always welcome.