Our Journey East - Days 7 and 8 .. into Pennsylvania

History has shown that reliance on google 'hours' of travel will spell a late arrival.

Judging from the 1000 km planned for day 7 and the previous accomplishments, 2 days would be a more fitting ride !  So it was to be ...

Heading east to St. Louis from O'Fallon we are met with grey skies and intermittent falling rain.  Nice to be cooler, for sure, and no need for high volume A/C.


We pass the St. Louis Cardinal stadium and the Famous Arch on our way through town.

          

Hoping to arrive at a destination in reasonable time, we pick a spot just across the Missouri border into Ohio - home of a former rock quarry and nice little RV campground - Natural Springs Resort, in New Paris, Ohio, just east of Richmond, Missouri.   Our neighbour at the camp had a Great Dane, to match up with our Great Pyrenees.  The younger Marmaduke was rather rambunctious, so did not meet nose to nose with ours, at his owners behest.   The camp had a good number of permanent weekend owners, with golf carts and trailers.  We almost missed the check in, arriving just before 7 pm.

Astrid whipped up a specialty pasta dish of hers, always delightful, and we retired for an early get-a-way the next day - on the road by 0830 hrs.

Passing through Indianapolis, we see the Lucas Oil Stadium - a state of the art, retractable roof stadium - home of Super Bowl XLVI, 2015 NCAA Final Four,  and the NFL Colts.  

Road Construction remains as a mainstay in our day, with some of the roads particularly rough and bouncy ... first time Astrid says Steve swore at the road !  Traffic out of Akron at 4:14 pm was typically heavy for major cities.   The concrete highways are noisy compared to asphalt !  .. and bumpy ... twathump, thwathump, thwathump, over the seams.

Our first hint of east coast was a sign for the Interstate 80 highway ... to New York City.  Must be more than half way !

Just before 6 pm, we pull in to Clarks Mills, Pennsylvania at Al & Kathy's ... an impressive estate in the country where lawn mowers are obviously king !

See our journey on Google Maps !

Stay tuned...

Cheers
Astrid 'n Steve

Our Journey East - Day 6 .... Arrival in St. Louis

Stuffed $30 into the envelope and dropped it into the deposit box heading out from Victorian Acres RV Park in Nebraska City in the a.m.  On the road .... looks like it's going to be a wet day.

Rainy Day on the i29 highway ... south to Kansas City

Not a great deal to see on this day ... just pushing to get to St. Louis.  We did see a large Ritchie Bros. Auction site east of Kansas City .... looked like a big operation.  ( Ritchie Bros are world wide success story - heavy equipment auctioneers started up from Kelowna and B.C. )

Ritchie Bros Auctioneers - east of KC

Finally arrived at the stately Manse of Deryck & Wendy Whiteley in O'Fallon, west of St. Louis to be met with smiles and salutations on the driveway.  Bring out the dogs for a greeting and on into the home to catch up.   Both Deryck and Wendy are entrepreneurs with their own separate businesses, successfully beating the Rush Hour traffic with 12 metre commutes.

Wendy splashes out some wine and Deryck pulls out some steaks and slays the beasts on the BarBQ ... perfectly cooked & paired with wine and desert, all the while catching up.  Twas almost 30 years since our last dinner party in T.O. !   Jason, a wunderkind by most accounts and the gentleman son of our guests joined us for the occasion.  We'll have to visit the brewery (Jason's workplace) on the next trip ! A few laughs, a few tales, and a great meal, complete with  fruit and ice wine toppers.  Nice.

Deryck, Jason, Wendy Whiteley - Hosts with the Most

After dinner, Deryck and Steve took Connor and Ceilidh out for a 2 mile walk, after which the pyr's  flaked out on the floor appreciating the generous hospitality and the fact that floor was not moving.  Robbie Too remained camped out in the moho.  Twas a nice stop in the flurry of travel and a welcome visit for us all.  Many thanks !

Up the next day, coffee and emails, sending Deryck off early to conquer the real estate world, then back on the road.  All too short, but a memorable part of our journey.

Off we go ... waving good bye.

Cheers

Astrid 'n Steve 

Our Journey East - Day 5 .... Chasing through Nebraska

Today was a slow start.  Ceilidh had an episode at 4 am .... (our Pyrenees is an epileptic ... whoda thunk?)   She gets rather discombobulated for an hour or so afterwards ... sorta loses her whereabouts and recognition.  It is a horrible thing to watch, but Astrid assures that she is fine during and after, as long as it doesnt last too long.   So ... long night.

Awake late.  Pull down camp (hoses, electrics, water, jacks etc .... not exactly roughing it ... )  Then fill the propane, and on into Cabela's to pick up some RV accessories.  Then sit for an hour and update the blog ... finally.  On the road at about 1:30 pm.

A Note on Google Maps - Speed and distance.

When looking at possible routes, I relied on google maps ... very useful tool.  However, beware, as it estimates time based on very fast speeds :-)  For instance, the trip across Wyoming (Green below, through to Nebraska) is noted as 735 km and a time of 6 hours 30 minutes...   hmmm .... quick check and that is over 113 km per hour.  At first I thought it was illegal speeds, but many of the freeways here are posted at 75 Miles per hour limit.

The problem is, in the motorhome, we're running at about 100 km/hr or 62-63 mph.  Day one was about 58 mph.   In the end, relying on Google Map's times means we're playing catch up in the motorhome !

Crossing Nebraska

Since we got a late start, and our reliance on google, we had to run for a good part of the day ... to about 10:30 pm.  (also lost an hour crossing into Central Time Zone)   Crossing Nebraska is more interesting than Wyoming, but miles and miles of the same.

Stopped at a gas station where Astrid spotted some GMO corn ... "all the ground cover is dead, except for stalks .... pesticides etc !".  Astrid has been watching the Monsanto Overlords with a solid dose of scepticism and disdain ... organic is the flavour of her day.

We roll through Lincoln, grab a bite at the DQ (in a hurry) ... and travel to Nebraska City to park for the night.   St. Louis beckons tomorrow, with a visit with Deryck and Wendy Whiteley ('82 Mech Eng - Waterloo classmate)  Looking forward to taking it easy for a short bit ... no doubt some beer, wine, good food, and lotsa lies to be told.  Google tells me 582 km to their doorstep tomorrow... likely pull in 3-4 pm ... although I said 1-2 pm.....  

Dogs fed.  Cat out from under the couch (stays there all day long ... till motors stop).  All is well.

Cheers for now.

Astrid 'n Steve