July 14th - July 23rd - California or Bust (and Back)

On the fourteenth we took off for California to deliver the car we bought for grandson, Kellen, for his 16th birthday. It is a 2014 Toyota Camry that had 158,000 miles on it when we left Perryville. The trip out is 2100 miles. In conjunction with the drive out we rented a house in Sacramento, California, where the entire family could meet and hang out for a week. While we were driving out our daughter, Alexa, from St. Louis flew out.

2100 miles is a long trip to do in a short time. I planned on 500 miles per day, about all I want to drive (or sit) anymore. Our first stop was in Lincoln, Nebraska. We got a decent hotel, rested up, and after a nice continental breakfast headed on down the road early the next day.

Our next stop was Laramie, Wyoming. Laramie was quite a different experience. There were four hotels near the Interstate. Unfortunately, one was worse than the other. We spotted a Travel Lodge and headed there. It was so bad looking from the outside that I wouldn't even drive on to the parking lot. The entire place looked like a poorly maintained homeless shelter. Behind it was a Motel 6. It didn't look much better but I went in anyway. It was $130.00 per night. I passed. We crossed the Interstate and stopped at the "Budget Inn". The lobby seemed "okay", so we got a room. We drove around the back to where our room was located and the area looked like an abandoned warehouse grounds. We opened the outside door to the hall and found a nasty, dirty, long, hallway. Our room was the first one inside the door. Hopefully, the room would be better than the hallway. It wasn't. The carpeting was all stained and the bathroom looked like it hadn't seen any maintenance in decades. There were no trash cans, no nothing but two crappy beds. But we were beat and there was no other place around to go so we stayed. We were hungry so we drove around looking for a place to eat. Nearby there was an old, barn-shaped building called "Buffalo Indian Restaurant". There were no cars on the parking lot, which isn't usually a good sign. Kelly loves Indian food and I'm okay with it, so we stopped. Here is a picture of Kelly going in. Not very appealing from the outside.

At 4:00 p.m. we were the only customers but it was clear that a lot of their business was take-out. The place was immaculately clean and well-maintained although the decor was quite outdated. The menu was great. Here is a picture of the food, which was outstanding, and way more than we could eat. It ended up being a great choice.

We got up early the next day to check out of this hell hole of a motel. We went to the front desk, checked out, and inquired about any continental breakfast. The lady pointed to a bowl on the counter with "Cheerios Bars" in it and then to a coffee pot. This was their "breakfast". Why was I surprised.

Our next stop was in Coalville, Utah, where we found a wonderful "Best Western" motel. It was pretty new, very clean and well-maintained. We were on the third floor and had a view toward the mountains, rather than of the RV park behind the motel. Here is a picture.

The next morning we got up and had a great continental breakfast before heading West once again. We had time so we stopped to tour "Fort Bridger State Historic Site" in Fort Bridger, Wyoming. It was really quite interesting. It started out as a trading post in 1843 established by Jim Bridger on the Blacks Fork of the Green River. It became a vital resupply point for wagon trains on the Oregon Trail, California Trail, and Mormon Trail, and for the Pony Express. It was a military post until 1890. 

Here is a picture of Kelly by one of the "freight" covered wagons. They were quite large in comparison to family wagons.

Pony Express horses were stabled here. This is a picture of the stable from the outside and a picture of the windows that they threw the food through from the outside. I had never seen that before.

Bridger built a school house for his children, which was the first school in Wyoming. Here is a picture. The school was the taller portion of the building in the picture.

Today Fort Bridger State Park contains 37 acres and 27 historic structures, all accessible on a self-guided tour. Here is a picture of the "Guard House" and the "Commissary".  It was all quite interesting.

Just in front of the fort there is a set of buildings that were a motel in the 1930s with garages to get your car out of the sun. The accommodations were quite sparse. Here are a few pictures. 

From Fort Bridger we headed to Virginia City, Nevada. We looked online and there weren't many motel options so we immediately booked a room at the "Sugarloaf Mountain Motel". (Good thing we did because it filled up.) On the website there was only a picture of the motel sign, not the motel itself. When we drove up, we found the place to be an old, one-story motel like you saw in the 1940s along all the highways. Here are a couple of pictures.

When we walked up to the office a lady was sitting outside. She said it was her day off and told us to push the button and someone would respond. A nice gentleman came from the house next door and opened the office and checked us in. We were in Room 10 (out of 12). Despite being old-style, it was really well-maintained, and the rooms had clearly been recently updated. The room was very clean and quite small yet had everything we needed - a nice bed, a room air-conditioner, Wi-Fi, a nice TV, microwave, refrigerator, and an extremely nice, updated bathroom.  

Upon inquiring we were told of a nice place to eat within walking distance. It was early so before supper we decided to take a drive to check out the town. It is a typical tourist town with buildings on both sides of the street on the side of a mountain. The town plays up its old, miner town heritage and has a lot of Victorian buildings from the 19th century. There is a mine tour and a train ride. We didn't have interest in doing either. Here is Kelly walking along the boardwalk. Lots of places to drink, eat and buy souvenirs.

The mines in the town were owned by the Comstock Mining Company. Back in the day the miners were mostly Irish so the town has a huge, Catholic church - "St. Mary in the Mountains". Here is a picture of the outside.

It was built in 1857 and all but the brick walls burned in a huge town fire a few years later. It was quickly rebuilt. You can see why it burned so badly since the roof and all structure inside are wood. Here are some pictures. It is a beautiful church still being used.

After our little tour we had a nice meal at a Mexican/American restaurant and turned in for the night. 

The last leg of our trip was into Sacramento, California.  While we were driving the day before the "Required Maintenance" light came on in the car. A quick look in the manual indicated it was time for an oil change. We arrived in Sacramento before we could get in the house so to kill time, we went to get the oil changed. $116.00 for an oil and filter change on a four-cylinder car. 

We arrived at the rental house at the same time as the Wiseman Clan (Adam, Annie, Violet and Wren). Erin, Larry, Kellen and Free arrived about an hour later because they didn't want to wake Free up from his nap. We all chose bedrooms and hauled everything in. Erin brought a bushel basket of snacks. We brought beer, wine, whiskey, and Margurita mix. Adam and Annie brought breakfast food. We ordered pizza one night, Chinese another night.  Alexa made Tacos and re-fried beans one night, and Adam made home-made pasta and salad another night. All were delicious. 

We had a great time visiting with the kids and grandkids all week. The pool was small but the grandkids couldn't get enough of it. Being in a pool was a first for Free and after a while he warmed up to the idea. Here is a picture of Kelly keeping him entertained.

The girls absolutely loved the water. Violet, age 5, learned to dive in and to swim to Alexa in the middle of the pool. Here are a couple of pictures of Violet diving in.

With the help of Alexa Wren learned how to put her face in the water. She was a hoot. She would put her face in, get out, and walk over to me, and tell me what she did "all by myself". She did that over and over again. Lots of energy.

Kelly and our girls enjoyed the water as well.  Here is a picture of Erin's clan in the water.

The week passed quickly and Friday morning we headed to Tracy, California to get the car registered in California and to spend the night at Erin's before flying back to Missouri on Saturday. We went to the DMV in Tracy, which Erin said was the quickest one she has been to in California. We spent three hours waiting to get the car gifted over and registered. We had everything we needed except a smog test. Online it said you didn't need a smog test if the car was a gift but that ended up only applying to California cars. Monday Erin will have to get it smog tested and then wait in line again to pick up the plates. It cost $263.00 for plates, which I thought was high, but everything is high in California. Gas was $6.35 per gallon. August 8th she will go back there again to take Kellen to get his driving permit. There is only one DMV office in Tracy, a town of 100,000. Fortunately, once registered renewals can be done online.

Heading Home: 

We got up early Saturday and Erin drove us to the Oakland airport for the flight home. We flew Spirit Airlines and paid $40.00 in advance to check one bag. Upon arriving we had to weigh our bag and it was overweight, so we had to pay another $75.00! Crazy - $115.00 just for one bag. Spirit also charges for carry-on bags so you can't beat them. It is very difficult now to fly non-stop from California to St. Louis. We had to fly to Las Vegas for a two-hour layover then on to St. Louis. This was our first time flying Spirit Airlines and we found out that Spirit provides nothing - no water, no snacks, nothing. If you want a water or something else, you have to pay for it. We also found the seats to be totally awful. They looked nice but were basically leather stretched over a wooden board. By the time we arrived in St. Louis my butt was absolutely killing me. 

Kelly's sister, Joan, had our car at her house and came to pick us up at the airport. She had great sandwiches ready for us. It was 8:30 p.m. and we hadn't eaten since noon. We enjoyed sandwiches and then drove home. The entire trip flying was seventeen hours from the time we left Erin's at 7:00 a.m. until we got into Perryville at midnight. The drive from Perryville to the bay area is thirty hours. We could have driven over halfway home in that amount of time. I hate the hassle of flying but it is cheaper and easier than four, five-hundred-mile days by car. 

We will see the Wiseman Clan (Adam, Annie, Violet, and Wren) when they fly into St. Louis for a wedding in October. We don't know when we will see Erin's Clan next. Thank goodness for video calls so we can see our California kids and grandkids on a regular basis.

June 13-17, 2022 - Club Campout at Canton, Missouri

We arrived at the campground in Canton, Missouri around 4:00 p.m. All the other club members had already arrived. It was hot, really hot and humid! I was soaking wet all evening and kept a cooling towel around my neck. Celina was the campout host and had asked me to grill hot dogs Monday evening, which I did around 6:00 p.m. Hot dogs were followed with homemade desserts. After several hours Homer cooled down so Kelly and I went to bed early. We both slept great in the comfort of the AC but by going to bed early we were told that we missed the strawberry moon over the river. Fortunately they were wrong and it was a full moon Tuesday night.  Here is a picture. It looked more colorful than the picture and it was stunning.

The campground is owned by the City of Canton and is right on the bank of the Mississippi, just downstream from Lock 20. When I got up Tuesday morning, while it was cool, I walked up and watched a tug and barges go through the lock. I talked with the crew members as they floated by. They have to break the barges up into two sets to allow them to get through the lock. As I watched the barges go by I asked how they were propelled since they were not connected to the tug. They said a cable pulls them through then they are tied up at the end of the lock until the rest of the barges get through the lock with the tug. The two sections are then reconnected and head up or down the river. The whole process takes well over an hour. The river is high so the levels at this lock are the same. I wondered why the whole barge unit did not just go through at one time and as one unit to save time and work. The reason is that the tug can’t make the turn away from the lock to get out into the river. Here is a picture of the barges as they enter the lock all connected.

Here are pictures of the barges with the first six disconnected and the lock closed between them and the remaining barges with the tug waiting their turn to get in the lock.

Here are a couple pictures of the campground. It has the river on one side, the road to the lock, and railroad tracks on the other. You can see the train coming on the right while a barge is going down stream on the left.

Of course, trains came through in the middle of the night, at least once each night, blowing their whistles at the local crossing not far from Homer.  

Tuesday Celina had a boiled egg breakfast planned. You put your eggs and fixings in a freezer bag and put it in a big boiling pot of water for six minutes. They were tasty. She also had biscuits and blueberry muffins as well. Here is a picture of the set up and everyone eating the grub. 

Jim is setting the timer for his eggs on his phone while Bev waits as well.

The only other thing planned for Tuesday was dinner at a local restaurant so I took the down time to install the new shutoff valve on Celina's holding tank. Here is a picture of the broken valve I took out at the last campout and the line that I plugged until I could get a new valve.

I had driven all over Chester and Perryville last month looking for a replacement valve but it is an RV part and I had to order a new one online. Here is the new valve installed. Good for another ten years.

Wednesday morning we headed out early for a drive to Rutledge (population 100 and Celina’s home town) for freshly baked donuts and cinnamon rolls at Zimmerman’s, a Mennonite store and cafe. Here are some pictures of the store and cafe. 

Zimmerman's is literally the heart of Rutledge. In fact it is downtown Rutledge. The cinnamon rolls and freshly baked donuts were outstanding. As you entered the store a lady was sitting in the foyer shelling peas. You don’t see that all the time. 

Also the lady who manages the store had her grandkids with her as she was checking out people. Here is a picture. It cracked me up with grandma holding the baby while she rang the cash register and the five-year old on the counter bagging groceries. Everyone took it in stride.

 

Here are a picture of one aisle in the store. The place is definitely geared to it Mennonite customer base.

We then drove to a new brand-new food warehouse operated by two young Mennonite brothers. There are a lot of Mennonites in the area and they are all very industrious and hard working. We saw lots of Gilster-MaryLee products from Perryville on pallets in the warehouse. They have six semis that deliver the food to small stores, mostly Mennonite and Amish, throughout Missouri and Illinois. It was interesting to see that they had a sealed off room in which spices were kept so that they did not permeate the other warehouse products with their smell.  The spices are purchased in bulk and divided into smaller packages for sale. 

Next we stopped by the old Rutledge School. A group of citizens are restoring in stages as funds are raised. They have regular rummage sales, ice cream socials, etc. to raise money for needed improvements. So far the roof has been replaced, the windows replaced, the building tuck pointed, and new kitchen appliances and cabinets installed in the old cafeteria. Soon they hope to rent out space for family gatherings, and other events. The school operated from 1912 to 1995. Grades 1-4 were on one side and grades 5-8 on the other. There were only two teachers. Both of Celina’s children graduated from there.  

We then went back to Zimmerman’s (the only store-cafe in town) for lunch. The roast beef special was excellent, all cooked fresh. A half plate, which was plenty, was only $3.99. After lunch we headed out for a tour of “The Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage”. It is a commune of about 40 adults and 6 children who live there fulltime experimenting with various types of eco-building, eco agricultural practices, etc. The residents live in tiny houses. All structures must be made out of sustainable or recycled materials such as hay bales, old grain bins, old barns, old school buses, etc. They also hold seminars and training sessions teaching others how to limit their ecological impact. Here are some pictures of homes in the village portion of their 280 acres. All are heated with wood. No pesticides, insecticides, etc. are used so the place is pretty wild looking. 

It is quite an interesting place. You can read about it online at: www.dancingrabbit.org.

From the Dancing Rabbit we then headed to Memphis, Missouri for a tour of the Downing House Museum. W. G. and Henry Downing came to Memphis in 1837 as single young men. William married Mary Jones, whose father was the first sheriff of Scotland County. He was quite wealthy and gave them a city block to build a house on. William’s family was quite wealthy back in Virginia so he went back there and brought twelve slaves to Memphis to build a home. It took two years to build the house using bricks made in the area. Here is a picture of the house. 

The building is not air-conditioned so our tour was shorter than usual because of the extreme heat. After the Downings died the building changed hands several times and was a hotel during two different periods. An addition to the building when it was a hotel was torn off and moved next door to get the building back to its original configuration. Here is a picture of that building to which porches were added over the years.

From Memphis we then headed to Kahoka for a buffet dinner at Steve’s Family Restuarant. The fried chicken there was delicious. After filling our bellies we headed back to the campground to chill out. It was an eleven-hour long day of sightseeing. We all then sat in front of Homer overlooking the Mississippi until everyone turned in.  Here is a picture of Homer enjoying the view as well.

Thursday we had Celina’s homemade cinnamon rolls and Bev’s pineapple upside down cake for breakfast followed by a short club business meeting. Those present decided that we will basically let the club go defunct, due to loss of members, and use the club treasury to pay for expenses at future campouts until the money is gone.

Jim and I then cleared off a table under the pavilion and restrung one of his day/night shades that had a broken string. While we did that the women played Farkle. This pavilion was the only shade for several hours during the middle of the day.

After grabbing a quick bite of lunch we all then drove to Quincy, Illinois and toured Villa Kathrine. It was quite an interesting place built in1900 on the bluff of the Mississippi River. It was built by a man who was a bachelor and a world traveler. He incorporated Islamic and Moorish architectural features in the home. It is like no other. Here are some pictures of the outside. First is the front side and second is the back side facing the river. 

 

It had a water basin in the middle of the house below a tower which was covered by a dome. The water in the basin, along with open windows in the top of the tower acted as natural air-conditioning cooling the air as it rose through the building. Unfortunately, a tornado tore off the dome some years ago but you can see how the principle worked in these pictures.

 

The building had very interesting windows, doors, and woodwork.

The central area lights were made in Italy. There was a large one over the water basin and one smaller one on each corner.

This is a view of the basin from the second floor. The intricate mosaic tile work was beautiful.

The walls in the central area were painted black and white to look like black and white mosaic tile which would be normally be used. Not something you see everyday.

It was 100 degrees with a heat advisory so we headed back to the campground to cool off. Around 6:00 p.m. we ordered Casey’s pizzas for dinner. Of course dinner was topped off with great home-made desserts. Everyone then sat in a row watching the river roll by until about 10:00 p.m. Or were they watching their phones?

Since everyone leaves at different times in the morning we all bid each other farewell that evening. Celina did a wonderful job organizing this campout and finding interesting things for us to see. The next group campout will be in Springfield, Illinois in August. Let's hope it isn't so hot! We were blessed with a breeze most of the time.