900 miles in 28 Hours–My Oh My

Yes, we are in Oak Grove, Missouri at a KOA.  We left Arabi, Georgia around 9 am Tuesday (et), and arrived in Oak Grove Missouri at noon (ct).  Google Maps says it is a 926 mile trip. Now I use to drive from Sacramento to the Kansas City Missouri area non-stop when I was younger many times.  When I lived in Arkansas, I drove to California non-stop a couple of times.  But I am not young like that any more….and it does take its toll.  There must have been a big reason for doing this….

First, there was a bad storm forecasted for St. Louis area, up through Chicago and into Iowa and the Dakotas, hitting St. Louis Wednesday.  Well, as of Wednesday night, St. Louis was clear of the storm.  Second, I have an Aunt and a Cousin who live in the Independence / Blue Springs Missouri area.  If we got to this part of Missouri early enough Wednesday, we could visit with them for awhile.  As luck had it, my Aunt’s son and wife just flew in from California for a couple of weeks, so we had the added bonus of seeing more relatives.

Also, when we say “non-stop”….well, we did stop three times (besides gas, doggie breaks).  We stopped for a nice dinner at Cracker Barrel in Tennessee to escape Nashville evening rush hour, and we stopped for two hours rest about an hour out from St. Louis in Illinois, and after getting up at 4:30 am to beat the St. Louis morning rush hour traffic, we stopped at a rest area in Missouri for another two hours around 6:30.  Nice thing about having a motorhome…you can crawl into bed for quick nap just about anytime you need one.

The motorhome operated well within our expectations.  Our diesel pusher got 9-10 mpg, and our Class C Jayco Melbourne got 8-9 mpg.  We hit heavy rain three or four times now with the Jayco, and it has showed no signs of leakage or problems.  We hit high winds between St. Louis and Kanas City area today, and it handled much better than the American Eagle did driving through Texas in high winds last year.  In the middle of the night we had an occasional “banging” coming from within the Jayco when we went over rough roads (which there were plenty of rough roads in the short distance we traveled within Illinois.)  It turned out to be the large black power adapter to my laptop sitting on the kitchen table.  Since I plug into the wall on the other side of the table while I sit on the couch, it was just sitting there on top of the table.  The jolts of the Illinois roads moved the black adapter off of a towel laying on the table, and with every bump it was just popping up and down on top of the table making a loud racket.  Well, another lesson learned….

After a good night’s sleep (already had another two hour nap this evening) we will head further west in the morning.  But we will not be going another 900 miles in one swoop for a long time….if ever.  (Marcia says thank you Dave to that one….)