We woke in Kansas’s gorgeous Lovewell State Park this morning and were again treated to sightings of the abundant birds here. We identified two of the species we were ogling yesterday; Franklin’s gulls that don’t look anything like the gulls we see in the west and nighthawks. The nighthawks look like really large swallows and exhibit the same aerobatics and 20-G turns. They make short work of flying insects.
We needed diesel after our long drive yesterday and, since we get no internet in this part of Kansas, our Gas Buddy app just gives crazed information when it gives any. We quizzed a beautiful female game warden we encountered on today’s drive and she indicated the closest place to get diesel was in Superior which is the closest town but in Nebraska. We headed that way and noted that the first thing we saw in Superior was a stump that looks like it is giving passing motorists the finger. However, the rest of the town was a nice little burg with some beautiful historical houses.
On the way back to our park, in addition to a big flock of wild turkeys, we came across some trees that look like a cross between and orange tree and an apple tree but they produce inedible fruit that resembles a green orange with warts. We quizzed our neighbor about this flora and found it is called a hedge apple and, while not to be eaten, the fruit makes a good pesticide and the wood makes durable, long-lasting fence posts. The same neighbor had gone her nearby home this morning and when she returned this afternoon she brought us a box of colorful, beautiful veggies from her garden. Her garden efforts certainly are more effective than any gardening I have ever done except maybe growing pot.
We took a few pictures to share. See them by clicking the asterisk *

We were back on the road today, continuing our westward progress. We crossed the Missouri River at St. Joseph and continued west on US-36 into Kansas. The last time we were in Kansas, we had just been married in either 1879 or 1979. On that trip we crossed from Missouri into Kansas at Kansas City and drove through Emporia and into Colorado. During that crossing, we were amazed at how flat and grim the Kansas landscape was. I stupidly assumed all of Kansas looked like the southern part of the state and Dorothy’s back yard. Driving across northern Kansas on US-36 presented an entirely different landscape with gently rolling hills and extensive farm and ranch land. It was actually quite pretty.
About 180 miles west of St. Joseph we pulled off US-36 onto a rural road and pulled into Lovewell State Park. The park borders a big reservoir and we have full hookups but absolutely no phone and scant data. There is no wifi or internet communications on our phone, maybe because they don’t know about the internet here.
However, the sites are wide and spacious, there is almost nobody here and there are gigantic flocks of birds that we cannot identify. The biggest flocks appear to be some kind of gulls but we cannot find them in our bird spotter’s guides. Since the population of this part of America is almost non-existent, there is very little light pollution and the views of the Milky Way at night are stunning.
We got a few pix. Click the asterisk *

We got to take a spin into St. Joseph, Missouri, today. It started raining last night so the temperatures have dropped substantially but it is still underwater on the humidity. I am a terrible sweat hog and seem to be damp most of the time.
The first place we visited was a house where the rat Bob Ford shot the criminal Jesse James right in the cowlick. Ford was a chicken as proven by the backside entry wound. Jesse had been making many people angry by robbing their banks and trains for some 16 years and had an ample supply of folks who wanted him dead.
Right next to Jesse’s final residence is the Patee Museum. It is alleged to be one of the best Western museums in the country and I would have to agree. It was a hotel back in Jesse’s time and also the eastern terminus office of the Pony Express. The collection here is magnificent. They have displays of stagecoaches, wagons, cannons, a bunch of Pony Express memorabilia, an old carousel with carved wooden animals you can ride, two ballrooms and a great assortment of murder weapons taken from the former operators, sometimes after they were recently shot. There is a half ton ball of string, old automobiles in good shape, patent application models of strange devices, a signed first edition of Roughing It by Mark Twain, an indoor full-size locomotive pulling a few historical railway cars, a big selection of old fashioned toys in great shape, a working gallows, operating model trains and a full size train station. They also have office, store and hotel room displays made to look like they did in the 1800’s. The Pony Express room is a big room off the lobby and is preserved as it was during the year or so it operated. There is a good display about the Buffalo Soldiers. There is period furniture liberally distributed throughout the building. I know because I sat on a lot of it. To see everything, budget at least a day or two. This is a Bucket List museum. It costs $6 for mere mortals and $5 for the elderly, like me.
After leaving the museum, we took a drive through downtown St. Jo and found lots of old buildings. Some of the old buildings are in great shape and truly stunning. Lots of them are falling apart. It is a bit tragic that these old treasures can’t be renovated. Maybe there’s just not enough money around to save them. We also took a spin down to an area called The Stockyards. We did not see too many stockyards but there were semi trucks everywhere with stock trailers. Apparently, they don’t fool around much with stock outside instead choosing to truck the unsuspecting future food directly to the myriad slaughterhouses lining the Missouri River. There were also an abundance of grain elevators along the river. There must be a lot of river cargo on the Missouri although I doubt many head of cattle use it.
We took a few pictures you can see if you click the asterisk *

Today we took about a cubic yard of laundry a few miles down the road to a commercial laundromat. Since there is only two washing machines in our campground, we would have been in there all day considering the drawbacks to extended travel without access to laundry facilities and sweating. It is pretty toasty here. It was 100 yesterday but only 97 today. Maybe we can check out St. Joseph tomorrow.

We were back on the road today, leaving our plain accommodations in New Franklin and continuing our westward trek. We escaped from the smooth, wide federal interstate system highway I-70 about 10 miles west of New Franklin and veered onto the very pleasant rural highways of Missouri. The state roads might quite possibly be better than the interstate highways, at least when it comes to paving and scenery quality. Southern Missouri is rolling grass and forest lands that border the wide and muddy Missouri River. There are substantial limestone bluffs that border the river and all the road cuts along Missouri 36.
We pulled back off the highway about 175 miles later when we drove into the A OK RV Park just north of St. Joseph, Missouri. It is a nice park with full hookups, a very small laundry, nice grass between sites, shade, great satellite antenna reception, good wifi and does not have railroad tracks anywhere within earshot. We want to go into St. Joseph tomorrow but, unfortunately, we have to do our long-neglected laundry. It is not like we really need clothes here because it is hotter than hell and wearing nothing is more comfortable than wearing anything. However, the laundry may rot in the humidity and we can’t have that.

Our current short-term abode is at the Katy Roundhouse RV Park and Vacant Lot near New Franklin, Missouri. There are some trees here. New Franklin seems to be located close to Old Franklin which is very close to Franklin. No kidding.
Not too far away, however, is the town of Boonville which is named after Daniel Boone but spelled incorrectly. It is the location of an A&W. It is also the location of some gorgeous houses and other buildings here in the midst of sparsely-populated central Missouri. Since today is the 39th anniversary of my poor wife being duped into marrying me, we went over to the A&W for an anniversary root beer float. It was quite refreshing since the temperature here today is close to 100 and so is the relative humidity.
After the reward at A&W, we jumped back into our properly air conditioned truck for a spin around Boonville. This place is amply supplied with some absolutely gorgeous old houses and buildings indicating that not everyone around here is a farmer. Right in the middle of our leisurely cruise through town, we noted considerable nasty fencing surrounding an easily identified government complex. We soon passed by the sign indicating the facility is a medium-security prison, right in the back yard of some very pretty houses. The howling from crybabies would be heard for miles if a prison was in such close proximity to their houses in California.
After some fueling, we headed back toward our spartan campground and came across a store called Snoddy’s. It sounds worse than it spells.
If you would like to see some of these great houses, click the asterisk *

Today was a travel day so we pulled stakes in Arnold and headed for the last bit of I-64 we would drive over before it disappeared at I-70. We have been either on or paralleling I-64 since we were in Pennsylvania and it is sort of sad to see it finally peter out. It has been a great road in Missouri, a good road in Illinois, a fair road in Kentucky and an absolute nightmare in West Virginia.
Since leaving St. Louis we have been cruising along close to but not always in sight of the Missouri River. We continued our westward trek on I-70 until we had knocked out about 3 hours of air conditioned comfort zinging through weather similar to conditions in a boiler. It was 97 when we pulled into the tiny town of New Franklin. We found our way to the Katy Roundhouse RV Park, selected by us because we had no other options available for miles.
It is certainly unlike other parks. There is no office or desk, just a counter where you fill out your info on a form and cram a check into a box. They do have full hookups but little else. There is some shade thrown by a nice grove of mature trees. There is nothing in this part of Missouri, as far as I can tell.
Spot the Missouri River. Click the asterisk *

We intended to do a bit of shopping and banking today but the oppressive weather continued and we were not interested in any forays into the furnace until the evening. We left after 7:00 PM for Trader Joe’s about 20 miles away and were successful there. On the way back to our trailer, however, things started to get weird.
As we approached Trader Joe’s, we were at the culmination of a long uphill run and at the very top of the run, we got a message on the dashboard that warned us we only had 50 miles left before we needed to get fuel. On the return trip, the roads incline slightly downhill for a few miles and it didn’t take long before the message changed to 25 miles, then 15, then 8 then 0. We had only gone about 5 miles when we went from 40 to 0. Probably due to a quirk in how the warning system is configured, we may have been getting bogus results but the freeway is a crummy spot to run our truck out of diesel. Peggy tried to get us off at one of the far-flung exits but the police and a tow truck had the exit bollixed up and we ended up idling for some time before Peg zipped into a moving lane and politely cut off a unsuspecting motorist and got us off the freeway.
I carry a fuel can of diesel but bungled some attempts to get fuel from the can to the tank. I put in about 2 gallons, only spilling some on my shoes and hands, but the message on the dash still indicated we had no fuel. Peggy looked under the truck but didn’t spot any fuel running out on the ground. We rolled to a nearby flat parking lot that actually had lighting and put another 3 gallons of fuel into the tank. The message still said we were empty but we knew there was fuel in the tank. We were then on our way, headed for a gas station.
We soon pulled into a gas station and I got out and pumped some fuel. However, based on the amount of fuel we purchased, the warning message was bogus and unreliable when driving downhill. As I was filling the tank, a very weird individual pulled up on the other side of the pump playing loud music. He had a full complement of tattoos covering all his visible skin except some unembellished sections on his face. Over the racket of his crummy music, he started hollering some things and I bravely ignored him and continued pumping. I was worried that he was attempting to speak with me and I saw scant reason to conform with his desires. Soon he hollered at me inquiring about whether I knew about Jesus Christ and I indicated that I had heard the name before. Then the guy took off.
We finally ended up finishing up our one hour shopping trip in about 3 hours. It was only 85 degrees when we climbed back into the trailer at about 10:30. The humidity had dropped to 79 percent. The weather, during this time in St. Louis, has been awful and if I lived here, I’d move.

Today we took a spin into St. Louis to give it a sniff. It is about a 20 minute drive from our current RV park in Arnold for locals who know their way around. Unfortunately, we are not locals so we ended up discovering many ways to not get to the Arch, down on the waterfront. We would think we were on the correct path and would encounter a temporarily closed exit or a closed street with no detour shown. We eventually gave up on the GPS and tried to get to the Arch by dead reckoning and received glimpses of the faraway city icon. Eventually, we got to within about 2 blocks but found no way to get closer and no place to park. We mutually decided to delay our view of the Arch until we had driven back across the Mississippi into Illinois.
Our aimless wanderings in downtown St. Louis did yield some benefits. We got to cruise the poorly maintained city streets and check out the fabulous architecture. Most of the older construction is masonry but there are a few steel buildings and some really artistic modern structures unlike others we have seen. We stopped in at the St. Louis Basilica, a truly impressive structure with fabulous stone structural components and mosaic interior finishes. It is too big to get a picture from the outside without resorting to aircraft.
From the basilica we headed toward St. Louis’s central park and on the way we passed a truly impressive array of palatial mansions that were built by old St. Louis’s robber barons using funds they fleeced from idiots, like me. According to Zillow, many of these shacks have interior areas exceeding 10,000 square feet.
Once we made it to the park, we drove over to take a look at the beautiful St. Louis Art Museum which is a big classical Roman building but with interior lighting and flush toilets. There is a big statue of St. Louis right in front. I am not real skookum on Catholic requirements about what it takes to be a saint. In St. Louis’s case, he was honored for being the king of France, probably by a full complement of quite compliant cardinals sharp enough to realize that not making Louis a saint would separate them from their heads in front of a crowd of rag-clad Frenchmen.
After leaving Louis in the mirror, we headed back downtown to check out something called the St. Louis City Museum. It is a unique collection of stuff both inside and out. It appears that a whole phalanx of welders got together to create a huge array of fantasy structures tying together regular items like school buses and jet aircraft. One school bus projects out from the corner of the roof of the 10 story structure, giving the brave an opportunity to look out the window and 100 feet to the ground. There is an enormous metal praying mantis up there, too. If it wasn’t 98 degrees today, we might have stopped in for a bit at this place, just for a better look.
We set up the GPS again to get to the Illinois side of the river for a view of the Arch unobscured by berms, rural electrification and impressive buildings. The GPS could not find a way to the other side of the Mississippi that was safe for our vehicle regardless of the amount of tampering and tomfoolery we used so we tried Google maps and eventually made it the 5 miles or so into Illinois. We did get a nice view of the Arch from a park in Illinois where we also discovered a series of rotten bridges, low bridges and tight turns that probably scared our Rand McNally wayfinding thingy.
On the way home, we did stop at a local Target store so we could replace our portable ice maker which gasped its last yesterday in the torrid temperatures. The new unit was on sale so we also got a new skillet to replace our current non-stick pan that stuff sticks to regularly. We also got a whole room stand fan because we met some folks in Pennsylvania who were using their similar fan to keep the insects at bay when sitting outside. We love the idea of sitting outside our traveling home but the bugs can be daunting, particularly here in the midwest where the variety of bugs is truly extraordinary. We are going to try to blow them away, once the temperatures get down in the tolerable range and we can go outside.
We took a few pictures in town. To see them, click the asterisk *

We were back on the road today. We left Fitzgerrell State Park near Ida, Illinois, and continued west on I-64. The weather was quite bizarre; the air temperature was in the mid-80s but it was raining pretty hard most of the way. The roadside crops looked very happy and damp. We finally drove out from under the stifling cloud cover when we approached St. Louis. It quit the drenching rain but the temperature and humidity were still brutal. Opening a truck window was like sticking your head into an autoclave.
We turned off I-64 onto I-255 and headed southwest toward Arnold, MO. We crossed the mighty Mississippi. It was mighty brown. Drinking from this river may be problematic. We tried to get a picture of the famous St. Louis Arch but the road surface on 255 was so cratered we couldn’t get the landmark to stay in the viewfinder. We will go give it a leer maybe tomorrow.
In Arnold we pulled off into the Covered Bridge RV Park. It is right next to a highway that we hope doesn’t have a lot of nocturnal truck traffic. The individual spaces in the park are quite large, they have full utility hookups, there is cable TV, a laundry and their wifi is a zinger compared to that which we have recently had. There is a herd of American goldfinches here and they are gorgeous. Should be called yellowfinches, though.