It’s a bit cold again, not as much as yesterday morning though. Today is our last stretch of this first push, so we’ll be driving less the next few weeks.
It felt like it was a longer drive day, but it was just maybe an extra 30 mins or so. We did make a few extra stops, and we went back an hour due to Mountain time. We left at a pretty good time, we do good at getting things ready to go, no stress, and we were out of the campground around 9:30-10am I think. I was hoping the girls could do most of their work in the truck, but they could not do any writing or typing as the first part of the trip the roads were very bumpy, so they only did some online stuff, watching videos of the class, etc.
We stopped at the Corn Palace on the way out, it’s an interesting building to check out, but there’s nothing there. Kids liked it, but if one is crunched for time, I’d say skip it, if you have kids and an extra 30-45 mins, then stop there. Basically a gym for the local high school I think, with the outside all covered in corn cobs painted to create big images of local farms, etc. On the way to park there, and then out, the rear of the trailer scrapped on the street. On the way in I had not thought about it and it hit a bit harder and made a loud metal noise, and upon inspection I had a piece of road on each side, and looked like the metal lost some of itself to the street as well. On the way out, I looked for a better spot and went slow, so I knew it’d likely scrape and it did, but we kind of managed it better.
From there we stopped at a rest stop for lunch. We had left over rice and lentils and fried eggs. We stopped a few more times at gas stations for use the bathroom, and at one scenic rest stop about 1-2 hour or so away for the view.
The drive here was fine, scene was the same most of the way, with just farms and fields, then as we got closer it changed to hills and grasslands, which is cool. The wind was tough pretty much all the way, with constant 12-15mph coming against us and some gusts that were stronger. I had to slow down to 55, a few times to 50 because it was really pulling. The truck handled awesome, but I could tell how much the wind was impacting it all based on the gas mileage, we went from about 13 average to 8-9 due to the wind force against us. Big trucks would also create some push pull, but the truck is so heavy that the effect of the push pull is not much to worry about, just need to know it’s coming and it’s easy to keep it all under control.
As we got closer to the campground, the scenery got prettier and prettier. It’s very pretty here. Very hilly too. When we got to the campsite, our GPS had had us use the last entrance, which is not the correct one, so I had to maneuver and go back with the trailer. That was a bit interesting as the space was a bit small for my size, but I went back and forth a few times and got it done. Guy from the campground escorted us to our site, the campground is very hilly as well, so I was a bit apprehensive about where we’d end up, and sure enough, we had a pull through site but had to make a turn into the site which had a low point and I could tell the trailer would scrape, and it did… at least here it’s gravel, so the trailer just dug into the gravel.
The site itself is quite narrow, so the guy helped maneuver into it and then back in and straighten it out, we stopped just shy of a tree, and with the slide out open we have about 2 inches to spare on that side. On the other side, we can’t open the awning more than 1/3 as there are trees there. We don’t need the awning here as we are under tall trees (which will likely be a problem later with all the needles on the roof). It’s a tight spot, but it is a nice place. While I was setting up, Carol took the girls to the pool. Bella again felt it was too cold and came back earlier. I got everything setup since we will be here for a while, table, grill, etc.
After everyone came back, the girls saw deer right by us, just a little down our site. There were quite a few there, so they went take some pictures. That was cool, and really gave me a good impression for things we’ll experience here. I grilled some brats and burgers to use with the pasta, and Carol and I made the pasta and sauce outside as well. Weather was nice, warm, not many bugs, so we ate outside and it was very pleasant. After we were done, we went inside to get some school work done, showers, clean up, etc. Carol was too warm, so we turned the AC on, all got ready and went to bed. Really good day, though lots of driving, but all good.
Link to the vide of our days 2 and 3 here: https://carolstefano.com/days-2-and-3-our-rv-road-trip-across-the-usa/