Almost Home

Tonight finds us at one of our favorite campsites.  White's rv park in Collierville, TN.  It is absolutely the best.  The hosts are two of the most wonderful people you will ever meet.  We all went to the Rendevous for some BBQ this evening. Pretty good stuff, but not as good as the Three Little Pigs turn out.
We have spent the last two days crossing Missouri.  Spent last night in St Francois State Park near Park Hills, MO.  It was another good stopping point.  Plenty of squirrels for Sally to try and chase, along with other "pets" hanging around the host's feeders.

We plan to leave here for home tomorrow morning.  Hoping to arrive there by mid afternoon or so.  Looking forward to seeing family and friends.
As we return to the home life for a few weeks, I'm sure the post will become fewer.  I will try and post every few days just to keep in the habit.  Hopefully, there will be a few items of interest to comment on.  One thing I intend to do is put together a list of expenses of our trip for anyone interested.

Wallace State Park, Cameron, MO

Had an early evening yesterday. Went to bed about sundown, which was near 10PM where we were in Nebraska.  We were awakened close to midnight to the sound of hail on the Casita.  It didn't last long so we went back to sleep.  Around 2AM it started again.  Large hail, hitting the roof with a vengeance.  Sally tried to get in the bed with us, it was so loud and unnerving.  Finally stopped after about 5 minutes.  Couldn't get back to sleep after that for a while. Everything was ok this morning.  No damage we could find.
Got away from the campground around 9AM and continued on East. Got within 5 miles of the Iowa border and the road we planned to take South, and had to take a detour.  The Missouri river has a lot of major highways closed due to high water.  We had to make a detour of approximately 75 miles down into Kansas before we came to a spot where we could cross the river.  That was in St. Joe, Missouri.
After crossing over the Missouri, we continued East about 30 miles to a state park we found on the Internet.  It is just a few miles off our intended route.  It is a pretty campground with lots of green trees and plenty of birds singing.  The temp is still in the 70's or low 80's.  Thought we would have some hot weather by now.  It is only going to make it worse when we do hit it.
Here are a couple of pictures of the campsite and supper.  We grilled some chicken and had it along with rice and veggies.

  I think Sally is beginning to feel that we are nearing home.  She isn't nearly as playful or outgoing as she has been on most of the trip.

Will be traveling across Missouri, Northwest to Southeast, tomorrow.  Not sure where the evening will find us. Will try to post again tomorrow night.

Sunday 06/26/11

Got out of the campground around 9 AM this morning.  Really hated to leave such a pretty spot.  We made our way on into Nebraska and stopped at the Cabela's home store in Sidney.  It was sort of disappointing.  We had thought it would be huge like Bass Pro in Springville, MO, but it wasn't.  I know it was smaller than Bass Pro in Denham Springs. 
We purchased gasoline and made our way back to the Interstate.  Found ourselves in North Platte, Nebraska about 3 PM, due to the loss of an hour, so called it a day.  We're in a nice park.  The only downside is it's between I-80 and the "worlds largest train yard".  Yep, that's one of the area's claims to fame.  Others include a couple of Buffalo Bill Cody sites as he spent some time here through the years, and the place where the North Platte and South Platte rivers join. 
No pictures from today.   Not much to see but corn, wheat, and grasslands.  Hope to make Northwestern Missouri tomorrow.
Here's a few more from yesterday.

And some Aspen for someone special.......

Saturday 06/25/11

Started the day from Fort Bridger, WY. We didn't want to cook breakfast this morning, so we decided to stop in Green River and grab a biscuit at McDonalds. Little did we know the whole area was about to shut down for a parade. Barely made it out of town in time, thanks to the help of a nice policeman.

From there it was about 250 miles of practically nothing but sagebrush. Scenery finally changed as we neared Laramie.

I-80 is known as the Lincoln Highway and they had this statue of him and assocated information near Laramie.

 We were just East of Laramie around 2PM and found a really nice NFS campground. Grabbed a site just after it was vacated, and it was a good one. Also the last one available for the day. We had some good luck there.

Spent the rest of the afternon relaxing, and watching dozens of rock climbers try their hand at scaling the large rocks around the campground. It is amazing to watch them crawl and climb up what looks like a solid vertical wall.

The area was supposedly an outlaw hideout in the old days and it would definitely be a good place to hide.

We cooked a little supper of pork chops, pasta, and salad, and then sat around a fire till dark. Had another nice sunset.

Since it is a no frills campground, it will be really dark tonight. Should get some good sleep.

 

Idaho/Utah/Wyoming

Pulled out of Glenn's Ferry, Idaho this morning around 9AM.  After I had posted last night, the sun put on a show over the Snake River Valley.  Here are a few shots of what it looked like.

We basically followed the river valley all the way down to the Utah border, crossing the Snake 4 times.  I guess that's how it got its name.  Didn't take any pictures but it was mostly agriculture, with large irrigated fields of different crops and dairy farms.
We turned South to get to Salt Lake City where we hit I-80 East to Wyoming.  We found a  good stop for the night at Fort Bridger.   This was the location of Jim Bridger's trading post which was on the original route of the California, Oregon, and Mormon trails. It also served the Pony Express and the Overland Stage trails. The trading post later became an Army post known as Fort Bridger. What was left of the old fort, as well as a reconstruction of the trading post, is now Wyoming Historic Site.

Tomorrows plan is to continue on East across Southern Wyoming.  We aren't sure which route we will be taking to get home.  Tentatively, the plan is to keep going East until we get to Iowa, but we may bail out and turn South anywhere along that route.  We'll see how it goes. 

Into Idaho on the Oregon Trail

We made it into Idaho today.  Before leaving Oregon though, we decided to visit this place.

It is located in Baker City, Oregon and has some of the best information on the Oregon trail that I've seen.  They have a number of life sized displays portraying life and times on the trail.  Here are some of the different ways way folks traveled on the trail.

With oxen, mules, alone on horseback, by foot, or pulling a pushcart, it wasn't an easy journey.  Death was very near every day.

 This picture shows the actual route of the trail through the area.

From Baker City we traveled on into Idaho and are at Glenn's Ferry State Park on the Snake River.  It is at a location where the Oregon trail crossed the river.  There are a number of displays here also.  If you haven't picked up on it yet, the pioneers did a pretty good job of navigating.  The interstate even follows their route.

Another bit of information, and another picture of the original route coming down to the Snake river.

Ran into a part of this group again today.  We first met some of them at a park in Montana last year.  They showed us many of their trailers and allowed me to take numerous photos.

The Sisters on the Fly!

Wanda had recently received a copy of their book and cookbook, which was just published, so we thought we would go over and get a few more pictures.  NOT!  As we entered the park I asked the first member I saw if I could take some pictures and she said sure.  As we walked a little further into the park we were met by their "member bouncer" and told it was a closed event and the ladies didn't want to be bothered with visitors. You would think that after publishing a book about themselves, and their fun trailers and such, having the public in to see all of it would be part of the program.  It was an entirely different welcome than the one we received in Montana.  OH well, I got a few pictures anyway before getting kicked off the premises.