Catch up

Friday, May 31, 2013

It has been a while and a lot of miles since our last post, so this is a catch up overview.

Thursday, May 23, Fred and Wilma left Pebbles and Rock-O behind to catch up with Barney and Betty in mid Missouri. It was a mostly uneventful trip except that as we turned around to leave Pebbles, we heard a loud pop. After struggling with the camper shifting and tie downs needing loosened or tightened, we discovered we had broken a front bumper off the camper.

Our departure was timed so we could have lunch with Christopher and Anne-Shirley in Barstow, and we stopped by to see the room setup for the baby. It was a very short visit. The baby decided not to cooperate and arrive while we were in the state.

The remainder of the trip across I40 was still as long and not very picturesque as ever.

A small area of tornado destruction was evident along I40 near Shawnee, Oklahoma, where lots of people were out cleaning up, but it was just a small area compared to the massive destruction in Moore.

We caught up to Barney and Betty on Saturday night, and Sunday Fred and Barney tackled the fix.

After relaxing for a few days and carefully watching the weather forecasts, it seemed there would be no way to avoid the severe weather. We tossed around the options and the cave mobiles again hit the road on Thursday morning, May 30.  There were stamp stops in Salem and Rolla, and we enjoyed the good roads through the green rolling hills. It was very pretty through there.  Rolla also had a very convenient Waffle House where we enjoyed breakfast/lunch.

It seems like we have changed our route with every stop. Before striking out we had dismissed the idea of going to Detroit for the Henry Ford Museum, then we crossed off Wisconsin, and after running into very severe looking skies and very strong wind gusts along route 63, we holed up for the afternoon and evening at a Walmart in Moberly, Missouri. Our plans again changed and we will head north to I80, then west, planning to stop at Rocky Mountain NP and a couple of other stops before heading on home. We will leave the very northern route for another time.

Again this morning we are getting thunder storms, but not the vicious black skies and high winds of yesterday, so we will get on the road shortly to see if we can outrun this weather.

We will check in again as our journey progresses.