Home again

Friday April 10th we left Quiet Oaks and drove north on Hwy 165 . The temperature was 75F and the air felt muggy.  Within 2 hours we went through a rain shower and temperature dropped 9F within minutes!  A bonus of driving through this area were road side stands selling jumbo shrimp for $5.99/lb!  Too bad that we stocked up in Mexico. We will just have to remember it next time. We drove through the states of Louisiana, Arkansas and into Mississippi that day.  We crossed over to Hwy I55 and headed to Batesville  intending to spend the night at the Walmart.  Unfortunately it was too noisy so we moved about a block down the road to the Batesville Civic Center. We boondocked on their parking lot as we had moved after dark.  In the morning we discovered they have 20 RV sites with full services that must be reserved in advance over the internet. Turns out they charge $30 a night so we will stay boondocking.

Saturday we drove through Memphis and headed north to Effingham IL. The weather was a pleasant 65F. Sad to say there were no longer wildflowers at the side of the road or flowering trees and bushes. Texas was so beautiful with their roadside flowers. We traveled through 5 states: Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois.  Our overnight stop in Effingham was the Walmart.  This place encourages overnight campers with signs directing you to Truck Parking.  There were 14 trucks and 6 motorhomes parked for the night.  We were within walking distance of 6 restaurants and lots of shopping. We took advantage of the location and went out to dinner.

Sunday we left Effingham IL to travel to La Porte IN.  Leaving the city we saw a large roadside sign indicating the home office of our favourite pancake mix, Hodgson Mills. Too late to stop so we will have to stock up in La Porte. We had crossed the Mississippi River 3 times on this trip home:

an early crossing of the Mississippi River

approaching a bridge across the Mississippi (please excuse the bug smear on the windshield!)

the suspension bridge up close

a view of the Mississippi as we cross the bridge

 On our trip up Hwy 421 to La Porte we noticed the Whistle Stop Restaurant with a collection of train cars, railway memorabilia and a museum at Monon. It would be a wonderful place to take our grandchildren! A week after we got home we learned that Monon is the home of our famous Whirley popcorn maker and we could have stopped in and got new replacement gears.

The following photos are of the equipment located on the grounds surrounding the Whistle Stop restaurant:

A real steam driven crane

Checking out the heavy crane

A trailer to a jigger used by rail service crews

Four old dumping cars probably used in mining

Handle used for track switching

An old baggage cart

Wow! I remember the wood stoves when I was a kid

The interior is quite splendid..all wood

Entering the restaurant:

Inside the restaurant, there were 4 tracks of model trains circling the ceiling. There was also a museum of memorabilia but we did not take it in.

Chugga chugga woo woo!

Once we arrived in La Porte, we spent 3 days visiting with family and shopping for some RV supplies. 

We left La Porte Wednesday, April 15th. After crossing the border at Port Huron/Sarnia we stopped in Sarnia for dinner with family then headed to the PILOT/Flying J Travel Plaza in London to stay overnight.  With our PILOT credit card we a get 5 cents/gallon discount on our purchase of gasoline in the USA and 1 cent per litre discount in Canada.  The Travel Plaza is a popular place to stop for RVers on our way home as we can dump our black and gray tanks. 



We arrived home Thursday April 16th before noon.  The weather was lovely and warm -- perfect to unload our motorhome.

Our route home this year was 3,043 miles -- 664 miles shorter than last year when we traveled up the west coast of Mexico to Nogales, Tucson and then across Arizona and New Mexico.

In all,  our total miles traveled since we left home in November was 6,589.