Trish & Anne RV Adventures

On Monday, October 2 we started our trek home. We had several stops in mind but after 6 and a half weeks of adventures, we were ready to head home.

It wasn’t long before we were heading east on I70 and arriving in Colorado.

This is the entrance to the Eisenhower Tunnel. It’s west of Denver and goes through the Rocky Mountains at an elevation on 11,112 feet – the highest vehicular tunnel in the US, and also the highest point on the whole interstate system. When it was built in the 70’s it was the highest in the world. There is a long 6% grade up to get to the tunnel – we were in the right lane doing almost 50 mph, but we made it. Of course, then you have to come down, which is also nerve racking – Trish had a drink when we arrived at our campground just west of Denver.

On Tuesday, October 3, we met our Polaroid friends Vicki and Dave in a Walmart parking lot in Broomfield, which is north of Denver. After going out to lunch, we spent the day with them visiting and catching up on the past year and a half and reminiscing a bit about Polaroid. Dave picked up their granddaughter Katie around 3. Then we met Amy & John for dinner at a pizza place for more visiting and turn Katie back over to her parents for the evening. Dave and Vicki drove us back to the RV and after some grocery shopping at the Walmart, we headed down the road. It was one of the only days we set up in the dark – we love headlamps. I can’t believe I didn’t get any photos of our visit.

Our day Wednesday was spent driving across the plains in eastern Colorado and western Kansas – fields, farms, wind turbines and silos.

We were going to stay just south of Russell Kansas for the next few days – so we decided to drive into the town. Found out that it was the childhood home of Bob Dole and that Arlen Specter also spent time living there. And right outside of town were sorghum fields. I took the sunset photo from just outside or RV (might look serene, but if you turned 90 degrees I70 was right there – but not too noisy at night.)

We decided to stop in Russell because I had been watching the bird migration maps, and it seemed like we might be able to see some shorebirds in central Kansas. If you have followed our travels you know that in the spring of 2022 we stopped at the Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area, a fresh water marsh that we were surprised to find in the middle of Kansas. Also in the area is Quivira National Wildlife Refuge – which has a salt water marsh. We decided that both were worth visiting.

Driving to Quivira on Thursday, we spotted a couple of white tail deer in a field – I guess we scared them because they went bounding off.

As we were driving in to the refuge these American White Pelicans were soaring overhead.

There was a visitors center here – it was open but no one was there. We looked around a bit, and discovered that this marsh is salty while the one 40 miles away is not, because here the salty bedrock is closer to the surface. Then it was on to explore the outdoors.

There were lots of birds soaring over head and in the water! Below are some that we identified.

We had our picnic lunch in a park in the middle of Big Bend, KS. That’s a statue of Jack Kirby, who eventually won a Nobel Prize in Physics (in 2000) for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958. He is from Great Bend. The other photos were taken around the town.

We decided we had enough time to drive through Cheyenne Bottoms, so we stopped at the visitor center for a few minutes. They had this injured Screech Owl that was trying to hide from us.

On our ride through the bottoms, we saw American Coot, Northern Shovelers, flocks of both and more, and American Avocet.

One of these is not like the other – that’s a juvenile Starling among the juvenile Grackles. And another Greater Yellowlegs hunting fish.

These are the channels they use to keep / move the water around the wildlife area – they are constantly working on them to keep the weeds and silt out of them.

Then we got to an area where there were Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons.

Then it was back to the RV for dinner, and when it got dark we went down the road apiece – trying to get away from the noise of the highway to see if we could hear the bird migration. There were supposed to be hundreds of thousands birds flying over, but we couldn’t get far enough off the main road, so the trucks going down the road caused problems hearing the birds. But we did get some great views of the stars including the milky way.

On Friday we had scheduled an interpretive tour through Cheyenne Bottoms. The visitors center there is actually the Kansas Wetlands Education Center, which is operated by the the Fort Hayes State University. Our tour took us essentially on the same route that we had been on the day before, but this time we had great spotters who knew everything that we were looking at.

About the only thing that we didn’t see the day before was this Northern Harrier.

We did stop at this overlook that we had not been to before. It looks over the 40,000 acres of Cheyenne Bottoms. It was first flooded in the late 1800’s by the Koen Brothers. They diverted the water from the Arkansas River to create a lake for recreation and irrigation. It was not successful at the time, but basically the same design was used in the 1950’s when they finally began managing the water in the area – instead of having it dry or creating a lake. On the right is a picture of the old limestone and barbed wire fences they used in the area because there were not enough trees for fencing. Many of them are still in use.

When we were with the guide in the afternoon, she said the Fort Hayes Astronomy Club was having an event with telescopes and hot chocolate being served. We decided to go – but when I put Cheyenne Bottoms in to Google Maps, I neglected to add visitors center. That meant that we were routed back via the gravel road through the wildlife area – and by the time I realized it we couldn’t turn back. But once we arrived, we got some decent views of the milky way and I managed to take these photos. We also got to look through some telescopes and see Saturn and its rings (and moons), Jupiter and 3 of 4 of its Galilean moons, the Andromeda Nebula, and M13 – the Great Globular Cluster. It was fun, and not as cold as we thought it would be.

Right off the highway on Saturday, October 7 we stopped in the little town of Russell to see the World’s Largest Czech Egg. It’s a 20 foot by 15 foot fiberglass egg painted in original Czech colors. It’s here because Wilson has been named the Czech Capital of Kansas to recognize the long history of Czech immigration to the area.

Some of the historical buildings in Wilson.

There were littler eggs throughout the town, and we had a BLT (Anne), corn dogs (Trish) and french fires at this little diner. Then it was on to our evening destination.

Trish got in some kitty petting time on Sunday morning before we went for breakfast for lunch at Mel’s Country Cafe. We went because it got some good reviews and because we have a similar named restaurant around the corner at home. Then it was into Jefferson City.

That was because we were visiting our last capitol building of the trip – we had a 2 pm appointment for a tour of the Missouri Capitol. It is on a hill in Jefferson City and has a beautiful dome that we got to see from several different perspectives.

Our guide told us a few interesting things about the state seal – those are grizzly bears (which do not live in Missouri) and the belt buckle was added by a confederate sympathizer as a comment on the “United We Stand, Divided We Fall” phase. It was originally just on a band – but he made it into a belt, which could be undone. The fact that it looks like it says MOM on the sides of the stairways is a coincidence, it’s just the poppy between the M’s for Missouri.

There was some really good artwork here – this is a painting of the bridge over the Mississippi in Saint Louis. It’s the same bridge we used 6 years ago when we visited there. This picture is cool because the perspective seems to change as you walk by it.

This is one panel of a Thomas Hart Benson mural that decorates the House of Representatives Lounge. He was a Missouri native, and he was commissioned to paint the social history of Missouri, in this 40 foot mural. The mural starts with a scene showing a French trader exchanging goods with a Native American – and goes through the good and bad of Missouri history until 1936 – when it was painted. The lower left is his representation of “The Legend of Frankie and Johnny” – you may know that song.

This is the House Chamber – a beautiful glass dome and glass stained window. And that’s a gnome that was left behind by the restoration crew. In the full view picture, he is above the the right hand flat screen – just to the left of the light.

Like some other state capitols that we have been in there is a Missouri Hall of Fame exhibit – some of the ones I picked out are below.

Sacajawea, Marlin Perkins, Bob Barker

Josephine Baker, Harry Truman, Laura Ingells Wilder

Stan Musial, Ginger Roger, Art Deco Lamp (not in the Hall of Fame- but cool anyway)

The Missouri State Museum was also housed in the capitol. There were several panels depicting a timeline of the key events in Missouri history, as well as several artifacts. That’s a cultivator similar to one that Harry Kirklin would have used on his market garden that he grew from 1 acre to over 160 acres to supply vegetables for Jefferson City. William Galbreath had the first black owned photography studio in Jefferson City.

Some of the statues outside the capitol – including a replica Statue of Liberty. It was donated as one of 200 around the US as part of the 40th anniversary celebration by the Boy Scouts in 1950.

The RV parked outside the capitol, and the Governor’s Mansion. That evening we were camped at a state park not far from Hannibal, MO. After a steak dinner, we sat outside and actually saw a meteor streak by in the Draconid meteor shower.

On Monday, October 9, we started our day at the Mark Twain Boyhood Home in Hannibal. That’s the house in the left picture, and an Anne sized, rotating mug advertising a diner behind the house.

The visitor center had a time line of Sam Clemens life, with many panels calling out particular dates or stories about his family.

Here are some shots of the rooms in the boyhood home – Twain lived here from 1839 (age 4) to 1853 (age 17). The living room, the dining room, his bedroom, and his parents bedroom.

The left picture is a recreation of Huckleberry Finn’s house – well really the home of Tom Blankenship, Sam Clemens’ childhood friend who was the inspiration for Huckleberry Finn. And the fence that inspired the whitewashing scene in the book.

And across the street is the Becky Thatcher/Laura Hawkins house. Laura was another inspiration for the books. When she was older she did radio broadcasts where she told some of the stories from the books as she remembered them. When Sam’s father died, the Clemens family moved in with the Hawkins’ for several months until they could get back on their feet. That’s a room that became theirs for the duration of their stay – pretty crowded.

After getting some lunch at a cute coffee shop we made our last stop in Hannibal at the Mark Twain Museum. They had his desk and fountain pen and several other artifacts that he had used/owned.

We ran into more Norman Rockwell art here. I’m not sure I ever knew that he had illustrated special editions of both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn books. When he started these in 1935 he was the first illustrator who had visited Hannibal to see it and make preliminary sketches. And he bought used clothes from folks so he would be able to reproduce the actual look because he knew he would never find appropriate clothes for his models back east where he would complete the illustrations. He donated the originals paintings to the museum before he died.

Several other views of the streets in Hannibal. There were banners like these with Mark Twain sayings all over town, and this statue of Tom and Huck.

Here is a view of the Mississippi River near Hannibal and that’s a lighthouse built to celebrate Sam Clemens – it was never a working lighthouse but does resemble some of those along the river.

Here is a shot of our campsite at the Ray Behrens Campground on Mark Twain Lake – it was open but the sites were large. We had hot dogs over the fire and s’mores for dinner.

On Tuesday, October 10, we delayed our departure because I had noticed that something was leaking and I thought it might be coming from the transmission. I finally got through to our Mercedes Service guy in Massachusetts, and based on my description he told me it wasn’t the transmission. He thought we probably had an oil leak somewhere, and that it would be okay to drive as long as we picked up some oil. The first auto part store we stopped at didn’t have the right version, but they called another shop that was on our way and confirmed that they had it. After that stop and some lunch in the RV, we drove through St Louis, and got a view of the Arch and the bridge that was in the painting in the capitol.

After driving the rest of the day Tuesday and much of the day Wednesday, we arrived in Frankfort, KY and got settled in at our favorite Frankfort campground. We picked up a car on the way in so after getting some lunch we drove into downtown Frankfort. I had heard about this sign post showing all the distilleries in Kentucky, so we wanted to check it out and get a selfie. We noticed an ice cream shop on the corner as we were parking, so we made a stop there for dessert.

Then it was off to our favorite non-distillery spot in Frankfort – Rebecca Ruth’s Candies. Of course our purchase there is always bourbon balls. Then we drove to the Josephine Sculpture Garden – but this was one of the only pieces we could see from the car. It is made from recycled tires.

On Thursday, October 12 we set off on a distillery tour – self driven. We had scheduled an 11:30 tasting, but got on the road early enough to make a quick stop at Castle and Key – we only had about 30 minutes, and the grounds look beautiful – we will definitely be back for a tour, but this time we just split a tasting and headed to the store to buy our favorite.

Our next stop was just down the road at the Glenns Creek Distillery. But as the GPS was saying we had arrived, Trish couldn’t believe we were at the right spot. It was a run down building, with what looked like a burnt out car and minimal signage – we thought maybe it was their rickhouse. But there was nothing with the name further down the road, so we turned around and went back because we had already paid for the tastings. It was the right spot, and the car was parked there enough to be covered in whiskey fungus (aka distillers mold.) It is what makes many buildings at distilleries look back. It turned out that Dave, the owner and master distiller was there and he ran our tasting – and it was just the 2 of us because a tour group didn’t show up. The distillery looked so old because it is in the original Old Crow buildings that were first used in the late 1800’s. Dave told us lots of stories, not only about his bourbons, but of the history of distilling in the area – and he signed the bottle of A-maize-ing C.O.B. Bourbon that we bought. COB is for Corn Only Bourbon, no Rye, no Wheat, no Barley! It was our favorite of the five we tried.

After lunch at an Italian restaurant in Shelbyville, we went to Bulleit Distilling. They have a state of the art distillery opened in 2017, but there were no tours available. So we shared another tasting, and bought another bottle, and a tee shirt and magnet.

Our last stop of the day was at the Jeptha Creed Distillery, also in Shelbyville. It was opened in 2016 by a mother and daughter team, who were part of a five generation farming family. They are committed to a “ground to glass” philosophy, including growing the corn for the distillery on their farm, and using as many local ingredients as possible. We split another tasting but at $100 did not want to invest in a bottle of our favorite, the Red, White, & Blue Bourbon. It was a beautiful day and they had an outdoor area, so we played a game of corn hole to clear our heads.

Back at the RV, it was time for a nap. We have decided that 4 tastings in one day, is one too many. But we did have fun, and there are still more distilleries to return to.

The next two days were spent driving from Frankfort, through West Virginia (where we overnighted) and then into southeast Pennsylvania for another night. Saturday it rained most of the day as we were driving up and down mountains and in and out of the fog. Trish was not a happy driver that day. We had to set up in the rain, for the first time on this trip.

It poured overnight too – but we awoke to a much better day on Sunday, October 15 at the Gifford Pinchot State Park south of Harrisburg, PA. This reminded up of our visit to Grey Towers – which was Pinchot’s summer home. He was the first chief of the US Forest Service as well as a two-term governor of Pennsylvania. We didn’t go too far that Sunday because we spent a good part of the day with my cousins Joey, Sally and Rosalie. Joey had bypass surgery and had a few complications, but he was definitely on the road to recovery when we saw him. Sally made us a great lunch and it was good to catch up on the past couple of years and do more reminiscing. Sorry, I forgot to get pictures again.

After dumping the holding tanks that morning, Monday October 16 was our last day on the road, we had a little rain, and saw several rainbows. We finally arrived in Massachusetts at about 4 pm – we were ready to be home.

Here are our magnet memories.

We are now up to 44 states that we have visited and golfed in from our RV. We hope to finish off the lower 48 next fall – after another east coast swing in the spring as Trish has a new great great nephew to visit in Florida.

And this is the route for this 8,000 mile 8.5 week adventure. It sure was fun!

We are up to over 61k miles in our RVs, plus another 15k miles in rental cars – and I’d say that Trish has driven at least 90% of those. She likes to drive and I’m a better navigator, so it’s a good division of duties.

And I’ll leave you with this – several of our friends saved it from the paper for us. We do love the RV life (at least the part time way we do it.)

Until the Spring, Safe Travels!