RV,  The Slow and the Curious

Highway B Revisited

October 4, 2023 – Day 6

We had planned an easy day. It would just be a short drive to Ava, MO for a visit with some of Susan’s relatives that she hadn’t seen in decades. But first we had repairs to make. A couple days ago, the wooden trim around the bedroom slider pulled away driving on that nightmare called I-70W. Paul was pretty sure it would be an easy fix.

That long wood screw seemed to be installed incorrectly. All we had to do (famous last words) was pry off a decorative end cap to get at the screw head and reposition it above. Sadly, we hadn’t brought a drill so we couldn’t drill a new pilot hole. We borrowed one from a neighbor and found that the screw was in the right spot. The piece above was also metal and it looks like the coach builder wanted the screw threads to hold onto the sides of the metal channel! When we get to Phoenix we’ll give it a more permanent fix. Oh, and a mystery was solved! We had discovered that one of the blades of the ceiling fan was bent downwards a lot more than the others. We figure that loose trim piece must have slapped it every time we hit the bigger bumps or potholes on I-70W.

Paul returned the drill and came back. He said that they mentioned they really liked our motorhome. Susan realized they said this a few times. It was their polite way of asking to see inside. We asked if they’d like to see inside (“Yes!”) so we invited the curious neighbors over. What started as a show and tell turned into a sit down and chat. No problem because we had plenty of time, right?

By the time they left it was somewhere around 11am. We were aiming to be on the road by that point. A very late breakfast was quickly eaten and we packed up to leave. Before heading to Ava we had to back track a bit to Home Depot to buy a “bandaid fix”.

BTW, this is how you park when shopping with the coach & toad. Finding a spot can be challenging. Not only do you need a good length of real estate to park on but you need a good escape route. So if you see this kind of parking out in the wild they aren’t being lazy jerks. They’re parking like that out of necessity.

You know how they say that time flies as you get older? We could have sworn it was still early October apparently it’s Christmas. It may be 90F outside but Christmas is in full swing at the Home Depot in Ellisville, MO!

The display was actually much larger than you can see above!

Our unobtrusive repair. Isn’t it elegant? You can hardly tell it was broken!

We headed down the road again, this time towards Ava. It soon started to rain, really rain.

This makes driving more difficult but we were glad for the rain. You see, we’d run out of windshield washer fluid a day or so before. We bought a gallon at one of our gas stops some days ago but the hood is proving cantankerous. Paul thinks he knows how to fix it. In the meantime the rain worked with the wipers to wash the “bug art” away!

The rain didn’t let up for our gas stop. The RV Fuel lane we chose was broken so Susan had to go around again and in the process found slot in the “car” section that would work as well since it was an end row (no problem that we hogged 2 pumps because one was out of service). The rain was pouring down off the roof right near the fuel filler. Paul stood under the rain, hood up and hovering over the fuel filter to see water from getting into the gas tank. It looked like the rubber gasket would keep it out so he sheltered under the roof. (cue ominous music…)

Not much more to say about driving to Ava, except Paul missed the turn into the RV park. To be fair it really looks like somebody’s house which makes sense. Small RV parks are owner operated and the owners live on the premises.

To be extra fair it seems that at least in Ava, MO they paint double yellow lines a bit different than we do up north. There’s no break in the yellow lines at intersections to give you a clue from afar. That really added to the confusion. We almost missed it coming back from Ava in the dark, there wasn’t a break in the double yellow.

We found ourselves on Highway B. But first let’s digress a little bit. MO has a weird way of naming roads/highways. They use letters or pairs of letters, like FF or B Highway. Highway B is a 55 mph paved road but it’s very narrow with no shoulder and generally falls off a 3-5 feet the edge of the road. If ever there was motivation to stay between the lines this would be it. There’s no room for error. We’re on a road with no way to turn around and even if we could we’d have to unhook the Jeep sitting in the middle of a 55 mph road. The GPS keeps warning us to turn around or worse to turn onto sketchy dirt roads. First rule of RV driving: Never turn onto a sketchy dirt road. It could get sketchier.

At least the scenery was pretty.

The road got curvier and steeper. Paul was doing about 15-20mph through some sections and rarely topping 30mph on 55 mph road. Fortunately we never got a fan club. We just stopped once, put our hazards on, and took a minute to look at maps trying to find a better way out of this mess we’d gotten ourselves into.

There was no choice. The only way out was forward. Again and again the GPS kept telling us to turn onto dirt/sketchy roads. We couldn’t do anything else so we just drove on, looking hopefully at every cross road to the right and grumbling when it was just another disappointing country dirt road.

At least it was pretty.

We drove on B for 12 long miles, only to find out we’d popped out in Mansfield where we’d already come through earlier that day. So we traveled another 12 miles Route 5 to the Hitching Post RV Park. This time we didn’t miss our turns. (susan here: I laughed about it with the cousins. One of them said to me, “No. You’ve been in Mansfield before.” I insisted otherwise. Apparently when I was just a little baby my mom and some of the other relatives had come down to visit my aunt Rita. That was a surprise!)

When we made it to the park the rain stopped which was good the site was 9″ out of level. We used 2 boards under a tire and almost all our leveling blocks and got the coach level enough. We had quick showers then off to dinner with the cousins. It was a full day.

Daily: 216

Total: 1,379

Moving Miles/Day: 345

Overall Miles/Day: 276

mpg: 6.8

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