The Mad Dash South

Our departure from Forest City, IA, was delayed a few days while we waited to receive a package that got mis-routed. This was actually good news as we got to have a few relaxing days hanging out with some wonderful RV friends PLUS we got to witness RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa).  This week-long event stopped over in Forest City for a night and it was amazing to see these 10,000 riders -- along with the party and tent city that accompanied them.

We finally trailed the riders out of town and made our way to Springfield, IL -- our first stop on the "homeward bound" path back to Georgetown TX.  We had decided to pick a path back that would swing us by a number of Presidential Museums and Lincoln's was only a short swing east.  Unlike the other Presidential museums we'd seen, this one was not sponsored/advertised on the U.S. government website. Only later did we realize that there are others like this and we had missed a few along our travels already. Sigh.  Anyhow, the state of Illinois has done a fantastic job with preserving "all things Lincoln" in the area and, like the other Presidential Museums we've seen, it was a real treat.

Jeffrey posing with the Lincoln family

Our next target was the Harry S. Truman museum in Kansas City, Missouri, but there was no reason to skip over St. Louis along the way.  Though we only stopped for a day, we were able to venture atop the Gateway Arch as well as tour the Anheuser-Busch Brewery.  While the enormous beer production operation is impressive, the Clydesdale horses were even more so.  There were only a few on site, but they were equally marvelous and GIGANTIC.

A regal Clydesdale at the Anheuser-Busch Brewery

Atop the St. Louis Gateway Arch

No surprise that the Harry S. Truman Presidential Museum near Kansas City, Missouri, was as fascinating as the others.  With 3 full days in town, we thought we'd have plenty of time to see everything else in the area, including the daughter of dear neighbors we knew in Texas, but how wrong we were.  It took us more than a day just to see the WWI Museum and we barely squeezed in the King Tut exhibit at Union Station and a quick pass through the Money Museum at the Federal Reserve. Whew! We will just have to come back here (we find ourselves saying that about almost every city we visit!)

Tower at the WWI Museum

Reproduction at the King Tut exhibit

With temperatures rising as we drove further south, our next stop in Fayetteville, Arkansas, became another "darn we need more time" stopover.  In addition to visiting with a High School friend of Jeffrey's, we swung through the Wal-mart Museum (especially enjoying the "Walton 5 and 10" shop with 1970's ice cream prices), a wonderful walk through the University of Arkansas (much hillier than we expected), and the Crystal Bridges Museum (an impressive collection of art and architecture from many eras).  We regret we didn't have time to enjoy walking the 3 miles of lovely trails around it.  Our final touristy stop was the Clinton Presidential Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas. Bonus in that there was a special Chihuly glass exhibit there too.

At this point we needed to get serious about getting back into Texas, which coincidentally lines up with the "life in an RV" segment of this blog post. No sooner had we left an overnight stop in Mt. Pleasant that we experienced a "high coolant temp" fault on Max.  Funny enough, this exact same thing happened when we arrived in Texas a year ago.  Restarting the engine after a few minutes was enough to kick the big cooling fan in the radiator to start turning again.

With our "chassis" still under warranty for a few more months, we decided that a 2nd occurrence of this problem needed a formal check-up, so we diverted to a Freightliner service center in Tyler.  Out came the computer and they confirmed something went briefly wrong, but they didn't have the parts to replace a "clutch fan assembly".  A stop at the Waco facility as we continued south the next day also came up dry on the parts, so we continued on to our fall season home in Georgetown TX -- watching the engine temp like a hawk and having nothing further go wrong. Once we get settled in, we'll do a day trip up to Temple and get Freightliner to address this so we don't have to worry again.

We have already been welcomed by RV neighbors on both sides of us so it looks like we'll make some new friends this year :-)  That said, we have already connected with some of our Austin-area friends and it is so great to catch up with everyone!

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