PART 1: Lewis & Clark RV Caravan - Getting There & Getting Ready

Our organized RV caravan starts on Memorial Day 2021 in St Charles, Missouri, which is near St Louis. Having just enjoyed a month in Raleigh visiting family, it is time to hit the road to get there for the start of this adventure.

5/17-18: Hickory, NC

Our drive to Hickory is uneventful as long as you don't count the huge speed bump in the RV park we left. It was only a few feet from our site and Jeffrey was forced to hit it on an angle as we pulled out, really giving Max a "rocking" for a few seconds. While he hooked up the car I went inside and inspected everything and was grateful that we had big safely bands around the upper cabinet doors or some heavy things would have taken a big 6 foot drop. Here's hoping the washer and dryer are okay when we go to use them next! Well, any good adventure starts with some type of OOPS, right? 😂

Thinking we might someday replace our two dining room chairs, we spent the biggest part of the next day looking at Hickory's large selection of furniture stores. Jeffrey is no doubt secretly thrilled I didn't find something that would fit our lifestyle better than the 10-year old chairs that we own already. We also drove by the movie set where part of Hunger Games was filmed, but sadly the gates were locked and we couldn't get in.

To cap the day, there is a farm next to the RV park that hosts barrel racing competitions on Tuesday nights, so we grabbed our camping chairs and walked the connected trail to see some fun entertainment after dinner!

5/19-21: Knoxville, TN

Driving over mountains with a 32,000 pound vehicle towing a car is always a bit stressful, but in today's case, we encountered construction delays that made our steepest descents just crawls. No extra drama, just normal drama 😏

Okay, spoke too soon. Not 10 minutes after I wrote this the car reported some type of regulation malfunction fault as we were driving it to Walmart. It behaves just fine, so we get up early in the morning to take it to the local Ford dealership. They try to "read the codes" and find nothing. They clear the fault and send us on our way with a shoulder shrug. Something tells us this isn't the end of this story. Side Note: The new car lot at the dealer was almost empty. Chip delays due to Covid have left dealers with very low inventory.

Next stop -- Zoo Knoxville! (don't ask me why Zoo is the first word in their title... seems to be the latest craze). We are early enough to beat most of the crowds and see close-ups of lions, tigers, and bears. Oh my! 😁 We also see lots of other animal ambassadors, including a cute giraffe baby (JJ). I got to feed the giraffe bull (Jumbe), who apparently won't let any of the other giraffes near the feeding deck. Nice big zoo though lots of construction underway. 

    Jumbe puckering up for lettuce

    Jeffrey and the elephants

    Baby JJ playing with his food

    Well fed bear 1 of 3

We spent our last day in Knoxville mostly doing a little "personal maintenance". First up was a 3.3 mile hike at the Ijams Nature Center. It also gave us a chance to break in our hiking boots and my new hiking poles -- things we will use on the caravan. By the way, while hiking we could hear the buzz of those recently emerged cicadas that have been underground for 17 years!

I also got a haircut. Actually, I GAVE myself a haircut with Jeffrey's help on the back side. This is a new skill we developed during our "Covid"  year. I love getting a trim whenever I want without having to find a hairstylist wherever we are (so be nice when you comment on the pictures of us -- assuming you see one without hats!)

    The quarry at Ijams Nature Center

5/22-24: Nashville, TN

Drove a few hundred miles to Nashville today, discovering along the way that a cicada makes a very loud and big splat on Max's windshield 🙄. Clean up on aisle I-40! Surprised when we passed into Central Time Zone -- for some reason we thought it was further west. Ended the day discovering that we may need to replace the kitchen faucet and that Jeffrey can actually fit under the kitchen sink... sort of. Deferred that project to another day, though I foresee a trip to a hardware store to look at faucets. The campground had live music in the evening for us campers. In fact, they have live music EVERY night. We are obviously in Nashville! 

Woke up early on Nashville day #2 so we could enjoy breakfast at the campground cafe (bribed Jeffrey out of bed with the promise of chocolate chip pancakes) before heading to our entry timeslot at the Nashville Zoo. Lots of animals and LOTS of people too. The path through the zoo was still somewhat "one way" from Covid protocols, but it helped keep everyone moving. Over 3.5 miles of exercise, plus bonus calories for the rolling hills 👍

    The closest we could get to their Masai giraffe

    My favorite big cat, the Clouded Leopard

    One of 4 African Caracal kittens being hand

    raised in the zoo veterinary center

As predicted, we stopped at a few hardware stores on the way home and picked up a new kitchen faucet. With a little muscle (and a really long ratcheted socket wrench), Jeffrey got the old one out, discovering that there was a minor leak inside the mechanism that left a fatal buildup of scale, making it impossible for the faucet to pivot properly. The new faucet made its debut and fit perfectly. Thank you Winnebago for plumbing for a standard residential faucet! Also, thank you for making the cabinet beneath the sink Jeffrey sized (barely!). 

    A tight but successful fit

    The new faucet! 

Our final day near Nashville was a quiet one. We stayed home and did a few loads of laundry, worked on the computer, and defrosted the freezer. The on-site cafe offered a great lasagna dinner and we capped off the day with another few hours of live music in the comfort of our folding chairs. 

5/25-26: Paducah, KY

Fairly easy 125-ish mile drive into the west end of Kentucky today. Distance may have been shorter than usual but the road conditions were rough. Lots of bumps and road seams. In a few places they were kind enough to actually put up a sign suggesting we move over a lane 🙂

After a late lunch and a few hours of decompression, we hopped in the car to head downtown and see the famous Paducah wall murals at the riverfront. We decided it was too hot outside to walk them, so we deferred the activity to tomorrow morning and instead went to the Dry Ground Brewery -- named by the man who built a bottling plant there after the 1937 flood. When he was rescued from his old flooded plant, he reportedly said “If I ever reach DRY GROUND, it is there that I will build my new bottling plant". He was a man of his word 👍

As I write this, we are both beached on the couch in Max, having enjoyed a flight/sampler of their craft beers (okay, Jeffrey mostly had an orange cream soda, having tested the beer samples and wrinkling his nose). The beaching is probably more because of the homemade parmesan topped pretzels dipped in red sauce that we consumed at the same sitting. Carb overload for sure! 

Our remaining day in Paducah was a mixed success. After the morning drizzle event stopped, we made the short drive to town and had a quick sandwich at the famous Kirschoff Bakery/Cafe. We then found ourselves disappointed that the William Clark Market House Museum was closed and doesn't open until tomorrow when we'll have already left town☹️. Phooey. 

We finished our sightseeing by walking down the amazing Paducah wall murals along the riverfront and reading all of the nearby historical markers. This town was founded by William Clark a few decades after the expedition was over. Here are the pictures of the two murals and markers about him.

5/27-30: St. Charles, MO

With big storms moving into the St. Charles / St. Louis area from the west today, we got on the road early to try to beat them to the next campground. We made it by just a few MINUTES! RVing lesson #1045, always watch the weather.

Even though the caravan doesn't officially start until Monday, several other members arrived today too. Our 2 leaders have already been here for 5 days finalizing and confirming plans for the 45-day trip. It is very nice to have someone else managing the logistics for a change! Other than a few errands after the big storms went through, we went for a short walk and started meeting the other travelers in our group. Six down, 40 to go 🙄 This is really going to test our memory for people's names. Pretty funny that we keep them straight based on what they drive. Pets help too 😉

Our morning started by finding a decent sized frog in one of the bathrooms. It is a mystery how in the world he got inside as Max is generally pretty sealed up. He didn't look very well, perhaps because it is a cold day and he was sitting on the cold tile floor. We relocated him outside and hope he makes it. Then it was off to get Jeffrey his "every 6 weeks" allergy injections. It was one of the oddest allergy appointments he's ever had with a new doctor. The doctor himself wasn't there as he'd gotten called away, so the nurse talked through the shot protocol with him on the phone based on the records we had brought. Jeffrey never got to speak to him directly except to speak up the background when the doctor didn't want to give him the full dose of his vials! Thankfully he changed his mind. When all was said and done they didn't even want any money. We wonder if they just wanted deniability if there was any issue.

Our afternoon visit to the St Louis Zoo was punted out a day because it was cold, windy, and rainy outside. This morning it is still chilly so we bundle up and head out and hope the sun pokes through soon. Some of the other zoo visitors are in shorts and t-shirts, so we stand out a bit in our heavier jackets, jeans, and gloves.

The St. Louis Zoo was really amazing -- probably the largest variety of animals we've ever seen and the exhibits were top notch, plus it was FREE. The food we had for lunch was good quality and reasonably priced. The only negatives were the long parking lines and the 7998 other zoo guests. That said, the property is huge, so there was enough room for everyone.

    Me with the  3 giraffe residents

    Very active red panda

    Jeffrey with one of the elephants

    Great pose from the grizzly

    Just the polar bear gliding by

We got back to the campground to find quite the influx of RVs arriving for our caravan. The "Wagonmasters" (leaders) and "TailGunners" (assistants) were getting all of us registered and supplied with materials. We spent most of the afternoon and part of the evening walking around the campground and meeting each other. The majority of the rigs are Winnebagos as this was originally a brand-specific trip, but others are included as well. It looks like a great group of fellow travelers!

Our last pre-caravan day started with more  introductions and a visit to the Lewis & Clark Boathouse Museum with RV friends, Tom & Liz Peacock. We met them on our first Fantasy RV caravan seeing the Canadian Martimes 3 years ago and are so glad to spend time with them again.

The museum had a nice inside exhibit display area that covered the timeline of the trip Lewis and Clark made as well as the types of things they took with them. It also had reproductions of several of the boats that were used. With the exception of the spider that got under my shirt and required Jeffrey's help to extricate, the short film about the expidition was interesting too.

    Boathouse Museum

Our day ended with a "meat and greet" casual dinner as all of the rigs have arrived at the campground -- bring your own meat to grill and salad/rice was provided. There was a birthday in the group so we enjoyed his cake for dessert. We went for a short walk after dinner and spent several hours chatting outside. One thing about RVers is that there are endless stories about places seen, broken things fixed, foul weather encountered, and future destinations.

This concludes Part 1 as the caravan formally starts tomorrow, May 31. The story continues in Part 2!

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