Mississippi in our rear view mirror

We crossed the Mississippi Rive October 2, 2012 going west to east on our way to Campbellsville, KY to work at Amazon.  How long ago that seems now.  Thursday was moving day for us, and also the day we would cross the Mississippi River once again, this time going east to west.  We've been east of this iconic river for 8 months and 2 weeks.  The memories of people we have spent time with, and places we have seen are as thick as a field of wheat ready for harvest.

The day after the rain was full of sun, which translates directly into high humidity as all that water soaked up by the ground evaporates back into the atmosphere.  Always fun to be packing up to move in humidity.  Our goal was to be on the road no later than Noon.  We had about 190 miles to travel west on I-90 to our tentative destination for the day, Welcome, MN.....yes, that is really the name of the town.  However, before we could depart Veteran's Memorial Park we needed to fill up our fresh water tank, and dump the gray and black tanks.  One additional thing we wanted to do was to kind of clean out both tanks.  A friend had suggested dumping TSP (tri sodium phosphate) into each tank, then filling them up with fresh water......then driving for a couple hundred miles to let the solution slosh around in both tanks.  Low water pressure at the dump station made this process take forever, but we finished and were on the road by Noon......I think it took about an hour for me to cool down, and dry out.  Fortunately it was a lovely weather day, and a tail wind added into the mix made the 190 mile a breeze....literally and figuratively.  We drove with both front windows open the entire way, and thoroughly enjoyed the feel of the cool air.

It was about 10 miles to I-90, and then just a few more miles from there to the Mississippi River and Minnesota.  As we crossed over the Mississippi we thought of our friends who live on the east side of that great river, and wonder when we will see them again.  We know we will be back, and tentatively we are thinking 2015.  We still need to see Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Delaware,  New Jersey, and Connecticut, and, preferably, we want to see them in the Fall.....so Fall of 2015 we'll be back for sure......well, as sure as one can be this far out, and knowing the Jello might have other ideas.

There were three rest stops between us and Welcome, MN and we stopped at all three.  It was a little after 1 pm when we stopped the first time after 63 miles, so TLE made a couple of scrumptious steak sandwiches with some of the left over steak from Wednesday night's dinner.  The next rest stop was another 50 miles exactly, which was just a bathroom break, and the final one was another 53 miles.....another quick bathroom break, leaving just 25 miles to Welcome.  We ran into a couple of construction zones of 2-3 miles with mph restrictions of 55, but that's all good....that's how fast we go anyway!  For the most part I-90 in Minnesota is a good, smooth highway.

We chose Welcome, MN to stop at because they have a Passport America park.....Checkers Welcome Campground.  We arrived at the park at just before 5 pm and were quickly checked into our 80 foot pull through site.....perfect!  Don't need to drop the trailer!  This is a smallish park with only about 24 sites, and I would say most use it for overnight stays as they travel east and west.  We are going to remain here for a couple of days, and then head into South Dakota Saturday morning.  We're only about 110 miles from Sioux Falls, SD where we are going to meet up with Newell friends Todd and Dawn who purchased a 1984 Newell last summer.  Our other Newell friends, Tom and Darlene from Mesa, AZ, will be arriving there on Wednesday, and then all three of us will drive up to Spearfish, SD for the Newell mini rally that the three of us organized.  Originally we were just going to meet up with Todd and Dawn in Spearfish, but as word got out it became apparent others wanted to join us.  We now have 28 coaches coming to this informal, loosely organized rally.  

TLE made a chopped salad.....this time she assures me that is exactly what it was, and we had the two chicken breasts I had BBQ'd the night before.  We watched a little live TV, then were off to bed by 11.

Again we had heavy rain accompanied by lightning and thunder most of the night....TLE had her ear plugs in so she missed all the fun.....frankly, I kind of enjoyed listening to the show safe in the knowledge we are high and dry in our Newell coach.

Thanks for stopping by!