About 300 miles later - Oct 6, 2008 -

We woke up yesterday morning with drizzle and cold weather. We knew it was time to head south and the park we were at confirmed that as this it was the day that they turn off all the water for the winter season. The park remains open year round for cross country skiing, hiking and winter sports but without water, sewer or electricity and temps that get down below zero quite often we were happy to be going to warmer climate.

I sure didn’t realize that our leaving would have such a great effect on Minnesota but just after we got our coffee at Caribou and were entering the interstate the sky started crying real hard; In fact, so hard that we could hardly see. Right off the bat our nice clean truck and house was being battered with the water being thrown at us from all the trucks on the freeway. What ever happened to the law that said truckers couldn’t travel on Sunday? The temperature was in the low 40’s at Lake Elmo and 30 in Duluth but by the time we got to Albert Lea which is almost at the border of MN and Iowa it was sunny and had warmed up to 59 degrees. We had hoped to meet one of our friends from the Montana Club for lunch when we went thru Des Moines but when we talked to him we found out that he was in Chicago. Bummer. The good thing is though that he will be coming to Florida in February for work and we will get to see him then.

We wound up having lunch in the RV at a rest stop and by the time we went thru Des Moines the temperature was a beautiful 79 degrees. We kept hoping for 80 but it never quite made it.

We spent our night in a nice little casino RV Park about 35 miles south of Des Moines. We have stopped here before and it is a perfect overnight place. It is open year round and the price is $20.00 for FHU. You get a coupon for $10.00 of free play back if you use it in the casino. Of course I did that and won $125.00 on that free play. Now that is what I call a good night. I did pretty good on my own money too so I added a bit to my stash for casino playing.

Today we are only going about ½ the distance and hope to find a spot to stay in Independence, MO or somewhere near Kansas City. We’ll let you know later where we landed…….