You, Me, and the Dog: Stories From the Mobile Mojo Dojo Casa House: Scott AFB (Bellville), IL to Hillman Ferry Campground, Land Between the Lakes (Grand Rivers), KY

Hematite Lake at Land Between the Lakes

We went back to bed after Sean left for work at 0430. That’s just too early when you’re retired. Later, after the sun had risen and the birds had eaten their worms, we enjoyed a leisurely decampment. The only step out of routine involved me driving to the otherside of the base to secure Sean’s sleeping bag in “Bees’s” Jeep. Somehow Sean had found room for his fishing gear (including “ugly stick” pole) on his motorcycle but apparently the sleeping bag was too much. Regardless, it was a nice morning to drive through the corrugated tunnel somebody built under the runway.

We had to backtrack about 50 miles and it was odd driving East, but the view was familiar - slightly undulating fields broken up by thin strips of woods and the occasional building. It was the first real encounter with crosswinds driving the RV and I was a little concerned I was being a baby about it until we passed a field with a huge combine almost completely hidden by a huger cloud of fast moving dust. The wind was real.

The highway was rough so we took our time. There was a pleasant rest area along the shore of Rend Lake and another that wasn’t near anywhere and the pavement was so broken up it could have swallowed the car. It’s the inconsistency that keeps things interesting. It’s also what’s fading from the homogenized American Road Trip – we’ve stopped comparing the experience between Alice’s Restaurant and Bob’s Burgers and now only comment on the subtle difference between whether a particular Walmart’s “greeter” is welcoming us in or making sure we aren’t stealing on the way out.

We drove through Metropolis, IL, home of the world’s largest Superman statue. I kind of regret not stopping, definitely would have if it was the world’s largest Ironman statue. I’ve just never been a DC fan, even more so since having to work there…

Part of driving an oversized rig is route planning when traveling unfamiliar roads. (See my previous post about straying from the path.) For the Kentucky bit of the trip, we had to go what looked like about 40 miles out of our way. My RV route planner app had us do it, the Garmin had us do it. I was suspicious. Couldn’t find a reason on Google Street View to go around, but none of the tools is perfect and it would have been just as much driving to unhook the car and reconnoiter. We went with the RV navigation aids. It was a bit of plodding through crowded lake towns with all the usual lake town businesses and summer traffic. Then we crossed over to the Land Between the Lakes and there was no traffic. Just a very straight, still narrow stretch of highway that ran along a wide “lawn” cut through forest. Think of Michigan’s U.P. but deciduous instead of evergreen. It was oddly repetitive, like being on open ocean where when you look up close you’re clearly moving, but further out everything looks exactly the same.

We reached Hillman Ferry Campground with plenty of daylight, navigated the tight, bumpy Forestry Service roads, and tried to park BUT the site was on a significant slope and despite lots of patient maneuvering, 40 “Duplo” leveling bricks, and gallons of sweat, we couldn’t get level. It was significant enough that the next morning I went to the gate shack to get a different site. I could and, while it wasn’t quite level either, it was close enough I could make us level. The relocation from site T-31 to T-44 officially became our shortest travel day.