St. Louis To Joplin

This was a travel day so normal routine, although we did not need to get started as early as some other days.    Got things settled after breakfast and departed just before 1000.  After getting out of St. Louis it was just going to be a straight shot to a fuel stop for lunch and then another few hours to a rest area in Conway, Missouri.

We decided to try a rest area on our trip as we know lots of people use that method instead of RV parks or Harvest Host locations and wanted to try it out.   I think I mentioned before the US rest areas are very well set up.   They are easy to manoeuvre around, have tons of parking, are well lit, super clean and usually set up like a park.   Although there is no camping per se you can set you coach up if you can find the right spot to put your slides out.  Generators are allowed and of course there are no plugs or other services.   The rest rooms and vending machines are open 24/7 so for those that don’t want to use their rig they can use those.   The particular one we selected has a dedicated area for RV’s along a side curb that is adjacent to the park so that is good.

This is a beautiful part of the country and the rolling hills seem to go on forever.   I expect in the next day or so we will get onto the plains and long straight shots.   The Interstate system is great and each state must spend a lot on making them as nice as they are.   Well all of them except Michigan.   Ohio was pretty good except for a few spots in the northern part.   Kentucky was good and Indiana was as well, although there was a lot of construction they were replacing asphalt with concrete.   The best so far has been Missouri.   There are sections with grooved concrete all the way across the lanes, sections with what look like 8’ shoulders of concrete with a strange looking asphalt with aggregate in it on the main roadway, as well as traditional asphalt sections.   The only complaint I have on most of these roads is that repairs tend to be whole sections of road about eight to ten feet wide where they removed the asphalt and replace it with concrete.   If the road crew don’t get the transition just right you notice it.

On the way to our Rest Stop overnight we passed by the Uranus Towne Center.  Now this is not an actual town hence the word Towne in the name, but we were laughing at all the billboards as we approached, and the Uranus Fudge Factory was doing a booming business.

There were no plans for us to stop in Uranus and I had no intentions of eating any fudge that came out of Uranus.  So imagine our surprise as we approached Uranus and noticed it had been completely evacuated for some reason.  However, the Uranus Fudge Factory was well attended but we noticed as we drove by there was only a back door, so lots of people seemed to be wandering around wondering how to get in.

We arrived at the rest area mid afternoon and after Pat posed with the safety guy we relaxed for the rest of the day.   

No, not that Springfield