The solution to the bridge crossing problem turned out to be crossing at Cairo IL at night. That meant we needed an RV park very close to the bridge, which meant Sikeston for two nights to get our breath back. It wasn't Timber Trails, but it had the most wonderful sunset.

Hinton Park

This was, undoubtedly, the worst RV park we were in throughout the trip. It was in the back of a grubby motel. There was a hole in the fence which seedy people used to shortcut thru the vacant lot (which they called an RV park), in order to get to an equally seedy WalMart. The woman at checkin was shocked that we'd want to spend $1 for a key to the restroom. Once we saw it, we understood why she was shocked. At first light we left. We only wished we could have left earlier. Luckily, we had a watchdog.

Heritage Inn

After Brinkley, America's Best Campground was heaven. So we settled down for another stay. We were lodged close between trailers, but we had a view out the front windshield of yet another field. And there was a long wide swatch of grass on which to walk the dogs. We did a lot of cooking, and video making, and walking. The motor home is internally wired so that you can hook up to the Internet at five different locations. Mary worked at the desk in the bedroom. Paul worked, for a while, at the chair near the door. This was a fair sized RV park with all sorts of fascinating RVs coming and going (the Jelly Belly RV gives samples!). With Paul's new closeup lens, he also did a lot of photography.

America's Best Campground

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It seemed like a nice enough KOA park, except we could only get Internet access, but no TV. The problem was Memorial Day. This park had room, so should we stay longer, or try to go further west? The answer came as soon as we walked the dogs. Further west! There was no grass, just weeds filled with sticky seed pods, and we spent an hour trying to get the pods off after our dogwalk. We decided to take our chances on the road, with the other trucks.

Perryville KOA

What wonderful luck that we went on. Otherwise, we might never have found Cottonwoods. Again, there was a field in front of the windshield, so the view was wonderful every day. There were large juniper bushes that blocked the view just to the front sides, and right out the door was the first concrete patio we'd had. The weather was never cool enough to use the metal stove, but we did set up the dog fence and chairs, so that we could sit outside at our leisure. We discovered the awning, and had great fun putting it up and down after that.

There were wonderful places to walk, and lovely flowers for Paul to photograph. And, amazingly enough, there were other Windsports, and other RVs with Internet satellite connections. For the first time we went visiting the other motor homes, meeting the loveliest people. All in all, this was the fanciest RV park we'd been in. And the most fun.

Where we had previously looked at agricultural fields, suddenly we were watching cows. They wandered the field day and night. Usually they'd move on while we photographed, but they occasionally were curious enough to come close.

Cottonwoods RV Park