When it was time to leave North Dakota, we were out of there in a hurry. That is not an understatement since the temperature had dropped to the upper 20’s and snow was flying. We packed up our campsite and left Hillsboro late on Saturday October 27th, we had to go to Sam’s Club in Fargo as we were heading South to fill up with Diesel and supplies. The snow was falling much harder in Fargo, the roads were covered with light powder blowing around in the wind. We decided to leave the bus running while we were in the store so the heater could catch up a little, I took out the rear heater when we were remodeling so we only have the one by the entry door. We left Sam’s Club well after dark heading toward warmer adventures in Kansas.
The first night, we drove to a Walmart parking lot halfway through our South Dakota journey. The girls were happy to snuggle into their bed, Zen and Emmie were content with foot-warmer duty. The next day, we woke up ready to roll and hit the road early, we stopped at a rest area to use the facilities and walk the puppies. This gave Lydia a chance to clean the windshield for me, as you can see in the first picture. We didn’t really have time to stop and check out anything in South Dakota, we had too many miles to put behind us. We enjoyed abundent Hawk watching as we traveled the many miles. We rolled through the countryside and ended up in Council Bluffs, Iowa at Lake Manawa State Park for the night. We arrived after dark, so we didn’t notice how nice it was until we awoke the following morning. We rolled out of bed to an awesome breakfast prepared by Chas, scrambled eggs and sliced sweet peppers… Yummy
After the good breakfast, we headed across the Nebraska line into Omaha to take care of some business. We had to go to a medical lab to complete drug testing for our upcoming jobs at Amazon. Driving the bus through Omaha was an interesting experience, as with any large city, but the narrow streets were no match for us. We found the lab, and were happy to find a small park where the girls could play as Chas and I took turns at the lab. We were there less than an hour and rumbled back across the border into Iowa where we stopped at a Bass Pro Shops (where the girls took a fishy face picture in front of the large fish tank) to burn some energy before heading toward Kansas City. We filled our fuel tank and stopped in at the Camping World so we could get a map sticker for the outside of the bus. We drove that afternoon and arrived at our overnight spot, Basswood Country Inn and Resort in Platte City, Missouri. We arrived, once again, after dark and quickly went to bed.
The Basswood Resort is a nice place with a good feel to it. The girls thought it was neat to be directly under the landing flight path for the Kansas City airport. Since the planes were landing, they weren’t too loud, but they were low and slow enough you could read the tail markings. The large commercial jets looked “very cool” according to Laini, who stood amazed that they had headlights. We wanted to take a break from our driving, so we headed to the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank & Money Museum. This was a very interesting stop for us, we learned a lot. The girls were excited about being able to lift a solid gold bar that was worth over $700,000. They also got to stand in front of $40 Million dollars, and put their own faces on money that they designed. For some reason, the bill that Lydia designed didn’t get emailed to me… Sad… The one area we couldn’t take pictures was where they counted and inspected the money that came in from all of the smaller banks they serve. They sort out worn or old bills and shred them, we each received a bag of shredded money when we left. I highly recommend this as a quick stop if you are in the area. It is beside a WWI memorial that we didn’t have the time to tour, the bus looked good in front of it though.
After leaving the Money Museum, we were hungry and ready for some good barbecue. I did a quick search on my phone for the top BBQ in the area, and Arthur Bryant’s quickly filled up the search results. Driving there from the Money Museum took us through some streets that were not designed for large vehicles, but we made it and were glad we did. The food was great, it is a very interesting atmosphere. I enjoyed seeing all of the famous peoples pictures on the wall from their previous visits. We sat at a table where Steven Spielberg or Sarah Palin may have sat (dad was impressed with the second one)… The rib tips were the day’s special, that helped me decide what to get. If you have a chance to eat here, you should check it out. Keep in mind, if it had been during lunch or dinner, we never would have found a place to park the bus with the trailer. It took some strategic maneuvering to get it parked in their tiny lot without many cars in it. We left there with full bellies, and barely made it out of the city before the 5:00 rush. We had our sights set on our home for the next month and a half… Coffeyville, KS…
We rolled into the campground after dark, which seems to be our new plan of attack. The Big Chief campground is directly across the street from the Amazon Fulfillment Center where we are working, so it is very convenient. Don’t expect many frills here, it is a place to park with full hook-ups and that is about it. They do have laundry facilities and showers, so that makes life a little easier. We found our spot and unloaded Blondie the next morning, then the pop-up went up and we were temporarily home…
Now, we are dreaming of Arizona…..
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