After leaving Paducah our first port of call was the Point Labadie Brewery in Labadie MO. We arrived late afternoon, and got ourselves settled. Wandered over to the Brewery bar just after 7 and sat out in their garden, Wednesday was quiz night, so while Rob enjoyed the local beer we both just answered as many questions as we could between us.
Next morning we were on the road by 8.30 and drove across MO to Lathrop where we were booked to overnight at a small farm. It was right out in the country side and the last mile was down a gravel track that kicked up a huge amount of dust. The people were lovely and we enjoyed a very quiet night apart from the heavy rain that came in about 9 and the sheep bleating from about 5 in the morning. We knew we had a longer day of travel and so we left early again and travelled North.
When we stopped for lunch we hit our first “flipping heck” the generator that runs AC and other things for us when we are not either driving or hooked up to electricity would not start. When you are essentially driving in a tin can and with the outside temperature in the 90’s, it does not take very long to get uncomfortable. So back on the road and on to our destination, which was very nice camp ground in Sioux City – we were on the Nebraska side of the Missouri River although the City is mainly in Iowa. Rob tried again with the generator but no success. The main issue with this is that we will need to only stay at places with electricity, no more boon docking. Rob spent the evening on good old YouTube looking for suggestions and one of them suggested that if the oil level drops, it will not start. Hopefully this is the issue and we can resolve it tomorrow.
Well this is when the other shoe dropped!! our fridge freezer has stopped working. its getting power but not cooling. It’s a full size domestic appliance and so replacement is not an option and fixing is unlikely. So our trip to Walmart went from buying some oil to “what’s our plan B for keeping food cool.” We ended up buying a top model cool box that will keep things cool for up to 5 days, a giant bag of ice and an ice making machine.
Rob topped up the oil and let it settle while we took a walk along the River and into the City. It was quite a pleasant walk and we called in at the Lewis and Clark interpretive center https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/lewis-and-clark . Because we have been avoiding all the highways, we have seen many signs along the way designating that the route we were on matched their original route. Town was not quite the cultural experience that we were expecting. The most interesting things that we saw were these faces carved on the top of one of the building and there was also a truckers exhibition and sales expo. On our walk back to the campsite we were blown away with the underneath of the bridge, it was a mass of swallow nests and the swallows were darting in and out of their nests.
Back at the RV at last some good news, the oil fixed the generator problem, so now we just need to see how well our plans for the replacement to the fridge freezer works !