Day 2 - WINTER GETAWAY - ONLY Ones At a State Park in The Ozarks

On Sunday morning, we left the little RV slot at the Shell gas station. We dumped our trash and fueled up at the pumps. We paid $3.29 a gallon for diesel and we are averaging 11.4 miles per gallon. So those are the stats for the morning. 

The winds were a lot stronger than what were originally forecast. We were looking at some gusts about 20 to 25 miles an hour. It was only supposed to be 12 to 15. 

Our motorhome is equipped with some safety sensors that if the wind gusts are too strong from the side they will trigger the sensor warning. Then it shuts off your cruise control and it has something to do with a conflict on the wheel sensors. Not exactly sure. I guess they made an improvement on them and we could have them replaced. Sure enough, a big gust hit us alongside and we got the warnings on the dash. We pulled over on a side ramp and waited for it to clear. You turn the key on and off two or three times and it will reset and clear. We looked ahead at the weather and the further south we'd go, the wind gusts were going to be less and less. So we decided to keep on going...

We drove through areas with large windmills. What is interesting is that when it's so gusty, they are shut down. I guess it's a safety feature from getting them wound up too fast or stressing the blades?

The skies were cloudy all morning. It didn't make for very interesting driving. But that's okay, it was just flat flat flat Illinois.

We did stop around Litchfield Illinois and fueled up again. This time we paid $3.49 a gallon. Our mileage went down to 11 miles per gallon because of the wind.  

While in the parking lot, we pulled off to a quiet spot and made up our lunch. Steve fried up some bacon and we got out the lettuce and tomatoes. We had the Bluetti power station sitting in the entryway to use to hook on the toaster. We will store the "Blue Eddie" away in it's lower outside compartment later, once we reach warmer temperatures.  But it was handy to plug in the toaster instead of starting up the generator or an inverter on the house batteries. 

It's pretty nice to make our own lunches instead of relying on fast food when we travel. A homemade BLT is a lot better than some junk from a drive-thru.

While we travel, I keep accurate records in my little journal. I write down our mileages and our costs as well as the places we go or what we saw. I figure out our miles per gallon and I keep track of our budget.

I have this beautiful little quilted traveling journal from my friend Judy. I can change the inside portions with a new fresh composition book on each trip that we take. I smile when I take it out because I think of her and the kindness of her making it for me. Yep, it's a homemade quilted travel journal.

We had looked ahead online and decided to head towards St Louis and the Ozarks instead of going straight South in Illinois. It's nice to see different territory. Usually we had straight down through Paducah and then South. 

We crossed into Missouri at 2:55 p.m. This time we veered further to the west and worked our way around St Louis on the bypass. Since it was Sunday, there was very little traffic. South of St Louis we reached an area of some beautiful hilly countryside. We were starting the Ozark mountains! 

We found a very quiet little campground called Hawn State Park. We called ahead to actually make sure they were open. It really didn't specify on the website. Last year when we took off on our trip to Alaska, the State Park websites will say the park is open, but not specify if the camping is open. We made that mistake last year of assuming we could camp at a park that said it was open on our way across Wisconsin. So this time, we decided to call ahead to be sure. Yep, the gal said the park is open, you just can't make reservations. Pull in and pay at the post. So we planned on that.

When we got there, we drove through all the loops. There were three of them. There was absolutely nobody else there. We had our pick of any site we wanted. We chose site number 40 because it had the most open exposure to the sky to set up our Starlink later in the day for the Super Bowl.  We haven't been using it yet on the trip so far, it's been stored away, and we have just been using our cell phones instead.

This campground is located down in a valley or a "hollar", and not only are there an absence of television antenna signals, there isn't any reliable cell signal. One bar of the lowest quality is about all our phones would get.

The off-season rates are $23 a night for an electric site. We get a $2 discount for being senior citizens! So for $21 we got a nice campsite with electric. There is a non-freezing water spigot over on site 41 to access for water if you wish. The main shower buildings are locked up for the season, but there are available outhouses. We paid our cash fee into an envelope and put it in the Iron Ranger (pay post). Then two tabs that tore off the envelope were to go one in the windshield of our vehicle, and the other on a large numbered clipboard post at the entrance to the loop. There was a clip available for each campsite to hang the tag on. That way anyone can tell at a glance that the campsite is occupied and what day you are planning on vacating by looking at your tag.

Here is a link to their website: 

https://mostateparks.com/park/hawn

We were all set up on a nice level concrete site. Steve plugged into the electric box after our Progressive Industries EMS electrical management system verifies that there is power and that everything is okay. We never plug our motor home in directly to any power source. We always use the Progressive Industries unit to protect us. 

We were located directly across from the shower building. Although it's not open, Steve checked it out from the outside. There are multiple shower rooms --- each individual room with it's own private entry. There's also a laundry facility on site. Quite nice new modern looking building. The two double sets of outhouses within our loop were also neat and clean and fully stocked.

It was wonderful to look around amongst the tall beautiful red pines, birch, and maple trees. The sun filtering through looks so heavenly. The winds had died down and it was a beautiful comfortable setting. With absolutely nobody around, we were enjoying the peace and quiet.

It was getting close to Super Bowl time ---

Steve set up the Starlink in the skylight overhead. It will ride here now for the rest of our trip unless we need to take it out and locate it somewhere else for a better signal.

We suspend the Starlink on a double set of spring compression stretcher bars for RV refrigerators and cabinets. We have padded them with little pieces of felted floor protectors to keep the Starlink unit from rattling when we drive down the road.

The modem and power supply of the unit rides in a basket up on our top bunk. The basket is velcroed down to the surface so it doesn't rattle around or fall down during transit. 

We have two ways to power the Starlink. We have the regular household current AC 120 volt block. We also have the 12 volt DC block to power the system.  Last year we pre-wired and installed a 12 volt DC line that comes all the way up to the bunk to operate our Starlink. It runs directly off our camping house batteries. If we wish, we can swap it over easily to run off our "Blue Eddie" power station and not drain our camping house batteries. The Starlink draws about 40 Watts during use.

Here is the link to the blog post where we did the 12 volt setup: 

https://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/2025/01/motorhome-modification-starlink-dc-to_23.html?m=0

Here is the link to the YouTube post of the setup: 

We got everything set up and configured while we started cooking supper. Because we have electrical power at this campground, we were able to heat up something quick in the microwave. Soon it's time for the Super Bowl to start and we wanted to get in one quick walk around the campground for Nick before it started. 

He was very happy to curl up and watch the Super Bowl with us.

Neither of us have a real affiliation to either team playing. So we each chose one just to see who would win. I had the Pats and Steve had the Seahawks. 

We mostly enjoyed the commercials! I think the winner of course was the Budweiser horse and the eagle. Second runner up in my mind was the one about all of the football players learning to relax about having prostate cancer screening.

Especially the "unclenched" part...  Lol! 

The game was over, Steve's team won. But that's okay, we weren't really super vested into the battle. It's amazing the money that is spent on the commercials, as well as what's spent just to attend the game itself. Here we were, hidden away in the Ozarks, in our little motorhome. We were enjoying it and didn't need to be there in person. 

The campground was completely peaceful and quiet. Steve did one last nature call for Nick outside at 9:30, keeping in mind that bears are just coming awake during this time of the year. We carry bear spray in these circumstances. 

Boy oh boy, it sure was quiet. We slept in till 7:30 a.m.!  We took the reflectix down off the windows and let the sun shine stream in. Nick wanted to know what time was breakfast! Look at that, he blends right in with the quilt and the pillows on the loveseat.

We put on light jackets, as it was already up to 40° to take our walk about.

Along one side of the campground is this beautiful rock ledge. The brook water was running and gurgling. Beautiful signs of spring. We could hear birds singing in the treetops as we walked along the edges of the babbling brook.

The ice is almost melted but the rippling waters appear here and there as we walked along the edge of the bank. We can see where some stones were arranged in a circular fashion. I bet during the summer months this is refreshing and cool. I can just imagine children playing here in that little recessed area. Maybe catching minnows and putting them in that spot.  The entire little brook seemed shallow enough, making it a safe place for children to play.

It's amazing how the trees can cling to the rocks with their roots and still grow. Drawing their moisture from deep in the crevices, it's a real testament to survival.

We relaxed for a while by the side of the brook, listening to the sounds of the water gurgling over the rocks. What a complete contrast to the weather we had left behind in Wisconsin 2 days before.

Further upstream, the canyon wall got a little higher and a little more rugged. I think the area closer down by the campground was safer for us. Up higher, things got icy and we didn't want to walk over in that area. Don't need any broken bones to start out our vacation adventure.

We worked our way back around the loop and came back to our campsite. The warmth of the sun was so good on our faces. We drank in the vitamin D. What a good breakfast!

We took a look at some maps, and also at some weather reports. We are hoping to find warmer weather now today so we can de-winterize our water lines and get some onboard fresh water. For now we have just been using jugs of water for drinking and cooking and Nick's bowl. 

I am thinking a nice hot shower this evening instead of using body wipes is on order. We might set our sights towards Jonesboro, Arkansas. We know of a beautiful county park there called Craigshead Forest. We've stayed there before so we will see if we can get a site. Some people stay there for the entire season. But they do leave about six or seven sites down near the water open for people to come and go like us.

For now, it was time to finish the photos and put them in this blog. We pulled in the slides and unhooked the power cords. It doesn't take us long to get "roadworthy". 

We are now in the highway heading south and west. Not sure where we're going to end up. Stay tuned for our next blog and you will find out when we do!

268 miles traveled today 

575 miles so far