Author Archives: Jill and Bud

We added another stop to our itinerary. We are at Hickory Creek R.V. Park in Neosho, MO. So far there have been at most two campers here, us and one other, though we are on our third other person in three nights.

This is a city park on lovely little Hickory Creek.

There’s a very nice walking trail that runs for several miles.

This is a large park with two disc golf courses. But we haven’t had time to play though we got here on Thursday.

We came here because it’s close to Joplin and we just bought a new fifth wheel from Joplin RV. It’s a 2027 Brinkley Z3200, it’s the same length as our Outdoors RV trailer, but has three slides and is much taller. That’s us with our very nice salesman, Michael. He juggles hats and has a pet starling that he rescued as a fledgling.

On Thursday afternoon we did a walk through and signed paperwork. On Friday we arrived at 8:50 AM. After a bit they got us set up with our old trailer door just steps away from our new fifth wheel door and we started transferring stuff. First we had to empty the truck bed as the fifth wheel hitch installs in the truck bed. When we got there we found the tech guys weren’t sure the new hitch would fit with our auxiliary fuel tank. Well, we were committed, so if need be we’d have to remove the fuel tank. But it fits.

Then we worked all day moving and arranging and finally just getting stuff stored somewhere so we could take the new unit. This picture was taken at 5:30 PM after we’d had a crash course on preparing the trailer to tow and hitching it.

And here we are back at Hickory Creek R.V. Park. There was another stressful moment trying to unhitch. The tech guy told me to raise the trailer on its hydraulic front feet until the pressure came off the truck and you just start to see a gap between the hitch plates. Well that’s not so obvious. Then you’re supposed to pull this handle straight towards yourself until the hitch is released. But we couldn’t pull the handle. Bud thought we’d raised it too far and told me to lower the trailer back down a bit. I tried one button, it raised a bit more. I tried another way, still going up. A third attempt and it still wasn’t going back down. Bud told me I was moving it the wrong direction, I knew that and was nearly panicking when I spied another option on the touch pad (everything is electronic on this thing) and voila, the trailer went down. Up again. Stop. Pull the lever, no luck. Bud decided to back the truck slightly to take tension off the hitch while I pulled the lever. Yes! Lever pulled, hitch loose and Bud pulled the truck forward. Now the trailer was sitting on its wheels and its front two feet. I pressed the “Level Automatically” button and the front of the trailer dropped, the rear feet came down and a minute or so later the touch screen said, “Level”, and it was!

We opened it up, hooked up, fed and walked the dog, ate supper made up the bed and finally sat down.

This morning JoJo got a nice long walk. She was a very patient girl yesterday.

So welcome to our new home.

Here’s Bud in his new kitchen, after working all day again today things are finally getting organized. Still the most common question is, “Do you know where _____ is?” The only things that seem to be truly missing are the handles for our stainless steel pan set. We’ll call our salesman Monday and have him check the old trailer and send them to us, hopefully.

Here’s our new living room with its giant TV, which we managed to get linked to Starlink and to our DirecTV account. Notice that JoJo’s bed is not in the middle of the walkway.

Up the stairs…

is JoJo’s other bed, (it’s an R.V. King, 70” x 80” and we all do fit in it),

and the bathroom.

So there you have it; we like it, it’s very well made and even better insulated than the Outdoors RV, and after a few more take downs, hitches and unhitches and set ups I will feel comfortable with it.

Tuesday morning we left Iowa, but not before JoJo and I had one more walk under this beautiful sky. One great thing about having a dog is the dog must walk, and so must I. Without JoJo I would have missed this sunrise.

In the afternoon we had crossed the state line to Missouri and had crossed a front to 90 degree temperatures, but JoJo and I went out to walk again. This is Buteo Lake in Knob Noster State Park.

This is the spillway of the earthen dam that holds the lake.

The stepping stones weren’t needed yesterday.

It’s a pretty little lake but we didn’t walk far in the heat.

Overnight the front crossed us and this morning we walked in the aftermath of rain and temperatures in the upper 50’s.

It never got above seventy today and JoJo and I had a good time exploring some trails.

Usually in parks I come across old infrastructure built by the CCC, but this park had shelters and parts of trails built by the WPA. I had to look up the difference between the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and the WPA (Works Progress Administration). Both were programs where the government provided employment during the Depression. In a nutshell, the CCC was young men living an army style of life away from home. The WPA was all ages and both sexes commuting to work projects from their homes. Only some WPA projects were in parks, but all of the CCC work dealt with land and forest conservation.

However it came to be, this is a very nice park. We are only staying here two nights. Our site was so nice and level we didn’t even need to unhook.

I’m glad JoJo and I got to see as much of it as we did. We took three walks today and walked over five miles. (I now think JoJo has more stamina than I.)

We returned to our itinerary last Monday, although we were four days earlier than our original schedule. But since we had a full service site that was fine.

It gave JoJo a chance to get used to this place before she had a guest to entertain, yet another new experience for her.

She is settling in well and it’s nice to have a walking…

and tent sitting companion again.

When they arrived Margaret and Bo…

joined JoJo and me on our early morning walks along this lovely lake. I’m not sure the lake has an official name. It’s an impoundment of the Platte River and on my map program it’s called the Platte River, but the trail around it is called the Green Valley Lake Trail.

River or lake, it’s very pretty.

We had a great visit with Jim and Margaret, chatting,

walking the dogs,

playing disc golf at a nearby city park,

and playing a few hands of Euchre.

All too soon they had to go home. Hopefully they will join us this winter in the south in their new camper van. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of that, but it’s a Travato by Winnebago and I like it, but more importantly, they like it.

So things are quiet here again with just the three of us, and tomorrow we move on.

So the journey continues, now with JoJo. We are heading back a bit north to reconnect with our original itinerary. We arrived at this park amid drizzles. The sky may be gray, but we love off season camping with almost no neighbors.

It was a challenge to get walks in as it rained off and on for three and a half days.

But walking around an almost empty park is a good way to introduce JoJo to camp life and teach her proper manners. We think she was kept extremely confined for a good portion, if not all of her previous life. Everything is new to her and new things can make her bark. She is learning that we don’t like barking. Happily, the second or third time she comes across something it’s already unremarkable to her.

Finally, Friday dawned clear and cool.

The morning walk was delightful,

and we took the time to explore the beautiful old CCC building here.

It has an outdoor courtyard…

and open, but covered spaces for picnic tables.

When it warmed up we went to Ottumwa (love that name) where they had a dog park and several disc golf courses. We quickly wore JoJo out at the dog park. She’s very fast and agile, but has no stamina, probably from living in confinement. She was very polite at the disc golf course.

She may have been confused to take such an erratic walk, but she didn’t complain.

On our evening walk I took this picture of canoes on Lake Wapello. The setting sun makes the trees look like they’re turning, but they are all still green.

This morning I decided to try her on a longer walk. We’ve been going out three times a day and walking a half mile to a mile and a half each time. This would be around three miles and I thought she could handle it.

Bud drove us to the other side of the lake to a place called Smith’s Knoll. There was another CCC structure there,

this one in ruins.

JoJo and I walked down to the…

Lakeside Trail and took that back.

I don’t think she’s ever seen a boat before, she was very interested in them but didn’t bark at them.

She handled everything we came to.

I think she enjoyed it,

and she earned some treats.

A nice park and a good start to our lives together.

Branson, Missouri is a tourist trap and not the kind of town where we’d choose to come. But it was three hours south of the state park we’d driven down to and four hours north of Hot Springs, so that’s where we met Jamie who brought us our new dog, JoJo.

I did not expect to get another dog. Loosing Matey was so hard I thought Bud would never want to go through that again. But one afternoon when I said I could use a bike for something else to do Bud remarked “Or you could walk a dog.” When I expressed my surprise that he would consider another dog he quoted some awful statistic on the number of dogs euthanized every day in the United States.

So of course I immediately began searching on the web for available shelter dogs. I found JoJo in northern Arkansas. She was listed as a young adult female poodle weighing 40 pounds, which is much smaller than the normal standard poodle. I sent in an application. The volunteer in charge of adoptions liked my application and called me. She was fine with us being full time RVers, but not with waiting until our original date of October 21st to get the dog. After more correspondence she was going to try to find a foster home for JoJo, who was being held at a vet’s office, until we could get there. I’d been talking to Jamie and she said she could get the dog, we just were reluctant to have her go from one home to another, but if the dog was going to a foster home, what better place than Jamie’s. Poor JoJo was very scruffy, despite having her mats cut off and getting a medicated bath at the vets.

After another bath JoJo smelled much better.

She was loving life and having a good time with Jamie’s dog, Bria.

Jamie took her to the groomer for us. She was becoming a very pretty girl.

Two weeks later she came home with us. She fits in the truck,

more or less.

And in the trailer,

more or less.

But she definitely fits on the trails.

So hello, JoJo, you’re home now.

Last Sunday we left Manitoba, today, Friday, we are in Missouri.

We were a bit taken aback to find our route from West Hawk Lake Campground in Whiteshell Provincial Park, Manitoba across the border to Roseau City Park in Minnesota started south on a dirt road. This was Manitoba Route 308, and it was wide and pretty smooth, but it wasn’t paved.

Each stop we made was just for one night. We were happy that the site at Roseau City Park was long and level enough that we didn’t have to unhook the trailer.

This was a very nice park with disc golf,

ball golf,

bike trails,

and the pretty little Roseau River. We would have happily stayed longer.

But Monday we moved on to Gull Lake Recreation Area.

Our Corps of Engineers campsite was pretty and private, but sloped downhill, so we had to unhitch the trailer to get it level. Also, we discovered once we’d backed into the site that there was no water at the sites, so Bud had to pull back out and go to a water faucet so we could put some water in our fresh water tank. All our reservations at U.S. federal facilities are made on recreation.gov, and though the site is easy to use the campground descriptions are not good. They call any site with an electrical hookup “standard electric”, whether it has just electric, water and electric, or water, sewer and electric. That’s a pet peeve of mine.

On Tuesday we drove on down to Madelia Campground in Watona Park, Madelia, MN. This wasn’t as picturesque as Roseau City Park, but we didn’t have to unhook and they had disc and ball golf,

and a little creek. I played 18 holes of disc golf the day we arrived and since we had a short trip that day, Bud and I played 18 holes of disc golf Wednesday morning.

Then we drove again to Kennedy Memorial Campground, a county park near Fort Dodge, Iowa. No need to unhitch here.

This place has a lovely ball golf course,

and trails. There’s disc golf in nearby Fort Dodge. This is another place where we would have liked to stay longer.

But Thursday we drove again, to the appropriately named Bridge View Corps of Engineers campground on Rathbun Lake in Iowa.

Again we lucked out with a level site and the trailer remained hitched.

There wasn’t much there, but I walked the park roads to a far campground loop and came across these two deer. They were white tails,

and this was a tulip tree…we’re not in the north anymore.

Today we finally came to a place where we’re going to stay a few days. This is Abel and Annie Van Meter State Park just outside of Marshall, MO.

So we didn’t move south this fast to escape the cold, it’s too early for that. We did it because tomorrow we are going to meet Jamie in Branson, MO. I’ll fill you in on why in my next post.

In one of our previous trips to Canada I met a couple from Manitoba who said we should visit there and especially visit Whiteshell Provincial Park, a huge park near the border of Ontario.

When I found that their West Hawk Lake Campground had full hookups I booked us for a week.

We’re happy to be here in a site at the end of the row.

On my first walk I discovered that this pretty little lake is almost round…

and deep enough for scuba diving…

because…

it was created by a meteor strike about 100 million years ago.

I also discovered that it’s best to take a walking stick on every hike.

We’re on the Canadian Shield now and though not mountainous, nothing is level,

and most of the paths have some sections that are very rocky.

The Canadian Shield is a vast area of Precambrian rock scraped bare by glaciers. It has very thin soil and in many places the paths are worn down to the rock, so it’s like a sidewalk through the forest.

Where there is just bare rock, trails are marked with posts…

or sometimes red flagging tape. It makes them fun to follow.

Trees are very shallow rooted. This mature tree fell over and you can see right through the root ball, which is more a root plate.

We found this young tree peeled away from its tenuous hold on the rocks.

We pushed it upright and propped it up, maybe it will be able to reroot itself.

Because the bedrock is at or just below the surface there are lakes…

and streams everywhere.

Streams are low now…

so what in the spring would be a torrent is just a trickle.

This is a great landscape for beaver,

and their dams are a permanent part of the topography.

There are also deer…

and bear. Though we haven’t seen a bear there’s scat and they set up a bear trap in town so I never hike without my air horn (I call it my bear horn), which sits in a pocket on my shoulder water bottle holder.

With beautiful scenery,

fun trails,

and a pretty little town,

this is our kind of place.

We’re now just north of Winnipeg at Bird’s Hill Provincial Park. This is supposed to be a pull through site, but we backed in to get on the correct side of the power. A bit awkward, but nice enough.

The temperature was nice, but there were biting flies, so I put up my little tent.

It’s the first I’ve used it since Matey died, and his space was sadly empty.

Manitobans must be very sensitive to elevation changes, Riding Mountain was a hill, at best, and even from this tower…

there was no hill to be found at Bird’s Hill.

An east-west trail was called Pine Ridge,

but again, no ridge, and for that matter, I saw only spruce, no pines.

There was a bike path

around the lakes that had warnings for steep grades; I didn’t even find a slope.

I guess this is a wonderful place to see migrating birds, but now about all I saw were geese.

Pine Ridge was named by immigrant homesteaders from the turn of the twentieth century. Just one of their homes remained.

This one was built in 1936 by the Kudlowich family. Husband, wife and two young children lived here. The upstairs was only for storage, so they all lived in this room. That’s not so bad, but in 1943 they moved to Ontario and a relative moved in and they had five kids! That’s crowded! They also lived here seven years.

There was a decent barn.

I liked the livestock.

Bud thought this was an old thresher.

Another day we went into Winnipeg to a nice park with a disc golf course,

which we played.

We also went just northwest to the town of Lockport.

Lockport, Manitoba is a pretty small place but it does have a hotel and

the Lockport Dog, served in the oldest hot dog stand in Canada, at least they claim. (We had just had lunch so didn’t try it.)

And it does have a dam and lock on the Red River.

This was a pretty nice stop, despite the imaginary hill.

Bud and I drove out to three different areas of the park over the last days. To the northwest is Lake Audi. We walked a bit of trail along the lake.

We also visited the dam, which is under this footbridge…

and is only about 18 inches high.

It’s a pretty big lake for such a small dam.

We had come to look for Bison in the Bison enclosure and we got to see this one…

up close as she walked by our truck. (We think it was a she as we also saw a calf not far from her.)

We were lucky enough to see a few more as they crossed the road from one bit of shade to another. Apparently 70 degrees and sunny is enough to send these guys to the shade as that one momma and calf were the only bison we saw out in the grasslands.

The following day we headed east, stopping for a short hike at Katherine Lake.

We got off track twice, the first time to dead end at a pow wow arena, most likely for the Anishinabe First Nation who lived here before it was a park. Besides the covered seating around the ring…

it had an attached open shelter, probably for the announcers, singers and drummers.

It also had a covered entrance for the dancers.

The trail had only a few places where you could see the lake,

but it was a pretty walk.

Further east we came to the escarpment at the edge of the “mountain” and a lookout over the vast plain below.

At the base of the escarpment is the historic East Gate, the last gate of its kind in the Canadian National Parks. That’s Manitoba Route 19 entering the park here.

After leaving the gate it goes on across the plain. We’ve found a number of provincial routes that aren’t paved.

On the way back I got this shot of a nice looking beaver dam.

Our last excursion was north to a very short loop trail, the Boreal Trail.

This was a beautifully constructed wheelchair accessible trail.

It led through spruce and larch…

to a small creek and its wetlands that wound through.

The construction looked brand new.

There was plenty of boggy land, but we saw no moose.

It was still a pleasant walk, and short enough to please Bud.

We have enjoyed this park and it was worth it to set up on our very crooked site.

I didn’t mention it when I was complaining about the site, but this is our first stay in Manitoba. So I got to put another sticker on our North American map. We’ve now been to all 10 Canadian provinces. We haven’t been to the three territories, not sure we’re ready for that.

Anyway, this park is similar to Prince Albert National Park. It has a little commercial area…

fronting on a nice lake. The town is Wasagaming.

This is Clear Lake, and it is very clear, though that might be because they have zebra mussels. (Zebra mussels are an invasive species that is spreading out from the Great Lakes. They have a very strict watercraft inspection program here. Looking at the map of Manitoba, I’m sure they want to protect the thousands of freshwater lakes they have, though the mussels have already spread to the two largest lakes and a main river system.)

There are the same lovely cottages here. Bud and I got to chat with a couple who had a cottage in this area called the Old Campground. I asked if the government sold the land, but it is leased. Until recently folks had just a one year lease but now they can get a 40 year lease, which allows for mortgages and more expensive cottages. These are all summer homes, the water is turned off in October everywhere except the downtown area. The man said the rules were the same in all the national parks. So those half million dollar cottages I took pictures of in Prince Albert National Park didn’t include the land!

This park also has extensive walking and biking trails around town,

along the lake,

through the woods…

and back through the campgrounds. I’ve been taking advantage of them every day.

Yesterday Bud dropped me off west of town and I walked back along an isthmus between Clear Lake and South Lake.

There were quite a few others out there,

though I was hurrying along as strong thunderstorms were predicted.

I made it back 15 minutes before the rain, which came at two.

As soon as the storms passed I, along with many others, was out again.

Folks were already back in the water, enjoying every minute they could of this last holiday of summer.