After leaving the Blue Ridge Mountains on Monday, we drove to Twin Knobs Campground on Cave Run Lake in eastern Kentucky. The lake was was a nice place to cool off! Our campground was a little shady and we had a hard time getting our solar to charge so we lost power. Luckily, that’s not a huge deal, as long as we can keep the food in the fridge cool. Nothing a bag of ice can’t solve!
Tuesday we drove to eastern Missouri, to the Silver Mines Campground on the St. Francis River. Kevin , Scout, and the girls went down to the river for another swim. We got firewood and made some delicious s’mores.
Wednesday morning we headed to St. Louis to check out the Gateway Arch. We couldn’t go up to the top, but it is pretty impressive to stand underneath. We walked through the museum about westward expansion, which was pretty interesting.
We drove across most of Missouri and almost half of Kansas to Curtis Creek Campground. We camped right on the lake but unfortunately, it had algae blooms so swimming was not great. The wind was strong and consistent that evening, but we were in for a major surprise that night. At 2 in the morning, a major storm passed over and there was loud thunder, bright flashes of lightening, and sideways rain. The wind was so fierce, the girls got scared in the rooftop tent, and Scout was not happy either. Kevin was a hero and got Scout into the teardrop and then helped the girls down from the tent in the pouring rain. He then slept up in the tent while it got ravaged by the wind and the girls snuggled up with me in the bed. Being that we were in Kansas, it was hard not to think of Dorothy and Toto and hope we weren’t going to blow away!
We awoke early since we had decided to combine the next two days of driving into one looooooong day of driving and wanted to get an early start. Despite having put all our gear under the trailer and car the night before in case of rain, the sideways nature of the rain drenched everything! We hustled around in the morning trying to get everything packed in the trailer while it was sprinkling and being careful not to get any of the dry stuff wet. We pulled out of camp by 6:45a to start the 11 hour drive to Grand Junction in western Colorado. The beautiful Rocky Mountains always make me smile and remember my college days! As we emerged from the Eisenhower Tunnel, passing under the Continental divide, I felt happy to be back in the west (I’m not a fan of humidity or crazy amounts of bugs) but also sad that our trip is coming to an end soon.
We are spending the weekend in Grand Junction with my childhood friend Hillary and her family in their new house. Hopefully they won’t mind if we blanket their yard with wet camping gear!
Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Mountains
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