I tied down the scooter and had the trailer completely loaded and road-ready before dinner on Wednesday. After dinner, I took I took my last  walk through Tom Sawyer’s RV Park. I watched a large barge tow heading upriver, then snapped a photo of a rare motorhome. It was an Airstream 310 from the early ’80s – I’d never seen one before. This one was powered by an Isuzu diesel engine, making it doubly rare – most had 454 Chevy gas engines.

Airstream motorhome

When we were pulling out of Tom Sawyer’s RV Park on Thursday morning, I could hardly believe it when I saw a similar Airstream motorhome stored near a shed by the office. It looked like it hadn’t moved in a long time. After nearly two years on the road without seeing one of these rare coaches, I saw two here at the park!

Our destination was the Escapees (SKP) Turkey Creek RV Village in Hollister, Missouri (Map). Our route out of West Memphis took us up I-55 for about 12 miles to the junction of US63. This was the only stretch of interstate on the entire 270-mile drive.

I generally enjoy taking the smaller highways and US63 was a nice road. The pavement was good and the traffic was fairly light. When we crossed into Missouri and headed west out of Thayer on MO142, it got interesting. MO142 has a smooth surface, but it’s a narrow two-lane highway with no shoulder. Most of the time, if you dropped a wheel off the pavement, you would be in a ditch. Our lane was barely wide enough for our 102-inch width. Luckily, there was very little traffic. But, when an oncoming heavy-duty truck would pass, I had to squeeze over to right as much as I dared and brace myself for our mirrors to collide. We managed not to knock mirrors and only had half a dozen truck encounters over the next few hours.

The terrain changed on MO142. We were heading into the Ozarks. The Ozarks are the most extensive mountainous region between the Appalachians and Rocky mountains. Although they are often referred to as the Ozark Mountains, it’s actually a high plateau with deep ravines and ridges. MO142 constantly climbed and dipped. The hills were short and steep. I was either on full power or using the Jake brake to slow a descent. There were so many curves in the road, Nally (Our Rand McNally GPS) was constantly chattering “Left curve ahead” and then “Right curve ahead” or “Winding road ahead.”

After about 40 miles of this difficult stretch, we turned north and found US160 at Caulfield. This seemed like a better two-lane highway – the lane was wider anyway. My opinion soon changed. US160 continued up and down in the fashion of MO142 but soon became more extreme. The climbs and descents were steeper and the road was a series of sharp curves. At the crest of many of the climbs, I couldn’t see the bottom of the descent until we started down. Nally kept warning of the winding road ahead as I would see speed advisory signs of 30mph curves.

At one curve, a car was partially pulled off the road. It was halfway into the lane because there wasn’t enough shoulder to pull completely off the road. We were moving slowly and I braked hard, I couldn’t see around the curve at first to see if it was clear to get around the car. We saw why they were stopped. The passenger door was open and the passenger was sitting on the door sill with his head down – obviously very car sick. It was understandable with all the up, down, right and left motion.

The scenery was beautiful, but I didn’t have much of a chance to enjoy it. My concentration was fully absorbed by driving and keeping us on the road and in our lane. We made a stop at the Bullseye station in Gainesville to top off with fuel. I stretched my legs and took on 38 gallons at $2.55/gallon. I think this was the cheapest diesel price we’ve ever had. Our fuel mileage worked out to 8.5mpg – better than I expected. I figured the up and down terrain coupled with running the diesel generator to run the AC all day would result in poor fuel mileage.

We pulled into Turkey Creek at 3pm – nearly six hours after our 9:15am departure. It was a tough drive. During the drive, Donna and I discussed our options for the next few weeks. We will be in Minneapolis on July 5th, we have a site booked there for Donna’s Senior Olympic bike race. I originally booked two weeks here at Turkey Creek thinking we would move on to Des Moines. Des Moines is problematic due to the Junior Rodeo National event that has the RV parks full.

While we were checking in, Donna mentioned the SKP Stay & Play promotion where you pay for 15 days and get five additional days free. A quick look at the calendar showed that we could stay for 18 or even 20 days and still make it to Donna’s scheduled event with Meredith Publishing (Better Homes and Gardens) in Des Moines. Doing the math, if we stay for 20 days, the promotional rate works out to $14/day. Even if we leave after 18 days, it’s only $15.55/day for a pull-through 50 amp full hook-up site. So we paid for 15 days and have the option of staying up to 20 days.

We have site D8, the only pull-through available for our length of stay. The good news is the site is shaded by a large tree. I don’t know what kind of tree it is – maybe a reader can enlighten me.

Shade tree by our site

The bad news is, the site slopes toward the creek and is also low in back. Getting the coach level was a chore.

Looking up at our site from the creek

All of the 9 sites in row D are pull-throughs. Sites 1 through 7 are fairly level.

Sites 1 through 7 in row D looking toward the office

While we were driving with the generator on to power our roof air conditioner, Donna took advantage of the electrical power and put a whole chicken in the slow cooker. Once we were set up, we dined outdoors at our picnic table. The slow-cooked chicken was tender and tasty.

Slow cooked chicken with garlicky roasted red potatoes and green beans

Today we’ll head out and explore Branson on the scooter. The forecast calls for a 60% chance of thunderstorms this afternoon.