Sunday was a travel day. We relocated from Des Moines to Minneapolis. There was a lot of activity in the Des Moines State Fairgrounds campground as many of the car show attendees were bailing out on the last day of the show.

We took our time packing up. By the time I had dumped and flushed the tanks and pulled the slides in and jacks up, it was nearly 11am. We said our goodbyes to our new friends, David and Karin, and I fired up the engine. As usual, before pulling out I said to Donna, “There’s a big road ahead…if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there.” It’s a line I paraphrased from the movie Captain Ron.

This time, we traveled with Ozark in a cat carrier crate. She wasn’t happy about being confined to the crate, but overall it was less stressful for her and us than the last two times we rolled down the highway with her. We made a stop at a nice rest area at exit 158 on I-35 and ate a hot lunch.

We continued north on I-35. About ten miles into Minnesota, we hit road construction which narrowed the route down to one lane of travel.  We were moving along smoothly at about 60 mph though. I kept a reasonable distance between our coach and the car ahead.

Suddenly, I saw brake lights as the traffic came to a screeching halt ahead. I braked hard and at the same time switched the Jake brake to high. I was braking so hard that the tires were beginning to squeal on the threshold of lock-up.

I was amazed at the braking performance. I stopped a good 20 feet behind the car in front of me and a car behind me had to swerve onto the shoulder because we stopped so quickly. I wouldn’t have believed stopping our 33,000 pounds could happen that fast if I hadn’t done it myself.

When we began moving again, I saw the cause of the panic braking. A guy had run his car off the road and hit a cable barrier on the right, spinning the car around. The driver and passenger appeared to be okay.

Like I said, if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there.

We pulled into Dakotah Meadows RV Park around 3:30pm. We stayed here before when we first hit the road in 2013. We have a pull-through site on a concrete pad near the pond. This is a clean, quiet RV park with security patrols and level pads. When we came here the first time, I thought it was nicest park I’d ever stayed in. I don’t know if I would make that statement today – we’ve been to a lot of RV parks over the last two years.

While were driving down the road, Donna had a pork tenderloin in the slow cooker. She sets up the slow cooker in the kitchen sink so it won’t slide off the counter – which it would have for certain when I had to make the sudden stop. The aroma in the coach whetted my appetite for sure.

I put the jacks down and slides out before hooking up so we could let Ozark out of her crate. She was fine – she didn’t bound out of the crate and go crazy – just sat up inside with her head sticking out and jumped out after a few minutes. I completed our hook-up and put tire covers and window covers on. I unloaded and set up the grill and had the scooter out of the trailer by 5pm.

Donna served dinner – it was slow cooker char siu (Chinese barbeque pulled pork) and it was delicious. She served it over brown rice with fresh steamed green beans from the Des Moines farmers’ market on the side. She got the recipe from our neighbor, Karin, along with others. They enjoyed talking about food and cooking and sharing recipes.

Slow cooker char siu with samba oelek (chili paste)

I watched the Formula One British Grand Prix at Silverstone which I had recorded in the morning. Ozark was happy to roam in the stationary coach.

Ozark the cat

A thunderstorm rolled in at bedtime. Ozark slept through most of the night – she hadn’t slept as much as usual during the day while we traveled. The forecast calls for rain to continue most of the day today.