April 11, 2024 – Day 24 Route 66 To Go, Elk City, Oklahoma to Sierra Blanca Brewery, Moriarity New Mexico Not much happened, except for the one unusual thing. We left Elk City not knowing where we would sleep that night. If we could make almost 400 miles we’d stay at a Harvest Host in Moriarity, NM. Otherwise, we could stop about 75 miles earlier at a state park. There just isn’t anything out here. So we drove and drove! We saw windmills, lots of them. At one time Susan, who was driving, said, “Is that a gusher?” Paul looked and he was also uncertain. When we got closer it…

April 10, 2024 – Day 25 Cracker Barrel, Joplin Missouri – Route 66 To Go, Elk City, Oklahoma We woke up fairly early in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel, did a quick check (all kidneys intact) and headed out. Today was a much shorter day at 335 miles, but still not a short day. But with an early leave time we could make it to our Harvest Host in Elk City OK, hit up the Route 66 Museum, and grab what we needed at a grocery store ending with dinner at our Harvest Host, the Route 66 ToGo diner. Suspenseful music plays. It wasn’t a diner. One nice…

April 9, 2024 – Day 24 Giant City State Park, Makanda Illinois – Cracker Barrel, Joplin Missouri Today we were going to break camp and hit the road. It would be a long 374 mile day from Makanda, IL to the Cracker Barrel in Joplin, MO. You don’t want to get there too early and take the space of paying customers. The goal is to get there after the dinner rush so the parking lot is empty. It’s also easier to navigate the lot and to park. But first there were morning things to get out of the way which included showers and dishes. We had “breakfast and a show”…

April 8, 2024 – Day 23 Giant City State Park, Makanda Illinois Today is the day! Eclipse day! We clicked and clicked and clicked on our weather apps. Susan eventually hit the lottery and got enough information back from the internets to find out it was probably going to be great! Of course, we couldn’t do anything if we needed to. That was one great thing about our first site in Junction, Texas. It was in the middle of no where. If you needed to drive 200 miles it’s easy to do. Right now we were in between St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Louisville and Memphis. Millions of people, would be…

April 6 & 7, 2024 – Days 21 & 22 Giant City State Park, Makanda Illinois We had a nice quiet Saturday. We went to the dump station, or maybe we didn’t. Maybe it the day before. We can’t remember and we’ve already published April 5th’s blog. We did walk out to the eclipse viewing field. The State Park has half a dozen viewing fields setup all over the park. One was, we were led to believe, just for us in the campground. It was only a 10 minute walk so we figured we’d get the lay of the land ahead of time.. Our first stop was at the campsite…

April 5, 2024 – Day 20 Giant City State Park, Makanda Illinois Giant City State Park is named after the “Giant City” which is a collection sandstone that has split, eroded, and then slid down the hill. This leaves some pretty cool paths through the vertical walls. We asked about the hike, since it was listed as “Moderate.” We like the ones listed as easy. The ranger told us that they have taken pre-schoolers on the hike so we decided “Why not!” and set out to do it today. Why? Today is the first nice day. We’ve had heavy rains, and on and off rains, and drizzle, and just overcast.…

April 4, 2024 – Day 19 Giant City State Park, Makanda Illinois Today is decision day. We must cancel the reservation in Texas at least 48 hours in advance. At 9AM, this is what windy.com tells us. We’re staying! Susan called the Texas campground and the phone didn’t even ring, she got some weird error message. So she emailed them. What else do our intrepid travelers do? We went into the big city of Carbondale to find the library. You see, we needed to upload all the pictures for the blog, and we needed to file our income taxes. Income taxes… We hate you Intuit. It was all set to…

April 3, 2024 – Day 18 Giant City State Park, Makanda Illinois We actually did something today. We were still both pretty beat, we hung out in the coach in the morning then headed over to the Giant City Lodge for a late lunch. Giant City Lodge was built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. It is a pretty nice building. They have cabins and a restaurant. Three CCC units were assigned to Giant City State Park. The first company was the nearly 200 men of the company #696. The 696th CCC Company remained at the park from 1933 until 1942. Company #1657 assisted the 696th for five…

April 2, 2024 – Day 18 Giant City State Park, Makanda Illinois We actually didn’t do anything today. Ok, Paul played radio for about an hour. But we were beat from the travel and also emotionally drained from not knowing where we would be for the eclipse. We stayed in the coach and just rested. Despite poor cell signal we relentlessly clicked refresh on various weather apps trying to figure out what to do next. Stay here? Go there? It was decision time. Here’s what the seven day forecast looked like in the morning. The red arrow points to where we are. The yellow arrow is where we were supposed…

April 1, 2024 – Day 17 Chester Frost Park, Hixson TN – Giant City State Park, Makanda Illinois Today was decision day, do we do the 600 mile drive to Ennis, TX? Or, completely change plans and head to Makanda IL and hope that the prediction of better weather is accurate and hope that some of the walk-in sites would still be available when we got there. At 9AM Paul called the campground to inquire about open walk-in sites. The ranger said they had just gotten in. When they left on Friday there were still 20 sites available. They needed to go to the park to check. The decision hasn’t…