Let me start this post off with a reminder for some, or a notification for anyone new to my blogging.

All of my travel posts about trips are not posted in realtime. I delay these posts several days usually. This is done for safety and security. It’s not like I am anyone important, but I am important to my loved ones, and there are some real assholes in the world who will go after someone for no reason. I am not real keen on endangering myself or my travel partners so the only ones who know where I am when I travel are my family. I also make sure they are included on my travel plan itineraries so if something happens they know how to find me or know where I SHOULD be.

I encourage anyone who travels to be smart about what you do on social media and to include others in your travel plans.

Onward with today’s posting…

Saturday I left to go to Meghan’s house. I watched her dogs and my granddaughter while she had to take a couple of dogs to a specialist in KC to get a checkup.

I also got to get back into my trailer for the first time in a while. I posted previously that after my friend Dave died it was hard being in my trailer since that was what we did after not seeing each other for many years. Being away from it kinda helped me with getting over being bummed out, and my road trip to SD a few weeks back got me wanting to hit the road again.

My trailer is my “room” at Meghan’s house since they don’t have a spare bedroom. I have everything I need plus I still get some privacy. And, when I go back and forth I can stop and camp if I want to.

Before she took it I had loaded up some things to work on putting away but had not had the opportunity to do so. When I got there I put things away in there to some extent and removed other stuff & brought that stuff home. When I get it back home I will get in and really clear out things. I always reassess the things I take with me and remove the things I am not really using to save weight and space.

One thing I know I will be doing is putting a new mattress in my trailer. The mattresses that they put in trailers pretty much suck, but it is because they have to be mindful of weight. My trailer has a front bed so it can really affect the tongue weight on the hitch. I use an equalizer hitch and that changes the center of gravity of the trailer to help with weight distribution, towing and to minimize swaying. It is still on the driver to load the trailer properly, but I think it will be fine. And, that mattress is pretty comfy; I had it in my Scotty.

It does feel good to be back in my GeoPro again. I have those memories with my friend and am looking forward to making some new memories. He will be with me in spirit.

—————

As I was returning home on some of the back roads like the ones pictured, you realize how nice it is to get away from the traffic and the chaos. Some really nice scenery is a great benefit to taking the roads less travelled. It is nice to be able to slow down, un-grit your teeth, put your middle finger back in its holster and let your knuckles assume the color they were before tuning white assuming you can slow down to avoid the knuckle color-change.

It puts the fun back in driving to slow down and see, but you CAN’T hurry on these narrow backroads anyhoo – one reason is the hills.

But, a word of caution: if you DO go fast enough you could catch air! I am talking about seriously steep and frequent hills; it is like an asphalt rollercoaster and something that I can and cannot deny doing at some point. Some of these hilly areas you would not believe the roads; modern highways would never be built to these specs. Between these hills and curves, though, it makes for some wonderful driving adventures.

Another thing in Missouri – I don’t really recall seeing many of these in other areas – is what they call “low water crossings” or “low water bridges”, the latter being a huge misnomer. They are not bridges; they simply put bigger pipes under the road that are still not big enough to handle raging stormwater.

These are roads that flood and are impassible when they do flood. Keeping this in mind during storms is a really good idea or you could get stranded, possibly between these crossings.

And, I have mentioned this before, Missouri’s secondary state highways – usually named with letters (like highway “CC” in these pictures) – do not keep the same names from county to county and that is ridiculous. This is something that a GPS/map app is very helpful navigating but maps have to be downloaded or you’re gonna be using a paper map. There’s no cell service in many of these areas so don’t take it for granted that you WILL have service. It is something to be aware of if you travel backroads anywhere. But, when you know these things you can plan accordingly.

That’s about it for this update.

Shawn