July 14, ending at HOME

Lili was our alarm clock this morning, well before the 5:45 a.m. time we’d set on our phones. A storm blew up and she was not having it. Luckily, it had not hit us yet, was only threatening us, and was basically to the southeast of us. F--- it, let’s just get up and go anyway. Skip the trailer dump till we get to Mauston, let’s pack up and head east. And so we did. We were wheels-up by 6:30, I think, which was a record time to get squared away.

Somehow the long throw bar for attaching the sway bars/weight distribution thingies got lost, so we were unable to put them on for the first leg of the journey. Jim said we didn’t necessarily need them since our tongue weight is so heavy. He did say it felt weird when we were stopping, and that it was generally more of a concern going downhill. We stopped in some little town to get gas and they had a Wal Mart nearby. Got gas and a dog walk, check. Went to Wal Mart for sockets and a long throw bar, check. Now that we have a second one, the other one will probably materialize. Or not. I think we’re okay.

A very calm drive across Minnesota with hardly any traffic and several bouts of road construction. But I do see those as a blessing to keep me awake (I think I drove through all of the construction points). Oh, and one wack detour that Siri sort of told us about but I ignored until it was in our face after all. I presume there was a flooded stretch of interstate so we got to go around through some podunk little town.

Suddenly it looked and felt like the Midwest again, mosquitos and humidity and green corn and grass and trees and all. Just a matter of getting through the last bit of Minnesota, that tall climb right before the bluffs at Winona, up and over and we were in our home state again.

At St. Charles there was a Love’s truck stop with a tiny dog park with excellent grass and not 100% dog poop, and the fur-kids got to be off leash for a bit. They almost wanted to play, but Lili was too nervous to enjoy the freedom; one of us was always in the store for the bathroom or for lunch.

Then to La Crosse, and then to Mauston for that one Kwik Trip that has a free dump station (the place where we first attempted a dump run when we'd first got the camper, but aborted because people pulled in behind us and we had no idea what we were doing, didn’t want to be rushed). Dude in front of us today also couldn’t be rushed; I presume he had big tanks and he was flushing and it took a while.

Anyway, we got the water dump done in a minimal amount of time with no one behind us. I pulled us around to a gas pump for gas, then got out of there in search of a rest area for the dogs. Found one about 5 miles south and it was a much quieter experience.

Saw one trucker at the rest area with a tiny dog, off-leash, and we steered clear – ours can be assholes to other dogs. But as we loaded the dogs in our truck and I started to get in, the guy whistled to me and indicated a c’mere situation. Oh gawd, how am I towing wrong, I thought. Nope. He had a dog bowl that he’d found in northern Ontario, saw that we had two big dogs, and thought we might need it. I accepted it gratefully as a kind gift, not mentioning that we have a collection of identical bowls for our dogs. Nothing wrong with one more, honestly. And such a thoughtful, kind thing for a stranger to do.

The Dells was a shit-show as usual, so we routed ourselves onto Hwy 12 or 14 or whatever through Baraboo and Devils Lake and Sauk to get to the Beltline to home. Arrived home, safe and sound, at 4:10 p.m.

Unloaded shit from the trailer and truck, had chats with both neighbors. My GOD it is humid AF here, and then it rained from 7 – 8 p.m. (forecast had said after 10 p.m. but when do the clouds ever listen). Ate leftover Thai food from yesterday.

So nice to be home and to take a real shower in a big space, to have more than a galley kitchen to live and sleep in tonight. I’m going to bed. I’m done. Had a great time and I hope there are a lifetime of memories that will stick with me. If not, I’ll just go back…