This morning is overcast, with lots of wind.  We hooked up the Honda and began the final leg of the trip home.  Once again, we faced a strong headwind, and Saturday morning traffic in Kansas City was heavy.  We stopped in Peculiar, Missouri, for gasoline, and found that our first tank yielded 6.25 miles per gallon.  We rationalized this by considering the headwind all day yesterday to be the primary contributing factor.  We stopped again some 40+ miles north of Springfield, MO, for a bathroom break and weighed the motorhome; Kay has 3,000 pounds of remaining storage, for clothes!

We stopped one last time in Gainesville, Missouri, to fill up with gasoline for winter storage; averaging 6.15 miles per gallon for this tank, but again, headwinds were even stronger than yesterday.  We arrived at Quarry Park near home about 5 PM, and parked to complete the initial shakedown before winterizing.  It was good to be near home.

Before someone goes ballistic, the title of today’s blog is not referring to Kay; it’s about the motorhome; so far, so good.

After an event filled day yesterday, we spent the night in the motorhome, and slept okay, i.e. not too bad, but not too good.  We awoke this morning, eager to begin our drive home.  As we began hooking up the Honda toad, the motorhome receiver hitch was too high, creating an unsafe height differential between the motorhome and the Honda. We drove to Lichtson Motors parts department, one of the best in the business, for an 8” drop receiver.  They had it and it worked great, but with it installed the safety cables were too short. We drove back to the service department but had no luck.  The PDI service tech from yesterday walked by, and after hearing our sob story, suggested add-a-links. We drove to a local hardware store and bought two for each side.  They worked; we hooked up, and departed.

The motorhome drove well, and was less rough riding than we expected.  We stopped to fill up with gasoline shortly after leaving Lichtson, then began the long drive home, facing a stiff headwind all the way to Worlds of Fun just north of Kansas City, Missouri.

As we followed telephone directions to the Worlds of Fun RV Park, we ended up in a small neighborhood, on a dead end street going the wrong way, and the only street on which to turn was blocked by construction. This was the worst driving mess we’ve ever been in.  We unhooked the Honda, and I backed the giant motorhome (at least to us), turned around, and headed out, barely making it on the narrow car-filled street.  We finally go to Worlds of Fun, and found the park to be among the nicest in which we have ever stayed—a pleasant surprise indeed. The sites were level, but we had problems with the manual setting on the leveling jacks, so reverted to automatic and they worked fine. We settled in for the night, trying the microwave oven on a couple of Healthy Choice frozen dinners, then popcorn, and a night of television.

Spending the night in Bethany, Missouri, we awoke early this morning, and drove the remaining 4 hours north to Lichtson Motors in Forest City, Iowa, to view and “inspect” the new motorhome.

As we drove past the Winnebago factory and into Forest City, we saw the 2012 Winnebago Adventurer 35 sitting in the parking lot, already hooked up to 50 amp electricity. After making contact with the sales consultant, we walked around the exterior, then climbed inside and it was even nicer than we remembered.  With time on our hands, we began moving stuff that had been stored in the sales consultant’s office, covering one entire wall.  At 12:30 PM we met with a technician from the service department for a 3-hour pre-delivery inspection, known as a PDI in RV lingo.  He was very thorough and patient, and covered everything on our 13-page list.  The full wall slide on the driver’s side made an unusual noise when he was demonstrating it, and he later found a wooden jig left by one of the builders.  Other than that everything worked perfectly. After the PDI, we completed the necessary paperwork, and completed moving stuff to the RV, and also stowing it in the interior drawers, cabinets, and closets, and stowing exterior things in the outside storage compartments.

Dinner was at The Lodge, a restaurant started by the daughter of Winnebago’s founder, but since sold. We began a conversation with the nice young couple at the adjacent table. They were ministers at a First Baptist Church in Forest City, Iowa. We had an awesome conversation and really enjoyed visiting with them. And, the food was great as well.

We’ve had great fall weather, but were unable to camp or attend any rallies because we didn’t have an RV.  On our return from Idaho in late August, we stopped in Forest City, IA,  home of Winnebago and Itasca Motorhomes, and Lichtsinn Motors, a Winnebago and Itasca dealer.  On August 31, we met with a sales consultant, looked at a Winnebago Adventurer 35P at the Winnebago factory, made the deal including trading in our other motorhome, and began the 63-day waiting time for our new house-on-wheels to be built.

We left home early mid-morning today driving north through Springfield, Missouri, then to Kansas City, then Interstate 35 to Bethany, Missouri, to spend the night. We have traveled this route many times, including near annual fishing trips to Quetico Wilderness in Ontario, Canada, and 3 times last fall and winter for my cancer treatment at Mayo Clinic. It’s getting a little too familiar. Thanks to Barry and Helen, we were able to stay at the Comfort Inn as part of their “Friends and Family” package. Thank you, Barry and Helen.

Tomorrow, we pick up the new motorhome.