Days 21 & 22 - Somewhere east of Columbia, Missouri and now at Mt. Vernon, Illinois

Earthship Le Van Gogh Diary

Days 21 & 22 - Somewhere east of Columbia, Missouri and now Mt. Vernon, Illinois

I added photos from the free stock offered on St. Louis web sites. There wasn't anyplace for me to pull over safely to take my own pictures, so I faked it. I did keep the photo of Fluffbutt just because these were the only two photos I could find that accurately represented what I had seen. Oh, well.

I didn't see the arch of St. Louis until I was headed towards the turn-off to I-64. I hadn't seen any sign of it up to then and I wondered if I would see it at all as I passed by. I shouldn't have despaired because there, over a hill, it rose up before me and shone brightly in the mid-day sun. I'll be back in the future to actually go up to the top and experience what it's like to be inside such an historic site. I also plan to climb to the top of the Statue of Liberty - how could I not?

Segue to another subject. The previous night when I stayed in a campground just east of Kansas City (no city proper was around), I noticed that there were several RV’s, mostly trailers, that had appeared to grown roots and were there for the long haul. I think it was the very large gas grills set up outside the side doors, the planters of flowers that bordered the ‘patio’ area, the awnings that were out and looked like they had been out for awhile, and the lawn art. No one puts out lawn art if they’re just hanging around for a couple of days. I think. And yes, there was even a pink flamingo. My old buddy.

I asked the manager, a very young man who looked to be no older than 21, 22, somewhere in there, if folks were living in the campground. He said, yes, there were many who stayed here for long periods since they rented sites by the month, and there was one man who had lived there for years. Huh.

I wondered to myself if this were by choice or more a matter of convenience. I’ve always studied the sociological and economical patterns I’ve seen as I have moved around and this pattern intrigued me. Considering the state of the economy, I’d hazard a guess that this might not have been a choice for some. Perhaps having lost their homes to foreclosure, their trailers were now their sole residence. There were children here, as well as young and older couples, but there were also those who, like me, were just traveling through. Lots of dogs, some on leash, as they have always supposed to be. and some not. No roaming for the kitties here!

Anyway, on I traveled to just a bit beyond Columbia, Missouri, to a little campground called “Lazy Day.” It was a nice campground, well tended, and there were no permanent residents in evidence. And the owner was glad that I was only staying for one night. I hadn't made a reservation since the two I made when I first started out over the Labor Day Weekend. It simply had not been necessary and my little bitty van has always been able to be squeezed in somewhere. As long as I signed up for just one night, I was welcome. Beyond that the campgrounds were always anxious about getting me out of there, and the earlier the better. Ok, I got the hint, and thanks for letting me stay!

In the future, when I probably will rent a site by the month so I can stay in an area to explore, I will definitely make reservations before I do so. Since just using electric and water is very different from a site that also has a sewer hookup, I’d have to specify that as a necessity. Full hookups have included these three offerings as well as cable, satellite and wifi. Wifi has usually been free, however, and I’ve always asked for it when it has been made available. I have not been able to log on with their code to their service, but I have been able to sometimes glom on to their network by picking up their ‘roaming’ signal. Whatever they have wanted to call it, as long as I could access the dratted thing, I have not cared.

Tonight I’m just east of Mt. Vernon, Illinois and this campground is the only one in the area. If I wanted to go on I’d find another one in 19 miles, but I’m too tired to go that far. This campground isn’t as well tended as the ones I’ve stayed in previously. The KOA’s have always been well groomed and most of the independent campgrounds have been ok, especially if they were Good Sam Club members.

But here I’ve only asked for water and electric (I’m going to have to dump at the next stop, wherever that is...) and I’m parked between two trailers (How come the ‘residents’ always seem to be living in trailers? Is it because their vehicles always seem to be pickups?) and neither of the occupants are very tidy. But I keep to myself and my doors are locked and unfortunately the kitties won’t be able to wander today. Right across from me is yet another resident and two sweet doggies - well, they’re sweet to me, anyway - are pegged out on lines. Fluffbutt climbed up on the dashboard to her usual perch and immediately hissed when she saw these pups. I really hope the next campground is nicer and I can let the kitties out for a slink. They’ve been cooped up for three days now and I’d like for them to get more exercise and entertainment value, but until I’m in an area in which I feel safer for myself and for them, no one goes out.

I just checked my phone for the time (I haven’t yet set my computer to the Central time zone) and realized that my danged radio clock was off again by an hour. Heavy sigh. I’ve tried every method I know to reset the time on that danged clock and I haven’t hit the right combination yet. Either I’m going to have to order a copy of the Owner’s Manual for this radio - assuming one still exists, that is - or install a newer and more modern system. Since I loaded up with cassette tapes before I left so I could use the existing system, I’m not inclined to get a new one. How many vehicles do you know that still play cassette tapes? Denise gave me many of hers, a friend, Marilyn, gave me many educational tapes to listen to, and I had a few of my own since I had found a tiny cassette player in the Exchange at the VA Hospital in Seattle. I haven’t invested a HUGH amount of money into cassette tapes but still - while I have the opportunity to play them, why not?

Anyway, I stopped at a Wal-Mart this afternoon and picked up another extra four feet of head phone extension cord so now I have plenty of room to reach from the back speakers to the front. I also picked up a better set of headphones that actually encloses my ears. I was playing my MP3 and listening with the headphones that came with it but they plugged into my ears and my ears were growing weary of this. Hence, the higher-cost-but-easier-on-the-ears headphones I purchased.

And what’s so frustrating about all of this is that I have speakers mounted in the driver and passenger doors up front, BUT I CAN’T FIND THE SWITCH! I have looked everywhere I could think of looking and I simply can’t find where I can turn it from back to front. I’d most likely still have to use headphones even if I did since the van is noisy when I’m driving, but still. The only thing I’ve seen that just might be what I’m looking for is a broken off dial-kind-of-thingie that I can’t budge on my own and is located under the back speaker panel. This is where I plug in headphones and there’s a switch to dial so I am no longer on speakers. But this broken-off-thingie is the only thing I’ve seen. Whatever! At least now I have a long enough headphone cord to read and can comfortably listen to the cassette tapes. About bloody time, don’t you think?

Tomorrow I continue on towards Louisville (pronounced ‘Loo’vill’, ‘Loo-uh-vill’, ‘Looey-vill,’ and frankly however you wish to pronounce it). I don’t think I’ll make it to ‘Loo-vill,” but I’ll make a dent in the mileage. I’ve been able to drive about 150 miles a day before I’ve felt the need to find a campground, which is pretty good. I’m tired when I pull in but feel okay after a good night’s sleep. By the way, last night I was treated to a very nice, small thunderstorm and light rain. It put me to sleep just like that! What a pleasure to hear...

Lessons Learned:

That the Indicator Panel sometimes gives me a false reading on how much more I can go before I need to a) get propane; b) dump the holding tanks; and c) take on fresh water. It has something to do with how level the ground is where I park for the night.

That I’m not sure if it’s just my city water hose or the strength of my hands, which granted, aren’t very strong, but every time I hook up to a faucet I have to use a wrench to tighten the connector.

That the hose has a reverse-screwing-on pattern.

Which means that “leftie-loosey-rightey-tighty,” which I learned in the military, has gone out the window.

At least for the fresh water hose, that is.

Sigh.

Observations (albeit lengthy observations):

While driving through Missouri I spotted two Circle K convenience stores (which I haven’t seen since I was last in Tucson, Arizona), five Hooters (which might have been in the states I have already passed through and I just didn’t see them), and Larry Flynt’s Hustler’s Club. No comment on this last one.

For the first time I’ve seen red leaves in addition to the yellow, gold and brown leaves I’ve passed so far on my drive. Red leaves are so beautiful, don’t you think?

I drove by another one of those “Vending Machine” road signs and again there was no turn-off in sight. Is this just someone’s idea of a bad joke?

That Missouri is another state just cram-jammed full of history all over the place! Mark Twain, one of my favoritists authors, was born here, and Daniel Boone and his wife, Rebecca Bryant Boone, moved here in 1799. There’s a community here that I passed by called Boonville, and guess who it’s named after? No cheating!

I stopped yesterday at a very large ‘country’ store called “Ozarksland” because I was curious to see what they would sell that would reflect the Ozarks area and the folks who had lived there. Perhaps even traditional offerings would be there for me to see and enjoy and appreciate. Alas, I was to be greatly disappointed, I’m sorry to say. The store had nothing for sale that I hadn’t already seen at many ‘country stores’ since I left Washington. Phooey. They just had a bigger selection of them. The same freakish dolls that wore overly ornamented in Victorian dress (see below for comments on this) - these dolls gave me the creeps, by the way, especially the ones that were almost 5 feet tall! Ack! Who wants an unresponsive short person or tall child staring at you all day? And an overdressed small adult or tall child, mind you, but still! Just too creepy.

Anyway, they also had the same crappy wood carvings, the same too-cute-sayings on anything that would hold still for it, the same shot glass collections, the same “Native American” junk that I feel certain would have embarrassed any reasonable Indian man or woman who became aware of how they were being represented - in short, this was your basic generic souvenir shop but with a larger selection. They did have salt water taffy for sale, which surprised me. I had crossed the Missouri River, not once, but twice, and I had not been aware that this was a salt-water river. Perhaps it could be if we were closer to the coast, but here? Nah.

Back to my comments on the Victorian dress of the dolls. Being an amateur (extremely amateur) history buff, I’ve always been fascinated by the Industrial Era and the incredible sociological and economical changes in the population from agricultural to a more urban focus. Hence, I have been more aware of the huge changes that occurred in the lives of the basic middle-class-in-the-making population in England and Europe and I’ve always wondered why “The Good Old Days” was something that we would want to return to.

Mind you, I enjoy knowing how to raise my own vegetable and herb garden, and since I haven’t been able to keep goats or cows, I still enjoy knowing how to make my own yogurt from milk I‘ve purchased from folks who raise their own goats and cows. And I enjoy learning how to cook from scratch and learning how to use simple, old-fashioned remedies to take the place of more modern, but ecologically-harmful store-bought remedies.

But all of this requires WORK, and TIME, and very few folks I know have that kind of existence where they can pursue a lifestyle that makes putting food in their mouths and clothes on their backs such a time-consuming and physically demanding effort. The 'Good Old Days' meant back-breaking work, and in the middle-to-upper-class ladies, wearing such finery meant giving up a whole lot of freedoms that women today take for granted. But don't get me going on that - I'll wear your ear off with the subjects of women's liberation!

But one subject has long made me wonder how and why we could ever think the ‘olden’ days were wonderful, and that has been the subject of hygiene. We, as Americans, at least in the last couple of generations, have mostly been raised to bathe daily, or at least frequently, and to use underarm deodorant and to keep our ‘private parts’ shaved, clean and dry. Commercials in this day are not shy about referring to what would previously have been considered scandalous in the ‘personal hygiene’ area.

So, from everything I’ve read about the ‘olden days,’ we must have been not so clean and really, really whiff! Women were expected to wear not one, but two and even sometimes, three petticoats to maintain their ‘purity,’ and this had to be hotter than heck to wear! Even if all you had to do was consult with the cook to determine the day's menu or go out to the opera at night, it had to be hot! And the amazing number of underclothes worn before the overdress was finally put on, not to mention the corsets that confined womens' organs, including their diaphragms and lungs, would have made it absolutely necessary to always have with them some kind of 'smelling salts' because they would have passed out routinely from a lack of oxygen. How fun was that??!!

And the gentlemen might have sloshed their head and shoulders at the end of a day of working, whether they were in agriculture or in one of the ‘finer’ employments in town. Daily bathing was not considered a requirement until the early years of the 1900’s (and, of course, I could be wrong about this), and might not have been considered an everyday event. Even the ‘aristocracy’ only bathed on an ‘as-needed’ schedule, and ladies did not begin shaving their armpits or legs until the ‘flapper‘ era.

I really don’t give a hang about the leg shaving part, but the armpit shaving has gone a long way towards increasing the hygiene in that area. And since deodorants have been a relatively new market concept, I have to conclude that in the ‘good old days,’ we stank. A lot. A whole lot. And I don’t even need to go farther into how women coped with monthly menstruation (rags strapped to their hips that were afterwards set to soak in a chamber pot for further cleaning).

And while we’re on the subject, has anyone ever asked themselves what using a ‘chamber pot’ meant? I doubt it. We all, men and women alike, had to squat, set aside our pants, skirts, and petticoats, to sit on the danged pot while we used it, and I’m still not sure how we wiped ourselves, or even if we did. No mention has been made in the literature that I’ve read so I’m left wondering if we ever wiped at all. I mean, eew. Again, our hygiene wasn’t wonderful, especially since the chamber pot was generally emptied out by the maids through the bedroom window and into the streets below and woe be unto the innocent passerby who just happened to be strolling below at that time. Yuck.

Some wealthier families actually had the beginnings of a sewer system dug in their estates but this was by no means common. Small wonder that the streets and rivers of London and Europe reeked with the effluvia of the masses. It would not be until the plagues that decimated the population that modern man began to wonder about the connection between the open sewers of the cities and the spread of diseases that could be passed on by the local water systems.

So you see now why I view these Victorian dolls, which are so overtly and opulently decorated, with an amazement and derision for the folks who prefer to see this era as nothing more than an elegant and mannerly time? Phooey!

But enough of that. If I go on I’ll start waxing on the political and sociological place of women in the overall structure of the Victorian society. And you really don’t want to go there. Not with me, at least.