Tuesday, 7/22/97

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            I had set my travel alarm clock to go of at 5:40 am in hopes that we could get up and be on the road by 6:30 am.  OOPS! when the alarm went off, I woke up, looked at my watch and wondered why my watch said it was only 4:40 am.  The last time I had used the alarm clock was over a week ago when we were still in the Central Time Zone.  The Badlands are in Mountain Time, and I had not thought to reset the clock.  So I reset the clock to Mountain Time and stayed in the sleeping bag until 5:30 am.  I rudely woke up Brennan at 5:45 am and we were fed and packed up and pulling out of the Cedar Pass Campground at 6:30 am. 

            My itinerary had called for us to drive as far as Onawa, Iowa near the Missouri River, a 400 mile trip, and camp there.  That plus three more days of around 400 miles each would get us home.  But the arrow-straight, wide open Interstate-90 in South Dakota caused that last remnants of Bob’s elaborate advanced planning to get changed.  We made such good time with it’s 75 MPH speed limit and very little construction to slow us down that we were stopping for lunch at Onawa at 1:00 pm. 

            If we chose to camp here in Onawa, we would have all afternoon to find places of interest to visit.  As an alternative, we could continue heading east until we got tired, and then look for a campground there.  So, after lunch we drove on to Newton, Iowa located east of Des Moines.  We had covered 600 miles today and were setting up camp at 6:00 pm Central Time.  That was ten and a half hours from the Badlands including lunch stop.  In one day, we had covered what had been planned to take a day and a half. 

            We were not hungry yet, so we relaxed a about an hour, Brennan visiting the game room, and Bob playing guitar under a shady tree.  A lady in the next camp site thanked Bob for providing a serenade for them as they ate dinner.  It’s nice to know someone appreciates good music.

            We had Chicken Alfredo with Pasta soup and canned pears for dinner.  We plan to get Ice cream Bars from the camp store.  Bob picked up literature on local points of interest near Newton and throughout Iowa and took it back to the trailer just out of curiosity.  While looking it over, he and Brennan began to realize that if they could produce another 600 mile travel day tomorrow, they could be home in two days instead of three.  Bob asked Brennan if he objected to the long drives.  Should we slow down and see some places of interest.  Brennan replied, “I have already seen lots of interesting places on this trip.”  More places will not add to the value of these several weeks, so let’s push on and see if we can cut a day off the trip home. 

            We discussed the thought of calling Ann to warn her that we would be home a day early, but decided to wait until tomorrow night to inform her. 

            The food supplies have held out well, but we are almost out of ham, peanut butter and jelly, and will not replace them if we run out.  We have not used any of the backpacking food and have plenty of canned foods: soup, vegetables, and fruit.  I guess we ate out at restaurants more often than we should have, but the remaining supplies will not go to waste or spoil, so I forgive us.  When we did eat out, it was mostly inexpensive except for a few special occasions. 

            A look at the maps shows that if we cover another 600 miles tomorrow, we will be able to stay at Enon Beach Camp Ground, the place in Ohio that Plan P said would be our last night on the road.  It was also the place that Plan P said was supposed to be the first stop on the trip. But that was changed by the long week getting The Beast repaired.  It was the place, after that week, where we had worried over the car’s transmission still not working, where we had decided to push on when it was finally fixed by the second dealer.

            I called ahead to Enon Beach Campground to make a reservation, but they said, no need, they always have sites available in the middle if the week.  We shall see, but right now it is time to go get Ice cream Bars at the Camp store.