Departed Calvert City KY about 0755CT, having dumped tanks.  Avoided the super slab north through Illinois in favor of crossing into Missouri early.  Drove past Paducah, nice rolling road.  Got onto 62 West, saw lots of redwing blackbirds.  Got to the town of Wickliff, from which views of the Ohio river can be seen at the end of every westward-facing street.  Wickliff has a state park with Indian mounds.

Crossed the Ohio river on an old scary, narrow truss bridge.  Took it slow, as 18-wheelers were coming the other direction.  My route is called the National Great River Road in Illinois.  Low rice paddies with water being pumped into them from rivers and creeks.  Passed through Cairo, IL, which is a dead river town.  On the far side of Cairo, as part of a railroad overpass, there was a huge overhead levee gate that gets raised or lowered depending on river flooding.  Continued sighting lots of redwing blackbirds, unsurprising since there is water and cat tails everywhere. 

Crossed the Mississippi river from Illinois 146 west, across a modern cable suspension bridge.  Much less scary than the bridge over the Ohio.  Then got onto I-55 north, a straight shot in fantastic condition.

There were lots of billboards advertising Stone’s Sausage Shop in Perryville MO (city was established fairly early in 1831), so I stopped.  They have 35 kinds of bratwurst, and I bought some bacon and original.  Also bought cheddar horseradish cheese, some spicy beef jerky, best I’ve ever had.  I bought Debbi a jar of pickled asparagus (ick!). 

I continued up I-55, passing on both sides exposed sedimentary rock upthrust, probably part of the ancient inland sea.  My route took me around the southwest of St. Louis, on which I crossed the Missouri river.  Three rivers today!  I’m a river-crossing animal!

West of Warrenton, the landscape changed.  Much more open, fewer trees, lots more fields.  Don’t know if this is climatological, or simply human activity (like farming).

There clearly is no prohibition on highway billboards along I-70 west.  Large billboards are on both sides, each only about one-tenth of a mile apart.  Reminds me of I-10 in south Mississippi, but the Missouri billboards don’t advertise casinos.

Arrived at Cottonwoods RV park about 3pmCT.  My site has shade!  A good thing in the 90 degree heat.

Start odo 31094.  Easy access back to I-40, on which I continued past Nashville nearly to KY.  There’s an interesting building on the Nashville skyline that looks like two statues of Meroni; turns out it is the BellSouth (now AT&T) building, sometimes called the Batman building. 

Onto I-24, which was a nice road through sedimentary uplift.  However, after one crosses into KY, I-24 becomes a shattered concrete road well past Fort Campbell, at which time it becomes merely a bad road.

I found that the larger tires I installed after my last trip make the speedometer read about 3 mpg low, as confirmed by two separate GPS systems.  I guess that means “low and slow” is a little faster progress than I thought!

The vegetation I saw all day was typical east coast:  sweet gum, oak, maple trees; lots of green brush; well-watered.  It will be interesting to note when all that changes.

Lots of very large farms appear in western KY.  Barley/ wheat/ corn, separated by trees and lines of green veg.  Not yet into the waving wheat fields of the mid-West, but much more open than Maryland farms.

I figured out how to operate the HD radio in the Goose, but there was a paucity of entertainment (clearly, I’m picky).

The shift from Eastern to Central time caught me by surprise, and I arrived at the KOA in Calvert City KY at about 1:30pmCT.  Lots of time to kill.  I thought about extending my driving time on subsequent days, but just over 300 miles per day seems right now.  Perhaps when I get to the “big empty” (thanks, Fred, for that image), I’ll prefer longer days.

The KOA is  very nice.  Clear roads, with a big topographical dip in the middle of the campground.  Sites had been carefully leveled and all utilities worked well.  There’s a power switch in the power pedestal for the cable TV amplifier, which I turned off as part of hooking up (I always turn off all breakers before plugging in).  Of course, no cable TV until a helpful staff member pointed out my error!

Departed CFO about 0945.  Positioning the Goose at the Gosling’s coupler took just one try, but lots of creep backwards/ cut the wheel/ creep backwards and so on.  Rear end of Goose didn’t drop much when I put the Gosling’s weight on the hitch.  When I went to hook up the trailer safety chains, I couldn’t get them into the hitch.  I went looking for screw loops, found them in the wrong place in the garage, then attached them.  Then I tried the safety chains in a different orientation and they worked! 

Forgot my wallet, so made the gravel loop and stopped at the house again to retrieve.  While I woke about 0730, it took two hours to get a shower and load the last of the stuff into the Goose.  Part of that was Deb’s sewing machine and other stuff, plus a laundry-basket-full of spices and foodstuffs.

Took 64 West to Mocksville, where I fueled and bought a cranberry/ chicken salad sandwich for lunch.  Phoned the KOA in Newport TN, but there’s some kind of festival and they were booked.  Phoned Sherman Oaks and a very nice Cammie took my reservation, told me how to do self-check-in and asked that I text her the site I pick.  $45, so not bad.  Got on I-40 at Mocksville and continued past Asheville.  The bridge reconstruction west of Asheville is complete, but I took it slow through all the curves.

Got to exit 435 at Newport and stopped for fuel and groceries (Murphy and Walmart).  Once loaded, I proceeded to Sherman Oaks, which was as expected a second tier campground.  However, the site is close to level and the utilities are fine.  I’ll cook a burger for dinner and crash after I figure out all the stuff for tomorrow.

Incredibly windy all day long.  TPMS worked great; rear tires significantly more load as shown by temperature and pressure.  Don’t have TPMS on the trailer, so I looked out the side mirrors all day today to see if they were smoking or blown.  Not, thank God.

Stupidities of today:

• Forgetting to put my wallet in my pocket.
• Driving all the way to TN with the hatches above the theater seats wide open.  Only one thing fell, the jar of Valentina, and it didn’t bust.
• Forgot to pack the spare tire (rubber, not wheel) for the motorhome.  Hope we don’t destroy a tire!