When I left Lakeside RV campground the next morning the skies were cloudy and the wind was picking up. I stopped for gas and coffee on SR 130 before picking up 50 West. As soon as I turned onto 50 the clouds had thickened and darkened and bolts of lightning were beginning to flash all over on the horizon.
The wind strengthened, the lightning got crazier and off to my right I could see an especially dark cloud that seemed to be trying to dip and become a funnel(?). I sped up, which is actually kind of useless and funny give the immensity of a storm over something as flat as Illinois, but I kept checking the progress of the storm and my own comparatively minuscule progress west on 50.
Ultimately, however, nothing happened except that Turtle and me got pelted with a helluva thunderstorm. After the storm and I passed one another, I saw a Walmart (which are like rashes) and I stopped to pick up a couple of things.
And then it was back onto 50 and out of Illinois and into Missouri- which would prove to be the best and the worst of my trip so far.
(Quick note: on the map it looks like Route 50 takes you through St. Louis and I was kinda looking forward to it since I’ve never been there but instead of taking me through the city (like it does in Cincinnati and Washington) 50 joins up with the beltway around the city so I never saw much of St. Louis)
Anyway. Back to the best and the worst.
THE BEST- Hands down it is Rosebud. It’s a quaint, cute little town between slow down and resume speed where it seems as if the people there are born there, raised there, go to school there, get married to their high school sweethearts there, have kids there, and die there.
I stopped at The Rosebud General Store because they were selling gas for $4.09/gal! As I was filling my tank with relatively inexpensive fuel I saw, on the gas pump, a hand lettered little sign saying free water with a gas purchase. So after I filled up I went inside to see if it was true and the cute little girl at the register said- absolutely and gestured to her right where back near a cooler another cute little girl was holding out an ice cold bottled water.
Cheap gas and a cute little girl handing me an ice cold bottle of water. Ah, Rosebud, you stole my heart.
THE WORST- Sedalia. I would be stopping for the night in Sedalia. I had chosen Sedalia because there was a State Park campground at the Missouri State fairgrounds. The Missouri State fair wasn’t until August so I figured it would be nice and quiet. And it was. Too much so. Once I finally found it.
When you come into Sedalia, it’s pretty much like a lot of little towns so I was looking forward to camping for the night. But then you get into the five mile stretch of Route 50 closest to the fairgrounds and it is five miles of the worst that America has to offer. It is chain store, food chain, retail run amuck and awry. It is all paved and curbed and billboarded and the few little hopeful islands of grass that somehow remain just look sad.
And then I missed my turn. The only sign I saw was for State Fairgrounds Community College so I’m thinking I don’t want to go there and it took me six miles out of town to decide that it probably was what I wanted and turn around.
I had been expecting a State campground near the fairgrounds. Instead, it’s a campground ON the fairgrounds. I drove into a gate directing me to the campground and it was like driving into an enormous drive-in movie theater. Just row after row after row of hookups in this big field. No camp store. No facilities. No ice. No nothing. Just a big field with maybe a half dozen RV’s sitting parked in the hot, humid sun.
I pulled into a site and sat and thought for a minute and said- fuck this. I pulled up my search for campgrounds in the area and found Countryside RV close by and figured it’s got to be better than this. And it was. Just barely.
Located behind an industrial fencing company and some kind of welding shop, Countryside has about thirty sites most of have permanent campers on them. It also has the most disgusting bathroom and showers I’ve ever seen. But I paid my $40 fee for the night, went back out to get ice at a gas station with bars over the tiny windows and door and settled in with the flies for the night.
I was never so happy to leave.
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