Visiting Family & More Sourdough, In Missouri

We said goodbye to the friends we met at Alliance Rally, Goshen, Indiana, last night. The drive was tough along I-94 and I-80. Bad roads, construction, and really aggressive drivers. Before Joliet, Illinois, we were just sitting long bouts of time. It took over 1 hour and 10 minutes to go less than 10 miles. Got to Clarks Ferry Campground in Montpelier, Iowa just fine. Our site I picked backs up right to the Mississippi River. This Corp of Engineers campground is a little confusing on how to get water. There is no water at the sites. I see two faucets but we would have to block all people driving around the campground in order to fill up. It is a small campground, though. We decided earlier that we would just take a little water with us and that worked out fine since we are only here really a few hours. 

Two friends of ours drove 2 1/2 hours to meet up with us. It was so wonderful to see them! The are also full-time RVers traveling around the country. We met them in Florida in 2024. She picked Machine Shed restaurant in Davenport, and off we went. Back home (footnote 1) he was asking about how I plan our travels so I got my laptop out and we sat at the picnic table. It was nice outside. We saw a total of 2 barges with tugs while here.

This week we were at our niece’s house in Missouri. We are parked along the side of their house. We have been here several times over the years with HOWE (footnote 2). 

Sourdough Starter: I now have two jars of Sourdough Starter going. HA People often name their starter so I named the one in the jar (from Silver Dollar City) “WPR” for the farm name and my friend who gave me the starter. I needed another jar since sometimes I need more starter for a recipe (LOL).  So my niece gave me a jar and lid. This one I named “MJ” for mason jar. The difference is WPR I am keeping in the fridge (and fed and use once a week) and MJ is on the counter. Then I read that I am suppose to feed MJ every day if he is out on the counter. Oops, missed yesterday. Ha. I fed him and he is happy now. WPR got fed. And then I made Sourdough Banana Bread with it. It was so soft and delicious! Reader: seriously, if you have a Sourdough Starter, make this recipe! https://www.theclevercarrot.com/2020/04/ultimate-sourdough-banana-bread

Our time with our lovely niece and her family was a lot of fun. She is a great cook and makes delicious food. She says her kitchen is “a one butt kitchen” meaning she doesn’t need help. I think that is awesome phrase and I totally get it! 

Games were often played. They taught us Marbles, which is similar to Aggravation. Also a game called Swoop.

One of my favorite things is, she works from home, so often she would bring her laptop in to HOWE and work from in here. She and Kevin worked and I would make Sourdough stuff. HAHA 

Thursday we went to a local community to hear our niece and her daughter play in the community band. They play every Thursday throughout the summer. Nice evening. She made us all a picnic supper which we ate there at the park where the concert is held. I am deaf, I can’t hear the music, so I enjoyed people watching. 

Whenever we are in the area where Kevin grew up, we stop at the cemetery where his parents are buried. I looked up Find A Grave (footnote 3) on my iPhone to see if there were any new photo requests. (We had fulfilled requests here before). There was one with our last name. Hum…turns out the photo request was for Kevin’s aunt’s headstone. We were able to find it and fulfill that request. So special. 

On Saturday the four of us went to Jamesport, Missouri. This is an Amish community and I always enjoyed going there for the dry goods and such when we lived around here. At our favorite store, H & M, I got some almond flour and some treats. As we were checking out I saw two different sourdough bread cookbooks. One was from a lady who is Amish. Kevin got that book for me; I am pretty excited to read it. 

We then went to St Joseph. We got to Boudreaux’s, a favorite of our niece. We enjoyed the atmosphere and Louisiana food. Our niece’s daughter has an internship with St Joseph Goats, the indoor arena football team here. She is majoring in graphic design and so she takes pictures during the game and then will submit them and also do design that can be used for social media. This was the opening game and was at the civic center. The place is much smaller than Kevin and I thought it would be. Several times players got hurt because the literal out of bounds is a fence!

This week was full of wonderful people, experiences, food, visiting, and fun. Always an excellent time with them.

*The blog posts are taken from my daily travel journal. Would you believe – it takes me a 1/2 day every week to whittle down a week’s worth of journal so it won’t be too long for the post each week. HAHA Thank you for reading!

1. “Home” is where we park it. Home is our 2022 Alliance Avenue, 36 ft, 5th wheel.

2. “HOWE” is what we named our Alliance Avenue 36-ft 5th wheel. See: Home On WhEels and we pronounce it Howie. We live and travel in it full-time around the country. HOWE has stayed at least one night in all 48 continuous U.S. states.

3. Find A Grave – https://www.findagrave.com/about