Where Are We Again?

St. Clair, MI    High:  80 Low: 56

After throwing in a missing blog about Bar Harbor, it's no wonder Sparky's confused and you probably are, too, about where we are! Ever travel so much you forget where you were yesterday, and maybe even last night? Yup! Sparky's brain is having a hard time keeping up with how fast we got out of Dodge, er, Bar Harbor, and ended up in Ohio for part of the day today, and then Michigan by this afternoon. If we didn't keep a spreadsheet and some notes about our campground stays, it would all be just a blur to her. Things are getting blurrier anyway, as the years go by...

Speaking of blurry, ever have trouble cleaning your floors in the rig and think you got the job done, only to find out there's still a ton of dust bunnies or pieces of grass or other stuff that you didn't see floating around down there STILL? Sparky has to get down on the floor on hands and knees to really see the dirt, dust and whatever other "stuff" is still floating around. Her glasses are fine, maybe a little dirty, but the only way she REALLY sees the dirt is to get close to it. We have a quarry tile floor in the Tiffin Phaeton and Sparky swears they didn't seal it. It catches all kind of microscopic dirt which settles into the tiles' finer cracks and it takes a LOT of work to get that floor clean! Sparky sweeps the floor almost every day, then wipes it down with a Swiffer cloth and the dirt and some kind of grit just keeps coming up off the tile. We have a great floor mat that we have just past the stairs that catches a ton of dirt, but not all of it. We keep saying we're going to have a no shoes rule in the house, but our feet get too cold, or we're just too lazy to keep taking our shoes on and off until we are ready to end the day.

It feels WEIRD to be back in the midwest, in flatter plains, no elevations..no mountains, no hills. But, it feels good to know that soon we will be able to catch up with our midwestern friends and family....

Eldy was on a ROLL today...He decided we would head to St. Clair, Michigan for a Thousand Trails park there. It's FREE which is good, because we put in another 200.00 worth of fuel in the tank  today. We're averaging 9.7 mpg today on this leg of the trip. Overall, since we left Houston, our mileage has been about 8.7 mpg over 3,000 miles traveling back from Texas through the northeast, and all the mountains and hills of New York and Pennsylvania as well. While we were on the toll road in Ohio today, we were trying to figure out what our tolls would be when we exited. Check this ticket out, does it make any sense to you?

Nope, at least not to Sparky. Have no idea what class we are..Pick one, got a 1 in 7 chance of being right. Sparky knows we're not a class 1, that's a car, so now the odds are 1 in 6, if her math is right. She got out her handy dandy computer, with the fast mi-fi card and Googled "ohioturnpike.org" while Eldo was driving down the road to figure out what class we are in. Kinda like checking out your classroom assignment for your first class! Here's the chart.

Now here's the pop quiz..Sparky hasn't given a quiz in a long time, so it's about time for one! What class is a motorhome with a tow? Sparky says "class 4." Cha-ching! Yep, that's what the toll booth lady said. Forked over 23.75 for riding a very crappy toll road in part but with a great rest plaza. At the rest plaza we stopped at near Toledo and I-290, they even had a nice sized RV lot with quite a few electric hookups to spend the night!

OK, we're back on the road after our lunch stop. Eldy says we are going to be going part way through Detroit, maybe in rush hour?...Egads! We'll see how THAT works out! Back in a bit......

Whew! We made it. THAT was stressful! Try keeping a safety stopping margin with your motorhome in heavy city traffic! Forget it!..There was a LOT of traffic, but thank goodness we went through Detroit before rush hour had truly started. We went around the city on I-276, and I-96 to get back out to I-94. After a total of 381 miles, we are in St. Clair, MI at the Thousand Trails St. Clair park about fifty miles north of Detroit. We will be here for four nights, saving money, NOT DRIVING anywhere most likely, (Well, you never know with me, says E.) and getting ready to go visit General RV for some minor repairs in a few days. We'll show you the park and tell you all about it tomorrow. See you tomorrow.....