T&C's Adventures in the T42

In Parts 1 and 2, we visited 3 of the "8 Wonders of Kansas".  Before leaving the state, we managed to hit 2 more along our path - one natural, and one man-made.

In this post, we visit not one but two  more of the "8 Wonders of Kansas" - both of which happen to be underground.

We're spending a bit of time in Kansas, so our time here will be split across a few posts.  This first one will cover our first couple of days.

The shape of the Lake of the Ozarks has earned it the nickname "the Missouri Dragon"; looking at an aerial or map view can show you why.  Our week stay here marked a change in the pace of our trip so far:  having gotten passed the pre-scheduled activities in Lampasas and St. Louis, the long hectic days spent driving in the car gave way to more relaxing days spent out "doing other things".

Our activity for the Tuesday was a visit to the Gateway Arch National Park.  Weather has not necessarily been our friend for our "scheduled" days on this trip; like the Eclipse Day in Lampasas, thunderstorms were forecast for our day in St. Louis.

We're spending a bit of time in Missouri, so our time here will be split across a few posts.  This first one will cover the first few days, before we popped out of the state for a night for lodging reasons.

In making our way from Oklahoma to Missouri, our route passed through the very north-west corner of Arkansas.  We took the opportunity to stay a day and see some of the sights in the Bentonville area.

This post covers the two days (spread across three calendar days) spent crossing Oklahoma, where we swapped out the T42 for THIS baby on Route 66. 😜

We were pleasantly surprised to find that despite all the hype/warnings about heavy traffic being expected, the drive from Early to Lampasas took under an hour and a half.  We had finally arrived at our "first destination" in one piece! For those that don't know, our reason for making Lampasas the first scheduled destination on our Trek was an eclipse-viewing meet-up arranged through the Travato Owners and Wannabees (TOWB) Facebook Group that we (Christine) are members of.  Forty-one Travatos (carrying 70-ish people and 30-ish pets) were scheduled to attend. (The meet-up logo was designed by our talented organizer, Marilyn.)

Our "Hopefully not, though..." wishes for another slow slog day ended up falling on deaf ears.

We started today's drive with the Eagles' Take It Easy playing on the radio to psych ourselves up for today's destination:  Winslow, AZ.

Well, the day has finally arrived.  After months of planning and preparation we left the comforts of home and piled into our (almost too) fully loaded van and started on the first leg of our journey toward our first stop:  Lampasas, TX to view the total eclipse next Monday.

We left Morro Bay on Wednesday and drove about 25 miles north to San Simeon.

For the next leg of our So. Cal journey, we stayed at the Morro Bay State Park Campground.  We opted for a spot in the upper non-hookup area instead of the lower RV area, to get a little more breathing space between ourselves and our neighbors.  The trees in the background are actually one of the few monarch butterfly groves in the area, but we were a few weeks too early for their return.

In October our nephew had a "destination wedding" in Pismo Beach, so we drove the T42 down to stay in for the pre/post wedding festivity days, and then to take an additional week exploring some of the other sites down there on our way home. Oceano Dunes Campground served as our home base for the wedding days.  It's one of two state park campgrounds in the Oceano / Pismo Beach area, and the only one with water/power hookups (ironically, the dump station is by the other campground).  Sites in the middle of the RV area are unshaded, while a lot of the ones on the edges have some.  We were grateful for both the shade and the power hookups (which we normally don't bother with) since an uncharacteristic October heatwave passed through for a couple of days while we were there. A short walk from the campground brings you to a beach that several of the other wedding guests who came out described as "being like Mad Max" because it's practically the only beach in C...

In late August we got the chance to take the T42 up north a bit to the Mendocino area.

We finally got the chance to take the T42 on her first "real" trip: a long weekend in Yosemite National Park.  Yosemite was a good choice for our first time out in this large-to-us vehicle, since we've been tent camping there near-annually for three decades, and know the road between the Bay Area and the Park like the back of our hands.  The one route deviation we chose for the trip was to take New Priest Grade instead of the usual Old Priest Grade since we'll probably never try taking the T42 up Old Priest Grade; if you've been up it before, you probably understand why 😉.

Before taking the T42 too far from home, we wanted to test out as many of her systems as possible.  Some systems were easy to test from the comfort of our own driveway, while others . . . not so much.  Anthony Chabot Family Campground seemed to fit the bill nicely:  less than an hour from home (in case we forgot something vital, or things went tragically wrong and we needed to abort) with sites that have "full hookups" (30 amp power and sewer - things we can't test at home - in addition to water). We originally booked a campsite for a weekend in April, but Mother Nature had other plans - storm damage kept the campground closed past our reservation date, and we had to reschedule for after our return from Japan.  The next date that was free was the weekend of the June 17th - which was a bit closer to our planned annual Yosemite trip than we would've liked (in case we found something wrong/missing that had to be resolved before that trip), but what can you do? Tom was a...

Perhaps you've heard the old saying that goes "the two best days in a boat owner’s life are the day they buy the boat and the day they sell it" .  We're hoping that doesn't extend to camper vans, because in March (after about two years of meticulous research and hand wringing) we "pulled the trigger" on the purchase of a 2023 Winnebago Travato 59GL! You can view all the official specs on  the Winnebago site , but our particular Travato is built on a 2022 RAM Promaster chassis (it's not uncommon for the chassis year of a camper van / Class-B RV to run a year behind the coach year, because of the time required to do the conversion), and being one of the last COVID-era build units she's something of a unicorn among her Travato siblings (i.e. due to supply chain issues, the chassis doesn't have the usual ParkSense front/rear sensors that beep to let you know how close you are to things when parking - but does  have Adaptive Cruise Control instead...