So long...farewell...auf wiedersehen…good-bye
Over
breakfast we did the math for the rest of our trip. Four days to travel a little over 1800 miles
broke down to a minimum of 450 miles a day.
Barring any additional Road Gremlin attacks or weird weather issues 450
miles should be doable. I asked Kim if
he was willing to make any Roadside America stops; his answer was ‘Sure’ so the
search was on when I got back in the truck.
Since
we had already established our route it was easy to search for attractions
along the way that seemed to meet my general criteria…easy access for a truck
and camper, not too far off our route and either free or not too expensive. Aha!
There’s a ‘rotary jail’ in Crawfordsville…don’t have a clue what that is but it’s
calling my name. However, at a
crucial point in our route I took a phone call which meant that Kim was
clueless as to which lane to be in and as it turns out we were in the thru lane
when we wanted to be in the left turn lane. But, no worries, Rapunzel rerouted
us. It was a very scenic and less travelled route for sure. But hindsight tells me I should have been
second guessing her every move because I figured out too late that she was
taking us in a southwesterly direction toward Terre Haute instead of due south
towards Crawfordsville like I intended. Say
good-bye to the chance to see the rotary jail, Karen. Aghhh!!
Time to find a new attraction….Hey!
there’s a marker designating the Birthplace of the Coke bottle and it looks
like it’s right on our route through Terre Haute. That might be an interesting stop. Well, we
stopped and at best I would classify it as a mildly interesting stop but it was right on our route so it had that
going for it.
I was looking for something a little more offbeat so I went back to the
Roadside America app. Aha! the World’s Largest Wind Chime is in
Casey, IL, and that’s not too far up the road. But Rapunzel and I were not on the same page at this point which was a common theme throughout the day. There’s been some changes to
my Google Map app that I'm struggling to figure out. Bottom line: I thought I’d plugged in
the address correctly and went back to reading but obviously I was wrong about that because we zipped right by the exit
without her saying a thing. Aghhh!!
I was willing to try one more time. Aha! The fire-breathing Kaskaskia Dragon is up ahead! Less than a mile off the highway, the necessary token only cost $1 and I was hoping for easy access for the truck/camper. I think Kim felt bad for me at this point and would have agreed to whatever I found. We found the dragon, I bought 5 tokens because I’m an overachiever and the experience did not disappoint despite the wind blowing the fire sideways out of his mouth. 😎
This is what the Roadside America site has to say about the Dragon: Kaskaskia isn't a realm of Middle Earth; it's the name of the hardware store down the block that built the dragon over a slow winter in 1995. "We made a toy to play with," said owner Walt Barenfanger. "We had no thoughts where the thing was going."
"It's
not a dinosaur, it's a dragon. Dragons breathe fire," said Walt, who
understood its appeal. But then Walt would have to leave the store, drive to
the dragon, and press a hidden button to turn on the flames. "If I was
going to run a hardware business rather than run out there all day, I had to
think of something."
The answer revealed itself to Walt at a car wash: a self-service
coin box. People, he reasoned, could operate the dragon themselves, paying for
its upkeep. Rather than accept cash, Walt designed special dragon coins.
The
dragon made its final metamorphosis from parade float to tourist attraction in
2008, when Walt approached the liquor store across the street from the beast to
stock the coins. The owners were grateful; they'd been besieged by people who
assumed that they were the keepers of the dragon's breath.
Walt
opened the coin box and showed us its recent bounty of dragon tokens. A 20
pound propane tank, he said, usually has enough fuel to power the dragon for a
month -- and that's when the evolutionary design finally breaks down.
"Someone will usually come in the store and holler, 'The dragon's not
shooting fire!'" said Walt. "We haven't really figured out a better
system than that."
I love stuff like this…this made my day!
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I had more issues with Rapunzel further down the road: I chose I-70
around St. Louis and she kept changing it to US 44…on her own, without my
knowledge. I finally turned everything
off and started over; it was at this point that she seemed to understand that I
had more control that she did. There
were some bad words hurled in her direction more than once today. 😠
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Drove
through rain on and off throughout the day with it being intense at times but
that was the extent of the precipitation.
Watched the temperature fall into the mid-20’s which was when we decided
it was going to be a hotel night. No fun
climbing into a cold camper. We’re
tucked into a Days Inn in Boonville, MO.
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Crossed the Wabash River several times while in Indiana; so much
flooding in the fields and forests that are along its banks. Also crossed the Mississippi and Missouri
Rivers but couldn’t tell if either had flooded nearby land.
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We have about 1300 miles still to go. Not counting on making any
Roadside America stop tomorrow but not counting it out either. It all depends
on when we hit the road and how the day unfolds.
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