We left the casino and headed to Farmington, MO. It’s a little town that has a superstore and is about all we want to travel in a day. It will mean we will be on red roads and that’s not good. So off we went and hoped for the best. The best went the other way as the red roads in MO are narrow and without any shoulders. Don’t know how many miles it was but we left I55 at Cap Guirarado and caught a divided red road about15 miles south of town. We pulled into the busiest walmart we have ever seen. We parked by Wendys and waited out the croud. We ended up moving to Penneys parking lot adjacent to walmart. Packed our bags and left about 9am and headed back to I55 and to St Louis and west on I70 to Mexico, MO. There in Mexico we were headed to a city park to boondock. It ended up being a $8 a day park. Nice, pretty and a place to stop for a week and let the budget catch up. We have elec with central water and dump. We took on water, we had empty tanks. We set up the satellite and enjoyed the rest of the day.

We went to kmart shopping for floss which they no longer carry in their brand. We left the RV parked there and drove to Sears to look at a compressor for the tires. We tried to air the tires at Loves but there was not enough pressure. We need a compressor. We went looking for the pancake type but bought a tank type. It is rated 125 psi and comes with a hose/accessory kit. We drove back to the RV and moved down the street from the airways auto electrical repair to wait for the batteries. About noon, Roy the owner came by and had us move to his place to install the batteries. With interruptions, this took about 3.5 hrs. We have new batteries. We paid our bill and left Dodge.
We took state 412 west and off to MO we went.
We crossed the Mississippi River and was going to stay at a Wally World. But it was not yet 5pm, I kept driving and at exit 6 on I55 was this casino ahead. We took the exit and stayed at the Aztar in Caruthersville, MO for the night. We went for the buffet but that was closed so we ordered off the menu. We went down to the casino and I lost $15 and Shirley lost $1. This is a really nice place but its $20 a day. We will spend one night and leave about noon tomorrow. Oh, they have free wifi so no dish was setup!

We made another night. We again stayed at Sams parking lot. There were four other RV’s and about the same in trucks. We pulled out after breakfast, about 8 am and went to the Casey Jones Village and parked. Toured the village, took some pictures and that was that. Packed up our laundry and went hunting a laundry. We ended up south of town at a well used, unkept place. It cost $3.00 to wash and $1.50 to dry. That chore is done. Now we wait for Friday. We did call and go by one RV campground one exit west. There was no way this RV would fit or get out of the places marked. And we would be a 4” strip away from our neighbors. We drove in, looked and left.
We went south to 70W and east to 223 to another campground and drove to the entrance to see about parking there.. It to was to small also. We turned around and head back to Jackson. One thing for sure, the RV parking is not long enough and is too close together. Be glad to get our batteries and get out of Jackson, TN

And the battery saga continues.
The 105 batteries now made have a shorter threaded post compared with the battery we have. This means we must seek a different battery mfg than Trojan. We are still in Jackson, TN and we went to the local Easy-Go dealer who sells batteries and found the Deka brand to be comparable to Trojan in amp rating. The cycle rate supposed to be on the fax to us was not shown. This brand of battery will have to do since we so far have no other options. The Deka brand is supposed to have a longer threaded stud too. The batteries are coming from Nashville and will be here Friday. So, we will be here two more days, staying where we can safely.

Today at 10 am we will get the new batteries. Now we will have true solar power. The old batteries have been so badly neglected that they don’t store enough electricity to last 2 hours on 12 vdc. The batteries we need are not what sams has. Bought 4 of them and the threaded stud was to short. Had to take them back. Darn it! We will have to look some more. Did a yahoo search and found very little close by. We will call tomorrow to a place north of us about 25 miles and see if they have them in stock. Hope, hope! We plan on moving tomorrow and go north. Shirley wants to go back west for better boondocking sites. We will head to KY and then west thru MO. Would like to be midstate and off interstate to see more. We will see.

Went north of town to I40 and found another supercenter and a Sams club. We went into Sams to see their 6 volt batteries for our solar system. We are in bad need of new batteries. They have a 110 and 75 amp battery. The talk on the forums are these batteries work. The Trojan batteries I have are 225 amp rated in pairs while the Sam batteries are 220 rated. We will get new batteries on Tues, all 6 of them. They cost $47 plus tax and that is a lot of cash. But we will be able to use our solar while now we must run the generator at $2.00 a gallon. We can stay at a campground cheaper than running the generator.

We are planning on taking some back roads to get off the interstate. We started out on a older 4 lane divided road till it run out and we ended up on the 10 ft and this turned into a 9 ft wide road with 12” shoulder. Really to narrow for this RV. We are 8’-6” wide and that coupled with a 9 ft road makes going slow. Pulling a tow dolly that is also 8 ft wide is a real chore. We will take the first road to Jackson to get away from these narrow roads. Its back to the interstate again. We spent the night at a supercenter south of town. Stopped at Lowe’s and bought some tools, $233.00 worth. Changed the water bottle.