When we planned this trip, and planned the camper build, part of the planning was modifications the truck would need.  Tom and mechanics in Belize did most of the work, and did it well, but some of it was slightly experimental and the really good thing about Tom doing, or at least helping with, the modifications is that he’s able to monitor how things are working.  We are now a little more than 25,000 miles into this trip, and we’ve driven through mountains, driven in the cold, driven in the heat, and driven over all sorts of roads from very slow single lane rutted tracks to very fast 6-lanes in each direction superhighways.  Any time the truck is running, Tom is listening and feeling and evaluating how all of the systems are working.

The suspension system has been an ongoing challenge.  When we bought the truck, it had already been modified with air bags instead of springs in the rear.  Tom and Rig Parts in Belize made some modifications to that system, like swapping out computer controls for simple mechanical controls.  We’d also put more heavy duty shocks on when we first pulled into the US last August.  All that helped, but over the past nine months things have become a little softer, so when we were in Albuquerque Tom found a shop that specializes in big RVs, and started talking to them.  This is Garber Diesel in Versailles, MO, and the past couple of weeks have been spent tweaking our schedule to get to Versailles by last Monday.  They were ready to take the rig into the shop on Tuesday morning, and make the change to the suspension system.  Tom asked if they could also replace some rubber brake hose that he had purchased since arriving in the USA as well, which they also said they could do, and did.  And then Tom started talking to their service manager, a truly wonderful man named Bruce.

Tom has had a few other ongoing concerns with how the truck is running, but hasn’t had anyone who understands the issues well enough to talk to about his concerns.  He haunts the on-line forums, but they’re not really that much help when they can’t hear the specific noise Tom tries to explain, or feel the exact vibration.  Bruce and the mechanics at Garber had the truck, and the experience with Fords, and the experience with RVs.  So, they did some test drives.  One of the concerns Tom had is a really loud noise the truck makes when climbing a mountain.  Tom read online that it’s “only” a fan that kicks on when the coolant, oil, or transmission fluids reach a certain temperature, but it sounds like such a horrible noise that the simple explanation was hard to believe.  But, in this case it was true.  It sounds like a jet engine under the hood!

However, the bad news is that another noise in the background when we’re running under a load, really was a bad noise.  Ford Diesel 6.4 engines are known for a problem with their turbo, and the other more subtle strange noise is actually a very bad noise.  The turbo could run for another 50,000 miles, or it could crap out in a few thousand miles.  In a few thousand miles we plan to be heading through Canada to the wilds of Alaska, so we’re not really interested in being dead in the water in the middle of nowhere.  Bruce said he would call around and see how long it would take to get a replacement unit, and Tom started calling around to see if he could find anything that we could have installed farther along our path in order to get on the road if it was going to take a while to get to the shop.  Bruce was the first to get the bad news on replacement units; there are none to be had anywhere in the US right now, and they won’t even give an expected delivery date.  If were were going to be touring around the US and weekending in our camper, this wouldn’t be too bad, and we’d just run with what we have and hope for the best.  But, that’s not what we’re doing, and we’d really like to prevent a big problem.  So, Bruce looked more into modifications already made to our truck and found that a non-stock unit would work, which was shipped to arrive at the shop early this week.  We pulled the trigger on ordering it and are planning to stay in the area for the next week so Garber can install it.

In the meantime, Tom had also mentioned that the passenger side air ride system was losing pressure, and asked if they could take a look at that.  They did, and found that three of the four airbags were showing signs of rubber decay.  When we got the truck, which at that point had only 30,000 miles on it but which had been sitting in Belize for almost 10 years, we had almost everything rubber replaced because rubber decays over time.  But, the air ride system parts weren’t available in Belize, so we left the old airbags.  So, it wasn’t a big surprise that the bags on the truck had reached their end of service limit.  Garber ordered four new airbags, and took the truck back into the shop to install them.  However, they found that they had to remove the rear wheel hubs in order to remove the air bags.  This was great, except it meant that the truck was in the shop overnight, which meant we had to find someplace else to sleep.  The local Versailles hotel doesn’t allow dogs, so we found a room at a Motel 8 in Eldon, which is about 15 miles from Versailles.  Garber was kind enough to loan us a car, which the owner calls “the beater,” so we could get ourselves to and from the motel.  This was our first night out of the camper in 10 months, so we were a little stressed.  We were also stressed because the hotel owner lied when we made the reservation and assured us that the total was the total even with the dogs, then tacked on another $25 when we got there.  Tom was pissed, so when we checked out the next morning he asked the assistant manager to inspect the room so we wouldn’t have any other bogus charges added to our bill, and when he explained why he wanted the inspection, she refunded the $25 and apologized.  ​

We’ve now been in the house for two days, and are actually enjoying having room to spread out.  The first day, the dogs still stayed very physically close to us, but once they realized we weren’t going anywhere, everybody is taking up a little more room.  The cat seems to like having a whole house to explore, although she seems to have settled on under the bed as her primary hangout, which is something she can’t do in the camper.  The town of Warsaw, which is only about 5 minutes away, has a really nice city park with paved and graveled trails so we can walk the dogs there and not worry about ticks.  The house has great 5G wifi, so we’re catching up on all the computer stuff we haven’t been able to do easily from our cell phones in the camper.  We’re eager to get back on the road and continue heading north to Alaska, but we are finding that taking a few days off is a little bit of a relief, especially since we’re someplace comfortable and convenient.

After a delayed start in the morning while Tom fixed an air ride problem under the truck in the Walmart parking lot, we pulled into Jefferson City in the mid-afternoon.  It was raining, again, as we got there, so we stopped in a hotel parking lot and asked permission to park there while we walked to the capitol.  While we were waiting, we talked to a couple who were fixing a trailer tire but were local, and they told us that we could park closer to the capitol at a bike shop with a big lot.  So, we moved from the hotel to the bike shop, where they said we were welcome to park in their lot, which is just down the hill from the capitol.  By the time we got done with all this moving around, the rain had stopped, so although it was still damp and gray, we took a walk around the capitol area with the dogs.​

The Jefferson City capitol is in a very historic area of the city.  It’s so historic, that most of the surrounding area is a state park with historic buildings.  You can also cross a bridge to another small park which is, at least at some times of the year, an island in the river.  Jefferson City is more like Charleston in that it’s on a river, but the river doesn’t really feature into the capitol landscaping because a railroad runs between the river and the city, but all of this just makes you realize why the city is located where it is, where trains and ships could meet to move goods through the area to the rest of the world.  The capitol itself is impressive, but not ostentatious, with the front facing the river.  The building is surrounded by fountains and statues, mostly of some sort of merman centaurs, which I found a little puzzling since I’m not sure why landlocked Missouri went with a mythological nautical theme.  But, they’re very attractive. What’s not to love about a buff man/horse/fish creature?  The governor’s house is also beautiful, and we were told that the Capitol itself used to be more like the governor’s mansion before it burned and was rebuilt.

​We left the free laundry campground heading for St. Louis and the Gateway Arch National Park.  As we were heading west, we noticed the sky in front of us getting blacker and blacker, and pulled over in an empty lot to get lunch and check the weather.  AccuWeather told us that a thunderstorm was heading our way, so we hunkered down and ate our lunch until it passed.  We were glad we’d encountered those black clouds, because AccuWeather radar also told us that St. Louis was surrounded by severe thunderstorms, and the entire area where we were heading was under a severe thunderstorm watch.  We got online and found Pyramid State Park southeast of St. Louis, which had both camping and hiking trails, so when the rain stopped and we finished our lunch, we set the GPS to Pyramid State Park which seemed to be out of the danger zone.

This state park is one of those places that is really nice, and seems to be basically undiscovered.  They have a few small campgrounds scattered throughout the park.  None of the campgrounds have any hookups or amenities other than a pit toilet, but fresh water and a dump station are available at the park office, and the sites are spread out and spacious, and each has a picnic table and a fire ring.  We did a drive by on two of the campgrounds, and each had only one other camper, leaving six or eight sites for other campers to park, pay the $8 camping fee, and enjoy the park.  The park covers more than 19,000 acres and is dotted with small lakes suitable for fishing and kayaking, and 16 miles of trails wind through the park and around the lakes.  ​

Once we had parked, we put a $10 bill in the envelope, wrote down our name and the site we had taken, and took a walk to the park office to drop off the envelope.  We then wandered some of the off-road trails, looking for turtles in the lakes.  We found that in addition to the drive in sites, they have a few designated campsites for people who want to pack in and tent camp, where you could really feel like you’re out in the wilderness.  We got back to the camper just in time to get a few things out of the back before the rain hit, and then we tucked in for the night.  We were up early the next day because we wanted to get in a walk before heading to St. Louis, and we were surprised when the ranger came by around 7:30AM - to give us our $2 change from the $10 bill we’d stuffed in the envelope the night before.  Tom told him not to worry about it, but he said taking extra money isn’t how they do it around there, so we thanked him and told him how much we liked the park.

​We had an easy and bad weather free drive into St. Louis, and pulled into the city around lunch time.  We had visited the Arch 20 years ago and remembered that it was downtown and parking was a bit of a challenge, so Tom had investigated the night before and discovered that Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals, offered overflow parking as long as the Cardinals weren’t playing.  Tom checked and found that they were playing in Boston, so we navigated the city streets and found the stadium parking.  We figured it would be another deal like Nashville, where we’d pay a hefty fee to park for a few hours.  We noticed a security car with flashing lights parked in the corner, so we drove over to him to make sure we were allowed to park there.  He said of course, and explained how to download an app to pay.  However, because our rig has Belize license plates, the app wouldn’t accept our attempts to pay.  The security guard laughed, told us he himself had witnessed us trying to pay, and directed us to an out of the way corner and told us not to worry about it.  We decided that karma must be smiling on us, after free parking at Charleston, free camping at Ohio County Fairgrounds, and more free parking in St. Louis, not to mention finds like the Thelma Stovall Park.

​We hiked over to the Gateway Arch National Park through the stadium area of the city.  The park is at the edge of the city along the river, and is very easy to find since the arch rises 630 feet over the city.  It’s surrounded by a grassy park with many meandering paths.  We found the entrance, which is under the arch, and got tickets to take the tram to the top.  We had about a half hour before the tram ride, so we wandered in the museum and learned about the history of the arch.  At our appointed tram time, we got in the line, which didn’t move and got longer and longer.  Some gentlemen in front of us asked the ticket taker what was happening, and she told him it was “unscheduled maintenance,” and we could just wait in line.  We waited, and about an hour after our scheduled time the line finally started moving again.  But, it was a pretty fast hour since we got to meet all the people who were in line around us, and nobody was in a hurry to go anywhere else, so we all had a good time talking and sharing stories.  


We finally got up in the arch, and discovered that while we’d been in the underground waiting area, rain had moved in, which made us wonder if a lightning warning was the reason for the “unscheduled maintenance.”  It didn’t matter in the end because despite rain the view was clear in all directions, so we spent our 10 minutes at the top going from window to window with everybody else before squeezing back into the tram car for the ride back to the bottom.  The rain had stopped by the time we got back down and left the arch, so we walked back to the truck in the stadium parking and headed for Jefferson City.  However, the weather gods weren’t done with us.  We had a repeat view of the previous day’s lunch stop, with black clouds getting closer and closer.  We checked the radar and saw that we were again under a severe thunderstorm warning, and were driving into a mess.  Even though we were only about an hour from Jefferson City, Missouri’s capital, we pulled into a Walmart off the next exit and, after the windy crash-boom thunderstorm passed, spent a quiet night.

​Mammoth Cave National Park is the biggest disappointment of our trip so far.  We’ve been unexpectedly delighted by many of the parks, like Death Valley and Petrified Forest, and even though we expected to be disappointed by Carlsbad Cavern, we were impressed.  Maybe Carlsbad is why we expected more of Mammoth Cave, and we thought Mammoth would be managed like Carlsbad.  We found that not only is Mammoth not managed like Carlsbad, the cave itself isn’t nearly as impressive.


Mammoth Cave’s claim to fame is that it is the longest cave system in North America, and one of the longest cave systems in the world with over 400 miles of cave mapped to date.  That’s interesting, but what you get to see on the standard Historical Tour is about two miles of cave, and it’s not very interesting since the part they let you see is mostly dry, so there aren’t any interesting formations.  The history of the cave is interesting, and as you take the tour with approximately 100 tourists, the ranger/tour guides keep pounding on the history and how as one of the sheep meandering through the cave, you are becoming part of history.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that waddling along on this canned tour is not as significant as being a slave risking his life to explore the cave and make a little money taking people who will pay for the adventure of tagging along with the real explorer who mapped the cave with only a lantern for light, but it seemed like the majority of the people on the tour with us were buying it.  This tour was everything we were afraid Carlsbad would be, and everything it wasn’t - a disappointment after exploring caves in Belize, with too many people and not much to see.

​We left Mammoth with our next stop the Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis.  We knew we wouldn’t get all the way there, so we found the Ohio County Park Campground and Fairgrounds along the way, not too far off the highway.  They advertised full hookups for $20, so we decided to go and get some laundry done.  They had what they advertised, but we also found that on Friday the staff goes home at 3, so some other campers told us to just find a spot and deal with it in the morning.  We found a spot, got our laundry done, and went to the office in the morning.  The person who takes the money doesn’t work on Saturday, so the people who were there told us that since we hadn’t used any electricity, the site was free!  We would have been delighted to have a water and sewer site for $20, but we were even more delighted to have it for free, so we thanked them profusely and headed for St. Louis.

​The Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park is a two-site park, with the more northern site the Lincoln Boyhood Home at Knob Creek, which is about 10 miles from the Birthplace site.  The visitor center at the Boyhood Home is closed during the week, but the grounds crew working there told us feel free to roam the park, which we did.  A 3-mile out and back trail runs through what was a farm when the Lincolns lived there, crossing a field and then running up hill through some woods to an overlook which really isn’t much of an overlook since you can’t see anything.  But, it was a pleasant walk with the dogs, and the usual National Park informational signs explained the history of the area before, during, and after the Lincolns’ residence.

​We then headed to Lincoln’s Birthplace, which is more of a museum.  The main feature of the site is a Memorial which houses a cabin representing the cabin where Lincoln was born, and makes clear that it is a reproduction.  Other buildings are scattered around the site for historical relevance, although nothing is as it was when Lincoln was born.  It was drizzling when we were there, so we left the dogs in the truck and had a quick wander before heading towards Mammoth Cave National Park.

​After the difficulties finding a place to stay the night before, we did a more thorough job of scoping out our options for that night.  Mammoth Cave National Park has a campground within walking distance of the cave, but basic campsites were about $50/night, which seemed extreme.  I found a small city park in the town of Munfordville which was reported to allow overnight camping.  It seemed too good to be true, but we decided to check it out.  One of the warnings on the apps was that you need to go down a steep hill to get to the park, so we parked on a city street to walk down to the park to make sure we could make it.  We just happened to park behind a city police car, so Tom talked to the officer to make sure it was actually okay to park there overnight.  The officer assured him that it was, but said that checking the approach was probably a good idea.  We walked down the hill with the pups and decided that it was fine, and went back for the truck.  We pulled into the parking lot and backed into a space, just as the police officer pulled in with another patrol car.  We had a brief “Oh, it was too good to be true” moment, but the two officers were there just to tell us that there were much nicer places we could park, and that the park would be a little busy in the early evening with kids’ soccer practice.  At the officers’ recommendation, we moved to a site along the river next to a picnic palapa, and spent the evening watching soccer practice - although it really wasn’t very busy- and walking around the exercise trail that runs around the perimeter of the park.  We were also entertained by Ty’s reaction to a life-sized bison statue, although we never figured out the significance of the statue since the park is named after a deceased town resident, Thelma Stovall, and doesn’t appear to have anything to do with bison.  After dark, we were the only ones there, and it was great to spend a quiet night away from people.