We finally had to give up our parking place in the middle of the woods at Wildwood Association. We were a bit disappointed that we did not see any wildlife other than one hen turkey and several grey squirrels and some fox squirrels.

We drove to Godfrey, IL and are currently at a new Walmart, store #4695, just about a mile from the Lewis and Clark College where the hamfest is tomorrow. There is really not much available at the college to park the rv, so we will leave it here at Walmart, with permission of course. After the hamfest we will come back, hook up, get some rest and head east toward Indiana.

Fuel in Illinois is really high. Unleaded is $4.099 with mid grade at $4.249 and premium at $4.399. We filled up in MO at Flying J for $3.739. Hopefully this will get us back to Fishers and we can hunt some cheaper fuel.

Hopefully there is not too much water in White River that we can not get in the campground Sunday afternoon.

Here we are settled in the Wildwood Assocition located in rural Missouri between Fulton and Readsville. This is a very hilly area with several lakes and 12,000 acres in area.

Those of you that are familiar with Cherokee Village, AR, it is similar but CV has 15,000 acres, but similar in layout and terrain.

Wildwood consists mostly of mobile, park models and RV's, mostly travel trailers and 5th wheels and class A motor homes. Some are very nice and many are old and junky in appearance, some have been setting so long that they are green with mold not having been cleaned for a long time.

It is located about 100 miles from St. Louis and a little farther from Kansas City, maybe 150 miles or so. It was developed as a retreat or summer area to visit and spend weekends, vacations, etc. It is heavily wooded with lots of wild game and fishing areas. We saw some wild turkeys yesterday on our tour of the area. We took our usual tour, taking a right turn where ever possible and we toured maybe 70% of the area in about 2 hours. There are many circles and cultesacs that only go a few lots then turn around and back out. Eventually taking every right turn available will bring you back to your starting place without missing much if anything.

It rained yesterday while we were out touring and it rained off and on all night. We took the other route out to I70 than we came in on, from the west. It is not quite as good of a road, but it is closer and puts up about 15 miles farther east when we get to I70. That is how we will go Friday when we head for Godfrey, IL.

Today, the sky cleared and the sun was out by noon and resulted in a quite nice day. I think tomorrow we will go to Kingdom City and see what is there.

We are in Independence, MO in the process of recovering from the day working the Ararat Hamfest. It was a really busy day. The public was in at 8am but we got started about 7:30 and worked constantly until 12:30. They had the mail prize drawing at noon and we were still behind at that time but caught up as people were leaving.

We traveled from Branson to the town of Tightwad, MO to the Hickory Hollow Resort located on an arm of land in the Truman Reservoir. This is a winding body of water that winds around the hills and valleys of this part of the state.

We set up at the hamfest on Friday afternoon. They have a very nice facility at the Shrine temple that has their own radio club and station. They are located on a hill above a lot of the surrounding city, a great place for a tower and antennas.

Tomorrow, we will work our way east in preparation for our next hamfest in Godfrey, IL, a little town north of St. Louis.

After spending more than a week in Hardy, AR in the city RV park next to the Spring River we left yesterday morning.

We have been having trouble with our house batteries running down overnight when boondocking. So, we stopped by the local Walmart to have them checked. They both checked good according to their checker. Not sure what the problem is, but will have to do some further checking.

We headed north toward our next hamfest in Kansas City, MO. We stopped in Branson for a couple of nights at the Escapees park, Turkey Creek RV Park. It is located on Turkey Creek very near to where it empties into Lake Tanycomo.

Today we toured the old town of Branson. It is still a lot like other small towns in the area, built on the side of a hill with nothing level or very convenient. However, what can you expect when you settle in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. The newer part of Branson is still a bit rough in terrain but it is saturated with many theaters and restaurants as well as all kinds of entertainment opportunities. It is very much a tourist attraction with many stars having their own theater as well as eating establishments. Traffic was not very bad today as the tourist season has not yet started.

We enjoyed our tour with a stop at the dam that created lake Table Rock. It is quite a large dam and is used for flood protection on the White River which used to flood regularly and cause lots of damage downstream.

We will leave tomorrow and spend the night somewhere between here and Kansas City and them go to the hamfest site on Friday and set up in the afternoon. After the hamfest is over on Saturday afternoon we will head toward Godfey, IL for the next week end.

Our trip to Memphis was uneventful and we had a good show at the Hamfest. We had an opportunity to set up on Friday afternoon, so all we had to do the next morning was to uncover and hook up the computer and go to work. We went back to the Sams club to spend Saturday night as it was quiet and there were no campgrounds in the area. Sunday we got under way about 10:30 and headed for Hardy, AR, our next destination. We are at the City park/campground on the Spring river. The park has recently re-opened after the flood a couple of years ago. The Volunteer Fire Department has taken on the care of the park and apparently will receive the proceeds for the maintenance of the area. The cost is usually $20.00/night but when we asked for a weekly rate, the fellow made a phone call and then said for a week or more it would be $15.00/night. We will be here until a week from tomorrow which will let us get some things done and then head for Kansas City, MO on Tuesday. We will probably stop in Branson, MO at the Escapees park for a couple of days to check it out. Our photos were taken on the trip from Memphis to Hardy in the high wind conditions. I would estimate the wind at 30+ mph with gusts near 40mph. It was certainly a challenging drive, only about 140 miles, but a tiring drive. The photo of the bridge is across the Mississippi at Memphis. The other two are of a train we passed loaded with coal and you can see the coal being blown out of the cars by the high wind. Not sure how fine the coal was, but they were losing a lot of it along the way.

We are currently in Poinsett State Park near Harrisburg, AR. We arrived yesterday afternoon and will be here until Friday morning when we will go to Memphis, TN for the Amateur Radio gathering (Hamfest). We will set up on Friday afternoon for the show on Saturday. Sunday we will be off toward Kansas City, MO for a hamfest next Saturday. Our good friends Jim and Polly West came by for a visit and we decided to go out to dinner at a new restaurant here in Harrisburg. It is a small town and Polly was born and raised here until she graduated from High School. We had a very nice meal and some more visiting. It had been two years since we had seen them. It was getting late and we did not have our visit out so we decided to have lunch today at another of the fine restaurants here in town. I had some delicious fish with all the trimmings and I think we finally got our visiting done, at least it settled down to a light roar with a promise to be back next year for another visit if we do the same show circuit. It is always nice to visit with old friends and keep up on their comin's and goins' as they say here in the south.

Here are the photos for a prior blog of the campground for sale. Sorry, but I have been having problems getting the photos with the proper blog.

We are back on the road again. We had a slow day at the Hanging Judge Hamfest, but we made the usual amount, just a lot of time waiting on some business. All in all, a pretty good day. We spent Friday night and Saturday night in the parking lot at the KofC where the hamfest was held. Today, we moved to Conway, AR for the night. The road, I40 was in pretty good condition but the wind was a bit to handle and stay in one lane. Tomorrow it is on toward Kinsett, AR for the night and then on to Lake Poinsette State Park on Tuesday night and dinner with friends from Cherokee Village. The photos are of the Lakeside RV park which is for sale for only $249,000. Looks like a good buy to me, but we are not ready to settle down for a commitment like that. Things are warming up in this part of the country. It was in the 80's today and it is supposed to be windy tonight, maybe some storms. The weather radio says it will be near freezing on Monday night in the north east part of the state. Sounds like spring weather to me. I am doing better and back to driving without any difficulty, just not able to do the 3 and 4 hour stretches of days gone by but able to handle the job.