Take Me To The Fair

But before we begin, let's have a word about our host. This blog is hosted by Blogger, a Google product. They've left this site become rather outdated in that the format is fixed. If you view it on a larger screen device like a computer or tablet, it looks like it should. Anything smaller, like a phone or small tablet and it breaks down completely. Pictures don't scale down, (and pictures are a a fundamental component of the post,) and text doesn't reformat. That makes it really crappy to read on the go. The software does give me the ability to code in HTML, but, do I really wanna do that? If I wanted to do programming, I'd a kept working. Perhaps over the winter I'll experiment with a different host or two. Maybe I'll buy a case of 32 oz energy drinks and write a template.

Another item I'd like to address deals with comment. Time was, if a reader left me a comment, I'd be notified. Today... NOPE, no mas. I'm pretty PO'd about that. Now I have to go out and view my own posts to see if anyone commented, so I apologize if I don't respond to your comments in a timely fashion. LAME!

Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

One of the reasons we like staying off the interstates, preferring instead state and county roads, is that we get to experience a lot of the real America that just isn’t very abundant along the fast lane. We route completely around cities whenever we can. 

One of many small, local businesses; gone forever 

Small towns and rural communities are an endangered species. Life is slower, people are friendly, conversations are easy. We wanna experience these unique places before they disappear. 

There’s a lot of character that you find when you get away from the urban sprawl dominated by national fast food and eatery chains, big box retailers, lube, muffler and brake franchises, and tract home subdivisions. 

We spent a night in such a small town, one that has a municipal fairground where you can rent an RV campsite with full hookups. You just go to the township office, pay a nominal fee and go to the campground. If the office isn’t open, there’s a guy who’ll come along at some point and you pay him. If he don’t come along there’s a dropbox you can put your fee in. Total honor system.

Not a McDonalds in sight

When we got into town, the office was closed. Everyone must have gone to the new Mexican restaurant that was scheduled to open that day. We’d learned about that during our ½ hour conversation we had with a gal in the township office when we called to make our reservation. Like I said earlier, people are friendly and conversations are easy… 

Great River Road Campground

Anyway, we proceeded to the campground, where there was a row of campsites to choose from, all of them empty. 

We began setting up, and were nearly done when an older man on an ATV came by. This was the guy who collects the fee for the campsite. I bet we shot the breeze for an hour! We talked about the campground, the fairground, the kinds of events that took place there, and some of the campers he’s met over the years including one guy who comes every October in his truck camper for the whole hunting season. He stays till Christmas. We talked about Texas, his original home state, and Illinois where we currently were. It was a really nice time.

The grain elevators were busy day and night... Harvest 

This was one of a series of one-nighters that we planned to get us out of the cold and into warmer Southwest Missouri, but what a great example of why we like to travel the smaller highways and byways of this great land we call The United States of America.