St. Louis was HOT. Really hot, but we made the best of it.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, it would be easy to surmise that our life in the camper is all “popcorn and crackerjacks”, and that every venture works out great.  Yeah, not so.  And one of the biggest factors for us to deal with when we were in St. Louis, MO, was the weather.  And much like the rest of the country it was hot! Damn hot.  And when your life is spent living in a metal clad storage container with a king size bed, it can get even hotter.  Such was the case on our way to St Louis.

Our first boondocking was a “roasting” experience.  The term boondocking refers to staying for a night or two without using any resources from outside the camper.  No electricity to plug into, no municipal water supply, we are completely self-sufficient.  And our camper is well equipped to boondock for many nights.  We have a generator to power equipment, we have solar panels to keep the batteries charged and the lights on during the day, and we can carry 80 gallons of fresh water, for showers and preparing food, as well as another 5 gallons of water for drinking.  But what I didn’t know, I didn’t know - was that extreme heat can be a real problem for boondocking. 

And there we were, at a lovely Walmart parking lot in Terre Haute, IN just off interstate 70, on our way to St. Louis, MO.  The planning for this first boondocking stay had been done months earlier, as our trip had us passing through Indiana and Illinois on our way to Missouri. We were in a well-lit, flat parking lot, way out in the south-east corner with some grass in the parking lot median strip.  An easy location, we could even hear the frogs in the nearby stream.  All was well until the mercury hit 105 degrees.  We had no shade, we were in a dark black parking lot, and we just baked inside the camper.  We tried to cool down the camper by running the generator and turning on the AC.  We have two, and now I know why.  But we cannot run two AC units on generator power (another important tidbit of information), so we tried using only one AC unit, but it was just too hot.

What do you do when it’s 4:00 pm, its 105 degrees outside, and you’re temporarily situated in a rather large mall parking lot?  You go shopping in stores with abundant air conditioning. We strolled, quite leisurely, up and down the aisles, basically just wasting time, but staying cool. Besides a Walmart Supercenter store, there was a Kohls, a Panera Bread restaurant, and a shoe retailer, and we loitered as long as we could in the hopes that the setting sun would allow us to cool off the camper.  But it did not.  It was a very hot night, and it was difficult to sleep. I believe we had even gone back into the Walmart sometime around 7:30 pm or so, found a bench near the Prescription refill section, sat down for a spell, and played video games for an hour before returning to the camper after dark. (we called this the “Bundy” method for staying cool in reference to the TV series “Married with Children”.  Google it if you’re not familiar).  We survived. We showered the next morning, had some coffee, cleaned ourselves up, and set off for St Charles, MO, just outside of St. Louis.  Although it was hot in St. Louis, we were able to plug into “shore power”, at 100% capacity and were therefore able to run both AC units, and all was well.  Lesson learned.

In many ways our stay in St. Louis was really a mixed bag.  We had some one of a kind great experiences, and then there were the everyday kind of experiences that you really wish you would really not ever like to experience again.  Yet of course we will.   Let me take you, my fine reader, on the see-saw of life.

Absolutely, the most memorable happening was getting to St Louis and immediately being able to purchase tickets for Kansas as part of their 50^th anniversary tour, at the Fabulous Fox Theater.  The renovated theater only holds 4,500 people so this was a very intimate affair.  To be honest, Judy & I only knew like 5 of the most popular songs, but there were 4 original band members on the stage (not for the entire concert), and these guys were in the 70’s.  We bought the tickets at the box office, then scouted out a restaurant for dinner, and returned a day later for a wonderful night’s entertainment.

Absolutely the worst is seeing the “check engine” light come on again, for the third time this trip, which means that there is something wrong with the “Beast” and it needs to go to the dealership for repair.  Again!  And this time we were kind of stranded in or around our camper and vicinity for a couple of days.  Our camper is a hefty 16,500 pounds when fully loaded and the “Beast” absolutely needs to be in optimal working conditions.  “Check Engine” lights and reduced engine power means immediate attention is required.

Absolutely the best major city park I have ever visited is Forest Park in St Louis.  It’s a park that has miles of walking trails, at least 2 public golf courses, gardens, and a half dozen really good museums, which are totally free to visit.  Forest Park was the area used in the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, and this is an enormous park consisting of over 1,300 acres (Central Park in NY is only 840 acres).  We spent many days at the park walking the trails and gardens and going to the museums.  The Art Museum and the Missouri History Museum got much of our attention and were great attractions.

Absolutely sucks to get sick no matter where you are.  After flying back from visiting Judy’s parents in Florida, Steven caught a good head cold and was in the camper being sick for 2½ days.  Seems it’s not possible to avoid getting a cold, even in retirement, and the only perk is that Steven finally has an unlimited number of paid sick days (LOL).

How lucky we were to find one of those more “urban campsites”.  This was a new experience.  The site was almost entirely paved, with little grass patches, there were no fire rings at any of the campsites, and campsite fires were not permitted.  On the other hand, we were a mile’s walking distance from downtown St. Charles, which is northwest from St. Louis, and just across the Missouri River.  So when the truck was in for repair and we had no vehicle, we were still able to shop, find a restaurant, and otherwise experience an active urban area.

We were very disappointed that we were not able to use the tickets that we purchased to see the St. Louis Arch.  We now have “rain checks” to come back and experience the Arch at some time in the next year.  The tickets we bought in advance with the expectation that we would be able to go the Arch had to be cancelled unexpectedly when the “Beast” needed immediate mechanical repair.  Damn it!

Of course, as we pulled out of St. Louis, the weather started to turn more favorable as the heat wave finally broke in the Midwest.  And the next boondocking experience in a Walmart parking lot in Cedar Rapids, Iowa was way more pleasant, included a comfortable night’s rest, and a stop at the Dunkin’ Donuts which was walking distance from our camper.  We were heading north to Minnesota to find cooler weather on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River.   So, join with us as we continue our journey as we tell… the Rest of the Story..