May 26, 2024 - June 9, 2024 -- Cottonwoods Campground, Columbia, MO to St. Louis KOA, MO
Written By: Wendy
After a stressful night where we narrowly escaped the path of a tornado by sheer luck of where we were (read the Arkansas post for more details), we weren't exactly thrilled about having a travel day. Luckily, we thought it would be a pretty easy 4 hour drive, and it was sunny skies in the morning. Scott drove the first half, and I offered to take over about half way after a gas stop. He looked at the radar and saw some rain in the forecast, so he decided to keep driving since I was still becoming comfortable with towing. About 20 minutes later, I saw a black shelf of clouds coming quickly towards us from the west. Yikes, that did not look good. We both started to panic, wandering if we should pull over and where. It wasn't exactly easy to just pull over with our 33 ft trailer. I was frantically looking at my phone for a place for us to pull over when I looked up, and the sky was pitch black and not a single car was on the road when only moments before the road was fairly full. "Uh-oh," I said to Scott, "where is everyone? We're doing something wrong!" And as I said that another alert starting blaring on our phones for softball size hail and to take cover immediately. Seconds later, we heard a thunk! thunk! thunk! as the softball hail was hitting the roof of our truck. I spotted a covered parking area next to a building that a few other cars were idling under. I shouted to Scott to go there, NOW! He made a wide turn and cut across 4 lanes of traffic, but luckily the road was empty. We raced under the covered part. Only our truck would fit under, and we left the trailer out in the hail, but luckily it would protect our windshield from being broken. It only lasted a few minutes, and about as quickly as it started, the hail stopped and the sky started to lighten. We assessed the damage, a few dents on the roof of our truck, but luckily no broken solar panels on our RV. We still had another 2 hours, so we continued driving. About 30 minutes later, once again the skies darken and torrential rains dumped down. Scott couldn't see the road, so we had to pull over until the rain slowed. Eventually it slowed, so we continued on. Our 4 hour day turned into 7.5 hours on the road, and we were beyond exhausted with frayed nerves when we pulled into our campsite at 7:30pm. Luckily, our friends are the best, and David dropped dinner off at our campsite. We were beyond grateful that we made it out of the past 24 hours unscathed and for good friends who were looking out for us. We hoped that the midwest storms would be nicer to us from here on out.
Columbia was the start of our midwest tour of family and friends that would last for the next 2 months. The rest of our time in Columbia was spent exploring all our friends favorite places. The Herds travel part time, so they still have a house in Columbia. We went over the next day, and upon entering their house, I realized that it was the first time we'd stepped foot in a house in 4 months! We enjoyed the extra space and the fenced in backyard to let the kids roam free in. We traded off going on date nights and guys and girls nights. We toured the local playgrounds, went for a hike to a cave, and kayaked through Finger Lakes State Park. It was a lovely week spent with great friends.
On our last day, it was their younger son's third birthday, and what better way to celebrate than with a pizza party? Heather sent out an open invitation to their neighborhood, and we made pizzas all afternoon at their community pool. We got to meet many of their neighbors, many of whom they hadn't even met yet. We gave their neighborhood a way to connect and meet other neighbors that afternoon. Some neighbors brought root beer floats to contribute or an extra table or paper plates. We love nothing more than being that catalyst that brings a community to together and provide people with an opportunity to slow down and enjoy each other's company and meet a new friend.
We had plans to meet up with the Herds again at the end of July and spend 3.5 months traveling together, so as we drove away the next morning, it was not good-bye, but see you later. From Columbia, we headed to St. Louis to see Scott's brother and his family for a week. We were excited to see family, and they had two kids around the same age as our kids, just a bit younger. Parker was sad to leave his buddies, but he was excited to see his cousins. St. Louis was another whirlwind week of seeing all the sights and soaking up the precious family time playing with cousins.
Parker's favorite day in St. Louis was when we went to The Magic House, a children's museum. It is an amazing kid's museum with all the necessary children's museum rooms of a grocery store, bubble room, fishing in a creek, mechanic's shop, pizza parlor, construction site, and baby nursery. Caroline spent most of her time in the baby nursery and play house, cooking, doing laundry and feeding her baby. There were only little girls in this section, and I was shocked by how the gender norms were already so glaringly present. But Caroline did not want to leave this space, and Parker was bored after 5 minutes. Nature or nurture, who knows? Parker enjoyed all the spaces, but when we saw the huge stage on the bottom floor, he knew this was the space that was built for him. There was a booth in the back for kids to work the spotlights, sound effects, and background. He did not want anything to do with the backstage, he was made for center stage. He dressed himself in a full knight's costume and took center stage, acting out scene after scene for us until it way past when we said we would leave by. Later that night at dinner, Parker said, "Mom, why didn't the kid that was doing the spotlight put it on me more? I just wanted the spotlight on me the whole time!" Oooh Parker, what insight you gave us into your future there! Scott and I had a good laugh over that.
We finished out our time in St. Louis with a 50 pies party at his brother's house. They invited some friends and neighbors and turned on sprinklers and water toys for the kids on the hot early summer day. Once again, Scott cranked out pizzas while I passed out gooey butter pies, a nod to the classic St. Louis gooey butter cake. We chatted with new friends and caught up with some old friends of theirs who we hadn't seen since Scott's brother's wedding. And with that, we said our good-byes the next day and headed north to continue our midwest summer tour of family and friends.