Day 4: Dayton, OH to St. Louis, MO

We left Dayton around 8:45 am Wed June 15 and headed west to St. Louis.  We left in windy, cold conditions and drove into a big thunderstorm.  Close to Indianapolis, we saw spectacular lightning in the distance.  Because the ground was so flat and open fields, we could see the lightning starting high in the sky and then touch the ground.  It was neat to see but we did turn on the weather radio and stopped to check the radar.  Of course the girls and I had to make a pit stop and got soaked running to and from the rest area!  A few hours later the storm passed (we moved west) and the sky cleared and by the end of the day it was mid 80’s and sunny. 

We drove into the St. Louis KOA (actually still in Granite City, IL) around 4:45pm.  The campground is located in an industrial park and is not very pretty at all but will suit our purposes.  The girls and I swim in the pool while Scott rested and unhooked.  We had a great dinner and then took in the playground, complete with jumping pillow.  Scott spent a lot of time helping Lexi  highlight her map and showed her where we will be going.  Exciting.

Going into the truck stops to get gas has been a learning experience.  The trucks line up for diesel and Scott follows.  He has to go into the store to “authorize” his credit card and then once he pumps gas, we move ahead and he goes back in to the store to pay.  This morning his credit card would not work so he had to use his debit card.  Come to find out his credit card was shut down because they thought these fuel purchases were fraudulent charges.  A phone call cleared this up.  Some of these trucks are putting $700 plus worth of fuel in the tanks at a time.

Still in a good mood after driving the rig!

Scott has been rating the states on their roads and we had a horrible experience on Indiana roads today.  They were just very bumpy and caused a lot of stuff to shift in the camper.  Illinois and Ohio roads have been great.  It is pleasant to drive all day and not have to pay a TOLL.  I liked the NY rest areas because they were gas and rest stops combined but all the other states have separate rest areas from gas stations.  We have found the Next Exit book Scott gave me for Christmas to be very helpful.   I use it to find out where the diesel truck stops are well in advance so we know where to get fuel.

It is amazing how late the sun sets here.  The further west we go, we notice the difference and I am sure the approaching summer equinox is making daylight go longer too.  Of course today we passed into the Central Time Zone near the Indiana/Illinois border.  We had a debate if there would be road signs to mark where the time change happened.  There were no markers and the only way we knew were our cell phones changed times. 

Road Ratings

NH      A

VT       B+

NY      B

PA       A

OH      B+

IN        C-

IL        A