Today is October 20, 2010 7:36 a.m.

Day 20 was Sept. 23, 2010

We woke up in Kansas City, Missouri.
The temperature was 72 degrees.
Odometer reading 29,910
Elevation  a mere 935 feet.

My apologies to any readers who have grown sick of hearing about our trip.  We are truly on the home stretch run, now.  I barely have had any time to blog; well, I could blog, but then other things in my life would go neglected, and the Holy Spirit has been convicting me lately not to let those other things go neglected.  And so, now you understand, and hopefully will forgive my slowness to complete the trip journal.  Indeed, I have plenty of other things going on that I could be blogging about as well.

So, we left the Worlds of Fun RV Park (what we came to call "Wally World", as the World was closed for the season) and headed south and east toward Illinois.  Little did we know that the entire eastern part of the country was experiencing a heat wave, but from this day on, every day would end up in the 90s during the afternoon.

I have to say we did enjoy exploring this RV park even though there weren't many visitors there.  We checked out the other RVs and the vacation cabin area, and played a bit of air hockey.  Did a load of laundry, too.  I do enjoy the RV lifestyle; every stop is different.  No, we don't have an actual RV, but Self-Reliant Man has equipped our passenger van so that we can sleep comfortably inside, among other real RVs in RV parks, and we didn't have to go into debt to do this.  Besides, it is the fact of these van modifications that has enabled us to make this trip at all.  It has made going cross country affordable.  RV parks run much cheaper than hotels; their prices per night vary from $20 to $45, and we can pack and eat our own food as much as we want.  We have been living out of a cooler and food storage box, and doing laundry every five days.  We have also visited all four seasons on this trip.  Temperatures ranged from 31 degrees to the mid 90s, so we packed everything from shorts to winter coats.

The drive on this day was uneventful, just crossing Missouri, for the most part, and in mid-afternoon we arrived at the Marion Campground and RV Park in Marion, Illinois.  It was a nice, newer campground, and the owner lady was very nice to us, giving us a big break on the price and providing candy, coffee, and water bottles for free.  Her name was Julie and she said she was originally from Wyoming.  She had a small dog that she was training very carefully to be well socialized around people, and our children always love to interact with other people's dogs.  Anyway, Julie made us feel very welcome at this clean, well-situated campground, and we enjoyed playing in the playground and playing cards out on the picnic table until after dark.  I must add, though, that this was one evening where my body realized how tired it really was, and Breezy Point Mom had to take a rare break from it all and doze on the futon.  ZZZZ..

Hanging out at Marion Campground, Marion, Illinois.

Best friends hanging out together on the monkey bars.

As an aside, I must mention that Chips and Sweet Girl played on a lot of outdoor play equipment on this trip, including several monkey bars.  When they returned to their violin teacher, she reported that both of them had "grown" into a larger violin size.  Do you suppose there is any connection?