Bairnhess RV Adventures: MO Rain

Sunrise Beach, MO August 4 - 9, 2013

We left Oaktown, IN knowing we had a long drive ahead of us, but glad for the beautiful weather. The drive was completely uneventful until about 100 miles out and it started to rain. It started slowly and then was pouring. I slowed way down and made sure I had plenty of stopping room in front of us. It was raining so hard, the visibility was about 50 feet. A large motor home passed us in the fast lane going way to fast and tailgating the car in front of him. Not five minutes later, traffic came to a dead stop as there was a 10 car pile up including the motor home that had passed us. Luckily I had barely enough room to stop. We sat at in park for about 20 minutes as the wrecked vehicles all moved themselves out of one lane of traffic. We went by before any emergency vehicles had arrived. So scary.

We continued our drive in the rain following our GPS on a couple of very windy, narrow roads to get to Sunrise Beach on the Lake of the Ozarks. We reached a confusing intersection of two gravel roads and chose the wrong direction. Our GPS quickly adjusts to get us back on track by having us make a couple of turns on tiny, gravel roads that we are not sure we can even fit on. One turn is a hard left and straight up a gravel road and remember it has been raining. It goes up and over a hill and the downhill is worse with big gullies in the road that I try to not get Suni stuck in. We make it back to the road we were supposed to be on and let out a big exhale. We are almost to the RV park when we reach another confusing intersection, not labeled and again make a wrong turn! UGH really? Peg has just about had it with me by this point. Nadine again quickly adjusts with some more gravel road turns. At one point we come around a corner and it looks like a dead end, but thankfully it isn't. But we do have to go up a very wet, gravel uphill. We start to slip backwards almost immediately, so I throw her in to 4 wheel drive and creep up the hill with Suni dutifully following behind. We just went four-wheeling with a forty foot, 15,000 pound house! OMG. We finally arrive at the Peaceful Valley RV park, which we thankfully have almost to ourselves.

We spent a fabulous four days at Pat and Carol's new lake house on the Lake of the Ozarks with my niece Melissa and her five, count 'em five, beautiful daughters. Our first night we had a fun dinner for twelve as Tom and Paula (Mo and G'pa Tom) were visiting as well. The entire week had rain in the forecast, but it cooperated nicely by raining at night. The thunderstorms were amazing. We had a great time swimming, boating and riding the wave runners as well as catching up with these fabulous people. The lake is beautiful and reminds me of the early days of Lake Travis when there was actually water. We drove to Coconuts one night where Pat treated us to a lakeside dinner with a great view.

The oldest daughter, Hannah is getting ready to start high school and has her driver's license.... where did the time go?