Thursday 4-10-25 33MPH Winds, Laundry & Crowder State Park

 

Windy Day

 

We had a very strong wind all day. The weather people said the wind was 33 mph. It wasn't gust up to 33 mph, that was the actual wind speed. 

We had a very nice night at Sparrowfoot Campground on Harry S. Truman Lake. I woke up at 7:00 and got dressed. Then we had bagels for breakfast. After breakfast we put things away and made sure they were securely in place. I put a cooler together. Our next destination is Crowder State Park, which is 150 miles away. We were ready to go by 8:15.

Some of the Missouri State Parks (Crowder is one of them) don't turn their water on until Tuesday 4/15/25 so Larry filled the water tank with water yesterday. On the way out of Sparrowfoot Campground we stopped at the dump station and dumped the tanks. We also got rid of our trash.

The drive today was mainly a four lane divided highway. The last 45 miles we drove a two lane highway through small towns. Along the way we saw fields of beautiful lavender flowers. We also saw cattle, a donkey, horses, farms and ranches. 

About 35 miles in the drive we stopped at South Side Suds Laundromat to do laundry. It was one of the dirtiest laundromats we have used, there was laundry detergent all over machines, the garbage can was over flowing, the floors were filthy and clothing items were everywhere. There were five machines out of order. We found an old top load machine to wash one load of clothes for $2.00 and a front-loader for $3.25. The front-loader didn't work correctly. I pushed the button for warm water and it would only do hot water. This was ok because I didn't have anything that would shrink or run. The washers did a great job of washing. It took about 34 minutes. We used one dryer I put $1.00 of quarters for 40 minutes at medium heat. The clothes came out dry. The machines worked good but the place was a mess. We have been to many laundromats in our travels but I think this may be the worse one on being clean. Larry read reviews on South Side Suds and a lot of them mentioned it was dirty. The owner responded to the reviews so he knows that this is a problem.

After doing laundry we had a sandwich and chips for lunch before continuing our adventure. The wind was blowing very strong the rest of the way. The direction it was coming from made it very difficult to drive the Minnie. Larry fought it the whole way. We stopped once on the highway because they were laying blacktop. It wasn't too long and it was a short distance and a pilot truck took us through the area. It took us a long time to get to Crowder State Park because Larry couldn't drive more than 45 or 50 mph.

We arrived at Crowder State Park about 2:00 and found our site, which was #20. The site is a drive thru with power. It's very nice. Larry wasn't sure what we were getting, we prefer arriving and choosing a site but because the weekend was coming the parks were filling up so he decided to make a reservation. On the website they only have one picture and it's not too good. The campground is small but very nice. It has a lot of trees. It does have a few sites with full hook-ups. The only down fall is they only have one pit toilet with two doors for 42 sites. They do have a restroom with running water and showers but it is closed until Tuesday when the season begins. 

Camping at Crowder State Park

 

After relaxing a little bit about 4:00 we walked around to find the two trailheads that are located in the campground. We walked around for about 20 minutes. They have over 17 miles of hiking, bicycling, backpacking and equestrian trails in the park. That is why Larry decided to come here for the weekend. 

When we got back we had dinner, which was left-overs. After dinner I walked around for an hour and fifteen minutes to get my steps. My goal is 12,000 steps per day. By the end of the day I had gotten 13,046 steps. I made my goal. My new fitness band still amazes me, it tracks all kinds of things, is easy to use and looks great. I even used it to set a alarm when doing laundry.

I did my Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Two Game Tango Mini of 10 games (5 Klondike and 5 Pyramid). It took me 54 minutes and 57 seconds to complete, which put me in 21st place in my group. Then I played Angry Birds.

Larry started another book.

Relaxing with a book