October 20, 2013. That's All Folks.

 

 

 

October 20, 2013.  That's All Folks.  The first picture is of a cotton patch, near Sikeston.  It is a different strain of cotton than that I picked as a boy.  Then, the stalks were taller with fewer bolls on each stock.  Today, cotton is picked with machines.  There is no dragging a cotton sack along rows which never end.  Three cents a pound is what I was paid.  "Pick a hundred pounds of cotton boy, take home three dollars," the farmer said.  What I do today isn't hard at all. 

I have given you a couple more barns to go with the scores I have already given you over the last several years.  Finally, there are several pictures from our campground on the banks of Lake Taneycomo.  Harvey is sandwiched between two behemoth RVs.  I suspect that if Harvey has feelings, he would feel proud to be in that lineup.

So, we are in Branson for a few days, then we will return home.  This will be the last blog entry for this trip.  By the time we get home, we will have traveled about 4300 miles, crossed 18 states, used about 315 gallons of regular gas.   The most expensive gas was in upstate New Hampshire where I paid $3.69.  The cheapest was in Missouri where I paid $2.96 in Sikeston.  Our average mileage has been slightly over 14 MPG. We have been out about 22 days.  We will be home before the week is out.  The total length of the trip will be less than four weeks.   

That will be it for this trip.  The trip has been what I expected in some ways and disappointing in others.  We made the big loop I envisioned at the beginning.   The Blue Parkway part of the trip was disappointing in that we were locked out of Shenandoah National Park and 100 miles of the Skyline Drive part of the Parkway.  We were also ahead of the color change in Virginia and North Carolina.  But, all in all, we've had fun.  Maybe we'll try it again sometime.  For now, that's all folks.