Goodbye, Cruisemaster!

Living full-time in an RV agreed with Menominee and me, but Cruisemaster, our faithful RV, wasn't designed for full-time living and, at only 22 feet long, was really too small for us. So I dreamed about a bigger RV.

I shopped at used RV dealers but didn't see anything I really liked, until, at a dealer in Louisiana, I found an RV that would fit all our needs. The asking price was way out of our price range, but some haggling brought it down to something we could afford, and suddenly we had bought it! This 34-foot Allegro was ours!

We drove off, delirious with happiness for our new home. We learned to drive this humongous beast by trial and error, mostly error. For example, when the right rear wheels went off the road and were hanging in the air, we learned to allow plenty of room for right-hand turns. When we bashed the tail lights out of a parked car as we backed up, we learned that what's happening back there, 34 feet behind the driver, is very important. And when we scraped against a car at a gas station, we learned that what worked OK with Cruisemaster could be disastrous with Allegro. Much learning needed.

We toured the Gulf Coast from Louisiana across Mississippi and Alabama to the Florida panhandle, until it was time to head north. We followed Spring across Mississippi and bits of Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas, up through Missouri and Iowa. In Missouri we stopped in Hannibal, Samuel Clemens' home town on the Mississippi River, and in Iowa we visited Luther College, a lovely liberal arts college in Decorah. When we finally reached Minnesota, we had seen green grass, blossoming flowers, and young calves in the fields all the way.