Is this cheating? (HH/BW Challenge Series)

Our third week of the Harvest Hosts/Boondockers Welcome Challenge had begun, and it was time for us to get serious about heading towards Indiana, our final state. There, we would end our challenge and prepare for a long couple of weeks of getting our RV serviced.

We made our way back north, towards the I-70 corridor, planning our stays around a couple of priorities:
1. We had one must-stop Harvest Host before we left Illinois
2. We needed to settle ourselves somewhere near civilization so Anthony could time the delivery of his new laptop to a FedEx drop location. Yeeaahhh, remember when he needed a new laptop charger? Turns out that didn't work, and he needs an entirely new laptop.

We had visited many really nice locations east of St. Louis, but we decided to not return to any of them. We would rather not repeat locations when there are other options nearby. And so, for Monday May 6, we booked a stay at Iron Saddle Ranch, a place that had appeared in our research many times, but that hadn't yet made the cut. Up until this point, it had been a tad eastward of where we were roaming around, but this place was known to have lots of parking and lots to do.

Iron Saddle Ranch, Salem, IL

We didn't plan this overnight at the right time. On Mondays, nothing is really going on. The restaurant/saloon are closed and no events are happening. The ranch holds rodeos, but they weren't starting until later in May, and again, they wouldn't be on Mondays anyway. We had missed the memo on the restaurant not being open. The reason why we came here was because there was another nearby location that also wasn't open Mondays, and so we bumped that place to Tuesday and chose to stay here Monday. At least here, the gift shop was open. They sell lots of farm supplies, but also western-style clothes, jewelry, and some gift items such as candles and lotions. We chatted with the cashier for a while. She was a rodeo queen herself, and we shared stories of our travels around the country, her with the rodeo and us with our own kind of horse and buggy. We told her that we attended our first rodeo last year out in Wyoming.

We got to take a look at the restaurant area, which has a mechanical bull and a separate room for "video games" (in Illinois, this is code for gambling).

Outside, we walked to the other side of the ranch to see the horses and cows. The ranch began as a trailer dealer and then grew into what it is today, but trailers are still sold there. The Harvest Host parking spots are anywhere in the lot, which means we park among the horse trailers and other equipment. It's definitely the less picturesque side of the property. The other side, where the animals are, has a pond. The parking side has the interstate.

The highway noise was loud, but we don't really mind it as long as trucks aren't constantly engine braking. Thankfully here, it was a flat stretch of road. The biggest downside to this location was probably the smell of "horse aroma" wafting through the air. It's weird to say because we've obviously stayed on many farms, but for some reason, despite the horses being all the way across the property, this odor was pungent. It posed a problem for us because we needed to keep our windows open to let some of the breeze in, or else things got really sticky.

via GIPHY

Day after day, we battled insane humidity, with levels reaching close to 100% most nights, and levels in the 70s and higher during the day. Whenever we were blessed with sun, we also got heat. When we had no sun, we usually had storms. This has been the Midwest's 5th hottest year on record – not something we had expected for our challenge. We found ourselves missing the days of boondocking across Wyoming because at least that was dry heat! But in some weird way, that challenge prepared us for this one, and we kept plugging along.

I had trouble sleeping that night, and after drifting in and out for several hours, I woke up at 6AM feeling anxious. I was going to try and go back to sleep for a little while, but first I checked the weather.

We had known that storms might be coming through. That's why we chose a gravel parking spot once again. However, the tornado watch was unexpected. Sometimes places issue one automatically whenever a storm is in the vicinity, but to us, it's a reminder to make sure we have our escape plan in place.

Only, we had no escape plan here. We were hitched up, and the only shelter on the property was closed until 9AM. I began to wonder why we had lowered our guard. This season has been out of control for tornadoes, and we just happened to be avoiding them, sometimes by the skin of our teeth. We certainly shouldn't think we're home-free. Just as I sat contemplating this, the skies opened, and heavy rain started pouring down. Lightning flashed directly overhead, immediately followed by crashing thunder. I checked the radar, which was looking mightily colorful.

Our rule of thumb is usually, when we're issued a tornado watch, we make sure we know where we can take shelter if needed, and then we just keep an eye on things. Usually, a shelter is nearby, so we don't need to go anywhere. This time, because we had no shelter, it was the first time we seriously thought about moving somewhere else. Then the heavy rains started making large ruts and puddles in the gravel, and some parts of the gravel were washing away and becoming muddy. We could only imagine the worst-case scenario: The storm overhead begins to rotate, we get tornado warned, but we're hitched and now it's too muddy to get out towing. It sounds like a near-impossibility, but we've experienced similar before.

Now Anthony was awake and had sprung into action, tackling his packing checklist "just in case" we decided to go somewhere. Only, where were we going to go at 6:30AM in a thunderstorm?! There were no Home Depots or Lowe's, aka pet-friendly stores that open early. There was a rest area down a few miles on I-57, but Maps was showing red traffic near the ramp, and we didn't want to take up spots that trucks might need.

I had an idea. The day before, I was searching for nearby laundromats because we were quickly creating a pile of sweat- and rain-drenched clothes and towels. On the map, I saw a place called uCamp Express pop up near the laundromat, and I tapped on it to see what it was. It was a small RV park, self-service and first-come, first-served. I did some research to see if we could possibly dump there, and while there was no dump station, the website said "dumping service available at vacant sites," so I assumed that meant we could pull into a site and dump. Anthony and I also wondered if it would be worth the price to stop there for the day and regroup, but we hadn't made any definitive decisions.

Now in our time of forced decision-making, I thought about uCamp. Granted, there would be no shelter there either, but we could pull into a spot, unhitch, and if the weather turned, drive up the street somewhere. At least we would be only a minute away from plenty of options. And, since it was so early, maybe we could swing the price for a night but only use it for the day. This was all assuming that a spot would even be available for us.

We decided to go. We still had an hour before the tornado watch would expire, and the stress of being sitting ducks was getting to be too much. We needed to feel like we had an emergency plan. We finished packing and left the lot, passing by the other RV that had spent the night. As far as we could tell, they were still asleep, likely unaware of anything that was going on.

About 10 minutes later, we arrived to uCamp, where only 3 sites were occupied. We chose a site and pulled in. At this point, we had lots of reasons for paying the full price. We could spend the day there, and if the weather didn't clear and we needed to stay, we already had our site. Even just spending the day would end up being about 9 hours, which isn't even much less than some overnights. Plus, we could use all the resources. We could dump, flush, and fill. We could each take a long shower (and by "each," we mean both us and Lily). We could use the electric to charge up our batteries. They even had high-speed WIFI so we could do work. We could run our errands unhitched – go throw in laundry and then grab the groceries we needed. We could park somewhere where no one would bother us and we wouldn't be in anyone's way. Most importantly, we had an escape plan from here and felt safe. This was a worthy investment.

How much, you ask? It was $55 for the night, and even though we arrived at 7AM, our ticket was still valid until 11AM the following day. That price is about average for full hookups, but a bit steep for a "day price." Granted, we did recently shell out $40 for a pool pass without even batting an eye. And this would be in place of a dump fee and the generator we would undoubtedly have needed to run later that day. All that said, the registration office did say that non-guests could just dump for $10, in a specific site. If staff had been there when we arrived, we're sure we could have asked if it would be okay to just park there for a while, and maybe they would have given us a discount since the place was so empty. But this way, we wouldn't feel rushed about leaving, and we felt like we could use as many of their services as we needed.

The park is somewhat close to the interstate, but nothing compared to where we had just been! We actually really liked this little place. Each site had an adorable picnic table and a chiminea, and wood was provided at the office. There was a community firepit, restrooms, and a small dog park. Certainly not brimming with amenities, but the ones it did have were done well. We also weren't sure how well-managed the place would be considering it was self-serve, but staff did pop in and out throughout the day. Guests are allowed to stay up to 2 weeks in one site and can move sites for additional time, so we imagine this could be a good option if someone was working in the area temporarily. Otherwise, it's a great stop for a night or two.

Soon, the weather cleared up, and the forecast was saying we were in the clear for the rest of the day. But, we stuck around until about 5PM. All of the RVs that were there when we arrived left, and for most of the day, we had the entire park to ourselves.

We had a productive day. We charged our batteries and dumped our tanks. We took luxurious showers that were beyond needed after days of stickiness. We ran our errands and got caught up on work. I took my harps out of their cases to check on them. Humidity has been unpleasant for us, but it can cause damage to harps, so I've mostly been keeping them in their travel cases where they're better insulated.

A couple overnighters rolled in as we packed up to leave. The manager was there, so I let her know that we were taking off. That way, if anyone pulled into our site, she would know we weren't coming back.

So technically we stayed at an RV park during our Harvest Hosts challenge! But no, we did not end up overnighting there. However, once we got to our next Harvest Host, we found ourselves wishing we had just stayed at uCamp.