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IMPRESSIONS: Let me first mention the country towns. Many towns hidden away in the hollows were in a depressed state. Whole downtowns were boarded up. The luckier towns would have economic activity on the outskirts of town along the highways feeding into or bypassing the town.
There were exceptions. Mountain View was a genuine QT. It was a beautiful artsy tourist town complete with antique shops, art galleries, fun little eateries and pubs, plenty of floral landscaping, and an Ozark Folk Center dedicated to preserving the heritage of the Ozark people.
Marshall was another lovely town. Although not as quaint as Mountain View, it had a modern vibrancy. And it had a decent laundromat.
The oddest thing we continued to experience throughout the Ozarks was the Mom 'N' Pop Mexican restaurants. In many towns, the very best restaurant, and sometimes the only one, was Mexican family-owned and operated restaurants with genuine sensational Mexican cuisine, giant margaritas the size of bathtubs, and fast, modern WiFi.
This is the heart of the hardcore bible-belt. An evangelical church of some denomination, adorn with long colorful names, stood about every mile apart. These churches could be in a converted barn or a double-wide trailer, but more often than not, a church was the only well-maintained building, especially in the depressed little towns. Someday, I would like to attend a service to experience this chunk of Americana - an anthropological study.
The countryside scenery was amazing. The Ozark Mountains are small for mountains, but they are too big to be called hills. The weather in the Ozarks in late October and through most of November was a perfect way to extend our Fall season.
When it was finally time to return home in early December, we had to drain the water and high-tail it back to Wisconsin. We hit snow in northern Illinois. After a short midnight nap at a wayside, we drove straight through. The heater in our RV worked, but it only put out lukewarm air. It struggled to keep up if the outside temperature went below 20º.
You might have noticed that we were on this trip in November 2016, during the 2016 presidential election. Yes, we voted absentee before we left on our trip. Down in the bible-belt, we noticed the elaborate signage for Trump. This was different from the usual election signage that accompanies all elections. It was far more amplified and very one-sided. During the whole time we were in the Ozarks, we only saw one Clinton sign, which was in front of a house in a deep hollow village with an old lady sitting on the porch in a rocking chair, smiling with a sense of knowing defiance.
EPILOGUE: So, did we ever have any more problems with the brakes? Kinda-sorta. About a year later, driving home from northern Wisconsin, I noticed one tire on my monitor was heating up. I stopped, and sure enough, that wheel's brakes were starting to smoke. Luckily, I was on a country road. I backed the rig up into a long gravel country driveway.
Here is where an old wive's tale kicked in. I had picked up somewhere that if you apply your brakes while backing up, it resets your calipers. I never believed it, but after backing up the rig into the driveway and letting the wheel cool down, I could drive it the rest of the way home without incident.
I consulted with my brother-in-law, Heinrich, about this intermittent brake problem. He told me his Mercedes RV does the same if his rig sits. His solution is to take his RV for a short drive every couple of weeks.
I started to do the same thing. However, I added some backing up to my "every-2-week-driving" regime. I never had another brake issue after that. Was it the biweekly drive? Was it the backing up? Was it both? Was it only coincidental, and the brakes were just about to lock up had we kept the RV longer? I'll never know. The success that we did have was only anecdotal evidence. I was happy that the guy who bought the RV was a mechanic.
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