There's a screened porch on this cabin, and right now it smells like charcoal, sunscreen and wet dog, because Rusty went off the dock twice today without asking anybody. It's Saturday night. Tina and her sister Renee are playing cards inside, Curtis is asleep in a chair with a fishing magazine on his chest, and I've got the receipts spread out on a picnic table under the porch light, because I can't help myself.
We drove down to Lake of the Ozarks Friday morning and head home tomorrow. Renee and Curtis came down from Lincoln, and we split a cabin on a quiet cove for two nights. It's the first trip the six of us have taken together since Thanksgiving at their place.
The drive
From the north end of St. Joseph it's about 223 miles to the cabin, so 446 round trip. That's I-29 south to Kansas City, then southeast on a mix of four-lane and two-lane highways through farm country and small towns until the hills start and the trees close in. Figure four hours with one stop.
We took the Sienna, of course. It's at about 202,500 miles now, three months past the 200,000-mile cake, and it ran like it had something to prove. The air conditioning compressor we replaced last June held 70 degrees inside with 91 outside and four people, a dog and a cooler. I'll admit I listened to that compressor more than I listened to the conversation.
Garrett came along. He started at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago and asked for the weekend off before his first shift, which his manager allowed, so he's on the schedule straight through next week to make up for it. He drove the first hour, down I-29 and through the north side of Kansas City traffic, and did fine. Tina rode in the back with Lainey and didn't say a word, which is the highest compliment she gives.
The whole receipt
Here's what the long weekend costs our family of four. The gas number includes the fill-up I'll make on the way home tomorrow, since I know the miles and roughly what the van will drink.
- Gas: $68 (446 miles, about 21.6 gallons at around $3.15)
- Cabin, our half of two nights with the cleaning fee: $310
- Cooler groceries from Hy-Vee before we left: $118
- Ice and a bag of charcoal at a gas station near the lake: $16
- Supper out tonight at a lakeside place, four of us: $84
Total: $596 for three days and two nights, or about $149 a person. For a lake vacation in June, I'll take that.
The van is averaging about 20.6 miles per gallon for the trip. That's a little below the 22 it usually does on a highway run. The hills and the two-lane stretches cost something, and so does running the air all the way. Still, $68 to move four people and a dog 446 miles works out to about 15 cents a mile, and splitting it four ways, less than four cents a person per mile. You couldn't do that any other way.
The real savings on this trip weren't in the van. They were in the cooler. We did breakfast and lunch at the cabin all three days, and Curtis and I split grilling duty for Friday supper. The one meal out was tonight, and it was worth it, sitting on a deck over the water with the boats coming in.
If we'd eaten out for every meal, I figure we'd have spent $350 or more on food. Instead we spent $118 at the grocery store and $84 at one restaurant, and nobody felt like they were roughing it.
We didn't rent a boat. Pontoon rentals around here run several hundred dollars a day, and Curtis brought two kayaks strapped to his SUV, which gave everybody a turn on the water. The kids swam off the dock for most of today. Rusty swam off the dock against regulations.
What I'd tell anyone planning the same drive
Leave early. The traffic around the lake on a summer Friday afternoon gets thick, and the two-lane roads back up behind boat trailers. We left St. Joe at 7:00 and were at the cabin by 11:15 with a stop for gas and coffee.
Check the van before you go, too. I checked the tire pressures, the oil level and the coolant the night before, and looked over the belt. It's not hard and it takes ten minutes. The hills down here are steep in places, and the last thing you want is an overheating problem on a two-lane road with no shoulder.
Tomorrow we load up, top off near the lake and point the van north. I'll be home by mid-afternoon, and by Monday morning I'll be back on US-36 at 6:05, already looking forward to doing this again next summer.