Arlington TX to Perry GA

We spent two days at a nice campground, Treetop RV Park, in Arlington TX, we found an Elks Lodge about a mile up the street from us. We went in there and had a couple of drinks, everyone was very nice there, Joe found out they had a golf course, so of course he had to play golf too.

We went to Stockyard Station in Fort Worth, and had a good time there. Nice shopping area, old restored buildings, restaurants and saloons. We had lunch there at H3 Ranch a nice restaurant in a beautiful hotel in the center of this old town.

Then about 4 pm they close off part of the street and have a "longhorn cattle drive" go through town for all of the tourists to watch. That was a lot of fun.

We headed out the next day to continue our journey to Georgia.

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We left Texas after what seemed like a month, Ha Ha !!

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This is a picture of the sun setting in our mirror as we leave Texas, on our last night in this big state.

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Went into Shreveport Louisiana and stayed at Barksdale AFB for 3 nights, they have a good fam camp there and the price was right at just 14.00 per night. We went out to eat, and Joe had to have Gumbo since we were in Louisianna. In fact he ate Gumbo everywhere we went, 4 times in all.

We stayed at an Ameristar Casino in Vicksburg Mississippi the next night, that one was a little more costly, especially if you count the money we spent at the casino. They did give us a free breakfast the next morning though. Ha Ha

Our next stop was at Maxwell AFB near Montgomery Alabama for one night then headed for the fam camp at Fort Benning Georgia.

This campground is called Uchee Creek Campground, Ft Benning and is, 75 campsites, 45 cabins, all in the forest. This was a great place and we wanted to stay for 4 nights, but we got an email asking us to volunteer at the rally we are going to, so we cut our stay down to only 2 nights.

We have now arrived in Perry Georgia on March 12th and will be a part of the early security crew here at the rally. We are looking forward to this next week, lots of fun and lots to learn.

Traveling toward Georgia

We left Southern California at about 1pm on the Friday the 27th of February, our first day took us to Phoenix Arizona. We spent the night at a Flying J Truck Stop and then called our friend Gina Minkin (Kyle's wife), she was happy to hear from us and we met her at a restaurant for lunch. It was great seeing her and hearing about Kyle's daughters Fallon and Kayleen, they each have a baby now, so we saw pictures and enjoyed our visit with Gina.

Then we were off again, to Lorsburg New Mexico this time, we stayed at another Flying J and met a couple in a motor home from Canada. They told us to make sure check out Old Town Mesilla near Las Cruces NM. We took their advise and drove there that day, we parked the coach at a Truck Stop in Las Cruces, and unhooked the car to drive the short distance to Mesilla, this place was well worth the stop, beautiful place, well restored buildings, cute little shops and a great Mexican restaurant.

We were here for 3 hours, and then hooked the car back up and headed for Pecos TX to spend yet another night parked in a Flying J Truck Stop. Then got up early Monday, had breakfast, and headed out to see how far we could get through Texas. We stopped at Weatherford Texas for the night (at a Pilot Truck stop this time - we wanted a change -Ha Ha).

We had to check on getting our window tint on the car replaced on three windows, so stopped in Arlington Texas (near Fort Worth) to see if we could get the work done. Well, we found that they use a different type of film here, so Saturn of Wichita (where we bought this Aura in Sept '08) is checking on where we can get this done on our way to Georgia, or after the rally. We may decide to stay here in Arlington for a night or two to relax a little.

January and February

We spent these two months in Sunny Southern California, although it was raining for about 3 weeks in Feb. We spent some time with our son Charles, and we were able to see most of our friends. Due to our being so tied up with doctor and dentist appointments, motor home repairs, etc. there were a few people we wanted to see and just did not get to visit this time, we feel bad about that, but we have to get on the road, trying to get to Perry Georgia by March 15th.

Joe became an Elk while we were in California and we spent some time at the Elks Lodge campground in Ontario CA. We have a friend, Jim Hicks, who is an Elk and he was Joe's sponsor. We attended several dinners at the lodge when we were camping there, and Jim and his wife Toni joined us for dinner a couple of times. Joe had his initiation into the Elks on Thursday Feb 26th and our plan was to leave for our trip on Friday the 27th.

We were able to spend time with some of our friends, we met for dinner a couple of times, and Joe played golf a few times. We were invited out to dinner on our last Wednesday in California with a few friends, Tim and Marcia, Ron and Bev, Tom and Sue, had some laughs, lots of fun and we will miss them a lot during our trip.

A lot of our time was spent getting some repair work done on our motor home, but I think it is pretty good shape now that we are starting out on our trip up the East coast. We got physicals out of the way and dental appointments done. We are in good shape, and we think the motor home is in good shape too. We are ready to go now.

We also spent a lot of time getting our '67 El Camino ready for a trip to Indiana. Joe sold his beautiful El Camino while we were in California. It was a difficult decision, but with us traveling 9 or 10 m0nths each year, we realized that it was not a good idea to have it in storage and only use it a couple of times each year. The new owner is a friend of ours so we will be able to visit the El Camino when we pass through Indiana. That is nice, however, I am not sure that made Joe feel much better while watching his long time friend being loaded on the truck.

We will keep you all posted on our trip across the Southern states and up the East coast. I will be entering things in this blog more often now that our lives are back to normal (if you call this crazy life normal)

Happy New Year

Well it is the new year now and hope everyone had a great holiday season. We are in Southern California now for a couple of months. We will leave here at the end of February and start another journey.

Our trip from Elkhart Indiana was a pretty exsiting one, lots of winds, lots of ice storms, and lots of snow. We finely made it through the mountains of New Mexico and Arizona, about 1 day before they had even worse snowstorm.

We arrived in Las Vegas about 3 days after they had the big snow storm, about 8 inches in some areas, but it was melting fast, so we did not have a white christmas. We went out to dinner with our friends Ed and Joann Crouse and had a wonderful time, they are always so much fun to visit with.

Our Christmas was very nice, we spent it in Henderson with our son Kevin and his family.

We went to Laughlin for a couple of days to visited our friends Frank and Regina Parker. Spent a couple of days there then we were off to California.

The weather here in California is great, 60's to 70's during the day and 40's at night. We will enjoy visiting with our friends and family while we are here.

Chicago by train

We are still in Elkhart IN but should be heading South sometime this week. They finished the paint repairs last week, they have a few more things to work on. They will do a rain test, a density check and propane test, if all these are ok, then we will be on the road soon. It's very cold and snowy here, temperatures range from 11 degrees to about 26 each day.

We took a train over to Chicago the other day, it is only about 70 miles there and it took 2 1/2 hours on a train (about 20 stops) It is a commuter train and runs all day, every day. We left about 7am and spent about 5 or 6 hours there, walked around a lot and went to Millennium Park. We had a great time, and got back about 8:30 pm. We watched ice skaters at the park, that was a lot of fun. We saw a lot of policemen on horseback and on bicycles all through the park and on the sidewalks.

We went to the Chicago Cultural Center and saw art displays and learned about the display at the Millennium Park too. The buildings there are very old and beautiful. he first pictures are of Cloud Gate (the people of Chicago call this "the bean") and it is in Millennium Park.

We are getting to spend some time with Kristy and her six kids since they live in this area. We enjoy seeing them and getting to know them, they are all so different, and have their own personalities, it has been a lot of fun to spend time with them all.

That's not a white sand beach !!

Well....now we have SNOW…….and I thought the weather didn’t get bad until January or February !!
We woke up this morning to this….. I took this picture of our steps from inside the motorhome.
In case you are wondering, that is snow on our steps, very white, very cold snow !!

They laughed at us when we complained about the snow. They said that is “Lake Effect” snow not "System" snow. (we are about 25 miles southeast of Lake Michigan) Maybe we're crazy... but that snow looks and feels the same, even if it is called “Lake Effect” snow.

We went to breakfast this morning and took these pictures on our way to Shipshewana, Indiana. So beautiful and cold too, it was coming down pretty good most of the day but only about 3 inches or so actually stuck to the ground. The streets were pretty clear all day the temperature was about 31 or 32 degrees. The weather reports say that we are going to get another 3 to 5 inches of this “Lake Effect” snow by tomorrow. Temp tonight will be about 20 degrees.

Last week we stayed in our coach at the Service Department of the Mandalay factory (they have it from 7am until 3:30 pm). This week we are in a hotel because they have to rebuild the floor under the slide on the driver’s side. Next week we will be back in the coach again (giving it up at 7am and receiving it back at 3:30pm each day). That will be a short week because they are closed on Thursday and Friday. Then the following week we will be back in a hotel while our motorhome is in the paint facility.

Looks like it will not be until about the 8th of December. Came in for a 1 1/2 week stay and it ended up being 4 weeks. But, we are just thankful to get all of this work done here at the factory, they really do a good job and they treat us well also. Our plan is to leave as soon as they finish with our motorhome and head south to nicer weather. We will keep you posted on this blog.

At Mandalay Factory

We are at the factory now in Elkhart. They started working on our motorhome today, and it looks like we will be here for two weeks. We just hope everything in taken care of when by the time we leave. If not we will have to get some of the work done in California, but, we will soon know.

It is cold here now about 30's and 40's during the day and 20's and 30's at night. It has been snowing a little for the last couple of days, but it does not stick to anything, so I don't think it counts, right?? We have had fun visiting with Kristy (Carol's daughter) and her 6 kids while we have been waiting to get in here, they live in Goshen about 10 miles from Elkhart. The grandkids are all very cute and very nice kids too.

Pictures below:

Randy 16 and David 12,

Kristopher 8 and Julie 6,

Emily 4 and Johnathan 3 months.

We will keep you all posted on our progress, we plan to be back in warmer weather as soon as possible. Our plan is to be in Henderson, Nevada for Christmas this year, with Kevin and his family (Carol's Son). Of course we are anxious to see Charles (Joe's son), Lisa and Jacob in Southern California, as well as many of our friends.