Our Seventh Adventure Begins

Saturday, October 24, 2020

I know it has been a while since I posted a blog. For what ever reason I just could not seem to motive myself to do so. Yet, since, this blog is a diary of our life in retirement living out our dream I knew if for no other reason then to be able to look back on our time living this dream I needed to get back to it. It will probably take me a couple of posts to get caught up to real time but then anyone who reads this blog knows that is nothing new for me.

We are presently parked at Rusty's RV Ranch near Rodeo, New Mexico. The Stinger "B" drove through the gate on October 10th and we will be here until November 10th. 

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

We said goodbye to the seven people pictured below and pulled out of Escanaba on Tuesday, September 22, 2020.  We so look forward to the adventure we are on in this our retirement yet at the same time as we head out it is bittersweet as we know we will miss them each and every day. It was a busy summer in Escanaba and I will do some summer catching up in a couple of posts. 

Our daughter and her family.

Crossing the Mackinac Bridge we leave the UP behind.
It was a pleasant surprise to see color on our entire trip.

Our destination was Ypsilanti, Michigan where we stayed at the Detroit Greenfield RV Park. We spent seven days there visiting with our son and his family and it was a busy week filled with hugs from our grandchildren and visiting with their parents. All to soon it was time to say goodbye and move on. Another bittersweet moment as we will miss them every day, also, as we pursue our retirement dream. More about that time in my catch up post.

Our son and his family.

We left Detroit Greenfield park on Wednesday, September 30th, though it was a short drive south. Only 30 miles today and our first stop was a Cabela's in Dundee, Michigan. Tom had something he wanted to look at inside the store, plus, I order groceries from the Kroger down the road for curbside pickup.

Thursday, October 1, 2020 (Our Seventh Adventure Truly Begins)

We crossed the border into Ohio at approximately 10:30AM leaving Michigan in the rearview window with all the possibilities of the months to come ahead of us. This will be the third time I use this word in this blog but it is so true. It is truly a bittersweet feeling to leave Michigan behind because in that state we leave our children and grandchildren who we love more then we can say.  As we head out on this adventure we also leave family and friends behind all of whom we will miss. 

This has been our retirement dream, I know I have said it before and fair warning I will probably say it again, for as long as both of us can remember. Though this year will be a different type of adventure. The pandemic hangs over our country and the world. The cases increase daily and the deaths from this virus continue to add up. Knowing all this one may question why we would choose to leave all those we care about and still head towards ths southwest. As most of you know we live fulltime in this motorhome we lovingly call the Stinger "B" and she is not made to be a home in the cold of Michigan. So after some back and forth the only decision that made sense was to continue living our retirement as planned. After how quickly things changed earlier this year we have made more definite type plans for our first couple of months this adventure something we have never done before. As I mentioned above we are at this park for a month and when we leave here it will be to move to another RV Park near Huachuca City, Arizona for a month. That will bring us to December and before we leave there we will have a plan in place as to where we are going next. The hope is we will be on our way to the desert near Quartzsite and dry camping. For right now with all that has been going on in this country we felt it best to be tucked into RV Parks for a couple of months. Another reality about this year is our Canadian Friends are most likely not going to be crossing the border and traveling in the US this winter. Knowing this brings a definite sadness into our hearts as we will miss them dearly.

To catch up I will be doing two blogs on our journey to this place. Probably one or two summer catch ups and then a couple of blogs of what we have been doing since we arrived in this place. The "plan" is to be in real time before November 1st.

Crossing into Ohio
it was nice to still see the colors of fall.

The decision is to mostly spend time on US and State
Highways. How can you not smile when you see a
happy water tower out the window?

Small towns and farms along the way.
When it is more practical for traveling we will
turn onto Interstates.

One large solor farm.

Not sure who thought roundabouts would be fun.

We spent the night at a Walmart in 
Crawfordsville, Indiana.
Looking out in the morning across the parking lot.
The full moon in the early morning light.

Friday, October 2, 2020

Under wonderfully blue skies we left the Walmart parking lot in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Today's destination a Walmart in Hannibal, Missouri. One thing I wanted to mention is most of this trip, except for a short time near Springfield, Illinois, until we connected with I-40 in Texas we spent on highways in areas of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas we had never traveled before. Actually we had never been across Kansas before at all.

Driving back through Crawfordsville on our way
to I-74.

Today's journey was mostly on I-74 then I-72 it was the
quickest route across Illinois and the goal was to get
across Illinois and into Missouri today.

We saw this sign a couple of times today.

We traveled on some rough road today.
Our thought as we road under this sign:
Hope to see you guys out in the White Lion
in the months ot come. 

The road ahead as we continue

across Illinois.

Then there was the sign we were waiting to see
ahead is the Mississippi River and Missouri.

Crossing the Mississippi River.

Saturday, October 3, 2020

Another day moving west under blue skies. We really have been lucky as far as the weather so far on this journey.

Definitly harvest time in Missouri.
When we stopped for diesel in Bevier, MO
we had matching trucks on either side fueling up.

Learned something new today,
Cameron, MO is the crossroads of the nation.

Our destination today was yet another Walmart in St. Joseph, MO not our best choice for a couple of reasons. First of all I always call ahead to make sure they allow overnight parking and the person I talked to said they did. We had planned a short drive today just about four hours and we planned on pulling into the parking lot mid afternoon which we did. I had scheduled a grocery pick up for between 5 and 6. They had a security vehicle circling the parking lot but he never stopped during the afternoon. I should note here there were no signs saying, no overnight parking allowed. The grocery pickup was over an hour late and all I will say about that is it was not the young girls doing the orders it was the managers lack of properly staffing the job which I found out when I went in to return something. They explained at the service desk that it was a daily complaint yet the manager would not add staff to help. Plus, he lets more orders come in then they could handle on a daily basis. 

About 7 o'clock the security vehicle stopped and he explained to Tom we could stay until the store closed but overnight parking was not allowed. Luckily he was able to direct us to a parking area across the way where we would be able to park for the night. So in the end it all worked out. 

Sunday, October 4, 2020

We left our overnight parking space under grey skies and when we merged onto I-29 all we could see ahead was fog.

Sometime around 8:00AM we crossed the border
into Kansas. A new state for us.

On the western side of Kansas City. 
Surprisingly there is some consturction
going on this Sunday morning.

More pictures of the road

and sights ahead as we continue

to make our way south and west.

As the miles fell behind us the clouds disappeared

and blue skies were all we could see above us.

Then we can see a water tower with Pratt on it.
This is today's destination. 

Friends back in the UP who make the trip out to Albuqueque, NM each summer to spend time with one of their son's and his family told us about this County Park in Pratt. They thought we would like it and they were abolutely right. We ended up spending three nights here. 

 

Monday and Tuesday, October 5 and 6, 2020

After spending three nights at the Pratt County Veterans Memorial Park near Pratt, KS we are hooked up and ready to continue our journey.

This is a small park that is well mantained. For $15 dollars a night we had water and electric hookups and the use of a dump station. There are several long level graveled pull through sites available. It is a first come first serve park but at this time of the year there did not seem to be a lack of available space. If we come this way again we would definitely stop for one or two nights.

At this point we are about halfway to our desination. The rest of the journey will be in the next post.

We are glad you stopped by!

If you have time to leave a comment we would enjoy hearing from you.

An Adventure in Ohio

Saturday, April 20, 2019 (still playing catch up with the blog)

We are presently sitting in the Stinger "B" listening to the rain coming down and when I say rain I mean RAIN! It has been coming down since last night. I think there is a river next to us instead of a road. I am really feeling sorry for all the "weekend warriors" parked here with families and dogs. The temperature says 42 degrees with a real feel of 30 and it looks like this is the way the whole day will be. We thought we would be spending the day with family but now we have "sprung" a drip by the TV in the front of the mortorhome. We knew the roof was going to be an issue soon and it was on the agenda for this summer. Hopefully we do not get to much more rain and the drip stays just that a small drip. It looks like there may be some sun tomorrow with a high of 61 degrees and we are hoping the weather predictors are right. In the meantime Happy Saturday!




Sunday, April 14, 2019

We did not leave the Stinger "B" today. Well I did not, Tom did go and do jeans at the laundry here at the park and he had to go out and dump grey a couple of times as I was doing wash.  The rain started during the night and lasted through pretty much the whole day. It really was a relaxing type of day. The type of day we needed.


Monday, April 15, 2019

We left the park around 11:00 which was checkout. The "plan", and there is a pattern here, was to travel about 96 miles to a RV Park near Pioneer, Ohio with full hookups and enjoy a few days to just sit and relax. A FYI to us: never leave a RV Park with less then a third of a tank of fresh water even if our next destination is a RV Park with full hookups.
Before getting on the road today Tom drove the Stinger "B" over to the Walmart. I left ahead of him as I wanted to pick up a couple of things at the Dollar Tree and then had a few things I wanted to get at  Walmart. Honestly, I was looking forward to getting to the next park and not go any where . We hooked up the Jeep at Walmart and were on our way about 12:30.

Our spot at the KOA and the daffodils at the exit.
We left this morning under a cloud filled sky.

After leaving Walmart we took I -75 South back one exit.
Then we were on US-33  heading West
under blue skies filled with white fluffy clouds. 

After about 12 miles we turned north on US 127.

This is decent two lane highway.

Though, there are no shoulders and it is well traveled.

We are traveling in rural America and 

I believe the pictures convey just that.

It was a pleasant ride for this passenger

but the wind hitting us on the side kept Tom pretty busy.

We are passing through Van Wert.

The front facade of this bank in no way matched the rest of the building.
You can see that on the left which is what it looked like on the right, also.

We went by some beautiful old homes.

Not far and we passed a large wind turbine "farm".

Then we were driving through Paulding.

I am thinking good advice for all of us.

I did not get the name but what is not to like about a town with a
Pizza Place called Red Angel and a Dairy Queen.

Then we went through Bryan for the first time.
I loved the coffee cup on the Diner sign.

Then just about to today's destination we turned on to US 20.
We could see the water in the fields and then we saw the sign for the Park.

Once we turned into the road to the Park we could see all the lovely green grass ahead. We stopped at the gate and Tom walked ahead. All I could see was green grass and the road into the camping area. Now the gentleman told Tom, on the phone when he called ahead on Sunday, that they were not yet open for the season but he had a site we could pull into that would work for us. When we got there he did say when he made the offer it was dry and they had gotten about an inch of rain the night before. They took his car to the site and his car tires sank a little in the grass and Tom said walking on the grass was very squishy. Okay I am sorry but why did it not say in the description of the RV Park that they were grass sites. Why did he not mention this when Tom told him what our rig was. There was no way we could have stayed there even if they had not gotten rain the night before. Maybe later in the year but pull a 13 ton RV onto grass in the Spring we are not that brave. So after he got done saying he was sorry he could not accommodate us, he seemed nice and  genuinely sorry, we pulled over and I made two calls to two different Walmart's. One 30 miles further on. The woman on the phone explained to me they did not allow overnight parking which is why there are signs posted saying so. The way she said it implied I could not read. I could not help myself I told her from 30 miles away I could not read the signs real well and she actually said well that is what they say. I just hung up. The second one back in Bryan said the usual just park out at the edge of the lot. So we back tracked 14 miles to the Walmart in Bryan. Side note: sometimes things just work out there was a Mexican Restaurant across the highway and their Margaritas during Happy Hour are buy one get one free. 

Of course having the water run out before brushing our teeth in the morning, the reason for the FYI above, was not great but we did have drinking water in gallons on board so we made do. Some days are just like that and learning to go with the flow does help. Besides we have tented on Lake Superior and now we have a kitchen, fridge, stove, dining room, living room, bedroom, bathroom, and furnace so a little water shortage is no big deal. It is just part of the adventure.

Glad you stopped by hope you enjoyed today's blog and pictures.

If you have a moment to leave a comment we would enjoy hearing from you.