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.

Happy Thanksgiving Canada!

 

WE WOULD LIKE TO WISH

ALL OUR CANADIAN FRIENDS

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!

Thank You For the Comments on The Random Thoughts Post

and a couple of additional thoughts.


Monday, July 6, 2020

I would like to start this post by thanking everyone who commented on our Random Thoughts Post here and on Facebook. Thank you for taking the time to not only read my words but comment on them. We read each of your comments and  I re-read them before writing this. I have not replied but I want you to know your words added to what I said and felt while writing it. Again, thank you for your comments each one, we feel, added to the post.

In the post I mentioned part of the reason I put it all down was to be able to look back and read how we were feeling during this particular time in our life and journey. Little did I realize at the time how quickly things would change yet again in our country.

Those last few days before leaving were spent getting ready to leave and working on a more exact route with several choices for where to stop and spend each night. Something we had very seldom done in the past. I probably have mentioned more then once, we are pretty much fly by the seat of our pants travelers as we live our Retirement Dream. We pretty much always have a final destination in mind but how long and how we get there has never been part of the journey. We let how we feel about a place dictate how long we stay or if we even stay. That is not to say we do not make plans to meet and spend time with friends along the way because that is an important part of this journey something we would never want to change in any way.  The thing is with the coronavirus spreading in our country for the first time we wanted to know where we would be stopping and with the advantage of not needing RV Parks we wanted it to be places we could just pull into shut off the engine and spend the night.

That all being said we were a couple of days into our trip before we fully realized exactly what had happened in our country. We had read about Minneapolis and the awful killing of a man by the police but we had not realized how much of our country was now being targeted during the day with peaceful protesting that turned into rioting and looting at night all in the name of  his death. To see pictures of buildings burning in the city of Minneapolis and other large cities and reading that at times the police were told to stand down was mind boggling. Plus, reading of a movement to defund  police departments or even possibly close them down was unbelievable. To say crossing the Menominee River into a place that is many times left off the map of the United States of America was a relief is an understatement. With all the information in the news are thoughts turned to our kids and grandkids downstate  and their proximity to Detroit. Plus, we could see the Coronavirus numbers still going up. To say we are worried about what is happening with the rioting would not even begin to describe how reading about all of what is going on makes us feel. The word "angry" does come to mind though. The other word that comes to mind is "sad" . I questioned in that post when would enough be enough and that same question keeps circling in my thoughts. I am going to end this subject here for now. You may hear about it again in this blog because Tom and I do have strong feelings about what is going on. For now Tom and I have talked about it and praying for our family, friends, and our country will be part of our days.



Today after spending six nights at the Fairgrounds in Escanaba we pulled in the slides, hooked up the Jeep (Would it not be nice if it was as easy as that?) and headed downstate. It was actually almost
3 o'clock when we left this afternoon we had a few things to take care of before leaving and our destination for tonight was about a four hour drive so we knew we would get here before dark. We are parked in the Walmart Parking lot in Gaylord, MI and it looks like it will be a quite night. So far we  are the only ones here. Tomorrow will be close to a 7 hour day but then Wednesday we will just have about a thirty minute drive to our destination an RV Park about 60 minutes from our Son, Daughter-in-law and four of our grandkids. If it was not for those six people we would not have ventured down this way and we are so looking forward to spending this time with them.

I did not take many pictures today and once we crossed the Mackinac Bridge I did not take any at all. Below are a couple I took when we were riding right along the lake and then as we started across the bridge.

There was a definite haze over the lake today.

We could see people out on the beach and in the water enjoying
the day as we drove by. 

Then after paying the tow we headed across the bridge.

After crossing the bridge we only had about 60 miles to go before we pulled in for the night.  It was a pleasant ride today though it was very warm. No construction zones to contend with and not a lot of traffic so that was a nice surprise.


Tuesday, July 7, 2020

After spending the night at the Walmart in Gaylord, MI we pulled out under sunny skies and the cloud above opened up as we turned onto the road and continued as we merged onto I-75. We could see blue skies off in the west and about 2 miles south the road was dry and the sun was again with us.

The decision to avoid large cities on our way down to see our children meant some of today's route took us through parts of Michigan we had never seen before. Doing this makes for a longer ride yet at the same time less stressful. The next two collages are from the ride. One thing we have found as we travel this beautiful country we call home is  "small town America" along the back roads is pretty much the same. 

One thing we see a lot of in Michigan is trees we do not lack
for trees in this state.  

One common thread we find in small towns, that does not mean
we do not see it in larger cities, is a pride in their town and country.

Below are a couple of pictures I took this past Saturday Night, July 3rd. We are parked next to the race track at the Fairgrounds, this is were the full hook ups are, and on race night it can get quite noisy. Tom does like to climb up on top of the Stinger "B" to watch and he said except for one corner can pretty much see the whole race. My dad used to love going to the races. Partly I am sure because over the years several of his nephews raced. I do remember going more then once with him to watch the races. Tom and I went one time, as I recall, when we were dating, nothing says a romantic evening out like the roar of engines while sitting in the stands with dust blowing up at you...lol

It almost looks like the lights are illuminating the moon.

 

Standing in our doorway I could just see the top of the cars
as they came around the corner for the last race of the evening.

We will be busy the next couple of weeks hugging grandchildren so if you do not hear from us that will be the reason.

In the mean time our hope and prayer is that each of you and those you care about and love stay safe and healthy.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness;

 only light can do that. 

Hate cannot drive out hate; 

only love can do that.

                                                      ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

We are glad you stopped by!

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