Heading Back West

We left Grand Rapids on May 16 after a very nice visit with Ardelle's brother and wife and went back to Elkhart for a couple days before starting our trip west. We stayed over a couple days at an RV park at the Casino Queen Casino in East St. Louis, IL. It was a very nice, modern park, but must have been laid out by someone who had never seen an RV before. We needed every inch of power cable we had and 25 feet of sewer hose to make the hookups! We had an excellent view of the St. Louis arch out of our windshield. We had a couple of great meals in the casino and played video poker. We even managed to leave there with some  of their money! Since the casino is on the IL side of the river, there is no smoking allowed in the casino, making it very pleasant to play there.

After leaving St. Louis, it was time to hunker down somewhere while the Memorial Day weekend warriors did their thing so we pulled into Cottonwoods RV Park in Columbia, MO for 5 days. This park must have been laid out by the same idiot that did the one at Casino Queen ... same routine on the hookups! There was a Bass Pro Shop near the park, so we went in and made our annual contribution. While in Columbia, we learned that the Escapees RV Club was having a rally this week in Sedalia, MO, about 70 miles from Columbia, so yesterday we moved to a small park in Sedalia that is about a mile from the State Fairgrounds, where the rally is. We opted for the park rather than the fairgrounds because we have been having quite a few of thundershowers and heard that getting stuck in the mud at the fairgrounds is not uncommon. The thought of having to have this monster pulled out of the mud was not very appealing!

Since we have been in MO, the weather has been relatively comfortable, with the temps running in the 70's and 80's, with or without rain. The humidity is a little high for our liking, but bearable. While in Columbia, we saw lot of fireflys (lightning bugs). It was Roger's first glimpse of them. They are sure fun to see. Last night, after a round of thundershowers, the tree frogs in the trees behind our rig went nuts. We thought we were hearing crickets in the motorhome until I opened the door to an almost deafening symphony of frogs going on outside. Since the trees were right behind our bedroom, needless to say, we didn't need to use our sound effects machine to go to sleep to.

Today we are going to the rally, mainly to wander through the market area. Fantastic Fan is there and we need a couple of parts for the one's in our coach. I'm sure we'll be able to find some other "must haves" before we get out of there.

We plan to continue our trek west into Kansas tomorrow.

Well folks, here's another update. After we left Tunica, we decided to go to Paducah, KY. We were there in the fall of 2007 and enjoyed the National Quilt Museum so much we decided to see it again. It was well worth the return. From there we went to Shepherdsville, KY, just south of Louisville, the same place we stopped last spring. We went back out to the Jim Beam Distillery and this time we splurged and bought a bottle of the "good stuff", Jim Beam's "Booker's True Barrel Bourbon". It's sippin' stuff! After there, we drove over to the Kentucky Horse Park and spent a couple of days there. It was rainy and cold, so we didn't do much there but hang out.

On Thursday, 4/16, we drove to Lazy River Campground at Granville, OH. This is a campground in a country setting situated a little east of Columbus. Near there is the Longaberger Basket Company. Below is a picture of Longaberger's Home Office. As you can see, it is a very unique structure in that it is a 7 story basket. Near there, we visited the Longaberger Homestead, a shopping area that displays and sells their products. The factory is there, where you can watch the baskets being made, and even make your own if you choose. There is also a huge outlet store in the same building, where one can find some bargains on seconds. 

We left Ohio on Saturday, 4/18 and travelled east to Bedford, PA, where we spent a couple of nights and then went on to Hershey, PA. There we took in the Hershey Chocolate Experience. On Wednesday, 4/22 we moved a whopping 40 miles to Country Acres Campground in Gordonville, PA, near Lancaster. This is a beautiful park with lots of green grass everywhere. It backs up to a huge Amish farm. The only down side here is it is fertilizing time in the area, and with the 80+ temps, it makes for an interesting aroma! This is a beautiful part of the country and there are many things to see and do here. On Saturday 4/25, we drove over to Wilmington, DE (about 35 miles) so we could add the last of the 48 contiguous states to our map of states visited.We ended up staying nine days in Dutch country and capped off the stay with a day trip to Philadelphia and a trolley tour of the city.

On Saturday 5/2, we arrived a Niagara Falls. Sunday we went to Lockport for a very nice  visit with Ardelle's sister, Beverly, and her niece April and family. It's been about 5 years since we've seen them. 

On Monday, the highlight of our day was a meal of wings (the tourists call them "buffalo" wings) at Duff's. We enjoyed them so much we ordered another batch to go and had them for dinner Wednesday night. On Tuesday we did the tourist thing at Niagara Falls and enjoyed it as much as we did 5 years ago. Of course we had to have a New York hot dog for lunch!

Wednesday, we moved on to Erie, PA for an overnight stop. We are in Elkhart, IN over the weekend where we will visit the RV Hall of Fame and Museum. We are also going to Bradd and Hall, a large RV furniture supplier, to look at euro recliners to use for our computer desk.

Tuesday we head up to Grand Rapids, MI for a visit with Ardelle's brother, George and his wife Peggy.

Okay,We've Kept You in Suspense Long Enough

It's been far too long since we've updated our blog! I have used the excuse that we haven't been doing anything exciting enough to report long enough! Now that we are back on the road, I promise to be more attentive to the blog.

We left our winter spot (Seawind RV Resort in So. TX) on March 1. After a few days stopover in Port Aransas for a wash and wax job on the coach, we went to Kinder, LA for our annual crawfish fix, which really scratched an itch for us. We then went to Vidalia, LA/Natchez, MS and spent a few days camped along the Mississippi River before traveling the Natchez Trace Parkway up to Red Bay, AL for our annual visit with the Tiffin folks for some service and repairs. We arrived there on March 15. While we were there, we had several after-hours modifications done on the coach by current and former Tiffin employees:

Replaced a cockpit control panel with the one used in the 2009 models that is more driver friendly

Installed a rooftop cell phone antenna to enhance our internet access in fringe areas

Installed a remote controlled ceiling fan in the bedroom

Removed our driver side couch and had a computer desk and credenza built in

Rebuilt the area where the bedroom TV was, installing a sewing cabinet for Ardelle that houses her sewing machine on a slide out tray

Installed a couple of additional cabinets

We got everything finished and left Tiffin on April 1. We were very thankful for a much shorter stay than last year. After leaving Tiffin, we had one more thing to do the before we were free, so we travelled 50 miles north to Florence, AL to get a scheduled chassis alignment. There we stayed at a nice city-owned RV park right on the Tennessee River. There was a strong threat of severe t-storms and tornados, but the good Lord took care of us and most everything skirted around us.

On Friday, we drove over to Tunica, MS to spend a few days organizing our new storage space and play in the casinos. We have done both and have even managed to stay fairly even at the casinos. We have also enjoyed some good meals, on them. Yesterday the weather turned back to winter! It is very windy and some good old Canadian air has kept the temps in the 30's and 40's with a hefty windchill factor. It's supposed to move out of here tomorrow. Although our travel plans are pretty fluid right now, we plan to bum around the eastern part of the country for awhile before heading west. Kacie, our granddaughter in Utah, is graduating from HS in mid June, so we will be stopping off there on our way back to Oregon. Our next stop will probably be near the Tennessee/Kentucky border. Then we will do a weather check to determine where we go form there. As weather permits, we hope to make our way over to DC and NYC.

We'll keep y'all posted along the way.