We Are Family

Another sunny day greets us and a little shopping in the WalMart starts us off. We start driving and arrive in Chicagoland around noon. Our cousins live in Arlington Heights which is northwest of the city and conveniently located on a quiet cul de sac where we can park. It is great to see Mindy and Glenn and their kids Jeremy and Miranda who are growing up so nicely. They have a beautiful yard and Ziggy enjoys Miranda walking her around.

A little later we get together with the entire family for a dinner featuring Carson's ribs. It's a family tradition and Marilyn is our hostess tonight. It turns out to be an early Mother's Day celebration and I am showered with gifts and it's fun. Marilyn and her twin sister, Terry, are Jeff's first cousins and Terry's daughters are Mindy and Stacy. Stacy's daughter, Jessica, completes the Chicago cousins. We do have another east coast relative here - Rick! He drove out from New Jersey so we can all be together for a family reunion. Jeff is very excited because Rick has brought him 20 - 2 liter bottles of birch beer. Jeff has missed his favorite soft drink and now will have a supply to last the summer.

After eating we returned to the house to hang out and take some family pictures. Now I'm catching on on this blog and look forward to more family fun tomorrow.

Old Friends

Saturday morning we are up and off to the memorial service. It is a fitting tribute to Ray who was a good man and well loved by so many. We are so pleased that we are able to be part of this celebration of life.

After the luncheon we say goodbye to old friends and head north on a secondary road amidst green pastures with cows and tiny, newborn calves. There are some impressive horse farms and we remark that West Virginia is a very pretty part of the country. After an hour or two we cross into southeastern Ohio and a four lane highway. The landscape turns flatter, but still green and lots of grazing land and farms.

We realized that our route was going to take us through Dayton and then to Indianapolis. Jeff and I have a dear friend who lived in Dayton and we decided to call him. I wasn't able to get a phone number through 411 so I called Jan & Harvey in South Carolina and they found the number on the internet. Oh I love the modern technology. So we called Bob Lawner and arranged to meet him for dinner. This is so weird as Bob was a friend of Jeff's at Boston University in 1965. Later I met Bob on a blind date - the same date that I met Jeff. Surprise, I was fixed up with Bob! Anyway we were great friends and Bob was an usher in our wedding.

Bob arrived with his kids Stefan and Sara (hope I spelled that right) and we had a great time reminiscing and telling the kids all the dumb things we used to do. After showing them the RV and introducing them to Ziggy we had to leave. We arrived in Indianapolis around 11pm and found a WalMart and passed out.

Workin' In The Coal Mine

Here we are in a KOA Campgroud just west of Charleston, WV. This is a beautiful state with rolling hills and lots of greenery. We got on the road this morning at 9:30 and Ziggy and I enjoyed a long walk around the WalMart parking lot. They always have grassy areas and trash cans so that works for us.

I drove most of the day and we arrived a Charleston around 3pm. It is an interesting area as we passed many coal mines with trains and barges filled with coal. Lots of billboards touting the advantages of coal energy dotted the highway. Our campground is pretty with large wooded sites. Jeff and I took long showers in the campground facilities. One of our mechanical problems is a water leak and more runs out the bottom of our rig that from the faucets. Don't ask!

We dressed and got ready to head into Charleston to visit with some of our old printing friends. A dear colleague named Ray Stinson passed away last week and we are here for his memorial service which is tomorrow. Lots of other folks who were associated with the Crouser Consulting Group are here too so we are looking forward to seeing some old friends even though it is a sad occasion.

Well we are back from the reception and saw many old friends.We don't miss our printing business at all and it was fun to reminisce about the "old days." This untimely death is just one more reminder to get out there and live life to its fullest while you are able and healthy.

Now we're ready for bed. Tomorrow we will go to the memoral service and then head west towards Indianapolis and Chicago.

Nothing Can be Finer Than to Be In Carolina In The Morning

Well it is time to go. It is a gorgeous day and I am sad to leave our beautiful home. A few friends stop by to say goodbye and an egret strolls lazily along our lagoon. But we finish loading up and set off just after noon.

Our drive is uneventful and we pass into North Carolina and spend an hour and a half in a huge traffic jam. A few mechanical problems arise so we schedule a serivce visit after we leave Chicago. The city of Charlotte looks impressive with several very tall skyscrapers and we stop just north of the city to spend the night in a WalMart parking lot. Jeff calls it Wallyworld and I call it cheap. But it works for us and there are two other campers nearby.

Good Night

Anticipation

We are heading out tomorrow for our newest adventure. Jeff and I will be serving as trekmasters for a 50 day tour in Alaska and Canada. We did this tour last year as the Tailgunners and did so well that we got promoted!

Anyway we have been planning for the last few months and now it is time to go. We started packing today and will finish up in the morning and pull out by noon. It is bittersweet, because I will miss my new friends and our wonderful life here in Sun City. On the other hand, we are embarking on a terrific trip with wonderful people to meet, gorgeous scenery and wild animals to find, admire and photograph. How lucky can you get.

As Jeff mentioned we will be stopping in West Virginia to attend a memorial service for a dear friend, Ray Stinson, who was a true gem and was here on earth for much too short a time. Then we head to Chicago to visit with the Glazer cousins and do some good eating and lots of laughter. After that we start the serious driving to British Columbia and meet up with the tour on May 14th.

I hope to blog every day and as usual will come up with a song title appropriate for that post. Sometimes it is a stretch, but it's fun thinking up the titles and trying to sing the songs. Hope to hear from all of you over the summer. We'll have e-mail and cell phones so there's no excuse not to stay in touch. Have a wonderful summer and see you soon...

Almost Ready

Four more days until we're on the road. We are very excited, but we are running out of time.

HaRVey the RV is in the shop. He was supposed to be back Friday, but we are waiting for some parts. I am picking him up Monday one way or the other because we have to get him packed. I also am working on a restraint system for Ziggy to keep her out of the cockpit area, so I need some time to install it.

Judy is wrapping up important details (hair, nails, etc.) while I plan our itinerary. When we were in Dallas a couple of weeks ago our GPS was stolen. The good news is that the new one has some features the old one didn't. We can now enter up to 500 waypoints to create a route that stays in the GPS. David (our boss) has set up such a route for the entire trek. I loaded it into the GPS - and there it is! A couple of buttons to press and we just follow the bouncing ball.

I'm sorry to say we have a new stop scheduled on our trip. A dear friend, Ray Stinson, passed away in Charleston, West Virginia after a long bout with cancer. Ray (with his wife, Lisa) was a member of the team of consultants we used for many years at Jeff the Printer. Ray and Lisa became friends as well as consultants. We will miss Ray; he was one of the good guys. Fortunately his memorial service is scheduled such that we can attend and only throw off our schedule by a recoverable amount of time.

The Countdown Begins

We're counting down -- less than a month until we leave for Alaska. We just came back from a 3 day shakedown trip to Hunting Island State Park. It is one of the most beautiful campgrounds we have ever been to -- right on the beach -- and it's only an hour away. One thing we learned -- the roof doesn't leak! One night we had torrential rains (2-3") and had no problems inside. (We have a water problem in our house, but that's a different story.) HaRVey the RV is almost ready to go. Just an oil change and some other minor stuff.

Anyway, we have talked to all the guests on our trek. They seem like a great group of people. Some novice RVers, but mostly experienced ones. I have started an e-mail campaign to provide them with useful information and to to help get them excited for the trek.

I wasn't sure that I would be excited this year, but I am. We have been looking over some of last year's pictures and recalling some great memories. We are looking forward to sharing our knowledge with the guests.

Ziggy is as ready as she will ever be. We are trying to come up with some kind of improved restraint for her. We have to keep her away from the front of the RV.

In a totally different vein, here is one of the funniest videos I have ever seen about RVing. It's 7 minutes long, but worth the time.