Monday, May 11, 2015

We left Santa Rosa this morning about 9 and headed out toward Amarillo, TX.  Our first stop was in Tumcumcari, NM for gas.  And then we stopped just before Amarillo to eat lunch at a picnic area.

We finished up the day at Weatherford, OK at the Old Rte. 66 RV Park.  We had a pretty uneventful day today on the road until about 5 PM.  We actually got lost today looking for a campground only to discover it was right next to the freeway.  Excellent directions camping book.  We were on a back country farm road with no place to turn around.  I did not want to get out and unhook the car because of my foot.  It took us about a half hour to get back on the highway. I didn’t get anywhere near as mad as I did when we exited the highway to change drivers and there was no on ramp, and had to drive 6 miles backwards to get back on.

We’ve got one more day to get out of this area before the shit hits the fan tonight.  Oklahoma City will have thunderstorms for the rest of the week starting tonight.

We had leftovers for Supper tonight.  I had Crab Cakes and Sharon just fried herself a hamburger.

I tried the dish one more time tonight to no avail.  I’ll suspend the service tomorrow.

By the time we got settled for the night it was 8 o’clock.  Just enough time for one movie.  By the time 10:30 rolled around we were ready for the padded room.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

We got moving this morning about 9.  We stopped almost immediately to get gas.  We weren’t low but the gas in Okla City was $2.22 with our Flying J discount.  We still took $126 worth to fill up.  We knew we would try to make it to Missouri before our next fuel stop.  Missouri is always relatively cheap compared to the adjacent states.

We only got lost today once, but that wasn’t our fault.  We were looking for the

I-540 highway to turn north to Joplin, MO and the highway number had been changed to I-49.  So much for using a 2013 map.

But the rest of the day was pretty uneventful to say the least.  We ended the day at a campground in Sarcoxie, MO where we had stayed once several years ago. Sarcoxie is about 50 miles west of Springfield, MO.  It’s under different ownership than it was previously.  The new owner has cleaned it up considerably and it is a decent place to spend the night.  It brought back memories of earlier travels.

Sharon fried up burgers for us for Supper tonight.  Her cheese made a mess of the burger and she ended up eating it with spoon.  She said she was too tired to get up and get a fork.  I didn’t blame her after we drove 406 miles today.  We’re still trying to escape the weather.  I think by nightfall tomorrow we’ll be out of the most serious weather if it comes.  Oklahoma City will have thunderstorms the rest of the week.  The sky was clear as ever as we whistled out of there.

We settled in after Dinner and watched movies again tonight.  I had already called DirecTV to suspend our service until November so we won’t be getting any TV for the rest of the way home unless we stop at a campground with cable.

We were up until 10:30 tonight before we finally gave up the ghost.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

We were off this morning by 9:30 and not too worried about any bad weather.  We may get some rain tomorrow but we think we’re past the bad thunderstorms.  We ended up today at the Honey Bend campground in Litchfield, IL We thought this was going to be a short day, but we still arrived at 4:30.  We kind of quickly settled into our site after a fashion but, no matter, we had no TV to watch anyway.  This used to be a Coast to Coast campground, but no more.  We had to shell out $22 for our stay.  They gave us a break from the $33 normal charge.  We won’t be back here again.

Our entire trip today was uneventful if you don’t count the gas we bought for $3.69 and then found it in Illinois for $3.44.  We figured it would be cheaper in Missouri like it always has been.  This wasn’t the first time we’ve been wrong.

We had Tator Tot Casserole for Supper tonight.  Sharon doctored it up with some chili powder and American cheese.  It was quite good indeed.

I checked oil on the motorhome tonight.  It was barely “to” the “add” line on the dipstick.  We came all the way from Desert Hot Springs, CA to Litchfield. IL without adding oil.  1,954 miles.  Amazing!  I knew it wasn’t an oil burner but I wanted to keep a close eye on it this year.

We camped out in front of the TV for the night and watched Seinfeld.  Even though I’ve had the boxed set from the series for about 6 or so years, we still haven’t been through all 9 seasons.  But the comedy is as fresh as ever.  Tonight we watched the second disc (of four) of the seventh season.

We stayed up tonight til after 10 as Sharon entertained herself with her Nook and I was editing our 2014 winter movie.  We had Seinfeld going in the background.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

We hit the road looking this morning to have Breakfast at McDonald’s.  It only took a couple of exits to find one on the side of the highway.  We turned in and Sharon went inside to fetch our meals.  I had the big Breakfast with Pancakes and she had two Breakfast Burritos.  The bill came to only 8 something when the other day our same breakfasts came to $15.  We don’t know what the hell was going on there.

We were back on the road again in twenty minutes and rolling toward Chicago.  I drove for about two hours today and Sharon drove the rest of the day.  We finally ended up in Delavan, Wisconsin at a Wal-Mart for the night.  The cheapest campground we could find was $40 for the night.  We didn’t feel like paying that just for electricity.  We managed to go 265 miles today but we really didn’t want to go any further than that anyway.  We have to be in Mt. Pleasant tomorrow morning to visit my sister Marge, and then we’ll be off after a couple of hours to our son Sean’s.

Our GPS wasn’t registering Wisconsin so I tried downloading an update this afternoon which took the better part of three hours to complete.  After I got done I found it still wasn’t registering Wisconsin.  So Sharon went online and found where we were going tomorrow.  I had to run the generator all the while it was downloading.

We probably won’t have any TV tonight since we’ll have to be on the generator even to run movies.

Friday, May 15, 2015

We awoke this morning to find our generator was running but it wasn’t putting out any power.  Sharon tried to light the hot water heater and it wouldn’t stay lit.  She finally got the Gen-set producing power and I took a shower with hot water.

We got a leisurely start because we didn’t have but an hour and a half to get to my sister’s In Mount Pleasant, WI near Racine.  She just moved to an “Independent

living” apartment there.

My Niece Rhonda gave us wonderful directions to get there, but the parking situation was non-existent.  She said we’d have a big parking lot out in back of the building.  NOT!!!!  We got trapped at a dead end in the parking lot and had to disconnect the car to get free.  The trouble was that the car was jack knifed and it took us the better part of 45 minutes to unhook it.  The car has been connected since Desert Hot Springs, CA.  We’ve been camping in pull-through campgrounds just to avoid that situation.

After the visit we headed out to my son Sean’s where we’ll see him and his family and my daughter Stephanie and her family.  It takes about an hour and a half for the trip to West Bend, WI.  We arrived around 3:30 and sat and waited in the motorhome for them to get home from work.

We had a nice 3 hour visit with my sister and Rhonda, and Rhonda even bought us lunch as well as having a fruit dish, nuts and Kringle on hand for snacking.

After the visit we left, for West Bend, WI where we would see the Rocheleaus and Darkows, my son and daughter, and their families.  We had a very nice visit with them and didn’t get out to the motorhome until 11:30.  I’m sure both of us are going to be tired tomorrow.  Needless to say we went immediately to bed after getting “home,”

Saturday, May 16, 2015

We got a late start this morning about 9 AM and immediately got on the highway for Lacrosse, Wisconsin.  We took anew route that Mark had told us to try.  It was pretty uneventful all day today and we ended up at the Veteran’s Memorial Campground in West Salem, WI.  When Sharon and Jen checked out this campground in the Fall it was empty and now it was crowded with RVers.

We called Jen and she immediately came over to pick us up so we wouldn’t have to disconnect the car.  I got my first look at their new house and was impressed with the view and the house itself.  The whole thing is absolutely beautiful.

We sat around for awhile just catching up since last Fall and when it was time jen took us out on the nickel tour of Lacrosse.  We were gone for about an hour and revisited many of the things that we had seen many years ago when we first came here.

We finished up the tour just in time to go to the Texas Roadhouse where we ate Dinner.  Brady and Cassidy joined us for Dinner and Nicole waited on us.  It was truly a family affair.  We had a mixture of food and it was all very good.  Tom and Jen bought our Dinner which was very generous of them.

Jen came back to the motorhome after Dinner and Tom joined us a little later on.

We sat and talked and joked and had a good time.  Jen and Tom left about 9:30 and we settled in to wait for the storm that was approaching.  It was supposed to be happening all day today and now it look like it’ll happen sometime tonight.

It looks like it’s going to be a relatively early night for the both of us tonight.  It’s 10 o’clock now and I don’t suspect that we’ll be up much longer.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

I didn’t hear much rain last night but it must have come down because the ground had puddles on it today.  I heard it a little bit after I got up.  We got kind of a leisurely start this morning but we didn’t have any exciting times until we got to the dump station.

Sharon went out to dump, as usual on this trip home, and the sewer hose disconnected on her.  She was ankle deep in the unmentionables.  She got so frustrated that I told her to just put everything away and we’ll leave.  She rinsed off the station as well as she could and then we just left without dumping the rest.  She came inside apologizing to me and I told her it happens to everybody at least once.  She put a clamp band on in Albuquerque and it just wasn’t tight enough.

On the rest of the trip home we hit two detours that took us miles out of our way and never drove into our driveway until 4:45 PM.  This was the latest we’ve ever gotten home, and the farthest we’ve ever driven on the last day.  It seemed like it was actually forever to get home.

Jess, our daughter, and Mike, her husband bought pizza and brought it over to welcome us home.  We actually re-imbursed her for the meal.

The End