On the Move

We finished our visit back "home".  It was a bit odd to be staying at Fred's parents house which is just a half block from our former residence of 18 years.  I guess it was good that neither Fred nor I had any real desire or yearning for the old house.  We were both a bit curious as to the changes that they made to the backyard, but in all the time in Homewood, we never mistakely pulled into the driveway!!!  It solidifies the fact, that we made the right decision about full timimg.

We were really glad to be able to get back there and spend time with family and friends. It was also a good time to check in with our doctors for routine checkups.  Thankfully, overall we are healthy.  I was able to spend a girl's night out with my dear friend Alyson, who I worked with, and helped her celebrate her birthday.  We were able to spend a week with Fred's sisters Cyndy and Gayle who came in for Esther's 93rd  birthday.  We spent time  with our grandkids, Samantha and Spencer and Jonas, it's great to see them so happy.  They do grow up so fast. (I can't believe that Samantha was able to read to me two complete books!!)  And the last night there, we spent the evening with my best friend from college, Jan and her husband Bill. 

But now it's back on the move and going down the road.  We are heading for Florida via Kansas.  After Fred's accident last January, we started thinking about our new life style on the road.  We live in our house and if anything should happen to it, we'd be homeless...  So we are being proactive and have started to look for our next RV.  It took us almost two years to decide to buy the Titanium, so we are starting to do our homework now.  When we were looking last time, we were also interested in the Hitchhiker Discover America RV by NuWa.  They are made in Chanute Kansas so we left the Chicago area and headed southwest.

We left Chicago on Sunday October 31st.  We stopped in Bloomington and had lunch with our friends Joe & Vicky Harbison who we met on our Alaska caravan in 2003. (This is the best part of rving, meeting people who become life long friends.) They will be down in Florida this winter so I'm sure we will see them again soon.  We stayed at a cute campground in Edwardsville IL called Red Barn Rendevous.  We had stayed here back in 2006. Monday, it was on to and through Missouri to Kansas City.  We arrived in Chanute Tuesday early afternoon, but they only give tours once a day at 9:45.  So we settled into our campsite and enjoyed our first meal ever at Sonic!! Chanute has a great little city campground. No frills, just water, electric and a dump station, but the price is right.  The first two days our free, then it's $10 per night.

We toured the NuWa plant on Wednesday and we were very impressed with their product.  The only draw back is that most of their rv's our preordered by people so it takes 10 -12 weeks to get one.  We planed on leaving on Thursday, but heavy rain and wind kept us in place for one more day.  So instead we did laundry and went to the movies.  Footloose...  good movie, but I still like the original version best!

Friday was a perfect day for traveling.  Sunny skies, mild temperature and beautiful fall colors.  I have been doing most of the driving this trip and I never realized how hilly western Arkansas is.  I'm sure I would have enjoyed the scenery more, if I didn't have to pay such close attention to the road.  Now I know how Fred feels most of the time.  I just hope that with my driving he was able to relax and enjoy the view!!!  (I only heard him gasp a few times!!)  And the view was spectacular, I wish I would have been able to pull off and take some pictures.  The colors were amazing. We stayed at Ivy's Cove RV Retreat.  They had the absolute best bathrooms that I have ever seen in a campground.

In six days we have driven through six states, (IL, MO, KS, OK, LS, AR. MS). Today we arrived in Vicksburg, Mississippi (I couldn't resist spelling that out). The drive from Russellville AR to here was not very exciting.  Lots of plowed cotton and tobacco fields.  We haven't seen a lot of wildlife on this trip, surprisingly the most common thing that we are seeing are hawks. Today alone, we saw at least 50 of them.  Fred said he saw some armadillos, though I never saw them... We will be touring some Civil War sites in the morning.