Gold's Great Adventure

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Home Sweet Homewood!!

It's been an interesting two weeks "back home". We were able to stay with our oldest daughter Julie and her family in Chicago (Though trying to find parallel parking in a Chicago neighborhood is a challenge!!). We went to the Pumpkin Farm in South Barrington with Julie and Jonas.

I got to help with the pony ride.

It is much more fun to see something like this through the eyes of an almost three year old. What a great place, pumpkin farms have changed alot since Fred and I were kids. Besides the pumpkins, there was an animal land that would put some zoos to shame.

We were able to feed the giraffes. My they have long tongues...

A pumpkin eating dinosaur. (No joke), a corn maze, which was harder than I expected, camel rides and pony rides. We had a blast!!!

We even got to see Jonas play socceer.

We were able to surprise our other set of grandkids, Spencer and Samatha with a quick visit one day.

On Sunday we were able to see Samantha play socceer and visit with our older grandson Spencer, Andy and Kristina and Andy's parents, Sue and Marty.

Watch out, this girl can run. She scored 2 of the 4 goals that day and still had so much energy afterwards. Oh too be young again.

Our daughter Julie is expecting their second child in December, so Papa Fred and Gigi helped set up Jonas' new big boy bed. The big truck was helpful in transporting all 15 of the boxes that made up his loft bedroom set. Thank goodness Fred is so handy, as it only took a 1/2 day to put it all together. Jonas has slept in it every night since then.

We also had fun craving a pumpkin.

After a week in Chicago, we are now staying at Fred's parents in Homewood. A half block from our "old house". It was nice to see the old neighborhood, and the changes to the old house, but we are SO glad we don't have the responsibility of a brick and stick any more. We have enjoyed visiting with former neighbors and friends. It's also been nice to eat some good pizza!!!

We've seen all of our doctors and for the most part have gotten clean bills of health. One small snafu though, Fred badly sprained his ankle while taking his treadmill test. The heart is fine, but the ankle will take awhile to be back to normal. In the mean time, I think Fred likes being chaufered around by me.

We celebrated Fred's mother's 93rd birthday this past week. It was so nice to be able to have his sister's Cyndy and Gayle here at the same time as us.. We have so much fun and laughs with them!!!

We have a few more days to spend in Illinois, catching up with old friends and eating at all of our favorite places.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

On the Road Again

We have finished our assignment in South Dakota and our now heading back to Illinois (In the past I would have said heading home...can't say that any more!!!) We left Spearfish on Monday October 3rd. We left the RV in Rapid City for some minor repairs. (To fix a problem from Fred's accident in January and some other minor things). We were able to spend several days in the Midland-Milesville SD area with our daughter Jen. It was so good to see her and to see how excited she is about her job as a Vet Tech with Golden Vet Services. We only had a small honey do list to help her out and help her prepare for her first winter in South Dakota. We were invited to her landlord's Rick & Marlis Doud for dinner one night. We were able to have some home grown South Dakota beef from their ranch!!!

We finally picked up the RV on Thursday afternoon, and of course there was a problem.... The work they did on the front of the RV looks great..however, when we hooked up we realized that the marker lights on top did not work. After an hour of troubleshooting, they determined that they would have to pull the whole front cap off the RV to see where the problem was, at a cost of $95/hour and at least 6 to 7 hours of work. We decided that it wasn't worth it and we just won't drive at night!!!

Our plans to leave on Friday were delayed due to high winds (sustained winds of 25 gusts to 60mph!!) So we spent an extra day in Rapid City. We finally got on the road on Saturday, Oct 8th. We travelled uneventfully to Sioux Falls, SD where we had a nice dinner with our friends Tom & Shelly Wray. On Sunday we travelled through Minnesota and Wisconsin and saw some beautiful fall colors. We spent the night just south of Tomah WI. Monday we again realized why we like the west... no traffic... As soon as we got near to Madison WI we started seeing alot more vehicles. Thankfully, there wasn't much construction. Fred was finally able to get his bbq fix in Janesville, WI where we stopped for lunch at Famous Dave's!!! We arrived at our campground (Pine Country, Outdoor World) in Belvidere on Monday afternoon. We set up camp and spent a quite evening before heading into Chicago to see the families.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Newest Adventure

Since we've been traveling over the years, I have always kept a log of our adventures. Several of you have asked me about keeping a blog....So here goes...

As most of you know, we love to travel and in 2009 we completed a personal quest of having visited all 50 states (actually Kathleen achieved this in 2003). In 2010 we decided to try out almost full time RVing and spent 8 months on the road. In May of 2011 we sold the house in Homewood Illinois and have made that dream a reality. We are officially homeless and on the road!!!!

We have been able to establish residency in South Dakota (no state taxes, lower insurance rates and lower license plate fees). We now have a permanent address with a mail forwarding service in Box Elder, SD. We have new driver's licenses. (This was strange for Fred, because he always only had an Illinois license.) And in a few weeks we will have South Dakota plates on the truck and RV.

This past summer we have again returned to Spearfish South Dakota and are campground hosts at the prettiest campground in the Black Hills - Spearfish City Campground. Fred is one of three guys who take care of all the grounds keeping and maintenance, while I am one of three gals who work in the office.

Here are some pictures of the things we saw, places we went and good times that we had the past two summers in and around Spearfish South Dakota.

Our campsite at Spearfish City Campground, Spearfish South Dakota

Deer across the creek behind our RV

Deer along the walking path in Spearfish

Our daughter Jen and Fred at Mount Rushmore. She fell in love with South Dakota on this visit and now lives in Midland where she is a vet tech for a large animal clinic.