Moving on down the road...

We just left the great state of Minnesota, Home of Brett Farve OK, he doesn't live here he only plays football here. But this is the home of Paul Bunyon.

We had 28 family members make our little reunion/camping trip. I think a great time was had by all. Plenty of things to keep us busy, like volleyball,fishing,swimming, boating,canoeing,biking,games,eating,cocktails,eating, and more cocktails.
It's a little extra work by some of the adults, but so well worth it. One of my highlights was a visit from an old roommate of mine, Sherry Opitz.(not once, but twice!)We got see her husband ,Joe and daughter, Ellie on the second visit. Joe and Sherry, you have done a beautiful job raising your daughter, She's a very impressive youg woman.

Now we are off to the Newcomb side of our family in Wisconsin!

Learning as we go

On our trip from Memphis to Branson, we relied on our GPS to provide the route. That would have probably been O.K. if we were driving a car and would certainly been ideal if we had been riding a motorcycle, but hauling a 40' trailer is not something that you want to do on a road with a hundred 35mph curves. The drive was memorable enough that we never left camp while we were there and never actually got into Branson. We did enjoy our time on Table Rock Lake.
Two days and 700 miles later we set up in Mitchell, SD and found a host of very friendly people. The Corn Palace Rodeo was well worth the trip and the time that we spent there was some of the best on our journey up to this point.
Having learned about GPS navigation by driving around in circles on a couple of occasions, we used mapquest and a good old fashioned highway map for our trip from Mitchell to Osakis, MN. At one point, the GPS told us to take a different Interstate so I looked at the map and saw that the route was just a little shorter with what looked like comparable state roads and followed the GPS.
35 minutes later, we found ourselves on State Hwy 34 just west of the MN state line in eastern SD driving on a dirt road. The road started out rather rough with plenty of patched potholes but the total distance that we needed to travel on this road was only about 20 miles so I kept driving. It was about 8 miles later having driven half that distance kicking mud up on the front of our 5th wheel that the sign said "Road Closed" with no signs directing us where to go from there. Again I sougfht Garmin's help and was directed about a mile to the next easterly dirt road. The difference being that Hwy 34 was under construction. This new road was dirt from the beginning as evidenced by the strip of grass growing down the middle of it.
I stopped the rig right in the middle of the road, pulled out the good old road map and found another route which only took us about 6 miles out of the way. No harm done, lesson learned.
We hit Hwy 23 east and after a short 30 minutes started looking for a place to eat lunch. A familiar sign greated us at the next two towns that we came to. "Road Closed" and after being diverted past all of the places to eat, we finally pulled over on the side of the road and Deb made peanut butter sandwiches while I let the dogs run.
We are now set up at Linwood Resort on Lake Osakis and I'm looking forward to getting out on the lake to catch some Walleyes. In about 3 days Deb's whole family will be here so we are both looking forward to making some great memories.

69 Degrees and loving it

Woke up this fine Sunday morning to cooler temps and does it feel GOOD!

We are parked in Mitchell,SD at Rondee's RV Park. Nothing particularily special about this place other than their indoor pool and large waterslide which we took advantage of last night. It was 95 degrees yesterday.

Friday night we attended the Corn Palace Rodeo and Rob and I have become instant fans. It was pure entertainment and we would go to another in a heartbeat!

We drove right outside of town to an archeologic dig site of an indian tribe from about 1000 AD. Fascinating. The Archeodome that they have for you to spend time inside, is where a British university sends it's students to get on site experience. This is one of the ways they pay for this project. They literally examine this site inch by inch and can tell how these people lived in great detail.

The Mitchell areas largest claim to fame is their Corn Palace which is located right downtown. The murals on the outside of this interesting piece of architecture are created with aproximately 275,000 ears of corn and the theme is changed every single year. They use 12 different colors of corn all grown around this area. This was way to cool. They have been doing this since 1892. If Rob can get motivated we'll get some pictures up on here. That's his expertise.

We had a tornado warning last night, it's been years since I have been in a tornado warning area, the storm clouds even look different here. It's also great to look at an unobstructed horizon.

This country is sure filled with great, helpful, friendly people. Except at the gas station yesterday where we ran over someone's hard-sided cosmetic case that they left on the ground behind their vehicle and we smashed it to smitherines. As I handed over the now pancaked mess they said nothing, as I am sure they had no idea who to blame. We got out of there before they could decide it was us.

Movin' on down the road...

We are driving across the entire state of Missouri today, all the way to Council Bluffs, Iowa. We'll be staying in a state park overnight and then heading out in the morning for Mitchell,South Dakota. We have tickets to the Corn Palace Rodeo tommorrow night.WooHoo! or YeeHah! or GiddieUp! or whatever.

We had a little trouble emptying our poop today. hopefully the drive will shake the clog loose. Living on the move sure does have it's little aggravations.Like,I don't remember noticing that our dogs have a distinct odor. I for sure smell them when we are all in the truck together for 5 hours, the camper is starting to smell like dog also. I gave them a shampoo bath in the lake yesterday, but here we are riding along and I can still smell them. Maybe eventually I won't smell it anymore.
We never made it in to Branson the last few days. We didn't want to make the drive and then some people told us how commercial and touristy it was and we didn't fewel like that so we spent the last few days canoeing, fishing, biking and swimming. It was great.

Just a little misery in Missouri

OK, so we thought the trip from West Memphis,TN would take about 3 1/2 hours to drive to our campground right outside of Branson,MO. 7 hours later, and some extremely curvy, hilly, two lane roads we arrived at our destination. We found out what curvy roads do to your stuff all neatly stored away. We also had a freaky thing happen to one of our water lines which immediately started leaking when we hooked up to water. The line runs directly above one of the tires with apparently very little space between them, as the tire wore a hole right into it! An obvious design flaw. Of course with McGiver along and a trip to the hardware store we are good to go. By the way Branson is 40 miles away.

Now let me tell you about this glorious spot. We are camped at an US Army Corp of Engineers Campground at Campbell Point on Table Rock Lake. Our campsite is right on the lake. It definetly is the nicest place we have pulled into so far. It was 97 degrees when we arrived yesterday and after setting up and sweating buckets, it was so wonderful to throw on suits, grab some noodles and the dogs and go cool off in the water. The dogs are defintly in heaven. It's so cool the way they come out to us in the water and leisurely just swim around and around and around.

There is a big marina here and we could hear some great live music coming from their outdoor Oyster Bar last night so we'll be checking that out soon. I don't think we'll even bother driving into Branson while we're here, it's just to perfect to not spend every minute we can here. So I'm off for a bike ride, then we'll probably take the canoe out to do a little fishing.

12 days on the road

After 12 days on the road, I figured that it was about time that I had a little input on this blog.
From the first time that I took the 40' 5th wheel accross our little country bridge, I was a little concerned about getting it back out because of a hill straight across the road and railings on the bridge that I thought the rear of the trailer would swing out and hit because of having to turn so sharply. All my fears were eliminated and it came out easily (with two spotters watching). I then drove about 5 miles to our local Walmart where I planned to meet Deb after her hair appointment.
As soon as I arrived in the Walmart parking lot, I started searching for anything that I could get rid of due to the fact that we were overloaded. When you move from a 3,000+ sq ft house into a 40' trailer and are used to having everything that you could ever possibly need at your finger tips, you have a tendancy to take more stuff than is neccessary. Once Deb arrived, we loaded the back of Robin's SUV with some of the extra stuff I had decided to leave behind and we hit the road.
I'm pulling this rig with a Chevy 2500HD with a 6.6L diesel engine and a six speed Allison transmision. I got it up to 60 and set the cruise control and wound our way thru the Pigeon River Gorge on I-40 thru the Smokey Mountains. The truck performed admirably (although I could use a little more brake since we are still overloaded) but we passed slower traffic as we climbed up hills. Once we hit the slightly flatter country of east TN, the cruise was set at 65 and we never looked back. At our first fuel stop, I found that we got slightly more than 10 mpg which made me very happy since I'm sure that we are in excess of 12-1/2 tons.
Our first stop was Edgar Evins State Park on Center Hill Lake about 40 miles east of Nashville. We had called every other campground around the lake to see if there were any openings but since 4th of July weekend was just 3 days away, we expected that we would not find any open spots where reservations were taken. Such was the case so we headed to Edgar Evins which is strictly first come, first serve. I had called about a week earlier to discuss their sites with someone on the phone because the web site makes it very clear that all of the sites are platforms (decks) built off the side of the hill and that each was just 33' long. When I asked about the 33' length and expressed my desire to put a "little bigger" rig in the park, the person on the phone assured me that someone could fit a 35-36' rig into a few of the slightly larger spots. I figured 35-36', that's about 40', NO PROBLEM!
We made it thru the weekend of the 4th but we did not really like the park so we drove another 40 miles or so to Nashville and spent two nights in a great park on J. Piercy Priest Lake. The next time that we are in the Nashville area we will plan to spend a couple weeks at that park.
200 more miles down the road put us in West Memphis on the Mississippi River. HOT, HOT, HOT is the only way that I can describe our stay. Those of you in the northeast this week have experienced the same kind of weather but we were expecting it.
Our RV only has one air conditioner on top and it has been running constantly. I went to the Walmart yesterday and bought an indoor/outdoor thermometer. I placed the outdoor unit in the bedroom and the indoor one in the living area. It was 74 in the living room and 86 in the bedroom. We could definitely use a second A/C unit if we were going to spend any amount of time in a climate like this but we are turning the compass to the north tomorrow so we'll live with it for one more day. Thankfully, it cools down enough at night that the bedroom is the same temp as the living room when we go to bed.
While here, we took in The Pink Palace Museum, Graceland, Beale Street and saw the ghost of Elvis down on Union Avenue. We ate crawfish and ribs and had an overall great time. We only went out one night, so I never had the opportunity to try the catfish which I've heard, the people in the Memphis area know how to cook.
This morning, my fishing equipment started calling so I pulled out an ultra-light rod and got set up. 10 minutes later, I was in a good fight with a perfect sized catfish, the size that you get when they are farm raised. Shortly after, the sun broke thru the overcast and it got too damn hot to fish any longer.
Tonight we are having southern surf and turf. Venison steaks and catfish. Tomorrow we pack up and head for Branson, MO.

Memphis- The Incredible City

What an absolutely incredible city this is. Everywhere you go history just jumps out at you. We went down to Beale Street early evening which feels a bit like Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Instead of creole food we're talking ribs and such. But the excessive drinking is the same. We walked over to Union Street and had Rob's birthday dinner at a place called 'Rendezvous', as we walked down the alley to get to it the smells of smokey bar-be-que literally pulled us in. What a great place that had been there since 1948, so much character and absolutely fantastic ribs!! This is dry rub rib country, which I just figured out I prefer.There was great music everywhere.

We later drove to an area known for it's 200 year old Victorian mansions. These were pretty spectacular. We went into one called 'Mollie Fontaine Lounge' for a cocktail. It was a mixture of all kinds of decor with kind of a Andy Warhol feel. I loved this place, and the menu was very impressive. With it's loungy feel I could imagine being tucked away in one of their many rooms for an intimate gathering.

I'm All Shook Up

Arrived in West Memphis by 2:00 yesterday afternoon, set up camp right next to the mighty Mississippi and it is mighty right here. And HOT Hot Hot!! To hot to leave the dogs outside.

Campground is built to anticipate flooding. I guess we don't hope for rain while we are here.

We headed out early this morning to go see Graceland. We were both quite impressed. They really have putting people through there down to an exact science. And it wasn't to expensive. Lisa and Prisilla weren't home, we should have called first.

Since it's 99 degrees we are about to take the dogs swimming. Then to celebrate Rob's birthday we are going down to Beale Street for dinner. Maybe tommorrow we'll visit the site of Martin Luther King's assasination and Danny Thomas's St Jude's Children's Research Hospital. This town is filled with history. So much to do and so little time.

Elvisland here we come!

We bid farewell to all our dear friends in Nashville. We are plum tuckered out. You all mean the world to us and we thank you for squeezing us into your busy lives.We spent the last two nights on J.Pearcy Priest Lake in a campground called Seven Points located right in Nashville. Flat ground, our site was lake level. This is a great campground. If anyone is wondering if bug zappers really work, each morning we would have to take it down and clean it off from all the mosquitos, they were so thick you could hardly see the light. Gross! Darrell and Beverly Mazzoline joined us for a half day visit, so great to see you guys.

We headed out this A.M. for our next destination, Tom Sawyer's Mississippi River campground in West Memphis, Arkansas. We'll be about 7 miles from Graceland. So we will be heading over to visit Lisa Marie and Prisilla. I plan on getting an up close look at Prisilla's messed up face. I'll try not to stare. But I will try to get some pictures for you guys. I also understand Lisa has put on an enormous amount of weight. I can be shallow.

Boy has it been HOT, and it appears as though we are all in the same boat. How come I haven't heard anyone screaming global warming? This must be the proof.

Another Day

Today we took Laura's twin grandbabies, Braeden,and Briley,(age 2)to a waterpark. The guys went somewhere to play with their guns. We also went to see #3 in the Twilight series,Eclipse.

Had a little meltdown tonight after watching the tearjerker 'The Notebook'. Still crying from the movie I crawled into Rob's lap and asked him if we were doing the right thing by running away from home. He said it will only be for a little while. I said I'm feeling a little irresponsible. He said this is the most responsible thing we've done in 5 years. Good answers.

Being with someone else's family made me miss mine even though it's only been a few days. Kids, if you are reading this, don't ever forget how much we love each and every one of you. I'll be missing you all along the way.

Now people will be taking bets on how long this will last.

Day on the water

Laura and Jack came out for breakfast. Jack went back for his meeting and Rob, Laura and I went DOWN to the lake with our floats, the dogs, some mimosas and floated on the water for most of the afternoon. Oh my God, the coolest part was grabbing the dogs tails and having them pull us around, sometimes one dog pulling two floats at the same time! Labs are so cool. We wore their butts out. And ours too.