Home, Home at last!!

Sunday August 14th. We went to "The Hermitage" President Andrew Jackson's home. It was a southern plantation. It has many of the original furniture in it. Some of the wallpaper is 200 years old! Incredible! What a place to visit. We took a golf cart ride up to the mansion and then to see the back portion of the estate we went on a horse drawn ride to the outreaches of the plantation. On the property there was a replica of an English garden.....and that is where the graves of Andrew and Rachel Jackson are located. This really was interesting and if you are interested in history this should be a must see.

Monday we planned on leaving Nashville area....and we hoped to get to Perry, Georgia. Well we started out early and we arrived in Perry to soon to stop for the evening.....so we kept on driving and driving and driving!!! We got off the road about 6:30 and lo and behold we found ourselves in Lake City, Florida. Well anyone that has been on the road a long time knows when you are that close to home you find yourself awake early the next morning and on the road again to arrive home in Estero about 1:00 early afternoon.

We spent the rest of Tuesday, all day Wednesday and Thursday clearing out the R.V. Then Thursday a.m. We took the R.V out to where we store it. It sure seems be good to be but our travels will continue down the road.

When we were in Mackinac City we met a nice couple from Ft. Myers....Erin, Keith and family. Sure would be nice to get in touch with them...but I can't seem to find their blog. If Erin or Keith see this...please email your blog. Thx. Nancy

Saturday August 13th.

What a day....it's overcast drizzly and what do we do? Well we thought we should do something in the car. We head southeast of Nashville towards the little (361 pop.) town of Lynchburg. For anyone not in the know any Jack Daniels purchased anywhere in the world it all is made right there in Lynchburg! We take a walking tour of the facility and one and a half hours later we have learned all about making whiskey and our legs are tired! But we go into town and find the general store where you can purchase anything Jack.....even fenders for a motorcycle or a pool table to stick pins. Oh look there is a Harley shop.....we have to go there. Then we head towards Nashville and our campsite. We arrived back in time to rest before our big doings tonight.

Saturday evening the show starts at 7:00 and we know it is a sold out performance. We leave our campsite so we can get a good parking spot at 5:00.... Arriving about 5:30, the doors won't open until 6:15 so we found a pleasant spot to sit as the storms had passed and it was a real pleasant evening.

The doors opened a little early so we went in found our seats and sat in the a/c. What a great show...they celebrated Vince Gill's 20 years with the Grand Ole Opry. Our performers for our star studded evening were Little Jimmy Dickens (90 hrs. Young), John Anderson, Emmylou Harris,Martina McBride, Jenny Gill ( yes she is Vince Gill's daughter...but what a voice), Amy Grant ( wife) and then of course Vince Gill. There were others performing....but these were the ones you might have heard of. The show is suppose to be 2-2 1/2 hours but this one lasted just shy of 3 hours. What a tremendous day we had, the Jack factory and the Grand Ole Opry!!! Can life get any better than this? I want a return visit to the Opry....it is something else and if you like country it should be a must see venue.

Thursday, August 11 & Friday the 12th

We leave southern, Illinois and it's off to Tennessee....big plans for our visit here. We arrived shortly after noontime and wind our way down country roads to another Corp of Engineers park we were greeted at the front gate by the park rangers and their lovely southern drawl. Just love to listen to them speak. That afternoon we thought we should find the Grand Ole Opry handpick up our tickets for Saturday nights performance. What luck, we find the Opryland area....remember all the flooding back in May of 2010? Well it still has areas where things aren't back to normal....there was a mall right next to the Grand Ole Opry which still hasn't reopened....but hopefully will soon. Anyhow we could not figure out where the Opry building was so I saw a Grayline tour guide and asked him. We were right at the correct spot to go pick up tickets. We got our tickets and went to the gift shop. Still we were glad to find out how to maneuver our way around.

Friday finds us heading out to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. We weave around the city streets and find on street parking just around the corner from the Hall. When we entered we could tell this was a BIG building and it traces country music from the 1920's on up. There is lots to see and do just there in that building. Afterwards we find the Harley shop....then it's onto the state Capitol building. We can't find any close parking so we see the Capitol building from the car. With our handy little map we find Music Row where there are lots of small recording studios. Easy city to find our way around in...the small little map we picked up at the welcome center.

Plainfield...Cisco

Saturday we left the farm in the car and headed north to Plainfield...where the Greg Milton family lives. We arrived in time to attend daughter in law Lynn's celebration birthday party for older sister LeeAnn and younger sister Laura. It was held at Laura and Joe's home which just happens to have a pool. Bet you know where all the kids were....that's right in the water! Big surprise there, huh? Anyhow after a wonderful dinner we headed back to our hotel room and peace and quiet!

Sunday we took the kids to dinner and shopped a little bit before heading back to Carol's. It was a busy week end but again we aren't sure when we will get to see the kids...like maybe not until next summer. One of the pitfalls of living far away from our children....but we sure do enjoy our lovely winter weather.

Monday was another veg day for us.....cause we left on Tuesday morn. We drove the motor home to southern Illinois for a two day stay at a Corp of Engineers park. Great park.....but the sites weren't level.

Saturday July 30

Ahhh, Saturday....Katie goes home and we celebrate Daniel's first birthday. The kids had a first
birthday party for the little man. There were about 35 people who attended!

Paws, the Detroit Tigers mascot attended, too!My sisters, his other grandparents and a few cousins, plus neighbors and their children. We had good eats and then I got to hold Danny and give him his bottle(?) really a two handled cup he holds....

he fell asleep in my arms for a couple of hours.

During that time his sisters and a neighbor girl had fun opening his gifts for him.

It sure was a good time....but all things come to an end and we headed back to the RV. No kids, just the two of us.

Sunday.......the kids had purchased tickets to the Tigers game for Jeff, Tom and Richard (Amy's step father). Richard did not go so a friend Mike took his ticket..they were right on the first base line over the Tigers dugout about 30 rows up.

Tom had a wonderful time while I went with Amy and kids to IKEA. What fun it is to shop with four young children. At the end of the day when we were all back at the house we called out for pizza. Another tiring day but as always, totally enjoyable.

Monday we took stock of where we want to go and when we look to return to Estero. We had a call from Barbara Toth to tell us Tom has jury duty on August 31st. I guess we now know, we will be home no later than then.

Sunday July, 24

Sunday is a day of rest, which is exactly what we did.

Monday we drove to Port Huron to see Peg & Bill Heine. Thy both look great. Bill is walking without a cane and Peg who is just one month out from her hip replacement is doing great. She still has some pain (refuses to take pain pills)....but walks with a cane and her spirits are fantastic!

Tuesday, ahhhhh, it is nearing the end of our stay here at Harbor Beach. We knew our next stop we would not have sewer hook up so I want to get there with everything clean....yup, another wash day. Not much else to do... so we started planning our travels for the next couple of weeks.

Wednesday found us leaving early in the day. Our trip to Addison Oaks will be a only a couple of hours time. Tom decided he would drive the whole way. We arrived before noon, set up for the next week and settled in.

Grand daughter Katie called and asked us to dinner so we just cleaned up and then headed into Jeff and Amy's. Katie had an ulterior motive....she really wanted to stay with Grandma and Grandpa in the RV. If we came to dinner on Wednesday night she figured she could stay until Saturday. Well, we brought Katie back with us that evening and wow...let's just say having a seven year old around is fun.

Thursday started out dreary so we went grocery shopping. Abagail, the kids Nanny, took Dan the Man home for a "sleepover" Thursday night. Jeff and Amy were "childless" for the first time in 6 years.

Anyone remember

what it's like to shop with a seven year old? Grandma can I have this? Grandma can I have that? Are we going to get back to the RV in time so I can go swimming? Can I ride my bike? Can we do this or can we do that? Well it certainly is fun

and we had many great laughs. Katie loved walking Charley so much, I think Charley was exhausted every night during Katie's stay. Having a youngster around the campsite brings all sorts of little ones around...and Katie made friends with lots of children. Dillon, Kendyl and Katie were like the three musketeers......together whether they were riding bikes, walking Charley, playing with Grandpa's bubble machine or going to the playground. We did take Katie to the beach on Friday and she had lots of fun with "Dudes" splashing in the water. Anybody she doesn't know their name, she refers to as "Dude"!.... When we arrived back at the campsite she had Dillon and Kendyl to roam around with again. At the end of her stay we were surprised how slow life was without her.

Wednesday...July 20, 2011

July is turning into a great month for us. The sky was overcast which is nice because we are moving to another campground. Our mid morning start put us into the next campground just after lunch. We headed south out of Alpena down the Lake Huron shoreline. Traveling only back roads we see this great country and marvel how vast and lovely all the sights seem to be. On that part of the shoreline drive we actually got to see a lot of the Lake Huron shoreline. We traveled thru our old "home town" of Bay City, ....... didn't stop.... nothing special there for us anymore. We camped at a county park in the "thumb" of Michigan near the small village of Harbor Beach. It has industry, part of Dow agro systems. The town itself is dying....but countryside is still pretty vibrant.

Thursday.....this is our worst day of heat....the inside/outside thermometer read 99, but I think that is as high as it can go. We stay inside and try to keep cool. One good thing about this move is we are camped directly on the lake....if you know about that the lakes can actually help the weather by giving you cooler breezes, just like the Gulf Breezes in Florida. We survived the day and by nightfall the temps are starting to come down. Thank heavens!

Friday finds us doing laundry once again. Thank you so much for having a washer and dryer in this R.V. We wait until after lunch and head into Bad Axe.....can't remember why we needed to go, but we did. We wanted to go to Port Austin to the fabulous restaurant we stumbled on awhile back for their all you can eat perch dinner. We arrived in town early...so we had an early dinner. ....it was great.

Saturday brings the week-end, and with that, lots of children around the park. Lots of fun...and lots of noise. We looked forward to Monday and the peace and calm of the week-days. Sunday another day of rest....but we have updates for the computer and it takes so much bandwidth we headed back to Bad Axe to the McDonalds to use their free wifi. No pix 'cause everybody knows what a McDonalds looks like!!

July 18, 2011. Tuesday

Monday morning, the day we move to yet another campsite. We did not travel far....just about 120 miles to Alpena, on Lake Huron. We arrive before noontime and have to wait for the people to vacate the campsite we were to have. The park is about 6 miles out of town right along the back-up from the dam further down the river. The river Thunder Bay river and it flows into Thunder Bay on Lake Huron. Tom used to race the Sarnia to Alpena boat race (185 miles) on our O'Day 27 sailboat. I don't ever remember coming into this port...sometimes memories fail, but I'm pretty sure I did not.

Anyhow we went into town and looked it over, as is the case with so many cities and towns in Michigan, it is not flourishing.....it is starting to get run down. We return just in time for the heavens to open up......and did it ever rain hard. Seems the whole U.S. Needs rain this summer so it was welcomed.Tuesday the day started out sunny....but soon it went from sun to cloudy. This was the day we were heading north to the small village of Presque Isle. It is where the state had a break wall, a stone pier and a harbor of refuge. We used to sail in and anchor out in the boat overnight.....and boy had it changed!!! It now has docks and the harbor is huge and it looks new. Not sure how long ago they were built, but the docks and harbor are great. Then we went to visit the "old" Presque Isle lighthouse.

It is not in use any longer but.....I remember when the boys were little (4-6) and we would walk to the lighthouse from the harbor. It seemed to them back then that we had to walk miles, which in fact was only about 1/2 mile from the harbor. It is a quaint old lighthouse and keeper's cottage, but very interesting. The county is trying to keep them open and so they asked for donations. Some say that the lighthouse and keepers cottage are haunted. The light has been turned off since 1971 but on some nights they appear to be turned on. Great folklore.

Sunday, July 17th.

Trips down memory lane....how great is that? Sunday ww took a drive from Mackinac City to Harbor Springs. Our day was sunny, bright and nary a cloud in the sky. We headed out to Wilderness State Park first.....for those of you who do not know the Michigan landscape the park is on Lake Michigan about 11 miles West of Mackinaw City. We thought we might get the lay of the land in case we wanted to come back in the future of what the park had to offer. Did anyone say just electric, no sewer, no water? You would be right! The trees have grown...the lake is still large and the Mosquitos are large to go with the park. Not someplace I would want to go. Oh well it payed to check things out.

We were driving the back roads on purpose and yes, the arrow markings are already on the roads up here for the Labor Day bicycle ride (DALMAC...Dick Allen Lansing to Mackinac) which we rode several times a long time ago. Tom rode

more of them than I did, but still good memories. Our first ride, son, Greg rode with us...it's a four day bicycle ride starting in Lansing in front of the state Capitol Building

and ending 4 days and some 400 miles later....

.the one day a year you get to ride your bicycle across the "Big Mac" bridge is Labor Day.Just before noontime we arrived in Cross Village. It's claim to fame is, some eccentric made this stone and log

building and all of the log furnishings long, long ago. It is quite literally the only thing of any importance in this village. It fell into disrepair, but some hearty individuals bought the place, cleaned it up and have turned it into a wonderful Polish/American restaurant. The setting is on the high bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan....they have planted flowers and have outside eating and simply fantastic views.

After our lunch we headed south on one of the country's most magnificent roads, M119, it runs from Cross Village, some 20 miles to Harbor Springs. The drive is through the "Tunnel of Trees" with glimpses of Lake Michigan all along the road.

Once we arrived in Harbor Springs we went to the waterfront and just looked at boats remembering all our days sailing the Great Lakes..... all of them!!

Charley dog was with us for the day....she got to wade in Lake Michigan. She sure loves to drink the fresh water in the great lakes.

Saturday, July 16th.

We awake to another gorgeous day....sunny, warm and blue skies. So much for the bah humbug weatherman telling us it would be a rainy day. We head into the city to catch the ferryboat to the island. We catch the 11:00 ferry so we arrive on the island at 11:16. We walk Main Street......things change but somehow remain the same. Some of the stores look the same, most still have the same names, but a few new names appear. When we reach the end of Main St. We turn back and find the carriage ride we paid for with our ferryboat ride ticket. Our driver, Beth gives us the city part of the tour. We head up to Market street and find it has not changed...since all are historical buildings and we hear about the history of most of them.

We head north towards the Grand Hotel. Yes, the porch is still the longest covered porch in the world, you can see it coming over on the ferryboat. Up, up, up the hill we travel seeing the Governers Summer House on Mackinaw Island.

Then further up the hill to the half way point of the tour.

I go to the butterfly garden and look at all the beautiful butterflies, before we board another carriage ride into the state park portion of the island.

We travel past many old beautiful summer homes (more like huge, huge island homes) and towards Arch Rock.

Back at the halfway point we return to the fancier carriage to head back into town.

When we got back to town we find the Murray House for a lunc

h. It is cool, they have a/c, and we enjoy a nice quiet lunch. After lunch we head back out to Main Street and finish our walk down to the other end before we head back to the docks and the ferryboat ride back to the mainland.

When we get back to the car we try to get closer to Big Mac to get photos.

Got a few good pix of the old Makinaw Point Lighthouse, too!!

Then we head down the Huron shoreline all the way to Cheboygan before returning to our campsite. A very enjoyable day.....probably one of the best of visiting old haunts.

July 15th, 2011

Friday we start heading east....not real sure where we will end up. We are traveling on highway US 2 right along the north shore of Lake Michigan. The scerenery alongside this stretch of road is just pure Michigan!! The road is good and we see a roadside park on the shoreline, let's stop and perhaps make up our mind where we plan to spend the next few days.

I really want to visit some of our old vacation spots...let's see if we can find a campground around Mackinac City. We find KOA Mackinac City, yes ..... they have room for us. I don't need to drive today, it's actually just a short drive....Tom takes the honors. I hate crossing "Big Mac", the bridge across the straits of Mackinaw in the RV...you are so high in the air, the guardrail seems soooo very low. I just like to cross my eyes.

We find our campground and set up just after noontime. Since we are here so early we go into the city to find the kite shop.Tom has wanted a pole on which to fly a spinner...we find the shop and yes they have them. We leave the shop with a smile on our face, Tom finally gets his new spinner and pole.

July 13th, 2011

Wednesday we awoke early and went into town for an early breakfast. Someone had recommended Grunde's...so that's where we went. We ordered and it seemed to take forever for breakfast to arrive, but when it did it was well worth the wait. After breakfast it was off to the docks for our boat ride. We had purchased upper deck tickets and knew we might be cold out on the water. All our friends are in a terrible heat wave....for us that day we wore bluejeans, Winter coats and we were worried we might still be cold. The high temperature for the day was 72 with a good breeze on the water! The trip around the islands was informative and the captain of our ship gave us a history lesson. Back in 1910, the "brownstone" quarrying business abruptly ended in the Apostle Islands and many quarried blocks are right where they were left when the business died. The lighthouses were beautiful and the caves which were carved out by wave action, all made for a good ride and an enjoyable day. When we disembarked we looked for a restaurant and had lunch on deck looking out over the bay. We shared a table with two bicyclists from St Louis, MO, who were on holiday touring. Wonderful to listen to how others spend their vacation days. Brought back memories of our own bicycling days. Yes, we did a lot of bicycle touring in the days of yore!!
Thursday we headed east on US 2. Easy day, we were going to Rapid River, Mi. We left Wisconsin and arrived in Michigan....found a diner and had a typical U.P. Michigan pasty. The early settlers in the U.P. took pasties into the mines.... they are still made and are a local favorite. After our lunch we headed east once again.we had a couple of turns to make in towns along the way. The big rig is not easy to turn around, but we both look at road signs so we won't have that worry. Wait, what does that sign say "Welcome to Wisconsin". Did we miss a turn back 20 some miles??? I look on the map and finally see that yes indeed this road did dip back into Wisconsin for a few miles before it wove back into Michigan. What a trying few minutes.

We arrived in Rapid River. Our campsite wasn't the greatest but it would do. We set up and then headed back into town for a dinner. KFC sounded pretty good to us! We were not sure just how long we would stay here....but just in case Nancy did a few loads of laundry. Where we are at a lot of campsites don't have sewer hookups ... but ours did!

Sunday, July 10th.

My birthday! The day started out with a call from Don & LuAnn. Next thing Jeff and Amy called. Next it's Ron & June Hendricks calling....then my sister Marilyn. We wanted to go to Thunder Bay, Ont. Today, I called Greg and Lynn because we had turned off our cell phones so we would not have any international calls. We get to the border and the Canadian customs guy is really nice.

We drove the 88 miles to Thunder Bay, Ontario.....not anywhere near the coastline of the Big Lake Gitche Goomi (Lake Superior). What a major disappointment! We couldn't find one nice restaurant for dinner so we ended up at a Tim Horton's....talk about a lousy dinner. Then we headed back to Minnesota. When we arrived at the border we had another great customs agent, US..of course...talked with him for about 10 minutes. It was a really slow day for him, I guess. We got home in time for cocktails!!
Monday, July 11th. We had wanted to go out to Isle Royale. Though it is in Michigan it is much closer to Minnesota. Two years ago, we had the days right, but the ferryboat was still frozen in because we were there too early in the year. I don't think we are meant to go....This year, the boat only goes out on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. We missed it.....darn it.

Tuesday we left for Bayfield, Wisconsin. We drove the coast highway down towards Duluth.....the roads around Duluth are always under construction. They are hard to maneuver a big motorhome through. Thank heavens Tom takes that part of the driving. We arrived in Bayfield (pop 671) early so we went into town and explored.

Thursday July7th

Thursday we left Austin and headed towards Minneapolis. We have stayed at an Indian casino near there so we once again call and find out if they have a spot for us. Luck is with us....they had space. The state of Minnesota is shut down....nothing to do with the state is open or have any type of service. Prior Lake is just one great campground.....full hookups, cement pads, cement patios, grass for Charley what's not to like? We arrived in the early afternoon and set up. We called Florida neighbors Jan and Clyde Severson, they invited us for dinner. What a nice evening we had. Forgot to take any pictures .... darn it!

Friday the 8th.we thought about going to the Mall of America. We found our way there and enjoyed walking all around. It is HUGH !!! We had been there before, but it still took our breath away.

Saturday finds it rainy and a day to move. We had made a reservation in Grand Marais, MN, on the north shore of Lake Superior. It is a municipal park....spaces close together, and north of Duluth by about 110 miles. We had decided that the motorhome would not be going into Canada due to customs issues about plants, fruits, meats and DOG FOOD....instead we would take a day trip there once we got to the "North Shore" of Lake Superior.

We got ready to start out from the Casino and discovered some jackass had stolen one of our tow bar hitch pins. Great ..@#$!%&*%^... We found a hardware store and purchased a new pin. We get back to the motorhome and Tom drove the RV to the diesel pumps.... with the door awning out....we then had to take that apart....it's totally busted! When we finally got on the road..... about half way through Minneapolis on I35W some guy came alongside our motorhome, started honking and pointing towards the rear. There was absolutely no place to stop until we were well north of the city. Then when we finally pulled over, discovered our tow light connector had come undone, dragged on the ground and, yup it needed to be replaced. Thank heavens for the GPS. We located a Walmart and got the necessary part so Tom could fix it. Finally we arrived in Grand Marais, set up and relaxed. We thought we needed it. Cocktails, that is!!

July 6th, 2011

Monday was the 4th. And it was a great day. We just sat around and relaxed for most of the day then late afternoon we headed into Plainfield to see the kids. We made a couple of stops on our way in....but I did not purchase anything. After a quick dinner we followed Greg and Lynn into Naperville to a parking lot to stake out an area to watch the fireworks.

The whole Woeltje clan was there along with Nasmans and a few of the Woeltge girls old friends.

It was like a party in the parking lot. It seems like a lot of the same people show up at the same spots every year.

The girls jumped rope, played with hula hoops had some fireworks and much more. It was spectular and the

fireworks were great.

Tuesday was a move day for us. We left our Joliet campground early. We drove about an hour and a half and a light on the dash goes off along with a red light and terrible dinging noise. I was driving since we were real close to an exit that is just what I did....... EXIT! We called Freightliner, told them what was going on and they told us they did not put that light on the dash we should call Tiffin. After about twenty minutes on hold ( at least we were in the cue) we got to talk with a real live person. They said it was our Jack's! Oh no, here we go again. But rest assured what had happened was one jack had sliddown ever so slightly, tripped the safety alarm and caused the light and commotion going off. After spending about an hour on thephone things were back to normal and we were on the road again. Just had to cycle the jacks computer control to restore it's memory. Darn, we had a long drive ahead of us and we lost about an hour and a half of driving time.

But, we just kept heading north and west, across the Mississippi River into Iowa and finally made it to our destination about 5:00 p.m. We arrived in Minnesota just north of Iowa in the town of Austin. I called my niece, Lynn to see if we could visit. The whole Keenan family came out to see the motorhome and then we headed into town for a really good Mexican dinner. After our dinner we headed to their home and enjoyed small talk and entertainment from their two young boys, Andrew(6) and Lance(3).

Wednesday finds us up early enjoying a cup of coffee under the trees just outside our door. We are going to meet Lynn and the boys about 1:00. After "Uncle Tom" helps Andrew put together a Star Wars Legos fighter. We head out to the "Spam" museum. I mean have you ever thought about a museum for Spam?

Well George Hormel actually started the company in Austin and it is a big employer there in Austin. Also Mayo Clinic has a hugh presence in town. That is where hubby Aaron works. We toured the museum and then had a wonderful summer meal at their home, then on to DQ for blizzards.

The two little boys, Andrew and Lance are great entertainers. We surely enjoyed our visit in Austin. But like all our visiting, it's time to move on so tomorrow we leave this town. We surely don't want the grass to grow under our feet.