Author: Deb and Derick White

We Our rig is comfortably parked on its new pad at our son’s house in Grand Isle, Vermont. 50 amp hook up being installed this week. This will allow us to stay in the rig 3 nights a week to be ready for our daycare duties. Our daughter-in-law is on maternity leave now and our son will take his in Sept and Oct with a spot in a local daycare ready on Nov 1.  This left them with a gap in coverage that Deb is thrilled to be able to fill! Our granddaughter Genevieve is 3 weeks old today and is adorable! Will make heading south in Oct bittersweet!

We are settling in to our camp on Lake Carmi and our rig is awaiting the finishing touches on its pad at our son’s house in Grand Isle. Our granddaughter will be born tomorrow by Cesarean….all is good!

We are already planning our next winter excursion and wanted to share some info on our last one!  We visited:

22… RV parks

6…. State Parks (Fl, AZ, OH)

7…..Harvest Host sites (2 museums, 3 wineries and 1 distillery)

1….Rv Group run park (FMCA)

1…..RV Group rally (Escapees)

2……Driveways

3……National Parks

We logged over 7500 miles and went to 13 states.  It was a great trip and we are anxiously planning our next.

Thanks for following along!

Our view for the summer!

New York is a really big state, not Texas big but we needed a stop along the way. Harvest Host gave us the place, Great Western Winery in the Fingerlake region. We had conflicting gps directions which we think was related to the angle of the entrance but it was easy to find.  We had a great tasting and looked around the visitor center.  They are the only winery in the US able to call their sparkling wine champagne because they were planted by Frenchmen using French vines. Only sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France can be called champagne.  Seems like a vintner’s loophole!

All of our trips begin and end in Oneonta, NY with a visit with our son Nick, his wife Jen and our granddaughter Hannah.  She got to visit the rig and even help bring in the slides. Not sure she fully understands that we live in Nana and Papa’s bus but we are planning a stay at a nearby state park in July and hopefully she get an overnight!

By now the weather is unseasonably cold and wet. The drive to Vermont was rainy and when we got into Vermont it was freezing!  Our rig is spending the summer at our son Adam’s house where we are putting a pad and power. Time to start planning next winter!

Kentucky is borbon country so it makes sense that our only stop in the State was a bourbon distillery.  Boundary Oak Distillery was a Harvest Host sight so we stopped, sampled and spent the night in the parking lot.  They make a variety of bourbons and even moonshine and they give you a thimbleful of each. Derick is a bourbon man so he savored each one. Deb on the other hand made some awful faces and let Derick finish her samples. Good thing we only had to walk to our rig for the night!

Deb has an 89 year old young aunt in Cleveland so Ohio was our next stop.  We spent 2 nights at the FMCA headquarters RV park. Family motor Coach Association is a group we belong and they allow their members 2 nights free a month in there park  it is in Cincinnati so it is a good travel stop.  There is a small lake behind it with a walking path which made for a great spring walk!  Saw a bald eagle swoop down and snag a fish and baby geese with their watchful parents.  The only thing that seemed out of place was the big active landfill just 1/4 mile away.  They have some ridiculous land management practices.

We went to Chagrin Falls and had a great visit with Deb’s aunt and her cousin .  We spend the night in nearby Punderson State Park.  They park was still closed for the season but camping was still allowed and they had full hook ups.  It is a beautiful state park with a marina, a beach on the lake and a Tudor manor house for events. Spring mud and gray skies don’t do it justice in photos.

Off to NY and our granddaughter!

Elvis, the Grand Ole Opry, bbq and Don and Linda……says it all!  We started our week at Graceland RV park next to the parking lot at Graceland. Graceland was the home of Elvis Presley and now extends to buildings across the road that house 200,000 square feet of Elvis’s stuff including his cars, planes and collection of jump suits.  Elvis was not on our playlist in our musical years but his influence extends to so many bands and music is what it is because of him.

Elvis bought Graceland in the late 50’s and     Redecorated frequently. Since he died in 1977 he decor is forever 70’s! We only toured the house and planes but for more money you could see it all.

Elvis has been gone over 40 years but the lines of people from all over the world that come to see Graceland shows how popular he still is.

Next stop was Nashville!  We stayed near the Opryland Hotel at a KOA park. Derick had a board meeting at the Hermitage hotel downtown so we had 2 great evenings with some fun people.  We did some shopping, some BBQ, and saw a Grand Ole Opry radio show at the Ryan Auditorium.

We saved the best stop for last!  We have known Don and Linda for over 25 years !  We see Linda in Vermont for the Vermont Captive Conference each summer and sometimes at other conferences around the US. They have come to stay with us at our camp a few times and have invited us to their house in Tennessee.  Little did they realize we would show up with a 40 ft motorbike and a dog!  They were very gracious and even parked on the lawn so we could fit in their driveway.  They were gracious hosts and even promised to wake us up if a tornado was coming!  ( we decided to stay in their guest wing so they wouldn’t have to come outside to save us). Luckily the weather did not go crazy and we had a great time!

Next post will be from Vermont!

Spent last week driving through Oklahoma and Arkansas.  We spent an afternoon in Oklahoma City. First at the Memorial for those killed in the Oklahoma City bombing.  Who knew in 1995 that terrorist bombing would become part of our history. Started by two white Americans!  On a lighter note we went to the American Banjo Museum which we really enjoyed.  Lots of beautiful banjos and a special exhibit on Jim Henson!

Rain and potential severe weather had us travel straight to Hot Springs, Arkansas.  The mere hint of the word tornado got our attention!  No tornadoes but it rained a lot in Arkansas. We went to the Hot Springs National Park and saw how the wealthy took the mineral waters from the Hot Springs. Some of their treatments looked more like torture devices but the entire bathhouse was nicely preserved and was free!

The old Superior Bath building was turned into a brewery and restaurant. Brewing beer seems like a better use of hot mineral water!

Next stop….. Memphis!

 

We spent some time on the iconic Rt 66 these last few weeks. Established in 1926 , it connected Chicago to Santa Monica, California . The Baby Boom after WW 2 and the prosperity that followed made it possible to vacation and see the country. Rt 66 developed into series of hotels and restaurants interspersed with lots of souvenir shops. Concrete dinosaurs, large teepees dotted the road way with signs for moccasins, Indian pottery and more.  Hollywood showcased in movie and TV . many a station wagon with kids jumping over the seats (before the days of seat belts!) stopped and took photos in front of   Souvenir shops,

The US Interstate system and air travel made Rt 66 go the way of the dinosaur, although many a cracking , concrete dinosaur remains by faded billboards and boarded up shops, much of Rt 66 is now part of other roadways and the original is Historic Rt 66.

Some towns embrace Rt 66 and hope to attract baby boomers.  It worked as Derick insisted our trip must include a stop in Winslow, Arizona just “because we can”

Our Facebook posts from there brought a responses that when read in sequence, brought back the Eagles “standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona”.

Rt 66 and the baby boomers are fading and disappearing but are still a vital part of the fabric of America. Check it out before it fades away!

 

There are not many times lately I feel like complimenting our government, but after visiting 2 of our county’s National Parks this week let’s celebrate the good that it has done.

We visited the Grand Canyon earlier this week and words don’t do it justice.  Neither do the photos and they still are amazing. We discovered that schools in the western US all have spring break in March making things crowded. Luckily we knew this ahead and went early.

The park is 1900 square miles and well planned and thought out.  The trails follow the the south rim and are paved and wide. Surprisingly you get get pretty close to the edge. Beautiful testament to nature and the power of water!

Our next stop was The Petrified Forest National Park.  We didn’t realize it was so big and so much more than petrified logs. The term Forest refers to when the crystallized logs on the ground where trees in a rainforest surrounded a huge river, 216 million years ago!  When they fell and sunk in the river, overtime the minerals in the water crystallized in tree. They look like a regular log from a distance but when you get closer you see it is rock and crystals.

This was only a small part of the Painted Desert . Red rock mesas with stripes of blue, purple and brown are a look through geological time. You can’t help but wonder what must have been going on on our planet during each color phase. It was an overcast day and the pics do not do it justice.

Between the to parks we took a ride on the iconic Rt 66 and had to stop to stand on a corner in Winslow, Arizona!

The Escapees RV Club annual rally called Escapade is over . What a great week we had. Met lots of new people and confirmed that RVers are very friendly!  Made a few friends we hope to see again on the road and know that any fellow Escapee will always be a friend!

Our goal is to be back in Vermont for Easter. Our son, Adam and his wife Emily, are expecting their first child at the end of May and we want to be back and settled into camp in plenty of time. Babies can be so unpredictable!

We have lots of miles to cover before then however .  Still on the itinerary are the Grand Canyon, Albuquerque, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee.  Be sure to follow along!

We are at the Pima County Fairgrounds in Tucson, Arizona at the Escapees Escapade.  The Escapees is a RV club that we belong to. Once a year they hold a gathering called Escapade with vendors, seminars and lots of social gatherings. Prior to the Escapade they offer a boot camp for new rvers  which we attended and learned so much.

In case you think we are the only crazy people out there in a RV, there are 800 rigs here!  There was another groups rally in Georgia last week and they had 2400 rigs!

Having a great time and learning so much!