Yes I know it has been a while

We first met Preston, Tara and Dan sailing in the Bahamas. They were starting on a circumnavigation and we buddy boated from the land and Sea Park to George Town. They kept going south after Thanksgiving and we flew home for Christmas. Look back at those blog posts to see more of our adventures. They sailed down in the Caribbean before coming back home to Salt Lake City to have this adorable little guy Charlie. at the time of these photos Tara is 8 months pregnant with Charlie's little sister.You make life long friendships cruising. We stopped by Salt Lake City on our way west and completely enjoyed meeting Charlie and Dan's wife, seeing snow, The Temple Square and eating the biggest pizza I have ever seen!

We took of on September 20th 2016 for the big apple. That is right Statue of Liberty, Niagara Falls the works.Pulled into our first Walmart just below Charlotte North Carolina, went into courtesy check to see if we could stay overnight even though there was another RV there already and they said NO. We were bummed but took off and pulled in to another Walmart up the road about 20 miles and they said YES! Man were we happy.All of this is the night that there were riots and they even had the interstate closed for a bit in Charlotte. God looked after us and we had an amazing dinner slept like babies and continued north without incident. We continued north and ended up at Fla-Net RV Park in New Jersey. The park was ok  but very hard to find (do not follow your GPS as you will end up on a dead end road) and has numerous low hanging trees getting to the entrance. It does back up to a Chili's and a Macaroni Grill that we walked to for dinner. We unfortunately arrived in the middle of the owners family feud  which made things a little awkward checking in.We looked into a RV Park in New York City with access to public transportation to get to the Statue of Liberty etc. but they only had a couple of spots for dry camping only ( the same thing we do at Walmart for free) for $90 a night. We decided to change our plans and head on to Niagara Falls.

Found a convenient RV Park where the manager would give us a ride to the falls and pick us up when we were ready to come back for less than the cost of a taxi. We had a wonderful time at the Falls and would definitely come back. After getting our Falls Fix we looked at heading back to NY City the following day but it was the day of the Presidential debate there. No way were we going to try to negotiate around that madness so we headed west.

Mount Rushmore very cool!

Crazy Horse much bigger and great museum!

Great seeing one of the young people from our church that are stationed way out here in South Dakota!

The Air and Space Museum where they are stationed was phenomenal!

Statues of Presidents on every corner. Very Nice!

Mount Rushmore and Niagara Falls checked off our bucket list. Now on to see some old friends in Salt Lake City.

Change of direction, the beach and good friends.

 Just noticed that I never published the last leg of our Spring trip. Here it is if you are interested.

Checking the weather the next morning we discovered that the cold front that had come through was also dipping all the way down into Memphis and Mobile Al.. We had decided to take that route to avoid the wind rain and freezing temps. We changed our route and backtracked north about 15 miles and got on I-40 toward Nashville then on to Knoxville and cut out around 300 miles from our original route to N Myrtle Beach. Back up to Missouri  took a right and into Tennessee to cross the Blue Ridge and Smokey Mountains. The first thing I noticed entering Tennessee was how lush and green it was.Coning from out west where where there is a lot of bald rock  the difference was stunning. On the way from Nashville to Knoxville we ran up on a multi car pile up that backed up traffic for miles. There didn't appear to be any injuries but it did take over an hour to travel what should have taken 10 minutes.We stopped for the night in Knoxville and then on to North and South Carolina and the Beach. We did notice a difference in temperatures when going over the Blue Ridge and Smokey Mountains of around 25 degrees from the lower to the higher elevations. And since we were traveling the mountains during the day the snow that had been forecast for the night before was no where to be seen and the wind was a piece of cake compared to what we had experienced leaving St. Louis.

can you see the smoke rising. Yep that is why they call them the Smokey Mountains!

Interstate fender bender. I lost count at 8 cars involved.

These Mountains are definitely different than the Rockies!

Aha! finally the beach!

Our good friend Mike N Myrtle Beaches City Manager, showing us the town.

I think this was the only time there wasn't a truck in view on I-40!

Well we did make it home and had a very busy Spring and Summer. Had both parents having surgery and in 2 different Hospitals at the same time. God is good we also celebrated both their birthdays this summer. Dad is 87 and Mom is 85. I had a good summer at work and even re-qualified this 63 year old body in life-guarding! We even put up the new back splash in the RV kitchen. Now to get on the road again. First stop on the agenda is New York City!

Mom, Dad, Me, my brother David and my sister Angela. at the birthday party

Mom in the pink opening gifts.

In Progress. We did finish it but I can't find a picture.

Leaving St. Louis and ahow to Sail a RV!

We pulled out of St. Louis before 10am heading for Memphis in a light rain. By lunch the rain had stopped but the wind had picked up big time! The wind was terrible and gusty and we could see the storm fronts moving around us. Suddenly we heard a terrible flapping noise like the sound of a flat tire without the bumping up ad down. We eased over on the side of the interstate to investigate. In the now pouring rain we found that our awning had started pulling out and was acting like a sail. Now I love sailing but not in a RV down the interstate. Try as we might we could not adjust the awning at all. we limped the few hundred feet to the next exit to find a place to park and work on it. We ended up pulling in front of a school and trying unsuccessfully to fix the problem as lightening boomed and rain poured. Our Garmin showed a RV Park less than 3 miles up the small access road that ran beside I-55 south which we had been traveling. Inching along at less than 25 miles per hour we made our way down the road to discover no RV Park but there was a truck stop just a couple more miles away. When we got to the truck stop the rain had stopped but not the wind. We managed to wrestle the awning all the way out so that we could then rewind it properly. Then we made sure that we secured it including duct taping that sucker before getting back on I-55 and heading to the nearest Walmart 30 miles away. Oh and during this we entered Arkansas also.We parked at Walmart and collapsed for the night.

 

 Stayed to busy to take many pictures until we had things fixed up. The last pic was the next morning.

Through Kansas and on to St. Louis

Everything after Denver was new territory for us. We headed into Kansas and were amazed at the change in the landscape. We saw cattle, horses, sheep, even some ostrich and quite a few windmills. Stopped for the night outside of Topeka, went around Kansas City then landed in St. Louis Missouri.

Freddie I'm in Kansas!!

BIG windmills!

much more green and just baby mountains.

Hey Deby, I'm in Kansas too!

The Arch. Construction included.

Reflection of the Old Courthouse in the building next to it.

Our map.

Freddie touches the top of the Arch

We stayed in St. Louis RV Park downtown less than 2 miles from the Arch.We were able to walk to catch the trolley which cost us old folks $1 each for an all day pass. With a major construction project going on the area around the Arch was pretty torn up but still impressive. There were a lot of interesting exhibits from the Lewis and Clark era and early settlers, Indians and early civil rights for slaves. Next we went to the City Museum which is incredible!

Dinosaurs and an entire area made a mini Jurassic Park.

Yes, we did side down the 10 story slide. It beat going downstairs!

Everything was set up for kids to climb all over. (um senior kids too)

You could climb through those blue spirals like hamsters.

Or use the stairs to enter the monster's mouth.

Then there was outside! Railroad spikes helped make this tree with dragon heads.

More hamster tunnels and bridges through an airplane.We didn't find a way to the bus above.

chilly and exhausted but having a great time!

Freddie crossing the swinging bridge to the castle tower.