Big Pine Key, FL - Sat., Sun.

Getting through the traffic in Key Largo which was at a crawl because of the Stone Crab and Seafood Festival there was the only glitch getting to Big Pine Key Saturday. Mike, Helen, and Renaee were about an hour behind us, so we set up and then helped them set up. We went out to eat - too tired to cook! We sat around and talked until between 9:30 and 10:00.

Sunday - We loaded the bikes and headed to Bahia Honda State Park, about six miles from our campground. What a glorious day!!!! We camped there with the children 27 years ago. It is in my top five places I have ever visited. It is still just as beautiful! We hope to come back next winter and camp there. We picnicked, biked all over, visited the nature museum there, and gift shop. It is a wonderful place! If you ever get down here for anything, do NOT pass Bahia Honda State Park without a look-see!

Monday - We are taking the bikes to Key West and will eat lunch at a restaurant where Renaee and her husband ate many years ago. Renaee's husband was killed on a New Year's Eve by a drunk driver about six years ago. A few weeks ago, the home her husband built her burned to the ground. Sadly she had no insurance. We are so happy she is with us and able to get away from it all for just a bit. Have a wonderful day!

Florida Trip, Jan. 24-28

sunrise Fri., Jan. 28

to the left is Phil in the world's smallest police station

Bald eagle

photo taken from Bill and Barbara's dock

Jan. 27 sunrise

To the left is the hawk that just sat on a limb and let me take a bunch of photos of him!

We actually left town before the snow started this trip! We had a rather long ride down to Perry, GA. Carrabelle, FL, was our destination for Tues., Jan. 25, but the heavy rain caused us to stay put another night. Wednesday afternoon, we finally made it to Carrabelle, FL, to visit our dear friends, Bill and Barbara Inkelbarger, who live part of the year in East Tennessee and part of the year in Florida. We went to Wed. night church service at River of Life. What a wonderful church and church family they have! It was wonderful to meet some of the people Barbara and Bill had told us about. We had a wonderful chicken soup for supper the first night. We talked and talked and finally went to bed. They live right on the sea front, and about seven o'clock the next morning, I peeped one eye open. WOW!!!! Right in front of me was a window that had the most spectacular sunrise. I even woke Phil up to look at it! I took a few photos with my phone camera and then threw on my clothes and went downstairs to take some with my camera. Barbara cooked a big breakfast for us. Then we went to the golf course for a nice walk. After walking, we rode into Carrabelle and saw the world's smallest police station. When we got back to their house, we went out on their dock and watched an eagle fishing for lunch. Their view is wonderul. They even have a black bear that comes around every night. He left a nice pile of evidence! I also got some great photos of a hawk that sat on a branch near the house. Sevearl times we saw a group of porpoises swim by. In the afternoon, Bill cooked some from-scratch cinnamon buns for our breakfast before we left. We had to sample one as soon as they came out of the oven. YUM! Barbara, Phil, and I started a jigsaw puzzle while Bill fixed the cinnamon buns. For supper, we had one of Bill's red fish with a wine sauce, rice, slaw, and garlic bread. Bill's red fish is always wonderful! He is quite the fisherman! They treated us like royalty! All too soon, it was time to leave and head to Ft. Pierce (an 8 hour drive) for the night. We had a good supper at a Touch of Brooklyn. Tomorrow we head for Big Pine Key for a week. Mike and Helen and Renaee will join us there. We look forward to a wonderful week there!

We are really enjoying this week! It is low 70's and 50's at night. This is our favorite place to ride bicycles. We had a nice ride yesterday and took some nice photos at the causeway and at the visitors' center. We are going to a buffet for lunch, probably Prossers.

Sept. 26 - 28 Huntington Beach State Park

Sunday - It rained almost all the way down, but it was dry when we set up camp. Thank you, Lord! Then it rained some more. When it got down to a drizzle, we made a dash to the grocery store and gas station (both at Kroger), we went in dry and got back in the car just as it was beginning to rain again. It POURED while we went back to the camper, and amazingly stopped as we pulled up to the camper.
Monday - We went to Prossers' for lunch. I was disappointed that they did not have shrimp on the buffet, but the fish, bbq, and fried chicken wing was good. LOL! They have shrimp and grouper on Fridays, so we will go back then. Also, Wed. they have crab cakes, a favorite of mine and Phil's. It poured and poured on and off during the day and night.
Tuesday - It is cloudy, but not raining. We are supposed to get a break today. I want to go to the visitors' center and see if the painted buntings are still here. I hope so! Last year we missed them by a few days. I want some photos!!!! We also are at Books A Million to get wifi and download all the e-mail from the past few days. My Droid will get e-mail at the camper and access the internet, but the phone signal is no bars or one bar. We are supposed to get six inches or more of rain from the new tropical storm brewing in the Caribbean. I hope we are on high ground! There is a lot of standing water around the camper this morning. I hope it all gets absorbed before the big rain comes! We probably will just hunker down in the camper until Friday once the rain begins.

Sept. 10

We traveled to Rock Island, IL, today. Iowa is one rolling-hills state! Again, we passed hundreds of miles of corn fields and also hundreds of windmill farms mixed in with cattle and mostly corn fields. I love windmills and hope our country will use a lot more where they can be utilized efficiently and economically. We met a series of trucks hauling parts for a windmill. It is hard to believe have huge these things are. One propeller on a three-propeller windmill is about 20 feet or more longer than a flat bed of an 18-wheeler. The "pole" has to be hauled on at least six trucks in parts. The base parts are wider than the truck and bulge out from the flat bed. I think they are really beautiful and do not pollute or smell bad. Over our trip, I'd have to say we have probably seen a thousand, including the ones we saw in Canada. On our trip 26 years ago, we saw a windmill farm before we got to Oakland, CA. I was amazed, and I am still amazed that we can produce clean power with them.
Phil was tired when he got up this morning from not sleeping well. He says he has nagging pain. We have called and gotten an appointment with his urologist for next Wed. We were hoping for Mon., but he had none until 3:40 p.m. Wed. We were hoping to go to SC to see all the children and grands Wed., but that is on hold until we know what Dr. Tieng says. We are so very thankful this did not happen earlier in our trip. His previous stones have been a nagging pain over a long period of time before two lithotripsies for each one finally blasted the things into passable sizes.
Tomorrow we are aiming for somewhere around Cincinnati. They do not have a campground in Cincinnati. We will stay in North Bend, OH. The reason we picked this track home was because I wanted Phil to eat at a Skyline Chili Restaurant in the Cincinnati area. I got him eating this from the frozen food section of the grocery store years ago. I had eaten it in Cincinnati on two occasions. It is supposed to rain a lot in the Cincinnati area tomorrow. I hope we can get set up in dry weather and eat and get back dry! We may have to dig out the ponchos if it is raining that much. Then Sunday we will travel home and end our marvelous adventures. We have traveled 112 days on this adventure and put around 13,000 miles on the truck since we left May 24. The great news is that we will begin more Sept. 26 when we go on our annual coastal camping trip to Huntington Beach State Park for two weeks; Wilmington, NC, for five nights; and a month in the Outer Banks. We are praying all tropical systems and Nor'easters STAY AWAY!!!! I encourage you all to go on adventures of your own. We have a wonderful, beautiful country!

Sept. 7 - 9

Sunset in Rawlins, WY

When we left the Tetons and as we approached Jackson, there were three hot air balloons. It was very early in the morning - around 8:00 a.m. We got into road construction and ended up on a dirt road for about five miles. We did go through a charming town on Hwy. 191, Pinedale. The topography changed a lot that day! Phil got out and stretched because his back hurt. I started praying for his back. When we got to Rawlins, Phil was pale and in a lot of pain. He told me he had another kidney stone. He took a couple of my pain pills for headaches, and it eased up some. The sunset was beautiful, and I popped out of the camper long enough to shoot a couple of photos. The wind was the strongest we have ever encountered in the camper. It howled and rocked the camper way into the night. I told Phil I had to imagine that I was trying to sleep on a train. It calmed down, but started up again before daybreak. Phil said he had some discomfort, but it was bearable. We hit the road and headed to North Platte, NE. It was a windy drive, but it did not rock the camper like it did in Rawlins. The most eventful thing was leaving Wyoming and getting into another time zone. Now we are only one hour off of our home time. Today, we road to Gretna, NE, which is west of Omaha by about 20 miles. The topography is very, very flat and we have seen hundreds of miles of cornfields today. Phil is still at about the same pain level. Some times it will get worse, but it has not been as bad as two days ago. We are praying it will not get bad, so he can get back and go to his urologist. It is hard to believe that we have just two more nights on the road before arriving home. It has been an awesome, wonderful, memorable, exciting trip! The Lord has kept us safe and the camper and truck working just right.

Sept. 6 and 7 - Last day in Tetons and trip to Rawlins, WY

on the way to Rawlins on Hwy. 191

We are not in the Tetons any more!

When we were getting close to Jackson, we saw three hot air balloons. This was one of them.

Phil, Mike, me, and Helen around the campfire last night.

Sept. 6 and 7 - Last full day in the Tetons, and it was a wonderful one! I fixed some sandwiches and packed a couple of soft drinks in the cooler. Wilson Rd. near the Moose Visitors’ Center was one place we had not traveled. We rode that to the Teton Village, mainly a ski resort with lots of shops and restaurants. It is a cool place. We ate lunch on the way at a Moose Habitat pull-off. We did not see a moose, but we enjoyed lunch in that setting. On the way back I got some photos of an osprey next with two ospreys on it. Then we went back to where we have seen moose twice. A lady told me there were two bulls and a cow further down. I was excited! There was already a huge crowd. I came to the first bull, and he was lying down. The bushes and shrubs hid him well. One person at a time could go down the embankment a little ways to get a photo. The crowd kept getting larger and larger, so I decided to walk along the embankment to see if I could see the other bull and cow. Well, I got started and a volunteer who manages crowds called me back. He told me he could only supervise one crowd, so I’d have to stay with the big group. Thank goodness, there was no volunteer the last two times we saw moose there. Oh well, at least I already have some decent photos of the other moose. That evening, Helen, Mike, Phil, and I went to Leeks Marina to get pizza. It was their last night open for the season. We ate salad and pizza, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Then we went back and built a big campfire. The campers next to us left a huge pile of wood, so we got some, and Mike and Helen got a good bit. They are going to be there two more nights, so they will really enjoy it. Finding free firewood is a thrill. We used to send the kids around in the morning to get any left by people leaving. It brings back good memories! After Mike and Helen went back to their camper for the night, it was about quiet hours. We got the camper as ready as we could for a fast get-away in the morning. It was freezing when we got up at 7:00, and we could not use the heater since we were popping down. We hurried and got out of there in about 30 minutes. The car said it was 26 degrees. I believe it or lower! We headed for Rawlins, WY. We traveled Hwy. 191 to Rock Springs. There was a stretch of about five miles of construction and dirt road. A truck threw a rock and hit the windshield. It felt like a missle hit it! We will have to have that replaced when we get back. Then poor Phil started having pain in his back, but it was not his back. It is another kidney stone. Thankfully, I have some Tramadol that I take for made headaches. He took a couple and the pain eased up. I hope it will not cause him problems tomorrow! His history with those things are that they move around and eventually he has to have lithotripsy a couple of times before it breaks up. We both hope he does not have to go through that again. We are praying! Tomorrow we will head toward North Platte, NE.