Tuesday, October 6, 2009

We are going to try to get back on the “Blog” again. It’s been several months since we have added anything. A lot has happen, but not much traveling to report.

First, we have a new motor home and a new “toad.” The motor home is a new 2008 Winnebago Itasca Latitude. It’s a 37’ diesel pusher with 2 slide rooms. The ‘toad’ or towed vehicle is a ’04 Ford Explorer. Connie says that the motor home doesn’t have as much room as the fifth wheel. I said that it is easier to travel in. It has a 6.5 Kw generator, it’s auto-leveling, air ride, and has a combo washer/dryer. As of today, the odometer is at 2,400 miles. We picked it up on August 21st and have been living in it since.

We took a quick trip to Door County with good friends, Bill and Barb Dodd.

We spent last week in Des Moines with Andy, Kristin, and the grandchildren. We were also able to spend quality time with Connie’s siblings. We left last Sunday A.M. and drove to Champaign, IL. On Monday we stopped at Butler, OH, near the Amish area. We have seen more Amish driving to Hazelton/Oelwein than in the Amish area of Ohio. We stayed at a very remote KOA not too far from Mohican State Park.

Today, Tuesday, we drove through the “Amish Byways.” This is one of the 120 spectacular road trips featured in “The Most Scenic Drives in America.” The book was given to us by out new ‘renters’, Doug and Penny Beed.

In the afternoon,we toured the First Ladies National Historic Site. The library/museum is in the Saxton McKinley home in Canton, OH. The house has been completely reconstructed and is decorated as it was in the late 1800’s. It is very well done, and the tour was very interesting if you’re in to Presidential history.

After leaving the historic site, we entered our next destination, the RV park in the GPS, our “Tom Tom.” We didn’t have that far to go and when the GPS asked if I wanted to avoid toll-roads I said yes. That was a mistake! We went on several narrow, hilly, and winding roads and it looked like ‘she’ was going to take us right through Pittsburgh at 5:00 in the afternoon. We were making terrible time, and I didn’t want to get into rush-hour traffic. We re-schedule the GPS and headed for the toll way. A trip that should have taken two hours, took us four hours, and we got to the campsite/RV park just about in the dark. This was one of our first lessons of the trip. I hope I learned my lesson and maybe I’ll choose toll roads next time.

More later.