Jun 17, 2013 - Sikeston, MO

17Jun13 - This morning we will be headed for Hinton RV Park in Sikeston, MO. It is about 6 hour run so we should be there by late afternoon. This will be just in time to enjoy a great meal at the famous Lambert’s Café, "Home of Throwed Rolls”. We will let you know if all we read about them is true! It was a cloudy rainy long day but good roads a very light traffic. We arrived around 3:15 and were setup in short order. We headed to Lambert's around 5PM and had an experience dinner! The food was good for country style, and plenty of it. The...

Jun 17, 2013 - Epilogue and warning for you

Just wanted to send an update to tell you that I will be adding to my trip journal for the next several days, at least. That is the warning. Meanwhile, I will leave you with a thought--Lessons Learned from a Family Excursion will be forthcoming in the next few days. These are things that you should have expected, but that always occur as surprises during the trip. I also have many more photos, but I'm not sure that they will make the journal. You may have to wait for the book to come out. More later.

Jun 16, 2013 - One Crazy Mixed-up Sunday!

Date: June 16, 2013 Tonight’s Location: Homer, AK Weather: sunshine Temperature: start 48º High 68º Wildlife count: Sea Otter, Year List: 255 Birds: Black-billed Magpie, Sooty Fox Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Orange-crowned Warbler, Bald Eagle, Common Raven, Northwestern Crow, Dark-eyed Junco, Golden-crowned Sparrow, Hermit Thrush, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Alder Flycatcher, Savannah Sparrow, Sandhill Cranes, Trumpeter Swan, Lesser Scaup, Red-necked Grebe, Black-legged Kittiwakes, Glaucous-winged Gulls, Common Murre, Tufted & Horned Puffins, Pelagic...

Jun 16, 2013 - Porcupine Creek to Skagway, ALASKA - 240 miles

Saturday morning we woke up to beautiful blue clear sky. It is going be another nice day. We had a beautiful day yesterday even if we did pass through some rain. For the most part was a nice day. We saw one black bear is all today. We stopped to check out a provincial park around Teslin and walked by a site with a one of a kind conversion RV. It was owned by a young European couple who were on their way to Alaska. We asked about the very unique vehicle. It is a 40 or 50 year old army ambulance conversion. It has six wheels and huge ground...

Jun 16, 2013 - Casper, WY

Today started out with a cool morning and before we knew it we were on our way further north to Casper, WY. It was about a 3 hour drive and before we left Cheyenne, we stopped for breakfast at McDonald's. With all the open land up here, this McDonald's actually had a huge lot for semi's and RV's so we pulled right in. As wedrove to Casper, the scenery changed some as the elevation decreased. We saw more buttes and pine trees after driving miles and miles with hardly seeing any civilization and just ranch land. Then over the next rise, there...

Jun 16, 2013 - Divine Appointment #1 Crossville, TN

I posted on FB that we had had our first Divine appointment on Friday morning but I didn't get around to telling the story till now... On our way out of our first campground, Cumberland Mountain SP in TN, we were going to go to an office supply store to get some gadget or other to let us plug in our seventy-eleven devices while we're driving. So we turned off from our route toward a Staples we'd located online. A short way along this road, Ken changed his mind and we turned around and went back to our Google-appointed route, stopping at a...

Jun 16, 2013 - In and Around Anchorage

We spent three full days in the Anchorage area ... taking in the sites, sounds and festivals. Downtown festival on Saturday featured a ColorRun ... and had a craft fair set up. Ran into former parishioners from Black Hawk in the 80's ... for the second time in three days ... saw them in Talkeenta earlier in the week ... small world. Checked out the harbor area, visited a park commemorating the 1964 earthquake, attended a great, active United Methodist Church, ate some delicious halibut at "Humpy's" (a local favorite), visited Anchorage's...

Jun 16, 2013 - The other Grand Rapids.........

They say "there's a reason everything is so green!" It rains a lot! That was the case overnight last night at Straits State Park, but we stayed dry and snug in our little Teardrop. After a breakfast of bran muffins and boiled eggs, and Norm's good coffee from our manual drip pot, we hit the road about 9am. The drive along US 2 west of St. Ignace is usually spectacular as the road hugs the northern shore of Lake Michigan. However we were socked in with fog for the first hour of the drive. Good thing we have been on the road many times and...

Jun 16, 2013 - Happy Fathers Day!

We went to a Farmers Market in Fairbanks, there wasn’t much to it so did not take us long to see it, we stopped at a Thrift store and went into Sears to look around, then we went to Santa Claus House, North Pole, Alaska and also saw the Reindeer they have fenced up, they have to fatten them up to get them ready for Christmas . We headed back to the RV Buddy decided to take a nap and I sat outside reading and making some phone calls, mosquitos are pretty bad up here so I got my Citronella candle out (Thanks again Angie) and it helped, once...

Jun 16, 2013 - From Missouri to ... Missouri

Sorry, we were out of cell/Internet range for the past couple of days, which I suspect will happen pretty often on this trip. On our route from TN to MO, we passed some interesting spots, some of which I will post with pics. We arrived at Hawn State Park, MO, on Friday evening and set up camp pretty quickly. We then went into Farmington to 12 West Bar and Grill for some supper. Really good bacon spinach salad with chicken, with LOTS of every ingredient. No skimping, not even on the bacon. Then we just HAD to go to Walmart, dontcha know. I...

Jun 16, 2013 - Oregon Sand Dunes

We drove along the Oregon coast today, stopping to check out some tide pools along the way. Early afternoon we reached Coos Bay, a town famous for the huge sand dunes you can ride on. Of course we couldn’t pass up this opportunity! Ryan rented an ATV while Russell, Sammy and I chose a 4 seater Razor dune buggy. The dunes were awesome to ride on! In the area we rode, the dunes were over 100 feet high in some places! Ryan loved riding up them on the ATV! Our stop for the night was just over the Oregon/California boarder in Crescent City,...

Jun 16, 2013 - A day in Cripple Creek

48 out of 52 buildings burnt down, the old locomotive & carriage that I put a photo off on the blog also is no longer there. There is damage as well to the bridge 32 planks have got to be replaced but otherwise the bridge was saved. We had seen pictures of the fire at Royal Gorge Bridge & Park and it now looks nothing like what we visited. Saturday found the fire was out at Cripple Creek so headed up there a 42 mile drive way up in the hills with winding narrow roads again but at least we were only in the car. Cripple Creek is an old mining...