Arriving in Vincennes

April 15-17 - As we drove through these rural communities, Joe started talking a poll on men vs. women driving the riding lawn mowers.  He thought there were more women than men, and now he is inspired to go home and plant some grass just so I can mow it.

We drove into Carmi, Illinois for dinner tonight.  As we came back into the campground, we saw 4 white-tail deer just inside our campground entrance.  It rained during the night, and Joe had to get his chicken suit out to hook us up to get on the road, while raindrops fell on our clean windshield.  He called Collins and asked if he was Flood Control, and would he please control the flood.  (Collins and Marilyn arrived at Lucille's on Thursday). 








We got on the road about 9:15, with 67 miles to go to Lucille's house.  We crossed the White River, which was out of its banks, and the lowlands were flooded as well, not unusual for Indiana this time of year.

We got home about 11:00 a.m., and Collins was busy working on Lucille's screen door, which had gotten damaged last week in the wind.  Joe had intended that Collins have all the chores here done before we arrived, and he considered driving on past and maybe circling for a while, but instead he pulled into the driveway.

Shortly after our arrival, the rest of the family started showing up.  Lori pulled up, then Jim showed up with Joy and Rachel whom he had picked up at the Indianapolis airport.  Cathy got here around then too, I can't remember the order of the arrivals.  Angie and Tim, with Alivia, Xavier and Sonia, came in, Fred and Judy came out, and Mike stopped by with Mallory, on the way home from pre-school.  The house continued to fill, then everyone spilled out to our motorhome.  Lucille had fallen asleep in her chair, and when she woke up, she called Fred (who was in the motorhome with us) to see where everyone was, so we all moved back into the house.  We enjoyed Bobe's pizza for dinner -- a treat we all look forward to when we come home.

I told Paul I needed some consulting time with him, so Saturday morning he and I went out to the motorhome for a private lesson on blogging and posting pictures, etc., working on some of the problems I have encountered.

 But we didn't have any privacy for long -- we got up to 14 people in the motorhome at one point.

Here's Fred, trying to solve world problems.

And Paul, sharing a seat with daughter Hannah.

Then David stopped by with a couple friends.  He thought maybe he would take our motorhome to the Indy 500 next month, but Joe told him we had to leave Indiana before then.










Dixie put the kids in charge of decorating, and we started getting ready for the big 95th birthday party.  I think Angie has already posted some pictures on Facebook, but here's some we took.

Here's Natalie, Lucille, Alivie, and Hannah, with Sonia the short one in front.















Of course, there's birthday cake!

Here's the first generation of children, with Tommy filling in for his dad.












Then the spouses got included.

Here's Jaclyn's youngest, Adalyn, enchanted by a balloon.

And lots of people, scattered throughout.  (We were glad to have our own bed in the motorhome.)  Probably somewhere between 60-75 people came through, and it was "limited" to immediate family, which included lots of cousins, nieces and nephews.

Marilyn Stuckey was a surprise visitor from Virginia, and Jan from Michigan.  It was great for us to get to see all of these relatives whom we haven't seen in years and years, and it was truly special for Lucille to have so much love showered on her by her extended family.  She is definitely the head of this family.

From Missouri to Illinois

Thursday, April 14 - After our 241-mile day yesterday, we are definitely getting closer to Indiana. Joe cleaned off the windshield again, We fueled this morning and were on the road about 9:10, after our Walmart night, which was ok.

After about 20 minutes of driving, Joe screamed as the first bug hit his side of the windsheild (about gave me a heart attack).  (He probably was getting me back from the laptop falling out of the cabinet above his head yesterday while he was driving and hitting him on the arm.  )

This was our animal day -- not wildlife much, but domesticated animals.  Within the first half-hour, we saw llamas, horses, burros, sheep, cattle, another turkey, and a little turtle crossing the road.  Our road was "straight, but lumpy," in Joe's words, but it soon became more crooked.  I saw several lilac bushes in bloom today, so I'm thinking Lucille's should be blooming for me when we arrive tomorrow.  I haven't asked her, but I'm hoping.  We passed a school named "Couch School," and I remarked that I didn't know you had to go to school to learn how to sit on the couch all day.  But I saw on the map there is a town nearby named Couch.  Then the second suicidal tu rtle crossed the road.  These turtles were only about 2 inches round, and this one pulled his head in as we passed.  I don't think that's going to be sufficient to keep him safe.  We drove through the Mark Twain National Forest and some other national forests, and saw a field of bighorn sheep, an unexpected sighting.  Later on today, we saw a field of Belgium (or some kind of draft) horses, squirrels, geese, and a roadrunner (I didn't know they had these in Missouri).  We really enjoy traveling these backroads,especially when we own the road -- not another vehicle in sight for miles.

We saw a paddle on the other lane, and Joe looked ahead and saw a pick-up with a kayak in the back.  He said, "now, there goes a man who is going to be up the creek without a paddle."  We finally caught up with him at a stop sign about 5 miles down the road, so Joe kept honking until he rolled his window down, and Joe told him his bad news.  He didn't even question it, he made a u-turn at the light and went back.  We hope it hadn't been run over by the time he got back there.

We crossed the mighty Mississippi River about noon.


There was a lot of flood water in these bottomlands, although the river looked like it was within its banks.

They were working on the bridges on the Illinois side of the river, and they had us down to one very skinny lane.  I was glad I wasn't driving!

(See the bugs on the windshield)
We stopped for lunch at a wide spot in the road, where an old gas station had closed.  We had passed a Menonite church a ways back, and across the road from our lunch stop was a caution sign to watch for horses and buggies.  We only saw the sign, just like all those deer crossing signs when we never see any deer.


We ended our day at Burrell City Park campground in Carmi, Illinois, about 60 miles from Lucille's.  We need to go in with empty tanks so we opted to spend one more night on the road (hoping Collins and Marilyn will have Lucille's to-do list taken care of by the time we arrive tomorrow).  Joe has accused Collins of taking the premier parking spot at Lucille's, so we'll have to deal with that issue when we arrive.   This is another really pretty campground, very quiet, lots of room, and greening up for spring.  We got out the lawn chairs and enjoyed the peace for a few minutes.

The dogwood trees are in bloom in this part of the country, as well as the redbud (I think they are called).  This park had some beautiful dogwood trees.

Then Joe decided we should try to wash the bugs off the front of the RV, so back to work we went.  Unfortunately, Joe sprayed his lawn chair with the hose when he was washing the window, so that was the end of our nice resting spot.  We did move to the picnic table though, so all was not lost.  Anyway, he ended his day about the way it began -- trying to clean the windshield.

I probably won't write much on the blog for the next couple of weeks.  We won't be traveling, and unless we can convince Lucille to put in wifi, I have to go to town to either McDonalds or the library, so I'll just have to see how it goes.  We have the birthday party on Saturday, so that will surely need reported on.

Lake Catherine to Missouri

Tuesday/Wednesday, April 12-13 - We drove out by the Tyler Fittings plant this morning.  It is huge, probably stretches more than 1/2 mile.  Eric said the main headquarters has moved to Alabama, but this is still certainly a sizable operation.

By the time we got on the road, it was 10:45.  We took 271 from Tyler to Mt. Pleasant, then decided to take the interstate (I-30) into Texarkana, since there were not any direct routes.  The last "indirect" route we took, from Giddings to Tyler, we relied on Lucille, and we took lots of backroads, most of them were not even on my map.  It was a nice drive, and we got to see some of Texas' backcountry, but we opted this time for the "direct" route.  But the semis certainly own the interstates -- there is very little traffic that is not a semi.   We crossed the Arkansas state line about 1:15, having spent 13 days in Texas!  It was windy every day, and our gas mileage suffered -- we averaged 6.5 mph on our last 3 tanks of gas. We were ready to leave that state, especially since we will be returning next month.  We drove 256 miles today, and lucked out to find the very nicest campground ever!

We were out of the wind today, and were able to drive without the air conditioner on, so our gas mileage improved.  We ended up at Lake Catherine State Campground, which was a few miles out of the way, but it was time to get off the road.  This campground was absolutely beautiful, and our campsite was to die for.  It was really a patio, right on the water, with a little dock right down from us.


I thought if we were going to have a day of rest, this would be the place. 


The water was laying nicely, and we would see an occasional boat go past.  There was some kind of power plant right across the lake from us.

We had full hookups here, and good tv reception, but when I asked the camp host about wifi, he didn't know what it was, so I assumed we did not have that.  However, that camp host is now my BFF -- when I raved about how nice the campground was (I told him I was going to build a house on my campsite and move here), he told me I should fill out a Comment Sheet.  The next thing I knew, he was back with a Comment Sheet for me, and told me that "Little Rock needs to hear these things, about how important this campground is."  So I filled it out for him, and all was well.  But he also told me that it gets over 100 degrees here in the summer, so Alaska may still win out on my relocation.

I got up early this morning and caught the morning mist on the lake.

Joe finally joined me outside and we enjoyed our coffee looking at the water.  A mean-spirited squirrel kept dropping things on Joe.  We saw turtles, fish jumping, squirrels, ducks, geese, and lots of different kinds of birds. But I'm still looking for my first sighting of a live deer on this trip.

Joe washed the windshield again this morning, and declared this a "No More Bugs" Day. 

But at the end of the day, the windshield was full again.  Looks like he gets to get that ladder down again tomorrow.

They have one rental tent (furnished with a stove, lantern, table, grill, cots and other camping equipment) and one rental yurt here. I'm not sure if the yurt is furnished or now, I assume it is. We saw these yurts for the first time on our trip last summer, in Idaho I think.

Reluctantly, we broke camp and headed out.  Here's what our camp site looked like when it was empty.

In my spare time, I seem to always be looking for something.  You would think I would know where every single thing is in the confined space of this RV, but I am constantly looking in drawers and cabinets for something -- usually successfully, after a while.  But I cannot find our tubes of ointments and medications that I was sure I packed a clear plastic bag, and I have searched high and low for them, all the time wondering if that little plastic bag is still sitting on the bathroom sink at home.  It's enough to drive a person over the edge!

Anyhow, we drove through Hot Springs, which was quite pretty.  There were some huge old buildings, and it appeared to be a really clean city.  If we make it back through here (and we might, because of that awesome campground), it would be fun to explore the town, and to drive out to the Hot Springs National Park.  We took Scenic Route 9 northeast through Arkansas, so we again got to see some backcountry. I finally saw my first deer, outside Paron, about 11:35 this morning.  She was standing in a real clear creek -- didn't get a picture, but it was a pretty sight!   We missed our turn once, coming out of Clinton, and ended up on a really squiggley road when we cut back over to Highway 9.  This one really slowed us down, but we spotted 2 wild turkeys so that was exciting.  We drove through Quachita National Forest, then along the edge of the Ozark National Forest.  Our road took us up and down the mountain twice, and we came out at Mountain View (I guess that should have been a clue). 

We drove through one town where Lucille was popular -- I think there was a Lucille's corner, in addition to this business on that corner.

There are not many campgrounds in this area, and probably fewer as we get closer to Vincennes.  We made it out of Arkansas today, barely, and are spending the night in Thayer.  There are no campgrounds around, so we are on the Walmart parking lot -- my how far we have fallen, from last night's beautiful setting to Walmart.  But free camping works too, so I guess it's ok.

So tonight we have no hookups (although it is cooling off nicely), no wifi, no TV.  So Joe is sitting here watching the Walmart customers come out of the store, keeping track of what they are buying.  He said he is taking a survey, and I believe he thinks he might be able to sell this vital information to the manager here.

We should be out of Missouri before noon tomorrow, crossing Illinois and into Indiana.  Not sure if we will arrive in Vincennes tomorrow or Friday morning -- we'll have to see how the day goes.

Texas A&M University

Monday, April 11 - Bridgette called from Tampa about 5:30 (Texas time) to let us know their flights had all been on time and they were in the car, just about home.  We were glad to leave the humidity and wind of Corpus, and we saw on the news this morning that a wildfire had burned 40 residences in the Ft. Davis area, where we were about 10 days ago.  We were sure glad to be away from that, but we have noticed that Texas is really dry.

We had a nice evening at our little campground, and we even had a few raindrops during the night -- just enough to mess up the windshield so Joe had to get out the ladder again.  But we liked this campground, which we just happened on because it wasn't listed in any of my directories.

There was a little waterfall here, and it is actually a working longhorn cattle ranch, so we got to see a few of these cows up close.

We broke camp and headed to College Station.  We parked on the Walmart parking lot and unhooked the car, then our first stop was the George Bush Presidential Library on Texas A&M's campus.

This was a very nice facility, and we spent about 2 hours there.  We watched a video and toured the various rooms.  A portion of the exhibits focused on the taking down of the Berlin wall, and there was a statute outside memorializing this event.  It is called "The Day the Wall Came Down," and depicts horses being set free.

We left there and drove through part of the Texas A&M main campus, which is enormous.  We entered it in the sports complex area, so we got a few pictures of those buildings.

We drove past some of the classroom buildings but only actually saw a small portion of the campus, which was really crowded with students.  This is one of the Engineering buildings.

Our last attraction to see in College Station was the Texas World Speedway, which John had raced his motorcycle on.  We finally found it, but the gate was shut so we didn't see much here.

Our GPS, Lucille, got a little confused in this area, so we were really glad to see our RV on the Walmart parking lot again.  We weren't sure how we got back there, but we did, so all ended well.  Our day got long, though, when we got to Tyler.  First, we were going to stay on the Walmart parking lot, but the first Walmart was really un-level, and the second one was closed, and posted No Trespassing.  So we decided to try to find Tyler Fittings, the company that Eric works for, but they didn't come up on our GPS.  We called Tiffany and got an address, but that didn't come up either.  So we found an address that was close and headed that way, but it was getting late and we really didn't know where we were going, and we were driving in rush-hour traffic.  Finally, I called a campground and we worked out way out to it.  We missed the turnoff to it and went to the next road (Lucille directed us there), and interestingly enough, we ended up on the road to Tyler Fittings (but it was back the other way).  Then, when we got the brochure from the campground, it had directions to local businesses, including an RV accessory shop.  The directions to that shop, it says, takes you past the Tyler Pipe Foundry, which is real close to that RV shop, so we may find it after all.

The campground, 5 Star RV Park, turned out to be another good one, and it was cheaper than the state park, so that was good.  We are going to run out past Tyler Fittings in the morning, then head out of Texas.  We think we will be sleeping somewhere in Arkansas tomorrow night.

Today Tiffany turned 40, so we called and sang Happy Birthday to her.  Cody got his beginner's permit on Friday, and she said she had aged more over the weekend with Cody driving than she had facing her 40th today.  She said it had been cold all weekend, in the 40s, and there was snow on the Superstition Mountains.  Since we suffered through the heat wave that caught up with us, we are hoping the cold spell catches us as well.  However, it is really nice this evening, in the 70s, so maybe we are out of the heat for a while.  We drove 240 miles today, even with our stop in College Station, so we are making progress toward Indiana. 

Corpus Christi Air Show

Saturday, April 9 - Bridgette told us yesterday that on graduation day in May, Corpus also has some kind of marathon relay, and they shut down the bridge from South Padre Island into Corpus.  We are camped just passed this bridge, so she thought we would probably want to stay in a campground closer to downtown when we come back, so this morning we picked them up at Megan's and drove toward downtown to check out a few campgrounds.  We came up with two pretty good possibilities, one much like a parking lot, but it is right on the bay.  The other is just across the Harbor Bridge, and it goes down to the water.  This one is called Sea Breeze, and that's probably where we will try to stay in May.

Then we stopped for lunch and decided to go out and catch the Blue Angels performance at the Air Show.  We got out there about 2:00, and they were scheduled around 3:00.  They had shuttle buses taking us from the parking area to the air strip, but we got right on and then walked around and looked at some of the planes.  This show was no where near the magnitude of the one in Anchorage, but the Blue Angels are always worth seeing.

 It was really windy again today, and there was some low clouds, but we did get to see a couple demonstrations in the air, and we looked over some of the planes on the ground.  This air show was honoring the Navy's 100 years of air support.

There was a pretty good crowd, all getting sunburned.  John and Bridgette both were a little red by the end of the day.  We saw some black smoke over by the runway, then the fire trucks go that direction.  I tried to get a picture of the smoke, but I missed it.  We later heard that one of the Blue Angel planes had caught on fire (#3).

They finally announced that there was going to be a 10-15 minute break, then the Blue Angels would perform, so we found a place to sit and wait for the big event.

 Finally, they sent Fat Albert up, as a precursor to the Blue Angels, and he made a few fly-bys.  Fat Albert is the support/maintenance plane for the Blue Angels.

Then they started the final check of the Blue Angel planes and introduced the crew and pilots.  One of the planes, #3, apparently had some kind of problems probably from the fire, and they finally towed it out of line and brought in #7, their back-up plane.

So #7 joined the rest of them on the taxi way, and #1 took off and made a couple trips around the airfield.  It was very windy and cloudy, and they announced that there was going to be a 10-minute delay, but the weather was clearing.  So we waited some more.  Finally, the ground vehicles came back out on the field and they announced over the speakers that the Blue Angels performance was canceled because of the weather.  They hoped to be able to perform tomorrow, but we will be gone by then, so we didn't get to see them this time.  John and Bridgette had never been to an air show, and we were really hoping they would get to see them because they are absolutely Awesome, but it was not to be today.  So then we got to wait in line for the shuttle buses for almost an hour.  We were pretty tired by then and glad to call it a day.

Megan and Brian graciously invited us all over for a cookout tonight, and she make an angel food cake so Bridgette had a graduation cake.  We had a very enjoyable evening with them, then went back to the RV for the night, turning our car over to the kids again.

This morning I got my laundry caught back up, and Joe washed the front windshield and put some more tape on his side window, still trying to track down that whistle.  The kids came out for breakfast and we had a nice visit with them before dropping them at the Corpus Christi airport about 11:30.  So far, their flights were still scheduled to fly, so they are hoping to make it back to Tampa today.  After we dropped them, we headed out of town and made it to Giddings, 223 miles, with the wind beating on us all day long.  We are about an hour from College Station, and we plan on driving through Texas A&M's main campus there tomorrow before leaving the area, since we now have two Aggie graduates.