We're in Kansas Anymore, Toto

We are in Abilene, Ks at an RV park tonight after visiting the Eisenhower Library. We are doing some research for our friend Jason Brenno to see what the Eisenhower administration knew about peak oil. So far we haven't uncovered evidence that they examined it at all, but we will go back tomorrow morning to look some more. The wind has been brutal today, expected to be so for a few more days. It is the land of Oz after all. We stayed in a motel in Manhattan, Ks last night after hooking up with my nephew Andy who is stationed at Army Base Ft Riley near there. Andy is a Blackhawk helicopter pilot, has already been to Iraq and his unit will be getting another deployment next year. We tried to go into a state park north of town but it was closed, so the motel was inviting after leaving the restaurant close to 10 PM. We left Auburn, Ne yesterday after watching Peru State College (the Bobcats) beat Park Univ 13-6 in baseball in the first game of a double header. We didn't see the second game, Park won 9-4, but the Bobcats were glad to get one win against a very good Park team. It was an All-American day, baseball, Mom, banana bread made by Sheila, and out truck made in the USA (Toyota).

One more note about what we have seen (or not seen) - no sign of recycling out here! At least at the parks we have stayed in so far.

Snowstorm

We have made it all the way to Auburn, Ne where Kathy's son lives. A little snow is falling. We were in the St Louis area for a couple days visiting Karen (Kathy's sister-in-law - see pic of their house) and Tom. We are trying to skirt a major midwestern snowstorm, it is actually worse to the south. But we are staying put until tomorrow, then will see what the weather will bring.

Our trip so far has been good, no major technical problems. We are experiencing parts of the country that we have never seen. I especially liked the parts of southern Indiana. We are trying to stay off the interstates as much as possible, preferring the US highways ("blue highways"). They have taken us through interesting countrysides and and towns. Besides St Louis, we drove through Columbus, Oh but have avoided other major cities. Some of the smaller cities that we drove through include Uniontown and Washington in Pa, Wheeling WV, Zanesville, Oh with the famous Y bridge (why don't they have a Z bridge?), Richmond, Bedford and Vincennes in Indiana, and Hannibal, Macon and St Joseph in Missouri. We have crossed the Ohio River by Wheeling, the Mississippi by St Louis (after rush hour thankfully) and last night the Missouri by Auburn.

We have met some very friendly and helpful people. The man who ran the RV campground near Zanesville talked with us at length. He has a number of permanent residents in his park, mostly working people. So it was a mix of them and travelers like us. He expects that they will be busy this year, and said he was that some RV dealers told him they are selling RVs very well. We wondered if people are moving out of their homes into RVs, experiencing hard times. He also talked of his hopes for the Obama administration, that they can pull off all the things that have to be mended in the country. We talked with a friendly ranger at Starve Hollow, who politely gave us a refund for our site, since we didn't use the full hookups. She helped find the little town of Bethlehem, Indiana on her map, which was where Kathy's grandparents had lived. Kathy wasn't sure the town still existed since it didn't show up on our road atlas. We stopped at Hindostan Falls near Loogootee, In for lunch on Wednesday. A friendly local named Larry came over to greet us and provided stories of his life in an RV and the tragic deaths that have occurred at the falls over the years.

Gotta run, we are heading to the p.o. and check out Auburn.

A littl

We are at Starve Hollow State Campground in Indiana tonight. We had meant to get to Cloverdale, Indiana but Indiana Rte. 44 west of Shelbyville was closed for repairs and we had to alter our plans. One highlight of today's journey was we finally found a truck weight station that was open. Good news - our total truck + trailer weight, as well as the trailer alone were both within allowable limits. As a matter of fact, the trailer came in about 500 lbs lower than either of us expected! We could have kept the salsa and chutney, after all. It is a very warm night, low expected to be 58. We notice that back home it is expected to drop down to 26 tonight. We are glad to be where it's warmer, but rain is expected overnight, so we may have to deal with wet conditions in the morning. The campground here is very quiet, only a few other campers, as one would expect for this time of year, but we do smell woodsmoke, which is pleasant. We are the only ones in the "full hookups" section, but since the water is not turned on and the shower houses aren't open, we are wondering why we paid for this with the self-registration. We will settle this in the morning when the staff arrives. At least we have electric service. Funny how these mundane aspects occupy us, but that's what we deal with when being on the road. So we are again comfortable, the balmy breezes and the greenery around us indicate we are experiencing spring in it's fullness. Tomorrow: St Louis.

On the Road!

After a few coughs and sputters, our engine is primed and we are on the road for real! We never were sure we could get on the road by March 22, but amazingly enough, we did. Our last 3 weeks have been a whirlwind of activity, mostly finding a new home for a lot of our stuff, and taking on too many tasks, many still left undone. But we will eventually complete them all, like Scott's taxes. We were able to fit in an open house last weekend, where we got to show off our new home and say good-bye to a number of friends. See photo. After going back and forth - we finally chose to bring the drip coffee maker. After all, coffee is the most important thing - almost as important as beer. Our days have been pretty long and jam-packed so far. We hope that part eases in the near future, but as newbies, it looks like we will take extra time to learn (and relearn) all the components of our new home.

So, after a return trip to the dealer for a few minor tweaks and a new and vastly improved hitch, we hit the road. Only 45 minutes behind schedule, at 7:45 am, we said goodbye to the Pleasant Hill and our landlords, Don and Sandy. We will miss both. Having made arrangements to store the trailer in Frederick, MD while we spent a day in DC with Scott's daughter, we felt confident about our new beginning. We called ahead to let Kelly at the storage facility know that we would arrive around 2pm, leaving a message on her machine. She had assured us that as long as we arrived before 3pm, no problem. Long story short, we arrived at 2:05, the door was unlocked, but Kelly was nowhere to be found. We expected that she had gone into the secure storage area, so we waited. And waited. And waited. Surely she was there - that unlocked door said so! After an hour or so, we started checking into other storage facilities or campgrounds. Late afternoon on a Sunday pretty much assured us that we would have no luck - we were stuck! I was ready to find a Walmart and stay with the trailer overnight while Scott visited his daughter (we were getting desperate) - when Scott snooped behind the counter and found her cell phone #. Kelly apologized profusely and, in the end, gave us the night for free. She was profoundly grateful that we were honest and didn't clean the place out!

Tonight, after a lot of hilly driving through MD, PA and WV, we are cozily camped in Wolfie's Family Kampground near Zanesville, OH - our first REAL experience with "camping" in the trailer. We cooked our dinner, took showers, and have WiFi access to communicate, what more could we ask for? We are very near the "Wilds" of Ohio and, aptly, since we are traveling westward, the Zane Grey Museum (neither of which we will get to see...) It looks like we may be heading into some rainy weather, but we are still on target for Wednesday in St. Louis.

We Picked Up Our RV

We picked up our RV on Saturday at Johnston RV in Webster, NY March 7. We had hoped to stay in it at my sister Cindy's house in Greece that night, but we didn't have a long enough electric cable to plug it into their power source. Besides it was a miserable rainy night, so we waited until after we got home to check it out by sleeping in it. We have done so the last two nights, Monday night was a tad chilly, but we stayed warm in our bed. Overall, it is working out, with a few concerns that will require a return trip to Johnston RV on March 20. We don't know yet if our date of departue will be March 21 yet or not, depends on if we are totally ready. We also just found out that there is no place to park our RV at Saguaro N.P. where we hope to be by April 5 for a volunteer service week, so we're scrambling looking for some RV storage in the Tucson area. If we don't make it out of here by March 21, it is not the end of the world, we have some slack time built in. The weather has been dreary and rainy, there is flooding in some nearby areas. It has put a damper on things, but we are slowly making progress. We plan to have an open house this Saturday and Sunday so friends can see the RV and look over the packet of info we got on Bryce. I also plan to get up to the last FLT Board meeting in Virgil this Saturday. It is proving hard to fit in all the good-byes we feel compelled to have, but we hope to keep them short and sweet. Thanks for understanding.

We Are Trying to Get Ready

We will soon be heading off in our new home (RV) to the west. We have taken assignments in Bryce Canyon N.P. as volunteers with the Visitor Center. We are excited about this, we will get to interface with the public and help them in a variety of ways. Bryce is known for its "hoodoos" and is in a wonderful part of the country - Utah, the Beehive state. It's like another planet. We have visited Utah twice before and are looking forward to spending concentrated time there, getting to know it better. As well as other areas of the west. Our assignment starts near the end of April and may take us into October, if we wish to stay that long. We will be looking for other volunteer assignments and see if we can move onto another place after Bryce. Who knows?

Meanwhile, we are trying to get ready. Lots of packing and getting rid of things. Thanks to our friends HarunMuf we are storing much of what we won't take in their barn. We will have to travel very light, every ounce counts. We want to keep the weight of our loaded RV down to around 5500 pounds while traveling. We shall see about that. We pick up the RV (Rockwood 2603, we named it Rocky) this Saturday near Rochester. We are somewhat apprehensive about towing it, but are told with a Reese straitline hitch it shouldn't be a big problem. Just have to go slow, make wide turns, and get plenty of help when backing up!

We plan to start our trip west on March 20. Lots do before then! Our first stop will be in Rochester to see my nephew Eric in a play, Godspell. Then we're going further west, we need to get to Saguaro N.P near Tucson by April 5 to participate in a week volunteer program with the American Hiking Society. That's about 2600 miles with stops near St Louis and Auburn, Nebraska.

We're leaving with mixed feelings. Leaving lots of friends behind. We were involved in lots of exciting things that engaged us. To mention a few: Finger Lakes Trail, Sierra Club, Triple Cities Hiking Club, Binghamton Contradance and Binghamton Regional Sustainability Coalition. They all have websites, you can check them out. But we hope to get some visits from our friends and family wherever we are. There will be room in Rocky for 2 people to crash. If you come while we are at Bryce, you get in free by mentioning our names, so we were told.

Now I have to get off the computer and back to packing, I feel like I am way behind, Kathy is going to be cracking the whip.