Moving on Along!

Thursday, April 8, 2021

So we wake up a few times in the night to pouring rain. We wake in the morning to a refreshed day. Our Host, Candi, is up early and directing workers on the farm to build more RV Spots! She insists on having photos taken of us and we oblige her and take our own photos of her and us. I walk around the farm and shoot several shots of the scenery. We drive away in search of a locals breakfast restaurant that Candi recommends and with only a little difficulty, find it! But it turns out she had a meeting with someone across the street from the restaurant and she sees us walk in. So she finishes her meeting and comes and joins us for breakfast!

This morning, a call to the RV Store answers our questions about our water issue and everything is working fine in the RV now.

We chat amicable with Candi and swap stories of our travels. Then it is time to hit the road so we bid her ado.

Shortly after we head out, we go through the City of Brazil, Indiana. It reminds me of an online friend from Brazil. Jarbas, this was for you! We work our way to an area referred to as “Rockville” where there are dozens of old covered bridges and we visit a couple of them. These remind me of earlier days visiting New Hampshire and Vermont! Our cameras have become happy once again! Unfortunately, the bridges were replete with graffiti!

But we need to travel on if we going to have any chance of completing our journey on time. So we wend our way southwest to a City called “Casey” in Illinois. Here they have the Biggest Everything, the biggest Mailbox, the biggest Bird Cage, the biggest Pencil, the biggest Barber Pole, Rocking Chair, Teetertotter, Pitchfork, Golf Tee, among other things. So our cameras are entertained again as we capture these sights and walk around the town! It has turned quite chilly and we don our jackets and sweatshirts. Casey is the home of many of the world’s largest objects. They are mostly constructed using wood salvaged from old telephone poles and are on display throughout the town. A full time master carpenter, employed by a local trucking firm, does most of the woodwork.

We drive on to the city of Effingham, which sounds more like a curse than a city, but we find Tuscan Hills Winery where they allow us to park our RV overnight for free. So we patronize the winery (which is not hard to do) and start out with Wine Tasting Flights. My cameras take shots of the place and in a little while we go back in for Flatbread Pizzas and Wine for dinner. We have actually arrived here before 6PM and we hope to get a better nights sleep and get up early to be back on the road.

So we find ourselves in our RV, at the winery, and we are satiated and tired out for the evening. We finish up our Blog ideas and get ready to turn in. See you all tomorrow!

The Saga Begins!

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

The hotel graciously agrees to move back our check out time as we are “Honors” clients of Hilton and we check out in time to get to our RV appointment an hour early. Lucky for us, someone else is late to their appointment and we get our RV early!

We are scheduled to pick up a “Class ‘C'” RV, but they take us to ours and it is a “Class ‘A'”. Wow, big and luxurious and only 31 feet long. But on the highways, it feels like a Big Rig Truck as all the other Big Rigs blow us in and out of our lane, LOL.

We go through Tippecanoe and we learn something new about President William Henry Harrison (Tippecanoe). Then on down the road, we find a road on our route called “Wiggins Rd” and I remind myself of an online gaming friend who goes be the name of “Wonky Wiggins” and will remember to tell her, LOL

After we pick up the RV, we have to make a couple stops at the 99 Cent Store for a couple pots and pans and small items that the RV Store wanted $140 for, We make out for about $45. Another stop at WalMart For breakfast and lunch stuffs and we drive into West Lafayette, Indiana, home to Purdue University. We manage to find enough room to park the RV in the parking lot of a Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives Restaurant that is, unfortunately, closed because it is 9PM. So we find some Thai and Chinese Food that we take to go.

The RV is a Beast to drive and it acquires that nickname, “The Beast” from me. I work hard to understand the learning curve that I need to master to drive it. When a Semi starts to pass me, their ‘wind’ pushes me hard enough to make me leave my lane if I’m not careful. So, counter-intuitively, I have to steer The Beast towards the truck passing me to stay in my lane. When the Semi finishes his ‘pass’, then I have to steer away from him to avoid being sucked into his lane. Quite the lesson to learn!

We still have 1.5 hours to get to our first lodging, a Horse Farm run by a lady named “Candi”. We finally arrive around 11:20PM after navigating quite the maze of back roads according to our GPS guide, and we know she wants to go to bed already! But she is the ever gracious Host and helps us find a place to park the RV and shows us the water and electric hook ups. We bid her good night and get the RV set up. Some trouble is had with the water systems. We manage to fill the fresh water tank, but something is leaking water onto the ground. I hook up the water to the ‘City Water’ connection but it doesn’t put pressure into the RV. So we give up on having water for the night.

To bed we go and we decide to deal with our water issues in the morning!

A Tale of a Cross Country Adventure

Tuesday, April 6, 2021

So we found something to do in the Pandemic involving traveling! We get on a plane and travel two legs from LA to Chicago (ChiTown). Two legs? Yeah because since 911, it is almost impossible to get a non stop. Why? I have never figured that out.

Anyway, we make it to ChiTown at midnight their time. The Hotel Free Shuttles stop running at 11PM. So we hire a Taxi because we’re told it’s the cheapest option! We understand ‘Cheap’! So after waiting in the taxi line, we get a cab and get to our hotel around 1:15AM. (Only 11:15PM our local time) The hotel has some very chic decorations and my cameras are once again happy campers. We lay awake and watch a late night horror movie (which we would never do) and find we have to know what happens next!

April 2021

Stay tuned everyone! I will try to start posting each day for every day we traveled! First Post in a couple days!

Okay, today’s the day! A friend will pick us up in a couple hours and take us to the airport where we’ll fly to London to start our new adventure! Nerves are a little on edge but that’s normal. Do I have everything packed? Got my toothbrush, do I need anything else? Oh, clothes… Pooh, you guys put a damper on all our fun! Yep, I think we’ve got everything! Don’t forget to “Follow” us and we’ll take you with us all along the way!