The best Bogus Adventure ever!

Today is Halloween and we have been home for just about a week.  We have been crazy busy since we arrived home and it has taken me up to today to finally post our "trip home" and this final page.

We cannot thank our friends and family enough for opening your yards and driveways to us from Kamloops BC, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and California.

Ron and Mary Friesen (who were away at the time on their own camping trip), offered their yard for our first overnight stop in Kamloops which allowed us to see Tanya and Dean before we ventured out.

A special thanks to my sister Jo and Tom for letting us camp out in their yard at Eagle Lake Ontario for 3 nights. They put on a birthday dinner for Ray and surprised him with a cake!  Loved seeing Christina, Adam and their kids!

In Guelph we camped in the driveway at Riki and Brad's house.  We took up the whole driveway!  Thank you to Brad Sr and Barb for really making us feel at home!  We were so happy to be able to surprise Alisha and be there for her 4th birthday!  Alisha was able to "camp out" with Nana & Papa in the 5th wheel, where we watched many Barbie movies!

In Newmarket we spent two nights with my wild and crazy brother Jimmy and his wife Sue.  Man we love you two and your two crazy friends who are still texting us!  Was that Bob and Shelia or Fred and Betty???  Ha ha.. It was great to see Amanda and family!

In Lindsay Ontario, we spent two nights with our dear friend Nancy.  It was great to be with her on her farm as she has now sold it and is going to be retiring at the end of the year.  She has promised to visit us for an extended trip this Spring!

When we got to PEI, our friend Elayne (from BC) had prearranged for us to camp out at her sister Cathy's house.  Cathy had never met us, but opened her house and yard to us for the 4 days we were there.  Thank you so much Cathy!  Also to Elayne's brother, David who took us up in his airplane for an ariel view of PEI.  It was fabulous!!

In Hammond Plains Nova Scotia, we again camped out in a driveway.  Tim and Pam Sleigh not only let us camp in their driveway, but also let us leave our 5th wheel in their yard for the 6 days we went to Newfoundland.  We appreciated that more than we can say!  While travelling across Canada we would receive emails from Tim, with ideas of places to stop (like the longest covered bridge in the world, Hartford New Brunswick) and also to warn us about the moose in New Brunswick (which to my dismay, we never did see).

 

After our long trek across the United States, we arrived in California ready to park ourselves for more than one day!  Yay!!!  That packing up everyday can get tiring!  We camped at the Malibu RV park for 2 & 1/2 weeks.  We got to see Sadie and Riley everyday!  Thanks for everything Cia and Derian, especially for surprising us the first weekend by camping right next to us.  That was a great surprise!

When we set out on this adventure of ours, we had crossed into the States in Montana and wanted to go down to South Dakota to see Mt Rushmore.  Unfortunately we had a timeline to get to Ontario, so were unable to go to South Dakota.

In Canada we had wanted to go as far in east as we could. We did that by going all the way to Newfoundland.   When we went down to the States into Maine we had wanted to go right down to New Jersey and New York to see the 9-11 Memorial site, Empire State Building,,,you know all the touristy things in New York.  We also had wanted to go to Washington DC.

But two and a half months just is not possibly enough time to do all of the things that you want to do with so much driving.  We will plan a trip back to New York next year, but will fly and rent a car.

We cannot say enough about this adventure. We spent time with our families, especially the grand kids.  We saw our country and met so many nice people!  Going through the United States was awesome, especially the eastern coast, which is now suffering from the hurricane in the last few days.

We hope that you have enjoyed following our blog.  It has been fun writing!  And we hope that each of you at sometime, have the opportunity to take a Bogus Adventure of your own.

We leave you now with this photo.  Remember to live every day as though it is your last and don't sweat the small things in life.

 

 



The End ,,,,,

Heading home

We said our good byes to Cia, Derian, Riley and Sadie on the morning of Tuesday (October 23rd). It was sad to leave, but it was time to move on to the next step of our journey.  Cia had suggested we drive up to Big Sur and camp there for a night before heading home, which sounded like a great idea.  But once Ray heads that truck in a northerly direction, it is heading home and as quickly as we can safely get there!  Not that he drives all crazy like,,,, he just gets focused on getting home!  And has the forecast for the weather was to change from the high 80's to the low 70's, it was not a bad idea.

So we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway to just north of Oxynard (which is where most of our off season fruit and vegetables are grown) and then we cut over to Highway 101.  This took us through beautiful Santa Barbara again.  But this time we continued past the lovely town.  Ray said he thought  a good place to stop would be Gilroy as he was familiar with the little town from his motorcycle trip in June.

Gilroy is situated in the country of Santa Clara.  It is a small town with approximately 49,000 people.  What puts Gilroy on the map are the crops of garlic!  The air is heavy with the smell of garlic.  So much so that the next morning when we left, I was craving Caesar salad!!  I mean really,,, you can smell nothing but garlic in the air!!! We had bought some olives stuffed with garlic and some pickled garlic, and I am telling you I would have opened up that pickled garlic and ate a couple but I thought if I had asked to Ray to pull over so that I could get the jar out of the trailer at 7:00 in the morning, he would think I was nuts.  Yup we do love our garlic!  Every year there is a Garlic Festival in Gilroy.  I think it would be great fun to be in Gilroy during festival time!  Imagine the garlic products that you would be able to taste!!  Gilroy also grows other things such as mushrooms, but it really is the garlic that has given the town the name of "Garlic Capital of the World".

When we woke up on Wednesday morning Ray told me that we were going to drive to Roseburg Oregon which was about a 500 km drive.  It was getting cold in the mornings even just being 6 hours north of Malibu, and I was a bit concerned about hitting the Shasta Mountain pass which is in the southern end of the Cascade Range, and the Siskiyous' which Grants Pass is in. In years gone by we have come across snow in both of these passes, and I was not looking forward to dragging a 5th wheel trailer through if there was any sign of snow on the road.  Mind you, it was Ray dragging the trailer, not me and he was not concerned at all.  But all the same, I would have been sitting on the edge of my seat!

Although the Shasta Mountains had snow at the higher levels, it was clear of snow in the lower levels and with the sun shinning, Shasta Lake was a beautiful sight to behold.  The water is so green that it looks glacier fed.  The lake is extremely low which we comment on every time we go through there.  You can see the previous water lines in the rocks on the shoreline.

Mount Shasta is 14,179 feet and is a volcano.  It last erupted in 1786, so I doubt that it is still active.  But I do think about it every time we go through there.  Mt Baker will likely erupt before Shasta ever will and it is Mt Baker that I should think about.  Funny thing is though, I never think of that when I am at home.

We had very little rain and with just a bit of clouds so our drive was very uneventful.  We did not however make it to Roseburg as by the time we got to Canyonville Oregon, Ray was getting pretty tired.  Canyonville is only about half an hour or so, south of Roseburg, and as the opportunity for free RV parking was up for grabs, we decided to stop.  We stopped at the Seven Feathers Casino, which has a full RV campground complete with all hookups.  Or you can chose to "dry camp" in the lower parking lot of the Casino for free.  We opted for the free camping.  We selected our spot in the parking lot and let out our slide.  Ray put the furnace on low as it was quite nippy out.  At an elevation of only 750 feet, Canyonville is nestled in the forests of Douglas County. At this time of year it can get quite cold, especially during the evenings.  With the furnace on, we headed off to the Casino.  The walk was refresh but chilly, but once inside we quickly warmed up.  We decided to each take $20 and put it into some machines.  Yeah we are big time spenders for sure!!!  Well I blew $20 instantly without winning a dime.  Ray found a machine and put $20 in.  He played on that for about 30 minutes and got bored very quickly.  I am not sure how you can get bored when you are winning.  He was just winning some amounts, just enough to keep playing.  He eventually lost his money so we decided to go and grab something to eat.  We went into the lounge and shared some nachos and each had a beer.  Every few minutes the waitress would come over to see if we wanted another drink and each time we declined.  Finally she came back over to our table and said that we had to move on as they were going to be opening the lounge for the entertainment and if we didn't have tickets, then we would have to go.  Now why would they not tell us that to begin with?  And why was she trying to sell us more drinks?  We finished up our beer and left.

We decided that we had had enough of the Casino and headed back to the truck and trailer.  It was freezing outside!!!  As Ray was only wearing a sweatshirt and I a light denim jacket, I was wishing that we had worn our winter jackets, which I had packed under the bed.  It was slightly warmer in the trailer, so Ray cranked the heat up a bit more and I threw a sleeping bag on the bed so that we would not freeze to death during the night.  About the time we went to bed, I was questioning myself as to why we had not gone to the full service campground?

We did survive the night and headed off at 6:45 in the morning.  We stopped about 20 minutes up the road for some breakfast and hot coffee and then we were off.  At about 9:00 we had just gone through Salem and as we were passing a semi truck, Ray says "I think we have a flat tire".  All I can see is the semi we are passing and thinking, OMG we are going to hit that truck!  But our truck was not weaving at all,,,, Ray just got ahead of the semi and pulled off on to the shoulder of the highway.  We both got out and checked all the tires, which seemed to be fine.  I asked Ray what he had felt that would make him think we had a flat?  He said it was a clunking feeling in the drivers side.  We get back into the truck and Ray pulls back out onto the highway.  We had not even gotten up to 50 kms and he pulled back off onto the shoulder and said "There is something definitely wrong".  He got back out and looked under the truck.  He came back to the truck and still was not sure what the problem was but said that we were going to have to be towed off the highway. 

Last year we had switched from BCAA to Good Sam, simply because BCAA will only tow you a certain amount of miles, where Good Sam will tow you to wherever you want to go.  They would even tow us home, if that was our request.  We chose to have it towed to a Chev dealer in Lebanon which was about 20 minutes off the highway.  To make a long story a bit shorter, we had to wait for an hour and a half for a tow truck that would be able to tow our truck and the 5th wheel to come and get us.  At 10:50 the flat deck tow truck arrived and loaded us up.

Loading up the heavy Chevy...

All ready to go,

We arrived at the Chev dealer, which incidentally had said that depending on what the problem was, we could plug in and camp out in their lot if need be.

Once Ray spoke with the mechanic and told him what had happened, the mechanic told us that it was good that we did not attempt to drive any further as the wheel bearing was going and had we driven further we could have lost the whole wheel, which would have cause a lot of damage and even possibly an accident.

The dealership had us out of there and back on the road within a couple of hours.  We lost 5 hours in total which meant that we would not be crossing the border at 4:00 as we had hoped.

We arrived at the Lynden crossing at about 8:50 pm.  Ray was so tired, but answered all of the CBSA guards questions to his satisfaction and we were sent on our way.  We pulled onto our street at 9:30 and left the truck attached to the trailer parked on the roadway beside the house.  Friday morning we started the big task of unpacking everything.

Family time in Malibu

We spent 17 days camping in beautiful sunny Malibu campground.  The first four days Cia, Derian, Riley, Sadie and of course Sophie their French Bulldog camped along side us.  It was a great surprise when we checked in to discover that they were also booked to camp right beside us.  Over the last couple of weeks we spent lots of time with Riley and Sadie getting to know them better.  Riley is in Kindergarten and I got to replace Cia on her parent help morning and was able to help out in Riley's class.  It was fun, but also a bit stressful.  There were a couple of little boys in the class who were just beastly!!  They would not take direction whatsoever from me.  All the other kids were great!  One little boy told me that I did not look like his Nana, as she was old and fat!  I took that as a compliment!

One evening we took Riley out for dinner and to the movies one night.  We saw "Frankinweiner", which I thought was a bit scary!  Riley liked it though and said that it did not scare him and he thought that it was funny that Nana would be scared!!!  We also took both kids to the pumpkin patch.  My idea of a pumpkin patch is going out to a farm and walking through the "patch" and picking out a pumpkin.  The pumpkin patch we went to had rides, and things for the kids to jump around in and also a very small petting zoo.  The petting zoo had about 6 chickens, a couple of ducks, one sheep and about four goats.  As Sadie was too small for the rides and she did not want to go down the slide I thought that she might be interested in going in and feeding the animals.  She was afraid to go in, so we sat outside of the fence and talked to the animals.  Riley went through the corn maze all on his own, without getting lost. The kids picked out two pumpkins each and with Gramps' help, got them loaded into a wheelbarrow and took them back to the truck.  It was so unbelievably hot that day, but we all had a great time!

And here of course is Gramps giving the kids a ride to deliver the wheelbarrow back to the pumpkin patch.  He was having as much fun as the kids!

When in Malibu, you must go to the beach and play in the water.  We spent an afternoon at the ocean which is directly across the street from our campground.  Derian and Ray attempted to take Riley out into the waves in a little rubber raft.  Riley was very nervous and did not want them to take him out to far.  The waves rolling in were a pretty good size, so I really did not blame Riley for being a bit nervous!

While the guys played in the water, the girls lounged in the sand.  When we got the blankets and chairs set up, Sadie immediately lay down on her back in the middle of the blanket and shut her eyes to the sun.  She was trying to get a tan!!!  She is a true Californian girl loving that sun!  She did not last very long in that position and proceeded to play in the sand with her "baby" who she takes everywhere.

We had an amazing time in southern California and stayed camped in the Malibu RV Campground for the whole time we were in California.  We more or less "slept" there as each day we would either go through the canyon to Cia and Derian's or we would hang out down in the outdoor mall in Malibu where people in our retirement bracket cannot possibly afford to shop!  We would hang out at the Starbucks there in hopes of "spotting" anyone famous.  But after feeling like "stalkers" and not really seeing anyone, we quit that hobby!

Malibu RV Park has had some important people camp out over the years.  Last year it was Matthew McConahuy (spelling?) who stayed there while his house was being built. for most of the time we were camped out this year a very recognizable motorhome was camped out.  It would leave every morning and then come back in the evening (sort of like the two Riggins').

Much speculation as to who was staying in the motorhome.  Was Gene Simmons and his family staying there?  We later found out that it was their manager who was staying there!

We met some amazing people while camping in Malibu.  Jana and Larry, who both work at the site and live there as well.  We really got to know them on our final night while partying at Cia and Derian's site. They arrived carrying two bottle of champagne!  How could you not love these people!  It turns out that Jana is a Yoga instructor, so Cia and I were giving her suggestions about starting a early morning Yoga class in the campground as there was a perfect spot to practice overlooking the ocean!  Jana also makes beautiful earrings!  Cia bought each of us a pair.

Another side trip we took while in California was a day trip up to Santa Barbara.  It is a beautiful town (and no we did not see Oprah!).  There are beautiful old buildings there and interesting side streets that had restaurants, bistros and numerous shops.  But alas, I got a migraine and totally ruined our day there as we had to head back to the campground.  I got another migraine 3 days later.

It is hard to leave southern California as the weather is so beautiful.  We had one day of rain while we were there, but as the weather forecast was changing to more rain it is time to head north.

Until next time......

Flagstaff, Sedona, Jerome and finally Malibu!

By the time we got to Flagstaff, my lungs were not any better.  Even standing outside the truck talking to Ray was causing me to be short of breath.  The elevation of Flagstaff is 7000 feet.  I told Ray that I thought we had better not go to the Grand Canyon at all, as it is higher again.  We had been there about 8 years ago with Jim and Marline, and the overwhelming beauty of it would have been great to see.  But seriously, I just wanted to get to the coast so that I could hopefully breathe a bit better.

As we had arrived in Flagstaff at about 1:00 pm, we decided to take a drive to Jerome which was about an hour and a half away.  And then we would go into Sedona for dinner.  We took the scenic drive through to Sedona (which is on the way to Jerome).  It was the most amazing drive that we had been on.  The roads wound their way through the canyon which had that rich red mountains.

There was quite a bit of smog in the air, so in this photo you can not really see the beautiful red color of the mountain side.

We made our way to Jerome which is an old mining town.  Silver and copper was mined at one time in Jerome.  The current population of Jerome is less than 500 people.  They sport a fire hall and a police station.  The little town winds its way down the side of Cleopatra Hill.  There are tiny little shops and restaurants and with tourism now being important to the economy there were lots of people milling about.  For the motorcyclist the ride from the west side of Jerome through the mountains is a spectacular drive.  As you wind your way through the town, you may quickly see the garage door which is built into the mountain side. We could not get a photo of it as there is absolutely no where to pull off to take the picture. 

We found this young lady making animals our of clay.  She had a table full of giraffes, zebras, elephants, turtles and even a moose!  We bought a giraffe from her, and she let me take her picture for our blog.

 

We spent about an hour and a half poking through the shops of local artwork and locally made jewellery.  Then we drove back to Sedona to have some dinner.  The major thing that attracts people to this city of 10,000 are the beautiful red sandstone formations which are called the Red Rocks of Sedona.  When the sun is setting at night the colours are a brilliant orange-red.  Over the years there have been many movies shot in the Sedona area. One of the older movies is Stagecoach which was shot in 1938.  The elevation of Sedona is 4500 feet,and yes my lungs were not happy with that!

 

After having a nice dinner we drove back to Flagstaff.  Flagstaff is fairly large with a population of 62,000.  The city is named after a Ponderosa Pine flagpole which was made by a scouting party from Boston to celebrate the United States Centennial on July 4th 1876.  There are many of those Ponderosa Pines in the area and our campsite was nestled in some of those large pine trees and with the wind blowing through the trees, we had an excellent sleep.

 

We were now on a mission to get to a lower elevation which would also bring us closer to Cia, Derian and kids in Thousand Oaks. Our goal for the day was to stop in Barstow California for the night.  We crossed into California at Needles where we had to go through the Agricultural "border".  As we waited in the line up the motorhome in front of us was getting a thorough search by the guards.  They even went underneath the motorhome searching for what I am not sure, as this is a check point to make sure that you are not bringing specific vegetables and fruits into the State.  Fortunately for us, we only had some potatoes and a bagged salad.  They were interested in citrus fruits and tomatoes.  Had we gotten searched, it would not have been a big deal for us. While in Needles we gassed up the truck and and at $5.09 a gallon it was the highest price yet that we paid for gas. 

Driving towards Barstow was interesting.  We were definitely in the desert now and what I found most interesting was the the cactus looked black and dead like they were starved for some rain.  But it rarely rains in the desert so why would they look like that.  Maybe there had been a fire, but the sage brush was the usual sage "green" that it is supposed to be.  So not sure what was going on with the cactus.

Barstow is in San Bernardino County and is about 55 miles north of the city of San Bernardino and has a population of about 23,000 Barstow is also home to Marine Corps Logistics Base. This town is also in the Mojave Desert so is hot and dry. We camped in the only campsite the town has. It was small but the sites were spotless.  It was so nice to sit outside in the heat, but it did get a bit cool as it got dark.  My lungs had improved 100% at this lower elevation!  Here is Ray sitting back and enjoying a well deserved drink. 

 

While in Barstow, I called to reserve our campsite at Malibu for the next couple of weeks.  We do not normally reserve sites but as the Malibu RV campground is very popular it is recommended to pre book.  The young guy I spoke with on the phone was very wishy washy telling me they had no sites on the ocean side available for the two weeks I was asking for.  So I confirmed that there was a site on the ocean side for Saturday and Sunday night and booked that. 

 

 

We headed off about 0930 on Saturday morning.  With a low gas tank (yup,,,you know where I am going with this), I asked Ray if he was going to gas up in Barstow before we left. Ray said no, we would get gas at the next town which according to the GPS was about 13 miles down the road.  So off we go and as we come into the next "town" there were no services whatsoever.  Ray asked how far was the next town,,,,,,29 miles away was Kramer Junction.  He said we can make it!  We got to about 16 miles outside of Kramer Junction, and Ray said that he thought we should go back to Barstow because if we got to that town and there were no services, we would be screwed because we would not make it back to Barstow or the town of Mojave which was about 20 miles past Kramer Junction and we definitely would not make it there.  So we found somewhere to turn around and backtracked to Barstow.  We did not run out of gas, but we also did not want to take the chance of running out in the middle of the Mojave desert either!  All in all, we lost about 45 minutes.  When we did finally get back to Kramer Junction, there were no services there so good thing we did turn back.  Kramer Junction was quite interesting because for somewhere that has no services it has something else that we had not seen.  There was acres and acres of solar panels.  In the middle of nowhere!

 

As we got closer to the Santa Clarita which is where we would meet up with the Interstate 5, the traffic got crazier!  We branched off towards Simi Valley and I called Derian to find out if any of the roads through the Malibu Canyon would allow the 5th wheel, if not then we would have had to go north to a town called Oxynard which would take us over to the Pacific Coast Highway and into Malibu.  Derian gave us the name of the cut off that we needed to take and as we were only about 30 minutes away, he said to call them once we got set up in the campground and they would come down to visit us.

 

We pulled into Malibu RV campsite around 1:30 pm and went inside to check in.  While in there we asked again about staying in the same ocean side site for two weeks.  The very nice lady working the counter told us that should not be a problem (not sure what that young guy the previous night was talking about).  As we are at the counter, Derian walks in.  We were thrilled to see him and looked outside for his truck to wave at the kids.  His truck was there, but so was their trailer!  That had booked in the site right beside us!  What a wonderful surprise that was to have them camping with us!!!!

 

Here is a picture of Ray riding Riley's bike and wearing his safety glasses! 

 

And Ri Guy,,,,

 

And of course Sadie Bird,,,,

 



 

 

So we will be camped here until the 20th at which time we may move to another campground near Santa Barbara for a few days, and then head north.

 

I will leave you today with this picture of our beautiful sunset at Malibu RV Park.  Stay turned for more of our Bogus Adventure,,,,,

 

Lori and Ray

 





Albuquerque

We left the friendly people of Texas behind and drove straight into New Mexico heading on Highway 40 to Albuquerque. We were hoping to be in Albuquerque for the famous Balloon Festival. When we had originally read about it, I was viewing the 2011 event dates. Unfortunately we were about four days too early.  We camped in a very nice campground called The American RV Park.  It is on a hill on the west side overlooking the city.

Albuquerque is the largest city in New Mexico.  It is situated pretty much in the middle of the State.  The population is over 550,000 so it is quite a large city.  The Rio Grande river runs through the city.  The river is quite low and very brown.  Makes the mighty Fraser look clean!  The Kirkland Air Force base is also in Albuquerque, but we did not see any signs of it.  The climate is dry and hot this time of year, but does cool down in the evenings.  The city has an average of 3,420 hours of sunshine a year.  Doesn't that sound wonderful!!  The city of Albuquerque has an elevation of 5000 miles and the surrounding mountains would be considerably higher. 

We visited Old Town Albuquerque.  The photo above is the entrance way into the historic Old Town.  Old town was founded in 1706 and sitting in the center of the town is the San Felipe de Neri Church which was built in 1793.  This photo does not do it justice, as it was hard to get a great shot without a bunch of vehicles parked in front of it.

 

The buildings of the old town are the beautiful if somewhat old, adobe style.  There are shops and restaurants. There was even a Rattlesnake museum which Ray said that he was going to look in.  I chose browsing through the hat shop instead.  About 3 or 4 minutes after I am minding my own business and poking through the many hats in the store, Ray comes up to me and says rather quietly "I can't go in there".  I look at him kind of funny and he says "there are live rattle snakes in there!"  I asked him what had he expected?  He thought it would not have live snakes in it.  So I walked over to the museum but could only get inside the doorway.  They had a number of large turtle there which were kind of cool and sure enough, in the back were tanks full of disgusting live rattle snakes.  I too turned around and left.  The hat shop was much more exciting!

 

 

Some of the natives had their wares set up on the side walks and were making beaded jewellery while people browsed through their crafts for sale.

 



This is one of the restaurants in the square.  I think they served quesadillas here!  It was so colorful!

When we had stopped for the night, we had planned on spending two days with the possibility of taking a balloon ride.  But unfortunately I was having some problems with my lungs and half way through our walk in Old Town, I was exhausted.  We went back to the campground and I was so tired that I had to lie down.  I could barely lift my head from the couch.  We did some investigation and finding that the altitude was possibly the cause, we decided to leave the next morning.  We did get up early in the morning and drove a ways down the road to watch some of the balloons take off.  I had wanted to get a photo of the colourful balloons, but the sun was coming up and with the glare, I was not able to get a photo worthy of posting.  There were 10 balloons going up and could only imagine what it would look like in the coming weekend.

Off we drove heading to Flagstaff.

Lone Star State

I slept quite well last night, even through when we went to bed I had thoughts of Tornado's running through my brain.  I did have to get up and shut the window as the crickets where "yelling", so loudly that it was as though they were in the 5th wheel!  I could not stand it!  I seriously think that the cricket was having a conversation with Ray.  I mean, remember the hens and rooster in Ontario? I think Ray deserves a new name,,, the Animal Whisperer as he does talk to them!  All animals, not just hens.  He talks to our Martha Jean, he talked to the cricket last night!  Oh you little cricket, go away and let us sleep,,,,, night little cricket!!  Do you have any animals that are not cooperating?  Call Raytard,the Animal Whisperer!  Eventually we did get to sleep.

We had an excellent drive today.  Probably the downfall was trying to find a Starbucks with no luck!  Once we got into Texas there was not many towns to drive off into until we got to Amarillo.  So no luck there with a full bodied coffee.  I think that Starbucks should start to advertise with signs on the highway, when they have a Starbucks within a mile of the exit.  It sure would save time!

Before I move on to Texas, a few things about Oklahoma that you may not have known.  Did you know that Oklahoma is the birthplace of Will Rogers, Toby Keith, Garth Brooks, Carrie Underwood, Sam Walton (king of Walmart) and Ron Howard to name a few.  Oklahoma is also the State that is in the center of the United States.  Wow, we have been in the central of North America, the eastern most part of Canada and now the center of the United States.  I cannot tell you how special I feel right now.  Almost brings tears to my eyes! 

Oklahoma City is the State capital, but is actually the 2nd capital city.  The first capital was originally Guthrie.  April 22nd 1989 was the start of the Oklahoma Land Run and in just 6 hours, 10,000 people had settled in Guthrie, making it the capital.  In 1910 an election was held to determine what the capital should be.  Oklahoma won and has been the capital since.

When we were driving today just outside of Tulsa Oklahoma, a pickup truck entered onto the highway.  The truck was loaded down with something that looked like metal stanchions tubes, or something like that.  As the driver merged into the right travel lane, he increased his speed and all of a sudden one of the pieces came flying out and bounced on the roadway behind the truck and in front of us.  Good thing that Ray likes to keep his distance, because we were able to move around it.  That was our tense moment of the day! (well other than the lack of Starbucks)

So tonight we are camping at the Amarillo Ranch RV park, which just happens to be down the road on Route 66 from the Big Texan Steak Ranch. 

So this Big Texan Steak Ranch, is famous for serving up a 72 ounce steak free to anyone who can eat it within one hour.  You also have to eat, deep fried shrimps, salad and a baked potato.  If you do not finish the whole meal in the hour, then you have to pay $72.00

The restaurant is like an old saloon with long tables covered in checkered table clothes.  There are all kinds of animal heads hanging all over the place and for a split second, I thought that my Moose was up there on the wall. On closer inspection, I realized that this poor guy had quite a layer of dust on him so could not possibly be our moose from Maine.

There was one brave soul who actually attempted to eat the 72 ounces of beef.  I said to him that I really hoped he could eat it as it was rather expensive if he didn't eat the whole meal.  This photo is of him at the start of the meal.  He looks a bit like Sparky Longhurst,,,,, but I really hope that Sparky never tries to eat that much beef!  Might clog the arteries!

We stopped by on our way out when he had about 8 minutes left and he said that 10 minutes into it, he knew that he would not be able to eat it all, so he had decided to just enjoy the meal.  He ate about half of the steak!

The best part of this restaurant other than Ray only having an 8 ounce steak and me having salmon, was we were taken to the restaurant in a limo.  An old limo, complete with long horns on the front.  I think we should buy some of those horns... what do you think?

"Now I know we're not in Kansas"

Ray wanted me to mention the long tunnels that we passed through in the State of Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania is very hilly and rather than put the highway around some of the higher hills, they put some tunnels in.  We went through 4 or 5 of them, and two of there were each almost 2 kms long!  Paula, you would absolutely hate the long tunnels because there are parts when you are in the tunnels and cannot see the end or the beginning!

Dayton Ohio has the most beautiful overpasses.  Well one section of them anyway.  The overpasses are very white and clean looking with neatly trimmed grass areas.  On each of the cement columns is a black inlay of a jet with jet streams.  It reminded of me the Snowbird jets, so that made me wonder if Dayton was the hometown of the Blue Angels.  It is not the home of the Blue Angels.  As it turns out, Wilbur and Orville Wright were born in Dayton Ohio in 1867 and 1871 and the town has  an Aviation Museum celebrating their trials and tribulations.  The overpasses are in celebration of the Wright Brothers and what they did for aviation.


Yesterday, September 30th we spent the night in a great campground called Camp Lakewood which is in a somewhat small town called Effingham Illinois.  The town is probably half the size of Mission and is considered the "Crossroads of Opportunity" because of its location to two major highways.  Highway I-71 would take you directly up to Chicago and Highway I-70 would take you to Ohio to the east or to Utah in the West.  Effingham is about 3 hours from Springfield IL, which is the capital of Illinois.  Springfield is also where President Lincoln lived for 24 years.  I can only imagine the museums that town would have to offer!

Yesterday I had a particularly rough day for some unknown reason.  It is not like I was doing the driving or anything like that, but I was fidgeting and just could not seem to get comfortable.  I think it had something to do with so many long days of sitting on my fanny doing nothing but reading maps and GPS's......  Ray seemed to be quite fine.  So when we were all checked in and set up, I told Ray I was going to do the laundry.  I put our things in the washing machine, said hello to a nice lady who was sitting waiting for her laundry and doing something on her iPad.  I came back about half an hour later to find the wash finished.  One of my washing machines was sitting a bit crooked, so I said to the lady who was still there "I guess my machine was doing a little dance".  She said that she was going to try to rearrange my clothes but thought that if I came and and saw her, I would think she was some kind of weirdo!  Yeah she was probably right!

Anyway, we got talking and ended up just sitting chatting while our clothes dried.  We even offered help to a fellow who kept coming in waiting for a dryer.  Her name is Barb and we totally hit it off immediately!  She and her husband are from the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee.  They were travelling in a 28 foot class B-Plus, motorhome and she told me that it had white leather furniture and very light cupboards and carpeting.  People came and went in the laundry room (including Ray who came looking for me), we called ourselves the "laundry ladies".  We talked like we had known each other for decades!  I told her that Ray and I would come by later and take a look at her "white" motorhome.

About an hour later after Ray and I had gone for our walk, we stopped by to look at the "white" motorhome.  The outside was a very nice steely green colour (hard to describe) and inside it was definitely "bright".  It was a beautiful unit!  We invited them over to take a look at our 5th wheel as they are interested in possibly trading in for something they do not have to tow a vehicle with. 

Barb's wonderful husband, Don and Ray hit it off pretty good.... not sure if it was as well as Barb and I,,, but the evening was great and was just what I needed to do after our few days of driving!  Barb's heritage is Irish/Scottish and French Canadian, which is the same as my heritage.  So being the good hostess that I am, I asked her and Don if they would like to try a good Canadian Caesar.  Not a Bloody Mary, but a Caesar.    Don passed, but Barb said yes because she was after all part French Canadian (too bad I did not have some poutine kicking about to give her!!).  After the initial numbing effect of the Tabasco sauce that I put in the drink, she did like it.  Barb called me her new "Irish" friend and insist that I look Irish,,,, must be my freckles!  She kept saying, while she drank her Canadian Caesar,,,,  "I am really French Canadian" you know!  Here is my new friend after we finished our Caesars!

We left our new friends behind this morning and do hope that someday we will see them together, but will definately stay in touch via email.

We drove through the rest of Illinois and through Missouri and into Oklahoma, where we are camped for the night.  This campground that we are in is close to a Casino (no Marline,,,I am not going to the Casino!) in a small town called Miami.   The RV portion of the campsite, has sixteen spots to rent and the rest of the "park" is a permanant mobile home park.  The camping spots are well maintained, but I will miss my new friends' company tonight!.

Oklahoma has an average of 64 tornados a season.  I am really hoping that the season is over for this year!  This campsite has a "storm shelter", which I assume that you run to in the event of a tornado.  The shelter is not really what I expected to see.  I thought it would be a wooden door leading down in the ground to some underground dark spidery place.  Similar to the storm shelter that Dorothy was supposed to go to in the Wizard of Oz instead of chasing after her dog.  I am sorry, but if a store hits here,,,, I am going to grab my ruby slippers and make a run for the shelter and my dog will have to fend for himself!  Oh,,,, I forgot,,,, I don't have a dog, nor do I have ruby slippers!!!  Darn,,,, I did see a big shoe store back on the highway,,,,,  Oh yeah, I get so easily distracted sometimes when the thought of a new pair of shoes comes into my brain!  I was telling you about this storm shelter.  The storm shelter at this campsite is a free standing garage.  Now if I was a tornado blowing through this little town, I think that I would go over and consume that little garage!  Does not look very safe to me!

Kansas gets an average of 96 tornados.  So we are thanking our lucky starts that we are not staying in Kansas tonight!!  Nor are we going through that State!  I will tell you something for sure,,,, if I hear the wind tonight I will likely have a heart attack.  I may not even sleep!!!!

"Going so soon?  I wouldn't hear of it. Why my little party's just beginning.".....ha ha ha....cackle cackle  (oh sorry, my other personality was coming out just thinking of the Wizard of Oz).......

This really is a Bogus Adventure!!!

Lori and Ray