July 27th we left Phoenix for a visit to our original home, just north of Chicago IL. Our first destination point was Santa Rosa, New Mexico home of the Blue Hole and Route 66. Main Street America
This leg of the trip was uneventful, hot but livable. Nothing like Phoenix's 120+ but the air conditioning was working much better with temperatures just hitting 100.
Destination 2 was Tulsa Oklahoma.
Quiet and large enough to be a city, but still had a hometown feel. The A/C unit in the cab failed to blow anything resembling cold air and temperatures reached a scorching 107 degrees, a local record high. As we pushed out 600 miles the engine heat caused the Cab to reach an unprecedented 115 degrees by the time we stopped for the night. Running the Central Air with the generator while driving was doing little to cool the RV so we finally gave up and checked into a Comfort Inn for the night. Turns out the Comfort in Comfort Inn was not so comforting when the hotel room A/C was slow to work and barely cooled better than the RV. We hauled our RV portable fans up to the 2nd floor room and gave the animals bowls of Ice Water to help cool them down. In order to avoid a repeat of the heat we got up at 2am and hit the road for destination 3, Peoria IL.
We hit Springfield Illinois just about 11am and finally pulled over at Holiday Inn Express about 12:30 just short of Peoria. We had burgers for lunch in our room and the crashed for the night at 6pm. This gave us a nice leisurely drive for our final day to Destination 4 and 7 days of 5 grandchildren and a nice long visit with our Son and Daughter-In-Law and Daughter and Son-In-Law. I got to watch the two youngest grandsons learn the joys of swimming independently. We had some nice campfires and marshmallows for all. Tom cooked all the favorites: Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, Brats, Steaks, Corn on the Cob and Baked Beans Campfire style. All of our grandchildren slept over and the youngest of the 5, Nick fell sound asleep each night exhausted from swimming in the pool, walks to the lake, sand castle building and games in the arcade.
After all of the fill and our own exhaustion Grampa and I settled in for a quiet Friday night of recuperation only to be packed into the Fish Lake Resort with hundreds of Tents and people. So we headed out Saturday morning to Destination 5 - Edgerton Wisconsin, my parents cabin in Rock River Leisure Estates. Fins Lodge was packed with boaters so we enjoyed a quiet visit on the mountaintop deck of my parents home and a few nice bottles of wine, along with a couple Cosmopolitans on Saturday night. My Mom cooked her wonderful Chicken Parmesan and pasta and then on Friday, Tom grilled a Beef Roast with a nice glass of Chianti.
This morning we left for Rochester MN. Destination 6. Autumn Woods RV Park just outside of Rochester turned out to be a pleasant quiet stay amidst large RVs in full hook up pull through sites complete with Cable and Fox News. We got here just in time to watch the market plunge. Thank goodness we had the sense to get out of the market and into precious metals a few years back.
We leave Wednesday morning for Raleigh-Durham and I will hopefully get 2 nights in my land bed before I fly off to Memphis on Sunday. Final Destination. Hope you've enjoyed our trip.
Shiloh says Hello. She has almost learned what stairs are. She likes grass and lays down in it every chance she gets but still looks for rocks to do her business. She has learned it's not good to run up on the dashboard, and loves to bark at the toll booth people. She ate a wasp and survived and looks in wonder at lightening bugs (fireflies if you're not from IL). She ran for hours in my Son's yard with her friend Ginger and enjoyed taking most of the bed from the grandchildren until she lost that battle. She cries like a baby when Tom goes anywhere without her. And the best thing... when I hug her she puts her head in my neck and licks my chin. We love her. I think the feeling is mutual.
