Ready or not......I'm back!

September 10th 2019
Coos Bay, Oregon  The Mill RV Park

It's been 13 months since my last blog and here we are winding down our journey of 2019 already.  I never gave the blog much of a thought until an old friend we visited asked about the blog and said she missed seeing/reading it.  That was about two weeks ago and now this morning I thought I'd give it a go!  Yes, believe it or not I did have followers and folks that enjoyed my writing and reading about our adventures each summer.

This years (Journey of 2019) trip started on May 29th because we waited for Jack to finish school, yes our grandson Jack traveled with us for the first couple of months of this trip.  There were a lot of changes in this trip compared with journeys of years past.  We spent far less time in Iowa in order to make it to Madison, WI. for Beverly's company annual managers meetings June 18th thru the 20th.  That meant only 10 days between Des Moines and Davenport and our families in both cities.  One of the best things that made this years reunions complete was having both our kids and their families and Bev's brothers kids and their families all in attendance.....we love being able to spend time with family in Des Moines!  A second and very important change was the addition of the Quigley side of Bev's family with the Ackelson side in a combined reunion.  This reunion brought cousins together that hadn't seen each other in some 40 years, what a great time visiting so many and all looking forward to next year already!

Having Jack along meant visiting some places we've visited before but would be new to Jack and educational at the same time.  All in all Jack visited 13 states in the couple of months with Papa and Grandma and a number of National Parks and interesting cities!  Jack even caught his first Lake trout in the biggest lake in the world, Lake Superior.  We thank our friends Alan and Kathy Nelson for setting up that fishing trip, Jack's lake trout and Bev's salmon she caught....yes Mike was skunked!

After what will be a month in Oregon by the time we leave in the next day or two, it's time to hit the road and get in a bit warmer weather.  Yes this has been very refreshing the 60° and 70° temps, but the cool dampness I feel has been raising havoc with my joints!  Arthritis has been flaring up and not even token a number now and then has helped.......you can do that in Oregon and Washington.  We're looking forward to some warmer beaches, coastline and visiting some family in California, but with mixed feelings.  The outrages taxes, gas prices, filthy cities that we normally enjoy visiting give us those mixed feelings.  Eventually the State of California will keep more and more of us folks from visiting those places we've loved over the years.  Liberal democratic policies and leaders have made California a place were more people are moving away from that moving to or wanting to even visit.  Regardless we have about another month of travel ahead of us and are looking forward to hitting the road in the next day or so.

It's been over 12 years since we purchase our motor home, and it's been 11 trips we've taken since then and we have always wanted to spend more time in RV parks than driving down the road.  This year we're spending some of that time, longer stays in certain areas than ever before.  Thanks to the winds of Wyoming tearing off our awning, we've had extended stays here in Oregon and Washington.  This has been nice at times, but I must say we're ready to hit the road and add to the 88,000 plus miles we've put on the rig.  Revisiting places from years past is interesting, seeing all the changes even in some of the smaller towns and cities.  Now our visit to Seattle after a 40 year absence was amazing, you can imagine how much difference 40 years can make!  Beside the changes in the city, imagine visiting an old friend you hadn't seen in those same 40 years!  It was a great few days visiting Gayle and catching up, we promised not to make it another 40 years between visits.  The Space Needle had changed a lot, no longer open are but Plexiglas inches thick pretty much enclosing the whole thing.....even a place to walk out on a glass floor area!  No...sorry not me!  Also taking pictures with Jack at age 13 in and around places we took his Mother Lisa those 40 years ago was cool, we hope he loved traveling with us as much as we enjoyed having him along.  Now since we completed our map last trip and have been in all 48 states of the lower 48 states of our country, we will on future trips visit some of our favorite stops on future journey's.  I guess the only question will be can we take more long journey's as age creeps up on both of us especially me and all my aches and pains, only time will tell.

If you follow us on FB you might have seen where we have been "traveling with Jesus" this summer, taking pictures with our "stick Jesus" on different parts and places of this journey.  Now that we will be moving on you just may see a few more pics.  This has been so much fun for us and Jack while he was along, sending them back to church we  can't imagine the comments when folks view the bulletin board pics! 

Now I must get the coach ready to go to Tony's RV repair shop in the morning and prepare some kind of plan moving forward............stay tuned and let me know if you want more!