Oh, and this sign says it all

We found this kind of funny.

Now that's travelin'

Last year at this time we came to Kentucky for a week long vacation. The first day we were here, there was a tornado warning and high winds. The second day brought snow. Driving was horrible last year as we had a 35-mph cross wind from Michigan all the way here. No fun at all.

Today, perfect. Very little wind, fairly light traffic and temperatures in the mid-70s. We set-up our one night camp here in Berea, Kentucky in about 15 minutes. Joan, who had all day to relax in the car is at the stove making Taco Salad for dinner. Happy birthday to her, by the way.

I've told a Facebook/Blogger friend Kevin that if I hadn't gone into journalism, my dream job would have been driving a long haul, big rig truck. Kevin does that for a living and I enjoy his blog and the pictures he throws up from his travels.

For me there's nothing like being on the open road heading for anyplace but from where I'm from. So while the driving, especially with a 34-foot long travel attached can have its moments, it is about 90 percent very enjoyable. Especially with my best friend at my side. (That's for forgetting to buy her a birthday present.)

I've included a couple photos of our "Oh, Kentucky" campground. But just to let you know we are roughing it, there is no cable television here, so we're going old school, Netflix.

With no TV, Joan asked me to find a "non-country" FM station. Not as easy as you might think in Berea, Kentucky.

Start mileage and time: 30355 - 8:24 a.m.
End mileage and time: 30796 - 4:49 p.m.

More tomorrow from Georgia, our next stop.

Packed and ready to go

Finally, a year after a series of trips were planned, we're packed and ready to start out early tomorrow.

Destination, ironically, is Berea, Kentucky, our first destination, but this time only for one night as a stopover on our way to Florida.

Stay tuned.

Trailer parked and ready to go, again

While we were gone I paid the neighbor, Wes, to use his ample skills as a tree cutter to clear a spot for our new trailer next to the house.

There had to be some tree and bush trimming, but by doing so I gained about 10-feet more next to the garage, which allows me to park the trailer completely on the concrete parking pad next to the garage.

The neighbor did a nice job and I deftly backed the trailer into its new spot. See photo attached. If you look close you can see some of the work done on the tree.

Our Michigan home looks like Kentucky

Right now, our Lapeer, Michigan home looks more like some of the back roads Kentucky places we saw a couple weeks ago.

With a crazy male Robin going nuts attacking our windows after he sees his own reflection, we had to resort to pinning up an old sheet over the window to discourage the behavior.

When the bird moved to the next large window we purchased a $14 plastic owl to sit in front of the window, which seems to have done the trick. No attacks in almost three days.

When the rains came early this week we discovered our brand new roof (December) has a serious leak over our bedroom. The roofer is coming out (soon, we hope) to fix the problem, but in the meantime I have a 20-foot by 30-foot blue tarp weighted down on the roof to keep more water from flowing into the room.
So with the old sheet over one window and a big blue tarp on the roof, we pretty much look like the old shanties we saw on our trip.

We believe what happens in Kentucky, should stay in Kentucky. I've enclosed a few photos to let you see what we look like right now.

Trip one in the books, time to plan for trip 2 and 3

OK, so where to next?

I've begun planning a couple trips. A short one for the summer to a nearby State Park and a big one for next winter.

The short trip will involve about an hour drive to Lake Huron and a nice lake side park we heard about there.

The big trip will be a 5-6 week affair that will take us south through Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona (Grand Canyon), California (visit our sons and granddaughter, cousin and friends) and then home.

As I get the big route more defined I'll post it and would appreciate any tips, good RV parks or other information that anyone may have about the route.

This will be Joan's first trip to New Mexico and Arizona. I've been to both several times, but truly love the desert southwest.

As Steve McQueen once said: "I'd rather wake up in the middle of nowhere, than any city on earth."

Getting home is not half the fun

Back in the day when my father was a general aviation pilot he mainly flew out of San Carlos Airport in San Carlos, California. The airport had a north-south runway with an almost constant east-west cross wind.

Most of the landings he/we made at that airport involved "crabbing" into the wind, which is basically flying sideways into the wind until just before landing when you straighten out and put the plane down.

My Dad used to say he might have trouble completing a landing if he didn't have a cross wind. Now I get his point.

On all three days I pulled our new trailer we were on a north south road (I-75) with a brisk to fierce cross wind (25-35 mph). I'm not going to know how to pull the trailer if we're not bucking a stiff cross wind. It did make for some anxious moments, but I guess it is good experience.

In Ohio, I stopped for gas and found myself in a gas station way too small for a rig as large as mine. There were more anxious moments as I blocked the driveway waiting for the guy in front of me to finish gassing up. Didn't make many friends there.

After pulling out of the station I used a large lot to turn around in and later noticed a sign that said: "No RV or truck turnaround." Sorry.

We've learned that truck stops are the best place to gas up when we have the trailer attached.

Because the refrigerator runs on propane while we are pulling it, before we pull up to the pumps we have to go back into the trailer and turn off the refrigerator so there isn't an open flame next to the gas pump.

The pulling, because of the wind, was somewhat more difficult than I anticipated, but the comfort and convenience of pulling our own bedroom was well worth the effort.

Once home, we had to deal with heavy traffic on our street as I backed the trailer into the driveway. After a couple false starts (due to traffic) I was able to safely pull the trailer into its new spot next to the garage.

I'll post some statistics later on the miles and locations covered on this trip. Happy Easter everyone!

Here are the totals:

Miles on the trailer: 918
Miles on the Tahoe: 1,298
Campsites visited: 2 (Oh KY Campground in Berea and Elkhorn Campground in Frankfort, KY)
Memories: Priceless