Tuesday, June 7, 2016

This is it!  Our last post for this travel blog.  It's been fun and it's a good way for us to look back at this and see where we have been and what we did.  Today was a great way to end our travels as it now shifts into a different gear.  POLKA!  We are back in the north country and will be attending different fests this summer.  We will be meeting many of our dancing friends that we haven't seen since we left last fall, but we do see some of them in AZ.  We went to Shawano to the library as they had a special guest today and we wanted to see his 'pitch'.  He is Mike Schneider and he is originally from Milwaukee, but now lives in Clinton, WI.  He travels mostly east of the Mississippi to libraries to promote his Pint Sized Polka CD's.  They are awesome.  They make wonderful gifts for newborns or early childhood birthdays, as they are geared for the younger set.  Mike plays the accordion and quite well, and we have danced to him many times.  We really had a lot to get done with just getting home yesterday, but what's one more day?  Shawano is only a half hour from us, and we missed him last year when he was in Iola.  We're glad we went and we did surprise him.  I'll post a few pictures and hopefully, I can post a video, so you can see how good he is.  So, until the next big trip......it's been our pleasure to have you come along!
P.S. I guess my videos are too large, so until we can figure out how to edit it and cut it down, you won't see it. 

 We got a picture with Mike before he did his 'gig'.

 This sign explains all that Mike does in his promoting of his CD's.  He covers a lot of things that are important to instill in the youngsters at a young age.  It is all set to polka music! 

This was a very enthusiastic group, and the young people had a great time and participated well.  They had a very nice turnout, as this only shows a portion of the people there.

Monday, June 6, 2016 - Happy birthday to Jim's sister, Joan!

We arrived at our 'homey shed' (Eagles Landing) this afternoon, and we have had a wonderful two months on the road!  We have seen a lot and met so many nice people, and even got to see some family along the way.  We did have some on again, off again rain showers on our trip home today, and again when we got home.  Everything looks good with our shed, and the farmer that we bought the land from, has mowed our lawn, so that's in good shape, also.  We have never come home to a problem here, and we feel we made the right decision in our building.  I filled the niger seed feeder, and the Humming Bird/Oriole feeders, so we will await their arrival.  Jim had to flush out the water pipes and get the antifreeze out of my washer, and we're good to go.  So much easier than when we had a house!   I will have one more day to post on the blog, as we are going to do something kind of unique tomorrow.  We need to share it with all of you.  We appreciate the comments and loyalty to our blog, whether you are a daily reader, or occasional, but we are glad to share our journey with you.  We have lots of company coming this summer, and we also have some short trips that we will be making, but it will be good to stay put for a while.  We picked up our held mail today and we have two occasions that we need to get on the calendar.  The summer will go quickly, and we look forward to Autumn, as it's beautiful here in the fall.  Thank you, friends, for sharing our journey with us.

 This is what we call home!  It works for us and we really love it here.

Looking from our shed, we have a lane down to the farmer's field.  We have lots of Balsam trees on the edge of our yard, so it hosts many birds, and the deer like to hang out in there.  It looks like Jim might have some tree trimming to do this summer, as the walkway seems to be getting smaller. 

Sunday, June 5, 2016

Barb (Jim's sister) came over to watch Greg play baseball and she brought us some rhubarb, asparagus and radishes!  Thanks, Barb!  We had a better weather day today than yesterday, and they did get all the games in today.  They had 5 diamonds going all weekend, and it was fun to watch, as we don't get the chance very often.  We all went to Milford to Crawfish Junction for lunch afterwards, and then we wanted to get back to pack up and hook up, in case we have rain in the morning.  We had severe storm warnings out for Jefferson County when we got back to the motor home, and we had some turbulent winds for a bit, and after the front moved in, it cleared up and we just had a little rain.  The local policeman even came by to check on us.  It could have been nasty!  Tomorrow we will arrive back in Wittenberg at our 'homey shed' and get situated after being gone since last October.  We always wonder what we'll find when we get back there, and it's always been fine. 

 Mike, Greg, Barb, and Lori after the game is over.

 Lunch at Crawfish Junction in Milford....Mike, Greg, Barb, Marlene, Jim and Lori.

We had a rainbow over the motor home after the storm had passed.

Saturday, June 4, 2016

The weather looked iffy today, for the baseball tournament in Watertown, WI but we went with rain gear and an umbrella and none of it helped!  We got wet but dried off and stayed for the duration!  We had a lull before the evening game Greg had to play in, so we went back to Delafield to their place and Mike cooked us a delicious meal of haddock, asparagus and tomatoes, all cooked on the grill.  Mike is a very good cook!  We walked through St. John's Northwestern Military Academy, as they have nice landscaping and it was on the way to the ice cream shop.  We returned to the ball field only to be in a game that ended in the bottom of the 2nd inning, due to lightening.  It will be finished on Sunday after their regularly scheduled game.

Greg is our youngest grandchild, and he's 12.  He plays for the Kettle Moraine Lasers.

 School wasn't in session any more, so it was quiet to walk through the grounds here. 

Sam, the dog, Mike, Lori, Greg, Jim and Marlene on a footbridge to the ice cream shop.

Friday, June 3, 2016

Welcome to Wisconsin!  We left our nice campground in Thomson Corps of Engineer Park in northwestern Illinois this morning, and had a good travel day.  Traffic was heavier than we've seen for a long time, but we are back in familiar territory since leaving in October, 2015.  We settled in at the fairgrounds in Jefferson, WI and will be going to a baseball tournament this weekend of our grandson, Greg.  They are predicting rain tomorrow, so we will see what happens.  The tournament is in Watertown, and this was the best place for us to camp for the weekend.  We met up with some great friends from Milwaukee, that have an RV in a campground near here in Hebron, where they spend their summer weekends.

 This was a 'welcome' sign for us entering Wisconsin.  It's good to be back on familiar soil.

We met Jim and Vivian Uhler's at the golf course where they just finished playing.  We visited and had a couple of drinks, and then we went to Ft. Atkinson for a good old Wisconsin fish fry!  We met Jim and Vivian when we spent 10 years in another park in Apache Junction.  They had a house right behind our RV site, and we had many great happy hours with them.  Vivian also hikes with us.  It was wonderful to reconnect with our dear friends!

Thursday, June 2, 2016

We made plans to meet some 'long time dancing friends' in Freeport, IL for lunch.  It was delightful!  We haven't seen Ellen Shoup for many years, and it's been three years since we had seen Don and Lois Tyler.  We contacted them as soon as we arrived in Thomson and asked what day would work to get together, and they picked the most beautiful day of all.  We are so glad we made the trip up there, to enjoy the company of some very dear friends!  Ellen invited us to her home just east of Freeport, and we reminisced and laughed at some old photos.  We will be leaving tomorrow for Wisconsin, and staying in Jefferson for the weekend.  We will be seeing our grandson, Greg's baseball games, as he's in a tournament this weekend.

 This is what happiness looks like!  Ellen, Jim, Don, Marlene and Lois.  What a treat to spend the day with very dear friends!

Don is such a funny guy.  I told them in an e-mail that we might not recognize them as it's been so long since we've seen them.  They arrive with 'name tags' so we know who they are! 

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

The rains have finally ceased, so we jumped on our bikes and rode all around the campground, and then out into the prairie, where they have a wonderful bike trail.  The spring wildflowers are in bloom out there now, so it was very pretty and enjoyable.  Early afternoon, our very good friends from Davenport, IA came to visit us.  We met Nick and Jeanie DeBolt in our previous RV/mobile home park in Apache Junction, AZ and have shared many wonderful hikes, and eateries and we couldn't pass up this opportunity to see them on our way back to Wisconsin.  Jeanie recommended going to the Candlelight Inn, which is located in Clinton, IA and not far from where we are camping, and it is on the Mississippi River .  We ate outside as it was just a gorgeous evening.  It was great to connect with them, and we'll see them again when they come to our 'homey shed' in Wisconsin in September. 

 I caught this Great Blue Heron in the lagoon by the campground, and framed it in a bench on the shore.  Notice the pink flag to the left.  That is placed there by the students of Iowa State, who are in the park and marking turtle egg layings, so they can monitor them.  The box turtle was near extinction by 2009 and they have been aggressively working to improve their future.

 Our friends, Jeanie and Nick at the 'non-working' lighthouse by the restaurant.

 This barge and large load went upriver as we ate dinner.

We four after dinner.  It was a beautiful evening and wonderful meal.

I was quick to snap a picture of the working windmill in Fulton, IL as we crossed the bridge to come back into Illinois after dinner.

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

We had to stick around this morning, due to the showers coming through our area.  When it cleared up, we ventured out to the state park close by to check it out, and we did manage to pick up an interesting geo-cache.  I'll post a picture for it.  More showers coming in tonight.  Driving around the countryside here, we are seeing some beautiful homes and prime farmland.  We really like the area, and I'm sure we will be back again sometime.

 This covered bridge is just south of the Morrison-Rockwood State Park.  I'll have to find out the particulars on it another time.  It's in very good condition.

 This deck overlooks Lake Carlton in Morrison-Rockwood State park.

 We liked this unique sign going into the Morrison-Rockwood State Park.  They had geo-caches in the park, but the trails were too muddy to do today.  It would be fun to do them in the fall.  Hummm, another trip planned!  Maybe we can catch it on our way back southwest in October.

A geo-cache brought us to this interesting barn.  It was built in 1926 and was frequented by Al Capone during the prohibition.  The guards would keep watch from the windows above the main level.  In 1930 the federal agents raided the still and closed it down.  Without geo-caching we would have never known this. 

Monday, May 30, 2016 - Happy Memorial Day

Our truck took us to Dixon again today.....it knows the way now!  We had such a beautiful day, so we decided to go back and finish the bike path that we didn't do yesterday and get the caches on it.  This part is gravel and packed gravel, so it wasn't as nice as the trail yesterday, and it was more hilly.  We found 18 caches and 3 DNF's today.  We were at our last cache and Jim scared up a newborn fawn that could hardly walk.  We didn't want to put any more stress on it than we already have, so we walked away from it.  The grasses were about 4 feet high, so it was well hidden.  On our way out, we found the cache that we had almost given up on.  The same people 'planted' the caches that we did both days, and they tested our capabilities!  I'll post a few pictures of what we looked for the past two days!  We returned to a nearly empty campground.  Three new rigs came in on the waterfront, and that makes 6 RV's in all on our leg. 

 Can you find the cache?  Tricky!

 This little gadget is what they called a whiz bang.  It unscrews and has a plastic bag with a log (piece of paper) in it to sign.  When it is hidden, it's very hard to see.

 I'm not sure what they called this one, but it's a plastic tube pounded into a drilled hole and it contains the log paper to sign.  Very hard to see.  Now maybe you can understand why we had so many Did Not Find's! 

Sunday May 29, 2016

We found out in our short stay in Thomson, IL that many roads lead to Dixon!  We have tried them all.  We spent the past two days in Dixon doing the Reagan thing, and today we went over to ride our bikes on the wonderful Dixon Bike Trail.  They have caches along the trail, so we biked and cached.  Life doesn't get any better than this!  They were all very well hidden, and we didn't do so well.  We found 21 but we DNF 7!  I didn't realize we hadn't found that many until I logged them on the geo-cache site.  That is humbling!  We did enjoy it, though, and we put on 11 miles biking on the paved and sometimes grass/gravel trail, but it was, for the most part, very enjoyable.  It was a gorgeous day today, and we just now got a little shower.  We hope everyone is enjoying their long holiday weekend, and do remember the fallen and the Veterans.  They have kept us free.

 Jim on the bike trail.  The Phlox were blooming along the trail, and it was breath-taking.

We stopped at Angelo's for pizza after our bike ride, and they had this picture in their entry.

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Today was another history lesson.  The weather was to be nice today, after we had rain during the night, but there was a chance of rain later in the day.  We decided to visit the birth place of Ronald Reagan, and then his boyhood home.  We had skies filled with cumulus clouds, and we wanted to be near some sort of shelter if a storm was brewing.  We started in Tampico, Illinois and a small town of about 790 people.  Ronald Reagan was born in an apartment above a business, and our tour guide thought it was a bakery at that time.  We walked up a long flight of stairs to reach the apartment, which was very spacious.  They had no running water and no electricity during that time period.  Then we went to Dixon, Illinois to visit his boyhood home and toured that.  We also picked up a few geo-caches in town, and will go back tomorrow to do the bike path and cache on it.  We just couldn't chance being on the bike path when a storm might hit.  It was a good day to do this, and we enjoyed learning about our 40th president of the United States.

In 1911 Ronald Reagan was born in the upstairs apartment in this building in Tampico, IL.  The red door is the entrance to the apartment, after the long flight of stairs to reach the top.

 The apartment was nicely furnished and very spacious.  It just had two bedrooms, but it was plenty of room, as they only had two boys. 

 This arch in Dixon is on Galena Street and the building in the background is where the Lincoln-Douglas debate was held.  It is across the street from the courthouse in town.

 Ronald Reagan's family moved to Dixon, IL when he was nine years old, and lived in this house three years.  They always rented wherever they went, and they moved a lot.  This is the home that he had the fondest memories.  When he and Nancy came back to visit in 1991, he asked when had it shrunk!

This is a family photo of Jack (father), brother Neil, Ron and Nelle (mother) Reagan.

 We went to the riverfront park to find a geo-cache and we saw this statue of Abraham Lincoln.  It is the only known statue of him in his military uniform.  He was a volunteer in the military during the Blackhawk War of 1832.

The eye of the storm!  We were returning from a wonderful day in the life of Ronald Reagan, when we met the storm that hit the western part of Illinois, and our campground.  It came down in sheets, and was so hard, that we had to stop and wait for it to pass. 

Friday, May 27, 2016

We're home alone!  We left St. Louis this morning in the rain, but we had a good travel day to Thomson, IL and will be staying here a week in the corps of engineer park.  We took the last site available, so we felt lucky to be here.  We are right on the Mississippi River, with beautiful paved biking paths adjoining the park, that are up and down the river.  We have some plans to meet friends here, do some geo-caching, bike and explore.  We had a great stay in St. Louis and on this second leg of that visit, we were able to attend Shea's graduation from 8th grade from St. Joe's in Cottleville, MO.  There were 110 graduates and they will be attending 23 different high schools next fall.  Shea is going to Cor Jesu, where Mackenzie presently attends.  Shea spent the good part of yesterday with us, so we took her to the McNair City Park and walked the paved area there and showed her a couple of geo-caches, that we found with her brother, Regan last week.  Then we walked the wetland preserve section of our campground.  We had a wonderful day with her, as she is finished with school, and only had graduation at 6:30 left to attend.  Mackenzie had an exam on Thursday morning, so she still had school.

 Shea and Papa near the fountain in McNair Park

 Shea and Granny at the gazebo. 

 We know how to take a selfie!

 

 We saw three snakes and about a dozen turtles.  The turtles were laying their eggs.

 Shea and her friend, Ava before graduation.

 We are joining in Shea's reception after graduation.  Shea is a happy gal!

The O'Connor siblings; Regan, Shea and Mackenzie

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

We arrived back in St. Louis yesterday, after several days camping near Hannibal, MO.  We had a wonderful time there and met some great people.  After chatting with, and getting to know our neighbors, Dave and Lois, we found out that Lois and I share birthday's!  So, happy birthday to you today, Lois!  They wanted our blog, and will be following us until we get home.  Today was Spirit Day at St. Joe's Catholic School, where Shea will graduate tomorrow evening.  We went early this morning for their gathering and prayer service before all of the activities of the day for the students.  The gym was filled with lots of excitement!  One kind of neat thing happened to me yesterday, when I decided to do laundry in our campground where we are presently staying.  This young gal comes in and she was doing laundry for a touring band.  It turns out to be Tantric, a band based in Boston, and they are playing in St. Louis tonight.  They have another gig tomorrow and will be going to Madison, WI for Bratfest!  I met them all, but one lead singer.  The stage manager is from Hudson, WI and has been with the band for two years.  One never knows who you will run into.  I think they are a hard rock band, and I told them that we do old time dancing, which I am sure made a big impression on them! They were all quite cool, and they seemed pretty grounded.

 We have beautiful sunsets in Arizona, but it will be hard to beat this one we had last night in St. Peter's.

 Jim's sister, Barb gave me my birthday card in early April before we left Apache Junction.  I had strict orders to not open it until my big day, which is today!  Isn't this just the coolest card?  I had to share it with you.  Thanks, Barb!

 Today is Spirit Day at St. Joe's and it's all about Shea today!  Congrats, Shea on your final day at St. Joe's.  Shea had a smile on her face all day!  Each grade did a dance routine and this was hers.  We are so proud of her!

Shea plays flute in the band, and they performed in the parking lot and then marched down the street in their school parade.  They went to Chicago last weekend for a band competition, and took superior in their music and how they conducted themselves throughout the weekend!  The latter is a very prestigious award, and it reflects on their school and family life.  They have a fantastic band teacher and they have won many awards because of him. 

We met Dee and Hal when we got back from Hannibal, and they are parked across the road from us in the campground.  Their granddaughter graduates from St. Joe's tomorrow night, also, and is our granddaughter's very good friend!  Now, isn't that a small world?  They recently sold their house and are going full-timing and they wanted to pick our brain, so we enjoyed Happy Hour with them today.

Monday, May 23, 2016 - Happy Birthday to our son, Mike!

We had a quiet and more relaxed day yesterday, so I didn't post anything.  We did ride our bikes in the campground and Jim had his GPS on to see how many roads with camping sites are in the park. We did six miles, so it's a pretty large park.  We do like it here, but the ticks are terrible.  I think that is the way of life in any wooded area any more.  It really puts a damper on our fun! Our neighbors had a campfire last night, so we took our chairs and a bottle of wine over and joined them!  We were telling them how good the dry Riesling is from Wollersheim's, so we had to prove it.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!  We decided to go biking with them today and show them how to geo-cache.  We looked for two, and found two!  The ticks were terrible, so it just wasn't fun to be caching, so we came back and chatted into the dinner hour!  It was a fun day.  We are meeting such nice people on this little side trip, and we feel confident that we'll be seeing them again, also.  We will be returning to St. Louis tomorrow.  We have Shea's graduation Thursday evening, and then we move closer to WI on Friday.  We've been blessed with beautiful weather, but the rain is to move in tonight.  All in all, it was a good plan to come this way for a few days.

 Enjoying the campfire with Dave and Lois, our new camping friends.  They are from Columbia, MO.

 We found the cache, out of the woods and tall grass, and checking for ticks!  We all had some!

Dave, Lois and Jim.....deciding to head home.