More Pix!

Few more pix from Nashville rich and famous.......Keith Urban & Nicole Kidman's one-of-many home (up on the hill); Alan Jackson's behind the fence; some plastic surgeon or insurance exec...who knows? (the FL Wright looking one); Peter at the famous Ryman....original home of the Grand Ole Opry and gospel church.

Hi, y'all!

Hi y’all…..we’re baaaaack…………..doing our RV thing in the “South”! After Peter’s 2 weeks of traveling without Sybil (who went to Marin for Zoë’s BD…..see pix at Pier 39), he ended up in Kansas City, MO. Before leaving for Tucson, he parked the RV in this most interesting underground cavernous industrial park, “Subtropolis Storage”, that covered 25+ sq. acres under a hill on which sat Worlds of Fun/Oceans of Fun, KC’s star amusement & RV park! After our beach fix in Puerto Penasco, we returned on 9/17 to KC where we retrieved the RV and stayed for 5 days in above-ground park……..and we loved, loved the clacks and screams from the roller coaster every 3 minutes from 10A to 11P (just on weekends, thank you very much!). It was a very fun place to stay….see pix. By the way, KC is a city of many underground tunnels dug early in the 20th century for the mining of limestone. We, of course, had to get in a KC Royals game and went to their great downtown stadium (more good polish dogs and beer for dinner!) to watch them lose to the White Sox……oh well. We toured the Truman Library in adjacent, historic Independence…..such a great collection of the memorabilia from our childhood era…all that 40’s and 50’s “stuff”! KC also has beautiful Country Club Square right downtown where we were lucky enough to take in a big street fair with some KC new RV friends we met in South Dakota.

We left KC and headed for Red Bay, AL…..400 miles via Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee….to have some work done on our RV at the manufacturer (Tiffin) who just happens to “own” the town. We were there for 10 days and managed to eat green tomatoes, catfish, chicken……all fried, of course. A steak dinner in Red Bay costs about $10 and the county is dry and religious….so, no alcohol is served anywhere! Staying at Tiffin’s on-site RV park (an old airport runway) was quite an experience as everybody had to patiently wait for their turn……sometimes 3 weeks! Needless to say, the no alcohol rule didn’t apply at the park, helping make good new friends.

All fixed up and spiffy, we headed to Nashville for 5 nights via the Natchez Trace Parkway. The “Trace” was the historical 445 mile footpath from Natchez to Nashville used by traders and farmers in the 19th century, returning to Nashville after hauling their goods to Nashville via river. It must have been a long, arduous, dangerous trip to do on foot or horseback……if they didn’t sell their boats for wood, they would carry them home! It is now a beautiful 2 lane tree-studded road that allows no commercial vehicles and has lots of historic markers…see pix of our RV picnic place.

OK, enough of that because we’re getting to the good part…….Nashville! Wow….what a city! We took a tour with a funny guy which included homes of the “rich and famous”….see pix; Keith Urban & Nicole’s place on the hill, Alan Jackson’s estate behind the gate. We spent two nights honky-tonkying on Broadway, going in and out of 42+ bars, listening to lots of good wanna-be CW and blues bands which included dinner with the blues at BB King’s place……see pix. In the midst of all this CW rock & soul, the 2nd presidential debate was just 5 miles away so many of the streets were closed……very exciting! Another highlight was the Grand Ole Opry…..all those great old over-the-hill but still going strong singers…Ricky Skaggs, Jean Sheppard, etc……plus some debuts, ie, Rory and Joey, a husband/wife team with a rousing CW song they wrote….goes like this: “Tell me….cheater, cheater….where’d you meet ‘er, that low class, white trash ho’” . And then there was the CW Hall of Fame. We loved it all! By the way, in suthen tawk “cawdy eggley” translates to “Coyote Ugly”…..it’s a place where ugly girl patrons get up and dance on the 50’bar!

And now we are in Memphis in an RV park across the street from Graceland where we spent yesterday afternoon. Such an icon was Elvis…..a must-see if you are ever this way!

Hope you are not getting cross-eyed from this long bunch of blab! Tonite we will go out to compare Beale Street here to Broadway in Nashville…..can’t wait!

We continue to share the driving….Sybil knocking over rubber construction stanchions and terrorizing on-coming traffic in small towns, Peter hiding under the passenger seat.

We miss you all but still love this stuff!

Peter and Sybil

More Pix!

Just in case 5 pictures weren't enough, here's some more.........enjoy!

1) Sybil in the big bass at Hayward....Fisherman Hall of Fame

2) Old Farmhouse in Duluth countryside

3) Penninsula State Park tower, Door County

4) Picnic on Apostle Islands Nat'l Lakeshore

5) Same

On the road again & again & again & again!!

Hey, it's been awhile! We have been in the relatively "wilds" of northern MN and WI where wifi (even Verizon) is, if available at all, slow and cumbersome.......so I just gave up on it! We are now just south of Milwaukee in the town of Caledonia, finding that the choice of RV parks is fairly narrow. We picked a doozey this time.....but should have known with a name like "Yogi Bear's Jellystone RV Park". If you have 8 kids and 2 dogs, are overweight and have a tent trailer and lots of tattoos, it's a very cool place to be! We've made it here from the last blog in beautiful Lake of the Woods in MN, where we did go fishing for a day out on the lake by the same name and caught a whole limit of walleye which they deep fried (of course!) for us in the bar afterwards. We stayed in a great place "Lake of the Woods RV Park" who our new best friend Earl had just purchased......very fun.....we were there for 5 days and did some sightseeing and bicycle riding and just sitting around our personal campfire (there is always a fire pit at each campsite made from an old truck wheel!) enjoying swatting the mosquitoes, which have abated, by the way.....we think they sufficiently poisoned our blood so no other insects want us! We left there drove to Tower, MN where we lost some $$ at the Fortune Bay Resort and Casino. The next day we took off on a terrifying but beautiful drive thru the Iron Range 75 miles on twisty narrow Hwy 1 with no shoulders and overhanging branches of big trees....Sybil driving, of course, she's a magnet for road peril! We emerged at Silver Bay on the shore of Lake Superior and headed on down to Duluth and stayed just outside in Hermantown. We drove to Hayward to see Ann & Niles Vernon, our buddies from SaddleBrooke who have a most beautiful house on Lake.......Something! We also made a stop at the Fishermans Freshwater Hall of Fame....see the big bass picture! We had dinner in Duluth (great city with one of the worlds best harbor/shore walks!) with more SB friends, Tom & Irene Perry after we watched the "big boats" come into the harbor for the weekend regatta. We left there and continued on to the most beautiful of all drive 95 miles around the Apostle Island National Seashore and down to Minocqua on Lake Tomahawk for 2 days before leaving for Green Bay and on to Door County.....out there on the finger in Lake Michigan. It's just like Cape Cod....with quaint farm houses, wineries, lots of dirt roads to explore. We took a day to take the car and bicycles to Washington Island, off the very tip. Highlight food was a "fish boil"....see the flaming pix above (hopefully, they will upload!). They use chunks of whitefish and boil them to perfection along with whole onions and potatoes......sound awful?......try it! It's just the best....they serve it all with cold slaw and cherry pie. This all took place in the town of Ephraim (but they have them everywhere....it's a tradition) which is a dry town so we drank lemonade with this great meal......sigh. We loved Door County, do put it on your travel list, we were there for 8 days then headed out for Milwaukee on 8/10 where we are now until Sybil flies out Thursday for SF for her granddaughter's BD and Peter takes the RV and car to Kansas City destination over a 10 day period. He will then fly to AZ and meet Sybil and we'll take off for Puerto Penasco for two weeks.

Yea! We've made it to 2 baseball games; saw the Twins beat the Rangers at Hubert Humphrey Stadium in Minneapolis and yesterday saw the Brewers beat the Nationals here in Milwaukee at their awesome stadium.

Well, vicarious armchair travelers who wish you too were spending $3.80/gallon for gas at 6.5 mpg, this will be the last blog until we return on 9/17 to Kansas City where we are leaving the RV and car for the month. We'll then continue south then west back home....somewhere around the end of October.

And, YES!, we are enjoying it so much that, despite the RV steering wheel locking up in Port Washington when we parked on a small hill and turned the wheels into the curb.......we had to unhook the tow car (lessening the weight on the front of the coach - from about 30,000 to 25,000 lbs!) to free the steering wheel and start the RV...........we are going to do it again next year!!!!

Our very best to all of you out there.....sorry this was so long but it's been awhile......hope the pictures upload...if not, we'll do a subsequent blog!

Sybil & Peter

More Pictures!

Since Sybil is blog-challanged and gave you 2 of the same shots last blog....here are some pictures.....for your pleasure, we're sure!
1) Lunch break in Garrison on Mille du Lac, MN
2) Peter at the "Mighty" Mississippi River headwaters, Lake Itasca, MN
3) Peter & Sybil on Lake Itasca hike, MN
4) Peter & Sybil at Pike's Peak, CO
5) Sybil at the Miss. River headwaters

Northern Minnesota!!

We are still alive and well and in Northern Minnesota in the Lake of The Woods area..which happens to be the name of the beautiful RV park we are staying in. We left the FMCA rally and returned to the RV park in Woodbury near St. Paul East for 2 nights....met some great people so Sybil got in a lot of good walking (and Peter biking) to combat the ever-increasing poundage that we seem to be experiencing! On the way here, we spent one nite in the RV park from hell. It was right on Cass Lake near Bemidji, but we made a last minute call and got the last slot, by the bathroom - not the lake and totally infested with mosquitoes....clouds of them....so we are rather bitten up. One big plus there was our visit to Lake Itasca which is the very beginning of the headwaters of the Missippi....see the pix of us...you can wade in it! Another plus is the hokey Paul Bunyan statue in Bemidji..see pix! We're still sharing the driving, still speaking (most of the time!) and are about 10 miles from the Canadian border. If it stops raining, we'll go fishing! We'll be here for 4 nights then on to Duluth for a few days, taking the perportedly beautiful drive along Lake Superior to get there. After that we will visit our friends, the Vernons from SaddleBrooke, at their summer home in Hayward, WI. Did I mention we had dinner at a great St. Paul restaurant, WA Frost, with Pat & Mike Kotten, also from SaddleBrooke? It's very fun coming so far to see friends from home! Hey, gas is $3.82 (down from $3.96) around here now....gee, that factors out to about $286 to fill the 7mpg RV.....we truly have lost our minds but are sure having a good time at it!
More later!
Peter & Sybil

Still at it!

Here we are in St. Paul at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds with thousands of other RV's at the FMCA yearly rally/conventions...actually, there are typically 5,000+ RV's at this rally but, due to the high price of fuel, there are only 2,500+- this year. The fairground itself is a throwback to the 1940's. All the concessions are closed, of course, but the best part are the old signages, declaring hot dogs, corn dogs, brats, malts, beer, cotton candy, etc...very colorful with those round colored lights and cartoon characters. Minnesota is really beautiful, miles and miles of corn and grassy plains and lakes, lakes, lakes. We spent 4 days up around Alexandria (Miltona to be exact) at an RV park out in the country....really beautiful. We, of course (Sybil specifically) had to re-supply her wine cache with a few bottles from Carlos Creek Winery, Minnesota's largest and oldest they claim.....not bad wine either! At the moment, we are parked for the week, all lined up together side by side. We chose to have 30 amp electricity but no water is available and there is only one dumping site so we are pretty much "camping out". We continue to have new experiences everyday but are getting faster at the departure and arrival routines and haven't caused any problems on the road, so far. Peter and I pretty much share the driving and it's very cool to drive into an RV park as a woman and park it! We spent a day in St. Paul at the beautiful St. Paul cathedral....designed after that of the Vatican....we hope to go to a Twins game this Friday after the convention.

More later, we miss everyone but love this lifestyle! HOpe the pictures attach..if not, We'll attach them separately.

Sybil & Peter

More later as we progress

Pictures!

Sorry...no pictures...the WiFi here is not strong enuff...maybe later!
S&P

Two Weeks & Still Rollin' Along !!

We left Cheyenne a week ago...did we mention that there is not much happening there?
South Dakota is absolutely beautiful despite the plethora of tourist attractions. Everywhere you turn, in the Black Hills/Badlands area are attractions for families at $10+ to explore; caves, dinosaur parks, petting zoos, trout fishing farms, mystery spots, fake ghost towns...not to mention the food; buffalo steaks, buffalo hamburgers, buffalo sausages, buffalo jerky...and then prime rib....chicken and fish not fried is hard to come by! We loved the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore & Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse Monument is the Ziolkowski family 22 story high 1948 work-in-progress that Chief Henry Standing Bear commissioned to comemorate the warrior of the same name at the Wounded Knee battle & the other famous warriors. It is privately funded by the family and the Lakota Indians....pretty awesome. Mt. Rushmore makes one feel especially patriotic around the 4th of July and the Badlands are a wonder of nature. We do love SD and it's big-time high on our list.....many of the RV parks are in pasture lands so there is lots of prarie grass, etc. We are off tomorrow toward Sioux Falls for an overnite then on the Minnesota for 2+ weeks. Part of this will be spent at the Family Motor Coach Assoc. rally for 5 nites at the fairgrounds....should be lots of Americana fun! By the way, Peter is getting to be quite the mechanic/handyman....we make a great team...I break things, he fixes them! More later as we progress!
Peter and Sybil

Sorry, here are the pix!

I'm still trying to figure this out...bear with me!

Eight Days Behind Us !!

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Yea, yikes, yahoo!! Peter and I are definitely "on the road". This is some life, very different from the usual household we left behind! We've just completed 8 days and have met loads of interesting people, made our one mistake a day (yesterday's was a $195 lesson....our large slide-out would not come in when we were ready to leave so we called a mobile RV repair person who told us these things are supposed to be siliconed, etc. on their tracks every few weeks......so what do we know? Anyway, all is well and we left CO Springs for Cheyenne yesterday where we are now....in a great funky RV park....no frills but sort of out in the country, with full hook-ups which, for you uninformed, means water, sewer and 50 amp electricity on site. I've included, hopefully, some pix of us at the top of Pike's Peak (14,110 ft...yikes!) where we drove the jeep (not the RV!) and had their world-famous donuts and hot chocolate..it even snowed a bit! We also visited the AF Academy...very awesome! Our first nite stop was in Truth or Consequences, NM....at one tim named Hot Springs but changed the name when Ralph Edwards of the TV show offered any town that would change it's name to T or C a visit and regalia parade, etc. once a year...which he did! We then spent 2 days in Santa Fe, where we had a visit with Peter's cousin, Howard, and then up to Taos Pueblo.....oh so interesting and very beautiful country.
Well everybody, more later as we progress! Peter and I still love each other, too!

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New Mexico, we love you!

Due to Peter's emergency gall bladder removal, we left on May 30th and went south to meet our group in the mountains at Ruidoso. It was 390 miles from our home in Tucson and we drove it all in one day.......the last 1/4 with no dashboard AC or fans! So, we turned on the generator and ran the coach AC.....do we know what we're doing, or not (see below!)? Anyway, on Monday we called the mfg. (Tiffin) who directed us to a very small black button on one of several solenoids to reset it. We're not sure who would instinctively know this but we will......next time. We went to the quarter horse races at Ruidoso....won $37 (after spending $50 but you don't think of that when you are collecting at the window!). We spent another day driving thru the Honda Valley to Lincoln, home of William Bonnen "Billy the Kid" and the 1868 "War of Lincoln" between two merchants. The town is still intact and lived in.....very fun. The country up there is beautiful so do go see it all someday. From there we caravaned to Carlsbad....170 miles of not much except I left the emergency brake on in the Jeep (see above!)....miraculously, no harm done! We saw the bat ascension at the Caverns then spent the next day in the Caverns, walking about 4 miles total. It is very cool inside the Caverns and awesomely huge with a variety of formations at every turn. Another must-see in one's lifetime. We then spent 3 nites in Las Cruces after a very hairy drive. Peter did a fabulous job negotiating the mountain grades and the 30 mph winds. We stayed on one more night after the others had left so we could see White Sands Natl. Park and the missile range. All these rockets, Nikes, 1st, 2nd, 3rd stage stuff, et. all over to look at! We leave 6/18 for our big 4 month trip. We will have my computer on that one and will be posting. Till then.......
Best from Sybil and Peter

Uh Oh !!

We were scheduled to leave for the New Mexico loop with our SaddleBrooke RV Club on Sunday, 5/25 but, as bad luck would have it, Peter had his gall bladder removed yesterday on an emergency basis after having an attack on Monday. However, due to the miracles of modern medicine, he is home and rapidly recovering......to the point where we plan to leave Tuesday and catch up with the other 8 RV's on Tuesday the 27th. Meanwhile, the price of gas just keeps escalating, but what the heck....let's see.....$3.50x75...that computes to $263 to fill our tank at 8mpg...but we're happy at this point we didn't get a diesel RV! Our NM trip will take us to Acoma, Ruidoso, Carlsbad, Las Cruces, Silver City and home for 10 days then off across part of the USA. We'll keep you posted!

THE ADVENTURE BEGINS SOON ..

Proving that we've completely taken leave of our senses, Peter HIckey & Sybil Byrnes are out of here on May 25, 2008 in our 36' RV and Jeep Wrangler tow car to begin the adventure of a lifetime! But first, let us tell you just a little bit about how we got here.....we were just "looking around' an RV sales lot one day last December and made a quick purchase decision on a whim, knowing if we gave it any thought, we'd never do such a crazy thing. We've completed (just!) RV school, taken driving lessons , done a few dry "trial by fire" runs at the local state park and now, are almost packed and ready to go! We leave on May 25th for 2 weeks around NM with the SaddleBrooke RV Club (yea! new friends) then off on our very own across the US via CO, MT, WY, SD, MN, WI, AR, then head back home via the old Route 66 (now US 40). So everybody who is interested, stay tuned as there is lots more to come! We'll keep updating by pictures and maps, with tales of great fun and, rarely we hope, sheer terror!