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

Home safe!

We are home safe. It was pretty windy all the way home which kind of nagged on my nerves, but we are here safe and sound. I'll write more later.

A day of rest and Daniel Boone's grave, maybe

The weather turned wet today so we altered our plans a little and just did a little sightseeing.

One of the sights we saw was Daniel Boone's gravesite in the Frankfort Cemetery. The gravesite has an historical marker indicating that both Daniel Boone and his wife, Rebecca, are buried on the hill overlooking the Kentucky capitol.

But then one has to ask: Who is buried in the Daniel Boone grave in Defiance, Missouri.

There is no dispute that Daniel Boone died in Missouri and was initially buried there. But the folks here in Kentucky will tell you (at least their signs will) that both Daniel and Rebecca were dug up from the Missouri grave 25 years after Daniel's death and moved back to Frankfort.

The folks in Missouri will tell you that the joke is on Frankfort and that they actually dug up the wrong body and the question of who is buried in Boone's tomb is a mystery.

While at the Frankfort Cemetery I saw another monument to Presley O'Bannon and recognized the name from a ship that was also in our task force during my time in Vietnam. So I snapped a photo and you can read that information here.

You can read the controversy here. The rest of the day was spent driving around the countryside and enjoying the scenery, even through the rain. We also spent some time in study, it is Good Friday after all.

Tomorrow is going home day. So soon the vacation ends. Joan and I wish all of you a blessed Easter.

"And they're off" to the Kentucky Derby Museum in Louisville, Kentucky

Today was all about horses again. This time we visited Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby Museum in Louisville. It was less than an hour drive from where we are staying in Frankfort and the weather was spectacular.

We also learned today that our OnStar system is not as perfect as we thought. We arrived in good order, but the trip home was, well, difficult. We’ll get to that later.

We arrived at the Kentucky Derby Museum about 12:30 p.m., which turned out to be darned near perfect timing as we basically walked into the 360-degree movie presentation of “The Greatest Race.”

Immediately after the movie, about 1:30 p.m. there was a walking tour of the Kentucky Derby paddock area, the grandstands and along the famous track. After that we had two hours to tour the museum and take in the many exhibits there.

I passed on getting on the jockey scale to see if I could “make the weight” for a race as I was afraid of being thrown out of the museum for breaking it. There were films of every Derby race in the modern era and many other interesting tidbits and facts about raising and racing horses.

About 2:30 p.m. we had a case of the “hungrys” so we went to the Museum café where we had a great Chef’s Salad and Joan sampled a “Mint Julep” in a commemorative glass for $10. Seemed a little pricy, but we were assured the cost is the same on Derby day.

Also got a "look" at the new Barbaro exhibit that will be unveiled in a couple weeks in time for the Kentucky Derby. Barbaro, if you recall, is the horse that broke its leg a couple weeks after winning the 2006 Kentucky Derby. The horse is (or will be) buried under the monument, which at this time is still under wraps (photo).

Other photos included here are photos of the famous twin spires, a photo of Joan by the model of last year's winner - Big Brown - and painting a preparations at the Winner's Circle for the 2009 race.

The museum, movie and tour were well worth the $11 admission price (senior discount) and well worth the time.

So at 4:30 p.m. we dialed up OnStar and asked them to give us a route home. When we came to one of the spots where we were supposed to turn, traffic was so heavy we could not change lanes to get to the turnoff and so we re-dialed OnStar for an alternative route.

We were told the computer would not provide one, but the OnStar representative tried to talk us through a new route, but every time he would give us new directions we had already passed the turn he was suggesting.

Having been through this area five times during my trips to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, I told the OnStar guy, “thanks, but no thanks,” and decided to wing it on my own. I used my Navy sense of directions to find an alternate route back to I-64 and we arrived back at the trailer about 6:05 p.m.

We took a leisurely walk around the RV park and admired all the beautiful rigs to see how the other half lives on the road. We’ve learned a lot on this first trip and hopefully we will apply that to our longer adventures in the future.

The bathrooms and showers at this facility are far superior to our first camp and one of the things we have learned is that the web site pictures of a RV park can be a little deceptive. Except for the costs of sightseeing and gas, by eating in for breakfast and dinner our costs are not much more than at home.

On the way back from Louisville I spotted another one of those “Owl” restaurants, but Joan is convinced that the restaurant name – Hooters – has nothing to do with the bird.

Earlier this evening we heard a couple of competing woodpeckers in a tree near our trailer, but never actually got a glimpse of them.

Tomorrow there may be a casino in our travels and a stop at Daniel Boone’s “alleged” Kentucky grave. I’ll explain more tomorrow.

Sadly, the vacation comes to an end Saturday when it’s time to head home. We’re coming home a day early for a couple reasons. First and foremost we want to be with our church family for Easter Sunday service, but we also believe the traffic will be a little lighter on Saturday, which will be less hectic on the driver – me.

So far ever time we’ve moved the trailer the wind has been blowing at gale force, which has not helped in making the driving pleasant.