October 30, 2007 we are now at Cherry Hill Park in College Park, Maryland. We went out to breakfast and then got on the road about 10:30am. We arrived at the RV Park about 3:30pm, not a bad drive this time we didn't get lost at all, thank goodness the GPS worked this time. I need to do a recap of New York because tomorrow we start touring D.C.
I left off with us getting tickets to see Altar Boyz, and stopping and having a beer and burger to kill time but I forgot to mention that while walking around the streets we got to see Jennifer Garner and posted pictures. She is in New York doing a play, sorry didn't catch the name of it, we just saw people crowding around so we joined in and took pics. The play Altar Boyz was great, it is a musical comedy about a Catholic boy band, the lead guy in the musical was the runner-up on "Grease: You're the one that I want" reality show, which Dave and I tried to watch every week. It was funny and very entertaining, thanks Spanky for the recommendation. We didn't get back to the coach that night until 11pm and boy was Valley happy to see us. It was also a big Halloween party night so there were a lot of people dressed up walking the streets looking for the perfect bar to party at.
Sunday, we hung out at the coach until around 11am then went and caught "Path" to 33rd street. When we got to 7th & 50th street they were having a street fair going on, about a miles worth I think, food vendors selling products ect. We walked around until almost 2pm then headed for our next musical, which was "Spring Awakening". Another very good musical, Dave said he liked that one better then Altar Boyz, probably because he got to see breasts in this one, just kidding, but not about the breasts. Again, thank you Spanky, this one is about young teenagers in the 1890's in Germany that are just learning about their sexuality, when the one character kills himself, I got all tiery eyed, I really liked him, didn't want to see him go. Anyway, very good and makes you think about how you have to tell your kids about the birds and the bees or hope someone does.:)
Monday, we went back to the city again, Dave wanted to look at the camera shops and check out his xmas present. He did research Sunday night when we had gotten home and knew what he wanted. After talking to the sales guy we left without buying anything, amazing. He then got on the phone with David Jr. to ask him about the camera Dave wanted, which he said was good. We walked to Central Park walked around it, it seemed like every corner you turned someone was doing filming. The kids in the park you could tell it was the nanny's taking care of them, all the horse carriages were neat to see. The cost was $34 for 20 min. to pricey for my blood, Dave did get a picture of me jogging in Central Park. We found our way to Strawberry Hill. which is a section of the park dedicated to John Lennon, that's why it is named that, we got pics of that too. Dave will shoot me if I don't mention this, but I was the only person in New York City with shorts on. Honestly, I was even shocked I didn't see anyone, before we left the coach I said I would bet him, because the sun is out, that people will wear shorts, it just wasn't happening. It was probably 50 degrees, and the only thing cold were my fingers, I think my legs must have been numb because I didn't feel anything, or else the hot flashes were really kicking in. After the park we did go back to the camera shop and Dave did get a new camera, now I don't have to do any xmas shopping for him, because that is it!
I thing that about sums everything up, I know I left stuff off, that's what happens when you get a few days behind. Anyway, new adventures start tomorrow.
Happy Halloween, because I believe we will be out late tomorrow, Halloween in George Town.
Spanky, do you want me to save you the Playbill's?

October 29, 2007 well, it has been a very fun and eventful time in New York. So much to see and do that we didn’t even see or scratch the tip of the iceberg, will have to come back but not stay in this RV Park. I shouldn’t say that, if I didn’t have a dog and want to take a shower everyday, then maybe I would stay here again, it really wasn’t that bad, just the driving here was. “PICTURES ARE POSTED” by the way.
Well, recap time;
Saturday, it did rain all morning but we took off for the Statue of Liberty anyway. The 1st boat was leaving at 9:30am and we were only 5 min. away from the park where it took off from. We left at 9:10am it was raining and off season so there shouldn’t be that many people there, wrong. We saw so many people and panicked but as we got closer to the ticket office we realized there was a diabetes walk-a-thon going on and most of the people were there. Because of all the security checks we just missed the 1st boat by 2 min., that’s when Dave said “you know we weren’t meant to see the Statue” but there was no way I was leaving now. We did catch the next boat at 10:15am and got off at Ellis Island. I called my brother, Mike, to ask him what Grandpa Tomaselli’s first name was, I knew I had heard it before but just couldn’t think of it. Dave and I wanted to look up what boat my Dad’s parents had come over on when they left Austria/Italy. Ellis Island has a library to look up this stuff from 1890 thru 1924, for a small fee, we paid the fee and started the research, Mike had given me some info, after calling him 5 times because I kept losing the connection, but we weren’t finding any info. I then tried to call our Uncle Renzo, my Dad’s brother, but he wasn’t home, it ended up we checked from 1890 to 1924 and didn’t find anything. We decided or figured out that my Grandpa Tomaselli didn’t come over on a boat to Ellis Island, where all the emigrants were suppose too, so he must have crossed over illegally and landed somewhere else. Thank goodness my Dad and Uncle were born here or else they would have been illegal too.  After Ellis Island we caught the ferry to the “Statue of Liberty”, really something to see. We joined up with a tour that was already going on and hearing the Ranger speak and give the details was very interesting. It just amazes me, that way back then, someone would say I want to build a statue and this is what I want to build and this is where I want to put it. Just like in South Dakota the guy that did Mount Rushmore, there is “NO WAY” in these days could anyone do or build anything like that without going thru “Hell” to get approval.
After the Statue of Liberty we came back to the coach for about 45 min. walked Valley around then hit the road again about 3pm. We took the train “Path” then tried their subway system, which was a bad day to do it. It was really hot in the subway, and crowded, and the damn thing kept stopping, then they finally they made an announcement that 3 trains ahead of us there was a sick person so we were going to have to wait. In the mean time this man, who had gotten on our subway, started talking out loud to himself, while doing so he was rolling joints. Everyone was trying, well not everyone, but most were trying to get away from him. Anyway, when we finally got to Broadway and 34th we got off of the subway. We started walking around and I was taking pictures, Spanky, my nephew asked me to, crowds of people and very entertaining. Sorry I didn’t get the picture, but there was a girl ½ naked in the middle of Broadway that was playing a guitar, what she had on was short shorts and tassels on her nipples. We kept walking around because we wanted to see where the play we were going to see on Sunday was going to be, “Spring Awakening”. While walking around we heard some guy offering ½ price tickets to “Alter Boys” which was one of the off Broadway musicals my nephew had recommended to us. We decided to go ahead and buy the tickets and go to the play, the only bad thing was it was 5pm and the musical didn’t start until 8pm. There was no way we were going to go back to the coach 1st so all we could hope for was that Valley had a strong bladder and could do without dinner for a long time. Really the dinner part wasn’t a problem and the bladder wasn’t either but I just hate putting her through that because she is 11 yrs old, but oh well. We walked around some more then stopped in an Irish Pub, had a beer and a burger then headed for the musical.
Better cut off now, and on the next blog do the review and recap of Sunday and Monday.

October 27, 2007
Yesterday we left Lebanon Pennsylvania and headed out for our next stop, which was Liberty Harbor RV in Jersey City, New Jersey. The drive was only suppose to take about 3 hours, well we left at 9:15am and arrived at the RV/Yacht Harbor at 2pm, that was well over the 3 hours. What we went thru I would have bet we would have never arrived, but thank goodness for a guy on his bike. (I’ll get back to that)
When we left in the morning we used 2 different GPS’s, Dave’s computer one then we took the one out of our car and hooked that one up too. Should have known after 1 ½ hours when they disagreed on which highway to take, this was not going to be a good day. You have to understand when Dave is driving and a GPS is on he believes what it shows but when it talks, especially in a female voice, he doesn’t believe what it says. After the one incident last year when we drove 5 miles out of our way then he realized it was taking us to the next destination, my brother Mike still laughs about that. Anyway, once we were in New Jersey, and going thru one of the toll roads, the car GPS said, “stay on the same road” (which was I believe 78 East) now the computer one was saying stay on 78 East, same thing right? When you looked at the signs it showed 78 East 95 Holland Tunnel, which Dave said there is no way I’m going thru that tunnel because then we will be in New York City, NO WAY. So we took the other Hwy, which makes the GPS’s recalculate and try to figure out a new way to get to the RV Park. That’s when the car GPS really said something totally different then the computer one, so I said to Dave we are going to go by the computer one because it knows we are an RV the car one thinks we are just a car. (You can program the computer one so it knows the size of your vehicle, for tunnels, bridges; ect. the car one doesn’t have that option) As we are driving in the corner of my eye I can see Dave keep grabbing himself, and I don’t dare say anything because I know what that means. Normally what I do, when I know he has to go is crack a joke and really make him suffer, but not this time to stressful time right then. After going back and forth on very small streets, Dave just stops at one corner, where no one was behind us, and puts the RV in park runs to the back and pees in the bathroom, he just couldn’t hold on any more. Then when we took off again, we took a road we hadn’t already taken, which the GPS was happy with, finally! As we were driving up these little streets dodging cars that were double parked, we heard some guy on a bike yelling at us, when Dave opened the window, the guy was asking us if we were on our way to Liberty Harbor RV Park and we said “yes” he said follow me. Which we did for the next 2 miles, the guy got us there and we gave him $20 and it was well worth it, what a nightmare of an RV Park to get to, would not recommend it, with all the construction going on. Besides that construction, you don’t have sewer plus no grass and the cost is very high, find another place to stay is all I’m going to say.
After getting set-up we drove to the Liberty Park and missed the last boat to the Statue of Liberty by 3 min., the same thing that happened to us 17 yrs ago., this time though, we will be here for 4 days so we have another chance of seeing it, the last time we were just driving thru when we missed it. We then decided to go into New York City, so we drove to the train station and parked then got on the train to New York City. Why anyone would want to live here is beyond me, the bumper to bumper traffic, tons of people on the street, horns honking, it was very stressful and entertaining. Police cars with sirens going trying to get thru the traffic, which was a joke, then it starts raining and of course we left our umbrellas back in the car. Dave and I kept walking around, it wasn’t a hard rain, dodging umbrellas trying not to get our eyes poked out. We stopped in a Irish Pub to dry off and have a beer then Dave asked the bartender about a good Italian restaurant. The bartender went and asked some guy sitting at the end of the bar and this guy told him about 1 that he has been going to for 20 yrs the best in New York called “John’s”. We walked there and the food was OK but we have definitely had better. We should have trusted our guts when an Italian restaurant is named “John” After that we caught a cab to take us back to the world trade center to catch our train back to Jersey. The taxi ride was very interesting it was an E-Ticket all the way, almost as good as the taxi’s in Italy. Anyway, that was our day, today, Saturday, it is suppose to rain all day, will see what we end up doing.

Amish Blog.
We decided to do the 4 hour Amish thing. What it included was a 45 min. tour of a 9 room Amish house, very interesting, you got to see how they live without electricity because they have stoves, ovens, refrigerators ect, you learned about their clothing, every day stuff and Sunday wear. The different hats and hair covers, the colors they must be and what age the colors change.
We also saw a 30 minute virtual film on an Amish boy trying to decide if he was going to be baptized Amish or live in our world. Every child, boy or girl, must make that decision after, I believe they are done with school. School, by the way, only goes to the 8th grade, then you are done, the Amish don’t believe anymore schooling is needed. The law here in Pennsylvania says that children must be in school until the age of 16 so in the 8th grade they are normally age 14 so the last years of schooling (until they are 16) is vocational, which means they work in the fields. They do have to go to school for 3 hours every Saturday with an Amish school teacher, which, by the way, only has the education of an 8th grader, very interesting. The kids can own cars, when of age, and do everything the outside world does, if they don’t decide to become Amish they are not shunned from the family, but of course if they don’t become Amish they normally leave. 5% of the children do leave by the way. If they decide to stay with the Amish way of life then they are baptized but if they should decide to leave after that then they will be shunned from the family.
We thought the Mennonite’s broke away from the Amish but it was the other way around. They were still as one back in the 1600’s but in 1690 the Amish became to be because they thought the Mennonite’s were getting to modern, how they hell do you get modern in 1690? Anyway, a few differences between the 2 groups are Mennonites have cars, churches, electricity, ect didn’t do any touring of Mennonite’s so can’t say too much about them.
Also on our tour was a bus ride for 2 hours thru the Amish, Mennonite, and our communities. Can’t just say Amish communities because they live, out here, among everyone the only way to tell if it is an Amish house is they have no wires for electricity. Some of the houses have what looks like an outhouse on the property but that is where they have their telephones. They at one time were allowed to have phones in the houses but the bishops found out that they were spending too much time on the phones then heard that people were gossiping and all phones where then banned from homes. Not every family has a phone some of them just share with their neighbors. While on the bus we passed a farm that had a bunch of carriages and all the horses were under a tent. Well, it was an Amish wedding going on, carriages are put to one side and the horses go under cover, so nice to see them treated well. Anyway, the Amish only have weddings on Tuesday and Thursday’s and only at the end of October thru the end of December. That is the off season time for farming so that’s the only time they are allowed. The wedding night is spent with the bride’s family then after that they either move into the bride’s or groom’s family’s house. There is no honeymoon and they stay until spring then they can move into their own home which they have either built or purchased and start their own farming of their fields. Wedding gifts are received by the bride and groom when they visit the people’s homes on weekends and each visit includes a meal. They said some of the Amish newlyweds will visit 3 to 4 homes each Saturday and Sunday to receive their gifts, but remember they have to eat a full meal each time; they probably start out fat then all the work in the fields they lose it all. Once married the men have to grow beards, that’s how you know a man is married, women there are no way of knowing.
I could go on and on but I’ll just give a few more highlights. Amish do pay taxes and believe in all medical care, they just don’t pay any Social Security Taxes and have signed their rights away to ever receive any Social Security payments. On the medical stuff they have no medical insurance so when they need medical care, doctor’s check-ups, surgery, anything they just pay cash. Either they pay it or their congregation helps them pay it. The Amish don’t believe in a church so their religionist meetings are held every other week in a family’s house. Each community consists of like 30 families but they share the bishops. The bishops have church every week because they have to keep switching off the communities. The services last about 3 hours long and they are held at a different house so the family that hosts the service that day then has to feed everyone. I forgot to mention each family has a minimum of 7 kids so that’s a lot of people at one house, good thing the communities are only 30 families. What the host ends up doing is clearing out rooms and then they bring in the benches to line up in each room, girls on one side men on the other, they also have like 3 bishops that come to the houses, I guess one for each room.
The Amish school teacher receives $1.00 a day per student; there are only 20 to 30 students, at the most, in the one room school thru the 8th grade. There are many Amish schools around because the Amish don’t believe a child should have to travel more then a mile away from home. Amish can ride scooters, no bikes, because they believe you can’t get to far away from home on a scooter.
I could go on and on, very interesting to me, a different culture living among us but living so simple and not stressed, how welcome would that be.

October 25, 2007 today we went to Hershey Chocolate World, last thing we were going to tour before we leave. We took the virtual tour, which was a little ride telling you about how the chocolate is made when you got off you got a little package of chocolate, today was "kissable". I have never heard of these before and I asked how long that they have been out and they said about a year now. They are just like M&M's, the only difference is they are shaped like Hershey kisses. Then you walk thru the Hershey Store, every kind of chocolate in every shape and flavor, even the stuff Hershey makes that isn't chocolate. Walking thru there was like dieing and going to chocolate heaven. You could even have your picture put on a chocolate Hershey bar, believe me they had everything, it is a must see if you ever get here. We were good we only spent $3.19 on some new Hershey stuff we had never seen before so of course you have to taste it, why not how offend will I be here. It was a rainy day in the morning so it was a good day to go to the chocolate world, then it was back home to clean up the campsite and get ready to leave tomorrow morning.
Yesterday it was rainy all day so it was a hang out in the morning then a run to Costco and Walmart. Walmart to get my nails and toes done and Dave got his hair cut, Costco was to get some groceries, not much anymore because I swear they package their stuff even bigger now. Last two days not to exciting, now Tuesday we did the Amish thing. I'm going to end this blog now and do another one on the Amish, to me it was very interesting, so I'm doing a whole blog on it. You pick and choose what you want to read.

October 22, 2007 well, we made it home safe and sound. We left this morning at 7:15am and drove to Elizabethtown to catch Amtrak to Philly. What a nice train ride, I know I always make comments about amtrak coming off the tracks, but it was a smooth ride today. I really don't believe I have ever been on amtrak or any train ride, not for amusement, Knots ect. and it was nice. The seats are nice, kind of like on a plane, they lean back and have lights for reading. Anyway, to and from Philly was uneventful, just comfortable. When we got into Philly we had to catch their Septa Rail to take us into the city, close to the visitor center. Good thing Dave has experience buying tickets and reading there travel times and schedules because I would have been totally lost. We got to the visit center and checked it out and decided to do the free independence tours, you had to get tickets but it was free. We went and saw the Liberty Bell and read up on the history of that. Then our time for the Tour was 11 am so we did the Independence Hall and the Congress Hall. After that we went back to the visitor center and got tickets to do the double decker bus tour. The bus tour had 20 stops, Betsy Ross House, Chinatown, City Hall, Basilica of St. Peter & Paul, "Rocky Steps", Zoo, ect. which were interesting to see but the bus went too fast to take pictures. Since they have 20 stops to make in 90 min. they move pretty fast. What I noticed, in Philly, we did a lot of circles because everything is right in the middle of the town.(hope that makes sense) We did get off at stop 16 because then we were on the search for the best Philly Cheese steak sandwich, which I wanted to do. The 2 biggest places that people talk about, plus they have had on food network,( we seem to be following their recommendations if you haven't noticed from other blogs) is Gino's or Pat's Philly Cheese steaks. They were across the street from each other and just about had the same amount of people at each. We stopped at Gino's and got one cheese steak with onions and cheese whiz, then went to Pat's and got one cheese steak with onions and provolone cheese, well Gino's wins. We did half and half on the sandwiches and we both agreed that the cheese whiz was better. I still thought Gino's steak was tastier, but Dave didn't notice a difference, but the cheese whiz made a difference. All and all Dave said he could make a better cheese steak sandwich better then either one of them, and I would have to agree. But then again Dave isn't selling to the public, that makes a difference on the cost of things, Pat's and Gino's prices where very reasonable. If Dave made the sandwiches, the way he wanted to, he would have to charge a lot more.
Anyway, when we got off at stop 16 we had to walk 9 blocks to try those sandwiches, by the time we walked back the 9 blocks to re-catch another tour bus it had showed up early and we saw it go by. It was getting late in the afternoon so we decided to walk back to the train station. It ended up being 20 blocks that we had to walk to get to the train station, so 29 long blocks in all, hopefully we walked off those Philly Cheese steak sandwiches.
We got back to the coach at almost 6pm and Valley was a happy camper to see us again.
Tomorrow Amish country, will let you know about that.

October 21, 2007 today was play day. This morning we just kind of hung around, even tho it was Sunday morning we didn't do the breakfast thing. We decided to hang out till about noon then go and have breakfast/lunch then head out to Hershey Amusement Park. The park opened at 2 and the weather was in the high 70's if not the 80's, just beautiful. The place was decorated for Halloween and the rides names changed to match Halloween themes. None of the water rides were open, just couldn't understand that with the weather so warm.:) We were there, at the amusement park, 16 years ago with Uncle Bob. That's when we were back there when Kim was 8/9, you know the brain tumor year. Uncle Bob had flown out to see his daughter, Kathy, but 1st he had come and stayed with us in Gaithersburg Maryland for a few days. One of the days we took Uncle Bob to the amusement park and it was a lot of fun, even back in those days, to try and get him on those rides, he wasn't walking good even back then. I was really looking forward to going on the one ride, where trying to get Bob on it was a challenge, because the tram kept moving and you had to really jump on the ride, he had almost missed it. Anyway, when I mentioned it to Dave he reminded me it was a water ride where you really get wet. I had forgotten that part, but once he mentioned it I remembered, when the water splashed up it went down Bob's back and he screamed, too funny. Anyway, back to the park, we got to go on all the big rides and some of the small ones too, the longest wait was probably 15 min. and that was only on one. They had a costume contest for 12 and under so we saw some pretty cute outfits on the kids, I did fell sorry for them tho, 80 degrees and they had to walk around in those things. We left about 7:30pm and went to Red Robin for dinner then back to the coach, it was a very good day.
Tomorrow, we head out at 7am and drive to Elizabethtown to catch Amtrak for the 8am ride into Philadelphia. So if you don't see a blog from me by Tuesday night, or if you hear of an Amtrak crash, on it's way to Philly, remember Valentine is in the coach and needs to be taken care of. Just a little nervous being on Amtrak.:)
I think we will be doing another "History tour" in philly, but the history I'm really researching is "who has the best philly cheesesteak sandwich". That's it for now, I sure hope I undate the blog again soon.

October 20, 2007 boy we had a hell of a storm hit last night but today was mostly sunny. Today was a hang around the coach day and get caught up on my pictures, emails, laundry ect. No exciting news today, also trying to decide what we will go tour next week, maybe Philly but not sure yet. Tomorrow we are going to Hersheypark in the Dark, it's only open on weekends now and tomorrow the weather is suppose to be clear and warmer. The park is only open from 2pm to 9pm, I think we can handle that.
Hey, to change the subject, I just saw on the web that Dolly Parton went to the hospital to visit Porter Wagoner, an 80 yr old guy she used to sing duet with. When I pulled up the article Porter's picture looked familiar so I did back checking on my blog when we had gone to the Grand Ole Opry and we had seen him there that night. Sorry, that was very interesting to me, blogs come in handy to back check on things.

October 19, 2007 today we got headed out about 9:30am and went to the Green Dragon Farmers Market, that is only open on Fridays, which is stupid by the way. It is in Ephrata, which in its own way is a pretty cute town, but that Farmers Market is hugh. It was more like a giant swap meet, even the Amish or it could have been the Mennonite's, who knows maybe both, that where there selling their home grown vegetables and fruits. We stocked up on fruits and vegetables, well as much as we could keep in the motor home, we had some for dinner tonight and they were great. After the swap meet we headed for Lititz to the "Wilbur Chocolate Factory" another recommendations from our neighbor and the RV Park recommended. When we got out of the car it was noon and the church bell started ringing 12 times, then right after that we heard "Sunrise Sunset" playing and that was from the insurance company next door, it played thru out the town, really neat. We went into the Wilbur Chocolate place, they have people making molds in front of you but really not that big of a deal. They had one sample, which was very good, but we sure didn't need to purchase any, after all, we had just brought a bunch of veg. and fruit, trying to be healthy.:)
Down the road from the chocolate factory was the "Julius Sturgis Pretzel Tour", which the visitor center recommended we do. It was cute plus we learned to make a pretzel ourselves, we even received an "Official Pretzel Twister" certificate that shows we had a diploma in making pretzels. The guide told us we can show this to any pretzel factory we would like to work at and we should be able to get a job. It was a fun tour and it had an interesting history.
Then we drove to Strasburg to the Train Museum, which is much bigger then the train museum in Sacramento. With the different train museums, we have been to, none ever seem to mention the "Call Girls" which my Mom was. All they ever show are what the men do, but when we talk to the people that work there they all know about the "Call Girls" and they don't know why they aren't mentioned.
After the train museum it was time to head home, and grill up some of the veg. we had purchased, which I mentioned earlier and they were really good.

October 18, 2007 yesterday we drove to Gettysburg and stopped by the visitor center and checked it out. While there we went to an electric map show they had that showed the 3 days of battle that were the worst in history. Dave then purchased the 2 hr. audio w/map that we could play in the car for ourselves and do the drive at our leisure. They even have, for $45.00, a ranger that will drive in your car with you if you want and explain everything to you, but didn't want that. The more we kept driving around the more it came back to me that we had done this drive either 15 or 16 yrs earlier. It was when Kim was either 8 or 9 and we had gone back to Maryland for a year, remember that year, that's when she got the brain turmor. We had done the Gettysburg thing before that tho. Anyway, the weather was high 70's it wasn't that crowded, not many tour buses, so it was very enjoyable. We could take our time or rush thru what ever we wanted. We ended up getting back to the coach about 5pm so it was a good long day.
Today, just wait I know you are going to be jealous, we started out going to the "Seltzer's Bologna Factory" one of the local attractions, what a joke. We thought it was going to be a factory tour, or something, it was just a sandwich place that sold lots of different kinds of bologna. When we walked in they had some free samples then a sign to the side all ladies shirts and pullovers are all $2 today, so that's where I headed. Dave tracked me down after a short while and said "you are not buying thrift clothes, let's go" I said why not they are only $2. As we were walking out, without buying anything damn it, there was a DVD playing that showed how the Bologna Factory operated, when we got back in the car we looked closer at the AAA book and it said it was only a DVD to watch. I must say the bologna we did taste was good, but it looked more like salami so maybe it's better that we didn't see a tour of how it was made, god only knows what was in it.
Then we drove to Costco, for gas, then to hobby world, Dave's knew hobby is building sail boats, gets him off the computer, then on to "The National Civil War Museum"
That has to have been the best museum we have ever been at so far. If you ever get to Harrisburg it is a must see. Believe me right now I have had enough history to last me a life time but this one caught my interest. It has reading, audio and short films that you can watch along the way. It starts off in 1850 and basicly ends in 1865 when Lincoln gets shot by Booth. It does show some of the memorials later on that are put up in the Gettysburg battle, but it was interesting. I must confess tho, ask me next year about it and I won't be able to tell you anything, maybe even next week, history isn't my thing, but I'm trying to learn. I'm like the kids today, what is history is history, we need to work on the now and the future, what can I say, simple mind. It's my blog so I can say anything I want.

October 16, 2007 OK I haven't written in a couple days, am I bad or what. Before I get going I forgot to mention that on Saturday afternoon we had taken the dogs to the beach, about a mile from our campsite, and there was a dog that looked just like Valentine, and the dogs name was Clementine. They say everyone has a twin, I didn't know that was true for dogs too. :)
We left Salem Sunday morning and drove thru 5 states that day, we got to the Thousand Trails in Lebanon PA around 6:30pm. Very long day since we had left Salem at 7:30am, we had been in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, then Pennsylvania. We did go out of our way for lunch which added on amost 2 hours for us, driving wise and eating wise. There was a diner that was on Guy Fieri's Food Network show that we wanted to stop at, Eveready Diner in Hyde Park New York. Great looking place, very crowded and what I had was great. I did the lunch thing and Dave had the standard breakfast thing, pancakes, which were great, the bacon had no flavor and I mean no flavor and the sausage was boring. I had pastrami and swiss Panini style which was great.
OK, lets move on, when we got set-up Sunday night it was dark so didn't want to spend a lot of time doing it, so where we parked we got TV but no computers. Monday morning we walked around and someone was just getting ready to pull out of a perfect sight so we ran back unhooked everything and moved. After getting the TV and computer working and setting up everything we decided it was kick back and clean day. We cleaned just about everything, windows and screens inside and out. In the afternoon the weather was just perfect, 74 degrees we drove into town and had the cars oil changed and lubed, at Wal-Mart of course. While waiting we did some shopping and got Halloween decorations for the coach, when the car was done we came back and sat outside BBQ'd later and relaxed, god it was nice to do.
This morning after walking and breakfast we drove into "INTERCOURSE" to mail a package to my nephew, we wanted that postmark to be on the package. After that we did some walking around looking at shops and then got back on the road. It was almost 2 so we decided to stop at "Plain & Fancy" for lunch, our neighbor in the park recommended it, and we had the Amish Farm Feast. Very cool, food was nothing to write home about except the fried chicken, it was good food don't get me wrong, way too much food and the Shoofly pie was really good.
That's it, I'm all caught up, now I have to get caught up on the pictures.

2nd blog for today. Well we went to the night time walk with the other 300 people, they said they were going to break us up into 3 groups but they didn't, 2 groups. Our guide couldn't speak above a whisper so we went back to the store and demanded our money back. The lady said NO REFUNDS now get out of here, another couple tried to get their money back too and she said get out of here then closed the door on us. We paid with a credit card yesterday so Dave and Lee are just going to dispute the charge, let that lady fight with the credit card company. They did offer to let us go on the 10pm tour because so far they only had 100 tickets sold, we said get lost.
Tell everyone you know that ever goes to Salem, MA do not ever take the SPELLBOUND TOUR. I must say it was more interesting walking around and seeing all the costumes that people wore though, Salem does have the best costumes that you can purchase. There were so many people out that it kind of reminded me of New Orleans walking down Bourbon Street, everyone having a real good time.
OK I'm done bitching now, but I am still glad I got to come to Salem and see the place for myself, everyone else, in our group, is probably mad that I picked it but oh well.

October 13, 2007 we are in West Gloucester, MA which is about 25 min. from Salem MA. We got here yesterday afternoon and after getting set-up we headed into Salem. We got a combination ticket which was for the “Witch History Museum”, “Witch dungeon Museum”, and the “Pirate Museum”. We did the 1st 2 and this morning we did the Pirate one. After the Pirate Museum the town was having a Halloween Bix Baz, which is a fancy name for a street festival. There were all kinds of people dressed up in costumes, and some of the vendors had some pretty neat stuff. Good thing we don’t have room in the coach otherwise I probably would have purchased a bunch of stuff. Now tonight at 8pm we are going on a walking tour for 75 min. hopefully will see some ghosts. 
Now a quick recap since I last wrote, which was Oct. 9th. Last Wednesday Dave and I drove to Sagamore to Pairpoint which is a glass shop; they had some demos of glass blowing, no big deal. We then went to Cape Cod and found the Kennedy Compound and took pictures. Then we went to New Bedford to City Hall and got a copy of Dave’s mom and grandpa’s birth certificate, he has time on his hands now so I guess he is going to do a family history thing for the kids. OK that was Wednesday, on Thursday even though it was kind of rainy we all decided to go into Plymouth and do a tour of the Mayflower II and then we did the Plymouth Plantation. Both were very interesting to do, very informative.
Oh, almost forgot on the way back from Plymouth, while Dave and I were driving thru a small town as I came up to the light it turned yellow. Next thing I know I hear a siren so I pulled over thinking it was an ambulance or something, I look in my marrow and see flashing lights right behind me, then I could see it was a cop car. I then pull into the gas station which I was stopped in front of. She came up to my window and asked if I knew why she pulled me over, for one thing I was already stopped so she didn’t pull me over, but I said “no” she said I ran a red light. I said turned yellow when I crossed the cross walk, she said No it was red, and then Dave piped in with a nasty tone. She said since we were from Florida and probably just visiting she was just going to give me a warning and no ticket. Then she told Dave that he better watch his tone, she was only doing her job. Thank goodness no ticket, I haven’t had a ticket since I was 17.
Tomorrow we head out for Pennsylvania, it’s about 400 miles away, so will see how far we make it tomorrow.

October 9, 2007 Tuesday night, we are in Foxboro, Mass. and today we went touring around Boston. We ended up not going back into Kennebunkport, Maine because we had rain yesterday, bummer, it's only like the 2nd time we have had rain throughout the day. We got to Mass. about 2 pm set-up, walked around and checked out the place, which is very nice, 4 pools, 1 indoor, 3 Jacuzzis, gym room, baseball diamond, tennis and basketball courts ect. very nice campground, and not cheap either but a hell of a lot cheaper then staying at motels and buying meals out.
We went around Boston today, taking the trolley tour, which is you get on and off the trolley and see the things you want and jump back on another trolley to get to the next sight. What we actually did was the Freedom Trail tour. When we left this morning we had to drive to the "T" which is like Bart in San Francisco. That was a 40 min. ride into Boston then by 11am we were on the trolley and toured around until 5pm. Although it rained all night long, today was sunny, windy and sometimes a bit cool, but Dave and I stuck it out in shorts. We saw Paul Revere's House, and statue, the Old North Church, "Old Ironside" ship which is the USS Constitution, The Old State House Museum ect. pretty nice day. I'm not a history buff, if by myself I could have probably covered everything in about 1/2 the time, but I'm slowly learning to slow down and read and learn things. When you read some of the history stuff probably the stupidest things stick in my mind, like Paul Revere had 16 kids, 8 by the 1st wife, and when she died, shortly after the 8th kid, he remarried 5 months later and she had another 8 of his kids. My mind retains the unimportant stuff, not the history stuff, oh well, that's just me.
Tomorrow, I believe, we are going to go to Plymouth and check it out. We are planning on moving on Friday to Salem so we can tour around the witch hunt stuff, I mean it's almost Halloween and what a better time to check out this place.
I left out Thursday, that might be Cape Cod day or Boston again, will write about it later.

October 7, 2007 we are now in Kennebunkport, Maine in a RV Park called the "Red Apple" Campground. Nice place, a lot of Seasonals, but tomorrow the whole place closes down. Most of these places after this Holiday weekend close for the winter, so it's been fun trying to find places to stay. Although the weather is a heck of a lot warmer then it normally is it is still the time of year that they close down. After we left this morning we stopped in Gardiner Maine, because it is Sunday and that's out breakfast out day, and there was a place that Lee and Vicki had heard about from the show "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. It is one of the Guy Fieri's shows and it was a diner. Very neat place, very small, breakfast was great, but the waitresses needed to do a lot of work on their attitudes. There were only 6 tables that could hardly hold 4 people then there was the counter which on one side could seat 6 people and the other side 6 people. The place was split in half and each waitress only took care of the people on their half, because the place was crowded and they only had counter space Dave and I sat on 1/2 and Lee, Vicki and Ava sat on the other half. When more counter space opened up by Dave and I, Lee, Vicki and Ava moved over by us, well their waitress was upset with them because she lost out on her tip I guess. When our waitress brought us our breakfast Dave had asked for more coffee, which she gave to Dave and I then she walked right by Lee. Lee had to stop her and ask for more coffee even tho he was sitting right next to Dave then, she was getting the tip now I guess, she should have been happy to wait on him, who the heck knows. That is the only complaint that we all had, the food was great, but for such a small place the waitresses should really work together, who knows maybe they had a fight with each other. enough of that. Hope what I said makes some kind of sense.
After setting up camp we drove out to the "Bush Compound" where former President Bush lives, very impressive place to see from a distance. Daddy Bush was in town so the place was crawling with Secret Service, SUV's everywhere, and yes they were black ones. We then drove around town and went to the beach and walked around then back to the coaches and had a great seafood dinner that Dave had made. He had made the broth and vegetables yesterday and tonight he added the fresh mussels, clams (all in shell) then some white fish. Vicki and Ava made a salad and we also had some fresh baked bread and the dinner was great. We then sat by the fire, and thought about "what the un-retired folks are doing now", just kidding, it was a great evening. Tomorrow, we plan on going into town again, I didn't mention that when we drove thru today the place was packed with people, great weather and a Holiday weekend so we didn't get to stop and see anything. We will check it out tomorrow and then get back on the road again, we have to be in Foxboro, Maine tomorrow and will be there for the next 4 nights. Remember the place we are at tonight is closing down tomorrow, so we have to leave.

September 6, 2007 When I told you we were in Ellsworth Maine I didn't mention the RV part we are staying at, it is Patton Pond Camping Resort, and it's a pretty nice place. We don't have paved roads but there is a lot of walking around you can do it looks nice and it has a really pretty pond you could go out in if we were here before the season closed.
Today, Dave and I left at 9am to go back to the Acadia National Park and see the things we missed, because of the camera problems. We told Lee and Vicki we wanted to see the sites then we were going to Bar Harbor to walk around and have lunch. They had said that was there plans too so we would call each other later and get together. Dave and I ended up seeing the sites we missed and were in Bar Harbor by noon. The place was crowded because they had 2 cruise ships in so Dave and I just windowed shopped. Around 1 we stopped at the Opera Cafe and had coffee, very cute place, it's a help yourself to coffee, danishes, chips, soups and different snacks, microwave available, juices, sodas they had all kinds of things. Oh, plus it was an Internet cafe too, on each table was a little note pad that you wrote down what you drank or ate and when you left you paid, very neat. Dave and I did more walking around and window shopping and ended up finding a new lamp for his desk. If gives off more light plus has a sailboat on the base, you would have to see it, it's cool.
Lee called us at 1:30 and said they had just gotten to Bar Harbor and were going to do shopping around and then eat a late lunch/early dinner about 4pm we said we would see them back at the Rv's. We wanted to have lunch then, my fault, they had said the day before a late lunch/early dinner, but since we had gotten going so early that was just a little to late for us. We ended up going to lunch at a place called "Chowdas" which one of the locals had recommended to us once we asked. It was a little out of town and had really good food she had said. Well she was right about the food, but we didn't know we were going to get it for free, if we had we would have ordered the full seafood meals, but we had just ordered 2 lbs of steamed clams and 2 cups of clam chowder. The only reason it was free is because when one of the waitresses had walk by, after cleaning off a table, she dumped some of the stuff off her tray on my back. It wasn't much, will see if the mark comes out of my skort, if not had just said this morning it had stains on it already and I was going to throw it out. Lucky thing, plus it was a great lunch. That's about it for today, we head out again tomorrow.

October 5, 2007 I guess I should update my blog especially after I bitched at my nephew for not updating his.
We are back in the USA, we are now in Ellsworth, Maine and will be here until Sunday morning. When we went thru the border this time they boarded the coach and this time only took the last 2 frozen chicken breasts that we had. When Lee and Vicki went thru they boarded their coach too and took their lemons, so I'm sure this time it was chicken fajitas instead of steak fajitas like last time.
Let me do a quick recap since I last wrote.
Last Sunday we got back into Canada at St. Andrews, beautiful place, wouldn't mine going back there again. In the afternoon we drove into St. Stephen to do some shopping and look around. Monday morning we went to Ministers Island Historic Site, we drove across "the bar" at low tide to see the summer residence of the visionary railway builder Sir William Van Horne. You can only drive your car over when the tide is low, when we went that was between 9am and 1pm, after that when the tide comes back in the road that you drove over is 18 feet under water. It was an interesting trip to make, it just doesn't have enough history, they would be better off selling the island to a private company and I'm sure they could make a great resort out of it, at least for the months of May thru September. At one time is was a hunting lodge, but it would be better as a resort. When we got back from that Vicki, Lee, Ava, and Fleetwood showed up, we were just leaving (Dave, Valley and I) for a walk so we went ahead and left because we knew they needed time to setup and get settled in.
Tuesday, we all went Whale watching at 1:30pm, which was great. We saw Fin Whales, Humpback Wales, Minke Whales, Porpoises, and seals. We were out there until 5:30pm then we rushed to a dinner reservation we had at the Rossmount Inn, not a cheap dinner but a great one.
Wednesday, since we were leaving Thursday, I did up all the laundry and we got things ready for travelling. In the afternoon Dave and I drove back to St. Steven to visit the chocolate factory. St. Stephen is famous for their chocolate, so since we were there we at least should visit what the towns are famous for, as long as they don't cost too much. It was a great tour, actually history, because we didn't get to see the factory, because it has moved now and it's only opened to the public 1 week out of the year, and that's the chocolate week in May. The history was neat to hear plus every corner you turned they had a plate of chocolate out, a big variety. They actually still have 4 women that hand roll the chocolate, just like in the I Love Lucy Show, very neat. That night it was nice enough to have a fire outside of our coaches, great day, a little foggy all day but still a nice day.
Thursday we got on the road at 9am, we really thought about staying because the fog was gone and very sunny and warm, but we had to get going.
That's it for the last 4 days, I'm all caught up.
Today we went to the Acadia National Park, the temp. was 78 degrees and hardly any wind, we have been so lucky with the weather. It's hard to explain the sites that we are seeing, it really is breath taking, pictures couldn't even do it justice but when we post them we try.
In the afternoon after on picnic lunch Dave's camera got condensation on the lens so we took off to Bar Harbor to see if they had a camera shop to fix it. Lee, Vicki and Ava were in their car so they kept going thru the National Park. Bar Harbor didn't have a camera shop, but boy what a place, we decided that tomorrow we are going back there just to walk around and window shop, yuck, mainly just to walk around and check things out. We ended up stopping at a Wal-Mart and buying a new camera on the way back to the coach. With all the sites we are seeing anyway, we really should have a back up camera.

September 30, 2007 can't believe 9 months have gone by already this year, boy it just flew by. We are back in Canaca again, this time we are at St. Andrews by the Sea Ocean Front Campground, in St. Andrews. Boy this place is beautiful, right in front of us is the Fundy Ocean, when the tide goes out you can walk out about 1/2 mile, I believe, then when the tides in it is right in front of us again. The weather today was clear but crisp, in the low 60's and not a lot of wind, I had on shorts, vest and ug boots, most of the time that was OK, when the sun went down boy did it cool off. Tomorrow Vicki and Lee will be here and I believe we will stay until Thursday, hopefully go on a whale watching tour, if not relaxing and riding/walking around St. Andrews is going to be great.
Starting with the next set of pictures, I will try and separate them by date that way you don't have to keep going thru the whole month to keep up with all the new pictures, I'll try, but Dave has to teach me right.

September 29, 2007, Saturday, had a nice day, went to the Cole Land Transportation Museum, which was great. It has almost every kind of transportation vehicle. From sleds, strollers, Fire Engines, cars, bikes, the 1st baby car seats, trains, vintage automobiles, hearses, ect just about anything you can think of, very interesting. The Cole Family also have a WWII Veterans Memorial, a Vietnam Veterans Memorial and a 1840's Era Covered Bridge, great place to visit. After that we went to Borders book store, Dave needed something on websites, then we went to the mall. We both had a pedicure, not that good, then I had a fill on my nails, not good either. I told Dave I hate mall nail places, you need to go to the strip malls for those things. The weather was great, sunny but cool, this afternoon the wind kicked up but no humidity, thank goodness.
Tomorrow we leave for St. Andrews, NB, Canada for 4 days, then that's it, we can say, "been there, done that" but give us the USA. Canada was nice to visit, just like any country we have been too, but we perfer the USA, we have just as beautiful places as all of those other places, plus I like our taxes, politics and people much better.

September 27, 2007 we are now at the "Pumpkin Patch RV Resort" in Hermon, Maine. I know I said we were going to Medway, Maine which we did do yesterday but again NO TV and this time NO COMPUTER, way too many trees, no way in hell could we live with that so we moved on to Bangor Maine. Hermon is right around the corner to Bangor Maine and yes we finally have TV and computers. We did do some running around today, 1st stop was Wal-Mart then driving the country side looking at the different country houses, some very nice some need a lot of work, the biggest thing is the changing of the colors on the trees, it is just breath taking. Then for dinner tonight we found a local place that the special was 2 lobsters for 19.95. These were 1 to 1 and 1/2 lbs of lobster each, the WHOLE lobster, a little messy work but between Dave and I those 4 lobsters didn't stand a chance. Great dinner really good lobster and the place was getting really packed with people, good thing we went early.
It's 10pm here and I need to do some updates on some stuff, so hopefully I get some time in the next day or so, I think I have some funnies for you to read.
bye for now

September 25, 2007 and the day is done for us now. After this mornings bitching I did we all left for Fortress of Louisbourg. Cool and windy day so it was a long pants day, I had on shorts to begin with then changed at the last minute when Lee had said someone had told him that it was like 10 degrees colder where we were going compared to where we are camping at. Thank goodness I listened, I would have froze. It still was a pretty day but this evening, now that we are back home, it is raining. OK, enough of the weather report, I guess I'm just looking at getting a new job.
The Fortress of Louisbourg was really something to see, very interesting, but it was built by the French and they are a, sorry to say, stupid group of people. When it was built they put all the canons on the water side so when the British, in 1745, attacked on land the French were history. In 1748-49 the British gave the Fortress back to the French for exchange for other land because the area was really too cold for the Brits. In 1758 the Brits decided they wanted the Fortress back again and the stupid French had only put a few guns on the land side but it wasn't enough so the Fortress was taken over again. In 1760 the Brits this time blow up the Fortress before giving it back to the French again in 1768. In 1928 the fortress is proclaimed a National Historic Site then in 1961 it was reconstructed to 1/5 of its original size.
OK so now you have had a short history lesson of the Fortress of Louisbourg.
After that we came back to the coach for the evening and started packing up things, Dave, Valley and I leave tomorrow for Medway, Maine for a few days. We will meet back up with Lee, Vicki and Fleetwood in Saint Andrews on Monday.
Pictures are posted already before I even did the blog.

September 25, 2007 one quick blog before the day gets started. I forgot to mention in the last blog you know everything here in Canada is Litres and Kilometer. I just found out yesterday the fuel is costing us $5.00 a gallon here, I'm telling you it is not the time, right now, to visit Canada because our dollar is equal to there dollar right now. They even said on the news this morning that visitors from the U.S. is way down and it is hurting them. Enough bitching for now, but I must add it is very peaceful and beautiful here.

September 24, 2007 we got going at 7:15am this morning to take the car in. It ended up that we needed a new Fan Clutch for the car so 4 hours and $804 later we were back on the road again. We did manage to go to, what they call a mall, at 10am while waiting for the car to be fixed. Very nice of them to drop us off at the mall and come and pick us up when the car was done. After that we came back to the coach and I walked Valley around then we headed for "Alexander Graham Bell Museum" in Baddeck. Baddeck is a cute little town we had stopped at a restaurant for some soup before heading back to the coach after the museum. The Bell museum was interesting, I had no idea he had accomplished so much, I thought he had only invented the telephone, wrong. His biggest thing was teaching deaf people to speak, he created man-carrying kites and airplanes, he also produced the fastest boat in the world, plus so much more, pretty amazing. He also, bad boy, married one of his students once she turned 18 and her family had a lot of money, so he was set for life, just kidding, but the money did help. After that we went and bought more mussels for dinner with Lee and Vicki tonight, and tomorrow we are headed for the Fortress of Louisbourg, which is suppose to be an all day event. Today ended up being a bad weather day, very windy and cold, and it did rain off and on, that's it for today's weather report.
P.S. Vicki and Lee had a good time with their friends.

September 23, 2007 we left this morning at 9:50am and arrived at "Arm of Gold" campground at Bras d'Or, Cape Breton. Our new resting stop until Wednesday, after setting up, again no TV, we headed out for lunch and a grocery store. We stopped and had fish chowder and a sandwich and went grocery shopping and got more mussels. Mussels are so cheap here, less then a dollar a pound, since we have been here Lee has cooked them about 4 times and now Dave is making a batch tonight. Can't even guess how many times we have had them when we go out to eat, cheap good stuff. Tomorrow morning at 8am we will have my car at the GMC dealership, now Dave thinks it's the fan, but I guess we will find out tomorrow. If they need to keep it we are going to rent a car for the next couple days. Tomorrow Lee and Vicki are meeting up with some friends that will be arriving by cruise ship and take them around until there ship takes off again, I believe sometime in the evening, we have touring to do too so that's why we might get a rental car. That's it for now, Dave and I are hanging around the coach tonight and enjoying the lake view we have. Vicki and Lee had some shopping to do and wanted to check to see where the cruise ship comes in at.

September 22, 2007 today we had beautiful weather again, about 71 degrees but a bummer of a driving day. We stopped at Inverness, which is a small town and had breakfast at Coal Miners Cafe, very cute cafe. Small town, we were going to go to the Coal Miners Museum but it was closed for the season. Then it was just driving and driving, no where really to stop and walk around or take pictures. We did stop in Glenville and go to the Glenora Whiskey Distillery there, which is the only one in Nova Scotia, I think, boring tour guide, not as good as the one we saw in Tenn. the Dickey distillery. After that we drove to Port Hawkesbury and we went into a McDonald's and Lee got the "McLobster" sandwich. It was on a small hotdog bun and it was lobster with lots of mayo and celery, I think. At least we can all say, except Vicki, we have tried the McLobster sandwich from McDonalds.
After that we drove back to the coach, and on the way my car was breaking down. It sounds really funny and I guess what it is, is the transmission is slipping. We leave tomorrow so hopefully we can find a mechanic on Monday somewhere in Sydney, because that's where we are headed.

September 21, 2007 another stunning day, hope I spelled that right. I had heard on the local channel here that today was just like a July day, and boy were they right. We left this morning and drove thru the National Park which was just beautiful. We made stops all along the way on the turnouts to take pictures. We stopped at "Bog" which was walking on a boardwalk seeing orchhids, insect-eating plants and moose. Never did see the moose. While on this drive we kept going in and out of the National Park, like we turned off and went to Wesley's Harbor. In the harbor I spotted 2 Bald Eagles and were just sitting on the jetty, amazing to see, check out the pictures when I get them posted. After the pictures we got back in the car and back to the park and made another stop at "Lone Shieling" which had a replica of a Scottish crofter's hut plus 350 year-old surgar maple trees, very pretty. Then we left the park again and drove to "Meat Cove" didn't find any meat there except the stuff we brought with us for lunch. We sat on the cliff's over looking the ocean at a picnic bench we paid $2.00 to sit at. The knats were very bad so Vicki and I sat in the car to eat what we had brought. When the wind picked up the knats went away, but only for a little while. I had on my binoculers but didn't see any whales, one of the ads say come to Meat Cove and see where the whales play or something like that, but no whales just like no moose.
Then we drove to Neils Harbor and I spotted another bald eagle, I can spot things when I'm not looking for them, so maybe if I stop hunting for moose and whales they might show up, we ended up with the eagle landing close to us and hopefully Dave got some great pictures.
When we got back and had taken the dogs for a walk we then went out to dinner to an Acadian Restaurant, good old fashion cooking. I had beef stew, Dave had cod and fries, Lee had stewed chicken and Vicki had meat pie, good food with the homey atmosphere.
Forgot to mention yesterday afternoon Dave and I went and hit golf balls at the driving range, Dave did really good, for him, I did OK. After that we all BBQ'd dinner then at about 9pm Dave and I went to the local talent show, but I guess they have no talented people in town because no one got up to entertain everyone that was there. Alot of people but the 3 man band just kept on playing.

September 20, 2007 let me start off with "Happy Birthday" David Jr. 38, holy crap, boy times flies by fast when your having fun.
Yesterday we left Woodhaven about 8am in the morning and I think 5 min. later we had lost each other. Dave and I were able to make a left out of the park but right after that a row of cars showed up and we didn't see Lee, Vicki and Fleetwood again until 9:30am. Dave and Lee had driven around the night before to decide on what gas station was the easiest to get in and out of for diesel. Lee didn't need fuel so we had 1st said that Dave and I would leave 15 min. before them then meet up. Later in the evening Lee came over and told Dave that he would leave at the same time as us and get more fuel anyway, well that's when they should have discussed which gas station each of them was going to. Dave had one in mind and Lee had another and that's how we got separated. We reached each other on the walkie talkies and Lee was stuck behind a truck at his gas station so we said we would start on ahead and drive slow until they caught up, which we did at 9:30am. It was another beautiful day, some fog when we got going for awhile then cleared up. We got to Plage St-Pierre in Cheticamp in the afternoon which was a hell of a drive here, very small roads which for shoulders to speak of. The site was suppose to have 50 amp, which they didn't plus had rocks and sand, although it is on the beach, very pretty. After setting up we drove to the National Park campground then decided to move there tomorrow because it was grass and paved roads, much better for biking, hiking and walking/jogging. We packed up this morning got to the National Park and the only place we can park at was covered with fruit flies, and I mean tons of them. We turned around and came right back to where we were before, we will just have to put up with the rocks and sand, at least there is grass around. After setting up, Lee went golfing, I walked Valley around then went bike riding, Dave fought with Verizon Wireless on the phone and Vicki walked Fleetwood then went jogging. When Dave was off the phone we ran into town to the post office and mailed some stuff then came back and had lunch. So that's it for now, oh by the way, neither of us have TV, I guess we are just too far north and we can't get the satelites to work, but luckily Dave's dish for the computer works.

September 18, 2007 It's been a month since the wedding and it now seems like it was ages ago, we have done a lot in the last month.
Yesterday, the weather was beautiful so like I said in the last blog we had planned on biking, and golfing. 1st when we took off we went to a kayaking place to check it out but the place was closed down for the week. We went to a tourist place and the guy there tracked down a guy who does kayaking tours for 3 hours and for only $40.00 a person, so we decided to do that. We drove out to Crescent Beach, which was about a 40 min. drive and got lessons from Joe on how to use the paddles. Now, Dave and I have kayaked once before in Alaska, and we were going out for 3 hours, are we crazy or what. Joe had 3 singles and 1 double kayak, so Dave and I took the double. The day was just perfect and we all had a great time, Vicki's paddle was too short for her and was working her ass off trying to get moving so Lee finally switched paddles and she moved a lot faster then. We stopped at a sandy beach and had some snacks and Joe pointed out things to us and we got to take some pictures. When we got back at 3 Joe gave us a map of where we had been and told us we had kayaked for 7 miles. Believe me we were all feeling it in either or backs or shoulders. I thought for sure when we got up this morning we would be really hurting, but it isn't too bad, maybe tomorrow. Anyway, after that we drove to Lundenburg and stopped and had a beer and some fish chowder, too tired to go bike riding plus it was getting too late. We got back to the coaches at almost 6pm so the dogs were very happy campers to see us. We BBQ'd, cleaned up then had a fire going and roasted marshmallows, it was a great day.
This morning Vicki and I took the dogs for a 3 1/2 mile walk/jog thru the beautiful neighborhood we had gone to the other day, these houses are very very nice, you can spell the money these people have. When we got back we were planning on going to go hit golf balls but Lee's back was kind of hurting and Dave's shoulders were hurting so since we are leaving here tomorrow, we all just stayed home and cleaned the inside and outside of the coaches. Dave and I did manage to make a trip to Costco in the afternoon and Vicki and I got away and went to the doggy ice cream place and got Valley and Fleetwood some doggy ice cream. Tonight we will BBQ again then hit the road early in the morning for our 200 mile drive towards Sydney. We still have lots to see and are running out of time, so move move move, let's get this show on the road.
P.S. Happy 1 month anniversary Kim and Danny Gonzalez

Monday September 17, 2007 I must do a correction from the last blog, Inara Grace Tomlinson was born on September 15 at 12:58a.m. Not on the 14th and baby and mommy doing well, congrats again.
Yesterday was another nice day a little cooler and some clouds but other wise very nice. About 8am we went for a long walk/jog with the dogs, Vicki and I did anyway. At 10 we drove into Halifax and had breakfast at the Bluenose II, and then we went to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. Very nice museum, we stayed there a couple hours, and Vicki and Lee still wanted to stay longer so Dave and I went walking the pier hand in hand, oh how romantic, (I know Danny would love that) but it was nice weather and a great walk seeing all the boats was nice. We all met back up at 2:30 and went to the movies to see the Jodie Foster new movie “The Brave One”. Really good movie, it keeps you very interested, NO nap for Dave, so you know it was a good movie, and of course popcorn helps too.
I mentioned all the other stuff we had done on the last blog and was suppose to get caught up on everything but it’s not going to happen. I have to do the blog daily or else I get too stressed about falling behind. I’ll just mention a couple things and the rest you’ll just have to see the pictures. Peggy’s Cove has a population of 40 and was founded in 1811. It has a beautiful Lighthouse that was built on the rocks and is the only Lighthouse that has an operating Post Office inside. This place was great too see, then we went to a little local shop and sat outside and had a cup of coffee and enjoyed the view and weather.
The Halifax Citadel is a National Historic site of Canada and the one we toured thru was the 4th Citadel that was built and it never saw any action. It is on a perfect spot on the hill that over looks the harbor.
That’s it for the recap, now I have to caption the pictures and get them posted.
Today is nice and sunny again so I think we are going bike riding, hitting golf balls and maybe kayaking, will see.

September 15, 2007 Before I begin anything let me say Congratulations to my niece and nephew, Marisa and Shawn, Inara Grace Tomlinson was born on Friday 9/14 not sure of the time yet but it was close to midnight as Kim tells me. All are doing fine I hear and Marisa ended up having a "C" section, just hope it was a bikini cut, ha ha because I had one and there was still no way I was going to wear a bikini but of course Marisa could if she wanted to, but somehow I don't think she wants to, but I'm just guessing.
It's going on 11 pm right now and I know I won't finish this blog tonight, but I'll get started anyway.
Today is Saturday and it was raining just about all day, we have been lucky with the weather so far so a little rain doesn't hurt, gives you time to get caught up on stuff at home. Let's see I didn't get my blog caught up or get the pictures captioned, so I really don't know what the hell I did all morning but it sure went by fast. We all did manage to go to Wal-Mart and do some shopping in between the rain showers but when we got home it was 1:30pm and we had to leave again by 2:30pm that's when I realized, "where the hell did the morning go" Dave and I did sleep in until 7am which is amazing but after that who knows.
At 4pm today we went to the musical "DRUM" which was fabulous. It celebrates the 4 Nova Scotias founding cultures: Aboriginal, Black, Celtia and Acadian. We all had such an enjoyable time, really upbeat and kept you clapping or stamping your feet. After that we went to dinner at a great Italian Restaurant called "Cafe Chianti" very good food and right next door was "Tomavino's" close to my maiden name but no cupie doll, what ever the hell that means.
OK, so I finally got today updated tomorow I'll have to work on the other past days that I missed, like Thursday, which was Mahone Bay, Farmers Market, Horse Drawn Wagon ride, Fishing Museum and Quilt shop. Then there was Friday the "Swiss Flight III" memorial, Peggy Cove's, and the Halifax Citadel" where we had lunch and toured around. 11:30 now and it is way past my bed time.

September 12, 2007 Correction from either the last blog or the one before. I was wrong on the taxes for Canada they do still have Federal Income tax 15 to 29% and State Income tax of 9 to 14%. I also was wrong on our Democrats giving up our State Income tax, when it comes to politics I normally keep my mouth shut, and that just proves why, I don't know diddy shit about any of that stuff. Sorry about that!!! The only thing I was right on was about Canada's taxes on everything, they are very high.

We did move today and now we are at Woodhaven R.V. Park in Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia, it is about 4 miles away from Halifax which is the biggest city in Nova Scotia. The sun ended up coming out today and after we got kind of set up today we ran into Halifax to check it out. I said "Kind Of" because we have no TV, we even moved to another sight in front of Lee and Vicki, with No trees but it didn't work either. Tomorrow morning Dave is going to get on the roof of the RV and see if he can manually move the DirectTV antenna by hand to get a signal for us, he has done it before. I told him we can live without TV as long as we have computer service I can watch any TV shows I want on my computer, but I think he can't handle going without "Fox News", I do have my shows too so I can't blame him. Damn we have become so spoiled with all of this modern stuff. If my niece and nephew, Marisa and Shawn, plus all the other young adults like, Kim, Danny, David Jr., Jodi, Jeff, ect. should really get in the habit of going out camping and getting away from the hussle and bussle and enjoy the quiet and countryside. I really wish, now, we had done more camping and outdoors stuff, it really is good for a family to stay close and active. Hind site as the say is 20 20 what ever the hell that means. Maybe if we had done more camping I wouldn't be so afraid of bugs.
Back to going and seeing Halifax, we got Theater tickets for "Drum" for a Saturday show at 4pm then will go to dinner afterward. We then walked around the harbor, great weather, and stopped at Stayners of the Wharf and had a beer and some appitizers. It was after 5pm when we left and decided it was too late to go back and cook dinner so we went to a Sushi Place we had read about, Hamachi House, pretty good, but their ad was more impressive. After that we came back, tomorrow, Thursday, is suppose to be a big driving and touring day, will have to wait and see.

September 12, 2007 It rained a lot last night and I was killing bugs everytime I turned around. This morning it's overcast but pretty warm, I walked Valley around checking out more of the RV park and dodging the puddles.
One clue if you ever decide to get a motor home, invest a little more money and get the kind that you can level on airbags and not have to put down the electronic leveling system. We got up this morning and the nose of our coach is kind of tilted down towards the stream, so needless to say the front jack has sunk down into the ground, we thought we were on gravel pads, wrong, underneath the gravel, dirt. With all the rain that had been going on we just sunk, luckily, Dave was able to get the jack back up so I believe we will be leaving this campsite today, Lee and Vicki want out of here too.
Another clue,if you ever decide to vacation in Canada, which it is beautiful and lots to see, be prepared to spend lots of money. Taxes on everything, even grocery items, are like 14 to 18%. We bought 2 post cards for $1.00 and the stamps to mail them cost $1.04. The reason everything is so expensive is because of the medical, you know where everyone has medical and the government pays for it, like the Democrats want to do with the U.S. If that ever happens believe me we are all going to go broke. Of course they don't have any income tax so maybe everything will wash it self out, but I don't know.
OK, that's my bitch session for now.
Oh, one more thing, if we want Kim to mail us stuff, like from UPS, Fedex and have 3 day delivery it's only $97.00 so needless to say I'll have to wait and get my prescription refill until we get back to the U.S.

September 11, 2007 we are now in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia at Rayport Campground. This campground is all dirt and rocks unfortunately, but where we are parked it is right in front of a creek. We are all surrounded by trees which is very pretty, and luckily we do have TV and computers but no phone service. I think maybe tomorrow as we are touring around we will look for another campsite. The place here wants us to stay though, they offered us 7 nights for the price of 5, but they also said they wouldn't charge our credit cards until we left, I think they kind of know. It is beautiful but not a good place to walk dogs around, especially when it rains, which it is doing today. Vicki and I were trying to walk the dogs around and all there is are large puddles and rocks, not good with Valley's paws, and Fleetwood, Vicki's dog which is a Miniature Schnauzer, came back looking like a wet rat. Not a good thing when you live Fulltime in a Motorhome.

Recap time:

Sunday morning we decided to go out to breakfast, neither one of us had done that in the last 2 weeks and we needed a change. We ended up at Maid Marians, there were a lot of cars there so we figured it was a town hit. Well, breakfast was in a great price range, nothing to write home about. Eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, toast, potatoes to pick from that was about it, but it was a great price and the cheapest meal we have had so far. After breakfast we started our driving tour the countryside here is beautiful you can see from the pictures we posted. While driving we stopped at a roadside vegetable stand which was in a covered wagon, very cute and great veg. Then we drove to and walked around the Point Prim Light House, it is the only round brick light house in Canada. Then we stopped at Pinette Harbor and took a picture of the Birds on the pilings and boats. Next stop was at a house off of the beaten road which had a sign that said Pottery. We stopped and the lady had a dog that came running up to us, just a 10 month old puppy which managed to rip my finger nail off. It wasn't his fault I was going to pet him when he jumped up and since I haven't had my nails done in 3 weeks they were a bit long, his jaw bone hit my nail and just lifted the whole thing up. That f---king hurt so much, with blood coming out of my nail then he managed to jump up and his tooth caught my bracelet and bent it, not having a good day with that dog.
After we left we stopped at a farm house that was selling fresh blueberries, on the honor system, plus they had a ghost as a scarecrow. Then on to Cape Bear Light House, and finally stopped at Murray Harbour for lunch, sitting at a bench in the pier area. Very pretty bay and perfect weather. OK, enough of Sunday.
Monday Vicki made blueberry pancakes using Marty's pancake mix and we BBQ'd up a ham steak. After breakfast Vicki and Lee went there way and we went ours. Dave and I had haircuts, walked around Charlottetown, then I had my nails done, of course not the one that is barely holding on, then did some grocery shopping. That night we all went to dinner at Flex Mussels, which serves mussels in like 30 different sauces, very good, then went to the movies and saw "3:10 to Yuma", which is a Russel Crow movie, it was pretty good too.
I believe that's it, I'm all caught up.

September 8, 2007 we got going about 9am and went to the Farmers Market in town, which was OK, lots of vegetables, spices and herbs but no fruit. The one thing I was needing was fruit, oh well, guess I'll have to go to a store if we don't find someone on one of the roads selling them soon. After that we went back to the coaches and walked the dogs then hit the road again to go bike riding. We parked next to the Farmers Market then got on confederation trail and went riding. The weather was windy but warm, it was great for riding. We stopped at the pier and ate lunch then when we went to get going again Dave had a flat tire. Dave and I walked our bikes to the bike shop to get the tire fixed then met up with Lee and Vicki later. After riding more we then decided to stop at the yacht club to have a beer. We then rode some more then headed back home to cook dinner, we were doing sausages, salad and Lee had made Ratoutuie, which is a mixture of vegetables. Dinner was great, then afterward we took off to see the car races, which was close to the RV park. The most boring and quite group of people we have ever seen, the Canada group that we saw acted like it was torture to be sitting there. The 4 of us were the only ones yelling and cheering for the drivers and cars, it was fun and a good ending for a nice day. Hope tomorrow has good weather too, we plan of doing a driving tour again and it's much better viewing things when the weather is clear instead of raining.

September 7, 2007 Friday afternoon and we are now at Vacationland R.V. Park in Brackley Beach, still on P.E.I. This place is about 45 min. from where we were and puts us closer to the Ferry for when we leave here and go to Nova Scotia, in about 4 days.
I ended, the last blog, with us arriving at the Twin Shores RV park on Tuesday night. Wednesday morning it was raining and raining, after all the nice weather we had been having. About 11am it had quit raining and we decided to go tour around. We stopped and toured the Museum of Anne of Green Gables, then we went to lunch at Carrs Oyster Bar, then to the Haunted House, pretty cute. For dinner we went to St. Ann's Church Lobster Supper, 5 course meal, but the service or cooks were very slow and we had to hurry and rush through dinner. We had to hurry to get to the play/musical in time which started at 8pm, it was "Anne & Gilbert The Musical" Which was about Anne of Green Gables in love, very famous person around here from all the books. Great songs, music and story, everything was quite good.
Thursday we did a driving tour and made a few stops on the way. Now don't get jealous but we saw the PEI Potato Museum, it was very interesting, then we stopped at the MacAusland's Woollen Mills, now this was very good it was a self guided tour of the yarn, wool ect being made. Plus we even saw the fresh stuff just shaven off the sheep that had to be washed, brushed, washed again and so on and so on, believe it or not it was interesting to see. On the way back home we stopped at a quilt shop, nice stuff but very expensive, a couple of the ones I liked were 1K to 2K, the store said they had quilts from $300 to $3,000 I never saw the $300 dollar ones. When we got back to the coaches it was too windy to BBQ so we all just went back to our coaches and relaxed and ate in.
Today, we got back on the road again. On the way to this RV Park we stopped and got some home made bread then stopped at Carrs for some mussels to steam. We got 10.5 pounds of mussels for 13.00, hell of a bargain plus a cheap meal for 4 of us. Lee cooked a little over half of the mussels so we will get another dinner out of it, right on love mussels. While we were eating dinner tonight, after driving around Charlottetown checking things out, the mosquitoes came out and they ate Lee and Dave a live, normally it's me and Vicki, will know for sure tomorrow but Dave said he had welts on his legs and I could see the welts on Lee's head. After dinner we got all caught up on Big Brother.
Tomorrow we plan on going to Charlottetown again and going to the Farmers Market then if the weather is good we are going bike riding on Federation Trail, or Confederation Trail, not sure of the name, then maybe go hit some golf balls.

September 4, 2007 we arrived this evening at Twin Shores Camping Area at Darnley Beach, Prince Edward Island, Canada. We are parked near the beach, and boy is it windy here, wasn't too cold, just windy. The drive here was not even 200 miles, I believe, but we had made a stop in Moncton to go shopping at Costco, then to a grocery store, then trying to find a gas station to get diesel, then getting lost while trying to find this place that's why we got here so late. Oh, besides getting lost we did stop at the visitor center so that killed some time too. One of the pictures that Dave has posted was one of us following Lee and Vicki's coach, I wanted the caption to say that if you aren't the lead dog the view is always the same, after today and Dave being the leader and us getting lost, I would much prefer being the follower. If I get my way that's the way it will be from now on, we just fight too much when we are the leaders. Anyway, after getting here it was too late to go touring so we all just did our own thing and will get to the touring tomorrow.

September 3, 2007 we drove for about 70 miles to another campground. We are now at Three Bears Family Camping & RV Park in Penobsquis, New Brunswick. We drove thru Fundy National Park to get to Hopewell Rocks (thehopewellrocks.ca), which is a place that has the highest tides in the world. Lovers Arch formation you can walk under and all around it then when the tide comes back it 1/2 of the arches are underwater the tide rises 4 stories, really neat. When leaving we stopped in the town of Alma to buy Lobster at the Alma Lobster Shop, tons of lobster there. When we first had driven thru the town, before going to Hopewell Rocks, the fishing boats there where all beached, it really looked like they were dry docked. Then after leaving to head back to the coaches the boats were all floating on the water again because the tide had come in.
Sunday we had gone to the Historical Settlement in Kings Landing, old time houses, black smiths, saw mills, all the 1700 and 1800's, very cool place.
Dave has all the pictures posted now so take a look see.

September 2, 2007 1st off let me say "Happy Birthday" to Jayden, our granddaughter, Jeff's youngest, she is 4 today.
August 31st we arrived to Hardings Point Campground in New Brunswick and met up with Lee, Vicki and Fleetwood, finally. We can now slow down and really start enjoying things. Yesterday we drove into Saint John and toured around and even took a boat ride tour, we had great weather. There was a cruise ship in, Carnival ship, but the town still wasn't crowded. Before we came back to the coaches we went to the Market Place, great place, fruits, veg., meats, fish, shirts, jewelery, ect. we got some great freshly grown fruits and veg. We have computer service but no TV so Dave started working on that again, he thought it was our receiver but ended up hooking up to Lee's TV and it works, so it's not the receiver must just be a tree in the way. Kim and Danny were opening up the wedding gifts yesterday in Bakersfield, Danny's family was there and David Jr. and Jodi went up too. Can't wait to hear about all the stuff they got.
That's it for now

August 30, 2007 we are now at a KOA in Saint - Nicolas, Levis Quebec Canada. We only drove 4 hours today so we could go into Old Town Quebec and check it out, we had heard it was worth a look see, which it was. Dave took pictures and he will post later, but so nice to see all the old buildings and coble stone sidewalks, the streets aren't coble stone though. Everything here is in French, well almost everything, the rest of Canada is printed in English and French, road signs, construction signs, ect. One thing about the truckers though is they don't warn all the other truckers about where all the police are, very strange. We have listened to a few of them speaking in French, kind of like the U.S. you hear a few speak Spanish.
Last night we couldn't get any internet service because a tree was in our way, now tonight we have internet but no TV service, thank goodness we have DVD's with us, but the big bummer is this is Big Brother Night, I'm not a happy camper. Anyway, last night we stayed at Lakeview Campsite in Stomont Quebec Canada, very small park and everyone there had to come by and see the big RV, they didn't talk to us but they did walk by.
Tomorrow we have a really long drive, if we leave by 7am if we are lucky we will get to the next campsite at 6pm, that's where we are meeting our friends, Lee and Vicki plus their dog Fleetwood. It's only a long day because we wanted to stop and check out Old Town Quebec. The rain started last night and we had some today, but walking around Quebec it was just overcast, but had to where long pants, which I hate to do, plus where jackets.
That's about it for now.

Here we are getting wet at Niagara Falls. Boy is this is an impressive place. All of the pictures are posted at the Picasa web albums site. Just click on the picture below of us at Rushmore to see our pictures from the month of August.

August 2007

August 28, 2007 we are staying at Four Mile Creek State Campground in Youngstown, New York. We got here about 10:30am, it took us almost an hour to get thru the U.S. Border from Canada. They were having cars and trailers pulling off to the side to really inspect the vehicles. We knew we were going to be pulled over so Dave is quizzing me on everything that we had in the coach, alcohol, food ect. he was going to tell them everything we had, he said what they are mainly looking for is the alcohol and not paying the taxes on it. We didn't even go into a store in Canada so we were going to be screwed on the stuff we already had. We gave them our drivers license plus passports, told them we were just driving to Niagara Falls thru Canada from Illinois and they said Thank you very much you can go, yea.
Anyway, we went to Niagara Falls as soon as we got to the campground and boy did we have a lot of fun. What an amazing thing to see,just amazing really, plus we had great weather, in the low 80's, it was a perfect day. We will post pictures soon, Dave took a ton of them.
A couple stories, I want to share. Last Sunday we stopped at a Flying J for fuel, of course, and since it was Sunday and we didn't go out for breakfast, that's our rule every since being on the road, we decided to stop and have lunch. When Dave pulled into the truckers side, right between 2 big rigs I had asked him to turn on the generator so we could put the air conditioner on for Valley while we had lunch, it was still pretty warm outside and in the rig. I started walking towards the back of the coach then turned around and asked Dave if we were moving, he said "NO" it was the rig next to us that was leaving. I said seeing the movement out the windows was making me sick and I couldn't look so I turned around and starting walking to the back of the rig (no windows to see from) The next thing I almost fall because Dave slammed on the brakes, I thought something hit us, he said it was us moving he had forgotten to put the brake on, he put it in neutrol but didn't put the brake on and it was us moving. Thank goodness no damage done, just a good scare, ever since then every time we stop I ask Dave "did you put the brake on"?
With the CB Radio we get to listen to the truckers so we are slowly learning the Ling-go like "Evel Knievel" is a motorcycle cop, "Bear" is a marked car officer and "Plain White Wrapper" is a white cop car unmarked. They really get on the CB's informing all the other drivers about where they are too, and by the way if the cops have someone pulled over you know that to, because they say they have a "customer" and are busy right now. If you screw up driving in anyway with the truckers they get on their CB's with that too, to tell the others. We know this because Dave was passing some trucks then got back in behind another truck because there was a car behind him, which I knew was stupid because the truck he got behind was going to slow, anyway he had to hit his brakes because, like I said the truck he got behind was too slow. Needless to say when we got back in the trucker behind us that we had passed had gotten on the CB and said to the others that the Asshole motorhome passes him then cuts back in and hits his brakes, well Dave hears this and tells the trucker to watch his language and the trucker gets back on and says "Fuckyou". I tell Dave "please don't get in fights with the truckers" I did it nicely, yea right. He was wrong and I told him so, and please don't fuck with the truckers.
On the highway in Indiana it is posted "hit a highway worker there is a $10,000 fine and 14 years in jail" in Michigan the fine is $7,500.00 and 15 years in prison, we sure as hell don't post anything like that in California.
This has been long enough, we hit the road again tomorrow, we were suppose to stay 2 days but we still have 1000 miles to drive to meet our friends in New Brunswick, Canada on Friday. So back to Canada driving tomorrow.

August 27, 2007 we are at Clearville Park Municipality of Chathm-Kent in Canada somewhere. Finding a RV park after driving all day was a nightmare, but this place is beautiful, right on the water and the weather is great. Drove all day and got here too late to really update my blog, but I'm keeping notes so hopefully I won't forget what I want to share. We will leave early in the morning and get to Niagra Falls, NY early tomorrow so we can do some touring around. Can't wait to meet up with our friends in New Brunswick Canada so we can finally slow down and enjoy this travelling, which will be on August 31st.

August 26, 2007 we just stopped for the night at Utica, Illinois at a campground called Hickory Hollow. I must say driving thru Iowa they will never be short on corn. It seems like their lands are filled with rows and rows of corn fields. When we crossed over into Illinois I was seeing the same thing. When we stopped at the Flying J for Diesel Fuel Kim called, they are having a great time and had taken a plane over to Oahu to Honolulu and taken a tour of Pearl Harbor. I had told her even though she had seen it Danny really needed to see it for himself. They took the tour of that and the Missouri then Danielle came and picked them up and drove them around to see the island. Danielle was one of Kim's bridesmaid that had flown in for the wedding, she is in the navy and is stationed in Oahu, I know, tough life. I'm on Dave's computer right now because where we are we can't get my computer working, so I'm going to end now so this gets posted. Hopefully tomorrow I can complete my writings, I do have some funny stuff to tell you.

August 25, 2007 we just stopped at a Casino parking lot right outside of Sioux City Iowa.
I'm just not going to get a chance to really get caught up on everything so I'm just going to do a recap of the last week, your probably saying "thank goodness" we now won't have to read a long blog.
August 18th, Kim and Danny's wedding went by so fast, it was almost perfect, we had forgotten to give Barbara, the lady that kept everything running smoothly, where the table numbers should have been. So needless to say some of my family members were put in the other room where they couldn't see everything at dinner time when they should have been in the opposite room. The lower number tables should have been in the same room as the wedding party but they weren't, sorry that was our fault. Plus, Rosie and Bob Miller were suppose to be seating at Trini's table but I heard they moved to a table were they knew no one because Rosie wanted to be close to the door for the cool night air.
Sunday, was brunch at El Patio with family and some of the wedding party, I believe that went very smooth too.
Dave and I got on the road about 1pm and stopped in Primm Nevada and dry camped at Buffalo Bills. As soon as we parked my brother, Vance, had called me and asked where we were because my niece, Caryn, had been in a car accident in Lancaster and their car was totalled. Thank God Caryn, Joe and Carlee were all OK, but Vance said "shit" you are farther away then I am, so we couldn't help them. They ended up at a motel for the night and getting a rent a car for their drive back to Bishop.
Monday we got going early and stopped in St. George, Utah and had breakfast with my Aunt Evelyn. All we did was talk and laugh for the next couple hours until we had to get back on the road again. We stopped Monday night at Fillmore, Utah nice little park. We, of course, got going early on Tuesday and stopped in Deer Creek, Utah and visited with Stan and Ginger, who we had met in Oregon at the Monaco facility last year, sorry can't forget Katie Girl, their dog who loves Valley too. Once we got back on the road we ended up stopping for the night at the Western Hills Campground, in Rawlins, Wyoming and we had gotten the last full hook-up so that tells you how full they were.
That brings us up to Hart Ranch in Black Hills South Dakota, where I last wrote. We went to Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse on Thursday then that night we went back to Mt. Rushmore to watch they show they put on and see the presidents lit up in the lights. I wouldn't recommend the night show because they don't have enough lights but seeing it during the day and taking the ranger tour was great. Crazy Horse was not worth the money, $20.00 to get in and it's not even close to being done. Seeing Mt. Rushmore was only $8.00 and well worth it. Friday we did driving all day through the country side, where the buffalo, deer, antalope and donkeys were right in the road and you would have to sit and wait for them to move. We stopped at Wind Cave and did an 1 1/2 tour with the ranger which was a great cave, the 4th largest in the world, I believe. South Dakota, very neat place to come and visit, but only to visit. By the way, on our drive today we stopped off and saw "The Corn Palace" as a matter of fact we got to the town in the middle of the corn festival. Tonight Weird Al Yankovic was performing, sure sorry we had to miss that.:)
Sorry for the fast recap, but I don't have the time and I'm sure either do you to read everything I wanted to write.

Went to visit the monument today it is a sight. Tonight we will go back for the night light show. Here is my best picture of the monumnet.

August 22, 2007 Just a quick note so everyone knows where we are. We are now in Black Hills, South Dakato and will be here until Saturday morning. Hopefully I can finish going thru all of my emails and get caught up on my blog, you know it will be a long one so I might just have to break it up in a few parts. Danny called and left a message on my phone "Hi, mother-inlaw, this is your son-inlaw, just wanted to say hi and that Kim and him had gone parasailing, they both made it through it and are having fun" I tried to call them but just get Danny's voice mail, twice now, Kim's goes straight to her voice mail so don't know if she took her phone, or if they did I hope they brought their chargers. We are in mountain time zone now, so an hour ahead of Calif. tomorrow will go to Mt. Rushmore then to Crazy Horse and what ever else we can squeeze in. Sorry about Dave's spelling on his blog update but I was just too tired to sit and write, plus, 160 emails to go through.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TOMORROW, MARISA. You are catching up to me, because I know damn well I'm not getting any older, at least in my mind, the body has another opinion.

Wedding Pictures
Well David Jr work hard the night of Kim and Danny's wedding and manged to get some pictures on line before he left for Alaska. There is a link to the pictures in the link section of this blog it is on the left. I tried the link and you will need to install an activeX control and agree to terms and conditions for the photo site. These are very ruff I know David will have final picture on line once he gets back. You will be able to buy copies if you want.

Jeri is still trying to get caught up on all her emails, blog posting and other stuff. Right now we are driving most all day and just stopping to get fuel, eat and sleep so not much on line time. Tomorrow we reach Rapid City South Dakota so she may have time to write her blog. I know she has a lot to tell everyone.

We are having a good time with me retired we do not have to stay put during the week and we can start and stop when we please.

Hi all just a quick note from Dave. Marisa was right in her comment disasters before the wedding did lead to a great wedding. Everyone had fun and the bride and groom are very happy. We hit the road following a brunch on Sunday with the familys. We are in Primm Nevada tonight and will be heading on towards Rapid City SD tomorrow. You will have to wait for Jeri to hear the details.