Dave And Dee Dee Visit and Jeff And Heather Arrive From Portland OR

Rantoul, IL

64 deg. mostly cloudy, E wind @ 4 mph.

Forecast today = Thunderstorms - some may contain locally heavy rain, especially during the morning hours. High 81F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Rainfall possibly over one inch.


Dave arrived last Thursday but Dee Dee wasn't able to come until Friday afternoon. It sure was good to see them again. When he arrived, it was hot and muggy and the mosquitoes were just horrible. Jim helped him with some of the set-up of his travel trailer and then came back here into Nora's air conditioning.

Friday morning, Dave had an appointment for some oral surgery down in Champaign so Jim drove him down there in Big RED cause the doctors didn't want Dave driving after the procedure. They were back before noon and soon after noon, Dee Dee arrived.

Dee Dee and Dave

Dave brought some firewood, so one night while they were here they had a cook-out where they roasted brats and hot dogs over the fire. Another evening they all went to the Blue Star Restaurant over in Fisher, IL. During the days, they got together to visit.

Monday, Dave and Dee Dee had to leave, but before Dave left, Jeff and Heather came, so he got to meet them.  It sure was good to see Dave and Dee Dee again and Jim and Linda are hoping that we can meet up with them again this winter down in Florida.

 Jeff and Heather

Jeff and Heather rented a car and drove down here from Jeff's Mother's house. Jeff said that the drive  took them about an hour and a half.

After talking for awhile, everyone got into Big RED and they headed down to Urbana where they went to a grocery Co-OP store that Jeff and Heather knew about. From what I understand, Jeff and Heather belong to the same Co-Op group out in Oregon.

After returning and talking some more, a couple pizzas were ordered from Monical's Pizza.

 

 Jim and Jeff

After eating almost all of the pizza, everyone enjoyed more conversation and catching up on what's been happening since we last saw them 4 years ago. 

Jeff and Heather stayed until about 8:45 when they left for the hour and a half trip back up to Jeff's mother's house where they would spend the night before getting on a flight back to Portland, OR,  Tuesday. 

It was a short but great visit with Jeff and Heather. It was really good to see them again and we're hoping to see them again in the near future.

Jim and Linda are now starting to do things that have to be done before we leave here on the 21st of this month. That's less than a week away and as usual, they have a pretty long list of things they want to do.

 Did you know that on this date in 1620 - The Mayflower departed from Plymouth, England. The ship arrived at Provincetown, MA, on November 21st and then at Plymouth, MA, on December 26th? There were 102 passengers onboard.

The "Illinois Bunch" visit

Rantoul, IL.

61 deg. overcast, NW wind @ 18 mph.

Forecast =  Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. High 72F. Winds N at 15 to 25 mph.


If I remember right, the Illinois Bunch arrived a little after noon on Tuesday. Denny and Bev were right next to us and Dave and Dee Dee were 2 sites further down on the same side of the street.

Dave brought a bunch of firewood from home and Jim had some firewood that a camper had given him earlier this summer, so they had a campfire every evening.

One night they had a cook-out where everyone roasted hot dogs or Brats over the campfire. They also brought side dishes and deserts to share.

Jim didn't get a good photo of Denny and Bev, so I found this one from a couple years ago.

This one of Dee Dee and Dave is current.

Friday morning, Linda had another eye doctor appointment, but it was an early appointment and so she and Jim were able to return here to the CG to give Denny and Bev and Dave and Dee Dee hugs and handshakes before they left to head to their homes.

It sure was good to see everyone again. I think everyone had a good time visiting and catching up on what's been happening lately. The weather was good for the most part and the only rain we had was early Friday morning, and that was before most everyone even got up. :-)

The eye doctor appointment that Linda had on Friday was her last appointment here in Illinois. The next time she'll have to go in will be after we return to Florida. Jim as an eye doctor appointment on Tuesday for a "field of vision test", and then all the doctor's appointments should be over for awhile. :-)

Did you know that on this date in 1957 - The U.S. conducted its first underground nuclear test. The test took place in the Nevada desert?

Woof!!!

Winesburg, OH To Middle Point, OH and Lots Of Rain And Wind

Middle Point, OH.

67 deg. mostly cloudy, no wind.

Forecast = Cloudy early with scattered thunderstorms developing this afternoon. High 86F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.


Because we had been at the Amish Country Campsites park near Windsburg for a whole week, Jim and Linda had more to do to get ready to leave. So, Jim went out early and disconnected the utilities and Linda started putting everything away inside.

Looking at the radar of areas to the East of Winesburg showed that we would probably run into some rain and possible storms before we arrived at out planned destination near Van Wert, OH. Still, even with the earlier start, by the time Big RED pulled Nora out of the site and to the dump station so that Jim could  dump her tanks, it was 9:45 when we pulled out on US 62 and headed NE to Wilmot.

In Wilmot, we turned NW on US 250 and followed it up to Wooster, where we turned West on US 30. Following 30 west took us through Mansfield, up around Upper Sandusky, to the North of Lima and finally to Middle Point, just to the East of Van Wert.

The roads were all in pretty good condition and we made good time arriving at the Huggy Bear Campground right at 12:50, traveling 171 miles in 3 hours and 5 minutes.

Just before we arrived at the CG, the skies started getting very dark and when we were about 3 miles from the park, the wind started blowing very hard, the skies opened up and it rained and rained. We pulled up to the office, but Jim didn't go in for about 15 minutes or he would have gotten soaked. Even then, after registering and waiting for the rain to let up some,we still had to back into our site, (# 26), in the rain! :-(  Finally, after awhile, the rain let up enough so that Jim could get Nora set up and hooked up to the Electric.

Later, someone told Jim that the storm had dropped close to an inch of rain!!! :-O

After it finally quit raining completely, Jim grabbed his camera and took some photos of the park.

The entrance sign out by the road 

I'm glad out site wasn't down this street.

Looking down the street at Big RED and Nora in site #26

It's a little wet  here.

I was pretty sure we weren't going to have a campfire.  ;-) 

About 7:30 last night, the skies opened up again and dropped still more rain on the area, and it rained off and on most of the night. This morning, there's still lots and lots of water standing and it looks like it's going be be a challenge getting Nora ready and out of the site. :-( 

Today we're heading to Indianapolis, IN to see Linda's cousin, Mike, and his wife Sandy. Mike and Sandy have had some health problems and it's been awhile since Linda and Jim have seen them, so we're going to stop by on this trip.

A Point to Ponder : When I erase a word with a pencil, where does it go?

Woof!!!

A Drive On The "Parkway", Two Dinners, Saying Good-by and A Little Shopping

Marion, NC.

61 deg. mostly clear, no wind.

Forecast = Mixed clouds and sun this morning. Scattered thunderstorms developing this afternoon. High 82F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.


After Linda woke up and had her breakfast, Wednesday morning, the discussion of what she and Jim were going to do came up and even though the weather looked "iffy", they decided to take Big RED and head up to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Once up there the weather turned out to be really nice with mixed sun and clouds with the temperatures in the low to mid 70;s.

Jim decided to take NC Rt. 80 up there and Big RED said that it was an "interesting" drive with most of it being a very narrow 2 land road with lots of steep hills, curves and switch-backs all along the route. :-O  Once up on the "Parkway" though, the road was wider with fewer hills and curves and Big RED said that he really enjoyed the drive. :-)

There are places that you can pull off of the parkway that are called "Scenic Overlooks" and one of the first ones they came to was this Black Mountain Overlook. The photos don't really show it, but I understand that it was a long way down to the bottom of the valley and it was very pretty.

Just before they exited the Blue Ridge Parkway, they came upon a Motorcycle accident. It looked like the cycle had run off the road at a curve. There were other cyclist attending to the injured man, but Jim was able to use the GPS to tell them exactly where they were on the Parkway so they could inform the 911 operator that they had called. It didn't look like the driver was hurt too bad, but one of the other cyclist said that he had a lot of "road rash" and was bleeding pretty bad. :-(

I hope he'll be OK, His beautiful full-dress motorcycle didn't look to good though. :-(

After they returned, Jim took a nap and Linda did some more embroidery work.

Around 6:00 Jim and Linda headed over to the pavilion where they had a tasty meal of hamburgers, hot dogs mac and cheese all the fixin's and a brownie for desert. It was served buffet style, so you could pick and choose what you wanted. Then after eating they headed over to the bonfire that Howard had just lit and sat and talked until it started getting "buggy" and chilly.

Yesterday, Jim and Linda were sitting out under the awhing talking to Pat and Jim from next door when Linda Payne, stopped by for a little while and joined the conversation. That was nice and unexpected because she and Howard have so much "Rally Stuff" to do to keep everything going smoothly.

After lunch, Jim and Linda took Big RED and headed over to the Tom Johnson RV Center store where Jim bought a new fitting for his sewer hose. It's the one that screws into the fitting at the CG and the old one he's using now is getting all weathered from age. He's afraid that one of these days it's just going to fall apart.

For dinner, Jim and Linda decided to go out to eat. Dennis and Char had told them about a place called "FATZ" that they had been to, so they headed over there and had excellent fish and chips meals at a very reasonable price. :-)

By the time they returned here to the park, it had started to rain off and on, so they came inside and watched TV.

A little later, Dennis and Char stopped by to say good-by. They're needing to head back down to Texas where they work-camp at a State Park, and will be leaving early this morning. It was really nice of them to stop by. It's too bad that they had to leave the Rally early. Jim and Linda have really enjoyed seeing them again.

Hopefully we'll be seeing them again some day.

Not much planned for today. Big RED needs a drink of that good old #2 diesel fuel and Linda has a letter ready to mail, so I suppose they'll do those things.

Did you know that the Blue Ridge Parkway is America's longest linear park and covers a distance of 469 miles?

Woof!!!

The RV-Dreams Reunion Rally First 3 Days

Marion, NC

70 deg. Mostly cloudy, very light SE breeze

Forecast = Cloudy this morning. Scattered thunderstorms developing this afternoon. High 84F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.

OK!! I know I've been sluffing off on the job, but I've been so busy trying to see what's all going on around here at the Rally that I've not posted on this blog!!!

I'll try to do better..

When we first came into the Rally Park, (you come in from the opposite direction from where this photo was taken), we stopped and registered here at the entrance to the park. Then, Howard or one of the other volunteers led you to your site.

This is what it looked like, the first day we were here, (Friday), before many of the others arrived. That's Howard and Linda's rig to the right of us and Jim is standing on the walkway up to the pavilion across the street

This is what it looked like after most of the other RVs arrived on Saturday.

The view from our site looking across the street towards the pavilion.

The pavilion is where all the meetings are and meals are eaten. In these 2 photos everyone is waiting to have a great breakfast.

Breakfast is served!!!
Jim and Linda have been spending quite a bit of time with these folks that they met at the first rally way back in 2008.

From left to right, there's Linda, Jim Thomas, Pat Thomas, Dennis Stanford, and Char Stanford.

Of course there are lots of other folks that Jim and Linda have met and become friends with throughout the years, but Jim has been kind of lax in taking photos.

Maybe he'll take more in the next few days. :-)

So far, there's been a Welcome Dinner an Ice Cream Social, a Breakfast and a Pot Luck Diner. There's also been Games in the afternoon, and a Campfire every evening.

Today, there a bunch of people going Zip Lining and to Food Tours. There are activities planned for most days and if there isn't, you can always take a drive up on the Blue Ridge Parkway or see other sites that aren't very far from here.

Did you know that North Carolina is the largest producer of sweet potatoes in the nation?

Woof!!!

Forest City, NC To Marion, NC and Arriving At The Rally

Marion, NC.

48 deg. partly cloudy, no wind.

Forecast = sunshine. High 82F. Winds light and variable.

After getting ready, hooking up Nora to Big RED, more visiting and hugs, we left Forest City about 10:25 and headed West in US 74A for a few miles until we came to US 221. then it was just a matter of following 221 North until we came to US 70, just North of Marion. Following 70 SW for a couple miles brought us to the Tom Johnson Camping Center where we turned South on Resistoflex Rd and to the Rally Park where the RV-Dreams Rally is being held.

It was 11:10 when we pulled up to the registration tent, so it took us right at 45 minutes to travel the 35 miles up here. All the roads were very good and there was no construction.

In just a few minutes, Howard, (on his bicycle), was leading us to our site, # P6, which is right across from the pavilion. Being that there are only 60 some RVs coning to the Rally and the park is huge, they are parking most of all the RV in every other site, leaving an empty site between the RVs. That's nice and it doesn't feel crowded at all. :-)

I was kind of surprised at how many RVers came in yesterday since the Rally doesn't start until today, but then I realized that being that this is the start of the Memorial Day weekend, there's probably a problem getting into any CG this weekend as all the sites will be booked.

Some of Jim and Linda's friends stopped by already yesterday afternoon, and last night, Howard and Linda (the hosts of the rally), built a campfire over near the pavilion, where everyone gathered and visited.

This afternoon, there will be the "official registration" for the Rally and then this evening there will be a "Welcome Dinner" over at the pavilion with a "Welcome, introductions, schedule, and fun
Campfire" afterwords.

This should be a fun week and I'm really looking forward to all the activities going on around us.:-)

 Did you know that Founded in 1844, the city of Marion was named in honor of Brigadier General Francis Marion, the American Revolutionary War Hero whose talent in guerrilla warfare earned him the name “Swamp Fox”?

Woof!!!