Here we are, on the road: We’re in Tunica, Mississippi

Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010 Lorraine’s Report

Happy Easter to all our family and friends! May God's loving hands touch your heart and fill you with His love.

Last Sunday, Dave and Sandy were here with us and we went to the number one tourist attraction in Alabama, the Huntsville Space Center. We all enjoyed the space center and learned a lot; like I didn’t even know how important Huntsville was in the building of the space program. And, how Dr. Wernher von Braun came over from Germany to get our program going, and how much he was involved in it all there in Huntsville.

It was great to get calls from our son and daughter, Rick and Susy, they always lift my spirits and make my day.

Monday, Dave and Chuck worked on electronics taking out the new satellite receiver and returning it to Best Buy for another one. Dave tried to figure out how to save all the music Mark loaded on my new IPod, with no luck, but not because he didn’t try, so we couldn’t load up more music.

Sandy cooked us a wonderful dinner, and we just enjoyed each other’s company, a really nice down day for all of us. Oh did I say it was nice and sunny out?

Tuesday, Dave and Sandy were on the road by 9ish headed north. Thank you both for coming by to see us, we really enjoyed your company and look forward to seeing you when we head back west later on this summer.

We left by 11:30 and headed into Birmingham to have the engine worked on. The Cummins dealer said to park at the Kangaroo Truck Stop; we found a spot, but it was so busy and so noisy, Chuck decided to look for a safer, less noisy place. We ended up at a Sam’s Club about five miles away. We boon docked that night, and were out by 6:30 for our appointment at 7 am.

Wednesday, after dropping the coach off we went to check out several campgrounds, so that if they finished we could spend the night. We liked the Tannyhill State Park in Bessemer, AL. It was really pretty, woodsy with a small creek running through it and a big state park.

Then I wanted to go into a Belk store, since I had never been in one before. Chuck took me there and I shopped a bit.

Chuck knew a man that he went to boot camp with that lived there in Bessemer, and had called him earlier last week. Well, James called him that first night and when we were done with the Cummins dealer, we headed over towards that park and James met us outside and he and Chuck visited for a while before we left to set up. They did a lot of reminiscing about their years in the Navy.

While we liked that state park, we did not get any TV reception, my phone was sketchy and the internet was slow. We decided to leave the next morning.

Did I say that the temperature had gone up drastically since we left Red Bay? Wednesday the high for the day was 81 degrees, our first 80 degree plus day this whole winter, with the low around 55. Our highs in Red Bay were 40’s to 51 degrees most of the time; with lows down to the 30’s, with windy, rainy and gray days. It was sure nice to see blue skies and feel the warm sun on your face.

From Bessemer we headed to Tunica, Mississippi. We arrived Friday after a four and a half hour drive, beautiful weather, and fairly easy driving except for around Memphis, which we came close to and at rush hour, so very heavy traffic. We are at Sam’s Town RV park, which has nice big pull through sites.

Since coming here, I’ve been busy spring cleaning and catching up on laundry. I’ve had to straighten out my closet, getting my clothes ready for my CA trip this week. Then Chuck helped me clean out under the bed, digging all the birthday presents so I could take that too. It was good to purge and clean out my stuff.

Today is Easter Sunday and again I want to wish all our family and friends a very Happy Easter. Next Saturday is Chuck’s birthday. I will be in CA attending our Granddaughter’s 5th birthday party on the same day as Chuck’s, so I will not be with him, that makes me sad.

Until next time, be well…..Lorraine

4/4/10 Chuck’s report

First off, Happy Easter to one and all! I hope you have a good one.

Lorraine and I have both beat back the colds we had and are starting to feel better. Neither one of us has much stamina but come on, when we don’t really have to be anywhere or do anything in particular, does it really matter?

This past week was a better week for us. We toured the Huntsville Space Center with Dave and Sandy. We sure enjoyed our short visit with them and already are looking forward to seeing them in Minnesota on our way West this summer.

None of us were aware of the part that Huntsville played in the Space Race. Seems that is where all the minds got together (can you say Rocket Scientists?) and actually developed lots of the initial plans for our Space Program. They have a program for kids there called Space Camp where they get to stay for a few days, learn about our Space Program then develop and launch their own rocket. All the trees around the campground we stayed at have these rockets and parachutes hanging from them, some quite a ways from the launch pad.

There was a movie out a few years ago about a kid from a coal mining town that played around with rockets and he finally went to work at the Space Center here in Huntsville. Guess it was a true story and he became sort of a local celebrity within the program, they even named the kids launch site after him, Hiram Hickim or something like that.

Monday Dave/Sandy and we went to Huntsville. I had to return our Direct TV satellite receiver because the remote didn’t work very well. Well, the new one works the same, have to get a different type remote, I guess. We also went back to the dealer where we had bought our coach, three years ago this month. Boy what adventures we’ve had in the past three years! Sure glad we made the decisions we did and got to enjoy this lifestyle.

Tuesday morning found Dave/Sandy leaving, heading back to their house in Minnesota. They planned on making a few stops along the way but we got word they made it back on Thursday. Didn’t smell many roses along the way, did you Dave and Sandy??

Later, we got loaded up and headed for Birmingham for our appointment on Wednesday. We found a Sam’s Club and got permission to park in their parking lot for the night. Sure is convenient parking there, just walk over and get a chicken and salad for dinner.

Wednesday morning we were at the Cummins place by 7:00, they got us in the repair bay and the paper work completed before 8:00. We took Misty and went out exploring and checked out a couple campgrounds in the area. We decided to stay at Tennihill State Park, a few miles away in Bessemer. We chose this area for a couple of reasons, one, it was a nice place and two, I was to meet up with a guy I had gone to boot camp back in ‘68 who lived in the area.

We stopped off at a mall so Lorraine could look for presents for our grand daughter’s upcoming birthday. I decided to stay in the car and enjoy the sunshine while she shopped. I got a call from the Cummins repair shop saying they had finished much earlier than anticipated and we could pick up our coach. We made it back there before 1:00, checked out and was on our way to meet up with my friend, Jim, from the Navy. He met us along the way to our campground and we visited for a couple of hours. He owns his own business and already had plans for the evening and the next day so this was our only visit with him. Too bad, we hadn’t seen each other in 42 years and certainly didn’t get caught up with all the happening to us since then. Oh well, guess it will have to wait until we get back to the area next time, whenever that will be.

The state park is really nice, has good sites with 50 amp power and water, some have sewer. They have a museum on site, seems they made cannon balls here before and during the Civil War. They said its the only place in the US where all the ore and other stuff needed are within 10 miles of each. There are lots of mines in the area, both coal and iron and they have some equipment from the mines here too. Only problem we had was its a bit out of town and in a hollow with lots of trees. We couldn’t get connected for cell phone or satellite TV service. Oh well, at least the weather was nice, the park was nice and there were LOTS of squirrels for Misty to chase. I almost pulled out our fishing poles and checked out the creek but we don’t have fishing licenses, darn.

We finally decided where to spend our extra time before Lorraine leaves to go to our grand daughter’s birthday party this week. She has reservations from/to Nashville, I will be staying about 100 miles South of there at a 1000 Trails park until she get back. So on Thursday morning, we headed West a bit and drove to Tunica, Mississippi to spend a few days. We are about an hour’s drive South of Memphis, Tennessee, staying at at nice casino campground. They have built a bunch of casinos in the area so we have plenty to do until we leave. Lorraine has been busy going through her closet and other storage areas, trying to find all the presents she has bought for Kaitlyn’s birthday and stashed away. She also is planning on what clothes to pack for her trip. She starts packing a week ahead of time, unlike me who always waits ‘til the morning we leave before I would start.

On Saturday, we made a trip to Memphis for a Wal-Mart trip and too look around. Boy are the roads here confusing to me, luckily the GPS didn’t lead us astray too bad and we got back home. Maybe I should have looked at a paper map before we left, huh?

It sure seems like Spring has sprung around here. We’ve had a couple of days where the temperature got into the 80s, first time for us since fall/winter of ‘09. It is nice to have short pants weather once again. We did have another storm move in Friday night with lots of rain, lightening and thunder. Misty sure doesn’t like the thunder part, she came into our bedroom and spent the rest of the night there. Next morning there was standing water all over the place, some folks had small lakes around them. Its drying out now but looks like another storm may be coming this morning but I haven’t seen or heard a weather forecast yet.

Our plans for this week are pretty simple, we leave here on Tuesday and head towards our next stop. We have been there before and I don’t mean to say this place is in the middle of nowhere but the nearest town is called Hohenwald, Tenn. There might be 800 people in town, just has a small main street with a couple of businesses and a post office. I will drive Lorraine to the airport in Nashville on Wednesday then wait for her to return the next week.

Last time we were there Lorraine flew back for our grand daughter’s third birthday and I had moved to a different campground while she was gone. When I picked her up and drove back to our coach, she remarked how it was good to be home again but she had never been in that campground before. That’s when I realized how comfortable we had become and how our coach was truly our home, where ever it was parked.

So that is the story of our past week. I will add a few pictures and get this posted.

Chuck, Lorraine, an astronaut suit and Sandy and Dave at the Space Center. Lorraine took a good picture of the Saturn Rocket with the Alabama state flag directly behind it. The sun was pretty much in her eyes, she just held the camera and took a chance, turned out nice, I think.

Looking upwards to one of the rocket booster engine exhaust. They have a full size Saturn inside the museum , laying on its side with lots of parts exposed for viewing. Boy are these things complicated!

One of the Lunar “Dune Buggies”.

Neal Armstrong on the left, an actual re-entry module on the right.

They have lots of rockets outside in a park like setting, including a yellow submarine used to recover parts from different rockets.

Chuck and Dave on Shuttle simulators, trying to land without crashing. Note to self, don’t ride in a Shuttle when Dave is driving.

Here is an actual Shuttle with booster tanks.

SR-51, one of our spy planes.

Sandy and Dave fixing dinner for all of us on our last night in Huntsville. Dave has a unique method of timing while he’s doing a Bar-B-Q, ask him about it sometime.