We're still visiting our friends, Jim and Sue, in Lexington, Alabama while we're waiting for service at our RV manufacturer.
Janie and Sue took time to make up a batch of homemade pear preserves!
As Janie and I move along the highways this summer, we hope you will join us in our travels through this blog. Simply add this site to your "Favorites" and you can easily come back whenever you wish. We will do our best to keep the site updated as we move along but please understand that we don't always have internet available in campgrounds. Also there are times when we will be on the road and there simply isn't anything to say. If you don't see a new post, please come back again soon.
Rather than just waiting for our turn for service, we have moved to our friends place about 60 miles away for our yearly visit with them. It's almost like being home! We'll go back to Red Bay when it's our turn for service.
Our friends place is so large it takes both of them about 4 1/2 hours to cut the grass. They call this retirement?
Red Bay is a very small town on the border of Alabama & Mississippi, dominated by Tiffen Mfg. (our motorhome manufacturer).
We had to put ourselves in line for service and will have a wait of a week before they can take us.
The plant has cut production from 13 units a day to 6 units a day. Naturally, that meant a large layoff of workers.
They were still putting units together when we went on our 2nd tour (we went on one last year) of the factory.
Today we went on a luncheon cruise on the Branson Belle, an old style paddle wheeler.
We had a wonderful lunch in a private dining room.
And then saw a great show in the showroom. It was a terrific experience and we enjoyed it very much.
That's about it! I just liked this picture so I decided to throw it in with the rest. Oh, almost forgot, tonight we will finish our stay here with The Jim Stafford (I don't like spders and snakes) show.
Of course, Branson is known for entertainment. There must be at least a hundred different shows in town and they all run $25/$35 vs the $100 plus shows in Vegas.
Of course, that many shows create a lot of traffic. That's Andy Williams' Moon River Theater in the background.
The Baldknobbers was the first show in Branson and has been playing here for 50 years. It's a very good show!
This is Branson taken from our campground across the valley. We love this campground because of the location and the view. This is our 4th year here!
Branson is just off of Tablerock and Tanneycomo lakes. This dam separates the two lakes. They are beautiful and so is the whole area.
On our first night we went downtown and had dinner outside overlooking dancing waters, with fire bursts, and live music. Neat place!
Kansas City IS Barbeque! The two most famous places are Gates and Authur Bryant's, both black families, that have been cookin' up barbeque in KC for many, many years. Neither is in the best of neighborhoods but that doesn't seem to matter to the people that go out of their way to eat their barbeque. Our favorite is Bryant's (we ate there twice in three days). The original location (pictured) has been visited by President's Truman and Carter, Steven Spielberg, Sally Fields and many other celebrities. Their sauce makes the difference! It's a little hot and gritty (like sand). It's just simply the best! Don't miss it if you're ever in KC.
Shawnee Mission is a Kansas suburb to Kansas City and where I grew up. We spent a few days here visiting family, including ex-wife (shown at back on right side).
Granddaughter Shea (7)!
Granddaughter Emily (17)!
Granddaughter Rachel (22) and boyfriend, Larry!
Kansas.....The Sunflower state!
Yep, Kansas is just one long, flat road (actually it's almost 4500' downhill from Denver)! It's 600 miles from Denver to Kansas City. We drove it in 2 days because we didn't want to hurry or stress ourselves.
Just a note to let you all know that Kansas has oil and the pumps were pumping. There are many of them along the highway. I have no idea what they do with the oil they pump but I doubt it would make a dent in the U.S. usage.
Kansas also has windmills. There is no question that they have a lot of wind. If they filled Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas with windmills our electrical problems would be over!
We're staying at the County fairgrounds. The other night we got home and we saw all of these guys walking around in their midevil garb so we went to see what it was all about. These guys actually go to war with each other and beat each other with their sticks. It was wild to watch. They just have fun. It's their hobby!
Glenwood Springs is a beautiful city which is famous for having an extremely large outdoor "natural thermal" heated pool and spa. Just outside of the city is Glenwood Canyon, which is simply gorgeous. You may remember John Denver fighting to stop them from putting a four lane highway through the canyon. He lost and I think they did a great job.
Today we visited with our good friends, Barb and Bill Grant, who we went to China with. Unlike the other friends we've visited on this trip, they were not in the video business but were friends when we lived in Denver.
Over the last year and a half they have built a beautiful home in this mountain paradise and they love their new location and new life. We had a wonderful visit!
We left eastern Oregon and headed to Ogden, Utah. That's 380 miles and one of the longest days we've ever had driving the RV. Remember, we're only driving at 60 mph so that made for a long day. We made it just fine but were very tired. The next day we drove to Green River, Utah, which is in the middle of nowhere. It's just a place to spend the night.
It's time to move east! We left Sunriver/Bend and headed east on Hwy 20 to Ontario, Oregon. The terrain immediately turned to a very desert type of terrain from the mountain terrain of the western part of Oregon. After this picture we went through a number of canyons that were, as I commented to Janie, really neat in an ugly sort of way. This was based on the desert follage. We'll be in Idaho tomorrow. If you don't see a post for a couple of days, it's because we're just in transit east without much to report.