Day 13 - Faribault, Minnesota

Today, while visiting our newphew and neice, we found out that our neice works for Cybex the manufacturer of top quality work out equipment. The plant is in Owatonna, Minnesota only a few miles south of where we are staying so we took a trip down there and took a tour of the factory. It was very interesting. The plant is huge. They bring raw steel in one end of the plant and put workout machines out the other end. They do all of their own fabrication. Their machines are extremely popular in gyms around the world. The company has gone from $40 million to $100 million in sales in the last 5 years.

Day 12 - Austin, Minnesota

We decided it would be unique to visit Austin, which is the home of the Hormel Company where they have a SPAM museum (Yes, the meat). The trip from Albert Lea to Austin was only about 20 miles. When we got there we found the entire town flooded. People were out filling sandbags everywhere we went. The picture shows how close the water was to the SPAM museum and the water was still rising. We don't know if the museum got flooded or not.

Day 11 - Forest City, IA/Albert Lea, MN

Simply because it was so close and on the way, today we visited Winnebago to tour the factory and see how they make their RVs. I always wondered where the name, Winnebago, came from. Now I know that it is the name of the county that the factory is in.

After leaving Forest City, it was a short drive to Albert Lea, Minnesota where we took advantage of our Elks membership and stayed in the Elks parking lot at no charge and had a very nice dinner in the Elks lodge.

Days 8 to 10 - Des Moines, Iowa

We arrived here for a visit with Don and Pauline Stratton and Rick and Sherri Morrow. Both couples live here in the summer and in Pelican Pointe during the winter. While you don't think of lakes in Iowa, Don and Pauline live on beautiful Panorama Lake 40 miles west of Des Moines. We all got together at their place for a lake cruise and a wonderful dinner. A truly wonderful place! Rick and Sherri took us on a tour of Des Moines (short one) and Drake University, where Don and Rick both used to teach.

Day 4 - Nashville, Tennessee

We hit Nashville on probably their busiest weekend of the year because they were having a Country Music Association festival and the town was totally jammed with country music fans. We went downtown one day with plans to go to the Country Music Hall Of Fame and the traffic was so bad we turned around and went back to our campground. This picture is as close as we got to any of the many stars that were in town. Nashville is on our route north every year, so we'll just put it in our plans for another year.

Day 3 - Chattanooga, Tennessee

Chattanooga is a town that we pass through every year and have never stopped in. This year we thought we would stop and we're glad we did. It's a beautiful little town right on the Tennessee river. They have a beautiful "river walk" area downtown with an aquarium and restaurants. Lookout Mountain is also just south of town. We only spent the night but decided it is a town worth spending some time in.

Day 3 - Dalton, Georgia

This guy was waiting for us at the first gas station we hit. It was truly a scary event but we did get past it. Actually, the price of diesel has been going down as we move north. The price in Dalton, GA was $4.639 (When we got into Kentucky the price was $4.499). We do realize that won't last but that's how we started. On our first tank of gas we got 7.5 mpg. Before we left home I had said I would be happy with 7 mpg. Based on that I guess we're happy campers (get it?). We know it's going to be expensive but it might be even more expensive next year and we're really looking forward to this trip.

Roughin' It...........Smoothly!

This will be our first trip in our new RV. We're very much looking forward to a wonderful summer of beauty as we travel through the United States and Canada. Join us as we "Rough it......Smoothly" for the summer.