Eastern Trip - Florida

 Tuesday, June 8th, headed to Florida for a week at our timeshare in Indian Rocks Beach (6/12-6/19).

Left Plano after sitting at our campsite since April.  There has been so much rain that, when we got back from a week up at Lake Murray in OK, our site was muddy as you can see.

When we pulled out on Tuesday, it was still muddy due to all the rain.

Anyway, we got on the road (but not before stopping for coffee/snacks).  Here is our setup, accross from the QT:

We drove as far as Vicksburg, MS. the first night.  Started out nice:

Then ran into a lot of rain thru Louisiana, but made it safely.

Crossed the Mississippi River and into MS.  Very nice rest stop here.

Our campground was just a mile away or so.

Yesterday, Wednesday, we left Vicksburg and drove south to Mobile, AL.  Traffic was heavy going thru the tunnel but went smoothly.

Some day we are going to stop and tour the Alabama battleship (but not this time!).

Beautiful day crossing the waterway.

We made it to Holt, FL. - Nice little campground here off the beaten path.

Spending 2 days here to rest up for the remainder of the journey. Ocala, on Friday and then Largo on Saturday where we will park the RV at an RV Park and then spend the week at our timeshare.

Lake Murray, OK

In July, (7/5) we drove up north - all the way to Lake Murray, OK about 75 miles away for a few days.  We could only get a reservation for 5 days (weekends were all booked).  We got a nice spot accross from the boat ramp.  Here are a few pictures around our campsite.

Lake behind us...

Boat ramp to the front of us.

We spent a lot of time behind the trailer because there was always a breeze back there.
Several 'friends' visited us daily!!

Our friends, Dave and Nancy, came up for the day to visit.  They brought lunch and we sat outside at the picnic table.  Later we sat behind the trailer and talked.
They took us to several places around the lake.  This is Tucker Tower - built by the WPA during the 1930's.  The initial plan was for this to serve as a retreat for OK governors.  However, it never served its purpose and instead it has been a geological museum and most recently a nature center.

Not sure what this was.

The rock you see is a popular place to swim out to and sunbathe.  Needless to say we did not swim out there!!

Later in the week some campers moved in near us.  They had a camper and a tent, a seado and a pontoon boat.  Nothing unusual except that we thought this guy could have pulled up his shorts a little bit!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, they were nice enough.

On Friday we got ready to leave and had the truck backed up to hook up.  Unfortunately we could not get one of the jacks to work.  So we called 'the guy' who came out and attempted to fix it.  Below you can see that he used his jack to lift the trailer to get at that jack.  He worked and worked at it but couldn't seem to get the jack off the trailer so he kept raising his jack.  
He kept pulling at our jack and all of a sudden, the trailer moved and fell off his jack.

Our jack on the other side of our trailer fell on our shovel handle!!

Luckily, the trailer only fell this much - did not hit the railing on our truck!!

The next two pictures show where our trailer hitch ended up.

We were so lucky that it did no other damage!!  The 'guy' went back to his business to see if he had anything to fix our jack but did not find any parts.  In the meantime I told Judy that if he could not fix it, we were going straight up the Chanute, KS where our trailer was originally built and have them fix it.  So when he came back, we had him lower his jack while we lowered ours on the other side and got hooked up.  By this time it was around 7 PM.  So we left there, drove to OK City and stayed at a campground for the night and then drove to Chanute the next day.  On Monday I called the service center and scheduled to have both jacks replace the next day.
They finished up on Tuesday and on Wednesday we came back to TX.
It was not a fun way to end a nice trip otherwise.

So we are now back in TX planning another trip to get out of the HEAT!!

July 2010 Travels (4)

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Thanks

Larry

July 2010 Travels (3)

On Tuesday we got up early, drove to East St. Louis, IL and spent the night.  The next day we drove thru downtown St. Louis

on our way to Platte City, MO. (just north of KC) and then the next day drove to Sioux City, IA to spend the weekend with Judeen and Katie and Tim and Alison and Eric. Unfortunately, Alison was sick so they didn’t make it.
We got an even better site this year as can be seen here:

And this is the view from our site:

On Friday night Judeen arrived at the CG around 7 and Katie and Tim shortly after that. We sat by the river and had a couple of beers and watched the water go by (Missouri river).

On Saturday we got together for lunch at Katie and Tim’s and then went to a monument on a high hill overlooking the city called War Eagle Park. The Indian was made out of iron.  Even though his name was War Eagle, he was a peaceful man and helped settle Sioux City.  The scenery from here was beautiful.

(Look, Julie, no softball shirt!!!)

We also went to a place called Trinity Heights (used to be a boy's Catholic School) but was torn down and rebuilt as this.  Beautiful park with numerous sections.  This is a 30 ft statue of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Queen of Peace:

And this is a 33 ft statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus:

They also have a section called the Circle of Life Memorial to the Unborn.  They have a museum where they have a life size Last Supper wood carving made from 2 X 4's and Elmer's Glue (really!). Here are some pictures of it:

Then we went to Palmers Candy Shop and picked up some candy that they make there. Later that day we went to Bev’s On The River and had a leisurely dinner on their patio overlooking the river.

Sunday found us back at Katie and Tim’s where we taught them the 3 -13 card game.

Later Judeen left for home and we went back to the CG. We took our chairs over to the river bank and read for about 3 hours, and watched the boats go by. It was a perfect weekend.

Monday morning we left Sioux City and drove to Pipestone for the week. Monday night we had dinner at Lange’s with Gary and Shiryl. We spent the week visiting relatives. This picture is of my Mom’s cousin, Barb (who is 90 years old) and her daughter, Claudia. 

Barb lives in Ft. Meyers, FL. but comes to MN for the summer.  Claudia lives on the farm where her Dad and Grandparents lived.  She works from home and edits medical journals.  We had dinner with them on Wednesday at the Calumet Hotel.

Saturday we left Pipestone and had a leisurely drive (105 miles) to Ortonville, MN and Big Stone Lake. On the way we passed thru Madison, MN which is known for:

Why, Madison, MN????

The campground that we are staying at this week is called the Lakeshore RV Park and is very nice. The pictures tell it all:

This will be my "fishing from shore" spot:

Mom thought these pictures were almost as good as Florida!