Rolling.....rolling down the Highway! MAY 2014

May 26-May 30, 2014

This morning we get up at 6:00am. I thought we loaded everything into the bus yesterday but we still have the cold refrigerator stuff & all those last minute things you think about & even as we pull away from the house & head down the road....I can't help but wonder do we have everything....what am I forgetting!?!It's 9:30am before we actually set our wheels in motion, but at least we're rolling!!!

The first day we never drive too far. Lennie is always stressed from preparing to leave & the additional stress this year didn't help. He does all the driving so when he wants to pull in early cause he's tired, that's the best thing for us to do!We stopped in Ashburn, Georgia for the night.

How's that for the name of an RV park!?!

                                                     We were the only ones camped there!!!!

The RV Park served it's purpose, it gave Lennie the much needed early break, but....it also had a Country store Meat Market combination & ALL campers & truck drivers were entitled to a free country breakfast!

Lennie said "NO" to the grits but I had them,                                                                                                                                      cheese grits to be exact!

After that healthy country breakfast, we get back on the road. Once again we don't go too far. We only went as far as Columbus,Georgia, where we had another one night stop at Lake Pines RV park & Campground.

On the way to our campground we first stopped in Plains, Ga for a little history lesson on our 39th President,                             Jimmy Carter!

The Visitors Center in Plains was originally the high school where both Jimmy Carter & Rosalyn Smith Carter attended. They were not sweethearts in high school! They still live in Plains & can be seen at church & just riding their bikes around town.

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The town Depot station which became Carter's                                                                                                                                   campaign Headquarters.

Brother Billy Carter's  gas station.

The boyhood family farm!

Little Jimmy's bedroom! Awwwww!

Okay Len, you're starting to look too                   comfortable! Time to go! We have another history lesson in store for us!

We're heading over to the National Infantry Museum & Soldier Center in Columbus, Ga right outside of Fort Benning. There was a lot of construction going on, (of course it seems like the whole world is under construction) making it hard to maneuver around, we almost wound up on the base!!! What a wonderful museum once we found it!!!! When Lennie was in Viet Nam he served with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. He heard they had a memorial to the 199th & he wanted to go see it. We only had a couple hours left before closing time to spend in the museum,but a person could spend all day in there.

Behind the museum is the parade field & just beyond the parade field is the Memorial Walk of Honor, a park like area with dozens of memorials to Infantry units.

The 199th Light Infantry Brigade Memorial!

This ended our history day....now time to head back to the RV for dinner & Otis gets a dog walk!

Lake Pines is really a nice RV park. Would be nice to spend some real time here!

 But we have other places to go, so come morning we leave Lake Pines! On our way out of town, we made one more stop! At a LUNCH BOX Museum!?! I don't know why Lennie wanted me to see this, especially since I never carried a lunch box, I was a brown bagger! But it was cool to see & the guy probably had a thousand lunch boxes on display!?!

Lennie use to drive a truck for Rainbo, I bet he wished he had this lunch box during those days!?!

Our next stop also a one night stop over was in West Memphis, Arkansas. Only a few pictures here as it was raining when we arrived & POURING when we left!!!!

It's a good thing we'd been here before or we wouldn't know the Tom Sawyer is a nice RV park! It's right on the Mississippi River & the fun part is watching riverboat barges go up & down the river!!!

                                          Rain or shine, it's time to move on, & so we're off!?!

Besides...Otis is anxious to rack up his "Lap" Miles!

Not too many miles on the highway & we can see a clearing in the rain! By the time we reach our lunch rest stop in Oklahoma,

                           the rain is just a memory, the sun is bright as ever, but boy is our bus & car dirty!!!
                            Another one night stop at the Rockwell RV Park in Oklahoma City.

We've been here before too!!!

I think even Otis remembered this RV Park!?!

                                                                                  This was NOT Otis' opinion of the RV Park.....

Rockwell RV park offered FREE (there's that free word again!) coffee & muffins in the mornings, a great way to start the day before heading down the highway!

We back heading west on I-40 the road running along side of us is the old original Route 66! In fact when we make our destination tonight....our RV park is part of the historic Rt 66 section.

Our lunch rest break is at a rest area in Texas.(we were fairly close to Amarillo)I'm not real partial to Texas but I have to say this was one of the nicest rest areas I've seen! It was not just a typical rest area, it was also a tornado shelter!

Grass was pretty limited here, making Otis....not too happy to potty!?!

We are not far from tonight's destination, Tucumcari,NM. It's our last one night stop for awhile! After tonight we're staying in the same RV for a week!!!! Now we're going to make Otis unhappy.....we're going to get the car & bus washed.

                                      This drives Otis crazy, & he tries so hard to attack the water wands!

Relax Otis.....it's over & we're looking good again!

Good thing we got the bus washed, I mean a half hour down the road & we drove into the BIGGEST rain cloud, you know everything in Texas is big!!! It was about a 5 mile rain cloud!

When we came out the other side of the cloud, sun shiny!!!! So nice as we continued our drive. We're getting closer to our destination!!!

                                       And now.....we're here at the Cactus RV Park in Tucumcari, NM

This was a cool RV park along the historic Rt 66.The coolest thing was, the original hotel was the backdrop to this RV park!

After we ate dinner, we walked uptown or downtown(it was all the same) Tucumcari. It's just a sad little forgotten town after the interstate came through. We discovered other RV Parks with the old hotels still intact. Some of the hotels had been "slightly" refurbished & were being used again. 

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We went in the only open Gift Shop(of course!)

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On our walk back to our RV park, we met SAM!!!

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Sam is a 20 year old young man from Michigan, who flew to LA so he could fulfill his dream of WALKING ACROSS AMERICA!!!! He started his trek on April 25th. His final goal is Boston where his parents live & will drive him back to Michigan! He says he plans to accomplish this trek from LA to Boston in a period of 100 days.                                                  Good Luck Sam!!!!

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Back to the RV Park now. Tomorrow we have just a short jaunt to our destination of Santa Fe!