Trip ending at Pelican Lake

Well, here we are at the Lake Home and it is May 3rd. We tried to stay south long enough to avoid this exact scene. I guess we will have to stay to June next year. This is an unusual year and they are saying that we are running from two to three weeks behind on the foliage. Our lake ice out is generally around the 15 of April so it looks as though this is also 2-3 weeks behind. We did stop at home and unload what we could there and then headed to the Lake to unload the majority of what we had packed when we left.

Last year must have been the year of the pine cones which dropped millions of cones, about three times excess of a normal year, so John spent most of Friday raking and general clean up in the yard. Our house in Cannon looked great and our dogs did very well thanks to our daughter and our son in law. It is great to be able to go away for six months knowing that everything is taken care of. Thanks to both of them. We will begin our summer respite on Memorial day Week-end and would like any of you to join us for a few days of warm wonderful Minnesota summer. Hurry though it only lasts 3 months.

April 30, 2008 Des Moines, IA

Ashley

Ashley and Chase
John and Chris looking at pictures of "the lot".
Ashley and Chase and I went down to the park.
Chase on the merry go round.
Ashley

We made it to Des Moines and Chris and the kids came and met us at PF Changs' (yes Jan, we have discovered it and been there about 5 times now!) Jen is sick so couldn't meet us and we couldn't go over there to see the changes they have made in the house. Maybe next time.

After we ate we came back to the motor home so they could see it. We talked until about 9pm and they had to get going...kids are still in school.

John and I are watching "Boston Legal".

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Yes, tomorrow we head home. I think we will go to Cannon first...dump what belongs there...then go to the lake and dump what belongs there. We would like to see the lake...haven't been there since Christmas.

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It has been such a good ride, and we have mixed feelings about going home. We have gotten so used to being together 24/7, that a normal "at home" routine will feel different. On the other hand we totally did what we had intended to do. Mission accomplished!!! We met so many fun and interesting people and hope to be able to see them all again. We missed our friends at home, although, we think they did just fine without us. :)

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Until the next writing...which I am not sure when it will be.

Everyone that is still traveling......travel safely, and to everyone..................

Regards.

Tuesday April 29, 2008 Kansas City, MO

No, didn't have any trouble getting into this park.

Worlds of Fun RV Park
New site

Got the Kansas City, Mo around 2:30. Since we have been here before we didn't feel too motivated to go and "site see". So, we pulled out "Lonesome Dove" and watched part 3!

We went to dinner at Arthur Bryant's for dinner. They are touted as a very good barbecue place, however, John wasn't too impressed. We like different barbecue's but it was good to try it.

Next stop, Des Moines! We are truly inching our way home. We will be able to see brother Chris, Jenny and Chase and Ashley. Haven't decided if we are going out to eat...or grilling!

Stay tuned.

Sunday & Monday April 27 and 28th 2008 St Louis, MO

Pat and Al are on the far left...(picture was taken at the conference in Orlando.)

Open these pictures up so they are bigger.
I believe that these purple flowers are called Red Bud's????
Driving
Driving.....

We arrived St Louis on Sunday afternoon. Sunday night we went out to dinner with a business associate of John's and his wife. Turns out both Al and Pat used to work at Airborne Frt in St Louis. The world keeps getting smaller and smaller. On the way to the restaurant we saw all these beautiful purple flowers (trees) all over the sides of the roads. I believe Pat told me they were called Red Bud. (Don't quote me on that.) They sure were pretty and we saw them all the way driving to Kansas City too.

Monday we took the coach into Byerly's RV dealership where we bought it and got some warranty work done. They couldn't do the dish washer because it would void the warranty so we will get that done by Fisher Paykel in Minneapolis. There was some paint they wanted to re-do also but there wasn't time for that. So they took pictures to log it and we'll get that done in Minneapolis as well. We left the dealership at 0900 and went to breakfast and they to a huge mall and walked the entire mall. I had my makeup done in some makeup shop....John says I owe him for that one...1 hour! We went to a movie at 1:30, "Leatherheads" and when we got out the coach was done.

Had a little dinner and watched a little TV an hit the hay!

April 25 through April 27, 2008 Cape Girardeau, MO

Wall of all the famous people from Missouri.
Look at all the water.
New bridge over the Mississippi. See how high the water is?
Missouri wall of fame.
This section of the wall tell all the history of Cape Girardeau.

I promised you pictures and pictures you get. I made John drive all the way back downtown to

take these pictures. The wall that you see is actually a dyke. There are sections that do open and you can walk out to a levee and right now the water is right at the edge of the levee and rising. I suppose they shut the section when it gets too high. All along the wall is the history in pictures of Cape Girardeau. It is called the Mississippi River Tales. The other wall further down is pictures of famous people from Missouri. I have to say it is very unique. The town of Cape Girardeau is right there on the river and the town looks like it is either abandoned or on a resurgence. Hard to tell. Lots of empty business'.

We are leaving in the am for St Louis and if we get all the warranty work done on the coach in a couple days...we should be home by the end of the week. We think we might go to the lake first because so much of the groceries etc... came from the lake house when we started this trip.

I have two P.S.'s....

1. When President Bush came to New Orleans last Monday, we were in the traffic that was stopped and got to see his motorcade go by....exciting right???? Reminded me of the time he came down Hwy 52 and I saw him then too!

2. When we were in Memphis, some type of bird chirps in the night!!!! I couldn't believe it. Then, it stopped at sun rise. What bird does that????? Needless to say I didn't sleep very well there.

All for now.

April 24, 2008 Mud Island.....Memphis

OK, I said we were going to Mud Island today and we did!!!! However, do you see any pictures???? No, that is my husbands fault...he forgot the camera.
Mud Island was pretty cool. It was a place over the Mississippi that is just a little island that they did a 5 block mock-up of the Mississippi River. (Jane you would have loved this as a field trip except you would have been pulling wet feet out of the river all day!) They took the Mississippi and made made a model...to scale...of the Mississippi all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. They didn't show the river too much from Minnesota, Iowa or Missouri, but did talk about how it starts in Itasca and then comes down....they really did in detail the last 200 miles or so of the Mississippi. It kinds of started in Cape Girardeau (where we will be tomorrow) and Cairo, IL....then down to the Gulf. It show the depths, the rivers that run into it, the history along the river that formed the now existing river. It was very original and very interesting history of the Mississippi. The river is full down here and every drop of rain that is falling up your way will affect the rise and flow of the river down here.
Basically we did nothing today until we went there....it rained until 2:30 this afternoon.
I am going to get our "fried chicken fix"....not sure if it will be KFC or what.???
Will catch up in Cape Girardeau.

Wednesday April 23, 2008 Memphis, Tennessee

Sun recording studio where Elvis was discovered.
Peabody Hotel...the crossing of the ducks.
Graceland
Elvis' grave
Elvis' airplane "Lisa Marie"
Beale Street

We had a busy day. First, we toured Graceland. We have lots of pictures of the inside if anyone is interested...let me know. Too many to put on the blog. We then, toured his airplane and the museum. Then we took a bus out to Sun Records to see the place Elvis first recorded a song and was discovered by Sam Phillips. The studio is now a historic building so is exactly as it was when he recorded. After that we took the bus down to Beale Street. Had a "big ass beer" and listened to some jazz. We also saw the Gibson guitar store...Jane, they had Baldwin pianos in there that were blue and one that was bright red! Wonder how much they got for those?

After we got home we decided to go eat bar-b-q ribs and ended up at Marlowe's and it was pretty good. We both had a hankering for ribs.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot...when we were downtown we went to the Peabody Hotel because they have these ducks that swim in a little pond/fountain inside the hotel. The deal is, at 11:00 each am the duck master goes up to the elevator to ? floor where the ducks are swimming....and he leads them out of that pond, to the elevator, down to the pond in the bar/lobby area. At 5:00 each evening the duck master comes back and leads the ducks back into the elevator to the other pool for the night. John said he saw this on the travel channel. It was hilarious. You might have to zoom in on that picture to see it better. I thought they were so cute!

Tomorrow we are going out to Mud Island. I will let you know what it is when I see it.