Our next stop was to visit a Harvest Host in Atlanta, Illinois, specializing in producing and marketing various chocolate delicacies.  Yum!  We had no problem supporting this host.

No midnight raids permitted...

As many of you know, Wendy is a major pig person.  This Harvest Host is a "swinery".  The host has KuneKune pigs...lots of them.  The Mkono farm is in Bloomington, Indiana.  You can visit ​https://mkonofarm.com/ for more information.  Wendy was in Hog Heaven!!!

For some reason these little guys would not leave Wen's ankles alone.  They kept knibbling away, nothing serious...just tickles:)

This fawn showed up and followed Amanda's dog around.

Check out this video from the "swinery" :)

This beautiful cat is in charge of mouse keeping (instead of house keeping....sorry, couldn't resist :) )

The rally went way too fast!  It was sad in that everyone went their own way but exciting that we were all starting a new journey :)  We stopped at a distillery, a "swinery" and now are at a candy factory for the night.  All 3 are connected with Harvest Hosts, the largest collection of small business campsites in North America.  There are over 6,000 hosts across the country.  Usually no charge to spend the night but you're expected to buy something from their list of products.  No water or electricity, usually, is provided which makes it boondocking time.  Soooo.....it wasn't very difficult to find items to buy at the distillery, swinery (brats and salami) and the candy factory.  I think it would have been much cheaper to have used a regular campground but then we would miss out on so many wonderful experiences.

Over 100 trailers and 230+ people were at the rally and we shared an opening night meal together.

Vendors and group discussions help everyone with answers to problems.

Our most excellent CGI team, minus Colin, taking a lunch break :)

We did have a couple jam sessions to enjoy.  The weather just didn't cooperate.

Of course the weather didn't bother these guys!

An overnight stop at a distillery exposed my ignorance concerning all things bourbon. 

We took a short trip to Hohenwald, TN for a little repair work on our air conditioner.  Then on to Tunica, MS for 2 nights.  It was the first time another traveler had taken "our spot".  They put us in the north 40 so to speak.  We washed clothes and vehicles.  Naturally, that brought the rain.

We made it to Lake Guntersville, AL for the Oliver rally only to find out major electrical work was underway on our campsite.  We were fortunate to find another site.  This place gets pretty busy, especially on Mother's day weekend.  BTW...happy Mother's Day!!!

We'll be here for a week and will post some pictures of the rally soon.

​www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz5YnJjGvbA

Peoples Creek campground is on Wappapello Lake in southeast Missouri.

Our welcoming committee!  Seemingly 4 happy dogs, until we got close...2 of them turned into gremlins :)

On our 3 mile hike today...

6 Miles this day, Wen poses with Ranger Willie B. Safe :)

Today we finished off our 3 days of hiking with a 7+ mile excursion.  This picture is of the pass under a road that leads to a campground that has been closed for a while due to wind damage from severe storms.  A very hilly and challenging walk!

As you can see, this campground has a ways to go before it reopens.

Wen and I enjoy a brief respite to let knees and hips recuperate before continuing on.

A video from our campsite.

So much has happened in the past 2 weeks.  We left the Outer Banks 2 weeks ago.  We went back to SC for a quick visit with my Dermatologist to have some additional surgery.  Margins were all fine...so thankful for that!  Dr. Wendy removed the stitches 10 days later...all looks good.  We had a chance to be with our Via de Cristo group and share a couple of hours together.  We talk most every Thursday morning from all parts of the country.  They like to wake us up when we're on Mountain and Pacific time.  :)
We rushed back out to Tunica for a couple of days and the plan was to meet up with friends at Mt View, Arkansas.  I had to go to an ER in Memphis, TN, for problems with my blood pressure.  A few tests revealed nothing and the likely culprit was dehydration.  A call back to my SC doctor resulted in a new prescription for me and I'll follow up with a virtual visit in a couple of weeks.
We met Dwaine and Nancy in Mt. View and stayed 3 nights at an RV park there.  It was very quiet and relaxing.  We enjoyed good food and music.  It was a wonderful time we'll always remember.
A quick trip to Garfield, AR to get our ice cream fix and off to where we are now...Lampe, MO.  It's beautiful here by the lake and the weather has been wet and cool, but we've been able to squeeze in our daily walks.
​I'll post all the pictures in this one blog entry so as to "catch up".

In line for the long ferry ride back to the mainland.

A quick trip to Costco in Mt. Pleasant, SC, to stock up on paper towels :)

One night at a Cracker Barrel in Adairsville, GA, and we're back in Tunica, MS.

Wendy decided to wander from the established trail and the scenery was worth it.  However, you do have to keep your eyes open...

3 days later we're in Mt View AR,

This was a cool little music store.  I ended up swapping my hard guitar case for a soft case.  It is so much lighter and I have a lot more room in the closet now :)

Dwaine is enjoying Nancy's progress with a dulcimer :)

A much needed rest after a testy walk up a long and steep stairway to the visitor center.  I won't say who suggested we attempt such a climb but I will tell you his initials are....DWAINE! 

It's great to see the young ones jump right in and play.

This was a good group of musicians.  They joined together for this last song and I heard a very good bass voice that I hadn't heard all night, yet there was no-one added.  I looked and looked during the song to see who had the bass voice and could not see him.  I had to ask Wendy.  Well, SHE is the second from the right holding the guitar.  I've never heard a lady sing bass.  She has a wonderful contralto voice and I was stunned :)

Ice cream fix in Garfield, AR.  Believe it or not, I went back for seconds...a much smaller chocolate one.  I had to sample the chocolate to see which one I'll get next time through.  Chocolate it will be! 

Now in Mill Creek COE park in Lampe, Missouri.

A little laundromat humor before we go :)

The computer is fixed (for the moment).  I really appreciate YouTube!!!  You'll notice some subtle changes as I tried to fix a lot of mistakes I made with my fat fingers using Wendy's tablet.

We left Nags Head during some pretty windy weather...gale force winds and cool temps.  It was our first ferry with both trailer and truck.  It was an hour and a half ride.  We thought it nice we were at the front of the line as the view was great, but didn't reckon on all the salt spray from the gale force winds.  The other bad reason for being at the front of the line I'll explain a little later.

It was his first trip out and very evident he was not a happy camper :)

This ride was 1 1/2 hours long.  A straight line to our destination would have taken about 15 minutes but many sandbars and obstacles had to be negotiated.

After landing at Okracoke, I found the second reason to avoid being first in line!  We were first off and leading the pack down the only road to town, some several miles away.

I wished this fellow had been down the road sooner, he would have scraped a pretty good sized sand dune out of my way before I hit it at 50 mph!  I think we were slightly airborne for a moment.  No damage...yay.  And no flipped shackles...yay!

We've moved to 4 different spots in 6 days.  And decided to extend for 2 more days and 1 more move.  A lot of people travel through and we had to piece-meal through reservations to find unreserved spots.  It has been well worth it!

This lies 150 yards away from us, on the other side of a large sand dune.  Very beautiful :)  Nice sounds to sleep with every night!

Below is a short test video...

I'm fearful of my mental recall of the past few days' events, so here goes.  I'm finding out my fingers are really NOT compatible with touch screens.

​After leaving Ft Fisher we made our way to Oregon Inlet in Nags Head, NC.  Naturally we found an icecream establishment but picked up a hitch-hiker along the way.

Thanks, Connie, he likes ice cream as much as I do!

This was a very nice park and we could only stay 1 night because it stays full.

We visited a local restaurant, on the beach, and took these pictures, below, of thousands and thousands of migrating cormorants (I think that's what they were).  They paraded by for about 45 minutes.

The highlight of the day was when we saw this couple on the beach.  Wendy said " He's going to propose".  I mildly gave another explanation for what we were seeing.  Sure enough....he got down on one knee and we witnessed the blessed event from the restaurant deck.  As soon as were were confident she said yes, as captured by our camera, we stood and cheered :)

​​We're in Okracoke, NC and my computer's video card just crashed.  My brother-in-law, Tom, warned me about these Samsung computers.  Wendy's touch screen tablet raises my blood pressure so I'll wait until we get back to civilization and get another laptop.  Stay tuned for my next post about this place.  It should be pretty interesting!

We headed for Fort Fisher next.  We have been touring the area and discovered quite a bit about this fort and it's significant role during the Civil War.  We took a ferry to Southport and did some touring there as well.  It's quite scenic and relaxing.

Of course, we started out this adventure finding a place to eat along the beach.  This "Taco Joint" is owned by our dear friend Griff's nephew.  Griff was with us at Gregg's retirement.  The food was fantastic and the views...great! 

These 2 guys were a little close to our dinner!  We had to send them on their way...

The second day we caught a ferry to Southport and toured like tourists :)  This ferry was the first we have taken our truck on.  The ferry pilot maneuvered the boat flawlessly. 

Spud was pretty good with his photo bomb as we waited to load.

A short 25 minutes later we offloaded. 

We found Fort Johnston.  It stands on its original site.  Here is a link for a lot of interesting information.  ​

A grocery store display included some interesting items.

We didn't go inside this building...we'll wait for the proper season :)

Lunch time at a local, and very popular, restaurant.  The food was very, very tasty!

We finished up the day with a visit to the original Fort Fisher.

We'll be on our way to Nags Head, on the Outer Banks, tomorrow.

From his days at the Citadel to retirement, time has passed way too quickly!  Gregg had a highly distinguished and successful career, often the best of the best at everything he did.  He has a wonderful family and a very bright future with his fledgling business.  We were honored to be invited to his ceremony and to see him grow over the years.  We arrived a few days ahead of time to reacquaint with old friends and play several rounds of golf.

This enormous 18 hole putting green was such a blast.  The putting green won the battle on this day!  We were next to the many golf courses in Pinehurst.  Gregg's ceremony was at the massive clubhouse/ballroom next to Pinehurst #2, site of several US Open Golf Championships.

This fellow wanted to join us but he was such a slow player, we dropped him like a hot potato :)

This was a good tasting cake...yum!

With Gregg's home in the background, many joined in the fun and Veston cooked, I don't know how many, hamburgers and hot dogs.  Missy (Gregg's wife) made baked beans that were "to die for".  I must get the recipe!

Father and son competing against each other.  I can tell you the "old guys" won and since Gregg has now joined the retired ranks, I'll let you guess who the "old guys" were.
​Sometimes this blogging is fun :)

It's been a while since my last post, again.  After leaving Texas, we sped home, but not quite as fast as this...

We went straight to Tunica,MS, and played a little golf.

After all the many times we have been here we finally got a couple of small golf bags to carry half a set of clubs so that we could carry them along with us.

Although not a spectacular scoring round, we did manage to par the hole we've looked out over the countless times we've stopped here.  You can see how close we park to the golf course.  That's our little "egg" in the background :)
We stayed only for a couple of days and then skedaddled back to SC.

This fellow tried to squeeze in, and succeeded, but backed out after realizing we couldn't open our trailer door.  He definitely knew how to maneuver his rig!  This was at a Cracker Barrel in Abilene TX, on our way to Tunica. 

Back in Tunica this $48,000, steel structured, canvas covered, shelter was built in 2 days for an upcoming convention to accommodate 400 people.  Amazing!!!

We went on to Gwyn and Veston's for a week, then to North Carolina for their oldest son's (Gregg) retirement from the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

Our next stop was in Veterans Memorial Park.  It's pretty much just a ballpark with lots of parking space.  But it was free!

Chick and I used his new metal detector to search beneath the bleachers.  My first ever found treasure by a metal detector....a dime :)

We had to leave Kathy and Chick and head back towards SC.  We hope to meet again at the upcoming music rally in Grapeland, TX.

On the way here we thought we were ready for this roundabout, but the first exit was pretty much a U turn that threw us off guard.  No worries, we met the challenge with another success!

Maybe this road-runner influenced our luck.

This was Dream Catchers Escapee Park, Deming, New Mexico.  Escapees are a group we are members of.  We hunkered down for some very windy conditions and didn't do much here.  

We were on our best behavior since we parked next to the "Death Star"!!!!

We had not been to Coronado, close to Douglas AZ, so we stopped by the ranger station to get some info since the forest? (minus the trees, in our area) was a very large wilderness area with dispersed camping.  The problem is finding wilderness areas not on private land.  After talking to 2 rangers for quite some time we were still confused about where to go as the rangers had never been to the places they told us to go.  They did, however, tell us where we should not attempt to go because of road conditions and elevation changes.  We ended up traveling down a very rough and narrow dirt road for a while until we determined we were lost.  A friendly young man stopped to help us with directions.  We turned around, quite a feat by the way, and headed back to take another turnoff and ended up deciding to stay put for the night since the turnoff led us on another road that seem impassable for our rigs.

Making room on these roads for others to pass by was difficult.  And this was a wide spot :)

Another lame selfie attempt by me... us with Kathy and Chick next to "Wallace".

See what I mean by "minus the trees"?

Upon further study of our map this morning we determined that we spent the night on private property and did not make the park boundary.  I think this happens frequently.  No problems...this time.

On the way to Coronado our travels took us very close to the Mexican border.  We took some shots of the wall.  You can see the flags off in the distance.

It's been a fast 3 weeks since my last post.  We had a great time in Quartzsite AZ, followed by fireworks in Lake Havasu City Rodeo Campground AZ, Yuma AZ, Painted Rock in Dateland AZ and now back in Benson, AZ.  We'll be headed for a retirement ceremony in North Carolina, a music rally in Texas, a trailer rally in Alabama, and back out west for a wedding in Las Vegas....all by mid June!!!!  Then ....who knows :)

We met these travelers at a rest stop on the way to Quartzsite.  The trailer they were towing was bigger than the trailer we live in!!

Not much out here but miles and miles of desert.

We had a respectable audience for our jam sessions.

The Super Bowl was a stones throw away and we caught the blimp on its way back from the game.

Our dear friends, Chick and Kathy, introduced us to the art of panning for gold,  THERE'S GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS !!!!!!

After a week or so at the "Q" we left for Lake Havasu City for a few days to watch fireworks.  There were many big businesses and entities there watching the newest fireworks developed during the past year.

Here we are parked next to "Wallace"... Kathy and Chick's trailer.

Photo Bomb :) 


Believe it or not....London Bridge is in Lake Havasu City.  It just doesn't look the same as I saw it in London, GB.

We next left for Yuma, AZ, to escape a winter storm with 60 mph winds forecast.

We had to actually drive into California when we left Yuma.  It's a good thing I didn't need gas!

BP has found a new friend.  These roosters and chickens just meander throughout the campground.  I think their sleeping hours are between 2 and 3 AM!

Next up was Gila Bend, AZ

There were many stones piled up with petroglyphs on them.

The sun dogs are out....bad weather headed this way.  Time to move on to Benson, AZ.

I reckon Benson was not far enough away!

Wendy checked our route for the day first thing this morning.  Albuquerque was experiencing heavy snow so we made other plans to the south.  We got underway just when snow began to fall...we didn't see that coming.  These weather people :(  Sheese! Louise! It wasn't all that bad for the next 200 miles or so, but did again made a mess of our truck and trailer. 

We did get to enjoy some beautiful views.

We found a Cracker Barrel in Las Cruces, NM, and settled in for the night.

We're very sad leaving Tess and Harold but are glad the weather improved enough to escape Oklahoma.  They are gracious and wonderful friends, and Tess is too good of a cook to be around for very long, as evidenced by the added strain on my belt...no photos!!!  (Harold cooks a pretty mean steak as well).  The very cold temps, sleet, and freezing rain will not be missed.  

It was very foggy when we left so we took it slow down the road.  Connie, take a closer look at this photo.  It's a little fuzzy back at the trailer :) 

We took off for DD RV park, one mile from Texas, a place we've never been.  Just off the highway and it's not a bad park, just no-one around this time.  Very clean and well kept up.

Next morning we left for Santa Rosa Lake State Park, NM.  And for the record.....wait for it.....we made Amarillo by morning.  George Strait would be proud of that accomplishment.  :)

This park is very nice, and quiet.  We hope to stop here again and spend a few days as there are quite a few hiking opportunities.  But we're trying to make it to "Q" asap!  We'll have another very cold night tomorrow in Gallup, NM. 

EVERY time I wash the truck or trailer it rains!  This time it's freezing rain.  We may be staying put for a while at Harold and Tess's.

We'll keep you posted :)

Pulling out of last night's camp site this morning I knew something was not quite right.  I got out and looked around the trailer in the cold winter rain and did not see anything wrong, so we trekked on to our destination some 300 miles away.  All along I just knew there was something different.  The gas mileage was a little worse off by about 1 1/2 mpg and things just sounded and felt a little off.  I blew the poorer mileage off because of rather stiff north west headwinds and hilly countryside.  I just couldn't put my finger on it until we arrived at out destination, pulled up onto a relatively level concrete pad and Wendy says " wow, this right side really needs to come up" during our leveling process.  We looked around and indeed the left side was quite a bit higher than the right.  Then we started looking around and found one of the suspension parts was different than the other side.  We remember someone driving from Florida to last year's Oliver rally had experienced a failure of the suspension on one side and remember the effort it took to remedy the situation.  We're in Wetumka, OK and immediately thought "well, who's going to help us out here, in the middle of nowhere?"  First reach out was to Oliver via a service ticket followed by a phone call shortly afterwards to Oliver's service department.  Hannah is an Angel!!!!  We thought this problem was going to be a nightmare.  Hannah calmly told us she had seen this problem on occasion and told us that an axle part had flipped over and the fix was to lower the nose to the ground and it would flip back.  Keeping Hannah on the phone we tried the suggested action to no avail.  Rats!  She said try jacking up the nose instead.  We did.  The axle part was starting to move and Hannah warned us of a loud snap.  And the snap was loud, and the trailer shook, and the trailer was level again!!!!!!!!!  YAY HANNAH!!!!!!!!!!  We had hit a very large bump in the road on the way to our previous stop; big enough to scrape the flap under the bumper of our tow vehicle.  We are very thankful it was an easy fix.

Supposed to look like this.

"Shackle flip" they call it.  I called it something else.......

We took off from AR for OK and probably should have waited a while longer.  We canceled our visit to the ice cream shop as it snowed very hard on that part of the state.  We took  a more southern route to Harold and Tess's but didn't know what to expect there.  The roads were fine until we got to their turnoff.  We took a 1 mile trip down this snow covered gravel and muddy  road.

Yikes....should we try this next hill?  It was pretty muddy in the turn and quite a climb around the bend.  No place to turn around!  Maintained a steady speed and did not step much on the gas pedal as we made the short climb.  Success!!!

You can probably see the muddy tracks at the start of the climb.  They probably had 4 wheel drive...we didn't!  But we made it :)

Keeping our rig somewhat clean was NOT a success :(

Things were all fixed on the trailer yesterday around 2PM so we decided to stay put for the night at the Oliver campground since it was a 4 to 5 hour journey to Tunica.  We figured to just leave in the morning and shave off a day from our visit there.  Well......at 0230 I was awakened to intermittent lights around the inside of the trailer and our furnace going on and off as if we had electrical issues.  The furnace started blowing cold air and finally shut itself down a few minutes later.  Then it would not come back on...grrr!!!  Not to worry, we have an electric space heater we pulled out of the basement and survived the night.  25 degree temps are not all that bad so no ice jams this time.  Service ticket submitted right away but, of  course, it's Friday night and Oliver is closed on weekends.  So we'll wait to see them Monday and cut out our trip to Tunica and head over to friends in Oklahoma instead....of course that will take us right by the "worlds tallest ice cream" station again :)  Good plan!!!!!!
After much internet research I found the thermostat to be the culprit and will not attempt a simple fix as Oliver's service department needs to know what happened.  We are only the second retrofit for this air-conditioner and the new thermostat has a design flaw they need to be aware of for other's future retrofits.

This on/off switch moves the metal arm away from a contact to open the circuit and shut off the furnace.  The on position allows the metal arm to return and make contact with a post behind it.  The flaw is in the switch being too hard to operate and I'm not going to bust it. Period.  How it worked in the shop is beyond my comprehension and I'll let Oliver come up with the fix.  Someone on the web camphored the edge of the switch to allow contact in the on position so they won't have to put so much force on it.  A $30 thermostat is going to delay us a couple more days.  On the bright side the campsite is free to us and then there's ice cream involved!!! :)

Or something like that.  We're still in Hohenwald staying at Meriweather's Retreat, a bed and breakfast owned and operated by the best hostess this side of the Mississippi... Melissa.  We left this afternoon to pick up "Bessie" at the mother ship, but a minor problem arose with the maintenance and kind, sweet, Melissa took us back in on a moments notice...free of charge!  What a blessing!  We're scheduled to pick up Bessie sometime tomorrow morning and will leave from there bound for Tunica, MS.  More to follow....with pictures :)

Years ago Wendy's nephews were tasked by their teachers to create a flat Stanley, a hand drawn and cutout caricature, to give out or mail to friends and family.  The purpose was to have the recipients photograph and catalog places Flat Stanley visited and Thomas and John would give a report to their teachers and classmates.  That was 15 to 20 years ago.  I can't locate any pictures of Flat Stanley but I do have a picture of the home he retired to.

This past Christmas Wen's sister Connie, their mother, hosted our annual gathering and we exchanged our gifts via a white elephant exchange.  This fellow oversaw the event and we were allowed to carry him around the country with us on our adventures this year.  Connie called and suggested we carry BP (Blanco Pachyderm....get it? :) ) and take an occasional picture with him in it.  So, whenever you see BP in the corner of a picture you will know what's going on :) 

We are in Hohenwald, TN to get our annual maintenance done, yes it's been a year, to our trailer.  We happened upon this organization and learned it is a sanctuary for retired elephants from various zoos and circuses. They are sent to a 5000 acre parcel of land to "retire", away from human contact, and enjoy the rest of their lives in the wild.  Pretty cool!!!  It's a couple of miles from Hohenwald and not open to the public.  Several live cameras are running 24/7 and can be viewed at ​https://elephants.com/

Seems I made this mistake once before with the oil filler cap as noted back in my September 2021 post.  This time with the coolant tank cap...grrr!  And just minutes before we were to leave on our next 9 month adventure.  I was in luck this time when I noted a single "clunk" as it disappeared into the dark, cavernous engine pit.  A few minutes of searching produced my prized cap and we were on our way to Lake Hartwell, SC, where we holed up for the next 3 days.

Back into the cold weather...