After waiting for the weekly Texas Severe Thunderstorm to move through our area ... we finally pulled up stakes and headed out of New Braunfels, TX on April 18th -- heading north on I-35. The original plan was to make it to someplace east of Dallas on I-30, but that plan changed as the weather was still pretty lousy up near Dallas and the wind was pretty strong as well. Having had enough for the day we pulled in for the night at North Crest RV Park in Waco, TX. The RV park was certainly nothing special but it was owned and operated by one of those "characters" you meet along the road in the RV lifestyle - RV Park Mark as he called himself is an ex-trucker, drummer, hippee from the 60s - full of stories and one interesting guy to talk to. And he does like to talk! He went out of his way to find us a spot for the night in a basically full RV Park ... so that was special as well.
We drove for the next several days with relatively nice weather stopping in Texarkana, TX, Forrest City, AR, and Nashville, TN on our way to Crossville, TN where we visited once again with friends Darrell and Judy Patterson before continuing our trek home.
The next leg of our trip home led us to Clarksboro, NJ and a visit with the NJ Evringhams. It was great seeing Brian, Nicky, Alyssa, and Emily as always. It also brought back memories of our busy lives back in the days we had teenagers -- on the go all the time! Actually, Alyssa was just finishing her 1st year in college at Stockton University and Emily was completing her Freshman year in High School. Exciting times!
We finished up our trip home after an overnight once again at the Mohegan Sun Casino. We took advantage of their free overnight parking, walked about the casino without gambling, but did partake of their very good buffet for dinner. Good food ... but it certainly was more expensive than the casino buffets out west in the Carson City and Reno areas!
We made it home on April 29th after 39 days on the road. Kind of a short trip for a Winter/Spring getaway ... but we were glad to be home -- as always. Along our way we stayed at 17 RV parks (some twice) and only 3 new places. I guess we tend to travel many of the same roads - and have our "favorite" places to stay. Some are favorites because we like the park/people ... some are favorites because they are located in convenient places. One thing I can say for sure ... they aren't getting any less expensive!
We unloaded most of the "stuff" from the motorhome but not everything since we had one more little excursion planned the following week ... this time to northern Vermont for a couple of days to watch grandson Bailey graduate from Norwich University. We had a busy/fun couple of days and it was a new experience watching kids graduate from America's oldest private military University. Many of those kids went on to accept Commissions in the armed forces the day after graduation but Bailey is moving on to life in the civilian world using his new Construction Management Degree (Summa Cum Laude by the way) ... congratulations to Bailey and family!
Our end of winter/spring trip added some 4,607 miles to WTT's odometer bringing her total up to 30,600 miles over the past 3 years. WTT continues to run well with only the occasional small issue to deal with here and there. She averaged around 9.5 miles per gallon of $3.00 (average) per gallon diesel fuel.
As is typical - we have been really busy these past few weeks getting everything back to "normal" around here. Getting WTT ready to be stored, getting all the antique motorcycles and car out of storage, putting away the winter stuff and getting out the summer stuff. Not to mention getting the latest restored motorcycle out of the basement and ready for its first test drive. Bye the way - that 1967 Yamaha YCS1 180 cc "Bonanza" runs great!
Now it's time to sell a few of those bikes and thin the herd!
I don't expect things to slow down much over the next few months. But then -- that's Maine in the summer ... "The Way Life Should Be!"
