Here is a very nice sunrise in Kilgore, Texas, as we were getting the RV ready last Wednesday morning for the run to College Station. The Shallow Creek park there was excellent and quite full. I think they had been voted the number one in Texas, by several rating organizations and it was obvious. Nice paved streets and concrete pads all with 50 amp power. The lots were quite wide as well so that you weren't right on top of your neighbor.



After Kilgore, we headed the 190 miles through east Texas down to College Station where Bruce's parents live. We contracted with the local Holiday RV Park to park the Flying Scotsman for three nights to sort things out before putting it into the garage.

I said I would talk about the transition of getting the stuff out of the RV and into our new house ... well! We arrived to about 86 degrees and 90 percent humidity and parked the bus in front of the house to onload. We just about died from heat stroke in the process of moving the ton of junk into the garage ... had no idea how much was in that machine that needed to come out and be sorted! Whew. Once the bulk of the stuff was in the garage, we parked the RV at the park for the next couple of days. Thursday Bruce washed the exterior and Jo-Anne cleaned the inside from stem to stern. By that night we were tired puppies. Friday we finished up the cleaning effort while gradually moving into our new place.

And Saturday we moved the Flying Scotsman to its new home after so many months on the road. Here's the garage in Bryan about a mile from where we live where we'll keep it out of the sun for a while.


And the interior of the facility which will give us time and space to do some minor maintenance and cleaning and updating that had been ignored while on the road.

Today it was a picture perfect Texas Chamber of Commerce day in the high 70s with very low humidity ... super!

Now we've been to see y'all for the last year or so, so it is time for you to come and visit us during the nice Texas winter ... stay tuned for the next adventure.

OK, text time.

Right now we are in an RV park in Kilgore, Texas. YES the home state! Last night we stayed in a Jellystone Park in Pelahatchie, MS .... yup, go look that one up. Really first rate kid place with a multi-million dollar infrastructure.

Today we filled up for $2.98 a gallon in Pelahatchie ... not bad. After an average of $5.18 or so in Canada, we paid $3.98 through Vermont, NY, and into Virginia, so the latest is pretty good. With our tail wind today and the smooth roads I would estimate we were getting close to 10 miles per gallon.

We have over 16,000 miles on the bus right now and it still is performing superbly. The last couple of days of travel have been our longest of around 350 miles per day. I just set the cruise on 70 MPH and have been passing the trucks pretty regularly ... beautiful tail wind and smooth roads ... with a couple of exceptions. Through Meridian and Jackson there are a couple of pieces of road ... 30 miles total, that are absolutely bone jarring. We aren't sure why all the pieces of this machine stayed together, with each crash you expect the cieling, cupboards, walls, or whatever, to come unglued .... but it is good glue!

Anyhow, sad to say, but tonight is the last night in the "Flying Scotsman" for a bit. Tomorrow we will arrive in Bryan, Texas, and to the house we bought last May and have only lived in for a couple of weeks. We've contracted with the owner of a former cotton warehouse in Bryan who has converted it into storage for RVs to park the bus indoors for the winter. But, knowing us, that doesn't mean it will stay put for any extended period of time. We will run by the house and dump all the stuff out of the bus that we won't need in it, then go over to an RV park for a couple of days to clean out 16,000 miles of dirt and gunk and then park it in the warehouse. And I'll tell you about the transition from bus to house.

Please stay tuned as Jo-Anne is still talking about a bigger machine for us to travel in and we have only scratched the surface of places we have always wanted to see and experience.

On the 11th of October we landed in Atlanta; Smyrna to be correct, to attend the wedding of Meghan O'Brien, daughter of our long-time super-friends, Gred and Char O'Brien. The wedding took place in a very quaint little church northwest of central Atlanta.

Here is son Patrick walking proud Mom, Char, down the aisle. Patrick is a very sucessful lawyer in Dallas and was born a month before our daughter Leigh, and Char and Jo-Anne slogged through their pregnancies together in Tucson, Arizona, in 1976.

And proud pappa, Greg, with daughter Meghan. Because of the slowness and inexperience of the photographer, we didn't get any decent pics of Meghan and Christopher, the groom, but he is a tall, handsome guy that any father would be happy to have as a son-in law.

The following reception was very nice and the music and dancing great. We don't know who picked the music selection but it was a nice blend of stuff, most favoring us oldsters, including the "YMCA" number which got Jo-Anne and Char off the bench and dancing with the 20-somethings. Fun time.

After our wonderful visit to the Fredericksburg area we motored down the coast and took a right turn toward Asheville, NC. In Asheville, of course, is the Biltmore Estate, a must see which we have wanted to do for many, many years. A little dark and a bit of rain, but the estate and "house" are awesome.

There are miles of trails and paths and the scenery with the fall foliage was really special.

The tour of the main house, where we weren't allowed pictures, was very well done and about an hour long. It rivaled the Hurst mansion on the west coast in splendor and size. It also reminded me of the Neuschwanstein castle of King Ludwig in Germany as well ... absolute unlimited money to create a living environment ... wow!

For a lunch break in the stable next to the main house we ate in one of the former stalls ... don't think there was any horse meat on the menu though. Really nice lunch, well served, with very patient and professional staff rivaling a fine restaurant.

Then we went to the vinyard and farm ... still on the estate, but about 4 miles from the main house, and had a tour of the wine making facility and caves. Here's my favorite "wine cellar queen." Actually these cellar caves were used for the storage of milk on the estate long before the popularity of the wine.

Ahhh ... so many bottles and so little time ... !

After Gettysburg, we headed down to another "burg", Fredericksburg, VA, where we were hosted by an old friend from our Montgomery, Alabama and Civil Air Patrol days in 1992 or 1993, Sandy Rose.

Sandy is an anti-terroism expert who has worked overseas for the State department in developing programs for state leaders to combat terrorism. Because of her language skills she also conducts English writing seminars on her own and is starting a company to do more of that type of training. Here's Sandy and Jo-Anne in Sandy's place in downtown Fredericksburg.

She has a really sharp new condo right in the downtown of Fredericksburg from where we walked to a wonderful restaurant on the riverfront the first night there. The weather and view from the balcony of the restaurant couldn't have been better. Either the kayak person was really fast or the photographer was a bit slow ... don't know .... but this was the view from our table ... awesome!

The next night we drove a short bit to another fine place for the obligatory wine toast.

Sandy is a good friend who is doing super work for us all and we are already ready to come back here!

On October 3rd we arrived in Gettysburg and settled into a pretty good park nearby. The Drummer Boy RV Park ... hey I didn't name it ... was a really good park, even though we were in the deep woods. Then we headed off for the memorial. This place is awesome!

We have never been here and it is a must see for any American. We first headed for the visitor center where they have movies and a superb museum ... with its own movies. It is all brand new and very well done. We spent about an hour getting the perspective on this conflict that pitted us against each other with over 300,000 being killed in the process.

After the museum and visitor center we headed out for the driving tour which took about an hour. There are several hundred monuments and the vistas are preserved for you to imagine the view for either Grant's or Lee's forces on that fatal battlefield. I have read a lot about the war but until you are here and look at the actual battlefields, can you appreciate the logistics and command view of the battle. Here is Lee's view of Seminary Ridge as he ordered Longstreet and Pickett to attack. Between here and the single trees in the distance 4,000 men died and over 12,000 were wounded, many who would die later.

Tonight we are in Asheville, NC, but after we departed the Boston area we stopped in NY and then near Gettysburg, VA.



After Gettysburg, we stayed a couple of nights in Fredericksburg, VA.



In both of these places we took a bunch of pics and as soon as I get a decent computer hookup I will post them. From the time we entered NC we have been plagued by poor computer reception, either with the ATT data card or WiFi, bad TV reception, and really bad phone connection. Hopefully all this will improve as we leave the state.

While still in the Boston area, we were treated by Virginia and Colin to a trip over to Cape Ann which so typifies what you would expect of the northeast fishing industry. We went to Gloucester and Rockport and it was beautiful.

We took a picnic lunch over to the marina where their sailboat is moored expecting to do some sailing, but the wind was pretty strong and it was cool so we scrapped the sail for more touring of Cape Ann. Here is their boat at the marina.

And while we dutifully followed the leaders on the quest for more spectactular photo opportunities, sometimes the old guys had to do some serious rock work.

But the sailing and fishing images are awesome and only available in this part of the country!

In the Boston area, particularly Wayland, my cousin Virginia and her husband Colin were our hosts. You may remember them from the reunion we attended in Saugatuck, Michigan in August. Here is their home on a very beautiful treed lot.

During the visit we went over to an excellent continuing care facility to have lunch with Virginia's mom who is 95 and still living in one of the independant cottages with very little care needed. In the picture are Margaret, her daughter Virginia, and Virginia's daughter Jennifer's boys, Graham and Andrew; what a span of generations!

Also during the visit we had dinner at Jennifer and Eric's home which isn't far from Virginia's. Here are the planners discussing how to best guide our touring plans for the next couple of days.

We arrived in the outskirts of Boston and found a place to park the RV at the Hanscom AFB Famcamp, after one scary attempt to go under a 12 foot bridge with our 12.5 foot bus, which is in the city of Bedford, Mass. This is about 10 miles from my cousin, Virginia's place in Wayland and about 5 miles from Concord, where this country was born. We toured the North Bridge in Concord in the picture below ... good guys on the right and bad guys (red coats) on the left and were immersed and impressed with the history of this place.

The national park historic site and the interpretive center were very well done and the mulitmedia presentation was one of the best I have ever seen ... really brings the Revolution to life! This is just a small representation of what the center had, and the rest of the place was extremely well done..

And the colors on the grounds as we walked were absolutely the finest ... it is really fall!

On the 29th of September, after leaving Jim Gunn's place in Vermont, we headed east toward his sister's place in Wayland, Mass. To do that was a really nice day's drive across Mass on route 2 which reached 2000 feet at one point and the veiw was really spectacular.

Shortly after the peak we stopped for lunch at a small roadside park. We always have to be sure the place has turning room for the Flying Scotsman as well as a level place to have lunch. We also like to use the microwave for lunch sometimes and that requires the generator and that sometimes, other than truckstops, might offend, so we have to be careful. But we had this place to ourselves and it was pretty colorful.

And of course for the many tourists that frequent this route, the schmultz that sells .... ya gotta have the Indian ...

Sometimes it is hard to catch up as we are on the move but tonight we are in Florida, New York ... yup, look that one up right now on your atlas right now.

But getting here has been wonderful! On the 27th and 28th of September we were the guests of my cousin Jim and his wife Betsy on what is one of the the most picturesque pieces of property in this country. Here's the entrance to his place in Sandgate, Vermont. They have 450 acres here and everything you can see here is part of their property.

Here is Jim, who is the son of my father's brother, Lauren, and his wife, Betsy, with the gorgeous scenery behind them.

Standing at the top of their property, especially in the fall season, totally and wholly takes your breath away. Their house is the only structure you can see from here.

Very near their place in Sandgate, is the former home of Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham's son, who was a railroad magnate in Chicago and then retired here. The home and grounds are a treasure. Jim and Betsy were married in Lincoln's house here some 25 or so years ago.