Sunday and Monday nights we stayed at the Wright-Patterson AFB Famcamp as we have in the past as it is a really nice camp with full paving and fairly near base support facilities.

While there we met and had dinner with our long time friends, Greg and Char O'Brien. Of course neither of us thought to take the camera to dinner so I don't have a good recent shot of them. But if you look back to last October we were in Atlanta for the wedding of their daughter Meghan and we posted a bunch of photos of them then.

We ate at a really neat Italian restaurant ... I guess there is a theme here with Italian dinners ... called Brio in Beavercreek and it was excellent. I wish we could have spent more time with them but we need to keep moving toward Canada ... eh?

So today we headed north toward Michigan. We filled up with about 52 gallons of $1.91 gas in the morning, and then the weather appeared ominous on the radar before we departed ....

but as we went through it, it was one of the milder weather events we have endured with the Flying Scotsman. A little bit of rain and very little wind so easy sailing for about 320 miles to South Haven, Michigan. Yesterday in Dayton it was 85 and we were in short sleeves and today it is about 60 with a very cool, rainy wind ... what a difference. Here's the copilot and her helper as we navigate the trip to Michigan.

And then as we finally came to rest in South Haven at the Sunnybrook RV park where we stayed last August for our family reunion. The boys say they are really tired of this machine moving. Beautiful setting on a neat little lake or pond.

Staying at the Scott AFB Famcamp was great with a really private site in the woods and for $15 a night a super deal. Here's the view out the front window on Saturday morning. We were able to hit the BX and Commissary and restock the Flying Scotsman for at least a few weeks into the Canadian stay.

Saturday evening, the Sampsons came over to the RV site for happy hour and then we set off for one of their favorite restaurants in St. Louis. It was about a half hour drive to the west over to the city and in the evening their famous arch was really pretty.

We went over to the area in St. Louis called The Hill which is composed of many Italian restaurants, all of them excellent. Here we are with Ron and Jill after the super meal. Jill and I had the sea bass which was beyond excellent. This was a really fun evening with some wonderful old friends. Actually it was the Sampsons that got us started on our first European trip in 92 and created the traveling monsters we are.

Tonight we are comfortably tucked in under the tall trees on Scott AFB just to the east of Saint Louis, in Illinois. We will be with our friends Ron and Jill Sampson tomorrow, who live in Lebanon, IL, and Ron works with the USAF air transport aircraft here on Scott.

We had a 300 mile run down I-44 and it was very smooth with a fairly strong wind from the right side which was manageable. It's hot though at a balmy 87 degrees at 7 pm. We have only a 30 amp power source which prevents us from using two a/c units and the TV and computer, so you have to choose ... I know ... the perils of roughing it!

Here's the basic plan for the next few days. We'll leave here Sunday morning, the 26th and head toward Wright-Patterson AFB in Fairborn, OH. We'll be there Sunday and Monday nights, then heading north toward Michigan and friends in St. Joseph, where we'll be two nights. Then north to Lansing and eventually over to Canada by the 1st of May. The longer trips, ie around 400 miles usually preclude us seeing anyone that night because of RV duties and we stink, so we tend to stay two nights. On the shorter trips we can arrive in time to be sociable the first night. It also depends upon whether the place has full hookups or not ... sometimes making it a lot more work.

As I write this, we are now in Carthage, MO at the Coachlight RV Park and it is a hot 85 degrees at 8 PM. On our 388 mile trip up from Dallas today, it looked as though we were watching spring go backwards, in spite of the heat here. The trees are just starting to bud, whereas in Texas, spring is in full bloom.

Yesterday, though we we taken around Dallas and fortunately for us the traveling King Tut display was in Dallas, on loan from the Smithsonian, I think.

OK ... so I have two pictures of our son-in-law Brooks with the Tut display ... but I couldn't take pictures inside you know.

And here he is imitating the king himself.

In spite of what you see here, the event was awesome. It was hosted by the Dallas Museum of Art and was well handled and displayed. There were many rooms of the Tut artifacts from about 1350 BC that were nicely presented and explained. This is truly a must see if the artifacts come to your city. It is awesome to be able to walk up and look at a chair that is in excellent condition and could be for sale in a garage sale today and then you realize that it is over 5000 years old! There were a lot of personal items from his tomb and that of his family and it was well wort the visit.

It's nice to have an escort for our "oversized load" eh.

Actually we had just cut in front of a huge piece of machinery that took up both lanes ... but we appreciated being part of the convoy for a while.

On Tuesday, the 21st we took the RV to the Metro Ford Truck dealer in Irving to have them rotate the tires (no one near Bryan could do it) get a state inspection, and to look at the weak in-dash A/C which is a Ford warrantee item.


We got to the dealer at about 8:30 and waited for about an hour to have the right person look at our problems and tell us how long it would be. They said "later" which to me, in auto repair terms, always means, "after five" or however long we can stall. So we found a kennel to take the pets and then went over to Leigh's place.


We spent the day with her looking at potential condos to buy and potential business sites for their wedding photography business, as they are looking for a permanent studio separate from the current loft property.


We did retrieve the Flying Scotsman from Ford, with A/C repaired, a new state inspection, and the tires rotated ... all six of 'em, at about 6pm and battled the traffic back to the RV park ... 4 million people on the road at the same time. People aren't staying home in Dallas/Ft Worth! Here's the blogster with the electronic bug zapper, nuking about 100 gnats that penetrated our home while it sat open in the repair bay at the dealer.

On the road again!

Today we have taken the Flying Scotsman out of storage and set out for the summer run across North America. A couple of days ago, we brought it over to the house to start the configuration process for a 5-month road trip. The RV did sort of fit in the drive ... minus about five feet, eh. But we were able to put a lot of stuff in without going back and forth to the storage area. Kinda makes the house look small in this photo.

It has taken some thought to reconfigure for the different lengths of travel. Initially we had everything we owned in the RV for our first year and a half and that was great. Then, once we had the house, we cleaned it out and set it up for some shorter trips with the bare essentials. Now we have again set it up for the long haul and that was a bit of work this time.

It was exactly two years ago that Bruce retired from the Air Force and we got the RV and began our adventures ... wow, the time does fly!

And of course we had to celebrate Bruce's 64th birthday and his younger brother Bill's which was a month earlier, but he had just come over to College Station from California to see Mom and Dad and us of course. We went to dinner on Sunday at the Caffe Exccell on College Street, directly across from the University, and it was excellent as always. Here's the boys celebrating the birthday with a couple of presents. In that box to my right is a miniature remote control helicopter ... and now that I have started to use it it is great .... lot of crashes into the walls of the RV ... but a lot of fun ... and a really sophisticated little machine.

And then we got the Flying Scotsman out of storage for the summer, hooked it up to the obedient HR and hit the road.

And now we are in a park in Grand Prarie Texas just to the west of Dallas. It is the Trader's Village park and huge flea market site. Not much here now as I guess the booths are mostly open on the weekends, but a nice park with level concrete sites and good sat TV coverage ... ie, no trees. We are here to see our daughter Leighanne and son-in-law Brooks but tomorrow early we will take the bus to the local Ford dealer to check out the in-dash air conditioner and to rotate the tires ... aaah, home improvement.

It looks like we'll be here til Thursday morning when we head toward St Louis.

Last Thursday we went to the Messina Hof's monthly cooking class and this month it was Classic French. Before dinner the proprietor, Paul Bonarrigo, explained the class. This time he was in person, not the cardboard cutout. As we came in we had a nice glass of rose wine and cheese and crackers before sitting down.

The view from our table out toward the vineyard and a threatening sky.

Menu

Coquille St. Jaques w/Muscat Canelli wine

Watercress Soup w/Un-Oaked Chardonnay

Beef Bourguigon w/Barrel Reserve Pinot Noir

&

Creme Brulee w/Ivory Port of Call

For each course the chef would explain the ingredients and then cook an individual portion in front of us. When he finished, the kitchen would then bring out the food for the 25 or so of us. Here he is explaining the seafood appetizer.

And then slicing up the scallops and crab meat .... ummmm.

And last, but certainly not least, the blowtorch act with the creme brulee.

All absolutely first rate and well presented!

Today was "Chamber of Commerce" weather for central Texas; 72 degrees, not a cloud, and about 20 percent humidity. So we fired up the HHR and decided to get some pictures of what Texas does best in the spring, and that is FLOWERS.





We started off by heading south of Bryan to the little town of Round Top. As you cross into Washington County you realize the history of the place. Originally known as Washington-on-the-Brazos, the town of Washington, with 265 folks, was the place where the Texas declaration of independance from Mexico was signed in 1836. It was the capital of the Republic of Texas from 1842 to 1846.

In the town of Round Top, population 77, we ate at one of the few dining establishments, Scotty and Friends. Jo-Anne had thier signature May's burger and I had a fried green tomato sandwich, both of which were excellent. The place is over 200 years old and you can see the wavy glass in this shot out the window while we were eating. Round Top is a facinating place with many buildings dating from the 1800s and reflecting the early German heritage for this area. It also hosts one of the largest antique festivals and sales events in Texas.



Across from the restaurant is this huge oak which was probably planted by the road when the town was founded in the 1850s and the building behind it was a tavern and inn.

The colors say it all!

And these are just wildflowers ... kinda like weeds, eh?

Hardly!