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.