Continuing the trip home

After visiting with our dear friends the Borgerson's in Oklahoma City, we continued on towards Santa Clara. The trip we mostly uneventful, except for the little bit of excitement we had when the grill that we were transporting in the small trailer behind the Highlander had taken so much vibration on the New Mexico pot hole highway that all of the bolts had come loose and the top of the grill was about to come off, which would have come flying towards me as I was following close behind. So we came to a complete stop on the side of the New Mexico pot hole highway before coming to an exit.

So, as the busy traffic SPED by us, we finished taking the top half of the grill off (there was only a small screw holding it on!) and placing it in the back of the truck. Had I not been so lazy in the first place and put it in the back of the truck before loading the 5th wheel, I think this would not have happened. There was just WAY too much vibration in the back in that little trailer.

That night we stayed in Santa Rosa, New Mexico.

Continuing on, we spent the next night in Flagstaff at the Little America. We ate dinner at "Black Barts". This was recommended by friends. It was a pretty good restaurant with complete with live music performed by the waiters and waitresses. It was OK?, but was just a little to loud to carry on a conversation with friends.

The next day the only event was the HUGH traffic jamb out side of Flagstaff due to an accident. Had we gone the other way and gone through "Radiator springs" the inspiration of the "CARS" movie, we would have avoided the accident and got home an hour our two earlier.

On to UTAH and HOME

We had a very good visit Thursday at Dave and Carla Borgerson's in Oklahoma City. We appreciate so much the great friends that we have around the country. Not much interesting has been happening on the trip. The weather has cooled off a little bit, but is still hot. We spent last night in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. We are looking forward to getting home, although with Aleta not getting too much sleep last night I'm not sure how far we will get today. We probably will not be getting home till sometime on Sunday.
I have some pictures to add, but won't be able to add them until I get home to a different computer as my USB port does not work on this laptop. So, I will add them later. The plan right now is to relax some in Santa Clara and be up in the Utah county area next saturday (14th) for 2 or 3 days.

Left a very very HOT Illinois

So, we left a very very HOT Tilden, Illinois. We had to wait for a hitch to be put on Aleta's Highlander, so we took a little trip down to Paducah, Kentucky for two reasons. One, it was another state that we had not been in and two, one of our members in the Steeleville Branch told us to eat at Whaler's Inn. So we accomplished both!
Since we had the dog with us, we had to get take out, as it was too hot to leave him in the car or anything. So we got take out and went to the motel to chow down. It was as Brother Weller had told us...it was VERY good!!
On our way home, we got a call from the mechanic that Aleta's car was finished. So that worked out very well, as we got home we picked up the car. I then went and got the trailer and we completed the 'load up' of the trailer and the 5th wheel. It was sooo HOT we were both drenched! We had a small problem with the 5th wheel being to low to get on the hitch for two reasons: 1) I had bought over sized tires about 5 weeks ago and 2) the trailer had settled some. The settling didn't surprise me much, as Illinois has had one of the wettest years on record. We have seen some mighty wet storms pass through in the past 10 months.
We had our land lord send her brother over with his tractor and he lifted the trailer with his bucket and we put 3 or 4 two by fours under the legs and that was all we needed.
We left about 3PM and after a fuel stop and food stop we were too tired to make it to Adam and Eden's. We should have made better preparations on the Motel /campground situation as most of the motels were full. We finally got in one at about 10:00. We were both very tired. In fact Aleta is already asleep!!
I will try to add some pictures in the next couple of days to go along with the continued story. I want to update the blog all along the way of our trip to Utah and back to Wisconsin. Off course anything else interesting as well.

Moving from Illinois

Last Thursday we received word that we were being transferred to the Point Beach Project near Green Bay, Wisconsin. So it looks like we will be moving again. Later in the day when I went to work, I found out that Dick Morley and Ron Clark were being transferred also. They offered Dick Morley a job at the Songs Project in California. It would work out better for Dick and myself if we were able to trade and he go to Wisc. and we go to California. This would be closer to each of our families. So right at this time I am waiting for word from HR if that is going to be possible. This is really a low blow to us right now, as we thought that we were going to be staying place at least another 10 to 12 months.
Ron Clark will be retiring. He was going to retire at the end of 2010, so he is happy about that.
Surprises come upon us as we continue to work the construction gamut. Hopefully we will only have 6 or 7 more years of this and then we can 'hang 'em up' ourselves. Keep looking on this blog and I will update when and where we will be headed.
This I do know, and that is we will be leaving this area by Wednesday and take our trailer back to Utah. We plan to rent an apartment/house in either of the areas that we may be going.

Beginning

July 25, 2010
We are just starting this blog on our travels, but as many of you know, our travels did not just begin. We have been doing this criss-crossing of America pulling our 5th wheel behind for about 10 years now. This had it's beginning when Geneva Steel closed up and we had no place to work there in Utah county.
This criss-crossing of America has taken us from New York to California and even to Alaska, although we did not take the travel trailer there. Someday we will take that adventure and have tales to tell about it in this blog.
We want this to be a place for our children and grand children to go and see what we are doing and what we have been up to. We want them to see the same beautiful places that we are seeing.
Our trailer doesn't look much like traveling now, as Aleta and I built a skirting around it to help keep it warm last winter. This helped immencely. The winter here in Illinois was very cold and windy and keeping some of the wind out from under the trailer did alot to help keep us warm.