Custer State Park, South Dakota

We were able to see deer and buffalo grazing in the field as we drove the wildlife loop through Custer State Park.





The "Eye of the Needle". An RV wouldn't fit through!

Ooops...

Johnny Hardrick, Charlie's brother, has pointed out that we are not two hours earlier than those of you on the east coast, but two hours later. I think. Thanks, Johnny. Does that mean I can sleep later or do I have to get up earlier????

Anyway, today we went to The Badlands of South Dakota. The landscape is very extreme. I am having difficulty with my photo program, but will try to put up some pictures tomorrow.

We talked to Mark and Tammy today and they asked if we were ready to kill each other. Nope. Kind of weird, but nope. Not at all. Now, that being said, I hope we don't decide to tomorrow.

The only person who is in danger at all is that woman in the GPS box! We have met some couples who are also traveling and they ALL say that the majority of disagreements they have are over the GPS.


Today, one of our other traveling companions, who shall remain nameless, took the lead as we headed out to The Badlands. As we passed the turn off that I thought we were supposed to take, I called the other car on the two way radio. "Are we going a different way?" I asked. "Don't worry. We have it programmed." was the reply.

Charlie reminded me that the other car had it under control. Well... after going through some very weird turns and down some side streets, we ended up following the GPS directions as it led us right onto a dead end street.

As the lead car backed up and came along side of us, I started to laugh uncontrollably. Again.

Good Morning from South Dakota

Good Morning, Everybody.
We are two hours earlier than Jacksonville, so getting in touch by phone is a little more difficult. Plus, cell service is in and out.

Last night we took a ride through Custer State Park. Wild turkeys, deer, buffalo...just out walking around. It was amazing. Off to Mount Rushmore this morning.
We are at an rv park in Hermosa, SD. (Heartland RV Park). We are planning on staying here until Monday.

The amount of land out here is unbelieveable. It looks so wide open and you wonder why there are not more people living here. I asked yesterday and found out that a lot of the land is privately owned. A couple of families own thousands and thousands of acres.

Anyway. We are about to set out this morning, so I'll try to write more tonight.
Love,
Susan

Tuesday Night. South Dakota

Well, hello, everyone. It’s been really hard to get on the internet the last few days so I’m going to post this in sections, in case I get kicked off.

We are now in South Dakota. Last night we spent the night in Iowa, and the night before in Illinois. In Illinois we stayed in a state park. As we were riding through miles and miles of crops we suddenly realized that we were looking at hundreds and hundreds of wind mills in the distance. GIANT!!! Like Jon and I saw in Germany. They looked like something out of a science fiction movie. I took a picture, but it doesn’t do it justice. The park ranger told us that at last count, there were 240, and every bit of the electricity goes straight to Chicago. They don’t get any of it locally.

When we were talking about it the ranger told us that the windmills have disrupted the flight patterns of many of the birds that used to come to the area. That has to affect the whole ecosystem. You know, I would have thought that windmills wouldn’t impact the environment negatively. But this trip has made me think more and more about how everything we do impacts others, whether it's people or animals. It makes you stop and think.

The park was very rustic but lovely, and certainly all we needed for the night. Sally and Bill, a flock of geese flew over, honking, and we thought of you. Dad, the ranger rattled off a list of fish that were in the lake, and I didn’t even recognize a lot of the names. One of them was called “blue ear”???? Charlie took down his bike, went for a ride, Bob lit a fire, and Terri and I got stuff together for dinner. We were all tired, since we had put in a long day traveling, so we called it an early night. Oh..we also went through a time zone change, so it wasn’t as early as I thought. No wonder I was sleepy. It started to pour during the night, but we were all snug inside by that time.

The next day we left early, in the pouring rain. We hadn’t any hook-up except power so Charlie didn’t have to get too wet and we left. As we were driving out of the park and down the road back to the highway we heard a clunk, but didn’t think too much about it. Charlie has been working on a “clunk” under the RV, and it sounded just like our familiar clunk. BUT… when we stopped about 30 minutes later we realized that the front right storage door had opened up and the sliding door that Charlie had made to hold our extra refrigerator/freezer had slid open and we had lost the refrig/freezer.  Oh, well. And, to add insult to injury it was full of beer!!!!

Illinois, Iowa Sunday and Monday Nights (Written on Tuesday night)

Part 2 Iowa
What a day of driving. Long. Sad a little about the lost beer (and I really mean the lost fridge).

I was in charge of finding a spot for the night and I set about it. I found a place in the Passport America book that was only $15!!. So I programmed it into the gps.

Well, I didn’t put it into the computer that Charlie was using to drive from, just the little gps. So as we got closer to the destination the two systems were giving us different directions. And I got nervous. And so I closed Charlie’s computer. Uhhhhh. NOT the thing to do.

We totally missed our turn and Charlie almost yelled. And I started to laugh. Really laugh. And the worse it got, the more I laughed. I was laughing so hard that I’m laughing now, just thinking about it. Charlie wasn’t really happy about this. And there was NOWHERE we could turn around. We were on a long two-lane road in between two farms. And I was trying to stop laughing.

After a few miles (and remember we get about 7 miles to the gallon) we were able to turn around. Charlie advised me in a calm voice that I should probably not ever close the computer on him again. I tried to say ok, but I was, by now, laughing uncontrollably, to the point that I was crying. We finally caught up to Bob and Terri and by now we were all laughing (well, most of us) and we continued on our search for the lost rv park.

I plugged the address into the gps again, and off we went. We finally found it. By this time I had been able to calm down. But as we got closer I could see that it was closed. Not just closed-closed., but boarded up, run down, long gone closed.

Forget it. I lost it. I started laughing again and this time even Charlie started to laugh. We decided that we would continue on down the road to find another place to stop for the night. And I was no longer in control of the gps.
Love, Susan

Riding through Amish Country (Ohio)

Photos from the Outer Banks

This is for the guys... I didn't have a chance to post these earlier.

Windmills

The windmills that we saw as we drove across Illinois and Iowa. Pretty impressive.

Ohio

Amish Country



Beautiful rolling hills and farms!

And bakeries!!!

Harrisburg, Pa

Beautiful statue in the capital building in Harrisburg


And continuing to eat our way across the U.S....


Ya gotta love it.

A few words from Charlie...

Susan didn't say anything about the day we bar-be-qued. The wind was only gusting up to 45 mph. The reason I was bar-be-queing on the the sidewalk was because Susan was afraid we were going to burn the house down. While we were cooking, the smoke came billowing up. All of a sudden we heard a fire siren. We all heard it coming and it stopped to turn on to Kim's street. I looked around and everyone had dissapeared. I was the only person on the sidewalk at the grill. Everyone had left me! The truck turned and headed my way. Luckly for me, they didn't stop, they were going to a real fire down the street.

Jersey City, NJ

I got to spend Mother's Day Weekend with Kim. YAY! Kim had been asking me what we'd like to do when we came to Jersey City. Shows? Restaurants? Museums? Nope, we replied. We just want to have a regular weekend visiting our daughter as if she didn't live one subway stop from Manhattan.

Soooooo......Friday night we got to watch Kim play softball for her bar team "Lucky 7".(Bar League) This reminded me of t-ball days, except this time beer was included!

Saturday we got to clean her apartment, put together a bar-bue, and change light bulbs. (She warned us this might happen if we told her we wanted to just spend a regular weekend!) Then she had a cook out at her apartment, "Jersey Style"! Charlie couldn't quite get over bar-b-que ing on the front sidewalk!









After dinner






Firday chillin' on the steps


Kim, Charlie, and Me

Spring Grove, Pa.

Wednesday: We arrived at Terri and Bob's home in Spring Grove. The country side was beautiful...rolling hills and farmland. I didn't really expect to see llamas, however, on the road going to their house.
Seriously. Llamas. Grazing.
And goats.
But the goats weren't quite so unexpected.

Charlie and I had a little bit of an issue trying to find the house. That woman on the GPS system kept telling Charlie to go one way. I was trying to tell him to go another way. Now who would YOU listen to? That's right, me. Uhhh...that is Charlie had to listen to me AFTER I turned off the GPS because she wouldn't stop yelling at me. Charlie wasn't very happy with me and suggested that I NOT do that again. Strongly.

Bob finally flagged us down and we arrived safely. Even that woman in the GPS was probably glad.

Thursday:. Terri showed me around Hanover while the guys worked on the RV's. "Hot Weiner" Restaurants seem to be the thing up here. Yep. You heard me. Oh my goodness...

Virginia Beach, Va

I can't believe it's been a week since we visited Charlie's cousin Jerry and his wife Mary. Charlie and Jerry grew up together in the same house in Fitzgerald, Ga. Listening to them laughing and retelling old stories was so much fun. We took a ride to the Outer Banks...Nags Head, Duck, and Kitty Hawk, where they used to go each summer to their Uncle Wiley and Aunt Berta's house. Listening to them howl with laughter as they told about their escapades (and your's too, Johnny)was a joy. We took pictures of the house that their Uncle used to have, the sand dunes they used to roll down, and the walkway to the beach that they used to take.





Thanks, Jerry and Mary.

Chesapeake, Virginia

We got to Sally and Bill's earlier than expected last Friday, and Bill came home to welcome us to the Siegel RV Park and Restaurant. I couldn't believe that we were able to fit into the driveway! But we did!

This was the first time Charlie and Bill and Sally and I have ever gotten to spend time together, just the four of us. Sally cooked three different kinds of ribs in the hopes that Charlie would like one. (Bribery of the first order) We enjoyed ribs, shrimp, veggies...well, you get the picture. We chatted and watched movies into the night.
Sally and Bill live right on the marsh and it's beautiful. They have done a tremendous amount of work making their back yard into something special. It is like a private retreat and bird sanctuary. They planned a special outdoor evening for us on Saturday. With tikki torches and a chimnea to enhance the experience we sat outside and had cocktails and listened for the geese to fly over the marsh.

As we enjoyed the quiet of the marsh, we were treated to Bill's world famous vodka sours. We were serenaded by baby birds that had just hatched in the bird house and were even able to hear a few wild geese in the distance. (Even over Sally's and my giggling from the sours.)
What a great time to cherish always.

We are still looking for the rare red headed woodpecker reputed to run around in the marsh at night! Maybe next time.(Sorry guys, private joke.)

Gibsonville, North Carolina

We had originally planned to stay only one night at Heather, Michael, and Bryson's. However, after spending a delightful afternoon with the Singletons. we decided that Heather should play hooky from work the next day and we should play the next day. Shhhhh...don't tell Bryson! We also had a promise of Michael cooking his specialty, country fried steak, with mashed potatoes and gravy, and cornbread. Mmmmmm.

Charlie had some repair work to do on the truck, and Heather decided that she would help me organize my "traveling jewelry studio". And to work we went.

Five hours later we were still organizing me. (The story of my life.) As a matter of fact, Heather organized me so well that it is taking me a while to locate everything. And I also have notes telling me what I have to finish before I start anything new. (I'm trying, Heather. Really!)
We just couldn't leave without a hair styling! "That comb-over won't do, Uncle Charlie!"


We were so glad we got to see Bryson at his baseball practice! And we loved getting to meet some of his friends.
It was so nice to be able to spend this time together. Thank you, Heather, Michael, and Bryson! We had a really great time and can't wait to do it again.

Catch Up

Good Morning, All.
Last night, listening to Jerry, Mary, and Charlie talking about the old days, I started laughing so hard I decided to try and share it with you guys. I didn't have a chance to tell you all about the wonderful days we've had in between. Sooooo, tonight, whether thay're talking about how they all "farted" in the cabin at the lake, or ran around after the pigs and cows, I am going to write about last week.
Love,
Susan

Some Photos Along the Way

Po-Boy Cabin
I love this. Look closely at the photo below.
Do you see the old airstream?



Weight Watchers Meeting


Boys and their toys.
For those of you that don't know, Charlie bought us bikes for our trip. For exercise. Mine is a battery assisted bike, which I was agains, but I have to admit I love. Charlie's is completely gas powered! His thumb gets exercise when he shifts it out of gear.

Everywhere we go guys come up and ask Charlie about his bike.
And wish they had one!

Memories

In Great Smokey Mountains National Park we came upon an old grist mill. It brought back lots of memories for Charlie. He told me all about how he and his dad used to ride down in their old truck to have the corn ground when he was about 10 or 12 years old in Fitzgerald, Ga. "We used to pull the corn, shucks and all, load it up into the truck, take it down to the grist mill and they would grind it up for cow feed in the winter."


When we got to Virginia Beach to see Jerry and Mary, Charlie's first cousin and his wife, there was lots of reminiscing. When we started talking about the mill, Jerry was telling me about how Mama Paul(their grandmother) was scared of the cows but she had to feed them. When she went to feed them, the cows would come running towards her. When she got scared, she'd try to beat them off by hitting them on the head with the bucket of feed. Which only got them closer! They'd keep trying to get the feed from the bucket, which got her more scared so she continued to swing the bucket at them. And so on.
Jerry said he used to hide and watch the whole thing and laugh his butt off!


Charlie and Jerry in Jerry's Shop

Differences in Perspective

The Blue Ridge Parkway. Well known as one of the most scenic drives in the country. As we stop at a breathtaking overlook, quiet descends upon us. After a few moments of long, deep breaths and moments of meditation, I say to my most beloved husband, "Isn't this beautiful?' My most beloved replies, "You know, all these trees have to be cut over the side down there so you can see out. And somebody's got to do it. I wouldn't want to be the person going over on a rope to cut 'em."

I love it.

More later with details about the last few days with Heather, Michael and Bryson, in Gibsonville, NC, and Sally and Bill in Chesapeake, Va!

Not that nuts!

Oh boy. I think I need to clarify. When we go riding around in the mountains we are not doing it in the RV. We are riding in the yellow truck. Hairy enough. As a matter of fact we had a wonderful drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Until the hail started. And the fog set in. Oooooohhh... When Sandi and I drove through the hairpin turns we were too stupid to turn back in the fog and rain. Charlie said, (and I quote) "Nahhh. I'm not driving around in this. I've seen enough." And there you have it.