Wednesday, June 22, 2016

On the road again!

Well, after another successful Santa season after our return from our Alaska adventure last year, we once again spent the winter at Sun-N-Fun in Sarasota.  Had a wonderful time there, as usual, but this year we had lots of out of town company, which was really nice.  Jeremy came down in January, thinking he was just going to wait a few days until his work visa paperwork was finished allowing him to leave from FL to head back to Ethiopia--but it turned into three weeks, as complication after complication arose.  So glad to have had him with us there for three weeks, but he was glad when it finally got finished and he could go back to a country he loves.  We were happy to have Rhita ride down with us, and enjoyed visits with Walt & Timo, Sherry and Mike, Jo and Kevin, Bev and Archie, and Bill & Mary.  Trisha did the memorial service for Barby's mother, Jean, shortly after we got there, and it was a lovely service.  She was honored to be asked to participate.  Lots of fun with our Sun-N-Fun friends, and were able to have a couple of visits with our new friends from the Alaska trip, Lin and Paul,, who live in Venice.  So great to continue to grow this new friendship!  But, as lovely as the sun and fun in Florida was, gotta say that the highlight of the winter for me was to experience the Christmas present Trisha gave me--a week in 15 below temperatures in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada, where I went to Muktuk Adventures to learn how to mush a dogsled team.  I had an unbelievable time learning and driving the team, and got to spend some real quality time with Frank Turner, the owner, and one of the greatest mushers of all times.

So, after our return to Georgia for a couple of months we're now back on the road again, and it's always exciting to load up the RV and head out for adventures untold!  We left Sunday, made it to Clarksville, TN that night and then on to Illinois, where we discovered an absolute jewel of a place, Wayne Fitzgerrell State Park, on Rend Lake.  It's a huge park, gigantic sites, all paved and level and we got one right on the water.  Soon as we parked the rig we decided to stay another night and have really enjoyed it here.  We had a wonderful 6 mile walk this morning, all around the campground, which is laid out with lots of loops and fingers, and it was really pleasant.  It's been quite hot the last few days, so it was a welcome relief to wake up this morning to slightly cooler temps and early morning overcast.  We're keeping up our training hikes in preparation for our pilgrimage on the El Camino de Santiago in Spain in September, so we've planned to drive fewer miles each day, giving us time to hike each morning.  It was so glorious here, though, that when we got back to the RV we got the bikes out and did about 10 miles along the bike path.  Just a wonderful day!  Tonight we watched a beautiful sunset over the lake and then built a fire to cap off the evening--just super!

Sunset over Rend Lake at Wayne Fitzgerrell State Park, near Sesser, Illinois:






1 comment:

  1. Glad you are back on the road again. I look forward to reading your post. Rod

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