So we went to Capitol Reef National Park in Utah, instead. This

is another absolutely beautiful park with stunning scenery. Trust

me, Sara shot over a gig of pics on the trip in alone!

e left Thursday morning after the last stop on our whirlwind

friends-N-family tour (did you get a t-shirt?) and headed West.

Our original plan was to go South, through Durango and Silverton

to the 4 corners area. But the weather was threatening snow, and

we don't have chains.

Now we are in Rifle, Colorado, visiting Sara's best friend Stephanie and family. Miles has been running, jumping, screaming, and generally having a blast. He even played dress-up with Sarah (not Sara) and I now have wonderful blackmail pictures of him as a fairy princess, complete with high heels. Just WAIT untill his first date! Time to try to put him to sleep...

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Nobturbo problems today. The little engine chugged right over and through the mountains. Just in time to see the colors starting to change.

We stopped in Denver at the Glauser Mercedes-Benz dealership. Unfortunately, a) the are not related and b) they don't work on Sprinters.

Denver

I'm blogging while trying to convince a super-tired Miles to go to sleep, so these will be short entries.

Last night we stayed just east of Denver, and visited with Sara's sister Cathy and her Levon. Today Miles saw bunnies in the campground, then we were off.

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Okay, blogger is having problems right now. Stand by for better posts later.

Ah Kansas. Good old flat Kansas. (The locals prefer "level") The funny thing is, most of Colorado is worse than Kansas. Colorado just doesn't show 2/3 of their state in their ads. The great excitement of the drive this afternoon was when they put a curve in the road...exactly at the same spot as an overpass! Wow! Usually they space them out a couple miles apart.

We recorded our worst fuel mileage of the trip yesterday, we got 13.4 mpg. We had a constant headwind the whole day, and kept the cruise set at 70. Totalled up all our gas receipts for the trip so far. We're still averaging 16.4 mpg for the trip. Since this is almost exactly double my old motorhomes mileage, we feel lucky.

This was the last day of boring travel for a bit. Tonight we drop in unexpectedly on more family members(we're getting good at that), tomorrow an old friend of Sara's.

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The firefighter memorial in Missouri was very nice, an unexpected find.

Homeward bound

Today we left Missouri and headed for Kansas. Last night we stayed @ a cute campsite in Missouri. The owners had done something really cool with one of the walls of the registration office, they painted it white and they-have their guests sign it. This was done after 9-11. Pictures to follow tomorrow.

Stopped at the firefighters memorial in Mo. It was pretty cool to see what other states do to honor their fallen firefighters. Pictures to follow tomorrow.

Went to another Cabela's for lunch today. This store had a bigger catfish than the Cabela's in Wisconsin. Miles thought this was cool.

Arrived in Kansas with no weather problems today. Of course, Tom said the only thing we haven't hit yet this trip is a traffic accident where we are first on scene. Still waiting....

Tomorrow we head for Denver Colorado and then onto Rifle for a quick visit With Sara's friend Stephanie. We will try to hookup with Sara's sister Cathy in Denver for Dinner tomorrow night.

Tom's off tonight so this is boring I know. More tomorrow.

Well, what an eventful day. We are reminded of the old proverb, "Be careful what you wish for."


We left Lexington, Kentucky this morning, determined to put some return miles under our belts.

Our target was the west side of Saint Louis, Missouri, so as to avoid any Monday traffic there tomorrow. Tom drove the first part, to get clear of big city Lexington. Sara took over at lunchtime, and uttered the horrible words, "You know, we really have had wonderful driving weather the whole trip.

Sure enough, not 50 miles later the sky ahead turned black and threatening. The wind started pushing us around. We ducked into a rest stop and hid between to 18-wheelers. A B-class motorhome on a Sprinter chassis pulled in behind us and we shared notes while the gust front of the storm passed. Thinking the worst was past (I of course checked NEXRAD and weather while stopped), we elected to press on. We were still on the wrong side of St. Louis.

Well, it wasn't done, as you can see from the picture. The View handles quite well in the rain. The outsides of the side windows kept fogging up!

Saint Louis

We made it through St. Louis, and thought we were going to miss the Arch. But it turns out that they actually made two of them, and painted them bright yellow!

We scooted out the other side, with Sara promising me a double martini for the extra driving. Met our class-B friend again. We took the downtown route and had slow construction traffic. He opted for the beltway and had fast kamakazi drivers. Slid his rig once, so we are happy with our choice.

They say that every cloud has a silver lining. In our case, the heavy downpour must have washed 20 pounds of bugs off of the rig!

Kentucky weed

Yup, Ohio has cows, also. And the country's slowest drivers. Kentucky, on the other hand, has drivers that rival Californians for speed and stupidity.

Saw more family this morning for breakfast, then went down to Lexington, Kentucky for a visit with Sara's side of the family. Hopefully, Miles can keep his various Aunt's straight, now.

Okay, so the pictures include Ione, Joan, Sandi, and Barbara. Did everybody get them right?

Friendship, Indiana. Home of the NMLRA and the National Championships of Muzeleloading. Also, the place Tom camped every fall with his Dad. Sara had never heard of it, so it was time to go.

It also has no cell service at all, nowhere, something we didn't plan on. This tends to panic Fathers-in-law, but it was actually kind of nice not being in contact. Sara still had satellite radio so she could keep up with the Angels.

Tom completely broke the Keyboard, so it will be short, handwritten entries until we get another one.

In true Friendship fashion, it was muggy as hell for 2 days, then it rained. And rained, and rained. The creek rose 4 feet in a matter of hours. Miles drew a crowd with his puddle-splashing antics. And we did a little bit of shooting, and a lot of shopping. Sara got to meet Homer Dangler, the gunsmith who crafted her rifle, and a friend of Tom's Dad. So now Sara has competed in the National Championships.

Now we are back in signal range in Toledo, Ohio. Nothing like dropping in on relatives without warning. Its time to seriously load up the motor home with family memorabilia, then turn aroundand head West. Yes, the return trip begins tomorrow.

ALIVE

We are still alive! Spent 6 days with no cell access. Now driving down the road, will post more later.