Hi All
Sorry to be so long in writing....we just got home from a camping weekend with our old club...has a nice time, but the weather was miserable!!cold and rainy Friday night and Saturday.
It was nice to see all of our old friends again, along with some new ones.
We left South Bend, In. from my brothers driveway last Sunday morning, and after $19.25 in tolls and about 150 miles arrived in our sons driveway. We had forgotten about all the toll ways in Illinois and Indiana.
It is great to see the kids and grandsons after such a long time, and we have enjoyed our visit.
We will leave here on the 7th of May to head to North Carolina for two graduations and visit with Lindas brother, his wife and the three kids....welll not kids anymore.
I am looking forward to the Hank Williams jr. and Lynard Skynyrd concert on the 9th of May. it will be a great time I'm sure. I have been a Hank and Hank sr. fan for a lot of years .
Weather here today is cold and still windy, and the prediction is for snow!!!!! we can't seem to get away from it....

Have a good week and keep in contact....

Jim and Linda

OUR TIME IN TAHLEQUAH

Hi

We are leaving Tahlequah OK. Saturday morning(tomorrow) after a wonderful week here with Bob and BJ. We have had a great time talking over old times, and taking wonderful scenic drives around the area that they love so much.....Today we went to Devils Den state park in Arkansas. A wonderful park down in a valley. Like most areas around here there is a lot of wind and water damage from all of the rains. We have survived some pretty good winds sitting here in our little campground.

The weather does not look good leaving here and heading across Missouri into Illinois and Indiana, but its time to go.

The pictures are of our dear friends Bob and BJ and Devils den, normally the water is just trickeling over the falls, but with the recent weather this is what we saw. Sorry for two of the same, but still having some problems downloading pictures.

Take care

love to ya

Jim and Linda

Hi All
First things first...you can reply to this blog, just click on the comments box and the end of a post and send a message....we love to get feedback.....try it, you make like it.

We are in Salina Kansas now...off of the road early because of the extreme wind that came up about two hours ago from the south (we are heading east) It was a struggle to keep us in our lane. We head south tomorrow towards Tahlequah, OK. Hopefully the wind will go away.

Bye for now
Love to you all, each and every one of ya'
Jim and Linda

Friday April 4th
Amazing day today. We only drove about 250 miles, but we are finally!!!!!!out of the mountains. I know we will regret saying that as we head across Kansas which is totally boring, but....
We did get out of the campground without any trouble and Glenwood canyon is as beautiful as they said it would be....the climb up to Vail pass(10,608 foot) was spectacular, but the road is a piece of shit....so it took away from the beauty as I was constantly worried about blowing a tire and we did hit one pot hole that I thought we would lose the truck in!!!!!
One down grade was 11(count em' eleven) miles of 5 and 6 percent grades....it would have been fine without the ROUGH highway.
But we did survive, with some minor damage inside the trailer, one lamp kind of broke but I think it is fixable.....drawers were open dust came off of the slides...
We are now in Limon Colorado as it was such a stressful day that we stopper early.
We are about 650 miles from Tahlequah and another 800 from Indiana, so lots of driving to do.
I am still having problems getting pictures onto the site. When we download them from the camera onto the computer they do not show up as pictures, just an icon. So it is hard to pick out the ones to post....we will get it figured out eventually with some help from a computer whiz (phil, HELP)
see ya
Jim and Linda

sorry I downloaded by mistake.
finally
END OF GRADE

We are in Glendale Springs Colorado. The gateway to Glendale canyon(look it up)
The campground is pretty amazing......it is terased(sp) and muddy...the manager told us to go to the first road and make a wide sweeping turn and follow the road to our site (#13 by the way)....I barely make the turn into the site and will have a really good time trying to get out without sliding into the site below me....I took pictures but doubt if they will show the predicament I am in. the weather over Vail pass is doubtful and I will have to check before we leave here as to whether I can get over the pass without chains. We did not get in our 425 miles today as this was the last place listed with camping before Vail. I had to unhook and go back into town to get fuel, as there was nowhere that I could get the trailer into...I had to turn and back into the gas station to fuel up!!!!
I-70 has some spectacular scenery in Utah. It is am amazing geological sight.
If you have never traveled in the mountains you will not apprecialte the following signs going into one of the most spectacular canyons we have ever been in...... they are in order:

BRAKE CHECK AHEAD
TRUCKERS PULL OVER AND CHECK BRAKES
WARNING: STEEP MOUNTAIN GRADES AND SHARP CURVES AHEAD
WARNING: 6 PERCENT GRADE FOR NEXT SIX MILES
SPEED LIMIT 50 FOR VEHICLES OVER 10000 LBS
RUNAWAY TRUCK RAMP 1 1/2 MILES
RUNAWAY TRUCK RAMP 1 1/2 MILES
RUNAWAY TRUCK RAMP 1 1/2 MILES

and finally!!!

Hi Y'all
We drove our 400 miles today and are somewhere around Provo Utah. No weather channel tonight, no cable hookup.......
Only supprise today was going over two passes, one at 5530 ft. and the other at 5311 ft. leaving Idaho and coming into Utah. I knew we we climbing, but it was very gradual as were the decents, and we were both suprised to see the summit signs.
Tomorrow we head east on I-70 (yes Amy and D, we are going that way). Shortly after getting onto I-70 we go over a 7923 ft. pass.......whopeeeeeeeee
Weather was good all day, and looks good for the next two days, so we hope to be out of the mountains by than.
Bob and BJ, right now it looks like Saturday afternoon.
We will keep you all up to date......you do know you can post a reply onto this blog....you had better start or I,m gonna smack ya one!!!!!

Take care and love to all
Jim and Linda

Friday was last day of work. We got to work with the trailer in tow, and around 9am it started to snow! We scrambled around trying to figure out what to do as the pass we had to go over to get to Maryhill state park was snow covered and chains required.!!!!
We ended up at Crow Butte state park, along with our good friends Abel, Amy and Dileep and their son Mack, Terri and Sid. When we got to the park it was very nice, but within an hour the wind came up and hardly let up all weekend.....we were all beat up by the wind. We did have a fence to cut some of the wind, and we put up a tarp to help. We built big fires and drank a lot of alchohol. All weekend!!!!
Sid and Terri left Sunday to go back to work, and we had a last party Sunday night. Abel left Monday, amid a few wet eyes from us and he. We also left Monday with Amy, D, and Mack and went across the river into Oregon where we spent a last nite together. Linda and I had to wait until Tuesday morning to leave as one of the passes in Oregon was still requiring chains.
We left this morning, saying good-bye to Amy, D and Mack amid more wet eyes and are now in Boise, Idaho.
We are keeping an eye on the weather channel and the computer to check road conditions, and will leave here tomorrow towards Salt Lake City Utah. We want to take I-70 across the RockyMountains into Denver, but may have to go further south to Las Vegas(I know what you are thinking, but its not true!!!!).
I will download pictures as soon as I can figure it out!!!!!