We successfully made it to Richmond, Virginia for John's Aunt's 99th birthday which was very nice with excellent weather having all the hurricanes out at sea. Wandering back to Columbus, Ohio we took in several attractions including Monticello which will be included when we finally get to 2017. Now that all the doctors have finished practicing on us we are ready to head west and warmer for the winter.
Our original plan was to return to Texas this year but Harvey intruded so we are now planning to return to Saint Louis, Missouri for a week and then head west across Oklahoma and northern Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico again. Continuing on through Flagstaff, Arizona we hope to end up in Las Vegas, Nevada by about April. From Las Vegas we should be able to get a cheap flight back to Columbus, Ohio to see doctors before spending most of the summer in the California area. Lots of sights to see so we will continue to follow the wind. Most days there should be a picture on Instagram from someplace we have been in the last week
Finally I have managed to extend the site to the fourth iteration covering our travels through the end of 2009. Part of the delay was organizing the current several thousand pictures while looking through the older. I'm still trying to get about a year a quarter depending on how much time I can break free. So far I've managed to sort through about 8500 older pictures and describe about 1800 on some 140 pages included in the site. Generally I'm still organized by year, state, city, and attraction like the menu bar above. When I can find some external links I think might be interesting I've added them in the standard blue color. They were good when I posted these pages but websites evolve rapidly and I apologize if they don't work when you try them. Links to other parts of this site are in green and using the menu bar you can basically get from anyplace to anyplace and maybe get totally lost. For those who have been here before I have reorganized the attractions by state since I was getting lost. Also there is now a tab for pages created or added activities for 2009. Have fun.
This site is planed as a work in progress. After retiring in 2006, we started sending reports back to the wonderful lady that had always watched the house while we traveled. Unfortunately Ruth Lambert is no longer with us so the major incentive for the reports is also gone and sending color copies to all our friends and relatives does start to get rather expensive hence this more convenient website presentation. As in our rambling, the reporting tended to be rather erratic and although it only got into 2010 it was reaching 300 pages and filling two 2 inch notebooks. That puts me seven years behind and four years to convert so its going to take considerable time if ever to get everything posted.
We retired in mid 2006 and decided to wander the USA to actually see what it really looks like. In some 40 years of actually working for a living John has had extensive travel but rare opportunities to see an area. Usually it's dark going into the plant and dark coming out so most of the scenery is the inside of a plant, motel room, or restaurant. Actually in the last six months before retirement John put in two 34 hour days; ya walk into the plant and walk out 34 hours later. So we sold the house and the majority of the "stuff" and are now OLD (medicare recipients), UNEMPLOYED (retired), HOMELESS (not destitute), and enjoying the nomad lifestyle. NO! we don't have an RV; we sold the house, we're not driving it. We have two tents to camp when we want, but mostly motel camp. Staying a week or a month tends to be economical most places and we are definitely budget travelers. Look for us where its warm but not real hot with a reasonable cost of living.