At Jake & Jamel's in Alpharetta, Ga

Haven't posted in a LONG time. It's now Oct 31, 2009

Yes, we're still on the trip. We've been in the Atlanta area for 10 nights & we leave tomorrow , Sunday.

We've only encountered 2 days rain so far and both days were here in Atlanta. It's supposed to only be cloudy tomorrow for our departure. We've been so lucky weather wise. (nope , just remembered another day’s rain in Shipshewana IN )

I just got an email from a friend in ABQ where we spent 2 nights back in Sept. She said they had snow which was very unusual at this time of year. But it was beautiful.

For sure we'll NOT be taking I-40 again on our trek back to Hollywood. Because on I-40 are the high altitude cities of Albuquerque and Flagstaff. I do NOT think towing in snow & ice would be a fun thing to do. no no no

I guess from this Atlanta area we'll take Hwy 20 southwestward towards I-10 (the Southern route). This will take us through Birmingham, Al,

Jackson & Shreveport, Mississippi and we've never been to any of these cities before. However, I don't think we'll have much time for those cities because we need to be in Las Vegas NV on Nov 14th. We have tickets for the "So You Think You Dance" show on tour . This is the first trip where we've had a deadline to meet. It will cramp our lack-a-daisical-way of traveling. (Surely I misspelled THAT word!)

We've been able to see lots of beautiful fall colors. That's our reason for traveling in the autumn every year that we can.

Here in front of kids house is a bright red one too. Probably a Maple tree. I do not know one tree from another. INSERT PHOTO later

One Saturday we rode with our kids Jake & Jamel & the two grandsons Oliver age 3 & Cameron age 8 to Helen, Ga about 1 ½ hours north of Alpheretta where they were celebrating Oktoberfest. It was a fun day & the boys behaved very well. We got lots of videos of them.

Another day we went with Jamel &Oli to get his hair cut. That was really entertaining! The place is colorful & lots of fun things to keep the youngsters thoughts away from the haircut itself. As in a Magic trick….misdirection! It usually works. I’ll try to paste a short video here if I remember & can figure out how to do it.

One other day there was a run-for-charity at Cameron’s school. Cameron ran 36 laps as we cheered them all on. Kids everywhere. More videos, of course.

Guess we'll be heading south but really haven't planned where our next stops will be. Thinking about New Orleans in a few days....Joey's never been there.

Oh, I want to remember our last night in Alpheretta,Ga. The neighbors next door to Jake & Jamel are Pakastani-Americans & they invited all of us for a lovely family dinner with them. The food was delicious!!!. A lot like Indian cooking. (Indian is our favorite cuisine of all time anyway )

We had a goat dish which we didn’t expect to like…boy were we wrong about that ….and a chicken dish & Basmati rice and of course naan. We really liked the food but having time to talk with Ayeesha & CamRON about “things” was lovely & interesting. This couple & their 3 girls are truly nice & gentle people.

They made the point that when they like someone it’s an honor to invite them for a home made dinner. Never in a restaurant. Restaurants are for business meetings but not for personal sharing. We felt honored. We learned the correct pronunciation of Basmati rice…the accent should be on the last syllable…basmaTI I’d always misplaced it on the MA. It’s fun to learn!.

ABQ, Branson, Mo & Effingham, IL

All is going well. Good weather all along except for about 40 minutes one afternoon in Branson MO..It rained cats & dogs but went through quickly.

Spent 2 nights in Albuquerque NM. 1st night had a really nice dinner that our friend Stevie prepared in her new condo. It was wonderful to see Stevie (Stephanie) again.

I met her in Alamos, Mexico in the early 90's.

Time passed, she got divorced from an Alaskan fisherman that played my husband in an Alamos stage production way beck when.

Stevie then moved to Panama City, Panama for a few years. She returned to ABQ where we had a reunion along with another good Alamos friend, Kay,who now lives in Taos NM where we all got acquainted again for a few days at Kay's beautiful adobe home. That reunion was Oct or Nov 2008 I think. Anyway, it's now been a year since & it was SO good to see her again.

We spent 4 nights in Branson, Mo...saw 4 shows...all good. We met up with Peg Cantwell & Larry Earp there (yes he IS....as in Wyatt )

It was truly a serendipitous happening. Thanks to another friend in Alamos, Dolores Parker. We had met Peg & Lar in Dolores' house last March when we were in Alamos. They told us they were full-timers living in San Diego. They had been there 2 years & decided that if they were going to fulfill their "bucket-list" they'd better get moving. In an email, on our way to Branson, Dolores told us that Peg & Lar were also on their way to Branson. Anyway, it all worked out & we were in their RV when the cats & dogs downpour happened. Hey, they even have a fireplace in their RV 38' home. We call our RV the "breadbox" & theirs the mansion!

Now we're in Effingham Illinois of all places. Guess what? This is one of our very favorite RV parks!

We didn't leave Branson until about noon and after just a few hours driving, interrupted only by an 1 1/2 hr lunch & gas stops....we were tired & just picked a Good Sam RV camp out of the book close to where we were when we got tired. There were no Passport America RV camps when we were ready to call it quits for the day. That was about 4pm.

It's called Camp Lakewood they do have a website...I'll see if its any good...if so I'll past it here. Well it's not a bad site.

http://www.camplakewoodcampground.com/reservations.php

We'll be leaving Camp Lakewood after 2 nights & 3 loads of clean laundry and on our way to my family in Coldwater MI about 500 miles from here.

But before we get there we plan to spend tomorrow night, Monday, & maybe Tuesday night in night in Shipshewana, Indiana . ship-she-who? We've passed through this lovely Amish area before but it wasn't on a day when the huge Shipshewana Flea Market happens. That's on Tuesdays & Wednesdays. There's now an RV park right adjacent to the Flea Market & , what the heck, we're going to just do it. We do NOT need any more "stuff" but it will be fun to look. Are you taking any bets? Ha ha.

http://www.tradingplaceamerica.com/fleamarket.php

By the way, cheapest gas so far was NW of St Louis about 40 miles West of the Illinois boarder on I-70. $2.09 per gal all over the place. Too bad we'd filled up earlier @ $2.19 gal and only needed about 1/4 of a tank. We were happy anyway. PS we had gusty winds from Branson to St Louis but tightened up the sway bars a bit tighter than normal & that helped a lot, we think. Gusts up to 27 mph were being reported.

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Trish