Home Sweet Home

Well, 87 days and 12,210 miles later, we’re home; and how sweet it is! Although we thoroughly enjoyed our big adventure, there is no place like home. But let’s be clear, that mileage was not all travel. We estimated 8,500 to 8.700 miles for the actual trip. The remainder of the mileage was to and from family or friends, and inside the national parks.

We’re told that central NY had a pretty dry summer while we were away. Therefore, our fall color is pretty dull. When there has not been enough moisture to sustain the trees, the leaves turn a dull color and then drop pretty quickly. So we came home to a yard full of leaves to be picked up.

It was 71 degrees when we backed into the driveway at 4:30 yesterday afternoon. But the forecast was for a cool front to move in overnight, bringing rain with it. I awoke some time during the night, and could hear rain falling. It’s been raining all day.

It gave us a really good excuse to kick back and rest today. No sense dragging clothes, etc. through the rain to bring them into the house. Right??

As this will be our last post to this blog, we want to thank our family and friends for their hospitality during our stay with each of them. Additionally, we’d like to thank our ‘new friends’ for all their encouraging comments via our blog. And most importantly, we thank God for keeping us safe through our travels. It’s great to say that we arrived home yesterday without a single dent, or even a flat tire. Well, except for the ones inflicted by us during our little mishaps, but fortunately those were not serious either.

By the way, we’ve had many comments about Sal’s photographs along the way. If you would like to see more of the trip, feel free to check his website. He took thousands of shots; so it will take him some time to go through them. But he will select his favorites to post on the existing website. The address: http://photosal.tripod.com

Thanks for traveling with us, and thanks for your comments and notes of encouragement along the way.
Fay

Another Rest Day...

It’s a rest day. We are in Sandusky, OH. Yes, it’s a bit off the route to home, but it was the only campground or RV park we could find open. Well, actually there were a couple of others. But we left messages for two days, and neither of them returned our calls. Nice way to run a business!!

So we’re in the Bayshore Estates Campround in Sandusky. By the time we arrived yesterday, we were both exhausted. Yes, we know that it’s probably as much mental as physical. But we decided to take a day off the road. So we’ll be here for two nights; no sight seeing this time, just rest.

However, if you’re ever in the Sandusky area, this is a beautiful campground. It has lots of mature trees, and nice level sights. Each site has a fire ring, and picnic table. The CG is huge; ove 500 sites per their site map. The only negative is that there is a train track fairly nearby. But it didn’t seem to bother us, we both slept very well last night.

When we pulled into our assigned site yesterday, to our surprise there was another Outback right next door. We’ve traveled some 19 states now, and this is only the second Outback we’re seen in the same campground. However, there must be more Outbacks in this part of the country, because we did see 4 others on the road yesterday. That’s more than we’ve seen in any one day in any other part of the country.

Not much to report, the trip home has just become one long mile after another. We’re ready to be home.

If you’re still with us, thanks for your interest…
Fay

One Day Closer to Home

Well, it’s Friday, and we’re one state closer to home. We slept in a Travel Center last night because we could not find a CG still open.

Tonight we’re in Hickory Hollow Campground in Utica, IL. They have WiFi (or so they claim), but it does not reach our campsite. So we’ll post this somewhere on the road tomorrow.

We drove in rain all day yesterday, across the flat lands in Nebroska, and into Iowa. But we were surprised this afternoon to see rolling hills and trees just beginning to turn colors. We agreed that it reminded us of upstate NY. Or is that just because we’re ready to be home?

As we drove yesterday, we remarked about how difficult it must have been for the early settlers. Thanks to their guts and stamina, and for technology, our trip is much easier than those early Americans.

I guess we’ve both become a bit depressed. For over two and a half months now, when we moved from one place to another, there was another adventure around that next bend. But since we left the Tetons, our desire is just to be home. We’ve agreed that we’d like to be Samantha the witch. So we could just wiggle our noses, and be in our driveway. But of course that won’t happen. So we’ll just push on, and hope to be home by Monday.

For those of you who are still with us, thanks for your interest.

Buffalo Bill and Nebraska

Back on the road today, but we enjoyed our stay in Nebraska. We visited the Buffalo Bill Museum State Park yesterday. It’s actually his home here in North Platte. The self guided tour of the home, barn, and other out buildings is quite interesting. It’s filled with photographs, guns, Wild West posters, etc.

We also visited a very nice Art and Gift Gallery yesterday. It’s an artist’s co-op. Each artist displays their specialty, and contributes both time and a percentage of their sales to keep the business operating. We were fortunate enough to be there while they were having a photography show. We thoroughly enjoyed it, and would recommend a stop there if you pass through North Platte.

We had fog when we awoke yesterday, and that gave way to very dark clouds in the afternoon. But the rain held off until about 6PM. The local weather forecast called for high winds (up to 55MPH) overnight. But if it blew, we both slept through it.

Back on the road today; we spend tonight in Iowa. One more state closer to home…
Fay

We left the Tetons yesterday as planned. I will admit that although I thought I was ready to head home, I got pretty weepy when he headed down the road. I am ready to be home again, but I’m also a bit sad that our ‘great adventure’ is coming to an end. We have already vowed to return to Yellowstone and the Tetons. However, we just don’t know when that may be.

But on to yesterday’s travels… We headed south on 189, then to 191, and finally onto I-80. Shortly after leaving Jackson we drove into a beautiful canyon. There were evergreen trees on both sides of the canyon walls, and as we drove further, we noticed the ever present Grand Teton peaks in our mirrors behind us.

We had snow capped mountain peaks most of the morning yesterday; sometimes on both sides of us. As we traveled through WY, we saw hundreds of Pronghorns. They were in groups of 2 or 3, or sometimes in larger groups of 20 to 30. Some were all alone in a field; other times they were sharing a field with cattle. What a pleasure it was to enjoy them through a good part of the day yesterday.

Also, fairly early in the morning I spotted a mature Bald Eagle. It was sitting in the middle of a grassy field along side 189. It seemed a bit strange to me to see him just sitting there on the ground. But I still enjoyed the sight, even if it was only a momentary glimpse.

The remainder of the day was pretty uneventful. Just miles and miles and miles of fences and arid pasture land, and of course the cattle and horses which are ever present in WY. They certainly hit the mark when they named it the Cowboy State.

This morning dawned blue and bright, but a bit windy. We jumped back on I-80 and headed for Nebraska. Now talk about wide open spaces. We drove for miles without seeing anything. Just up one hill and then down another. But finally we crossed through a high pass, where we found evergreen trees again, and snow on the ground.

Later this afternoon we found the corn fields. One corn field after another, and we were a bit surprised that they had not been harvested yet.

Tonight we’re spending the night in North Platte, NB. In fact, although we’ve only been on the road two days, we’re going to spend two nights here. There are a couple of things we want to see while here, and this was a 360 plus mile day for us. So we decided to take our break a day early. Who says we can’t change our plans!

We went through a time zone change a few miles back. So we’ve lost an hour today. One more change and we’ll back on NY time.

Thanks for traveling with us.
Fay

Just one more time...

Last post before we hit the road…Sal went out very early this morning, and caught the Alpen Glow on the mountains.

He also got some great early morning shots of elk. He caught them just after sunrise, and the shots are facing into the sun, hence the different light.

And as a last to do before leaving Jackson, we had to photograph the arch in the Town Square. The Boy Scouts collect the elk antlers which the animals drop each year in the National Elk Refuge. The four corners of the Town Square are framed by these elk arches.

Hope you’ve enjoyed our trip as much as we have. We’ll continue to post until we arrive home, that is assuming there are points of interest along the way.
Fay

More of Grand Tetons...

We had a great day in the park yesterday. Although the prediction had been for rain most of the day, we awoke to sunshine and blue skies. Sal had the truck’s oil changed first thing in the morning, and then we headed into the park.

We started with a ride through Antelope Flats. We really have fallen in love with those gentle giants, the bison. They are so much fun to watch as they move along at their own slow pace. We watched one crossing the road yesterday. He stopped mid stride, right in the middle of the road, and just stood there for several minutes. We actually thought he had fallen asleep. Then after several minutes he slowly finished his journey to the other side of the road.

We drove through Lupine Meadow too. We hadn’t seen anything of note until we were almost back to the main road. Suddenly from nowhere there was a mature bald eagle flying low over the creek. Needless to say we stopped to enjoy its beauty.

We drove to Oxbow Bend, still in the hopes of seeing a moose, but no luck. But we were there just at the right time to catch a reflection of the mountains in the Snake River. Sal was able to capture it just before it started to disappear.

We also ran into a small herd of Pronghorns yesterday. They were close enough for us to realize what beautiful eyes they have. Take a look at those eye lashes!!

Today is our last day in the Tetons. After 2 ½ plus months, we’re heading for home tomorrow. I’m ready. But Sal would stay longer if he could. Fortunately for me, unfortunately for him, all the remaining RV parks close tomorrow. So it’s ‘On the Road Again’ with Willie tomorrow morning.

While our plan calls for a ‘no detours’ trip from here, we have talked about stopping in a couple of places along the way. We’ll see what happens when we actually hit the road.

Thanks for sticking with us…
Fay