August 21-September 5: St. Louis, Part 2

Our stay in Robertsville was eventful and productive. As you can see by the picture, the campsites were very dense with trees and shrubs. Our biggest challenge was to back into the site since the road was narrow with a drop off on both sides of the campsite and on the other side of the road. We had to do a lot of manuevering to get into the site but we did it! When we accomplish feats like this, we just think we are so great. So we congratulated ourselves many times.

We moved to Babler State Park after two weeks at Robertsville. This put us close to Barb's mom which gave us an opportunity to spend time with her. We took her out to dinner several times to one of her favorite restuarants, the Country Buffet. She really does love their fried chicken. In addition, Barb would go visit her during the days while I stayed at the motorhome and worked on projects. In fact, one day I washed the entire motorhome............WOW!!!

We also spent much of this time going to doctors for our regular yearly checkups. Not fun but definitely necessary. We both received positive evaluations on all visits. Thankfully we are very healthy.

In addition, we had out of town company. First my brother from New York came to visit for 4 days. We were very busy with him going through family photos and possessions. We shipped much of the crystal and serving platters that I had from my parents to Larry. And we reviewed all of the albums from my parents youth and our youth and decided what to do with them. It is hard to believe but it took us two days to do all of this. But we felt like we had really accomplished alot. We also took time to visit with cousins who had us over for dinner. It was a great evening. Larry is fun to visit with and we were really glad to see him.

The day Larry left, Barb's cousins flew in to visit. We dropped Larry off at the airport in the morning and then picked Sue and Deb up in the afternoon. They stayed at one of the rental houses that is located at the retirement center where Elsie lives. We had dinner with Elsie at her dining room one evening and then brought her to the house for dinner the next evening.

One of our outings with them was to go to wine country. We tasted all of the wines and then purchased a bottle to share on the deck. As we overlooked the Missouri River valley, we sipped the wine, laughed and talked and had a great afternoon.

During one of the afternoons we went to the St. Louis Air Show. This is a annual event that always occurs over the Labor Day weekend. And the location of the air show was close to Babler. We had never been to an airshow and it was a very exciting experience.

I took these photos with my Sony camera. It is a digital with a zoom that is comparable to 435mm that allowed me to zoom in close to these Blue Angel planes. In case you did not realize, these planes were flying at several hundred mph and I was able to track them with the camera and lock in on them without blur. I am so thrilled!!

After Deb and Sue left, we took several days to relax and visit Elsie. Our two week limit at Babler was over and so we had to move on to the Casino Queen in East St. Louis , IL.

Love and hugs,

Linda and Barb