Blue Ridge Parkway

We spent the past two days driving part of the Blue Ridge parkway and Skyline Drive. The parkway and the skyline drive are a total of 469 miles, which we obviously did not drive. We are camping right in the middle of the start of each drive. So we drove south for about 60 miles one day and then north for about 60 miles the next day. It took us about 4 hours each day and many, many pictures........here are just two

Tomorrow we leave for Chesapeake Bay area to visit with the kids.

July 21: Rio Grand, OH

We are currently in Rio Grand, OH, on our way to the Chesapeake Bay area. We are staying at the Bob Evans Farm Campground. We thought it would be fun to be at the home of Bob Evans and his first restuarant.

If you continue on with the blog , you will see a photo journey of our travels for the last month.

Love and hugs to all of you. Safe travels..............

Barb and Linda

June 29 - July 21: Where have we been since leaving St. Louis

So here I am playing catch up , trying to let you know where we have been, who we have seen, and where we are.




A JOURNEY VIA PHOTOS..............June 29-July3:
From STL to Keokuk, IA..Charles City, IA..Mystic Lake Casino, Mn..to Camp Lake, MN



Chief Keokuk





One of several unusual style home in Keokuk, IA




Nauvoo, IL : Old town along Mississippi River




Campground in Charles City, IA







The Gang at Camp Lake


THE BROTHERS + ONE SISTER


THE SPOUSES + ONE SISTER



THE LOON FAMILY.........we visited them daily







On June 8th, we left Camp Lake and began our travels to Chesapeake Bay area. Our plan is to travel leisurely, two weeks and see a few sites along the way.

Just out side of West Lafayette, IN, is the Battle field of the Battle of Tippecanoe.




Dairy Farm near Remington, IN. They had the best ice cream ever !!!



We had a opportunity to watch the birthing of a calf. Click the play button below to see momma try to get new baby to stand up. This baby is about 10 minutes old.






Bob Evans Farm and Campground.......we ate at a Bob Evans for the first time.




Love and hugs. That's all for now.

So Much Has Happened Since We Last Wrote

Well, here it is a month since we last wrote and we have been busy little workers.

• Closing was moved up to June 29...that is today !!!
• We have sold all of the furniture in the condo...to neighbors, friends, Craigs List
• We donated all unsold household items to Independence Center..they made two trips to get the large heavy stuff and we made about 20+ trips with everything else
• We have visited with friends who we have not seen in several years
• We have planned our travels for the next two months, tentatively
• Barb has visited her mom regularly and had several meetings with the nursing directors, etc. to get everything with her mom in smooth working order
• We have spent time with Elsie taking walks and playing dominos
• We have endured the heat and humidity of St. Louis....temps in the high 90's with heat index at 106+
• AND WE LEAVE ST. LOUIS TOMORROW

Our first leg of this trip is to travel through Iowa to get to the Mille Lacs area of Minnesota where we will have a gathering of Barb's brothers and families. Dave has a cabin on one of the lakes and a space cleared for our motorhome. We will be there about 5 days.

So off we go............Love and hugs to all of you,

Barb, Linda and Bailey

We have a contract !!!!!

We received an offer on the condo and have accepted it. Closing is scheduled for the first week of July.

We are just thrilled !!!!!!!

More Chihuly: Missouri Botanical Gardens

Ben and Larry visit St. Louis

My brother, Larry, and his son, Ben, came to St. Louis for a family wedding. We toured the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

Here we are with Larry and Ben ready to go to the wedding.

All the Packing and Sorting is Finished

Last Wednesday we finished all of the sorting and packing and shipping. The furniture left in the condo is for display only. When we have a completed contract, we will either sell the furniture or donate all of it to Independence Center.

So this weekend our time is devoted to my cousin's daughter's wedding and to spending time with my brother and nephew and other cousins, who came in town for the wedding.

Will publish pictures at a later date.

Wexford Friends

We had a mini reunion in the Central West End with our friends Jean, Judie, and Maggie. Our plan was to have drinks at Judie's beautiful condo and then go out to dinner.

But the storms came in and watching the thunder and lightening from the 13th floor was so cool; we just ordered a pizza.

Gathering to Celebrate Andrea

Our very dear friend Andrea left us last year.

We gathered at BC's house to celebrate her life.

Her husband Peter and daughter Annie were there.

Andrea was one of those very special persons who would bring joy to your heart and whose laugh reverberated around the room. We will miss her very much but feel joyful to have had her as a part of our lives.

Mother's Day

We had a great weekend

celebrating Mother's Day with Elsie

First we had a Mother/Daughter tea on Saturday and then Mother's Day luncheon on Sunday. She loved the corsage that we got for her.

Our First Week's Progress

We spent four days this week at the condo making decisions as to what to do with everything. We are sorting all items into several piles:

• those items that stay in the condo until we sell it so that it shows well
• those items we want to use in the motorhome now
• those items we want to keep for future and will get shipped back to AZ
• those items we are packing to take back to AZ in the motorhome
• those items we want to keep for future but are too heavy or large to ship back now so will get stored at Carolyn's house
• those items that we do not want and so get donated to Independence Center
• those items that get packed and saved for Susan and Robyn and stored at Carolyn's
• those items that just get pitched in the trash

As most of you know, we are very slow in making decisions. There are some items that we have picked up at least 5 times over the past week and asked, "What are we doing with this?" And since we have no answer, we put it down again. Eventually some decision is made.

For the week our accomplishments include :

• making numerous runs to Independence Center
• filling the trash containers in the basement to overflowing
• shipping 3 large boxes to AZ
• bringing boxes of items back to the motorhome and figuring out where to put them

We have several more days of work, but we are resting this weekend.

Love and hugs to all of you,

L&B&B

New decisions

Just a quick update:

We have decided that it may be a good idea in this market now to try to sell the condo we have here in St. Louis. So now it is for sale or for rent or whatever. We are located in the Central West End which is close to two major universities and two hospital complexes plus over 30 restaurants are within walking distance. So our hope is that a medical student or other graduate student would be interested.

We spent yesterday going through all of the kitchen cabinets getting rid of food (tea bags, spices, olive oil, hot chocolate, etc) that we left there 5 years ago when we started full timing. Obviously, everything was way, way, way past its shelf life.

Today we will work on the bathroom and clean out those cabinets.

We are leaving furniture and paintings and some accessories just in case someone might want to rent it furnished. We are open to all possibilities.

Will keep you updated as to our progress.

love and hugs,
linda, barb, and bailey

Bailey discovers grass

No words can describe the joy he felt when he just rolled and rolled in the grass. Ahhhhhhhhhh !

Mom meets Bailey

Bailey was quite a gentleman as he introduced himself to Elsie. She was absolutely delighted to finally meet him.

Our Visit with Pearl & Cheryl & the Girls

Bailey and his girlfriends,
Blanche and Lucy

The Gateway Arch

View of St. Louis from the Arch

Clark is underwater and Lewis will join him soon. This scupture is larger than life-size. The Mississippi River is flooding.

Dinner at the Winery

All photos on this date were taken by Pearl Racette of Photography by Pearl.

We are back in St. Louis

Yesterday was a momentous day for us. We drove 300 miles in one day !

The forecast was for thunderstorms all day so I pulled up a radar screen on the internet. This is the radar screen of the storm we had in El Reno and an example of the radar screen I followed as we drove.










We left Joplin at 8:00 am about 1/2 hour ahead of when the storm was to hit. Since I was able to be online while we were driving, I followed the radar screen while Barbara followed the road. We did run into a few light rains, but since we stayed about 1/2 hour ahead of storms , we just kept driving and arrived to the St. Charles rv park by 2:00 pm.

And then a great surprise.... we got a phone call from friends Pearl and Cheryl, who were heading home to the east coast. They were just outside of St. Louis and wanted to meet up with us. They arrived about 4:00 pm, we had drinks and treats here and then went out to dinner.

Today, if the rain will stop, we go into the City to the arch, the new cathedral, Forest Park, etc. and then this evening we will go to wine country.

We are so pleased to see them and visit with them. And Bailey was so excited to see his friends, Blanche and Lucy.

Love and hugs to all of you,
Linda and Barb and Bailey, too.

Bailey's opinion of all of the rain