Summertime of 2013 begins in Syracuse....

Rest Area just north of Exit 77 Linglestown PA on 81 N 

 We began our 55-day trip on May 19th, after having the starboard slide-out motor repaired and a new battery under the hood. We drove 522 miles northbound through overcast skies and typical drizzly Pennsylvania weather and overcrowded traffic. We pulled over just north of Linglestown PA's exit 77 on Route 81 to the rest area to shake the traffic and veg out for the remainder of the night. We have never stayed at a rest stop overnight before. We put out the bedroom slide and dined on shrimp scampi taken from the freezer. We watched reruns of Adam-12 and MASH and plugged our ears to the road traffic.

Sunday, May 20th the drizzles continued and became fog in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The roads are in desperate need of resurfacing and repair. We came to rest at Green Lakes State Park, just outside of Syracuse NY on site 115.  While here in Syracuse we have borrowed Dave's parents car. The Jeep rests quietly in NBNC.

From May 20 through June 13 we spent days helping Dave's parents in landscaping, cleaning and arranging for care so that they may continue to live in their home, although they face challenges of being elderly.

After several weeks of rain, rain and, yes, more rain, we headed westbound to Saint Louis, Missouri. But before venturing onto the interstates once again, we attended the Camping World/Good Sam Club Rally at the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse. While there for the week we endured yet more rain. Thankfully we do not have to shovel rain but we sure did our best to straddle mud puddles. The unwarranted precipitation caused at least 400 rigs to park upcountry at the Destiny Mall parking lots. Although most days we overcast and drizzly, we attended many seminars and grazed through the buildings of vendors.    We attended two of the three evenings of entertainment; Friday night was Wayne Newton. As he approaches his 72nd birthday he was received well by the gathered crowd...and then he began to sing...he should have hung up  his ukulele thirty years ago! The second  night of entertainment was provided by Reba McIntire, who gave a great performance and received an encore.

While at The Rally we met up with fellow rver's and enjoyed sharing ceegars and scotch at our curbsides.  The evening before our departure a camping neighbor became trenched in mud. We prepared ourselves by pulling our rig forward and were able to get ourselves from being mud-bound by building bridges with our leveling blocks and propelling across the muddied trenches. Dave did a great job getting us from our mudcaked site.

After spending another week at Green Lakes we hit the road and arrived at site 76 at Sundermeier Campground in St. Charles Missouri. While here until July 7th we will be celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary with our son, Steve and his wife, Adrienne, and our daughter Carol and her husband Eric, and their sons (our grandsons) Alex and Kyle.

On July 7th we will begin our return to NBNC with our grandsons. Stay tuned!