Sharp's Travels

It was a beautiful day with a high of 71 degrees. Cheri spent the day doing more spring cleaning. I got the motorcycle out of storage and had to take it for a short ride. On my way back into the park I stopped to see Bud Avery to schedule a motorcycle ride and he said he didn’t bring it with him this year. I checked out Grandpa and Grandma’s van. I put some oil in and aired up the tires. I also aired up the tires on the golf cart. Some more people arrived from the north today.

It was cold here this morning with a temp of 37 degrees and frost. We only seen 3 days this cold since we left Florida in April. It did warm up to mid 60’s. Cheri started her spring cleaning and getting things out and set up for the winter. I got the awning out and staked down, changed the water filter and some other miscellaneous jobs. We did our morning and evening walk around the park and see that there are six units for sale. This afternoon Grandma and we went to see Grandpa. We didn’t think he looked very good. He did walk about 30 feet in the parallel bars. He won’t talk, just nodded his head and says he can’t hear. We picked up a tank of LP while we were out.

We were packed up and on the road by 8:00 am. We had about 350 miles to go to get to Zephyrhills. We arrived at Baker Acers campground around 2:00 pm. By getting an early start we got everything set up for the winter. We stopped over to see Grandma and she wasn’t home so we started out of the park to get groceries when we met her coming in. She also wanted to go for groceries, so we went together. It was very nice here as the temperature was around 73 degrees. For our trip from Zephyrhills to Alaska and back to Zephyrhills was 17,177 miles. Our fuel mileage was 9.04 MPG. We used 1,899.1 gallon of fuel. The average price of fuel was $4.636 per gallon. We left Zephyrhills on 4-24-08 and returned on 10-28-08. It was a great trip with a lot of new friends and memories.

We were up early this morning so we could say our goodbyes to Jodi and Darren before they left for work. After we got the truck packed up we headed for the campground to get our 5th wheel out of storage. We were on the road and headed south by 10:00 am. We arrived at our campground in Unadilla, Georgia at 2:00 pm. By the time we got everything set up and the truck unpacked and things back in there place it was 3:30. The rest of the day was spent on computer work.

It was another nice fall day. We all went to late church this morning. Jodi make potato salad for lunch and Darren did brats on the grill. It’s been a while since we’ve had brats and potato salad, sure was good. The Packers didn’t play today as they had a by. So we watched the Jets play and also watched the NASCAR race. We had pizza for supper and then watch 3 episodes of the Biggest Loser that they had recorded. If a person wants to lose weight this show is a good moral booster. It is something we need to work on this winter.

It was a beautiful day, sunny and in the mid 70’s. It was a fun day for all of us. The four of us went out for breakfast at the Duluth Dinner. It was a very good old fashion breakfast. When we got back home we split up. Cheri and Jodi went to the mall and other stores shopping for the day and Darren and I went to the Harley Davidson dealer. We checked out the new and used Road King bikes. For a while I thought Darren was going to buy one. I am going to wait until I get to Florida before I get serious. I have to sell my Sportster first. Darren and I both bought new jackets. When every body got home we had Mexican leftovers for supper. This evening we went to the movie and saw Body of Lies. It was a fair movie.

It rained all day so we stayed inside. We read our books and watched some TV until Darren and Jodi got home. They took us out to eat at a Mexican restaurant. It was very good and brought home enough for another meal. When we got home we watched some more TV and called it a night. It was still raining when we went to bed. It was a good thing because it is very dry here and there is still a water band.

It was a cool windy day. I think its time to head south. I used Cheri’s new I-Pod while walking on the treadmill. It works really nice, maybe I should get one. We spent most of the day doing paper work for Grandpa and Grandma. Cheri fixed a pot roast with onions, carrots, and potatoes in the crock pot for supper. After supper the four of us made a trip to Wal-Mart. Darren wanted to pick up a new music CD.

It was another cool morning but turned out to be a nice sunny day with a high of 64 degrees. I took Cheri to the mall to have her hair done. So I got to walk around the mall and shop. My shopping doesn’t take very long, although I did spend quite a bit of time in Sears checking out all the tools. I also made a stop at Radio Shack to check out the GPS units. Ours quick working yesterday and will replace it when we get to Florida. Cheri’s hair looks very nice and I think she is happy the way it came out. She had high and low lights added. Cheri and Jodi fixed supper and then we watched TV for the evening.

This morning we went to the mans store (Northern Tools) to do some shopping. It was fun looking around and I didn’t buy anything. Then we stopped at the Camp Bow Wow here in Duluth, we wanted to compare it the one Kari and Jason have. Kari and Jason’s is much nicer. This one had way to much stuff in the small front lobby and first impressions are every thing. Then we went to Discovery Mills Mall so Cheri could shop. I think I wore her out because she was ready to come back home before we got through the whole mall. Cheri had supper ready for Darren and Jodi when they got home from work.

It was a cool morning of 42 degrees. I did my 1 ½ miles on the treadmill this morning. We tried to do some computer work for Grandpa and Grandma today, but the server was down for repair so maybe tomorrow we can get that done. I did some more uploads of music on Cheri’s I-Pod. When Darren and Jodi got home we order in from Pizza Hut for supper. We watched some TV and called it a night.

It is starting to cool off here; we had to close the windows last night. The temp got down to 45 degrees last night and is going to be colder tonight, talking about some scattered frost. We went to early church this morning. After church we did some shopping, Cheri had a store she wanted to go to. On the way back to the house we stopped at the grocery store to get a pizza to have for supper. This afternoon Cheri and I read, watched TV and napped. It’s a tough job but someone has to do it. We left here at 7:30 pm for the airport to pick up Darren and Jodi. They had a good time on their cruse.

Today we headed for The Atlanta Cyclorama. It is a big two story building that contains a museum with a collection of Civil War artifacts, weapons, displays, maps and photographs. The “Texas” is featured on the main floor of the Cyclorama, one of the steam locomotives used in the Great Locomotive Chase in April, 1862.

We spent about 1 hour looking through the museum and met at 11:30 by the front lobby to take the tour of the major feature of the Cyclorama, the massive painting in the round and three-dimensional diorama.

We were escorted into the theater to watch a film that covers the history leading up to the Battle of Atlanta. Then it was off to the circular theater that houses the large painting. It is 42” high and 358” long, wrapped in a circle. You file into the tiered central seating. Each section of the painting is viewed from the slowly rotating seating and a guide points out the highlights of the painting. There are three dimensional figures at the base of the painting. It is hard to tell where the painting actually starts.

This is a must see for all you Civil War addicts.

For more information on the Atlanta Cyclorama go to: http://roadsidegeorgia.com/site/cyclorama.html

We stopped at the Sidelines restaurant for dinner and then at Home Depot for new water filters for the 5th wheel.

Back home again, Gay got to watch the truck races on TV and I tried to read, but my eyes had a different idea.

It was a rainy day so once again we stayed home and took it easy. This morning I got on the treadmill and did my 1 ½ miles. I am so far out of shape I wasn’t sure if I would make it. As soon as we get to Florida we need to get back into a routine of walking and working out, also means a diet to shed a few pounds.

It was another slow day for us. We spent a big part of the day working on paper work for Grandpa and Grandma. This afternoon we made a trip to Wal-Mart to get groceries and a few odds and ends. Late afternoon we watched TV and read. Cheri is having fun playing with the cats, Yah me too.

We have talked about going to the Civil War Museum in Kennesaw and today was the day.

We were ready to head out by 10:30 am. The traffic wasn’t bad. It was located about 20 miles from Atlanta, just off HWY 75. First we did the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw.

We read about the personal accounts of life during the Civil Was through the photographs, weapons, uniforms, and personal effects of the soldiers and learn the vital role the railroads played during the conflict.

Glover Machine Works worked tirelessly to build locomotives that helped rebuild the South after the Civil War. Located here is a full-scale reproduction of a belt-driven locomotive assembly line. It shows you the building process, including a pattern shop, factory equipment and two locomotives in various stages of completion.

We saw an exciting movie on the Great Locomotive Chase when Conductor William Fuller chased Andrews Raiders when they stole the locomotive “The General” to cut off the rail supply lines to the South. The General is restored and on site there.

We also visited Kennesaw Mountain, a 2,888 acre National Park, where in 1864 William T Sherman’s advance toward Atlanta was delayed for two weeks at Kennesaw Mountain by Confederates under General Joseph E Johnston. The unsuccessful attack produced 3,000 casualties, primarily at Cheatham Hill. Fifty years later, surviving Illinois veterans dedicated a monument at that location to their fallen comrades. Preserved here are the strong earthwork trenches largely responsible for the temporary Southern victory and the remains of a tunnel that was being dug to blow up the enemy.

We returned home by 6:30pm and caught up on a few favorite TV shows.

Today was a very lazy day. Gay put more songs on my I-pod and we both read off and on all day. We didn’t even go out of the house today. It was fun being lazy. We also watched the new shows on TV this evening.

We made a trip over to the 5th wheel this morning to pick up a few things that we forgot to bring to Darren and Jodi’s for our stay there. While we were at the 5th wheel I checked on the house batteries and found them to be almost dead. I knew they were going bad. They are only three years old and thought they would last longer. So we came back to Darren and Jodi’s so I could do some searching on the internet for new batteries. I was going to get new Interstate batteries, but not a very good review on the internet. Thought about going to Wal-Mart, but found out that a lot of their batteries are supplied by Interstate Batteries. We ended up going to Batteries Plus and we got two Trojan T105six volt golf cart batteries. They should last five to seven years. The rest of the day was spent backing up the computer, reading and watching TV.

We were up early this morning. We left here at 6:15 am to take Darren and Jodi to the airport. Their flight was to leave at 8:50 am for Miami; they have to be on the cruse ship by 2:30 pm. When we got back we went to church and then spent most of the afternoon putting music on Cheri’s new I-pod and watching football. It was nice to see the Packers win again. Cheri is having fun playing with the boys (cats).

We all took our time getting around this morning. Darren and Jodi took us out for a late breakfast. After breakfast we headed back to Darren and Jodi’s. Jodi and Cheri went out to have a manicure and pedicure. Darren worked on our computer getting in all the updates and taking care of other issues I had. When the girls got home we went out for a sandwich and then to the grocery store. We had to buy our lottery tickets. Then it was back to Darren and Jodi’s for a night of TV.

It was very foggy when we got up this morning. By the time we got our bags packed to take to Darren and Jodi’s and had breakfast at Cracker Barrel the sun had started to burn off the fog. We were on the road by 9:00 am. We arrived at Jones’s RV Park at 11:30 am. We put our 5th wheel in storage for two week as we will be staying at Darren and Jodi’s house sitting with their cats while they go on a week long cruse. Darren had the day off so we went over to their place and unloaded all our bags. Darren, Cheri and I headed north to the Mall to get some lunch and do some shopping. With Darren’s help we bought an I-Pod for Cheri. When Jodi got done with work she met us at Target to do some more shopping. When we got back to their place Jodi fixed us supper and Darren show me how to put our CD’s on the I-pod. Later we watched some TV and called it a night.

We left the campground at 9:00 am and headed for Atlanta. Our route took us down hwy 12 to hwy 53 to I 290 to I 294 to I 65. I drove right by the first toll on the toll road. They have really changed things since we had last been through this area. When we got to the next toll I told them what I had done and wanted to know if I could pay the toll there. They gave me a pink slip and said to send in the $2.25. The roads in Illinois are very bad, the worst since being in Alaska. We spent the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot about 30 miles north of Chattanooga. This is the first time we have stayed in a Wal-Mart parking lot. It was 10:00 pm and to late to find a campground. There weren’t any other campers there, but a lot of long haul trucker. There was a Cracker Barrel right across the street so we got a late supper and went to bed.

We had plans to meet Katherine & Bro and head for Kenosha, WI to check out the new Civil War Museum and when we tried to back out of our site here at the campground we found out we were stuck. It had rained all through the night and the truck sunk in a little and the wet grass was like ice. We just spun in place. It took us about 25 minutes to work the truck out onto the gravel road. Two campers on either side of us came over to help push. Gay kept digging out behind the wheels so we could inch the truck back.

We were supposed to meet Katherine & Bro at 9:30am in Paddock and car pool to the museum. We were only 5 minutes late after all our problems, good thing we had decided to leave early!

We had a nice visit with them on the way there and our first stop was right next door to the Civil Was Museum. It was all about the Wooly Mammoth and lots of fossils and old artifacts. It was all very interesting.

We did lunch at the Boat Dock restaurant and then began our tour of the Civil War Museum. The Fiery Trail tells the personal stories of the men and women of the Upper Middle West-specifically Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa Minnesota, Indiana and Michigan. You travel back in history from the homefront, to the railroad and waterways, to the battlefront and back home again. The Civil War is seen through the eyes of soldiers, nurses, spouses, children, clergymen, slaves, tradesman and others that lived it. They have life size figures that began talking about their experiences as you walk up to them. There are lots of news articles to read and we only had so much time to go through it so will have to come back one day to redo it more extensively. It was so well done and we recommend it to everyone.

We were back to the 5th wheel by 4pm and started doing a few things to get things ready to move out tomorrow morning before heading over to Camp Bow Wow. Kari and Jason had a very busy day today at Camp. There were 32 dogs! When they closed up for the night we headed over to Vicky’s for supper.

We said our goodbyes and hopefully they will be able to get away this winter to spend a few days in Florida to relax.

This morning I worked on getting the new power converter installed in the 5th wheel. We now have bright lights. We went to Camp Bow Wow this morning and then out to get pumpkins, hay bales, corn stocks, Indian corn, and gourds to decorate Camp Bow Wow for Halloween. This afternoon we took Kari’s car to the dealer to get the oil changed and stopped on the way back to do some shopping. After we closed up Camp Bow Wow at 7:00 pm Kari & Jason, Cheri and I went to Applebee’s for supper. It started to rain this afternoon and as of 10:00 pm it is still raining.

Happy birthday Kari!! I took out the power converter from the 5th wheel this morning and it was bad. I put the trickle charger on the house batteries to keep power going for the refrigerator so it would work. We left the 5th wheel this morning and headed for Kari and Jason’s place. Cheri baked a birthday cake for Kari. She also made lasagna and garlic Texas toast for supper, along with a bottle of wine. I mowed the lawn and did the trimming with the weed eater. I did some internet searching for a new power converter and found that Camping World had them. The best part is that Camping World is only seven miles from Kari and Jason’s place. So I went and picked it up. It was 7:30 pm when Jason and Kari got home for supper. It was 10:30 pm when we got back to the 5th wheel.

Cheri was tired from her painting yesterday. She stayed home while I went to Camp Bow Wow to help Jason strip the parking lot. Will it started to rain so that project was out. I did some odd jobs around the Camp. Kari was having an employee meeting and furnished lunch for them. I came back to the 5th wheel and got Cheri for lunch. After lunch we went to the Volo Auto Museum. They had a lot of old cars that were restored that were for sale. Cheri picked out several that she wanted. I think she had more fun then I did. When we got back to the 5th wheel we were able to watch the last half of the NACAR Race. This evening the lights started to get dim. I think the converter has quit working. I will have to check it out tomorrow when it is day light.

It was a very nice lazy morning. Cheri did do a load of laundry and gave me a badly needed hair cut. I did some work on the computer. We went over to Camp Bow Wow in the afternoon. I took a few pictures that you can check out. Cheri did some decorating for Halloween. When Jason came I helped him change the air filters in the air conditioners. The four of us went out to Nicks for pizza (pizza place) it was some of the best pizza I have ever had. It was 9:30 pm when we got back to the 5th wheel.

For pictures see album: Camp Bow Wow

We left Greg & Jeanene’s place at 9:30 am. Before we left I started the truck I had a brake alarm that wouldn’t stop ringing. So we were going to go to Appleton and have it fixed. Will when we got out of the drive way the alarm quit and everything was OK. So we headed for Volo IL. We stopped in Oshkosh at Wal-Mart to pick up a few things and then back on the road. We arrived at Beach Lake Resort in Volo around 1:30 pm. After we got set up and had a late lunch and then we headed over to McHenry to see Kari at her Camp Bow Wow. We got the grand tour. Everything looks really nice. Jason came around 5:00 pm. The air conditioner wasn’t working. So Jason and I checked it out and found the blower belt was broken. We went and got a new belt and had it working again by 7:00 pm. After Kari closed up we went to Chilis for supper. We were back to the 5th wheel by 9:15 pm. We watched a little TV and went to bed.

Wow! It’s hard to believe its Oct already. Greg & Jeanene came over to the 5th wheel with fresh baked pumpkin muffins right out of the oven. So we had coffee and muffins for breakfast. At 10:00 am the four of us left for Hartman State Park. We spent a couple hours hiking around the park. We got to see some color and a lot of geese getting ready to head south. Then Greg took us for a ride around the Chain of Lakes to see some of the big houses on the lake. Some thing we only dream about. We stopped in Waupaca at the DQ and had blizzards. Then it was back out into the country side to see more color. Fall is a pretty time with all of mother natures color. We got home around 3:00 pm. Time for a short nap before Jeanene made supper for us. After supper Greg and Jeanene came over to the 5th wheel to watch TV with us. We called it a night at 10:00 pm.

We left at 7:30 am with Greg & Jeanene to go to Wild Rose for breakfast with some old GWRRA (Gold Wing Rode Rider Association) motorcycle friends. After breakfast we went over to Don & Betty Edwards to do some more visiting. We left their place around 12:00 pm and took a ride around the country side to see the fall color and end up at Les & Judeen Shruck’s (more GWRRA friends) cabin and found them there putting on a new deck to their cabin. We visited for a while and checked out the inside of their cabin, very nice. From there we did some more sites seeing and ended up in New London for supper. After supper we made our way back to Greg & Jeanene’s place. We settled in for a night of TV and then called it a night at 10:00 pm. It was a fun day seeing all the old friends we hadn’t seen in years.