Home Again

Yesterday we drove east on I-10 to just east of Tallahassee where we turned south east on US 27. Driving past the horse farms west of Ocala we noticed a lot of them appeared to be empty and many had for sale signs in front of them. I suppose the economy affected them also. Turning south at Ocala we drove I-75 and the Florida turnpike until we intersects US 27 at Clearmont. We arrived home at about 7PM finding that Terri had supper ready for us. Today we have spent some tome unloading and putting things in the house. The temp was close to 90 degrees. It is going to take alittle while to adjust to the heat & humidity. We will be here all winter other than our monthly rallys with our NKK Florida Sea Turtles club.

De Funiak Springs, FL

This morning before leaving the RV park we watched a couple of river boats pushing barges on the Mississippi River. One was pushing 18 barges up river and one was pushing 15 down river. We crossed over the river into Natchez, Mississippi on US 84. Traveling east through rolling pine covered hills. What a change from the flat fields on the west side of the river in LA. It seems like often when you cross a major river you see a drastic change in the terrain.
US 84 is a 4 lane highway that bi passes all of the towns. It's just like driving the interstate only no traffic. As we traveled into Alabama the road became 2 lane passing through many small towns that mostly just consisted of a run down convenience store. It also became flatter and we began seeing cotton fields. At Opp we turned south on US 331 traveling by more cotton and some peanut fields. Traveling on into Florida we are staying at another PA park (Jupitor Lake RV Park). Not as nice as last night but very acceptable and only a couple hundred feet to a lake.

Oct. 7 2010

This morning we awoke to sunny skies and no morning river fog. I suppose that was because the temp was near 50 degrees rather than the 40 degrees it had been being. After getting turned around and out of the RV Park with out hitting any rocks or scratching the sides on any trees we headed south on winding hilly roads through the Ozark Mountains with occasional sightings of the White river.
At Mountain View we turned SW on Ar 9 driving on curvier and steeper roads yet. As we neared Clinton it became less curvy as we passed by hilly meadows with cattle in them. At Clinton we turned south on US 65 passing through Conway and Little Rock. As we continued on south the land became fairly flat as we passed by harvested fields of corn, soybeans, rice and cotton. It seemed strange to see volunteer corn knee to waist high in the harvested fields.
Rolling on south into Louisiana it was much more of the same but we did start seeing cotton still being harvested. We also passed many cotton gins and saw several river terminals for loading grain onto barges. We rolled into Vidalia, LA about 5 PM and are set up at the River View RV Park on the banks of the Mississippi River. This is a very nice PA park. The temp has been in the upper 80's most of the afternoon. We have only seen that a few times since leaving Florida in April

Calico Rock, AR

Sun. afternoon and Mon. were pretty chilly about 65 degrees Tues. and today have been low to mid 70's. It has been 40 degrees every morning when I get up. Yesterday and today I went trout fishing with Nancy's cousin Thurl Watts. The river has been rising both days and the fish don't bite very good when it is rising. The reason it was rising is that they put 2 or 3 additional generators on line at the dams up river. We did catch fish but had to work pretty hard at it. Neither one of us like trout so we release them as soon a we catch them.
Nancy has been spending time with her aunts. This evening we drove south 28 miles to Mountain View, AR and listened to the different groups that were picking and singing near the courthouse square.. There were some pretty good musicians, but of course there always are. The top picture is calico Rock taken from the boat on the river. The bottom picture is looking down on the river from the bluff that the RV park is located on.

Calico Rock AR

This morning after spending 4 days in Branson, MO We departed southbound on US 65 driving up and down the long limestone, tree covers hills into Arkansas. At Harrison, AR we turned east bound on Rte 401 driving thru more rolling and less steep hills past small hill farms and thru towns with names such as Flippen. At Mountain Home we turned south on A 5 for the last 25 miles to Calico Rock
We went to the Haygood Family show on Thur. eve. They are a family of six boys and 1 girl ranging in age from 17 to 33 years of age. The show has ran for the last 18 years. On Sat. eve we went to the Ray Stevens show. The first 1/2 was a patriotic show and the second 1/2 he sang a lot of his old songs starting with his first hit in 1960. The picture at left is of an interesting group that were seated next to us. When they came in I thought they must be part of the show but they weren't. I guess they just chose an interesting dress for the evening. We spent a lot of time just visiting with Paul & Mary.