Meet the Taylors

We left the campground near Topeka, Kansas on May 1st and drove around Kansas City, MO.

Kansas City, Missouri

The Missouri and Mississippi Rivers converge in St Louis Missouri.

We came into Illinois and stayed in Mulberry Grove and realized we were close to my HS friend Betty and we were able to drive down and have some pizza with her and her grandson.

We drove into our home state (Craig and I were both born here) and wound around down some country roads to Ron and Carolyn Taylor's Home.

We pulled into the parking place of the friends we met while RVing in Canyon Lake, AZ.  I can thank my cousin, Jan, for the lead on that place that brought about this new friendship.

We are so enjoying our time with them and their family. They own many acres of gorgeous farmland in North Salem, IN.

Carolyn sold log homes at one time and they had this place built for themselves.

Their daughter, Tracy and her family built and live in this lovely open home with a pond that Ron built with his big equipment.

 The pond is right out their door off a deck.

The Walnut Creek runs through their property making for a great picnic and swimming place for their family.

 The river is spring fed and runs year around.

They told us that this spring water is about as pure as it gets.  We drank right from this spout and it was good!!!!  Carolyn told us this water has been running like this for at least 50 years that they knew of.

They just built this new pole barn.  It's huge.  Ron, at 72, has decided he wants to have horses and he also has many pieces of equipment that will fill this place up.

Their grand kids raise pigs for 4-H.  They had a heat light on them and you could nearly smell the bacon!

We are parked on a piece of property where Ron has his escavating equipment.  There are 30 acres here and since Ron pulled a muscle and is confined to his house for a few days, Craig got to get out the zero radius mower and cut all of the grass here.  He was a very happy camper.

Craig is the little dot just to the right of the driveway.

Craig mowing the back 30.

This is the pond on this part of their property.

This log cabin was rebuilt from the logs used in Ron's Aunt and Uncle's home.

Carolyn sold log homes for awhile so they would be able to get a better price on their home.  It sits across the road from the offices.
We have helped with a few small jobs and projects since we have been here, but we have also just been able to sit and enjoy their company.

Ron, Craig and Carolyn.
I hope to get more pictures today. 

Blessings,
Kathy

Whale from CO toward IN

 Our time in Colorado for this visit came to an end on Wed morning, April 30, 2014.  We knew the wind would be a factor and we saw the damage of the 60 mph gusts from April 29th.  We saw two overturned Semi Trucks and one 5th Wheel RV.  Our rig is pretty solid, especially with the Honda in tow, but we still had to wrestle the Whale to keep it swimming east with the strong north wind.  So, we stopped after only 133 miles and spent the rest of the day and night in Seibert, CO.  It was nice and we got rested up and headed out again at 6 am Thursday morning.  We work up to a sunny and less windy day.

Good-bye Colorado and Hello to Kansas.  Eastern Colorado and western Kansas look very much alike.  It's flat planes with wonderful farmlands.  Some fields were green and we could see farmers out trying to disk and plow, but the wind was making it very hard on them.
We did one of our longest driving days, so far, in the Whale with a total of a whopping 430 miles.  We drove in 15-25 mph winds that would gust up to 40.  As I70 turned more SE than E, it also helped with the wind pushing us along instead of broad siding us like yesterday.
Deciding on a place to stay is one of the more difficult parts of the RV life.  We have APPS and books and even our GPS has a list of RV Parks/Walmart and Rest Stops along the way.  We thought we could make up more of our time today and get around Topeka and Kansas City, but we were both getting tired and decided to pull into this "out of the way" Park called, Hilltop just north of Topeka, KS.
An older woman runs the place and has all sorts of wild birds that use her lagoon and she feeds them.  There are several RVes that look like they are permanent of the other side of the Office/House, but we are parked all alone on the opposite side.  We got off the main road and went a mile down this road with the old bridge.

We are still 650 miles away from friends we made while in AZ.  They live in North Salem, Indiana and we are looking forward to seeing them!  

How Long was Jonah in the Whale?

It was a year ago that we moved into our Whale.  We are back in the first Park that we stayed in, Cherry Creek State Park in Aurora, CO.  It's a beautiful place and we have enjoyed our time here and the time we have had since April 11th with our family and friends that live here.

Today is a rainy day and we hope that the temperature doesn't fall below freezing making it turn to snow.  The mountains are getting snow.

It did snow on us the second day we were in Colorado.

We have enjoyed the wildlife and the beach and lake that are here.

Friends came and camped here for a few days and it was good to have time with them. This is their Class C RV.

We took their Labradoodle out for a walk one day while they were gone for the day.

We have been able to watch Kyra play in the band and on her Volleyball team.  Cooper was incredulous over the fact that I played Volleyball in college.  You could see how hard it was for him to imagine his grandma ever being young and trim enough to play.

It's been fun to attend several baseball games and spend time with Collin, Carter and Cooper!

At one of the ballgames we met Moose, a 185 pound Mastiff. Thankfully, he was a very gentle and friendly dog.

Friday night we went to a ball game in Castle Rock.  You can see the cities' name sake in the background.

Typical Colorado weather allowed us a beautiful, although a bit windy, day yesterday to spend with Tana and 3 of the kids.  Barry and Carter were at a firearms class.

The kids had a training run getting ready to run the Bolder Boulder at the end of May.  Craig ran a couple of laps with Cooper.

Grandpa and Kyra on the way back from a nice walk down to the lake and back.
It has been great to renew friendships and have fellowship with Craig's brothers and their wives!!  

It's raining today and only 40 degrees here at 10 am.  We are getting ready to go to church and thinking the afternoon baseball game may get cancelled.  It may be a good day for a movie.

We have added a couple more days to our stay here to let this weather system move on through and past the Midwest.  Our next stop will be to see friends in the Indianapolis around May 3rd and then on to Crown Point for the month of May.

Hope to see you along the way!!

This is a day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Kathy

Deja Vu All Over Again

We had a busy morning.  We looked at a condo near Tana's home and we are praying and waiting to see how we feel about it in the morning.

It will be one year ago on April 23rd that we brought our new home (the Whale) to Cherry Creek.  It was cold and snowed on us that week.  After the snow we had last night, we waited until it was nearly melted this morning to try to get in to the State Park.  The trees are just starting to bud, but they were frozen hard last night and probably again for the next two nights, so I hope they can survive. 

There was a heard of mule deer to welcome us in.

Here's our new spot for the next two weeks.

There are several other campers here.  In fact, we have people in a tent in a spot near us.

We set up and then headed over to Craig's brother's house.  Pudge had made a very nice meal for us and then we had a nice chat before heading back to the RV.  It says that it's 29 out now. brrrrr.

Tonight is the "blood moon".  I'm pretty sure I won't be seeing it, but who knows????  I just looked out of my window and there is a full shot of that huge moon.  I think I'll see who took pictures of it in the morning.

Blessings,

Kathy