Travels of the LITTLE GREEN TRUCK

Airplanes

2010-07-13T18:42:00.001-07:00

While we were in Oregon I wanted to go see the Spruce Goose but got sidetracked the first day in Tillamook. This town on the very northwest coast of Oregon is famous for the Tillamook cheese that you can buy everywhere. We got sidetracked here,not because of cheese but, because of blimps. Tillamook is home to one of the few blimp hangers left in the US and is the largest wooden structure in the world. It is HUGE!! It is 1,072 ft long, 296 ft wide and 192 ft high. It covers 7 acres and the doors on each end are 120 ft high. .. Museum..The US Navy built 17 of these hangers in1942 with two being built at NAS Tillamook.The second was completed in 27 days, but was burned in 1992 and the one left now houses one of the top five privately owned aircraft collection in the nation with over 30 warbirds that are still flying. A very interesting place.

After leaving the museum we saw a sign that read…. Munson Falls Natural Area. It was a nice afternoon so we thought.. lets check it out. After about 10 minutes on a narrow gravel road we thought that this was a mistake. The end of the road came soon after that with a small turnaround and parking area. We got out and started down a narrow path through a rainforest. Trees dripping with moss and many different ferns and flowers along side a narrow creek. About 15 minutes walk and the trail ended with a beautiful view of a neat 100 ft high waterfalls. Really cool and interesting place.

The next day we traveled to McMinnville OR and the Evergreen air & Space Museum.. Evergreen.. that is home to the famous Hughes H-4 Hercules, better known as the Spruce Goose. It is bigger than you can believe and is housed in a huge building and it dwarfs all the other planes that are there. The museum is really neat with many airplanes in one building and outside and many NASA and space related displays in another building. There is also an IMAX theater there that has 2 or 3 different shows every day. Both museums were very interesting.They also had an art show going on with many weird metal sculptures. Very unique and wonderful.

North to Oregon

2010-07-01T23:46:00.000-07:00

As we headed north from Caspar Beach we were still on State Hwy 1 which still followed the edge of the continent. It is a very rugged, twisty, turny road along the coast that turns back inland to meet with US-101 again. The weather has been cool, cloudy and rain but, we left on dry roads and climbed the twisty roads through the beautiful redwood forests. This whole area north of San Francisco is also known as the Redwood Empire and sometimes referred to as the Lost Coast. It is a very rugged and beautiful area and was the road that the Little Green Truck liked the least so far. The climbing at slow speeds and twisty roads overheated the transmission so we had to stop on a hill in the middle of the woods with nothing but redwood forests around. We waited about 45 minutes, with only 2 cars passing us, for it to cool and started out again. Continued on the rest of the way to Hwy 101, stopping at the Drive Through Tree. The Ltlgrntruck wouldn't fit, so I walked through, brushing my head on the top most of the way through so it was about 6'5" and about the same wide, but still neat. Continued on to Eureka, CA. and stayed overnight at the fairgrounds where it started to rain again. Left the next morning on wet roads but no rain,yet. Arrived in Brookings, OR.where we stayed overnight. We went to the marina and watched some sea lions play We talked to a boater there that said they played there all the time and earlier in the year a mother and two babies stayed in the slip next to him until too many people started to come around. He also said the year has been the wettest and coldest that he could remember, just our luck, but we are still enjoying the new country, just wish it would dry a little and warm up. Left the Brookings area for the short drive to the Lincoln City area where we planned to stay for a week. Guess what, the whole week it rained. We did meet some fun people and Jan got to play cards every night. As you can tell, we do not look at all the tourist places, but like to see the back country, look at lighthouses and old buildings and meet people.

Northbound !

2010-06-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

As you saw on the previous post we had a great time at ATHS National show. When the ATHS show ended Sunday we went along with about 40 other trucks on a bridge tour. They had a route set up that took us on 5 bridges in the San Francisco Bay area... The Oakland Bay .. Golden Gate..Richmond-SanRaFael..Carquinez and Benicia/Martinez bridges. We stopped for a mini truck show and a delicious box lunch at a park along Hwy-1 on the Pacific Ocean.We drove the ltlgrntruck through parts of downtown San Francisco.... Wow What Fun... sure glad we were playing follow the leader... Just like everywhere we go people standing on the sidewalks point and wave and give us thumb's up. It still amazes us the reactions of people to the ltlgrntruck. When the tour group turned south we left them and turned north on the beginning of our journey through the Pacific Northwest. Our first stop was on the Russian River at Duncan Mills. We realy do not make too many plans on our travels. This area was a surprise. We were just headed to Hwy-1 on the coast but found this area a favorite getaway for S.F. people. It has a redwood grove nearby and the river is a favorite for canoeing and kayaking. A neat area, so we stayed a couple of days. When we left, we went on the coastal highway. WOW again. The coast is amazing. Sometimes when looking I forgot to look where the truck was going much to Jan's dismay. So we didn't travel very far and made many stops just to look at the new world we had entered. We saw lots of sea lions and seals and stopped at a couple of lighthouse and landed at Caspar Beach between Mendecino and Fort Bragg where we stayed for 2 days enjoying the rain !!! not. We met several interesting people in town. One stopped us on the street by standing directly in front of us to take our picture where he was joined by another person who had just grabbed his camera out of his car. One of the locals( transplants from New York who used to sell clothes to the Meijer stores that we retired from... Small,small world ) told us that times were so bad that most people had to wear "2-3 hats, like flippin' burgers and growin' weed in the garage" just to keep their heads above water. We can attest to the hardships a lot of people are going thru. We see so many "for sale", "closed" and just plain empty buildings. God help this country.

ATHS==Reno to Pleasanton

2010-06-13T21:43:00.000-07:00

We left Reno on May 24 in a caravan of about 40 old trucks from the ATHS chapter show. Along with the Little Green Truck from MI there were trucks from IA, OH and South AZ that I remember. The route we took was north out of Reno to US-70 in CA. This highway takes you through the Feather River Canyon to Sacremento and was a beautiful drive. The club had a photographer driving along who took pictures and a video of the caravan that we could buy at Pleasanton. We stopped in Oroville where some very nice people provided all of us with a very nice barbecue lunch with more food than we could eat. Thank you to our hosts to whom we were never introduced. We left and headed for Sacremento where we found a campsite at Cal-Expo rv Park and because it was raining we stayed put for two days. Some of the others that were staying at motels went to the Hayes Truck museum and the CA. Railroad Museum..... maybe next time for us.We arrived at the Alameda fairgrounds on Wed. with the sun shining and a pleasant afternoon.We were parked on the asphalt parking lot but as we walked around we found a nice grassy area where some trucks were parked and talked the people in charge into letting us move. Thank you guys as it made things so much nicer for Grizzly. There were about 700 trucks of all kinds at the show. Everything was well organized and well run and we had a great time. . We stayed in the trailer at the fairgrounds for the four days and enjoyed meeting many new friends. I took some pictures that I uploaded to our Picassa Web Albums but, as we will get a picture book of all the trucks in the show, I did not take all that many. They said that they were going to have the pictures on the website ATHS.org photos 1 photos2 .

"Challenge" sent via VANILLA

2010-06-11T20:52:00.000-07:00

And now I am privileged to pass this award to" these were the words in David's vanilla blog
The Little Green Truck considered it more of a challenge than an award since the idea was to list 10 things that we love.
1. God
2. each other
3. family, friends and traveling companion, Grizzly
4. traveling with the Little Green Truck
5. meeting new and interesting people

6. seeing wildlife
7. seeing God's beautiful outdoors.
8. reading a good book
9. fixing a gourmet meal together
10. chocolate
Since it was answers for both of us, chocolate ended up #10, had it just been for me it might have moved up to #4. It's hard to say, most of that depends on how long I have been without chocolate. But we both agree that we enjoy meeting the people through our travels. They are giving us some great memories to hold on to for the time that we are no longer able to travel. Thank you all for entering our lives, especially the ones with which we have managed to keep in touch. Hopefully when you read this you will take the challenge and think of ten things you love and if there are any people on the list..... tell them... and pass it on.

Pahrump to Reno

2010-06-08T17:31:00.000-07:00

As we prepared to leave Pahrump for Reno for the ATHS chapter truck show, we started looking around at our route north. Since Pahrump is only about 40 miles from Death Valley and it was on our way north, I thought we would go that way and see what it was like. NOT.... As we talked to locals and looked at weather reports, we found that the daytime temps. were already over 105 degrees. People said it really does get that hot and it was only the middle of May. They, also, said that as it is 200 ft below sea level, we would find 7 and 8 % grades to get out on the other side. Since the little green truck doesn't really like these climbs with these temps, we decided to take the easier route up US 95 to Reno. As this route is mostly desert we were quite surprised when we got to the place we picked to stop for the night. As we entered town we saw a lot of bunker looking structures and in town there was a Munitions Museum ???? All kind of Questions. On the other end of town was a very large lake that we didn't see until the next morning. We didn't go to the museum but learned that the town has been an ammunition depot for many years. It started as a Navy Depot in 1930 and was transferred to the Army in 1977. Last night we were listening to one of our hero's Gov. Jan Brewer defend herself and her state and she said that her father had worked at the Hawthorne munitions depot during WW II. How interesting when a place you have been to is personally referenced by someone. As we left in the morning the road followed along the shore of Walker Lake, 12 mi. long by 5 mi. wide lake in the desert. It was a beautiful drive along the lake. As we left the area we entered another world on the edge of the desert.The area becomes a farming area as you come into Fallon & Fernley & Reno. We stayed at a campground outside of Reno for a couple of days and then went to the parking lot of T.E.C. Trucks, a Volvo, Mack truck dealer that helped sponsor the truck show. have a neat grille made to look like a new Volvo truck. They furnished hotdogs, hamburgers, salads, cookies and drinks all three days of the show. They even managed to get the little green truck in for an oil change and to help me adjust the brakes and repair some air lines. were all great guys and the truck show was great because of their help in-spite of the cold winds and snow and sleet we experienced .... this was May21-22-23 .... crazy weather.

Yuma AZ to Pahrump NV

2010-06-02T22:02:00.000-07:00

We have been a little lazy about keeping the blog updated, but will try a little harder. We left Yuma and headed north on a very nice sunny day, stopping in Quartzite for lunch. The next stop was Lake Havesu and the London Bridge and then on to Kingman and the Blake Rv Park and Horse Motel.

talked to the owner when he came over to see the truck. He explained the horse motel part....they have 12 stalls that people traveling with horses rent to rest the horses while traveling. Horses do not travel well in trailers and need a solid place to rest so he rents the stalls out and has a corral to walk them. The horses owners do the feeding and care.....another unique idea. Stayed for two nights. We were trying to decide if we wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. While we were thinking about it, some people stopped in and said it was snowing in Williams and at the Canyon ( the first of May !!!!) This made up our minds..... next trip. Even though the weather was cool.. in the 60's, we left for Nevada and took the highway to Las Vegas across the Hoover Dam. Signs on the highways said no commercial or rental trucks crossing the dam, but we're an rv so we went that way. We stopped in Cloride NV for lunch.. another out in nowhere town that we saw signs for and went to check out. A unique, almost ghost town in the desert. Lunch was at Yesterdays Restaurant.... good food. While we waited for it to open a truck stopped in the middle of the road and a guy got out to check out the ltlgrntruck and spent a 1/2 hr talking. One other car passed and two other guys walked by. A real busy morning. From there it was on to the Hoover Dam, then Las Vegas and on to Pahrump which is about 65 miles NW of Vegas on the edge of Death Valley.
Jan managed to find some entertainment there. There were at least 3 casinos in town. The rv park was playing Texas hold-em the night we pulled in. Once we got settled Jan went to find out about the stakes. So Mondays and Wednesdays were texas hold-em games and Tuesdays and Thursdays were cribbage games. The rest of the nights were spent checking out the casinos. At $5 for the buy in, the card games were good entertainment.

Algodones, Mexico

2010-05-11T15:34:00.000-07:00

We spent the last week of April going back and forth across the border for various treatments. Our first day across we had breakfast at the open air restaurant set in behind various shops. Then we picked up 2 bottles of "creamed tequila". We had a taste of it last year, yummmm..good stuff!
The next day, Monday we headed across before 8am to see Dr. Brock and Danny and hopefully start some chelation treatments. They are incredible. Even tho' their chelation rooms were always full with "winter visitors" coming and going, they remembered our names on sight and who had recommended them to us!!! They said Al and Roxie had been there earlier in the year and are doing great! Always good to hear about friends!!
So now it is time to hook up to chelation. Bob spends the time getting an appointment with; a dermatologist for him( at my request), and a dentist for cleaning for both of us. After my first treatment we head back across the border with 2 more (1 each) bottles of "creamed tequila". OOPS!!! Only allowed 1 liter per person every 30 days. We were given the option of returning our purchases or dumping them out. Hmmmm... back we go to return them........ darn!!!!
It was so HOT Tuesday that we did not go across. Wednesday we had decided to be there by 7am, get our treatments and get back home before it got HOT again. Much better!
I went with Bob to the dermatologist to have his head examined. The Dr. wanted to know why we were there. He checked Bob's head and said all was fine, nothing cancerous. Thank you, Lord! All this for $30 and no referral from a regular MD. Why can't the rest of the world be this simple??
Next was my glasses, check-up, 2 pair of glasses (using my old frames)and no-tinting this time, $149 I had my teeth cleaned, then went across the street for my haircut, while Bob had his cleaning. Then back home for the day. As you can tell, the prices for services are so good that there are a lot of US and Canadian citizens taking advantage of the Mexican services. Most of the doctors,dentists and technicians were trained in the US and the medicines are the same ones sold in the US--- Just a lot cheaper. No pictures as Jan's little camera is broke and to lazy to take the bigger one over.

Mexico

2010-04-25T23:15:00.001-07:00

We are in Andrade Ca. which is the name of the border crossing into Los Algadones, Mexico. We have spent the last week since leaving Boerne, TX traveling across the southern Texas plains to Carlsbad, New Mexico. We spent two days there and went to the Carlsbad Caverns. Carlsbad Caverns National Park is a United States National Park in the Guadalupe Mountains in southeastern New Mexico. It became a national park in 1924. What an amazing place. I took the hike down the natural entrance while Jan looked around the gift shop and then she took the elevator down 754 ft to the Big Room where we met and continued the tour together. We left Carlsbad traveling through the Guadalupe mountains ( they have a neat, informative visitor center at the park) and then on to El Paso,TX and Las Cruces NM where we spent the night. The next day, heading towards Tucson, AZ on I-10 we began seeing signs saying “ see the Thing” after 150 miles and signs every few miles Jan said we should stop…. ha-ha, like I wanted to go to a tee shirt shop. Well the signs also said there was a Dairy Queen there also, so I thought okay—Ice cream sounds good so we stopped. Well it was a tee shirt shop, but we spent the dollar each to see the Thing. Boy was I surprised, so surprised that I had to go out to the truck and get the camera and take some pictures. The Thing is in a collection of old cars, wagons buggies, guns, wood carvings and many other strange things housed in three steel pole buildings behind the gift shop and I talked to the manager who would or could not tell us much about the collection. He said he read that it was started by a world traveling family of collectors in the ‘40’s in California and spent some time traveling with a circus. He wouldn't say much else except thought that it arrived a this location in the mid ‘60’s and has been there since. I took some pictures and did find one website roadsideamerica.with a review and a short video. I am glad that Jan’s curiosity was aroused and that we stopped at this old time roadside attraction. Stopping at Tucson and leaving early for us we stopped at the Space Age Restaurant ( complete with a flying saucer on it’s roof) in Gila Bend for breakfast and headed towards Yuma and the border crossing. Arriving in mid-afternoon to 88 degree temps and an almost empty campground. I am also loading more pictures of all of this on our web albums.

New Mexico

2010-04-20T21:30:00.000-07:00

We left Borne TX and the Escapees Class BoF Rally with kind of mixed feelings. This was a great rally and we met a lot of neat new friends. Much fun but, the urge to see new places was felt by all.A few were staying a while but we pulled out on a nice sunny morning after a week of clouds and lots of rain.We headed north and drove through many miles of beautiful wildflowers. All along the route to San Angelo (our first planned overnight stop) we saw people stopped along side the road taking pictures. At a couple of our stops we talked to local people and the all said that it has bee a few years since the flowers have been so profuse. The last few years have been so dry that not many flowers showed. a great spring to be in south central Texas.We left San Angelo and felt lazy so we only traveled about 125 miles to Midland. We stopped for the night. Midland is the center of most of the TX oilfields....the area produces one fifth of the nation's total petroleum and natural gas output and has the third-largest oil field in the United States. . It is also hometown of former First Lady Laura Bush and the childhood home of former President George W. Bush. It is also home to The Commemorative Air Force (CAF). Associated with the CAF is the American Airpower Heritage Museum. Leaving this morning we traveled across the plains of south Texas. It still amazes me when I think of people traveling across this country on foot and horseback.The vast distances and unyielding landscape are still mind boggling today, let alone on horseback at a time when there were no roads. arrived early..... (Mountain Time change) to the warm weather we have been looking for..... It was 86 degrees today. The Caverns tomorrow.

Escapee Classes of Full-Timers Rally

2010-04-17T13:50:00.000-07:00

We have spent the better part of this week at the BOF ( birds of feather) of the Escapee Class Rally at Boerne, TX. Your "Class" is the year you became a fulltime RV'er. The 2005 class had the idea and the 2007 group developed it into a yearly rally. A total of 25 rigs arrived for this rally. Since there were mostly 2007 attendees, they adopted the other years as well. It led me to believe that the Class of 2007 are the ones that know how to party!!! The group knew where the fun bars and good food could be found. In a little town near here called Bandera, the 11th Street Cowboy Bar, cowboybar on Wednesday night you take your meat, they stoke up the grills and everyone throws their meat on the communal grill at the bar. You can get a side salad, roll, baked potato or green bean casserole to go with your meat for $5. Since we have been doing nothing but eating, we choose just to get the $5 fixin's.....and dessert! There was coffee and rolls to start the day for the people that did not chose to sleep in. There was a pot-luck one night. Favorite dessert contest on another night. Tacos in-a-bag another night.I don't think anybody went around here hungry. There were a few seminars during the day, blogging, geocaching, volunteering and Alaska travel. This link skit is to a you tube video of the entertainment one night by the RVG Troupe,some rally crazy people. All in all, a fun time and a bunch of neat new friends that we will look for as we travel or at next years rally. We are heading west to Carlsbad, NM and then Yuma, AZ and then north to Reno, NV.

On the Road Again!!

2010-04-13T12:38:00.001-07:00

The ltlgrntruck is on the road again. We left Rockport Friday morning with hugs from our new friends—Dave and JoAnn from Indiana--vanilla. Heading north to Smithville TX and an ATHS chapter truck show –here--- we traveled through the wild flower capital of Texas. Living in MI all our lives we are use to spring being green—Texas is different as most of the winter it is quite green and so spring means the wildflowers. The colors are amazing---Red, pinks, oranges, whites, yellows and of course blue. Just beautiful every where we look. As we pulled out of the commerce center parking lot we were flagged down by a woman in a pickup truck and she said park in the firebarn lot and follow me home. We are having happy hour and will grille some steaks and chicken later What a welcome. There were about 15 or so people there--- members of the Yellow Rose chapter. They all welcomed us and made us feel right at home. We stayed in the parking lot overnight and early in the morning(7 am) left for the park. It was a beautiful day with about 50 trucks and 100’s of people looking. Smithville was having their Jamboree festival. About 20 of the trucks left the park and lined up to join the parade. We went around and through the town with 100’s of family’s lining the streets. After the parade we headed west about 20 miles, found a campground and crashed. Sunday afternoon we let for Boerne TX and the Class of 2007 Escapees Rally. A couple of years ago some people decided to form a Birds of a Feather (BOF) group with fulltime classes--- 2005,2007 etc. So now they are having these rally’s each year.

Patriotism

2010-04-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

I was looking at the flag we have flown on our trailer for a couple of years and saw that it was looking a little worn. more I looked ,the more I started to think about the great country that we are so privileged to travel in. As you have seen in the last post, we took a trip with Jessica to San Antonio last week. I love the Riverwalk and the boat ride and the restaurants. The other place I like there is the Alamo...... Alamo and Texas are amazing places. 200 or so people died here fighting for a freedom we take for granted. It is a place in the USA that you can see and feel that people gave their lives for freedom. Texas seems to feel and show and remember patriotism more than any other place we have been. Everywhere we go we see the American flag and the Texas state flag. In San Antonio around the Alamo no buildings can be built that cast a shadow on it. Since 1905, The Daughters of the Republic of Texas have been entrusted with the care and maintenance of the Alamo with no money coming from state, local or federal governments. All monies come from the gift shop and donations. What an amazing way to show respect for the sacrifices the people made. As some of you know Jan and I do not own a tv so we get our news from the internet and more and more I am getting frustrated with our president apologizing for our country. Jan is on Facebook and she has received posts from many people, and one was a video by Rush Limbaugh(some of you may not like him, but you need to watch this video. What Obama (truely) inherits! Jan also found this website..renewamerica that I think we all should look at and check out. This cornerstone is on the Masonic temple in San Antonio. I think we all have to look at going back to educating our kids and taking care of our family, friends and neighbors and not asking for handouts and loans from the government. I am also going to post some other links at the side of the blog if anyone would be interested

2010 Spring Break with Jessica

2010-04-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

Since our granddaughter, Jessica's friends all had spring break at a earlier time than she did, it was decided that Jessica would come to Rockport, TX to visit us for her spring break. She was hoping for great weather, which with temperatures in the low-mid 70s, and no rain came close to fulfilling that desire. Tuesday, March 23 we picked her up at Corpus Christi around 4:30pm. We went from there to Mustang Island and did a quick drive along the beach. A couple dolphins were spotted a ways off shore. We then got in line to take the ferry from Port Aransas across the Intercoastal Waterway to Aransas Pass, where the dolphins usually play in the wake of the ferry. I think the dolphins were on break, also, since they were not visible on the ferrytrip. Darn! While going through Aransas Pass, we decided to stop at a jam session at the old theater there. There were only 3 people performing so we left early. we planned on starting the day with a trip to the Rockport cemetery, where the wild flowers were in bloom From there we took Jessica to a cafe we had heard about from several people, Turtle Bay Cafe. My kind of cafe, breakfast served until 2pm!! We found the cafe quite easily as we were told to look for the brightly painted, in various colors, cafe on the right hand side after going over the bridge. ! Couldn't miss it! While waiting for our food, somebody from there told us about a swamp near there where a couple alligators have been seen. When our food was served, on paper plates, we were pleased to find that the food was as good as we had been told. Leaving there very full, we headed to the swamp to see the 'gators in the wild. Sure enough one was right where they said it hung out. It even swam towards our car for a photo shoot. Could see why the man at the cafe told us DO NOT GET OUT OF THE CAR! We, also, included a side trip to Goose Island to see the "big tree". Of course, the Fulton Mansion was a "must do".

Thursday, around 1pm we dropped Grizz off at the boarders and headed to San Antonio. We found a motel within walking distance to the Riverwalk and the Alamo. We rode the boat thru the Riverwalk at night with all the lights lit up. Friday we went to the Tower of America, saw the 4D movie and rode the elevator to the top. We stopped at "Dick's" for lunch. Their main objective is to be "dicks". They throw your placemats at you, insult you, took Jessica's sunglasses off her head etc. Literally being dicks. Drinks come in "manly" or "girly" size. After that we went to Market Square. Saturday Bob went to the car show on the beach at Rockport. He got a plaque for 2nd place in the truck division. After retrieving Grizz, Jessica and I checked out the downtown shops and a flea market. Sunday was spent back on the beach, and Monday by the pool at the rv park. All too soon the week was over. It was time to get Jessica to the airport and head her towards Michigan.

Texas Weekends

2010-03-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

We have been in Texas for about two weeks and have enjoyed ourselves. The first Sat. we returned to the "Pickled Pelican"--- a small bar with good food and unique entertainment----- It is the home of the South Texas Belt Sander Racing Association. What fun!! They have a 75ft track with starting lights, just like in drag racing with 2 lanes and the racers have a switch to start their belt sander. The lights are controlled by a computer that also gives elapsed time and speed. The track record is 2.6618 seconds for the 75 ft and the speed is about 18 miles per hour ( I don't remember exactly.) A big crowd was on hand, along with much beer and drinks. A lot of cheering and jeering goes on. Excitement runs high as the run-offs continue. It is so much fun to talk to people from all over the country, experiencing their first belt sander race. We found out that for two years there has been a national race held in Las Vegas, NV. It really doesn't take much to entertain us. The next weekend we just stayed at the park and met someone that draws as much interest as the Little Green Truck. A couple, Ron & Jan from Wash.State pulled in with their motorhome, pulling a 1932 Auburn 4-door sedan on the trailer behind them. Of course we had to meet them. They have driven the "Godfather" in 47 of the lower 48 states. It has an updated drive train and suspension, so it rides and drives like a new car but looks like a very nice, very old one. Ron said he could have bought a $30,000 Honda to drive around, but he thought that this would be more fun. They picked us up for dinner and went to the China A Buffet. He was right, it is MUCH more fun than a Honda or Chevy. Ron was talking about putting the car on a container ship to Hawaii. Sounds like fun!!! But I don't think we can afford to do that with The" ltlgrntruck". Another fun weekend with fun people.

Texas

2010-03-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

Well, we escaped Betty's web on the 2nd of March and headed to Rockport, TX on the Louisiana Outback Creole Nature Trail.... part of Americas Byways..... some national scenic roads. It is a neat road that follows the Gulf coast through Louisiana and Texas. Most of the trip was right on the coastline and through much of the area hit by Hurricanes Ike and Rita.... amazing the destruction.. whole towns gone with just slabs of cement left where houses and other buildings were before. One town that we stayed at was Long Beach... before the hurricanes there were over 6500 homes and after there were only about 3500 left.... houses, stores and campgrounds, everything, just gone. We talked to people and they are just starting to rebuild again...amazing that after a disaster like this and in-spite of everything nature and our "wonderful gov't" throw at people that so much can be accomplished. We stopped in Port Lavaca, TX for the night even though Rockport was only about 65 miles down the road because our reservation wasn't till the 5th. The city campground was right on the bay and was a neat spot to spend an early night. Two spots down from us a couple were from MI and so after we showed them the truck we began talking, along with the couple next to us ( he played guitar and in the morning they all came over and sang Happy Birthday to me) (what a surprise) and found out that when they go back to MI they stay in Paris , which is only about 8 mi from Hawkins, where we stay when we go back. The next morning we arrived in Rockport and found some people that were from MI, sooo..... we talked to them and found that he and Jan graduated from high school together.... such a small world we live in.

South Louisiana Weekends

2010-03-01T10:53:00.000-08:00

Mardi Gras is over... what a fun and interesting time we had. The last two weekends of our stay were just as interesting. The day before Fat Tuesday we stopped at the Abbeville tourist center.. but it was closed for the holiday , but a nice lady (Lynn)working next door at the Chamber of Commerce stuck her head out the door and invited us in, so we visited with her about an hour. More travelers stopped so we all had a fun,learning time with her. She told us about Richard's Sale Barn... Richard's a very old stockyard/sale barn that the owners were trying to restore and they were putting on different shows there once a month. This month they were having a comedian (LA State representative, Richard Perry) and his brother Pick'in and Grin'in, so we thought it sounded interesting. We went to that Sat. and drove right by because the barn was hidden by trees and brush. When we drove in the drive we thought ... this can't be the place.. it looked like a falling down old barn, but just then the owner came out dressed in his cowboy clothes and invited us in. Soon there were more people (100 or so) that joined us inside the old barn that is decorated with many old saddles (at least 50 or more) and other old farm tools. The barn is on the LA historical register and is a really interesting place. Sat on the risers that were used for the livestock sales on old cushions from old furniture and feed sacks and whatever people brought in. We must have been the only non-locals there and when the comedian started and got into a local cajun joke he would say he would explain later to the people from Michigan. A FUN NIGHT. The last Sat. we were going to another music filled day but, Jan wasn't feeling well, So Grizzly and I went by ourselves to Eunice to the Savoy Music Center to a jam session at Marc Savoy's accordion factory. savoy music Marc builds accordions and has a family band that plays and records. They all... like many musicians in the area play many instruments.... accordion, fiddle, piano, guitar and more. About a dozen people showed up to play. It was a great morning with great music and really great people. Grizz and I then walked around Eunice and found a couple of neat museums... one was a nutcracker museum... A lady had collected over 300 nutcracker statues from all over the world. She had donated her collection and someone else donated an old jewelry store, so they made it a museum.. Neat to see. We were planning on leaving for Texas on Monday(today) but they predicted rain and they were right and so we are staying at Betty's another night.

Mardi Gras Festivals!!

2010-02-23T12:59:00.000-08:00

It's the day after Mardi Gras and things have settled down a bit. This past week there has been something going on every day and sometimes two or three things. Our plans to go to New Orleans fell through, but the couple that went said they had a great time even though it was a long day... about 22 hrs with all the driving. instead went to Jennings and the Squeezebox Shootout..amateur accordion players competing for $2000 in prizes in three categories...youth, junior and senior. Last year's youth and junior winners also performed. What a great afternoon of cajun music. We left there and walked into the midst of Jennings parade. This was our first parade of the weekend and our first Mardi Gras parade. fun....too many floats to count, all loaded with kids and adults throwing beads and other souvenirs. Sunday was the oldtime parade at Church Point.. Betty was invited to take her campers to a farmer's house. So the whole campground caravan-ed to his farm. The parade started by touring the local countryside, with 30 or more floats and hundreds of costumed revelers, stopping at a dozen or so houses along the way. Our host released some chickens, which were chased down by a large group of costumed paraders. This was done in the early days to collect food donations for the groups Mardi Gras dinner to celebrate the last fling before Lent. Each small town parade had their own local customs. Some of these towns still use horses for the runners to go about the countryside...in costume, collecting food.....amazing traditions that we never hear about until we go to these kind of local functions. felt we didn't miss anything by not going to New Orleans. we were invited to a Mini Costume Ball at a local restaurant by some people we had met earlier. all made their costumes. year they had their king and queen and all their court with jesters and clowns and witches, all accompanied by a great cajun band and much dancing. ...Mardi Gras... we went to another small town parade that had about 30 floats filled with laughing party-ers. This parade was like a family reunion because everyone we talked to was there with family... cousins, brothers, sisters and all other family that they didn't see much of the rest of the year. Grilles set up on the back of pickups and on trailers and much fun on a nice sunny day in Feb. in LA. I finally took the time to load our pictures ,so this post is a week late,but here it is. I also loaded more Mardi Gras pics to our web albums at the right..

CRAWDADS Loisiana Style

2010-02-13T06:37:00.000-08:00

Sixteen people from Betty's RV park met at Cajun Claws for crawdads. Grizz rode with us to the restaurant where he then stays in the truck and becomes the alarm system. After a pre-dinner drink, we were taken into the dining room to two tables already set-up. When ordering you specify if you want 3 1/2 or 5 pounds of crawdads. Yup!! By the pound. There is a lot of work to eating these things, twisting their bodies and squeezing it as you pull the tail off. Now you bite what "meat" you can and suck the rest out of the tail. This is what I observed since I am not into eating shellfish, crawdads,oysters, shrimp etc. The menu did offer other things; cheeseburger or hamburger ( which I chose). They, also, offered chicken nuggets but since that was on the kiddie menu, I decided NOT to do that. After much pulling, twisting and sucking most people finished their heaping platter of crawdads that had been placed in front of them. A waitress brings out a container of hot, wet

towels for people to clean their hands a little before they take off their bibs.
After leaving the restaurant we stopped at Robie's Grocery Store. A young gentleman was outside cleaning the parking lot. He came over and started talking about the truck. When we told him where we are staying. He said he was Betty's nephew. I swear EVERYBODY knows or is related to Betty!!! And Friday night was another band and party at Betty's RV park..... WHAT A PLACE !!!!

SUPER BOWL LOUISIANA STYLE

2010-02-09T09:59:00.000-08:00

By now most everyone has heard that New Orleans won the Super Bowl. We attended our first ever Super Bowl Party, drinks, food, and enthusiastic people from all over the country getting together to cheer for the Saints. Since we are not from the area, we were not into understanding the "mind-set" of their fans. Within the first quarter, we were cheering and getting excited as the game progressed. It is hard not to get caught up in the excitement. We had two different football pools going. Bob and I were fortunate to win two quarters. WOW!!

All this fun and money, too!! Most people in Louisiana are true followers/fans. One of the people at the party told about her aunt, who is in her mid- eighties, getting so upset by the Saints in previous games that she would turn off the tv ( putting the Saints in a "time-out" situation, like one does a child). Then after a few minutes she would turn it back on to see if they could now do better. Her thoughts on Manning are, "they ought to stretch him out". Now this is all done behind closed doors and she would be embarrassed if her friends saw this reaction because she is such a genteel lady. But, alas!!! When you are a Saints fan your loyalty runs high. Who Dat! Tonight we are off to the Cajun Claw restaurant for crawdads... about 12 others want to go, so Betty arranges a dinner party... she really is a social director and enjoys doing things with the campers. The weather is turning cold here and maybe NewOrleans parades are off..... we will see. We are not into standing with 1 million people in freezing weather.

Suire's Restaurant

2010-02-07T13:56:00.000-08:00

Our first day at Betty's one of the other rv-ers said he had seen our truck some where. It was at Suire's where he remembered seeing it! We went back to Suire's (pronounced swears) Restaurant/ Grocery store. A couple pictures of the 2 sisters ( that own the store) standing on/by the little green truck are posted on their wall. Bob and I got the special lunch, a type of beef stew over rice. Bob loved it, my taste buds are still recovering. We got some of their homemade dessert to take home to ease the burning ;) Today is one of the dryer days as it has finally stopped raining for awhile. Hopefully it will dry up now. Our days have been spent settling in, reading about ALL the upcoming festivities, trying to decide which to do and partaking of "happy hour". All the weekends in Feb. are planned out already. This Sat. was a grand opening at Hub City Ford that we went to. Geno Delafosse(Zydeco) and Sammy Kershaw(country variety) were the headliners and 5 contestants from a radio show were there. Very great music from all, along with free hotdogs, hamburgers and drinks (pop). Not an ordinary grand opening for us from the north. Next Sat........Three New Orleans Mardi Gras parades with 4 other couples from the park. The following Sat. north to Eunice/Mamau area for radio show, theater, jam sessions .... all with cajun music and dancing. The last.. more jam sessions and local concerts and many other local traditional happenings and a concert at the rv park on Friday that Betty has arraigned.

New Roads

2010-02-06T21:22:00.000-08:00

We left FL on Jan 28, saying goodby to old friends and many new friends. As usual leaving with many places left not visited, so we will have to put it on the list of places we need to return to. But our plans were to head to LA and Betty's RV Park http://www.bettysrvpark.com for the month of Feb and visit places we missed last year. We traveled back roads in FL and stopped the first night in Port St. Joe FL. was a Passport America(PA) Campground that was empty and the signs said pick a spot so we did---- right at the waters edge of St.Joseph Bay-- a really neat spot. Lillian, AL was our next stop at the KOA we stayed at with Chet Beeswanger two yrs ago. Thought we would enjoy the hot tub but it started raining and rained hard all night. The next morning--clear skies and new roads for the Little Green Truck-- US 90 through AL and MS. These roads follow the Gulf of Mexico-- very often running right on the shoreline with only the beach between . We stopped on Long Beach, MS about 20 mi. from Biloxi and found another PA park (Magic River Resort). Again the signs said pick a spot and we will catch you tomorrow. Very nice campground, neat spot, just a little hard to find, but worth looking for. A couple other people said they came for a few days and stayed for three weeks. Jan said she needed her casino fix so we went back to Biloxi and the Hard Rock Casino. Spent 5 or 6 hrs and had a good dinner and broke even like we usually do at the casinos. Sometimes Jan wins and sometimes I win but never together so even is about the best we can do. Still a fun evening out. Monday morning was off to Betty's on US 90 yet until we reached New Orleans and the the Interstate to get around The Big Easy. Back on 90 for the rest of the trip. We ran into rain again but reached Abbeville about 4 o'clock, just in time for happy hour and some new friends. We also arrived into the middle of "WhoDat" and Saint's madness. Superbowl fever is high with the natives displaying their Whodat! and Saints shirts and flags. A big party planned here at the park tomorrow.

On the Road

2010-02-04T09:53:00.000-08:00

FL was nice,but cool. We are in Abbeville,LA. It is raining and cool so I thought I would try to start updating our blog. Jan left off at Titusville where we spent a day at the NASA Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force base(I think it is fascinating--Jan not quite so--she saw her first live armadillo and lots of wild pigs. She likes the wild stuff). So---- we traveled down A1A to Palm Beach where we visited Whitehall, the Flagler House Museum. Henry Flagler built most of the east coast Florida tourism by building the railroad and hotels in many of the towns along the coast. The biggest are in St.Augustine and West Palm Beach. He, also, built many churches along with his hotels. Key West was also developed by him, because he thought that it would become the major US seaport in the south, but he was wrong and New Orleans became the great seaport. He did build the railroad to Key West. In some places along the highway to Key West you can still see some of the railroad bridges he built---they are listed on the National Historic Register.flaglermuseum The internet is great because you never hear of people like this until you start searching for things to see. We left Palm Beach and traveled across Alligator Alley (even with the cold weather,the alligators were THERE)------I-75 West to Naples and Fort Meyers Beach on the Gulf of Mexico. We stayed overnight and toured Sanibel Island, a cracker house museum, a Sears catalog house, the lighthouse and the shell covered beaches. Left there and went to Sarasota and the John Ringling circus museum and John & Mable Ringling's house. ringlingmuseum They also have a 200 yr old theater that was brought from Asolo, Italy-- rebuilt and is now being used for meetings and shows,etc. A very interesting and amazing place. We learned that he created the Sarasota tourist business with his winter camp for his circuses. He also owned more than 1/4 of the land in and around Sarasota. We left there and returned to Whispering Pines and a couple more days of really cold (20's & 30's) weather. Turned nice and we spent the last few weeks there visiting jam sessions and the Orange Blossom Opry --- lots of great music in the area along with Jan's cards and bingo.

Been at Whispering Pines since Thanksgiving

2010-01-12T09:23:00.000-08:00

As we were headed south, we decided we would like to be with friends for Thanksgiving. We went through the Outer Banks a little faster than we had originally planned. But we did get to Whispering Pines a few days before Thanksgiving and were able to be thankful for friends AND a wonderful meal.
Since then I have fallen into the routine of bean-bag baseball, bocce ball, shuffle board, bingo twice a week and cards or dominoes the other nights. There have been a few times that I did not go to bocce ball since they were doing that at 10 am. I'm not a morning person and did NOT bring any gloves.
We were experiencing a cold spell in Florida, which usually does not last very long...ha-ha, little did we know.
During this time a friend, Helena was in the area staying with some other of her friends. After various discussions it was decided that Helena would come stay with Grizz while Bob and I went on a little sightseeing trip further south. Giving Helena a taste of trailer life and us a chance to experience more of Florida.
We rented a car Monday morning and started our trip to find the sunny, warm Florida. We went to a section of Daytona Beach where cars are allowed to drive along the coast on the beach. There were a few people out in their winter coats and gloves enjoying a walk along the beach. We chose to observe and not participate. brrrrr
Then drove on to Titusville on A1A but were unable to see the ocean because of all the tropical plants and weeds growing along there.

Another southern town

2009-11-25T11:24:00.000-08:00

Leaving Charleston it was a short trip to Savannah Ga. This trip along the southeast coast was an eye opener for us, as this was the first time we had been this far east. The coastal swamps and marshes were surprising along with all the water we passed over by the many bridges. We followed US 12 as far as we could and then US 17. Everything on this trip seemed a lot closer, as our trip last winter covered TX and AZ. Charleston and Savannah are very close together and when you look at a map Savannah is about as far northeast in Georgia as you can get.Savannah and Charleston, along with many other southern coastal towns were founded by the shipowner merchants. They made their first fortunes shipping goods and slaves from overseas. This was hard work so they then went on to become plantation owners as this was seen as a step up and they could sort of retire and show off their wealth. Savannah is more of a coastal town with a water front that has many old cotton warehouses with cobblestone streets and foundations that have been turned into shops and restaurants and other unique places. Charleston was built in the old tradition of getting as much as possible in as little space where Savannah's historic district has 22 squares with many statues honoring the city's founders. Both have many beautiful old houses with many of them open as museums and showplaces.
The next day we took a trip out to Tybee Island to visit the lighthouse there. The lighthouse and most of the area was developed by the gov't--- first as a lighthouse in 1736 (At 90ft--the tallest building in America ) and lifesaving station and then as Fort Screven for the protection of Savannah. With over 400 yrs of history it is a unique place.The fort and lighthouse was used as training grounds until after WWII and in 1947 sold the the community of Tybee. The area was built also as an escape for the residents of Savannah from the summer heat and became summer residences for many. Access to the area was difficult and a railroad was for many years the only way . There was also a big amusement park that still operated in the 1980's. On the way back we stopped at the Crab Shack, a local oddity restaurant that was recommended by a guy at the Ga welcome center.. we found it a fun place with good food.

Southern Towns

2009-11-18T17:55:00.000-08:00

After our ferry rides we headed towards Morehead City and a campground. Not finding a campground there we headed on towards a campground in New Bern listed in the PA book. The person on the phone gave us different directions and addresses than what Passport America gave in the book. Our trusty GPS did not like either of them so we tried the directions given us by the man on the phone. At this point in time it is dark and downpouring rain. We came to a dead end in a residential section...... no campground!!!! Now the challenge was to turn the rig around with little lighting, less space, lots of downpouring rain and ( thank GOD) little traffic at that time of night. After much manuvering and frustration we headed back where we had just come from. We went according to the book and stumbled across a KOA. We found a spot, did the after-hours check-in and landed for the next two days. They received 5-11 inches of rain in the 2 days we were there...the aftermath of the hurricane. We burrowed in and did NOTHING. Even Grizz was content to do his duty outside quickly and get back inside to dry quarters.
We left there after two WET days and headed towards Charleston S.C. On this trip we have had several people photograph our arrival and we have caught their picturetaking with our own picture. In Plymouth N.C. the local cop stopped as we were making a u-turn and got his camera from the back of the cruiser and began snapping pics. We stopped and he came over and welcomed us to his town and talked about the truck in the middle of the street for about 10 min. We found a brand new campground near N. Myrtle Beach, S.C. on the Passport America website. Here again as we arrived a guy video taped our arrival. We seem to cause stir when we arrive. The Carroll Woods campground had a very nice bathhouse, nice country setting and friendly, helpful hosts. There was wine-tasting on site hosted by the "Grapeful Sisters". The weather had turned to a cold, light mist and since we don't like driving in the rain we stayed for two days. Still not our idea of nice sight-seeing weather so we did some laundry and read hoping the weather would clear.
We left there on Saturday on dry roads amid sunny skies and traveled towards Charleston, S.C. driving thru N. Mytle Beach and stopping for lunch. We bypassed Myrtle Beach as we figured it would be more of the same...T-shirt shops and golf resorts. We arrived at Lake Aire RV Park, Hollywood, S.C. just ouside Charleston early in the afternoon. Sunday we decided to take a mule drawn carriage ride in Charleston. It really is a way to see the sights and hear some tales about the city. Charleston is a city that has had many earthquakes (200 since 1970)and we saw how they repaired the houses in the 1800's that were damaged. After hearing which mansions were on the "to do" list, we walked back to the Calhoun house for a guided tour. It is called "the oh my God house" because those are the first words out of everyones mouth. It is a 24,000 sq ft house built 1n the 1870's still used as a single family home and opened for tours every day. The rooms are so filled with rare antiques and collectibles. A lot of the house has been restored to the original interior. It is just one of several House museums that are open for tours. Charleston has a law ( passed in 1931 )that if the house/building is 75 years old you cannot tear it down....you can remodel the interior but the outside must remain original. So there are plenty of beautiful old homes there. They are not all mansions but many,many neat old houses,some dating back to the 1700's. This is one of the cities that we would like to return to for further exploring.

Lighthouse ~ Ferries ~ Spaceship

2009-11-11T17:17:00.000-08:00

Since the forecast was for 3-4 days of rain we decided to head to the main land. We left Ocean Wave campground headed towards the ferry. On our way we stopped at the Hatteras Lighthouse-- the tallest brick lighthouse in the country at 208 ft. We couldn't climb it because it was closed for the winter.. boo hoo. In 1999 they moved it almost a 1/2 mile away from shore because erosion threatened to take it. That must have been some sight to watch.
While crossing on the ferry from Hatteras to Ocracoke, we met a fun couple from PA, Kathy and Stu. They told us to watch on our way to the next ferry for the pen where they have the ponies fenced in to keep them off the roads. Apparently the wild horses are a danger to drivers on the island like the deer are in Michigan. We did see the pen but the ponies were too far away to get a picture. We got to the second ferry, the 2 and a half hour ride from Ocracoke Island across to Cedar Island. During one of the ferry rides Kathy mentioned that she had gotten a pictue of the spaceship along hwy 12. Well, Bob saw it but of course I missed seeing it. So Kathy sent it via email. I mentioned it to my friend Arlene( during a scrabble move via internet). Arlene is the source of a lot of research being done. If ever in doubt about something I email Arlene. The blessing is that not only does she do a lot of research, when asked she is willing to share it. So we will include Kathy's picture and a place to find out more. Arlene did say it was a restaurant at one time and was a Futuro House by Matti Surronen...supposedly built in Pennsylvania in the late 60's. So if you google that and google space ship on outer banks you should be able to get the scoop.
After leaving the second ferry it was getting into late afternoon. We started watching for campgrounds. They are not highly advertised by bill boards here. We drove by a couple before we saw them. There was one listed in Passport America, even with entering the coordinates the GPS sent us on a wild goose chase..the gps showed our trip on the water but couldn't get us to the campground..wow modern technology. Finally in the dark and rain, we found a KOA. Advertised 2 miles in advance and a sign lit up telling us we had found it. YES!!! We were ready for a nice quiet night of sleep. Since it is raining we opted to stay another day. Not fun sight-seeing in the rain.

NC Truck Show

2009-11-11T10:27:00.000-08:00

Sat. Nov 7 the ltlgrntruck made it to the ATHS chapter show in Colfax North Carolina. It was a beautiful day-- sunny & about 70 degrees. There were around 100 trucks of all kinds there-- some that I have never seen, just read about. We open the trailer and got out the guest book. We try to do this at shows, but with so many people we cannot keep up. this show we have over 200 names in the book and missed many. It's fun talking to all these people. We decided after talking to lots that we would go to the Outer Banks and travel south on US-12.
We arrived on Roanoke Island Sunday after spending the night in the trailer in a motel parking lot. It was late and dark so we decided to get a motel as the only 2 campgrounds there were full??? Went to a motel and the clerk said the didn't take pets, she tried to find another place but, no luck other than a $35 pet charge,ha,ha... no way. finally she looked at us and said..you didn't hear this from me but, if you back in that corner you can sleep in your trailer, couldn't believe it but thats what we did. Got up at sunrise and headed on our way east. We arrived on the island during the middle of a marathon, what confusion..two roads and one blocked off, fun, fun. Spent about an hour in the welcome center talking about the area and..guess what else!!) and waiting for traffic to clear. One Campground there so we went and what a neat spot. Only a 1 1/2 years old ,very nice== called The Refuge== the manager said that it is very quiet even during tourist summer.Left Mon. started our tour driving to the North Beaches and Currituck Lighthouse.I climbed to the top while Jan stayed with Grizzly and entertained all the dog lovers. Lots of history, left for the south looking for lunch and found a lot of the places closed for the season. We ate and headed for Bodie Island lighthouse in The Hatteras National Seashore. Then on south to a little town named Rodanthe and a campground named Ocean Waves where we dipped our toes in a cold Atlantic ocean.

Arrived in North Carolina

2009-11-06T07:37:00.000-08:00

We left Nashville County RV Park Tuesday morning. Going thru the hills towards Cookeville, TN the truck started losing water pressure and began to heat up. We went to the first truck stop we saw. After checking it out, Bob talked to the service department and they sent us 2 miles back to an International/ Cumings truck repair. They needed the vin# off the motor which was removed by the military before we bought it. After MUCH frantic searching Bob found the certificate from the government to use to apply for a title. YES!!! Jim, from the service center called Cumings with the #. Good, but not good enough. They needed the # off the back of the water pump. The only way to do that was to land at a RV park that would allow us to work on the truck. We headed back 6 more miles to Twinlakes and Catfish Pond RV Park. Bob proceeded to take the waterpump off the truck. Guessing it was the original pump because it had bonded with the motor and did NOT want to leave it! After trying various procedures it finally came apart. Finding several different series of #s on the part, Bob called them in to Jim. Jim called Cumings and called back with the news that those #s worked, Cumings was shipping the part, Jim would have someone deliver it to us in the morning. We received the new waterpump by 11am. Bob had it on the truck and we were on the road again by 1pm.
We were traveling along with a "new noise". Trying to figure out the noise, going down some of the larger hills, Bob noticed the air pressure was dropping, had gone from 120 to 90 and kind of holding there. BUT this was NOT good! We have AIR brakes!! At the bottom of the large hills was a truck stop with a service area. We pulled in there and Bob proceeded to check it out. He found the problem, got a new hose and connectors and within an hour or so we were on the road again. Thanking the good Lord for keeping us safe and putting those truck stops where we needed them.

Nashville,TN

2009-11-05T14:43:00.000-08:00

We arrived at the Nashville Country RV Park in Goodlettsville, TN Saturday Oct. 31. We spent Sunday afternoon exploring the antique shops in downtown Nashville. The only thing we managed to find was a framed picture (from an old calendar) of a 1909 WHITE steam car. President William Taft chose this automobile as the first official automobile of the president of the United States. Learn something all the time!!!
Monday we did something we have never done before. We did a bus tour ----of Historic Downtown Nashville, Fort Nashborough, State Capitol, Bicentennial Mall, Music Row, Studio B,and Vanderbilt University.
Then we were given time to go on self guided tours at the New Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, could have spent hours there. From there we went to the Ryman Auditorium, the "Mother Church of Country Music" for another self guided tour. The last stop was at the Legends Corner on Honky Tonk Row for a drink and live music. It was well worth the investment to us since we were dealing with limited time. No hassles with trying to find a parking place or trying to find the right streets.
Our driver on the trip back to the campground was a lady our age and she told us of her experiences as a singer in Nashville. The glamour and glitz of the stars achievements in the music business is not all that glamourous when you hear stories from an insider. Tusday was another sunny day-- two in a row I think for the first time since we left Michigan---and we headed for North Carolina for an ATHS truck show on Sat. where they predicted sunny weather all week..

Car Show in Reed City, MI

2009-10-28T11:14:00.000-07:00

Since we are doing very little of interest now, I thought I would post one of our highlights from this summer while we were in Reed City (Hawkins). We posted very little from Hawkins since that was virtually an "internet dead zone".
While in the area I spent some time trying to find old pictures of the Oseola Refinery and their semitrucks. My father drove for them sometime in the 50's, possibly early 60's. I have one picture of my dad with his truck but was looking for more and any information as we may do another "home" with an International like he drove.
During this time we went to a concert at the Crossroads in Reed City on a Thursday night. We got talking to some people there that had been involved with the refinery. We showed them what we were traveling around in now. A son-in-law (who was involved with the car show that coming Saturday) saw the picture of our "home" and asked if we could bring the whole rig to the show.
My best friend's husband had just finished restoring his '64 Falcon. So I called them to see if they were going to the show. Nelson, her husband, had to work but with lots of encouragement, his wife, Joyce(my best friend) was talked into bringing the car to it's first show. Hopefully we have started a tradition. Maybe Nelson will even be able to go with us and relish in the attention that his car received. People were impressed with his car and told of the memories they had of one just like it.
We managed to set-up next to each other which was great because she still lived in the area and knew everyone. I had been gone for 45 years and knew very few. Through
out the day I met a man my dad and youngest brother had worked for in Baldwin at a gas station. Then one of the daughters of another driver came over with her husband whose dad had also been a driver and introduced themselves. What a great time!!! Hearing all the old stories!!
Around 4 pm they were giving out rewards for the show. Life even got better, "Green
Ache-rs" placed in the top 25 and received a plaque! WOW! Who would have thought!!

Tennessee

2009-10-25T16:31:00.000-07:00

Here we are in Tennessee back on the Natchez Trace--we traveled north on it this spring from Louisiana to Missouri on our trip home to Michigan. Now we are back after leaving MI. going through WI. and then Ia. and into MO. We left Savannah Mo.--traveled to Tightwad where we stayed for two very rainy days and then headed to Owensville Mo. through California Mo.and Jefferson City-- the state capital. It is amazing the different towns we have traveled through on the backroads of the country.We got to Lost Valley Resort the day after they received 5 inches of rain. We were there 2 weeks and I think we had at least 5 more inches. Our Canadian friend Chester stopped for two days on his way for 6 months at a house he rented in Mexico. It was rainy so we went to the hottub and mostly stayed at the trailer and caught up on things with him. It will be real interesting to hear about his stay in Mexico. We arrived in Tn.and the Trace with the trees still green and now the colors are really coming out. The campground we are at is 800 acres with a 3 mile long lake and we are only about 2 miles off the Trace. We are staying here another week and then plan to head towards Nashville for afew days and then on to North Carolina for a truck show and then south for Florida. We are having fun traveling with the ltlgrntruck to new places and states so no destination is firm --- just plans as we go.

Missouri -Show me state

2009-10-18T15:14:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to think the clouds and rain is over US. We seem to take the bad weather with us irregardless of what weather is in the forecast! We actually woke up to frost on the windshield Thursday,the 30th of Sept in Nekoosa,WI. We quickly left there and went to Frenchman's Landing at Eastman, WI. What a welcoming bunch of people. The managers and work campers made us feel quite at home. We felt like we had known them forever.
After lunch with John and Linda,the workcampers,Bob and I spent the rest of Friday afternoon in town visiting the Villa Louis mansion in Prairie du Chein. What history in that little town!
When we got back to the campground we found a sticky note inviting us to an impromptu supper at the office. We were visiting with some people from Manitoba parked by us when Linda stopped by to see if we were coming up for chili. The people from Manitoba were, also, invited. What a lively group we became. Nothing better that good food, good people and good conversation!
The next day we left early enough to stop at a benefit breakfast for the first responders with John and Linda. Then we pulled ourselves away from our new friends and headed towards Madrid and some old kewpie friends.
We managed to meet with June Anderson and her son,Bob, Monday afternoon. Not only does she have a vast collection, June is a walking encyclopedia about Kewpies and Rose O'Neill. And ORGANIZED!! She has always been a wealth of information and always willing to share it. After a fun filled afternoon, the 4 of us went for pizza at Polk, MO where one of their main toppings is sauerkraut. Hmmm, maybe we'll try that the next time.
We left Madrid the next morning headed towards Savannah,MO and Mabel Dray's collection of Kewpies on display at the Andrews County Museum. I was impressed with the Kewpie Mountain, of course, and all the other rare kewpies in her collection. The museum had a lot of information about Mabel's brother (Harry F. Duncan--Founder of "Little Tavern Resturants")and his collections and about the "the rural way of life"in early Savanah. Definitely worth the time.

Quietwoods Resort, Brussels, WI

2009-09-30T12:35:00.000-07:00

Bob, Grizz and I got to Quietwoods Wednesday pm. We found a secluded area near the pond and setup our home. The campground is quite large. After going on a few small walks, we discovereed we had not even begun to see it all. There were numerous seasonal campsites in the woods that we walked by. Definitely looked like heaven to us-- if we were ready to settle down in one spot.
Rob arrived before 7 Friday night. After dinner we just kicked back and tried to catch up on each other's lives. Rob is in the "full-time working" world now. After doing work and college for so many years, this is a change for him.
Saturday Rob, Bob and I went to Door County in Rob's truck. Of course, we left our cameras back at the campsite. Saw a lot of people, as all of the towns were having some type of fall festival. Fish Creek seemed to be the most populated. It rained on and off all day, but did not dampen our enjoyment of sightseeing.
Sunday after breakfast Bob and Rob loaded up the kayaks and headed to Little Sturgeon Bay. The rain had ceased and the wind and sun were out drying up the area.
The guys paddled against the wind going to the bay but had a free ride coming back as the wind was at their backs and pushed them. The day came to an end all too soon. Rob had to pack up and head back to the real world.
We were leaving Monday, but since it was windy and rainy again, we decided to just kick back and do Nothing. By Tuesday morning, after being contained inside for too many hours because of the wet outdoors, Grizzly was chomping at the bit to get "on the road again".
We did spend some time Monday on the computer trying to decide where we are headed.
We headed to Nekoosa, WI from Brussels on our way towards Iowa. Since we have not done Iowa in our travels, we will try to make a trek into that state for a few days and visit some "Kewpie" friends.
Bob discovered frost on the truck's windows this morning so I'm suggesting a more direct route south to warm weather. I'm not sure why cold weather is a problem, I can stay in bed until it warms up. But am definitely in favor of going south......

on the road again

2009-09-20T19:14:00.000-07:00

The ltlgrntruck is finally on the road again. We spent the summer in Hawkins just laying around and doing not much, Jan completed her Kewpie rag quilt and I did some maintinence on the truck. Labor Day..Sept 7 we went to a car show.... Cars for Cancer with the truck and had a great time. We saw some really neat cars and showed about 500 hundred people the truck and trailer.We got about 300 to sign our book but missed a lot as it was really busy. The show was for a good cause and there was over 500 cars there. We left Hawkins on the 17th and stayed in Fife Lake overnight at Jan's son's and left fer St. Ignace in the morning. We arrived at the Mac. Bridge just in time to wait for two hours to cros behind the 900 farm tractors that paraded acros the Big Mac bridge. This was the second year that the antique tractors have crossed the bridge. Last year there was about 500 so they almost doubled the number. Friday & Sat. Was the North American Show Truck(NAST) big show in St.Igance, What a show. All the trucks must be working trucks and the ask for last years mileage and the currant mileage. These people put a lot of time and work and money in these trucks. Sat. night about 8 P.M. they turn all there lights on and parade across the Big Mac. What an amazing sight...all the big rigs in a line all lit up. We are having beautiful weather and the fall colors are just starting. We are camped at Bay Mills Casino at Brimely in the U.P. and will head for Marquette tomorrow. We plan on visiting my son Rob this week in Wisconsin and are still undecided on the next destination. I suppose the weather will help us make up our minds. Hopefully we will have better internet access from now on so we can update the blog more regularly now.

update???

2009-07-31T08:49:00.000-07:00

As you can tell we are still in Mich at Hawkins and it still is a "tech black hole"
were no cell or air card works. Internet access is a slow dialup or a trip to town for wifi hotspot or the aircard. We are thinking about a trip in Mid-August around Lake Huron and Lake Superior in Canada. Meanwhile we are just putting up with the rainy weather and going to some of the free local music shows and visiting friends and family.

For those of you that have emailed and asked if we had heard from the person that was going to tell us how to get information on updates on blogs, without having to check them only to find they have not been updated. Here's his comment from our blog.
1 comments:
Anonymous said...
We (Bruce & Linda) enjoyed meeting the two of you at the Tin Can Tourists open house on Sat. May 16 at Camp Dearborn in MIlford, Michigan and getting to see the Little Green Truck in person. Bruce follows your blog and said he would e-mail you about the aggregator he uses, but we can't find an e-mail address, so here's the info. Point your browser to http://www.bloglines.com and create a free account. Once you have that, you can visit various blogs and "add" the ones you want to follow to your Bloglines account. There are various ways to do this, but copying and pasting the URL is straigtforward. From then on, you only have to log in to your Bloglines account to view/visit all of these blogs. Bloglines automatically captures new entries as they are posted There are other aggregators available; Bloglines is the one we know how to use.

May 21, 2009

Michigan Lighthouses

2009-06-10T05:39:00.000-07:00

We are back...sort of, as you may know we are in Hawkins, Mi for a couple of months so that Jan can fulfill her jury duty requirements that she learned about when we were in AZ. We are staying in an area that it seems that nothing technical works..no cell phones, landline phone took 4 days for them to find us and get us hooked up,dialup internet rather poor until I found this free one, Dialinfree that works fairly good, stays connected about a 1/2 hr at a time. Anyway, this weekend we went to a free Cajun music concert in Reed City and had a great time. We met a guy from LA who now lives in Traverse City and does LA Cajun dance, food and music as a business,, very fun person... good dancer too! Last weekend my brother Harry and his wife Shirley stopped in after they had spent a few days in the upper pennisula. The visited a few different lighthouses that we haven't been to which reminded us off our favorite ones.... Big Sable Point, Little Sable Point and Ludington Pierhead. We have worked at these three giving tours and have loved every minute at the lights. Michigan has about 115 lighthouses, depending on who's counting. Around 20 or so are open to the public, so we enjoy doing our part to help keep some of them open.If you are interested in working and staying at the lighthouse the splka.org has more info. We are leaving tomorrow for an ATHS truck show and are planning on leaving the first part of July for Canada .....Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Newfoundland so maybe we will find better connections along the way.

TCT Saturday open house.

2009-05-16T08:25:00.000-07:00

Yup, we can tell we are back in Michigan. Not quite 60 degrees, drizzling rain, turning to a heavier rain, just in time for the Tin Can Tourists open house, scheduled from 11am thru 4pm. Oh, well, it could have been worse. We could have BOUGHT tickets for an outdoor concert or something like that. I'm not sure how many campers are here, but the space reserved for the Tin Canners is full. There is usually such a variety of trailers and always a brand of trailer or something that we have never seen before. The imagination involved in decorating the interior is always inspiring.
We have a friend, Helena from the Grand Rapids area (now), who is visiting us this weekend. We are hoping to find a motorcoach for her to travel in so she can visit us in our wanderings. She had one years ago, but with work and all, she gave up the camping for awhile. I think the "bug" was just resting. Now the "bug" has revived and she's ready to travel again. Once a gypsy always a gypsy???
We will try to add some pictures when we get better connections.
I was talking to one guy who said he was following our blog. I mentioned that he must be upset looking for updates. He said he has a link to the blogs, that he watches, that lets him know when there has been an update. He was going to email me the info but have not heard from him, yet. Does anybody reading this know how that works??? If so could you email me at grandmabob2@hotmail.com and tell me what I have to do to set it up on our computer.
Let's see I started this blog about 2 weeks ago and am now going to post it. That is what retired means, right? No pressure!!

WE have NOT died!

2009-05-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

We are experiencing technical difficulty here in the boonies! We have landed near Reed City, MI. We, sometimes, get service on our cell phone and on a really GOOD day we even can get online on the computer with the air card. Yeah!! We have checked with ALLTEL to see why our service is so bad this year, since it was do-able last year. Their reasoning was that we are in a "weak service area". Apparently an area can change over the winter, duh! Not sure how that works. Must be connected to "global warming"??
We did try to get a "land line" but AT&T cannot find our street. We are checking with neighbors to see who their phone carrier is. We would be on the road except for jury duty that I managed to get postponed but not canceled. Are they desperate for jurors, or what. While I'm playing with the juryduty issue, Bob is doing some maintenance on the truck and trailer.
So bear with us, we will be back online to bore you with more of our travels SOON!

Museums

2009-04-26T18:37:00.000-07:00

I(Bob) usually don't like museums. It seems I get bored after a very short while. In Borger, TX we went to a neat little county museum that told the history of the area and I found it very interesting. Saturday Jan & I went to the Ralph Foster Museum at The College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, MO. What a neat place. The campus is on a very neat setting in the hills just outside of Branson. The museum is three floors of the history of the Ozarks and the people who lived and live here starting with the original Beverly Hillbillies truck (built from a 1921 Oldsmobile)from the tv show. The first floor has a couple of showcases devoted to Rose O'Neill and her art including her Kewpies which was one of the reasons for the visit. One whole room was devoted to Ralph Foster,a pioneer radio station owner who started his first station in 1924 in St. Joseph, MO. There is more about him on the website here. Another first floor room has primative Americana, a log cabin, many tools, steam engines and many other things used in settling the area. Another room was art of the area. The second floor is a huge collection of any kind of gun that you can imagine. Many guns and the stories of their help in settling the Missouri and Arkansas area. There are also, displays of the many prominent figures from the college that served in the armed forces and in the government. The third floor is a natural history floor with rocks and minerals, many mounted birds,butterflies, deer and many other animals from all over the world. All in all a very enjoyable place to spend an afternoon. Another impressive little museum is David O'Neill's (grand-nephew of Rose O'Neill). David opened his museum wth his and some of Janet's (his deceased sister) collection of Rose's original art and the Kewpies that she created. David has one large display case of just metal Kewpie radiator caps, which were used on old cars. Another case displays some of the various dishes, and there's several other display cases with other items. As extensive as his museum is, I would have to guess he has only managed to get part of his collection on display. If you are any where near it, I would suggest that you check it out for yourself. His museum is in Springfield MO. in a former general store located in Galloway Center, mingled in an area of other old buildings with some housing antique stores and art galleries.

THE REST OF THE STORY

2009-04-20T08:48:00.000-07:00

I see the LITTLE GREEN TRUCK got to tell his story already. I have always thought Mister Bob likes him better. BUT I suppose it is only right since he was part of the family long before me. AND if you think about it, Mister Bob would not have needed me if he didn't have the LITTLE GREEN TRUCK to pull me
After Mister Bob got his truck, he started looking for a trailer to go with it. He advertised in the American Truck Historical Society magazine for a low deck, moving van type trailer. It was almost 6 weeks before he got a response. He had given up hope of finding one through the ad. When a guy from Jolliet, IL called and said he thought he had what Mister Bob was looking for ( that would have been ME!). I was in the far corner of this guy's lot, surrounded by his working trailers. This guy was closing his business and needed to clear out everything. I had been in the back corner for so long (over 5 years), that I thought I would never get to travel again. I had heard talk of scrap yards and knew I really did NOT want to go there! Anyway Mister Bob came to see me, managed to get into the corner and check me out. I heard Mister Bob tell the guy he was interested if I could still go down the road ok. I started to exercise right then. So by the time the guy could get to me, I would not have stiff joints and would roll down the road ok. It worked. So I moved to Michigan and became part of the family. I was pretty secure in being the one to be pulled by the Little Green Truck, that's what he used to take me home. But then about a month later a bigger trailer(40 foot) moved in with us. There was some discussion about which one of us was going to become their home. Miss Jan wanted me because Mister Bob had never driven big trucks pulling trailers before, and she thought I would fit in campgrounds easier. Mister Bob thought my running gear was the better of the two of us. So sure enough I was the one!!! The other trailer became a storage trailer for now. They would like to convert that one now, but they are having too much fun traveling all over with me to take the time to convert it.
In the fall of 2006, they started working on me. Miss Jan sand-blasted all the bottom trim to get off all of the several layers of paint. I had been working for the carival at my last job. There was faint lines where you could see Complete Carnival written on my sides. They had left boxes of baseballs and two tracks that one would throw the balls down to knock something over to win a prize. Mister Bob was going to just replace my skin at the bottom where I was really rusty and holey, but decided to pull all that old stuff off and give me a complete face lift with all new galva-steel. I felt pretty naked for awhile there because he had stripped me down to just my doors and ribs. Wow!! It was getting to be winter time and I was still naked. My boards were put back on inside but they were waiting for foam insulation to be sprayed in before they could cover me up again. The guys doing that were deer hunting which is a couple weeks or more. After I got foamed then , the family proceeded to re-skin me. The new skin was cut, then glued, put in place and then screwed. Hopefully with the glue on, it woild be placed in the right spot because they could not move it once it made contact without causing dents and creases. Once that was done then my windows had to be put in place. Miss Jan stained my tongue-n-groove ceiling boards. Then Mister Bob started putting me together. They had an old cabinet that Miss Jan had bought 25 years ago and refinished. He used that for a wall dividing the living area from the bathroom/bedroom area. He turned the bottom shelves of the cabinet towards the bathroom for storage in there. The top of the cabinet hold dishes and basic items. Under the sink he made sliding shelves to make it easier to find the stored food. He hung a drop space to store their hot-plates (gas and electric) and then a drop leaf counter on the front of the cabinet. He put an old '76 Hotpoint refrigerator next to the counter and bolted that down. Then on top of that he put a wooden box (that he had built to store their electric oven)that is hooked to the wall. The only major thing she wanted to take with us was her MIGUN massage bed, so he turned that into a murphy bed in the living area. So it can be used when needed. They used a water bed frame ( for storage underneath) and have their own queen size mattress on it. There are a couple closets in the living area ( one for hanging clothes and the other for the extra food etc). In the back doors is an area about 3 feet deep. He has shelves for tools, sewing machine, 2 inflatable kayaks, Grizz's cage, the blue box, ladder etc. So that is how we travel for now. One happy family!

ps.. there are more pics in the trailer album in our Picasa web albums.

My Story

2009-04-19T15:29:00.000-07:00

HI, I'm the Little Green Truck and the tall guy said that I should tell people my story,so here goes.....I am a 1965 White 3000 cabover bought in June of 1965 by a guy named, Harold in Pennsylvania. He ordered me with a White Mustang 6 cylinder, 466 cubic inch, 185 horsepower flathead gasoline engine and an 8 speed RoadRanger transmission. My green paint is very close to the original color so I think I still look pretty good. We hauled stuff like empty cigar boxes and things in Pennsylvania until he sold me ( in about 1986) to another good guy named Gerald who lived in Tennessee. Mister Gerald and I hauled freight like pvc pipe and other light stuff around the southeast part of the USA until he got very sick. He sold me to another good guy named Jake (in about 1988)who also lived in Tennessee. Mister Jake was an old time trucker who had another old truck ( a 1950 Mack LJT)that he had driven since 1954. He really liked old trucks, so he wanted me to look good and when his wife Miss Ruth said he should freshen up my paint he thought that was a good idea. After the paint job I became her truck and we went to truck shows together and had a lot of fun. When Mister Jake got sick he thought he should find someone else to take care of me, so he put a for sale sign in my window when we went to shows and that is how the tall guy (Mister Bob) found me... from a picture at a truck show that was posted on the internet.
Mister Bob and Miss Jan put new tires on me and took me to Michigan where they lived. They took good care of me but, about a year later my engine blew a head gasket and Mister Bob couldn't find any new gaskets so he found a nice C8.3 liter Cummins diesel engine(215 horsepower) and a nice Allison 4 speed automatic transmission in a BlueBird school bus and fixed me up so that I could pull things again. Mister Bob joined The American Truck Historical Society and found a neat 1946 Trailmobile trailer, but thats another story that I will let him tell.

ps.. the color on the picture by the old schoolhouse in TN. is the closest to the right color. Every picture we take of the truck it shows a different color. Bob

Just hangin' out in Branson

2009-04-17T07:49:00.000-07:00

We are just hanging out in the Branson area waiting for the KEWPIE convention next week, April 22 - 25. We spent Monday driving around with just the truck to see if we wanted to go to a different rv park. After much investigating the ups and downs( there are so many hills as NOTHING is flat) we decided we were probably in the best spot already. Two rows from the lake (which was good since that area flooded last year!),walking distance to the "Landing" and old downtown and easy access to the main roads, what more could we ask for? So we went back to the City of Branson Lakeside RV Park and extended our time there.

For those of you who have not been to Branson in the past 2-3 years, let me tell you there have been some changes.
They have the "Branson Landing" now, with shops, restaurants, bars, condos and everything imaginable at the edge of Lake Taneycomo. They won the "INTERNATIONAL DESIGN and DEVELOPMENT AWARD in ANNUAL SHOPPING CENTER COMPETITON". They have a $7.5million night-time water feature that combines light, water, fire and music for some outstanding sights. We had walked the sidewalk along the lake and walked back through the business district. There was a guy setting up the chairs for an outside cafe at Ernie Biggs Dueling Piano Bar and Grill. Now that was something we had never been to see. He informed us that there were 2 guys and 1 young lady that played there nightly. We would have to definitely put that on the 'to do' list.
We went back to the camp ground and lazed around for awhile. A couple came over to show us a picture of the oldest 7-UP delivery truck. The gentleman had been over earlier looking at our truck and told us about the 7-UP truck his brother owned. The only picture he had of the truck was on a t-shirt that his wife was wearing. He said he would send her over so we could check it out. While they were here we mentioned the bar with the pianos, they had heard about them and was considering going there, also.
About 8:30pm Bob put Grizzly in the truck. Grizzly behaves the best there, only barking if someone comes TOO close to his truck and is content to "guard" the truck for hours. So once Grizz was taken care of, we walked to the bar, which is the farthest from the rv park. As we were sipping our first drink, the other couple showed up. Little did any of us know that she was doing a solo that night. Yup, someone had requested a certain song and the observant piano player noticed the lady from our park was the only one who knew the words and was singing along. He had her come up on stage to do the song. She was great! This bar is very determined to have audience participation. They ask for requests, they "spotlight" you for any reason! Now something like that puts total fear in me. Other people do NOT realize how tone deaf some people can be and how unable some people are to carry a tune!!! I even have difficulty of clapping to the rhythm of the music so some people think I'm not enjoying the music. I am!!! I just have a different beat!!

We managed to see a couple shows this year, the Rankin Brothers at the Starlight and the Twelve Irish Tenors at the Branson Varity Theater. Both shows were well worth the effort, time and money. There are so many good shows and usually so little time after the convention starts. So we decided to take advantage of our unscheduled time in Branson. We always manage to stop at Billy Bob's Dairyland for a hamburg and shake, like the good ole' days. I think that has been as much a tradition as the convention has for the last 20+ years. Another favorite place to eat is the "Hard Luck Diner" where the waitstaff and even the cooks are ready to entertain us with songs.

BRANSON, MO

2009-04-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

We are in Branson, MO waiting for warmer weather and dryer would be nice. I guess I shouldn't complain. So it's been wet and in the 40s, at least we did not get snow. After reading Nick's blog and seeing his picture of approximately 3" of snow over Easter weekend at Show Low Lake, AZ, I decided I would enjoy the weather we had. And pray that it did not get worse.
I have been coming to Branson for over 20 years to attend KEWPIESTA, a convention for Kewpie collectors and collectors of Rose O'Neill memorabilia. Rose O'Neill was the creator of the KEWPIE doll. She, also, was the highest paid illustrator until Walt Disney. She has written and illustrated many books, did advertisements for Jello, Rock Island railroads, floor varnish, folding camera, woman sufferage and the list goes on and on. If interested check out the Rose O'Neill Historical Society or email for more information or come to the Ramada Inn in Branson April 22-25. Hopefully the sun will be shining by then.
For those people north of us, we will try to post some pictures of flowers and dogwood trees in bloom. We really hope spring gets to the north soon. We are headed back to Michigan slowly....... Hopefully following the warmer weather there.

NATCHEZ TRACE

2009-04-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

Where does one start to explain the feeling one gets traveling the TRACE? We started from Natchez and headed north trying to visualize how a person would manage to walk the entire distance. We took our time and traveled the trace in 3 days and still missed seeing everything listed. At the southern starting point the trees seemed to be denser making the area appear to be more secluded, giving us the impression that we were alone on this journey. Later we ran into other travelers and chatted a bit with them.
If you have ever seen the Milepost, which lists all the important sites along the highway in Alaska, then you can relate to the brocure one is given for the Trace. It lists all the areas along the way, even telling how much time some of the walks will take.
We had been on the trace for 3 or 4 hours when a park ranger was coming from the opposite direction with his flashers going. He made a u-turn behind us and pulled us over. Wanted to know if the trailer was our camper and when we replied in the affirmative, his response was, Carry on". We were not stopped again during the rest of the trip. They must have spread the word about the little green truck and trailer. The first leg of the trip, we went as far as the information center at the Kosciosko chamber of commerce, about 160 miles. The ladies there gave us a printed sheet of campgrounds in the area. The one we stayed at was set up for 5 rv sites. Small, but fulfilled our needs for the night. We were not even unhooking the truck, just a quick meal, relaxing a little and rest for the next part tomorrow. My legs were definitely telling me I had walked and climbed more than usual. Even Grizz came inside early, without complaining, and was sleeping like a log before it was even dark outside.
The next morning we did not get started as early as planned. I had to stop at Walmart for a simple refill of medicine. NOT! When am I going to learn, it is never simple at Walmart or most pharmacies?
Anyway we finally got back on our secluded little back road,speed limit 50 and no commercial vehicles allowed. Our first stop was at the French Camp. Two ladies at the welcome center were so informative and helpful. We had driven by a cafe, about 500 feet back from where we were stopped. So we had to stop there for lunch. It was as good as they had said. Definitely a must-stop if you are doing the trace. Our next major stop was the Parkway Visitor Center, lots of exhibits and a short video that was well worth watching. We stayed at the Tishomingo State Park for the night at 304.5 miles. Wish we had more time to explore the park. We did find the swinging bridge before we left the next morning.
The 3rd leg of the trip started out gloomy,almost raining. As we progressed up the trace the weather became colder and heavy rain. We stopped in Collinwood at the Visitors Center where we were informed of tornado warnings. We spent over an hour there having lunch and waiting for updates on the weather. We finally felt safe to continue on up the road. We found out later that at least 2 tornadoes had touched down, doing damage to over one hundred homes and killing at least 2 people in Murfreesboro not far from Nashville or the Trace.
We found a place to spend the night near Nashville. Thankful that we had driven the Trace in 3 days versus walking it in 6 months!

Mississippi

2009-04-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

We left the casino RV park this morning and headed north east bound for Mississippi and found US highway 84 again. We had traveled on it a ways in TX and kept seeing signs-- El Camino East/West Corridor--I finally looked it up and found it was a route the spanish settlers used to travel from the Atlantic to Mexico. It runs from Georgia to Colorado now--1919 miles. Tomorrow we leave on another famous road-- The Natchez Trace-- a 444 mile route the riverboat men (and indians and wild animals) used to return north after traveling down the Mississippi river. In Natchez we went to Melrose, an antebellum mansion built in the 1830's now owned by the National Park Service, what history. Louisiana had the Acadians and Mississippi had slavery, we don't think of how people lived (and the mistreatment of others) until we stay in an area and learn about history that we have only read about. Seeing the area and talking to people really makes it come alive. How great it is that we have the freedom to travel and visit places like this.

Leaving Louisiana

2009-04-06T12:34:00.000-07:00

It's Monday and we are still in LA., but a little closer to another state. On Friday we took the Grizz to a groomer to get a shampoo and nail clip. We need this to help us keep on his shedding hair (never ending). Saturday we went back to the Zydeco breakfast, then hit some antique shops. In the afternoon we went to Calvin Touchets "2check" bar for the French Cajun Jam--songs in cajun French-- done to preserve the cajun culture. Had a great time,again, the southern LA people are very welcoming and friendly. Sunday we sadly left and drove about 150 miles. We landed at the Paragon Casino Resort RV Park-- 185 sites,Passport America,$8.50 a night full hookups in Marksville, LA. Jan loves it. I am just relaxing so thought I would update the blog. If you want to know more about Betty's Rv park check out uppity-womans blog. She was at Betty's with us and started her blog about the same time we did but has more patience uploading pictures. Check out the other pages we like too!Tomorrow we are on the road for the Natchez Trace and the long way around to Branson MO. and Kewpiesta.

Louisiana

2009-04-02T20:04:00.000-07:00

We had planned on leaving for Branson MO last Monday but changed our minds because this area has been so much fun and the weather north still looks cold. Yesterday we went on "Champagnes swamp tour" on Lake Martin. It is a lake formed out of the bayou and swamp when the gov't built levee's that stopped all the drainage out. It is still very swamp like with much moss in the cypress trees with the water in most places less than two ft deep. Our guide has lived here all his life and took us very,very close to lots of alligators and we also went into a friends duck blind. Saw a lot of nesting birds that we both have forgotton their names, but it was neat to see them nesting in large flocks and see some little ones in the nest. The area they nest is closed to boat traffic,but we could see the nests good enough to see the babies. We also went to a bakery where the have been baking french bread and ginger bread cakes since 1884 in the same building with the same receipes, mmmmmmm good. We are leaving Sunday, but there is still a lot of good Cajun and Zydeco music this weekend that we plan on going to hear. The people in the area are so friendly that it really makes it hard to leave even though there is still lots we want to see on our way north.

It's a small world

2009-03-31T19:25:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of this month we were in Carl's Corner, Texas where Willie Nelson's bio-diesel truck stop/cafe/ concert stage/ and radio broadcasting studio are all located. Took us awhile to find it. There were not any billboards advertising where to turn off I-35W to Carl's Corner. Apparently we were suppose to be on I-35E or at the junction. After driving several miles too far, and the GPS refusing to be of any assistance, we stopped and asked for directions. On our trip back, we found the correct corner and were pleased to see the sign for WILLIE'S PLACE. The menu is quite basic, not a fancy place but a lot of memorabilia of Willie's career. We found out we were a few days too early for the release of his new CD, NAKED WILLIE.
As we were leaving Willie's Place, a man was standing on the deck watching us go to our truck. He came over to talk to us which happens often. Usually they ASK about the truck or tell us they had driven one like it years ago. Remarks like that. But this guy (Gerald) surprised us with his remark of, "I used to own this truck". Then he proceeded to tell us who he had sold it to. Yup! Jake was the person in Tennessee we had bought it from in 2002. This guy, Gerald, had asked in the cafe if they knew who owned that truck. Nobody knew. So Gerald just waited outside until we showed up. After the initial surprise of meeting each other in Texas, Gerald being from Tennessee and us from Michigan, we declared it was definitely a small world! Gerald took it one step further and told us to check his house number on his driver's license, 6645 which are the same numbers on our license plate on the little green truck.

Small Town Fun

2009-03-29T22:15:00.000-07:00

Went in to Abbeville to the Art and Craft show in the park Saturday for a little while. There was a booth with homemade sweetdough pies. I tried to find out what they were since I had never seen them before. Well, I was given one to try. Well, I bought another one. They are softer than a sugar cookie and filled with different fillings, fig, blackberry, lemon, coconut, etc. Then on to Erath to the jam session there. We were a little early but were greeted by the locals as we walked in the door. One guy wanted to know about the truck and bought Bob and I each a drink. We could become real slushes if we stayed around here long. Like I said, people are really friendly here!
Sunday was the car show at Abbeville, right next to the Art and Craft show. We put the truck in the show and were given 2 free tickets for gumbo, 2 tickets @ $5 for a food vendor and free drink coupons, water or soda. Yup, you guessed it, I headed back for some more sweetdough pies. I found out the lady who did all the baking is 93 years old. She has not passed on the recipes and still keeps it a secret how she makes them. Hope she tells somebody so it isn't another lost talent.

Dining Fun

2009-03-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

During the week at Betty's, Bob and I went antique hunting one day into Abbeville and Maurice. While in Abbeville we checked out the Depot, along with a couple of cabooses they had restored. Then we met the group at the Cajun Claws for dinner, about 17 of us filled one corner of the restaurant. I'm surprised they had room for all the crawfish, each order was 3 1/2lbs.or 5 lbs.. They came out in big trays. As soon as the trays hit the table, everybody got busy digging in. Some more experienced diners brought their own gloves and bibs.
Bob and I went to Suires Grocery Store and Restaurant one day for lunch. While inside reading all the postings on the walls, one of the owners came in and asked if we were the owners of the green truck. Apparently there were some guys out there taking pictures of it and wanted more information about it. They had the waitress pose by it. So Bob and I went out to give them "the little green truck story". Other people from the park went out to Suires the next day and sure enough they had two 8x10s of the truck on their wall already.
Suires has been written up in a couple magazines. Another great little "hole in the wall" restaurant with great atmosphere and great home cooking. They had 2 helicopters land there one day for lunch. Apparently the pilots had been there before and decided to stop in for lunch. Definitely surprised the owners.

Betty's RV Park

2009-03-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

We don't remember who told us to come to Betty's RV Park in Abbeville, LA. But we are so glad listened. It is an Escapees park and an off season Passport America. This is the friendliest park and community. Talk about the Arcadian and Cajun hospitality, it is abundant in this area! We have been fortunate to be staying here at the same time as a couple talented RVers. We have been entertained almost everynight with jam sessions performed by Eric from Nova Scotia and Wayne from Ontario. They did not know each other prior to meeting at Betty's this week, but played together like they had been rehearshing forever. We have a video or two of these guys jammin'. Eric , also, played the spoons which we thought we had taped but are having difficulty finding where we taped it!

2009-03-27T19:10:00.001-07:00

Sunday March 21, 2009
We were invited to Dave and Priscilla's for sausage poorboys Sunday afternoon. There were six of us there, the grilled sausages were fantastic! Then we decided everyone should try our new "find", creme tequila. Tastes like chocolate creme with a tequila kicker. TOOOO good. Then the other couple brought over their favorite tequila. We got our "home brew" for them to sample, also. We had gotten the "home brew" from Ronny, the guy who oversaw the hyperbaric chambers. Since I was there for my blocked sinuses, he thought a sip of this would help loosen my sinuses. Loosened something, not sure if it was the sinuses! Then at my final treatment he gave me the rest of the bottle to take home. What a guy! He really goes that extra step to help the clients get better.Since we were just having samples, we decided it was now time to get whatever we were having for Happy Hour, (
a 4:30 everyday tradition at Betty's) and head over to the gazebo and visit with the rest of the RVers.As you can see from the picture, Betty has a great place to go for Happy Hour. Always lively talk about where people have gone and what they have seen. Gives us ideas of what adventures are waiting to be found. I'm sure our 10 days here is not going to be enough time to do all we want to do, especially since we are down to the last 3 days as I write this.We have had rain during the night mostly for the last 2 days, a little during the day. The first night of the storm it sounded like the lightning was landing right next to the camper. Poor Grizz has never been fond of storms. Usually he does NOT want to be by us. Well, this night he would not let us out of his sight. He would crowd up by the side of the bed. Then he would get stuck turning around to check out the other side. This dog has yet to learn, "back-up". I felt so sorry for him being so scared that I had Bob put Grizz up on the bed. Well, Grizz was still scared, but now he was shaking the bed so much that neither Bob or I could even read. I came into the living area and found water running in above the door. The wind was blowing the rain right into the trailer so we had to improvise a way to hook the outside doors to block most of the water and wind. By the time we got back to bed, about 3 am Grizz had decided to settle down and sleep on the floor at the foot of the bed, where he always does. What a wussy dog!!

New Iberia

2009-03-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

March 23, 2009

We went to New Iberia today and toured the "Shadows-on-the-Teche. A southern plantation home on the Bayou Teche. Built from 1831-1834, took 3 years to complete it. The kitchen is no longer there but the house has been restored to it's original splendor. Can't imagine what it must have been like to live in those days. She had 8 children, 3 died at young ages. Her husband did not live long enough to live in the new home. The house was finished and he left to find a cure or treatment for his health (guessing TB) but died before he could make it back. They had two plantations. They had a sugar plantation 9 miles away and the plantation where the new home was. Busy lady!!!! She later married a judge, but did not have any children with him.

Then we stopped at MULATE'S ( the Original Cajun Restaurant)in Breaux Bridge on the way home. Going to have to live on water and crackers for awhile or at least until my clothes aren't so tight!!

Sat. Breakfast

2009-03-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

Sat morning we got up before everything and were ready to leave by 6:30 am which is about 3 hrs earlier then normal. We followed two other cars from Betty's Park about 30 mi. to a town named Breaux Bridge and to a cafe called Cafe des Amis arriving as they were opening the doors. We all trouped in and all ordered a Zydeco Breakfast(beignets,Eggs des Amis--boudin on a biscuit with eggs and grits for me) as the band was setting up. Much talk, more people arriving until it was standing room only. The band started playing at 8:30 and we were treated to a lively time with good zydeco music and some great dancers. Way to much energy for 8:30 in the morning, but sure was fun to see. We left about 9:30 and walked through town and looked in some antique stores and talked to a bunch of people. Then got in the truck and drove about 15 mi. to the semi annual 7-mile yard sale....7 miles of lots of people, yard sales and things to look at and to eat. Headed back about 1 pm and sat around the rest of the day.

2009-03-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

Today we left Kinder,LA enroute to Abbeville, LA and Betty's RV Park The oil rig is at a tourist info stop in Jennings,LA and the depot is in Abbeville. We arrived at Betty's about 4 p.m. just before happy hour ,which is at 4:30 every afternoon. About 12 people were going out for dinner and we were invited. Dinner was at a 130yr old restaurant named Dupuy's Oyster Shop. Very Good!! Got back and gave people tours of our trailer. A fun park.

Leaving tomorrow at 6:30 am for Saturday Morning Zydeco

Breakfast in Breaux Bridge, LA about 25 mi. from the park. We learned about Betty's in AZ and

the people said that it was a fun place that you didn't want to leave. Just 17 lots crowded around her house with full hookups. So far it looks they were right.

The Beginning

2009-03-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

This is the story of our travels with our Little Green Truck.
It is a 1965 White 3000 cabover that we purchased in 2001.

The trailer is a 1946 Trailmobile that we built into our camper(home).

The first picture was in Fife Lake, Mi. in Jan 2006.

In May of 2007 Jan & I attended a camping rally with the Tin Can Tourists at Camp Dearborn in Milford, MI.

Since that time we have lived in the trailer full time and are touring the USA.

The second picture was our campsite in 2008 at Silver Springs, FL.

Hopefully we can add to this blog daily and we will try to add some of the past adventures as we go along.