Rio Travelers: August 2012

This is our last update till we start our tour. We are heading to St George Utah today so we will be going to work and meeting new friends.

We are fortunate that we were able to visit our daughter Kristine and her family and spend some quality time with them. We also visited some other friends on our way west. One stop we made was San Antonio to make a visit to the River Walk. Having been there before we thought we would stroll the walk and have dinner. Strolling very little because it was sooooooooooo hot but did have a nice dinner. One problem we had when leaving Canada was that we had expended all our wine which wasn't much because you are very limited on the quantity you can bring across the border. So that gave an excuse to stop at some wineries. It seems that now every state has wineries some better than others. We happen to enjoy wine from Messina Hof winery in Bryan, Texas. However we were not traveling that direction. I did want to stop in Fredericksburg to see the Admiral Nimitz and World War II museum. It just so happens that Messina Hoff has a tasting room there so we were able to get some more of their product. In addition we visited a few more wineries and were able to fill our wine rack.

Slowly making our way West we finally got to a stop that Betty wanted to make in Winslow Arizona.

The reason for the stop was a Route 66 Roadside Attraction dedicated to the Eagles' song "Take it Easy". The statue is of Jackson Browne who wrote the song - so here I am "standong on the corner in Winslow, Arizona. I guess I can take that off my bucket list.

In addition, we stayed in an RV park near the world's largest preserved meteor crater. It is more than a mile across and 550 feet deep and is quite amazing. The meteor hit the earth about 50,000 years ago. It is hard to fathom what would happen if one that size hit earth now. Actually it is kind of scary.

We now are in Las Vegas departing in a few hours for St Georg,e Utah. We made a visit to the Venetian Casino Hotel and made our $20 donation. It is just amazing the number of huge casinos and the number of people. We cannot imagine the amount of money lost to support all this.

Next update will be during our Western National parks tour.

PAYTON DOING HER FAVORITE PASTIME

RIVER WALK SAN ANTINIO

STANDING ON THE CORNER IN WINSLOW ARIZONA

FINE DINNING IN THE RESTORED LA POSADA HOTEL DINNING ROOM

THE METEOR CRATER OVER 1 MILE ACCROSS

THE LARGEST PIECE OF THE METEOR

Hello everyone. It's been a long time since we updated the blog. We were home longer this past winter than we had been for a while but the time seem to fly by with our involvement in our community, Good Sam chapter and Adventure Caravan shows. We thought we would bring everyone up to date. When we got home last fall we attended the Florida Good Sam Samboree and had a great time with our chapter "The Sassy Sam's". We participated in and won first place in the parade. The theme was Thanksgiving so our coach Andrea decided we should do the Macy's parade so there are a couple pics from that. In December we participated in the Wreaths Across America program laying wreathes that we had contributed to at the Bushnell, Florida National Cemetery. Then in January we went to Key West with our good friends Nick and Paula from New Jersey. They had never been there and we thought they would enjoy the unusual culture - which they did. During the winter and spring we did several RV shows for Adventure Caravans. They are more like reunions then work as we are constantly seeing friends that have traveled with us. Speaking of reunions, we attended the Adventure Caravan reunion in Washington DC in April. Saw all the usual sights and one exceptional one. One of the staff got a picture of the Shuttle over the Capitol on the way to the Smithsonian. It was not our picture but we did see it as we were traveling on the beltway at the time. Anyhow, we left home in June for our summer which will end in March. Our neighbors want to know why we have a home. Sometimes we wonder as well, except it is nice to return once in a while. We are now in Shreveport, Louisiana visiting our daughter Kristine and family but on the way we made a few stops. Our first major stop was to see Betty's family in New York as well as to attend the"Forties Forever" reunion on Staten Island. There is a group of old Coasties (Coast Guard) guys that have been getting together for the last several years. I found out about this last year but we were on our way to Alaska. Anyhow a couple of guys bought a couple of old Coast Guard Forty Footers that in the 50's and 60's were the backbone of the CG small boat fleet. It is also where I got my start in the CG the summer of 1965. Well after I saw the list of members I realized almost a dozen were crew mates at the New York Station boat pool 1965/1968 so I had to attend. As it was, only three attended but we reminisced about old times. It is funny though, everyone looks different after 46 years. We also took a day to visit Governor's Island where we were stationed and is now a National and City park combined. We also made a trip to Ellis Island. I had been there once early in my CG career and at that time it was closed and in a shambles. Now they have restored the main receiving building and weatherized the others. After that we visited some friends in Buffalo, NY area and went to Niagara Falls as well as the only Kazoo factory in the US and the home of the Carousel museum in North Tonowanda. We then visited some more friends in Ontario and attended the Family Campers and RVers rally.

The end of this month we will be starting our summer tour "The Grand Circle, Western National parks" and working with other friends Pat and Alice. It is work but we will be seeing old friends and making new ones as well. So for now that's about it till we start the tour.