July Aboard
The Mattison Cruiser

 

 July has been a "whirl wind" of travelling from Chattanooga, Tennessee to St. Louis, Missouri, Forest City Iowa, Stillman Valley, Illinois, to New York State, Sanford, North Carolina, Valdosta, Georgia, and back to Naples! Our trip to St. Louis took us took Michael Bennett's wedding where it was nice to see Sandy & Robert again, plus Sandy's mother, Pearl & husband Don, and brother Bob & wife Laurie. While we were in the area, we enjoyed the view of the Arch, 4th of July fireworks, browsed the History Museum and the "Lewis & Clark Exhibition", and toured the spectacular Basilica with it's beautiful Mosaic Murals. We also experienced one of the worst thunder & lightning storms we've ever seen! The rain came down in buckets!! And the campground lost power early in the evening and was still out when we left the next morning. It was also very interesting maneuvering the streets of St. Louis without traffic lights because they too were out because of the storm!
Since we were fairly close to Iowa, we decided to visit Forest City, Iowa where our Motor Home was manufactured with a stopover in Cedar Falls to hopefully connect with friends from Corning that we haven't seen in 30 plus years. Ironically, Tim & Dar were on vacation and were visiting family on the east coast! Wouldn't 'ya know!! We did get in touch with them via cell phone and quickly chatted and caught up with one another a little! Hopefully there will be another opportunity to see them!
Our tour of Winnebago Industries was very interesting! Another disappointment though because the factory was shut down that week, so we weren't able to see an actual assembly line in progress, but did get a nice tour and video. We were both very surprised as to how our Motor Home was put together & Daryl felt great about many of the features of our Winnebago! Very impressive!!
Our next stop was Galena, Illinois, a very quaint little town with a wonderful street of unique shops. It was enjoyable browsing and "the gift goddess" had fun making some purchases! Our next stop was Stillman Valley, near Rockford, Illinois to visit friends from Crystal Lake in Naples. We had a wonderful time catching up with Priscilla & Wayne! They have a unique log cabin in the woods on the family homestead. The cabin started out as a garage for storage since they were full-time RV'rs, but when they discovered how much room there was etc., they changed the floor plan and have transferred the garage into a cozy cabin that is like a little doll house! It was a very relaxing couple of days catching up with them and giving Priscilla a hand with the scrapbooks of their recent travels with their 3 grandchildren. She was elated to have me get her started! Another "lecture" occurred when we called Melanie wanting to place a Creative Memories order for Priscilla! She has been after me for quite some time to become a CR Consultant! I finally "bit the bullet" and agreed to do it!! Wow, was she excited! It does make sense for me to give it a try, because I order many of my supplies from her and have gotten two other people interested in scrapbooking. It should be interesting to see what I can do with it in Naples! 
Stillman Valley was our last official stop before we hit New York State where we will hopefully connect with family and a few friends and attend Daryl's 40th Class Reunion!. Unfortunately, we won't have much time before he has to be back in Naples!

 


 

 

 

 

 Where Are We
2002

 Where Are We
2003

Where Are We
2004

 

 

 

 

 

 

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