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!
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