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 August 19th, 2024 Our plan to spring out of bed this morning and drive the last leg of this journey early was interrupted by an intense rain storm that rolled through around 6 am. We decided to let it roll pass and give us some distance so we didn’t catch up to it. We finally got on our way at 10 am. As the day progressed we began feeling like storm chasers, but we were running from them rather than to them! It was the most difficult weather day we’ve had to drive in since the trip began. There were downpours we could hardly see through and an accident. But we’re home. To all the familiar roads and stores and sights we love so much.  I think if you look close there might be a glacier on that mountain??!! Or is that just clouds? EPILOGUE: Thank you all for joining us for the past 66 days as we journeyed through 2 countries and 12 states. We thank you for your comments and prayers. Dan you were an awesome cartographer. The visuals saved me a thousand words. Kim for all your help with th
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August 18th, 2024 Crossed the final time zone!! Welcome EST!!  It’s been a loooooong day of driving. We hit the road with cups of coffee in hand at 7 am. We weren’t sure how far we wanted to go but thought Toledo OH would probably be a good stop. Nope, Gary wasn’t tired and began thinking Erie PA would be the best place to shoot for. After 670 miles he finally stopped in Canadaigue/Rochester KOA. I don’t think we’ve ever driven so far in an RV/trailer. After I made the reservation we were committed so even when the sun went down we kept going. That was also a first. And then came the rain and we kept going. We finally made it to our campsite at 10:00 pm. Another first for us. We found it to be much more difficult to set up in the dark. Especially when you drop the keys to the trailer and they are nowhere to be found!!! After a few tense moments they were discovered in the grass.  The most interesting city we drove through today was Cleveland! I’ve always been impressed with that place.
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 August 17th, 2024 So we decided to take a big bite out of the miles left before us by setting our sights on Milton Wisconsin. We stayed at that KOA on our way to Alaska and it was a commitment of 500 miles. We were up early and made good time due to the light Saturday traffic. Unfortunately we did not plan for the weekend campers and that the Milton KOA would have no vacancy. So we bit off more than we could chew and drove an additional 65 miles. We are now just north west of Chicago. But that helps us to get through the city on a weekend rather than fighting work traffic. Of course the DNC is being held here this weekend so we’ll see what tomorrow brings.  We left a peaceful, quiet campground this morning as the sun rose.  there were 3 deer grazing on the side of the road as we passed by and enjoyed our second cup of coffee watching the early morning fog lift.  We got here at Chicago NW KOA as the sun set and we are surrounded by over a hundred campers with children and dogs as we li
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 August 16th, 2024 It’s an exciting day! We haven’t been in the lower 48 for 58 days! Today we crossed the border. There’s nothing like seeing your own flag flying!  We had no problem at the border other than we were caught trying to cross with a lemon and an orange…. Gerry you know what that’s all about! We chose to cross at the farthest east corner of Manitoba figuring it would be less busy. We guessed right! Though we are back in the good ol’ USA we loved our northerly neighbors and our trek across their country. Thank you British Columbia for all the spectacular beauty, thank you Alberta for all the agriculture, thank you Saskatchewan for the smoothest roads of the whole trip, thank you Manitoba for taking care of us so well as we waited days for the repair. And Yukon, well, you need to fix your roads!! But waking up to a herd of bison made it all worth it! We (Gary) decided to stop in to Voyageurs National Park on our way home because, you know, it’s right on our way. Not exactly
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 August 15th, 2024 Though we are taking care of our frozen fish mausoleum (as Dan has aptly named it) like a mother hen with her chicks. We had no control over last night’s loss of electricity! Many campers wandered out of their ‘house on wheels’ to figure out what happened only to discover everyone was without electricity. We heard the sirens coming down the road so we figured it was an accident of some type. We found out this morning that a transformer blew and it started a brush fire that the firemen took care of. Thank goodness we were only without power for a couple of hours.  This morning we were up early and got the trailer to the shop by 7:30 am. We parked at the local Tim Hortons which is a New England Dunkin Donuts for the long wait. We were pleasantly surprised by the call at 9:15 letting us know everything was fixed and ready to go!! We were so excited to get our wings back and be on the road again.  I’m always amazed at some of the equipment you see along the way on a long
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 August 14th, 2024 A picture is worth a thousand words right? Remember when the pictures on the blog consisted of mountains and glaciers and bison? Oh how we long for those days!! It was another day of sitting around waiting for the call that never came. Gary called the shop at 10:30 because we needed to let the campground know if we needed to book another night. They had not received their shipment yet. So we accepted our plight and asked for one more night stay. The manager here comes from Nashua NH of all places and we have had a lot of fun with this situation. I told her I should leave my credit card with her and she can just keep booking our stay one day after the other!  Gary finally called again at 4:30 and they said the shipment came in late but it was there and we would be first in the shop tomorrow morning! So we will be there at 7:30 am and hope they can get us on the road as soon as possible. We’re hoping to get to Winnipeg tomorrow but it’s 350 miles away. But we’re more t
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 August 13th, 2024 **My technical advisor (ahem…. Kim) helped me walk through some steps on this blog and I think I may have fixed why people had such a hard time leaving comments. I know it’s a little late but if you want to try it, it would be helpful to know if it works! Sorry about that! And thank you Dave for being the first to discover you can leave a comment without a goodie account! Thanks also for your prayers and many others. We drove a total of 8 miles today. 4 to the mechanic and back again. Thank you Dan for the great visual! The map says it all. They had the trailer for an hour before discovering they don’t have the part!! Yes, we did call ahead to confirm before leaving Lloydminster and they said they had it. Now it’s being over nighted from… Edmonton! Can’t make this stuff up! We could have driven to Edmonton and had Lloydminster put it in. So here we sit in the beautiful Canadian city of Regina… waiting… again.  The up side is, we are safe. The other leaf spring contin
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