Bishops Adventures

 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

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.

 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

 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

 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

 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

 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

 August 11th & 12th 2024 It was a looooong Sunday as we waited for Monday and the shops to be open. It was truly a day of rest.  We were up at 5 am so we could be at the truck repair shop at 7:30 sharp. Unfortunately they do not have that part in stock. Ugh. After 2 hours of phone calls they couldn’t locate a part. Gary did his own research and located the part in Regina. Not ideal to drive 7 hours/300 miles on one leaf spring but that’s the situation. We’re on our way and would appreciate your prayers. I’ll give an update when we arrive. CHEERS!! We made it! Praise God. The drive was about as smooth as we could have hoped for. We were trying to get to the shop by 5:00 before they closed and rolled into town just after 4. But the last 2.5 miles were definitely a test of our patience! We had a detour due to construction. A road closure to navigate through and then stopped by a 100+ car train just a 1.5 away from the shop!! We will need to be back there sharply at 7:30 tomorrow morni

 August 10th, 2024 We started our day with attaining an oil change from a local Lube City business in Whitecourt. If anyone needs their oil changed I’d recommend this place! They were fast, professional and friendly. The commute might be a bit much but well worth it for such great service! Another sunny, warm and dry day to travel. Also another day of the same ‘ol’ scenery. The vast amount of miles of farm land is quite impressive.  But there’s something comforting about uneventful, boring, and problem free that is wonderful.  Would anyone like to make a guess as to what this might be?  If you guessed a broken leaf spring you would be correct. Ugh! Problem #3,642 (?). Okay, I’m exaggerating but it sure feels like it! Gary is currently thinking through the problem and possible solutions. We accept any prayers you’d like to send our way.  And the journey continues….  We are hunkered down in Camp N in Lloydminster Alberta after 260 miles and 6 hours of driving. 

  August 9th, 2024 We have definitely entered the “bread basket” of Canada. Nothing but miles and miles of fields and farms.  To answer Dan’s question of going through Jasper and Banff to keep the Rockie Mountains in view. We had planned to drive south out of the Watson Lake area to Prince Rupert to make the drive a bit more interesting, however, there is currently a wild fire in Jasper that    has closed the road. I’ve heard the air quality is pretty bad to the west. We’ve talked to a few people who also changed their plans due to the fires. We drove 250 miles today in 6 hours. We crossed over into Alberta which also crosses us over another time line and brings us one hour closer to the East coast! There’s only a two hour difference now. The temps are in the 70s so fairly comfortable and the skies are a silty blue due to smoke. Dry camping is getting more difficult to do now that we are back in civilization (which will help preserve the fish mausoleum). It seems strange to see name br

  August 8th, 2024 THE DETAILS: Hot! Dry. In the 80s 280 miles/6 hours Settled in at Mile 0 campground, Dawson Creek BC Things are changing fast now. No more mountains. The heat is killing us. And we can now finally go to bed at night without black out panels in the windows. The darkness at night feels strange. We also just started seeing the wide expanse of fields with crops. That’s a precursor to what is to come.  There’s not much to report today other than a lot of straight, boring road and trees. Not even a road kill report! But there’s one thing I want to include so we never forget  the next time Gary says, “I want a milkshake from McDonald’s”. We both had one. Mine was small but his was large. We finished about the same time and we also experienced a major sugar crash about the same time. It’s not a problem for me to get tired but the driver has to stay awake! He pulled over and we took a 30 minute nap! We both were laughing as we got on our way again.   We are currently staying