Progress...I think.

The last 600 miles has kind of all looked the same.  Sometimes flat, sometimes a bit hilly, but always EXTREMELY rural.

Started out this morning traversing Iowa.


It's a couple hundred miles of rural farms and hills.  You're rarely driving on level ground.  The semi's go 60 mph up the hills and 75 mph down.  It gets to be a challenge for my consistent 65 mph.  I thought the hills would kill gas mileage on the RV but I actually did a tenth better today than yesterday.  The absence of wind might have helped that cause.

Into Nebraska and just west of Omaha, Kathy directed me to our first tourist stop.


It was the Quilted Moose Quilt Shop in Gretna, NE.  She said it was a great quilt shop.


Judging by the sack she left with, it must have been OK.  I'm expecting she'll whip up a new quilt in time for our Yellowstone evenings.

So, onward across Nebraska.  Looks just like Iowa except flatter.


We stopped mid-state near York, NE.  It's a nice little campground just off the interstate.


The campground is right next to a golf course.


And the hole closest is a little par 3 over water.  The campground has a swing near the tee to enjoy the tee shots.


So we're going to continue west tomorrow.  I thought we would get to the Denver area, but that looks to be a long drive so the plan is to get into Colorado and then decide on Friday how far to venture into the mountains.

Sorry about the post.  I can't seem to get the pictures to load properly.  Perhaps it's a restriction on our free wifi in the camp.

Day 2 is history.

The Journey Begins...

We packed up the Minnie Winnie and headed for points west.  Today's goal was to just get on the road and get west of Chicago.  That's been accomplished and it was an uneventful trip across rural Illinois.

We've traveled to nearly the Iowa state line on I-80.  Total mileage today was a little over 400 miles.  That's about 40 gallons in motorhome lingo.  We haven't been to a gas station yet.

We stopped at a small private campground in Geneseo, Illinois.

The campground is well kept and along the banks of the Green River.

Hmmm...wonder how it got that name?  This flows into the Rock River which flows into the Mississippi not too far away.  The river is LOADED with bluegill on their spawning beds.

As an added attraction, I was sitting at the table, heard a big collision and looked up to see a silver SUV spinning in the road at the park entrance.  It was a significant collision.

Looks like the red pickup slammed into the rear of the SUV.  Didn't appear to be anyone seriously injured.

So here we sit, sipping on our Canadian Breezers enjoying the first night in the land yacht.

Day #1...successful.

Westward Ho!

I've been debating for something like 4 months now, how to move forward during life after boating.  After failing to make a deal on a 37' Sea Ray a couple months ago, we decided to take a different direction.

A "land yacht"!

It's a 24' Winnebago Minnie Winnie.  Pictures won't do it justice.  This unit is truly in "showroom" condition.  34,000 miles on the motor, 69 hours on the generator, and a showroom shine you wouldn't believe...inside and out.

We traveled to Greensburg, PA to get this gem.  While we were traveling to look at it, the owner had received an additional 9 calls from as far away as Florida and Texas.  These smaller motor homes that are in good condition are in high demand.  We feel fortunate to find this one.  We're expecting delivery in about a week.

Some other views...

Interior looking forward.

Interior looking aft.

Dash

Watch for future posting of our "cruises" this year.  Reservations at Yellowstone are already made.

In other news, boating will not be completely forgotten...just downsized.  I'm taking delivery of the new "ship" next week.

So maybe life after Play Dough won't be so bad after all...maybe.

Well, finalized the sale of the boat today.  Future plans are unclear.  Just going to step back from the slipped boat for the time being and go do something new for a while.

In the meantime, it's time to head south and look forward to our cruise to Aruba.

It's been a whole three months since I posted here.  Maybe that was because things were pretty dull in my world.  Not much to crow about.

During the last few weeks of the boating season, we took a drive up to Sleeping Bear Dunes with some friends.  That's a lot of beach.

I guess I don't remember how far it is down to the water, but somewhere around 300 feet rings a bell.

I'd think I'd take the beach the couple miles back to Empire before I'd climb that 300 feet.

Back in Manistee, we enjoyed the passing of the freighters behind our boat.  We were there for three or four of these events.

There's nothing glamorous about those ships, unlike a cruise ship.  These ships are all banged up, dented and rusty.  Looks like they see a lot of abuse.

The fishing from late August to the end of the season was poor due to unusually high water temperatures off the Michigan coastline.  We never ventured out again.  It was hot and sticky so after spending MANY days on the boat this season, I completed the fall service and put it in storage a couple weeks after Labor Day.

I think we've discovered the resort and vacation atmosphere is more important to us than the fishery anymore.  We missed being in Mackinaw City even with all it's annoyances.

So...with the boat in storage, I made some sawdust and created a quilt rack for Kathy.

I took a day and wandered through the fall in-water boat show on Lake St. Clair.  It was entertaining.  I picked this one out as what I would have left with.

It's a 40 foot Sea Ray Sundancer.  Completely different from the open deck Sundancers of the past.  I don't have to worry about ever owning one.  Way too many $$$$.

Before the cold weather set in, I drove over to Manistee to inspect the boat and polish the hull sides.  That's a long hard day to make the drive and get the polish process completed.  It's why I only get the sides done.

The deck gets all dusty over the winter anyway so there's no point in doing much work on that.  They left plenty of room between the boats for me to work on the hull.  That was nice.

The drive home was about perfect for fall color.  It made the drive much more pleasant.

That closed the book on anything boating this year.

Plans for next year are completely undecided.  We've talked about some alternatives to boating for a year but those plans are yet to develop.  The next scheduled boat ride is a 9 day run to Aruba.  That should be a real nice trip.

I'll let you know.

Project is complete.

The flash photography brings out the grain much more than it actually shows.  I'm happy with the result.  If I made another one, there's a couple changes to the plan that I'd make, but this is real nice.  Mother will be pleased...and that's what matters.  Now I just need to schedule delivery 600 miles to the east.

So I can toss my Amish hat and put my captain's hat back on.  Once our unsettled weather passes, I'll wander back toward the boat for a few days.  After all the rain, I'll need to bail out the dinghy.

We've had a couple weeks now to enjoy Manistee and kind of unwind from a lot of days on the boat...maybe too many, really.  Too much of a good thing turns sour eventually and I think we were approaching that status.

We've had some decent early morning fishing.  Here's a shot of the sunrise one morning AFTER we were done fishing.

Our cooler had three nice fish in it and that was all we decided we wanted to keep.

After that outing we went home for a few days.  I returned to do a little solo boating/fishing because the forecast was so perfect.  It took me a little longer to find a couple fish on my first day solo.

But I boated a couple nice fish.  The cooler is about 3 feet long for reference.

The following day, I was able to coax a couple more to the landing net.

Since arriving in Manistee, I've fished 5 times for maybe 12 hours and I've had 11 fish on and boated 10.  The one I lost was due to a broken line when a couple lines tangled.  The largest has been 23 1/2 lbs. with the smallest probably around 15 lbs.  Each fish gives us about four meals so we've got plenty in the freezer to keep us fed for a while.

The city has a real nice cleaning station at their ramp and beachfront park.

The marina has no cleaning facility, so I have to use this place, which makes for an inconvenience, but on the other hand, there's no mess, odor or wasps around the marina that are common anywhere near a cleaning station.

So during my hours around home, I've been plugging away at the bookcase/display shelf that I started back in the beginning of June.  I'm amazed that I've made so much progress on it.  I guess that's what happens when there's no 9 to 5 job to interfere with all the fun.

The project is all complete, just waiting for the finish to cure so I can do the final assembly.

I made a pedestal on casters to be able to move around the project to get the light to shine where I need it.  It helped a bunch.

So after some appointments this week/weekend to honor, I'll make another run to the boat.  We have some friends scheduled to arrive in two weeks so I need to stay on top of the fishery.

Seems incredible that we're on the downside of the boating season.  We've been a lot of places this year with the boat.

It's been a fun and interesting year...so far, and fortunately, no incidents outside of the rodent infested dinghy.