June 2008
Articles
are posted
chronologically from most recent to oldest
See
Slide Show for June 1 - June 14
June
28 – July 5
We arrived at about 11:00 AM, after doing laundry, at the ESCAPADE in Gillette, WY. After
parking, turning in our locator ticket and getting our badges and
goodie bag we
were ready for tomorrows opening ceremony at 3:00 PM The Escapees
were
celebrating their 30th birthday and over the course of the
next 7
days were attended seminars, wood carving classes, Ice Cream socials,
and
excellent evening entertainment. There were over 1017 Rigs and
2000+ people
attending this 30th Birthday Bash. We enjoyed meeting with
both chpt.
49 and chpt. 15/27 SKP members, renewing old acquaintances and making
new
friends. The Escapade was a great success!!!
June
19 - 28
We left the Skarda’s for the Chapter 46 Escapee Rolling Rally. We
were
originally due to meet them in Thompsonville, Il but the campground was underwater due to
the flood. The
rally was rerouted to Galena, Il where we met Jim and Phyllis, the first of
5 couples we
were to travel with. Our Wagon Master Bob Tirk and his lovely
wife Ann,
arrived back at their RV later. Everyone started pulling in
and by super time
we had met: Joe and Burna, Pat and Bill, with Ray and Sharon
pulling in last. During
the next 8 days we traveled as a Caravan seeing: The Spam museum,
Landreau River
Casino (SD), Bob’s resort which is famous for their steak sandwiches
Gettysburg
(SD), CCC Garrison Day on Lake Sawkakawea (ND) touring a Coal
Gasification and
a Coal strip mining plants. We went on to visit Teddy Roosevelt
National Park
in Medora (ND) The downtown area of Madora is about 2 football
fields long but
they are famous for their outdoor musical review and Pitch Fork
fondue. We
were told that they have as many as 3,000 attendees at their evening
performances
in the summer. It lived up to it’s billing being an extravaganza
event. Our
last rolling rally destination was Moorcroft, WY where we settled in at the “Cup of Coffee”
Cennex truck
stop. During the 8 day trip, while driving, we were in constant
contact via walkie
talkies, agreeing on when to stop for breaks and lunch. In the
evenings we had
great conversations enjoying the beautiful weather and getting to know
each
other. Although this was the Il chapter, we felt right at home
and thoroughly
enjoyed each couple and their vast experiences. What a great
bunch of
people!!!!
June
15 - 18
Our goal is to reach Oregon, IL. by nightfall. We left Maumee Bay early and are now on Central Daylight
time. The trip
across I-80 is uneventful and we reached Oregon, Il. by about 4 PM. We arrived at
the home of our
friends Jim and Nancy Skarda, whom we had not seen for over 27
years. Jim was
Marie’s Godfather by proxy and we had lost touch with him and Nancy
when they
moved from Plantation, Fl. to Il. It was a treat to see how they
are
enjoying their lovely home. During our conversations, we
discovered that they
both have enjoyed many years of camping and travel. They are both
active in
the community, participating in theater groups, meals on wheels and
many other volunteer
projects. They were most gracious hosts and treated us royally
for 3 days.
The span of 27 years melted away and we seemed to pick up where we left
off
with memories of St. Maurice and the wonderful friendships we shared.
June 13 - 14
It was still raining when we arrived at Maumee Bay on Lake
Erie at about 10:00 AM. We were unsure of what the
weather would be since there were tornado warnings and severe
thunderstorm
warning in the area the day before. But we hunkered down and
listened to
rain all night long. In the morning, Saturday, it was cloudy and
overcast
but it cleared up by about 11
AM. The rest of the day
was sunny, with a
delightful breeze. We took out our chairs, put out the awning and
installed the sun shade. We spent the entire day house cleaning
and
working on the web site.
June 11 - 12
Wednesday was the beginning
of our
trek West to meet up with the Escapee Rolling Rally. Again our
plans were
changed. We were to meet up in Thomson, IL but the campground is flooded and closed
so we are
taking it easy on the driving. It was raining again on Wednesday
as we
drove to Lamar, Pa to spend the night at the Flying J.
Thursday,
the 9th we headed out for Ohio but made only 140 miles due to 3 different
grid lock traffic situations on I-80. One caused by road
painting, one by
a horrific accident involving 3 tractor trailers and the final one
because of
paving. We spent the night at another Flying J in Hubbard, Ohio
June 9 - 10
We started for Manchester, CT to visit my brother Joe. He had just
returned
on Sunday from a bowling tournament in Las Vegas, so we decided to give him a day
to recuperate. We took our time and were looking for a Denny's to have
breakfast. Garmina, directed us over back roads. When we
finally
arrived at the Denny's I missed the turn and we were back on the
highway
I-90. We finally ate at Friendlys but it was too late for
breakfast. We got to Manchester on Monday and stayed at a Wal-Mart. New England was
in the middle of an extreme heat wave and without hook-ups we did not
have air
conditioning but we managed to avoid the heat by hanging out at
Borders.
The next day was even worse. The outside temperature was reading
113
degrees on our rear view mirror gauge. We took refuge at a
McDonalds in
the morning and Barnes & Nobles in the afternoon. We drove to
Joe and
Maureen's home and met them at 5
PM. We went to dinner
with Joe and Maureen, his
daughter Veronica, husband Scott and 2 children Emily and Alana.
Joe
treated us to a great diner of steaks, salads, shrimp and
calamari. We
returned to Joe and Maureen's house and had a very pleasant time
showing each
other our travel photos. We left the next morning with it raining
again.
June 7 - 8
We spent Saturday and Sunday visiting with Kristi, Tom and
his 4
children. We ate, BBQ chicken for lunch (prepared by Tom) and
Lasagna
(Kristi did a great job!) for dinner and Matthew (the oldest boy)
brought home
ice cream for dessert. Tom and I did some shopping at
Michaels buying photo album pages and string to make pot holders.
Ryan
(the youngest boy) and Tom made me several pot holders while the 2
girls Amy
and Katie did their own "thing." Later on Saturday evening Kristi and
Sue had a computer session for Kristi to learn how to do a web
site. She
makes award winning quilts and needed a website to promote them.
Sunday,
we went to the 10:30 Mass at St. Patrick's and then relaxed in
the afternoon.
In the evening we went out for a great Chinese dinner and came home to
watch a
movie. We got to bed early in anticipation of the next days drive.
June 5 - 6
Today we left Canada heading
for the US. Our original plans were to travel
the Trans-Canada highway and
cross into Michigan. However, we decided to take some time and
visit by brother
Tom Parker in NH. We headed southwest towards Montreal on
route 401 and then headed South on into Maine.
We hit the 4000 mile mark of our trip at 9:21 AM at exit 266 of the Trans-Canada Hwy.
We had a great travel day and spent the night at the Wal-Mart in Concord, Maine. We
spent over $200.00 at Wal-Mart, (whoever said it was free parking) on
prescriptions
and other items. The next day, Friday June 6, we got a late
start,
found a Laundromat and did 2 large loads of laundry. Afterwards
we set
out for Amherst, NH by way of a movie so as not to arrive too
early at
Tom's. After the movie, the 30 minute trip to his home, took us
almost 2
hours because of darkness, fog, thunder, lightning and heavy
rain. Thank
goodness for Garmina, our GPS, which led us successfully through the
unfamiliar
back roads to my brothers home. We arrived at 9:40,
and plugged in
SAGORA. Tom and his wife Kristi were at a Red Socks game so we
sacked out
for the night and saw them the next morning.
June 4 - 3rd day in Quebec
One day 3 we had a good idea of how to get around Quebec city so we
decided
to take the ferry from Levis to Quebec. Our first excitement came
when we
tried to park SAGORA. I could not figure out how to get a ticket
out of
the machine to display in our windshield. After several attempts,
both
cash and credit card, I ignored the printed directions and finally got
it to
work. After a 20 minute ferry ride across the St. Lawrence Seaway we disembarked in lower Quebec City. From there we were told there are
free
electric shuttle busses that would take us to the upper city. A
bus
pulled up and we attempted to ask the driver if the bus went in the
direction
of the upper city. He spoke no English or very little English but
said
wait for bus 3 in 20 minutes. So we waited 20 minutes
while 3
buses accumulated with no numbers on them. I asked each and every
driver
the same question and was told "wait 20 minutes." Finally the
original bus driver opened the doors and motioned us in. We got
into a 12
seat bus and headed for the upper city. We pulled up to a
square that I
recognized from the previous day and where I knew there was a tourist
info
center. The bus driver motioned us off the bus and said wait 20
minutes. He left; I left and went to the TI center. I got a
colored
picture of the electric bus route showing no direction of travel and
all in
French. No Help!!!! Finally the bus driver (the same one)
motioned
us back on the bus and we headed for Notre Dame Cathedral. We
passed
Notre Dame and I said to George, I think we just passed Notre
Dame. Some
kind person on the bus, yelled at the driver to stop. We got off,
walk
about 1/4 mile up the hill to Notre Dame Basilica. We were
treated to a
private tour of Notre Dame by a young college student, whose English
was
impeccable. She spent a great amount of time telling us all about
how the
church was built, burned down and rebuilt at least 4 times. It
was
magnificent and we took lots of pictures.
Then it was time to get back on the bus. We never did figure out
what
direction it was going, but we flagged one down and just got on.
We
figured it was a closed circuit and we would eventually get back to the
ferry. We did, but again with 2, 20 minute breaks between 15 min.
drives. These buses are on a trail mode and are planning to be
used to
facilitate the expected crowds for the 450th anniversary of Quebec later
this summer. Our opinion is that they have a lot of work to make
this
viable.
June 3 - 2nd
day in Quebec
We took the 10:30 tour of Quebec which meant we had to be at the campground
office by 9:30 to be
pick-up. We were driven to Upper Quebec city and then had to transfer to
a small city tour van. Our guide was a delightful, English
speaking,
story teller who pointed out all the interesting building and site in Quebec
both
the upper and lower city. He entertained us for over 2 hours with
2 short
stops. We got to see, the tree with a cannon ball growing our of
its
roots, the plains of Abraham where a 20 minute battle had occurred
between the French
and English, Château Frontenac hotel, the Citadel built for a
expected
invasion by the Americans which never happened and many other
sights. The
shuttle returned us to our campground where we relaxed for the evening.
June 2 - 1st
day in Quebec
Today we left St. Andre Campground and headed for Beaupre, which is a
town
about 20 miles north of Quebec City to see St. Anne de Beaupre Basilica.
The basilica is celebrating 350 years being one of the oldest
pilgrimage sites
in North America. We had a grand tour of both the
lower chapel
and the upper church. One photo, the picture of St. Anne in the
lower church,
which I took, was a total surprise. The statue was gray, with
muted
colors but when I used my flash, the picture was brilliant with bright
colors
of pink, blue, brown and gold. It has become one of my
favorites.
While on our tour, we were introduced to Miguel Dubois who is the
artist
responsible for the paintings in the lower church. We had seen
the lower
church previous to taking the tour and we fell in love with the
paintings. I photographed almost all of them. When we met
the
artist we were so honored. He posed for a picture beside our favorite
painting
of the Holy Family. After spending about 3 hours at the shrine,
we headed
SW to Quebec stopping at Montmorency
Falls. We paid $9.00 for the privilege of parking our car 200 yards closer to the
falls. They had a cable car to the top so you could walk across a
suspension bridge over the falls, but I was too cheap to spend another
$4.00
each. Besides we could not take George's scooter and it was too
far of a
walk for him. We arrive at the Bernieres campground
that
evening settling in for a 3 day stay.
June 1
Today was Sunday and since
we had
already attended Mass yesterday we took off for the Montreal
Biodome. We could not reach the Biodome, every entrance was
blocked
by police cars because of some city-wide bicycle race. We finally
found a
kind, English speaking police officer who directed us to handicapped
public
parking. The Biodome, has several different ecosystems:,, housed in this former Olympic
Stadium.
Everything was fine except, just as we entered the registrations area,
George's
scooter became inoperable. We could not get it to go, nor could
it be
pushed. After several tries, Sue dragged it back to the front
desk and
got the loan of a wheelchair. From there we enjoyed seeing the
many
different exhibits, especially the young chick who took a fancy to the
shinny
chrome wheels of George's chair. We took the wheelchair back and
got his
scooter. Once we were outside of the biodome, the scooter
worked. I
think it had something to do with the electromagnetic fields in the
building,
so we will need to be aware of this problem and see if we can do a work
around.
After the Biodome, we went to see Mary, Queen of the World
church. The
bishop was there confirming people so we just sat quietly for a while,
listened
and then received Eucharist. What an unexpected
opportunity! We
were also entertained by a group of youngsters who sang for the bishop.