Maps

Over the past 10 years Dave and I have made some long road trips anywhere from 3-6 weeks at a time, when we got home we would fill our our wall map with pushpins. The pushpins represented a variety of things, places stayed and things done, it was a great way to relive our trip memories. Our US wall map was a great visual reference for planning trips, over the years we've driven in all 48 continental states. I've also kept a master atlas with our routes and travels highlighted.

 Our 2006 Honda Ridgeline with 120k+ miles to show for all of the lower 48 states it's been in. We have decided to take it with us on our travels as our run around vehicle, it's gone everywhere we've asked it to, gets decent gas mileage, considering it's a truck, and it's paid for.




I've been going on road trips since the early 60's when my dad would pick my mother, brother and I up in IL where we had gone by bus or train from TX or NY. I remember early on getting maps when we stopped at a Texaco, and it had to be a Texaco, dad was a company man after all. Free maps and pumped gas are all a thing of the past. Welcome centers give out free maps, but how many young folks know how to read one, we always picked up enough for the boys to have one. We are now on our second Magellan and will probably be getting another one in the near future, I have Microsoft Streets and Trips for the laptop but I never go on a trip with out a good ole' map. It used to be I would write the chamber of commerce for tourist information on what was in an area, now just about everything is online now. How times have changed.

Tuesday I spent the morning working on transferring the pushpin points on the wall atlas to Microsoft Streets and Trips map, the goal is to have it done by the time we pull out in the fall.While this won't be as nice as our wall atlas it will help us remember where we've been. Ask Dave sometime about a waterfall in Death Valley that we drove the truck behind-it was in TN, thank goodness for pictures.

Our weather forecast here has heat and humidity in the morning and thunderstorms in the afternoon, the roads in VT are taking a beating. Tuesday afternoon turned into a rainy thunderstorm filled time, I was working and had absolutely no sales, though there were a few kids in the pool in between the thunderstorms. The winds were so bad they ripped the storm door open and broke the handle, a pop up lost their awning and the rains came down. Executive decision was made to close at 6 instead of 7, no one was out and about in the campground.

This morning we were having a slow start when around 9am a couple of boys came over to tell us of a broken mirror in the bathroom, we're on call a couple of nights during the week. After cleaning that up Dave started working on building new horseshoe pits, one set here are falling apart so it gave him a project to work on. After getting as far as he could we took a walk around and found our friends from GA were home, and they brought me Strawberry Cider :). As soon as the rain stops we're getting together to open it up.

An early text today had us hoping for a closing tomorrow but it will be Friday at 8:30am. As my girlfriend Rene said on facebook "Bittersweet but YAH!!!" If the weather holds we'll get another walk in and call it an early night. Tomorrow will be an early day since the walk through is at 9am, then errands and such since we'll be in town.

Until next time...