November 27-29, 2009. Days 131-133 Pensacola FL.

We stayed in Pensacola for three more days after Thanksgiving. On the Friday after, “Black Friday” we did NOT go shopping. Only crazy people do that. We slept in, had a good breakfast then later went to see the movie “Blind Side”. It was really good and we recommend it to everyone. Afterwards we went to eat dinner at Sonny’s Bar-B-Que.

On Saturday after Kathleen and Thomas went shopping at Wal-Mart, we hung out at the RV Park all day. Thomas watched the movie “The Grudge”, very scary, and Andrew and Kevin watched college football all day including the Georgia, Georgia Tech game that night. Of course, Georgia won! We were thrilled since UGA had not had that good of a year. At least this win helped to soften the disappointment some. During the day, Kathleen and Rachel took long walks along the beach to the Light House and they also rode bikes a lot. Rachel made a friend with a lady in the park who had a 6 week old puppy that was the cutest thing you ever saw. Rachel could not leave them alone.

On Sunday, after our internet church service, we all went to see the Aviation Museum they have here right on the base. It was incredible. After having been to all the aviation museums in DC we thought that this one was just as good if not better in several ways. If you ever have a chance to see it you must go. Later that day Thomas had one of his friends, Tabatha Garrett, come and visit with us for a while. We all went down to the beach again and played some football. It was right at sunset and the whole setting was beautiful. All in all we had five great days with Thomas and his friends. It was comforting to see how well he is doing and how happy he is. He has really taken to Navy life and we think he will do very well as a Navy Air Traffic Controller.

November 25-26, 2009. Days 129-130 Thanksgiving in Pensacola FL.

We just had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Pensacola FL, camped on the Pensacola NAS right on the water. They have a beautiful camp ground there for military members and their family so Thomas got us a reservation. The drive down from Montgomery went well and the roads were better than I thought they would be since you have to take a few non-highway roads. We arrived right at 1 PM and Thomas met us at the gate with his roommate, Jeremy Wallace. They rode with us to the campground and spent some time with us. We were so happy to see Thomas. He looked so good in his Navy Blues. After they left we got all set up and started planning our Thanksgiving Day dinner. We bought a turkey that was only 13 lbs. already stuffed and seasoned and also with directions that said you don’t defrost it you just put it in an oven frozen. All that was perfect for an RV. Thomas had asked for a traditional thanksgiving dinner so Kathleen had planned for all the normal dishes. On Thanksgiving Day Thomas and Wallace came over from their dorm at 9 am and Kathleen made them French toast for breakfast, one of Thomas’ favorites. We started cooking the turkey at 9:45 with an expected finish time of 2:45 but we were real nervous about it all since the turkey was still frozen. But right at 2:45 we took it out of the big electric roaster we had bought just for it and it looked wonderful. We got it all carved up and the stuffing out and everything we made tasted great. It had all turned out perfect. During the day we watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, the football games, played our own football and later went and walked on the beach. It was an awesome Thanksgiving Day and we had so much to be thankful for.

November 24, 2009. Day 128 Montgomery AL.

Today we moved from Birmingham AL to Montgomery to see the capitol. It was a short 88 mile trip and we camped at The Woods RV Park just south of town 4 miles. After getting set up and finishing school, we went to the Montgomery Visitors Center at the Old Union Station building. Our RV camp host suggested we go there and then ride the Trolley around town. For only $1 per person you can get off and on a Trolley that takes you all around downtown. Since it was after 1 in the afternoon we rode straight to the Capitol and got off. On the way the Trolley has a recording that plays for you telling about the different buildings and places you’re passing by. It gives history and other interesting facts. At the Capitol we took a self guided tour. They apparently don’t give guided tours. It’s hard to describe their capitol without sounding critical and that’s not our intention. All we’ll say is it was quaint and modestly decorated. For us that was just fine. There was a very unique dual stairway toward the front entrance that went up three flights. It’s one of those stair cases that seem unsupported. It took you to the first level that you could see the rotunda. The rotunda was impressive in color and paintings but not in size. The Capitol is no longer used for the purpose it was built because in 1985 they moved the House and Senate out to a bigger building. The Governor also is located somewhere else. All in all this capitol just gave us a less than “Wow” experience. Still, that is fine. They all shouldn’t be the same, aren’t the same and that’s good. After touring we went out to take our picture in front of the capitol. Then we walked a short distance to the 2nd Baptist Church where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached from 1954 to 1960. We then got back on the Trolley and finished riding around downtown and back to the Visitor’s Center. We saw many significant historic sites along the way. We recommend this as a method to see Montgomery. The only thing we regret not seeing was the Civil Rights Museum we passed. It was almost 5 PM when we went by it and the Trolley stops running at 5:30 so we would not have had a ride back and it was getting dark. Maybe if we move to Alabama we’ll come back to see more. Tomorrow we’re off to Pensacola for Thanksgiving with our son, Thomas who’s in the Navy. He’s going to be a third generation Air Traffic Controller. We’re so proud of him and are excited to see him.

November 19-23, 2009. Days 123-127 Birmingham AL.

We’re just finishing a 5 night stay in Birmingham Alabama. We arrived on Thursday, November 19th from Jackson Mississippi. We came here because for several years now Kevin has had the idea to retire to Alabama. Since he calls Georgia home he’s wanted to move back to the south for a while now. However he doesn’t want to move back to the Eastern Time zone. As a big sports fan he’s found he likes it when the games he’s watching end well before midnight. On the Eastern Time zone many games finish after midnight. Even if you just want to stay up to watch the news you still are awake until 11:30. It’s not that our lives are all about TV; it’s just one thing that can make a difference. Anyway, we came here to look around at schools, homes, land and churches. Everything looked great and the people were so friendly. We mostly looked around Hoover, Alabama, which is south of the city off I459. It’s a very pretty area. There’s rolling hills and plenty of hard wood and pine trees. Everything was so pretty and green. It’s quite a bit different than Albuquerque. During our stay in Birmingham we also got to visit with Kevin’s niece, Paige. She attends school here and is finishing up her Doctorate. We think it’s in Rocket Surgery or Brain Science, we can’t remember we just know she’s very smart. On Saturday she came to see us at the RV and to have dinner with us. She also showed the kids how to play the card game, Spoons. They had so much fun and laughed and screamed a lot. We had a great visit. We camped at the Hoover RV Park at Regions Park Stadium. Regions Park Stadium is where the Chicago White Sox Double A team, The Birmingham Barons, play. It’s also where the SEC holds their yearly baseball tournament. The park is really nice. It’s all paved with W-E-S, cable TV and phone hookups, all for just $23 a night. If you pay for 5 nights you get 2 more free. It’s a great place to camp in south Birmingham. One of the things we liked about this stay was how slow a pace we took while here. We slept in till 8 each morning, and after 9 on Sunday. We got the bikes, the grill and the Rip Sticks out. We did a day of school before we went anywhere and overall just felt so much more relaxed. It’s our plan for this second leg of the trip and its working so far. Tomorrow we’re off to Montgomery to see our 35th Capitol.

November 17-18, 2009. Days 121-122 Jackson MS.

On November 17th we drove 195 miles from Memphis TN to Jackson Mississippi. The Mississippi capitol would be our 34th capitol we visited. On the 17th we arrived at Le Fleur's Bluff State Park & Golf Course campground at 1 in the afternoon. We decided to finish our school day and go see the capitol and Jackson the next day. The campground was very nice. It’s right near downtown, only 4 miles away, but you feel like you’re way out in the woods. You take a 1 mile drive off the main road on a winding road around several small lakes. There are high trees at every campsite and most back up right to the lake. We really liked it. Kathleen had plenty of long roads to walk on although she feels a little nervous being in the trees where it’s not always easy to see people coming from a distance away. We had W-E hookups for only $16 a night.

On the 18th we went to see the capitol and downtown after finishing another school day. We are on day 53 of 170 days of school on this 122nd day of the trip. With the trip being planned at 375 days we should be on about school day 60 to stay on an every other day pace in order to finish on time. We’ve decided to do a school day Monday thru Friday from 9-12:30 to help the boys and Rachel stay on track. We had been just doing school on the days we were traveling but that has not been enough and it spreads their days out too much so the M-F plan should be much better.

Back to the capitol now, we went downtown the whole 6 miles we were from the capitol and found free parking right next to it. We had to do another self tour because they only give tours to groups of 10 or more. We started on the top floor and worked our way down. It was a very pretty capitol in the traditional style of most capitols. The Senate and House Chambers had been restored a few years ago and were impressive. Their library and Supreme Court rooms weren’t impressive but are not used anymore anyway. They also had a big beautiful rotunda some 180 feet high. The grounds still had bright green grass cut well with big shade trees. All in all it was a very nice capitol. Better than that though was their Old Capitol that was a few blocks away and now a museum. We walked to it through downtown Jackson, which allowed us to see a lot more, including the Governor’s Mansion. The Old Capitol was really well restored and had a lot of Mississippi history throughout. We really enjoyed that. After our time downtown we went out to eat at Outback and then went back to the RV.

November 14-16, 2009. Days 118-120 Memphis TN.

On November 14th we left the Wal-Mart in Lonoke AR and drove to Memphis TN, We actually drove to South Haven MS a small town on the TN MS border, 8 miles south of Memphis. We camped at the Southaven RV Park, a little park with full hookups that was quite nice. It didn’t take us long though to find out it sits a couple miles south of the Memphis Airport and when the planes are departing south they are pretty loud. We got used to it pretty soon though. It was a Saturday so we decided to stay at the campsite for the day because Kevin was very tired from sinus issues and needed to sleep a little before watching his UGA football game later that evening. We got the kids bikes out for the first time in months and they enjoyed that a lot. Kathleen went to the post office and to fax a timesheet so we did get some things done. Our plan was to go to downtown Memphis on Sunday after church and to Graceland on Monday to see Elvis’ mansion. Great plans, that didn’t happen after all. On Sunday we did our internet church but never left to go downtown. The kids were having a good time playing with other kids in the park and Andrew and Kevin were happy to just watch football. That’s what is great about this trip. We set our own schedule and although we almost always go do something in each town we were fine with just staying “home”. We did try to go to Graceland on Monday but they wanted $125 dollars for us all to get in and we thought that was way too much to pay to see gold shag carpet and 19” TVs from the 70’s. We instead went to see the movie “2012” and then went out to dinner. We liked that much better and the movie was incredible. BTW-GA beat Auburn 31-24! Go Dawgs!

November 13, 2009. Day 117 Little Rock Arkansas.

On Friday the 13th, uh-oh, we drove to Little Rock AR from Dallas. We thought we were just going to stay at a Wal-Mart south of town but after we were all set up and eating dinner a security guard told us we couldn’t stay over-night because they weren’t open 24 hours. She was very nice about it though. She even told us how to get to several other Wal-Marts that she knew we could stay at overnight. We ended up moving to a Wal-Mart 30 miles east of Little Rock which was on the way toward Memphis. Our tour of the capitol went well. We parked on the street in front of the capitol and almost got run over taking our normal in front of the capitol picture. This capitol was really pretty especially since they had begun decorating it for Christmas. Our tour guide was a young girl from Texas who had a nice little southern accent. She gave us a nice tour. She denied knowing Bill Clinton personally. They also have an old capitol building that we tried to go see but we couldn’t find any parking and it was getting near 5 and we didn’t want to get stuck in traffic.

November 12, 2009. Day 116 Dallas TX and Kathleen's Birthday.

On the 12th we went downtown Dallas and toured the Sixth Floor Museum, the JFK assassination site. It is a very well put together museum that gives you a great look into what happened that day in November 1963 and the days after. We spent a good two hours reading, watching and listening to all the information. Afterwards we toured Dealey Plaza and the Grassy Knoll. The kids learned a lot. We don’t know what made Kathleen sadder. The terrible thing that happened to JFK or that it was her birthday. She wasn’t happy about getting older. We tried to make the day special for her by taking her shopping and out to dinner, but she really didn’t buy anything and would barely have any of the dessert we got for her. She had a good day after-all though because we were all together but did miss Thomas a lot and wished he was there with us.

November 11 2009. Days 115 Dallas TX.

On Wednesday the 11th we drove from Oklahoma City to Dallas TX. We were going to go downtown Dallas to see the JFK, Sixth Floor Museum but mostly we were going to Dallas to see our friends Mark and Linda Shirley and some family, Debbie and Richard Snyder. We went straight to our campsite, The Woodshire Mobile Home and RV Park. We’ve probably stayed in some 60 different RV parks and campgrounds while we’ve been on this trip and we now had a new “low” in appearance. Not all of our places have been first class or anywhere near that but when they don’t have a nice appearance they are still usually friendly and helpful and that was true again. We would never want to look down on how anyone has to live but this place reminded us of how very blessed we are. After setting up we left to go see Mark, Linda, David and Karen Shirley. Mark and Kevin worked together for many years at Albuquerque Center before Mark moved away. They have kept in touch and always try to visit each other when in town. We only got to see them for a couple hours but we had a great visit. They have done a lot of work on their house and we were very impressed. It was good to see them.
After that short visit we drove a few miles over to see Debbie, Chloe and Shea Snyder. We didn’t get to see Richard because he was out of town working. Debbie wasn’t supposed to, we asked her not to, but she made us a wonderful dinner that we very much enjoyed. It was roast pork, awesome cheesy, bacon potatoes and an incredible salad. We can’t mention what happened to the biscuits though. After dinner, we showed the girls our maps of the trip and many of the pictures we’ve taken. They were so genuinely interested. They let us talk about our trip for as long as we wanted. It made us feel good that they did that. After the “show” we had apple pie alamode. We were so stuffed when we left. The best part may have been the beautiful basket and trivets Debbie gave Kathleen that she had made herself.

November 8-10, 2009. Days 112-114 Oklahoma City OK.

On November 8th, we left Amarillo and drove to Oklahoma City. Before we left Amarillo we had our Sunday, Internet church service. Our church in Albuquerque, New Life Bible Ministries, posts each week’s message online. This helps us to keep up with what’s going on there and to hear a message at least weekly. After we left our campsite we also stopped at the Speedco Truck service place on the east side of town and had the fuel filters on the RV changed. It was quick and inexpensive and a real good place to have maintenance work done. It was a 257 mile drive that took 4.5 hours because of high cross winds that made it hard to drive. When we got to our campsite at the Rockwell RV Park we just stayed there the rest of the day. It was Sunday and there was football to watch anyway. This place also had a pool and the kids went swimming again. The next day, the 9th, we had a school day and stayed in because it was pretty gloomy outside. Our plans for Oklahoma City included a quick drive by the FAA Academy that Kevin attended here 25 years earlier, touring the capitol and a trip to see the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building site where the Oklahoma City Bombing took place. We knew we could do the tours next day so all we did on Monday was drive to the Academy. When we went to drive by the FAA Academy we found they had changed the roads around it and you can’t drive through it anymore. On the 10th we went and toured the capitol. It was really nice. They had completed all their renovations so everything looked great. They had also added a dome that had been originally planned but never completed until recently. After the capitol tour we went over to the Federal Building and took the museum tour. We have to say that the museum was extremely well done and you must go see it if you ever have a chance. They have captured that day’s events and the impact on the city perfectly. We’ve been to several museums on this trip and so far this one was the most impressive. The actual site itself has been made into an important memorial to all who lost their lives from the bombing. They’ve done it all very well. It even captured the kid’s attention in an appropriate way. They learned a lot.

November 6-7, 2009. Days 110-111 Amarillo TX.

On November 6th, we finally left Albuquerque after a 7 night pit stop to begin the second leg of our journey and headed east to Amarillo TX. We stayed at the Fort Amarillo RV Park on the west side of Amarillo. The kids really liked this park because there was a tennis court, a putting green and an indoor swimming pool. It also has an incredible crafts type store that has been voted best of its kind in all of Amarillo. Kathleen loved it and even Kevin thought it was amazing. That evening, Kathleen took the kids to the pool to swim. On Saturday, November 7th, we slept late because we all seemed really tired from our very busy week in Albuquerque. We have also decided that on this leg of the trip we were going to slow down some. The first leg we saw 31 capitols, went through 33 states and drove over 12,000 miles in 103 days. It really was too fast a pace. After breakfast we got ready and drove about 35 miles down to the Palo Duro State Park. It is a beautiful park, like a mini grand canyon. They say it’s the second largest canyon in the country. We took the loop drive that takes you all the way down into the canyon and through a few little creaks. We drove back into town and went to eat at the famous “Big Texan” steak house. It is a restaurant that is famous for their “free 72 oz. steak” – if you can eat it within an hour (with two sides and a biscuit) – or you pay for it. Its $72 if you can’t. No, we did not try it. Our waitress said the last time someone had done it was at the first of the month. It is quite a place to see if you are ever coming through Texas on I-40.

October 31-November 5, 2009. Days 104-109 Albuquerque NM.

While at home between Friday, October 31st and Thursday, November 5th, we accomplished a lot. We needed to be home for a meeting with Rachel’s case worker regarding her government program she is on. We were able to see all of our friends at church (New Life Believer’s Ministry). We had missed the fellowship with other believers and being at church. We had dental appointments for all of us, and Andrew even had to have his last two baby teeth pulled. We had doctor’s appointments for a few of us, flu shots for the kids and an audiologist appointment for Rachel. Daniel and Andrew got to go Trick-or-Treating on Halloween. Bob and Beth came over for dinner the first night we were in. Lisa made us a delicious early Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday while Kevin and Alan watched the GA Bulldogs get thumped by Florida again. Kevin took it pretty well this time. Kathleen went to breakfast with her dear friend Pam one morning and caught up on everything. We also went out to dinner Monday night with our friends Pam and Duane Ross. We all went out to dinner on Tuesday evening with Grandma Celine and Alan and Lisa. For Kathleen’s birthday, Bob and Beth took Kevin and Kathleen out for dinner at the Olive Garden. Andrew was able to spend a lot of time with his friends – Cory, Natalie, McKenzie, Isaac, Zach and Laura. Daniel could not seem to spend enough time with his friend Dustin. It was so nice too that a few of Thomas’ good friends, Cameron Ross, Thomas Thompson and Logan Carbin, came by to see us while we were in town. I don’t know where Kathleen found the time, but she even took the kids to see the movie “Astro Boy.” Kevin met his good friend Clay Coleman for breakfast too. Clay had been a big help several times by phone, as road-side assistance, when Kevin had some RV questions. Kevin also spent some time next door having a beer with our good neighbor, Dave Burke. It’s become one of their favorite hobbies; talking RVs and drinking Coors Light. Dave is a gem of a person. He allows us to park our RV in his large, level driveway which lets us plug it into our RV plug and have all the slides open for full use. We could not do this in our driveway, it’s too small. Rachel fell in love with Alan and Lisa’s dogs Samson and Delilah. In between all of the dinners and breakfasts, we were able to clean out the RV and pack winter clothes, as well as clothes for the cruise that we will be taking in January. We packed things for Thomas to take to him in Pensacola Kevin made sure that Myers got as much work done on the RV as they could and he even had a mobile wash company come and get the RV really clean and ready for the second leg of the trip. It was a very productive pit stop.