Saylorville

We arrived here Saturday afternoon and parked in our favorite site in volunteer village. Our door side faces a small grass field and a forested area. We put out our bird feeders and enjoy watching the birds and the deer that pass through the area. Several other volunteers were here already. We visited our families here on Sunday, and I started work on Monday morning.
We picked up a trailer load of trees from a nursery near here and planted them on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, I built fences around part of them and helped with a prairie burn. These are deliberate controlled burns that are done to control invasives and improve the prairie. Very interesting to watch and participate in a small way. It has been a good spring for burning and the crew here has burned most of the prairies this year.

Mount Pleasant, IA

We stopped in Mt. Pleasant last night and had a great time catching up with some old friends from Janice's high school days there. We are off to Saylorville Lake this morning for a 2 month volunteer gig there. One of my favorite places to volunteer and close to two of our daughters' families so we will be able to spend some time with them.

Bowling Green, MO

After fighting the wind all day, we stopped for the night in one of our favorite RV parks, Cozy C in Bowling Green, MO. 

The posts at the end of each site are topped with old  bowling balls. Appropriate for Bowling Green, right? My hand is on one in the picture above, but my selfie didn't come out very well. I guess I need a longer arm.

We were planning to make it to Saylorville tomorrow, but we got in touch with an old friend in Mt. Pleasant, IA so we are stopping there tomorrow for the night to visit with her. Then on the Saylorville on Saturday. We met some people next door tonight from Alaska. Had a nice visit with them and their dog.

Paducah, Kentucky

We are stopped for the night at Fern Lake RV park in Paducah, KY. The wind was blowing from the side with 30 mph gusts since we stopped for lunch, which was wearing Janice out driving. Stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch. They advertise Bus/RV parking, but we didn't fit in the spot very well with the Jeep behind us.

Athens, AL

We are stopped for the night at the Northgate RV park at Athens, Al. We had stayed here once before in 2013 on our way south. It is a small RV park just off the interstate exit with all pull-through sites which is handy when just stopping for the night. We left Little Tallapoosa this morning and were stopped for quite a while waiting for an accident to clear. Then we stopped at Temple, GA for propane, but they still had not fixed their equipment that was broken two months ago when we stopped there. We made a stop in Birmingham for propane, topping off the fuel tank, and lunch at Denny's Beautiful weather today.

Still in Carrollton

I looked at the weather forecast early this morning and there was a huge storm system right where we were going to drive so we decided to wait one more day. The system was actually headed towards us and about 11:00 the weather radio gave us a tornado warning and the sirens went off. We went up to the shower and laundry building but didn't get much more than rain. However, Carrollton got hit with high winds/possible tornado. Lots of damage, trees on houses and cars, streets blocked off, power off so no stop lights. Very hard to get across town. Mom lost power for awhile, but no damage there.

Forecast looks much better for tomorrow, so we hope to leave then.

Leaving Carrollton

I have gotten hopelessly behind in keeping up the blog. The two months here have flown past and tomorrow we hope to hit the road north. We were supposed to leave yesterday(Saturday), but I woke up around 4:00 Friday morning with an intense pain in my right kidney area. My first kidney stone! So after spending the morning at a quick care clinic and the emergency room at the hospital I am drinking lots of water and have a supply of pain meds. Everything seems to be progressing OK we are planning to leave tomorrow.

We have enjoyed our time here once again, visiting some new stores, working on projects with Mom and volunteering at the soup kitchen at least two days a week. A sprained ankle a couple of weeks ago has kept me off the trails here at the park since then and I miss the walks. We were able to celebrate Mom's birthday with her.

Rebecca and her family stopped in for a couple of days to visit while on their vacation and we enjoyed some time with them. One day with them we visited a historical gold mine near here at Villa Rica. The museum there also had artifacts from the Villa Rica Electric Light and Power Company which also was a Coca Cola bottling company.

The old Coke bottling equipment on display.

Some of the old mining equipment.

They had a chance to pan for gold. We had a cold spell while they were here, so coats were necessary.

An old grist mill on the property.

Rebecca in the remains of an old house there.

Liam exploring a tunnel.

Another shot of the remains of the property owners house.