Day 108, Wed, Sep 19, 2007, Frankfort, KY to HOME!

We crossed the KY/TN state line and took a few minutes at the Tennessee Welcome Center to make sandwiches. I (Barbara) glanced at a picture of a black bear cub that is hanging on a cabinet in the motorhome that we bought in Fairbanks and broke down in tears. The picture brought back memories of the good times we had, and up until August 19th, when Jerry got sick, it was all good times. We got up when we wanted, stayed in a town as long as we wanted, took whatever route we wanted. How many people can say they’ve done that? We’ve truly been blessed and we’ve very grateful for it.

And I’m a very lucky lady to have a husband willing to drive on a curvy, mountainous, gravel road for 100 miles to take me to a “town” named Chicken! The scenery was beautiful and I was happier than I probably would have been in Paris or somewhere else fancy.

Now that we’re home it’s back to real life. It will be great to see our friends again. We pray Jerry’s leg heals—he has a doctor appointment on Friday. If we learn anything earth-shattering, we’ll post an addendum to the blog. And someday we’ll take another trip!

We drove a little over 12500 miles during the 108 day trip.

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Day 107, Tue, Sep 18, 2007, LaSalle, IL to Frankfort, KY

Oh, it’s hot! It’s 87 and humid and I realize that’s nothing compared to what’s it has been here this summer, but I wish I could pronounce Jerry’s leg healthy and we could turn around and head north again. This is the first time we’ve had to use the generator and a/c at rest stops to keep the pets from frying. Also, the traffic is terrible and has been since we left Wisconsin. Give us the Tennessee hills! We’re exhausted; this isn’t the way we intended for the last month of our trip to end, but someday we’ll do the Northern United States again and do it correctly. Up until Whitehorse it was a perfect trip and nothing can change that. We have the blog and tons of pictures to remind us when the memories start to fade.

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Day 106, Mon, Sep 17, 2007, Albert Lea, MN to LaSalle, IL

“The wheels on the van go round and round.” At least we hope they do. It looks like rain today. It would be nice to have a short but heavy downpour since this thing hasn’t been washed since Dawson City, YT and it’s very, very, dirty. It’s too tall for an automatic car wash and would knock the satellite, etc off the top anyway. Jerry isn’t well enough to wash it and he’s too stubborn to watch me wash it. I say close his eyes, but he won’t listen.

11:30 and we’re in Wisconsin! One more state behind us. We stopped in the quaint little town of Bangor, WI, and picked up our mail. Thank you, Susan.

We drove longer than we wanted to, but Illinois is a bit short on campgrounds. We ended up at Wal-Mart in LaSalle, IL.

Low 60.

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Day 105, Sun, Sep 16, 2007, Presho, SD to Albert Lea, MN

We stopped in Mitchell, SC and took pictures of the Corn Palace. All the murals on the outside are made of different shades of corn, and they replace them every year. We didn’t go inside—they were having a polka tournament—but they play basketball there in the winter. It was far more amazing (pun intended!!) than I expected. There was also Cabalas in Mitchell that I could have spent hours in so we just stayed away. We had to get on the road. Jerry’s leg, especially mid-calf to ankle was dark red to almost black last night and that had me scared. I wanted to stop and see a doctor. He won’t.

It was a nice, sunny day, hi of 76, low 46, no clouds. Lots of flies and mosquitoes in the evening.

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Day 104, Sat, Sep 15, 2007, Buffalo, WY to Presho, SD

This morning was fun. There were turkeys walking around the campground, I’d say wild turkeys, but they were pretty tame. Jerry also saw a rabbit. We didn’t take time to see Mt. Rushmore, but we did stop at Wall Drug, which wasn’t as far off the Interstate. We passed on the 5 cent coffee and bought expensive ice cream instead. We saw a group of deer off the side of road somewhere in South Dakota. We’re now in the Central Time Zone, one time zone away from home!

Today has been hot—81 degrees, low was 46 and there are no clouds in the sky. Beautiful day.

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Day 102, Thu, Sep 13, 2007, Conrad, MT to Livingston, MT

This must have been Blackie’s favorite RV Park. They had a fenced in doggie area and he had it all to himself. Blackie ran back and forth between us (his Frisbee disappeared in Anchorage) but just to see him get some exercise was great. And the campsites had nice grass between campers and Blackie enjoyed resting and enjoying the view. Usually he’s nervous if we’re not outside with him, but last night I went out to see if he was ready to come in and he didn’t even stand up!

We saw a deer drinking out of a creek yesterday, but I wasn’t ready with the camera.

Jerry’s leg still hurts way more than it should, especially at the end of the day. Montana is pretty but too brown. There is a lot of farmland and the wheat has been harvested. A fair amount of evergreen trees but no deciduous trees. I want color!!!

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Day 103, Fri, Sep 14, 2007, Livingston, MT to Buffalo, WY

We’re traveling along at 3300 feet and it’s flat! Okay, it’s somewhat flat. But it doesn’t feel like we’re in the mountains, it just feels like rolling hills. We have blue sky, thank goodness, Jerry’s leg is hurting more; I think he should either call our doctor or he should see a local doctor. He wants to get home to see our doctor in person. My knees hurt, so we make quite a pair. Actually, we’re in the middle of nowhere on I90 so we just keep rolling along. Every mile gets us closer to home.

We ended the day by stopping at a nice campground called Deer Park Campground in Buffalo, Wyoming. In fact when we pulled in around 5:30 PM we saw four deer at the entrance to the campground.

It was 30 degrees when we woke up this morning. High today is 74.

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