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Headed across the US going East is a long drive down hill. I could still see the Rockies for close to 150 miles once I left the Front Range. Memorial Day weekend in Golden was wonderful. I was going to leave in the early AM but when thinking about the traffic, and being so out of practice in driving at rush hour (or at least a rush hour any more crowded than 2 cars in sight) I chose to leave that night., Good thing too, because the hail storm that went thru with golf ball sized hail would have been right over my head. I have done a pretty good job of dodging storms on my travels, barring that cloud burst in NM last year, I have really been lucky. As I was driving thru Nebraska, I was wondering if my luck was going to hold up. The clouds were lowering, the wind was picking up and the skyline was turning that sickly green. If that was not enough to get one concerned, all the car traffic was cutting across the median and heading in the other direction! A tractor trailer and I sat this storm out under a bridge overpass. This is about as close to a funnel cloud I want to get, Storm chasing is NOT on my list of things to do.
The storm blew thru about 1 or 2 miles ahead of where I had stopped and from what the news said, missed any houses or buildings.
One difference about the Grain belt portion of this country, is the traffic signs informing you of where there is likely to be Farm Equipment. In New England they use a small old "Poppin' John" John Deere tricycle tractor. Out here, they would not know what you were warning them of!! Even the sign they do use is shows a unit much too small for what you see in the fields!
Dan's Graduation went off with nary a hitch, other than some songs on the closing music sound track being not quite was expected. Dan absolutely has no knowledge of how that happened. Trust me on this. I also bet the Meriden school System will be glad to see the last of me too! We headed out for our summer adventure together, and one of the first stop we made was Valley Forge. This was the first time in 3 or 4 stops thru the years that it was no raining when we visited. I was impressed with the amount of people who actually used the park for running, riding or taking the baby stroller out for a walk. I was also interested to see that horse riders used the park enough to have their own unloading location. Sharing the road with a horse is not always that fun, but he horses kept off the walking and bike path. I have pictures of Dan thru the years standing in the doorway to the huts, and I will eventually post pictures of him at 8 12 14 and 17.
We also stopped at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds and had two rude shocks on getting there. First off, post 9-11 access tot eh park had greatly changed. In past years were able to drive right onto the base and to the museum. Now, cars go one way, anything over 10,000 pounds goes another. The first issue was they did not update the signs on the highway to reflect how to get there in something big. We had to find a parking lot and unhook the car. Once I saw the weave thru the Jersey Barriers I knew I could not get a 40 foot coach with a tag vehicle thru there. The other shock we had was the base is on the closing list and the museum had most of its federal funding cut. The status of these one of a kind, irreplaceable examples of technological advances thru the years was terrible. Other than a few items that private groups had provided the funding for, the equipment was rusting, tires rotting and the grass was growing up around and thru them. This was sad, very sad. The signs identifying most of the pieces were gone too. If Dan and I had not been there before and could recall the history of some of the vehicles, and share them with a couple of families visiting at the same time, they would have gone away not knowing what those gouges were in the frontal armor of a King Tiger Tank or what was the significance of some of the other units. Just another sign of the times I guess.
We stayed in the first RV park that I have ever stayed at which was bad enough to cause me to write the national owners of it and tell them the conditions. If you read my What and RV Park Should Be you can quickly figure out what items I added to the list that came from this park. The park was NOT as bad as a park found in PA, that was so bad, when I drove in, I kept on driving right out the gate and went to another park. I think all will agree, that when the vultures are circling over your trash cans, there is a problem!
Next stop Lake Jordan NC and a visit to the Raleigh Durham Triangle area. From somewhere on the road in near the battle fields of Manassas
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Copyright © Bil Cook 2006-2008 |
