Alabama to Wisconsin

Saturday, August 3, 2019

Wednesday was another beautiful summer day with some scattered showers but no rain for Pine Mountain. We spent the day finishing up on our packing and closing down the houses. Now that we have to close down Doc’s and our house we sometimes get confused as to what exactly we have done and not done. Wednesday afternoon we headed to Cullman for a retirement party of a dear friend. We were able to visit with a number of friends from Anne’s work days. It was great to spend time with old friends. When we returned home to Fred, just after getting into bed, Max received a notification that the road we use to leave the mountain was going to be closed from 8am -4pm Thursday. We do not usually take Fred off the mountain by any other road because the other roads are so rough and winding. Flexibility. We reset the alarm clock for an early wake up. Fortunately, we were almost ready to roll.

We pulled out of the driveway at 7:27 and were On The Road Again!! Felt so good. We saw the paving crew at the foot of the mountain setting up for their work day.  Thursday we had an uneventful drive through north Alabama, and Tennessee to Crofton, KY where we “moochdocked” with some NOMADS friends. We backed Fred into their driveway and parked along side their RV. They have their house up for sale and are living in their rig in their driveway for now. It was great to see Mary Ann and Gene again. We also got to see Carol and Dave, some other NOMADS friends who also live in the little town of Crofton. Mary Ann and Gene grilled hamburgers and provided a great meal for us all with lots of good time to catch up with each other. We had not seen Carol and Dave for a couple of years when we had stopped by their house on the way to Illinois. Great visit! Thanks so much Gene and Mary Ann. Love you both!!

Friday morning we were back on the road about 7:00 to head on north, through Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois and spent the night at the Wisconsin welcome center about a mile into Wisconsin. Overnighting is legal in Wisconsin rest areas. It was our first night in Wisconsin in our RV so we now get to add another state to our list. It was a nice large rest area with lots of room to walk. We walked last night and again this morning. We stopped several times, once for fuel and the others at rest areas changing drivers and walking. We took a longer break for lunch and stopped for the day at about 5:30.

After a good nights sleep we had a relaxing breakfast and then talked with a host in the visitors center to get information on Wisconsin, specifically the area around New Lisbon where we will be living and working for the next several weeks. We left the rest area about 9:30 and arrived at Winding Rivers UMC about 12:00. Our leaders, Jack and Barb, helped us get parked and set up. Then, especially for Dave, we went to Culver’s for a late lunch and ice cream. Yum, yum. It was really good, Dave. Later this afternoon we talked with Jack and Barb about the NOMADS work here in New Lisbon. We are looking forward for another great project.

Currently we are watching the clouds roll in. According to the radar we have a nasty storm headed our way. We can’t see the storms moving like this at home due to our hilly terrain. Wow, it’s cool to watch. Yes, we already have the weather radio programmed to our area (it has not gone off) and our 911 address posted on the refrigerator. The temperature has dropped 10 degrees in the past 15 minutes and it is raining like crazy. We will post again tomorrow since we are back on the road. Hope everyone is having a great weekend.