WANDERING WITH THE WRIGHTS

SEPTEMBER 24, 2017

The last blog found us arriving at the Reno Air Show.  Something Jerry had wanted to do for 50 years!.  We spent an entire week in Reno and he got to see everything.  The beginning of the week is mainly pilots checking out their planes and getting used to the course.  They start at 6:00am some mornings but having lived on Naval Air Stations many for many years I got used to it pretty quickly.  It is a lot like a raceway on the ground but up in the air.  They fly around pylons and have to stay outside of them or they are docked points.  The entire week builds up to the final race on Sunday afternoon.

Nancy & Jeff Jeffreys - friends that we met almost two years ago on the road and our paths keep crossing!!  It was great to have them as neighbors at the air show.  We ate several meals at the local ELKS Club.  Both meals were excellent - as a matter of fact the first night we were there they treated us to dinner!!

Leaving the ELKS one night we say a double rainbow

Even though Jerry was having his dream of 50 year come true things still need to be maintained - so here he is working on the dishwasher.

Besides the races they also had some acrobatic shows 

Our seats were perfect - the pylon that was the finish line was right in front of us.

Us up in the bleachers

  

The planes are old military planes from WWII that have been modified.  During the war they would have flown at about  350 miles per hour and at the races they were going over 500 miles an hour!  The engines have been souped up from about 1500 horse power to 3000 horse power.

Jerry was able to spend a morning in the pits and talk to the pilots and the crew.  

Jerry's son and daughter-in-law gave him this shirt for his birthday.  It is SO true!!

These three couples have been coming to the air races for many years and welcomed us into their parking area.  We spent a lot of time in the evening talking and getting to know each other.

This couple was instrumental in getting us the great parking spot we had and was part of the group above.  We are so appreciative of all they did to help us newbies figure out everything.

Wow exciting race!.. Strega lead Voodoo all week by a wide margin. In the Gold race Voodoo took the lead going into the first turn. Voodoo and Strega fought for 1st and 2nd until the end when Strega took it back from Voodoo to win the Gold race.

 We left Reno on Monday morning and headed to South Lake Tahoe for 3 days.  The drive there was beautiful but also a little stressful - lots of tight curves and long drops(remember I am from the Midwest where things are flat).  I really thanked God for giving Jerry such awesome driving skills.  You will see a little later in the blog some of the turns he made in the motorhome!!

Lake Tahoe is breathtaking

The water is so blue and clear

Wandering With The Wrights

September 11th, 2017

Before I start the blog I just want to acknowledge that today is 9/11 and We Will Never Forget!

It has been four months since our last blog.  We spent those months at Illinois Beach State Park as comp hosts.  We were fortunate to get the Mon-Wed shift from 7:30am-12:30pm.  Nice and quiet.  We enjoyed the friendship with all the other camp hosts this summer and look forward to next year.

We spent a great deal of our time visiting friends and family which of course is awesome!  We also took care of all of the essentials: doctors, dentists, car serviced, etc.  We were part of a Wednesday night bible study that we enjoyed and really thank our friends Laura & Eric Main for inviting us.

My mom and I spent a week-end in Peoria visiting my brother Brian and my sister-in-law Anita.

I was also able to go with Carol Meisinger and Audrey Slosser out to Iowa to visit Mame Sage - the four of us all worked at EMCO Chemical's and have been friends for more years than any of us like to admit.

Except for one week-end in July we spent all of our time at Illinois Beach - which is not a bad place to hang out during the summer - we are separated from Lake Michigan by a sand dune - it is lovely at night to lay in bed and hear the waves lapping at the shore as well as a beautiful place to take Teddy for walks.

The week-end away was to House On The Rock in Spring Green, WI.  We traveled with our grandson Calvin, his dad Chris & Chris' folks Peter & Becky Wright - Cal is surrounded by grandparents and a dad who are always right - lol.

On August 6th Jerry and I hosted my mom's 94th birthday at the motorhome.  It was wonderful.    Some people drove quiet a distance to share this special day with her.  They had predicted rain but we were blessed and it stayed away.

We also celebrated my son's birthday on August 17th.

And another big birthday August 15th was with Gary & Sue Bouton.  5 years ago Gary received my kidney and what a joy to celebrate his birthday with him!!  Can't believe it has been 5 years - he has taken good care of HC, the name they gave the kidney and they are all doing well!!

Also in August, as if there wasn't enough going on - Jerry, Eric Main and Eric & Laura's four boys spent a day, a very long day, at the Oshkosh Air Show.  We also celebrated a great birthday evening for Jerry with his son Robert and daughter-in-law Amy on August 29th.  Must admit I was happy when September rolled around and we had all the August birthdays taken care of.

One of the few disadvantages we have found with the full-time life style is saying goodbye at the end of the summer

We will miss many but especially our grandchildren who are growing so fast - Calvin who will be 14 next month and his little sister Jeana who will be 5.

My son's family - hard to say goodbye to all of those smiling/loving faces

And our youngest grandson Vincent.  Such a joy and such a good little guy.  Jerry and I held him every second we could.  We got to see him rollover and he will be walking the next time we see him.

Had to add this in case some of you haven't seen this.  What a fabulous invention - a Baby Brezza.  The dry formula goes in the top, water is stored on the side, you put the bottle in push a button and bang - perfect temperature, which you pre-set, formula.  No shaking it on your wrist to see if it is to hot or when it is to hot running the bottle under cold water to cool it off while the little one screams.

 We left for the winter a bit earlier this year because on Jerry's Bucket List for 50 years has been to attend the Reno, NV Air Races.  This year they are 9/11 - 9/18.

We left on 9/2 and Teddy was a little anxious so I put his Thunder Shirt on - think it worked :-)

 It was a much faster pace trip that normal since we only had 8 days to get to Reno.  We did have a rest day in the middle but for the most part got up every morning and hit the road.  We traveled 1,990 miles.  We traveled Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada.  We were able to add Utah to the states map we have showing which ones we have spend at least one night in.

We did stop at this wonderful museum in Kearney, Nebraska

It was very well done and very interesting

We took I-80 west which is the old Oregon Trail that settlers took when they moved west.  We sure have it good traveling in our motorhome compared to all that they faced.

When we checked into the campground in Rawlins, WY we received two little baggies.  One was for Teddy with two little dog bones in it and one was ours with two mints - very clever!

Saw a lot of these signs

Not that we would ever go that fast in the motorhome but 80 was the speed limit at times.

Our route on I-80 took us through Salt Lake City, Utah.  Up until then we had had great roads and minimal traffic.  However, Salt Lake changed all that.  We were so happy when we got through!!

We then started passing all the salt flats - I had never seen such a thing and guess I never was interested enough when I heard about salt flats to investigate.  Miles and miles of salt fields.

The top is very crusty and you can break the salt off.  There were people taking some home in containers.

We had not planned on spending the night out there (we were on a paved section) but it was BLM land and we were allowed so figured why not.  It was just our coach and us after sun et.  It was beautiful and quiet.

We are now in Reno parked in a field very near the Air Races.  From our rig we can see and hear (they started practicing at 6:00am this morning) the planes.  The time trials start on Wednesday and the big race days are over this coming weekend.  We are with several other couples and of course they are all into planes so Jerry is in his glory.  I am so excited that he has this opportunity to experience this dream and will fill you in on it in the next blog.

In the meantime hugs and blessings to each of you - Jerry, Carol and Teddy