The last leg of the trip.

 We didn’t get to see my friends from Alion Science unfortunately but circumstances just didn’t allow it. Catch you next time around!

After saying a reluctant goodbye to Dave and Gloria we headed south.

We battled thru the permanently awful traffic around DC and after an overnight stop in Richmond paid a visit with our long time friends Fred and Judy in Raleigh North Carolina. We had planned to stop and see more friends Harold and Wanda French but Harold was recovering from some ill health and we all decided that with Covid making another surge we had better cancel that visit. We miss you guys though so hopefully we can reschedule it sometime.

With Fred and Judy

We definitely have “Get home-itis” and are looking forward to seeing everyone in Casa Grande. But we are also very much looking forward to Las Vegas in October for our 50th wedding party and sent out reminders on Facebook that the hotel and campground reservations will be expiring soon.

Barbara's cousin Helen met us at a truck stop for lunch. Delightful to see her again.

The rig started making a rumbling noise from the rear end as we hit Asheville and I made my mind up it was something major caused by the broken suspension episode. We had the U Joints looked at and they were reported as being fine. The only thing the shop could detect was one of the suspension leveling valve actuator arms which was broken off on the side of the rig that the suspension broke. We hadn’t noticed it when we put it back together but it must have got bent at that time and failed 500 miles later due to flexing at the weak point.

Nice campground in Asheville

Happily the shop we took it too took it off, welded it back together and reinstalled it in a couple of hours and for $200 we got off light.

Better yet the rumbling went away and the ride improved. When we drove to the shop to get it fixed we noticed a sign for Escapees RV Park and happily about a mile from the repair shop we found the Raccoon Valley SKP resort and sat in their air conditioned rec hall until we got the call to come get the coach!

The return trip started in earnest and we stopped at Knoxville before one of our favorite places:- Graceland RV Resort in Memphis and the real treat ribs at Charlie Vergos Rendezvous. We pigged out with a whole rack of the dry rub ribs each, none were left to bring home either.

Oh ribs!!

The coach was running so well that we skipped a planned stop in Hot Springs Arkansas and instead stopped in Texarkana Texas. The following day we skipped Paris Texas for Wichita Falls Texas which meant we were now 2 days ahead of schedule.

We were discussing our next stop which we had down as Amarillo but looking at the map it seemed that Lubbock was on a direct line between us and home so we decided to change the route.

What a fortuitous change it was! We were at the Elks Lodge with another rig and heard them talking at the bar about San Fillipe Mexico. We have been seriously talking about spending a month or so in Mexico when the park model in Sundance is rented out this winter.

Tom and Sue live in San Fillipe! We all got on like a house on fire and were soon laughing about common experiences and places we had enjoyed. They filled in all the details we had questions about and recommended a campground too so it may well be that we spend the entire month of March in San Fillipe where our other friends Rick and Mary also have a house. Sounds like a party brewing!

With one night stops in Roswell New Mexico, Las Cruces and a final one in Willcox Arizona we sped along and arrived mid morning in Sundance, I have not totaled the mileage up yet but we have put in around 8,000 miles this year.

We have had a lot of fun and seen many old friends, family and neighbors. We have had broken suspension, windshield and the front AC stopped working somewhere, but it has been a very pleasant year despite some long driving days at the beginning and end.

So now we get to settle down for a couple of weeks before we head to Las Vegas for the big 50th bash. We are looking forward to that.