Greetings!

Once again we are on the road. We left Bradenton on June 5^th and took in the sights of Homosassa Springs for a day before our trek to Tallahassee for physicians and friends. We enjoyed our visits with Marsha & Frank and Margo & Bob. We’ll be back in Tallytown for a day or two around August 12^th.

Our next few days were spent visiting Stone Mountain Park in Georgia with cousins Dennis & Cindy and their youngest, Julia. We have camped with them since Rachel was a flower girl in their wedding 26 years ago! This was our first time to see the stone engraving; Paul made it all the way up the trail with our cousins; Regina waited for them 2/3 of the way up. The fire works were great as were the museum, covered bridge, mill, carillon, and beautiful tree-lined walks. We need to do this again.

Now we began our “capitol” summer in earnest. We toured the capital area of Nashville monuments, museum and Farmers Market and had drinks and snacks at the Opryland Hotel right down the road from the Holiday Trav-L Park.

Then we spent Father’s Day in an unbelievably long line of RVs from the I-264 interchange into the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center to park for the Good Sam Grand National Rally. Well, the rally was good - seminars, food, prizes (Regina waited in the lines to get the tickets for drawings each day and actually won the portable hammock on Good Sam Day!), shows (Regina has Lee Greenwood’s signature across her American flag Proud to be an American t-shirt.), and making new friends.

Friday saw us head to the Louisville Metro KOA in Clarksville, Indiana, to dump tanks after a week of dry camping. We also toured the Kentucky Derby Museum and the Falls of Ohio State Park (the fossil beds were under water).

Okay, now it’s really time to tour capitals. Indianapolis has been our favorite city to date. It is clean, friendly, and convenient. We went all around the capital, the museum, the monuments, the city hall, and the Farmers Market. Our campground was in Greenfield which is a nice town with Wal Mart, cheap gas, and an interesting downtown area.

Mr. Lincoln’s Campground in Springfield, Illinois, was our next stop. Now this is definitely out in the country. The capitol and the Hyatt were the only buildings that broke the skyline. We recognized the capitol building as being designed by the same architect that did Des Moines (which we visited in 2001). The Lincoln house was okay but the tomb was more exciting - the citizens of Rome had sent a portion of the Servian Wall and it was encased in glass at the base of the obelisk. This whole area was a good history lesson. We even went to Cozy’s Drive In on Route 66 where the original ‘dog on a stick’ (corn dog) was begun in 1947. Springfield reminded us of what Tallahassee must have been when the population was under 100,000.

Okay, so now we want to do Des Moines and visit with Connie Lee and her husband Bill. But alas, Adventureland Campground is full so we end up 50 miles away in Newton, Iowa. Our two days there were rich in history - Maytag washers began there in 1907. Harold T. gave us a two hour tour of the Jasper County Historical Museum - which has everything you could possibly imagine. It really was good. We also spent a few hours talking to Brian who donated a steam engine, built around 1927, that had been in his family for years. He was getting it ready to run in the July 4^th parade. Paul even got to drive the thing. That was a very good Saturday. The Maytag factory is still in Newton; but not owned by the family; we did go to the Maytag Blue Cheese Farm (which is still in the family). Newton celebrated its bicentennial in 2002. Nice place.

We spent a couple days dry camping at the Winnebago factory in Forest City, Iowa and had some work done on ARV. The Winnebago story and how the company got started is really interesting. It all happened almost by accident. Remind us to tell you about it some time. We’re spending the night at a small campground in Eagleville, MO, on our way to Kansas City and Topeka, KS. After dry camping we need to spend a night in a full-service campground to replenish our fresh water tank, dump our gray and black water tanks, and have a good long shower.

We haven’t added any states to our map but we’re having a great time. We’ll try to stay in touch.

Paul and Regina