Month: October 2019

Final Post of this Trip

We stopped in El Paso, Illinois to attend Mass. The church was St. Mary’s and the sign in front of it said that this was the church that Archbishop Fulton Sheen was baptized at.

We drove on through Missouri to Joplin and cut down on I 49 to sleep at my middle daughter’s house. Her family lives in Northwest Arkansas. The drive down I 49 was beautiful, although hard to see in the dark. We would get another chance to see it the next morning on our way to Wichita, Kansas. I had never thought of Kansas as very appealing. It always seemed to be just flat land that went on forever. But eastern Kansas is nothing like western Kansas. There are rolling hills and lots of stockponds. The wind was very strong. After picking up a dog in Wichita, we headed due south on I 35. We went through Oklahoma City, the Arbuckle Mountains and Turner Falls area, Ardmore and Marietta. Then we crossed back into Texas. We spent the night in my house, and I got to sleep in my own bed!!

Turner Falls area

Post Three of Latest Trip

The next morning we continued our reverse of the areas we had driven and finally got back to Michigan. Even this far north, the leaves have not started changing except in very small patches. We picked up a Mastiff puppy and headed to Wisconsin. At first, it was just very windy, but then the rain started. It was not too bad for most of the trip, especially when we were sitting in traffic for about an hour because of a wreck ahead of us. But once we were alongside of Chicago, the rain got really bad. We could hardly see the markings for the lanes. We pulled over once, and when it finally let up, we continued our drive to Plymouth, Wisconsin. The puppy was very happy to be out of the cage, and he seemed to enjoy his new home and owners, who were very happy to see him.

There was an event going on in Plymouth and we couldn’t find a motel for just one night so we drove to Sheboygan. We were all tired and slept really hard. We woke up to a sunny, cool day. We needed jackets for the first time on the trip. Today was a rest day. So we checked out what there was to do, and we found Deland Park. It was amazing! As we drove up, we could see huge kites flying above the park. There were all sorts of kites. There was a marina right near the parking lot, and near the outer banks of the marina, there was a real lighthouse. There was also a beach with one person sitting there in his swimsuit after walking out into the water. Everyone else in the area had on jackets and coats. The park had three playgrounds in the area and a Lao, Hmong and American Veterans Memorial to commemorate “the service and sacrifice of the Hmong people of Laos who fought for the United States during the Secret War from 1961-1975, part of the Laotian Civil War”, according to Wikipedia.

After leaving Deland Park, we stopped and ate at Harry’s Diner which was reminiscent of the 50s. We thought it would be more lunch food, but it was actually a breakfast place. At first, the prices looked high, but when they brought out the food, there was so much that we were glad that we decided to split the meal three ways.

After eating, we were back on the road. We stopped for the night in Minock, Illinois.