Rex and Nancy's Travels - "ALL WHO WANDER ARE NOT LOST" - JRR Tolkein

September is here and it continues to rain every day! Rex will take over the Docent Coordinator position for the month of September.   Besides his regular docent duties he will be responsible for scheduling the docents and taking care of any problems as they arise.   He has to open the docent office every morning before the train leaves and then again every afternoon when the train from Antonito comes in. We enjoyed a Labor Day cookout with the campground providing hamburgers and hot dogs and everyone bringing a dish to share.   There was lots of great food and good company.   This was the first day since we arrived here that it has not rained – YEAH!    The weather continued to be beautiful after Labor Day - sunshine and very little rain. Nancy’s sister, Carol and her husband, Vince, visited us the middle of the month for a few days.   Carol, Vince and Nancy enjoyed a wonderful ride on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad. ...

We left Loveland RV on Monday morning and had a beautiful drive south through the Rocky Mountains to Chama, NM.   We are staying at the Rio Chama RV Park on the north side of town.   We stay here every year and it is good to see the owners, work campers and other friends we have made over the years.   It rained every day in August, sometimes just afternoon showers but we also had some thunderstorms and down pours.   Everyone tells us that July was dry and hot but August was sure wet and cool.   Rex took advantage of a couple of mornings with sunshine to wax the 5 th wheel. Our little garden is certainly liking the cool wet weather – we were able to start using our lettuce and kale in salads towards the end of August. Rex is again volunteering as a docent on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad.   He gets to ride the train a couple of times a week and enjoys sharing his knowledge of the train and ...

Sunday we continued our trip to Colorado and arrived at Loveland RV Resort just in time for a downpour.   We had to wait in the truck for a while before we could unhook and get set up for our stay here. We spent 8 days visiting with Nancy’s family and also with our good friends Bob and Jean.   We enjoyed out time with Nancy’s son, Chad, his wife, Kim and our granddaughter, Mariah.   Also, we thank Kim for the much needed haircuts. We drove to Longmont several times to visit with Nancy’s parents.   We really miss them in Arizona in the winter. We spent a couple of afternoons with Nancy’s sister, Carol, and her husband Vince.   We greatly appreciate the use of your laundry facilities! We also saw Nancy’s oldest sister, Kathy, and were finally able to see the Condo she bought last year.   We enjoyed our time in Colorado visiting with family and friends.   After driving around Fort Collins we decided we...

We left Donnellson Saturday morning and continued our trip west to Colorado.   We stopped in Elm Creek Nebraska and spent the night at Sunny Meadows Campground.

We arrived at Donnellson, Iowa where we are staying at Wilson Lake Park, a very nice county park surrounding Wilson Lake.   We have a great full hook-up site with lots of shade trees.   We are visiting our friends, Larry and Pauline, who are snowbirds we met in Arizona.   We spent 2 days driving around the southwest corner of Iowa between the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers. One stop was in Bentonsport which was established in 1836 and was a steamboat port on the Des Moines River until the railroad was built to Des Moines in 1866.   Many historic buildings are still standing like the Mason House Inn which was built in the late 1840s.   It served steamboat passengers and other travelers under a number of owners.   Its barn reportedly sheltered runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad.   It is now a bed and breakfast with 9 bedrooms furnished in 19 th century antiques.   We stopped at a great shop down the road called Iron and ...

We left Ohio Tuesday morning and drove to Champaign, IL where we spent the night at D & W Lake RV.

Rex’s mom’s back yard is a wonderful place to park the 5 th wheel but it is not as green as it usually is.   It has been hot and dry here this summer – except that it is still humid!   We have access to water and minimal electric but works great we only sleep here and spend the rest of the time in her house.   Rex spent a few days washing the moss off the shop and a smaller shed and then he painted them both red. We enjoyed visiting with Rex’s mom and she had a long list of handyman jobs for him.   She kept him happy with home baked cookies and peanut M&Ms!   We also visited with a lot of Rex’s relatives including several trips to his Uncle Ike’s house on Odell Lake.   We kayaked around the small lake and enjoyed sitting in Uncle Ike’s screened porch while we visited and heard lots of stories about his mom’s family.   We also saw Rex’s step-brother, Scott and his wife, Nora, his Uncle Pat and Aunt Carolyn and many of h...