Sunday, November 4, 2018

Heading south (a little bit) and we have a visitor for a few days

Heading south from Petoskey

With our RV Care-a-Vanners project complete (at least our part of it), it was time for us to head south for a little more time with family.  For the first time since we’ve been on the road, we didn’t have a destination finalized when we set out.  The campground we usually stay at when we’re back “home” was full when we last checked with them, so we had the nearby state park as our backup, but we could only stay there for 2 weeks, and we kindof needed to be in town for 4 weeks.  Our plans were set in jello for the first time!


But, we didn’t have to worry about that until the next day!  Today’s travels were only taking us as far as Lansing, where we would overnight at the Walmart so we could meet up with Bryce and Hannah for dinner. 

We had a nice driving day, and enjoyed the fall colors as we travelled.

Fall colors on our drive


The Walmart just north of MSU (Lake Lansing Rd., off 127) had a nice big parking lot, and we picked a spot for the night off to one side and confirmed with their security officer that we were good there for the night.

Wallydocking

Bryce and Hannah were recovering from their very chilly Izzone Campout the night before,

Bryce and his friends at the Izzone Campout - they were freezing!











Izzone Campout

but after warming up, getting some sleep, and getting some homework done, they met us at Walmart and we walked across the parking lot to the Boston Grill.  We had a nice dinner, and caught up on all that is going on in their school lives . . . they’re both very focused and doing really well!

Bryce had a meeting to get to that evening, so they headed back to school and we settled in for a quiet night at Walmart.

The next morning, we took our time and let rush hour traffic clear before getting on the road.  Casey was ready and waiting!

Ready to hit the road

We headed toward Monroe, and about a 1/2 hour out, we called the RV Park one more time.  This time, the office staff said there might be an open site and that they would call us back.  We told them to hurry – we had about 20 minutes until we had to make the decision between the two destinations.  They called us back with about 1 minute to spare . . . and told us that they had a site for us for the month.  OK, then, we had our destination!

A few minutes later we arrived, checked in, and got set up on our site.

Site 9 Camp Lord Willing

Our time here will be spent visiting with friends and family, and getting caught up with some things that we need to get wrapped up.  Colder weather keeps us inside more . . . but I’ve had a sewing project to keep me busy.  I joined a wool applique pumpkin block swap on Facebook earlier in the fall, and my blocks arrived while we were in Petoskey.

Pumpkin square swap

I got to work designing my quilt layout, adding borders to a few squares to make them fit into the design,

Making all the blocks a common size









IMG_2292

and making a few extra squares to fill in the blank areas.

More filler squares

Extra squares










The finished quilt – I love how it turned out!

And the quilt top is done!

I also made a little Halloween table topper for my steering wheel table.

Halloween table mat

Bryce had all home football games in October, and he sent me a picture that one of the team photographers gave him – it’s probably the best action photo I have of him (all the way to the right)!

One of the better photos of Bryce in action

That's me!

That’s me – proud Spartan Mom!










Meanwhile, down in Virginia, Nicolas was still enjoying summer-like weather, and somebody on the Ike Facebook group shared a drone photo of Nicolas’ ship (the big one!).

Overhead view of Nick's ship in the Shipyard

They’re still in the shipyard, and Nicolas was ready for a few days of R&R, so he put in a request for leave.  We waited and waited . . . and it finally got approved and he was able to travel to Michigan for a short visit.

We were very happy to see him!

Nicolas arrived!

It was a very short and busy visit . . . and the time flew by!  We visited with family and friends . . . and I completely forgot about taking pictures!!

I got a couple, though . . .

With the Gimmarro cousins and Grandpa,

Kathleen and her roommate, Joe, Nick and Grandpa 

and at the movies with us and Danny . . . we had to go see Halloween!

Watching the new Halloween movie

We took a trip to East Lansing, too, but I think that will be another post.

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