Where Have We Been?

Sorry I haven't posted anything for a while. We spent the summer traveling back to Virginia and Maryland to visit family. We didn't do a lot of sight-seeing so I decided not to take many pictures and just enjoyed the drive.  We're back in New Mexico now, staying at Ute Lake State Park with plans to head towards the southern part of the state soon.

The trip back to Maryland was great. We drove through Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Virginia. We were able to stay off interstates for the most part and just kept a slow but steady pace back east.  We drove about 150 to 200 miles a day and then spent 2-3 nights at each stop. It took us about 5 weeks to get back to Maryland.

One stop where I did take some pictures was in the Muscle Shoals and Tuscumbia area of Alabama. We really liked it there and hope to go back some day. Helen Keller's home was in Tuscumbia so we drove over there  and took some pictures.

Helen Keller's Childhood Home

We stopped by a pretty park in Tuscumbia and walked around looking at the falls and some statues dedicated to the Trail of Tears.

Our favorite "Road Food" stop on this trip was at Rhoda's Famous Hot Tamales in Lake Village, Arkansas. It doesn't look like much but the tamales were fantastic.

We drove about 150 miles on the Natchez Trace again. We love the trace. Our favorite park this trip was a beautiful Mississippi state park we found just about 10 miles off the trace-Davis Lake State Park. We stopped there planning to stay a night or two and ended up spending four nights there.

In Virginia, we stopped to visit my sister Karen, my aunt Shorty, my niece Katie, her husband Tim and their four adorable boys-Luca, Toby, Finn and Sage. It was great seeing them! Then it was on to Maryland. We spent two weeks at the Elks on Kent Island cleaning out our storage unit. That wasn't fun but we got it done and that feels good. We got rid of most of it but ended up storing a bit at my parent's house. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

After Kent Island, we went to Westminster and stayed for a month in my sister Cindy's backyard. Camp Cindy was our favorite campsite ever! They have a big outbuilding for their tree farm and we parked near it. They put a 50 amp plug in for us which was so nice. Thanks, Cindy! Thanks, Clyde!

Can you see our motorhome here at Camp Cindy?

We got to spend a lot of time with my Mom and Dad, my sister Cindy, her husband Clyde and my niece Mindy. We also got to see my nephew Matt, but not for very long. We had such a great time visiting everyone and it was hard to leave but it was time to head west again.

We wanted to get back to the southwest before it got much colder so we took a more direct route this time through West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri and Kansas. We did even less sight-seeing on the trip back but we did stop at Dorothy's House in Liberal, Kansas. Some of the bricks for the yellow brick road were donated by famous people. We saw the bricks from Liza Minelli, Bob Dole and Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

 

 

The Liza Minelli brick. It's a bit worn and hard to read.

We've been back in New Mexico for a week now, here at Ute Lake State Park. The weather has been good and we have been the only people in the park most days. We both love that. Now that we're back in the southwest, and slowing down again, I'll probably start blogging a bit more. I really got out of the habit this summer. We'll be heading soon to a part of New Mexico where we've never been so I'm sure we'll be exploring more and taking more pictures.

 I promise not to wait 4 months before posting again.  Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Thanks for stopping by!