Saturday and Sunday-August 5 & 6-Days 46 & 47- The Last Miles....Home Sweet Home

Good Morning to all our blog followers!!  We are HOME!!
It is now Tuesday morning and I am sitting down to write the final post for Awesome Wander, as I enjoy my morning coffee in my new favorite mug.....Alaska Fireweed.....my favorite wild flower.

Saturday morning after breakfast with John and Anna, John checked out our rig to be sure everything was A-OK for the final leg homeward. We hit the road at 8:30.

This is the only picture I took on the road....the tall buildings around Columbus. The trip was basically uneventful.....major highways the whole way home. Some straight and flat, some curvy and hilly.....It was a good trip.  After 667 miles on Saturday we dry camped overnight at a Flying J near Millersport, Ohio on Route 70.  Sunday morning we drove an hour then stopped at Cracker Barrel for breakfast. We then turned our noses homeward. 

Just a bit of interesting trivia here......This was a great year to take this trip, as it is Canada's 150th birthday celebration.  
Because of that, we were given free admission to the Provincial and National Parks

It is also the 40th Anniversary of the Alaska Pipeline.
  And most exciting of all, it is the 75th Anniversary of the completion of the Alaska Highway!

We arrived back at Marie's place at 4 PM on Sunday, Barb was there to meet us, along with some of Marie's family. 
Here we are the evening before we left on June 21......

.......and here we are when we returned on August 6.

(And, NO! Steve did NOT wear the same clothes for 6-1/2 weeks!😜😁)

After Marie and Barb removed their belongings from the RV, I drove to Steve's house and helped him unload his stuff. When I got home to my house, the first words when I walked in the door were, "Honey. you would have loved this trip!" (If you recall from my first blog post, it was originally a dream of John's and mine).
It was a GREAT trip! Naturally, we ladies all would have rather done it with our husbands, but this was a great second best!

Joel brought me home to my house after I took the cleaned-out RV over to their farm where it is stored. (Actual Cleaning will happen later this week, as it is dirty!)
At 9 PM Sunday night I called Marie about her cherries. (Remember she had bought a case of cherries in Montana?  She accidently left them in the RV frig.) I asked if she was in bed already and she told me, "NO! Barb is here!  Why don't you come over?" (Barb had been away for supper and had stopped in on her way home.) So I put the cherries in the car, along with a few other things of theirs that I found, and headed to Ephrata!  We had coffee together, chatted about the trip, and again marvelled how God's goodness and faithfulness had followed us all these days, and all these miles.
And before we said goodnight at 10:15, we made plans to meet for breakfast! 
 Here we are at Manheim's Brickhouse Cafe Monday morning! 

After breakfast we headed over to the farm to get our stuff out of the under-bed storage compartment, which we had forgotten!😞
and then decided it was time to stop partying and get back to real life!

We want to thank all of you who have joined us on our trip by following our blog, and for all the lovely comments.  I am sorry we did not reply to all of them, but please know that they were read, shared with each other, and greatly appreciated!

I cannot close this blog without giving GOD all the glory for His marvelous care and keeping as we traveled 11,500 miles, driving 225 hours! As we realize all the things that could have gone wrong, we know that He has given His angels charge over us, and has kept us in all our ways! WE ARE BLESSED!

🎵Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee...
How great Thou art!  How great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, My Savior God to Thee...
How great thou art!  How great thou art!🎵

#thensingsmysoul   #howgreatThouart  #awesomewander

-MEBS

Friday-August 4-Day 45 Of Quilts, and Elderberries, and Relatives

 For breakfast this morning Bradley made delicious Eggs Benedict!

I like the way John and his sons often gather on the porch after meals  to chat. 
 The guys had to get to work this morning so Steve and John did the chatting!

After breakfast we took another drive on the hilly roads (they really are fun!  A bunch of tummy ticklers😁) to the town of Hamilton. It is the boyhood home of J. C. Penney.

And Hamilton is also the Quilt Capital of the USA! 

They have some unique murals painted on the sides of buildings.

Less than 10 years ago a family in tough financial straits, bought a long-arm quilting machine for their mom, and, on a shoe-string budget,  purchased an old building on the streets of Hamilton. This began what is now, Missouri Star Quilt Company, which sends thousands of packages of fabric and supplies a day  all over the globe. They offer the largest selection of pre-cut fabric in the world! They also have the biggest quilting channel on YouTube.There are 12 stores on this street in town, all with a different theme,....Primitive, Modern, Baby, Florals, Penney's Quilt Shop.....License to Sew....Machine Shed...and more

They even have this Mans-Land, where the husbands and boyfriends can lounge and eat while their ladies shop!

Before leaving town we stopped at a cafe along the street to get a snack.

On the way home Anna took us to see where John was clearing a fence row on their property.
And below is the road that took us there!!😒Yikes!!

When we arrived back at the farm, Marie put on her boots 
to go pick elderberries which were ripe along the road.
She got a good harvest!

John and Anna moved to Missouri over 40 years ago, along with two of Anna and Marie's brothers and their families.  The brothers are gone now, but their wives are still living. And they have nieces and nephews living in the area.  This evening some of them came for supper to see Marie. We ate grilled hamburgers with all the trimmings, macaroni salad, broccoli salad, cantelope, and fresh peach pie. Another delicious meal! And a delightful time of visiting!  I even discovered I knew one of Marie's nieces back in our teen years!  😊 It really is a small world!

The time  is now late and we are leaving in the morning for our last two days of travel. Goodnight!

Thursday-August 3-Day 44-A Relaxing Day on the Farm

This day started out with breakfast on the porch again.....

Baked blueberry french toast with fresh blueberry syrup!

Anna is a great cook and hostess!

Just like her sister!

 They say they were taught by the best....their mother!

After breakfast Marie got  fresh corn ready for lunch,
and helped Anna can  tomato salsa.

 Then we took another drive up and down the hills to visit this little local bakery.

We had a nice visit with the proprietor, who grew up in Honeybrook, PA, and knew some of the same people we did.

Steve bought some peanut butter fudge and  my favorite chocolate chip cookies looked good to me!  But I'm not sure why, because I wasn't hungry!  No one goes hungry around here!
 Anna made roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy for supper,
and we had fresh peach pie for dessert! So good!

It was the close of another relaxing and beautiful day!

Wednesday-August 2-Day 43-At the Campbells

We went to sleep last night, not to the sounds of trains or traffic,
 but the comforting night sounds of singing cicadas!  
Along with a gentle breeze coming in the windows, it was easy to fall asleep!

This morning Anna served breakfast on the porch....
pancakes with fresh peaches and peach sauce, and coffee, of coarse!
 What a way to start the day!

We rode along with Anna on a Walmart run. 
This pic gives you an idea of the hilly  roads in this area of Missouri.

John took Steve on the Polaris Ranger  for a tour of the 1000 acres that they farm.

I was in the RV  blogging, when it started to rain!  It poured!

And poured some more!  I was glad to get some dirt washed off the RV, and the Campbells were so thankful for the rain to water the crops.  It had been dry.

But the rain caught John and Steve several miles from the farm, 
so they were soaked to the gills when they got back!
Wish I had thought to get a picture!

For dinner tonight we had deep-fried pork chops, made by John and Anna's son Bradley. And they were GOOOOOD! (he enjoys cooking and does an excellant job at it!!)
Served with sauteed zuchinni, cucumber salad, and roasted potatoes, as well as fresh watermelon and canteloupe from the garden.  We are eating very well!

Steve and son Jeff were "chewing the fat" after supper.
Bradley and Jeff each have their own places, but frequently come home for supper. 
We relaxed this evening by watching some shows on the cooking channel. 

Tuesday-August 1- Day 42-A Long but Enjoyable Driving Day

We awoke at 5:45 to the sound of trains passing by

 and soon hit the road on this bright sunny day!

As we headed east in Nebraska we again drove through farming country. 
The green irrigated fields were a stark contrast to the dry grass fields. 

This is flat country and we saw a lot of bushes and trees 
planted along the edges of the fields, as a wind break.

Western Nebraska offered us straight flat roads for many miles.  The skies turned hazy as we drove east, creating a perfect driving day!  No hills, no curves, no wind  and no sun in our eyes!
And hopefully great gas mileage!

And then we saw something we had never seen before and only heard about....LARGE cattle holding pens, which went on for what seemed like a half a mile. We would not even have had to see it with our eyes! We smelled it with our noses!
There must have been thousands of head of livestock in there!

There were very few bodies of water as we drove, but we frequently passed windmills.
(and a few cell phone towers😏)
Modern technology vs. old-fashioned technology.

I suppose by now you know I enjoy seeing the cattle on the range!
(and farmers in the field!)
Brings back sweet memories!

As we got into eastern Nebraska the flat roads turned into hills. We passed through York County, Lancaster County, and saw familiar town names on signs, such as Hershey, Palmyra, Talmage.
We cut across the corner of Iowa and then hit Missouri. ,

The roads in Missouri are very "hilly", which is hard to see in this picture.
 Here we are passing through Kingston.

After a nearly 600 mile day we arrived at Marie's sister place,
the lovely home of John and Anna Campbell. It was soon time for supper. Homemade pizza, and fresh things from the garden were on the menu tonight, with peach cobbler for dessert!  Delicious!

Can you tell they are sisters? and that they are happy to be together again?