Tornado hits our camp site while in New Mexico!

I’m still not sure if the reason we were the very only people camped at a New Mexico State park last night was because of the Tornado which hit us. We survived without a scratch, just a lot of sand everywhere, thought we were going to lose the top of the van, but, Jerry’s quick actions saved her & us.
Well, we arrived, it was beautiful, warm sunny and not busy at all! Just one boat on the lake water skiing, that was it. We were all in heaven. This was classified as primitive camping, as there wasn’t any electric nor running water, which is fine with us, as we travel prepare. Jerry found us a flat part of the beach to camp on, it even had a nice cement picnic table. Duke and I explored the rocks and water and started taking pictures of flowers. Then we found a place to go for a run, so, we came back and changed for our run. I know it was clear and just after 6pm, as I promised to be back for 7:15pm. We went for our run, into the desert, enjoyed seeing a big river dam, bunnies, lizards, cool flowers. So, when we got back around 7:15, we said we’d be gone for a 5mins to just go take some quick pictures.. the sun was just starting to go down. I couldn’t figure out where all the flowers went.. (I figured it out in the morning, when they were all back.. desert flowers close at night.. this city person didn’t know that!).

So, we took our pictures, can came back an hour later, as I lost track of time, to a very different sky over the water, a cloud had formed so quickly, and I had never seen a cloud that thick and at the far end of the cloud it had what seemed like cloud drapes slowly lowering in whips.  I took a ton of pictures of that, as the drapes of clouds on the sides, made for a great frame for photos.. so, we sat down and ate the BBQ (which maybe I should have come back in 5mins like is said..) everything was soo good! I took pictures of Jerry during dinner, as the clouds were so unusual.   Then, the winds picked up, I’m glad it waited till we were finished eating, I wasn’t going to let that steak & asparagus go to waste!

First the water changed, from calm to white caps right away, didn’t know a reservoir of water could do that! Sand started being whipped around, tumble weeds starting flying by.. we got Duke in the van first, then the digital equipment.  That’s when Jerry saw the top of the Van starting to bend in the wind.. he quickly went inside, while I ran around in circles trying to grab plates from flying around.. he said the pipes in the van which push the top up were bending almost 5 inches to right, he was certain for a few moments there while struggling against the wind to pull it down, that we were going to lose the top of the van..  we were quickly safe in the van, with rain coming down hard, thunder and lightening somewhere where far off.  I don’t think from start to finish it lasted more then 20mins.

We had the most beautiful sunset afterward.  Later that evening a police car drove by to see if the crazies parked on the beach during a Tornado were alright.. well, that’s one way to make sure you have an entire State Park to yourself!

In the morning, we all slept in, and then Duke and I went for another run.

Tonight we are Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.  There are a number of HotSprings here, Jerry & I went to one right on the RIO Grand this evening.  We’re in a hotel because I needed a reliable high-speed wifi, as I’m doing a webinar tomorrow morning for two hours. A coaching session to folks, one in Sudbury Ontario and the other in Calgary Alberta, tomorrow’s session is on how to Leverage the Power of Facebook for their individual businesses…I’ll be remote but able to see their computer screens and help them set themselves up.. I use GoToMeeting for that, I won’t know till we get to Truth or Consequences how it’ll go.

We were on Hwy40, through New Mexico, it parallels historic Route 66.  We’ll turn south at Albuquerque, New Mexico to Hwy 25.  I’m going to do a separate Post on just Route 66, I found it so reflective of the movie Cars!

We stopped in Albuquerque for gas and to stretch Jerry & Duke’s legs.. I probably won’t be able to move, as that was the first double header run I had in a while! 

I’ll post more about the HotSprings and Route 66 later this evening.. (if it's too late..)

Sofie

OH, IL, Missouri, Arkansas & Oklahoma! Camping, food & friends!

Bubbas BBQ in Eureka Springs Arkansas.  Dinning experience number two along our journey was once again full of unexpected pleasures.  This time, we were lucky to have the two owners of Bubbas BBQ actually at Bubbas. We happened to have camped with Bob & Eleanor Bakalar Mexico two winters ago.  Jerry & Bob became friends immediately, as they talked about cooking.  Then we promised to visit them at their restaurant, Bubbas in Eureka Springs. Well, it just took us a year and a half, and we made it.  The BBQ Ribs where well worth the drive, and the greeting we received by both Bob & Eleanor (and their son) warmed our hearts.  Their town is a historic town, full of artists and dept.  The town is build on a windy ridge, all the homes seem to have backyards on a 30ft drop overlooking valleys and hills.  The town itself is beautiful and surrounding area full of woods, water and much for the outdoor nut.  Artist, good food and outdoor enthusiasts, what a wonderful combination.  We would like to plan a trip where we actually stay in Eureka Springs for a little longer then 3 hours!

Eleanor has a Gallery, we were lucky enough to be given a person tour.  LUX, on 18 White St.  in Eureka Springs.   Eleanor is an accomplished weaver and beader.  I’m sure there are technical terms for both artistic masteries, but, I saw works of art in weavers, &sculptures of beads.   She is a part of a Artist Gallery tour this weekend, and will be  a guest lecturer in the Eureka Springs School of Arts Summer Art Workshop (www.esartschool.org) conference summer 2010. I took one of the programs for the art workshops, very impressive.  She is very humble, I had no idea of the debt of her talent! Eureka Springs, Bob & Eleanor, we look forward to crossing paths again!

 

So, on route to Eureka Springs, from our last post, we stayed in Spiceville, Ohio at a FlyingJ, drove through St. Louis,  

Missouri, and then next night we were the only campers at a camp site 2 hours east of Springfield Missouri. Flying J’s are all consistent, food, showers, shop and free camping for any vehicle, big truckers to people crashing in their cars.  We pop the top of our Westy and we have our double comfy bedroom.  As it was a rainy night, the FlyJ was prefect.   

Next day was a little nicer, so we wanted a camp ground.  We found a lovely area, all in the Mark Twain Forests, on a river which was normally 3 feet deep, it was actually 12 feed deep when we were there.. if it rose three more feet, they said they’d have to evacuate the area, needless to say, we were the only ones at the camp grounds.  We sincerely hope that the river stops raising now.  At night we witnessed the most amazing thing, there were fireflies everywhere.  I’ve never experienced anything like it, it was like you were surrounded by little shooting stars.  I would just stand, the three of us, and stare in amazement. They were everywhere, we had our own 3-D avatar effects around us. Pretty special night, it was just for us.  The night was so dark and these little flies so amazing.. our video camera wasn’t able to capture it, we didn’t try the camera, we assume it wouldn’t work either.. (but, now I’m thinking it might have been a very interesting shot… oh well..)

We now driving out of Arkansas and toward New Mexico, unless of course our GPS changes her mind again.. our next destination is 18 hours away, so, we’ll have a few days of adventures on route.. I think we’ll actually get to a couple of Hot Springs now.   I do hope we spot somewhere with a trail tonight, I could so use a run in the morning.. or tonight. I think we’ll be stopping somewhere in Oklahoma State tonight.

At the time of this blog post, we're just in Tulsa, Oklahoma.. 

I'm told there will be places throughout Oklahoma where we won't have highspeed on our Verizon.. So, back on it when we can!

THANKS! That's it for now!
Sofie

Ahhh. you know you're not in Ontario anymore when....

How civilized, you can buy beer and other beverages anywhere. We're NOT in Ontario anymore, that's for sure!

Very rainy day, we're headed West on HWY70 (we were never on hwy71, the GSP changed her mind, she's allowed..). We spent the night in Spiceland, Indiana, we'll be going, through the rest of the State of Indiana, then the bottom tip of the State of Illinois, then through the State of Missouri today, aiming to get into the north end of Arkansas (if we find the weather lets up, we'll stop in Missouri). There are a ton of State Parks on route, so, depending on the weather we'll stop or drive through... right now, it's raining pretty hard.. but, still good driving weather (from my point of view..).

After we finished up with Verizon yesterday, which took hours and hours, we took the balance of the day as a travel day, .. nothing eventful, thank goodness, we made good time... We are heading to www.bubbasbarbecueeurekasprings.com in Eureka Springs, Arkansas as our next food stop, should be there Tuesday night!

Jerry's driving, Duke's sleeping and I'm going to finish this blog posting, and return some emails, then collect data and case studies for my second series of books and for those who bought my first book! I've been asked to speak at many municipalities and chambers, to their own staff, so, that's who the second series of books are aimed at, I'm going to continue collecting case studies and policies municipalities or chamber have put into place wrt Social Media, in areas such as employee productivity measures, branding guidelines and dealing with various public posts on all the social networking mediums.. so, if you have examples, please feel free to share them, I'll be contacting those who i see as best examples,like Gem & Ray's  Explore the Bruce, and Andrew's  Invest in Cheese, .. to mention two of my favorites!

Stay dry today (We're just passing Indianapolis, Indiana, 9:22am and no rush hour traffic :(.)

Sof

Our First Post from the Road & Our first DDD Adventure.. In Cleveland OH!

Our first Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives (we are told to call it DDD from now on) experience was more then either of us expected! When we told them we where there, at Lucky's Cafe, in a funky area near downtown Cleveland, we were surprised by a visit by the owner.  I was impressed by the area when we got there, and then we were WOWed by the staff, the owner, excitement and food at Lucky's Cafe.  There were 3 DDDs to choose from in the area, we choose Lucky's..

The owner came out to greet us when she heard we were doing a cross country trip of the DDDs, and she was so much fun to speak with. She said that when they first called her about being on DDD, she was offended, as she works such around the clock hours, she had never seen the show before, so, when they called and called her place a Dive, she was offended!! Too funny!  She then did her research and obviously accepted.  She said that Guy is wonderful. She said she feels like she is his sister from another mother. 

All the staff were wonderful, they loved telling us about their amazing menu. We ended up going with four excellent dishes... There were four of us :). I had a strange sandwich, that had roasted pumpkin, corrinader and ham, Jerry had Mac & Cheese from cream heaven, Cindy had a Reuben to dead for and Larry had an crazy Mole Taco! The guy next to us had an amazing waffle we took a picture of.

The best chocolate in the world, just two doors left of Lucky's was fun as well! I won't go to Lucky's without going to that chocolate place. It's called Lilly's, she makes them herself, she also sells wine to go with her chocolate.  Her ninja bark chocolate has Wasabi peas and Hawaiian black lava sea salt in it, I had to hug her after a piece of that! (Paul & Linda, you would have loved it, sorry, i thought of bringing you some, but, i know it's not going to last the 5 weeks!)

Food from DDDs Lucky's Cafe & menu:

We arrived into Geneva on the Lake on Friday evening, greeted by our good friends Larry & Cindy. Their town is, Geneva on the Lake, OH (45mins outside of Cleveland, OH), is a cute beach town on Lake Erie, which feels like you are back in the 50s (not that i was ever in the 50s..). But, it has a novel main street full of little ma&pa run food, ice-cream, hot dogs, with all sorts of things for kids and adults to do, like arcades, a ferriswheel, beaches, band stands, fairgrounds, live music and little clubs with dancing music.

Duke, Cindy and I went for a long walk the first morning, through the town and over to a marina. I went for a run the next morning, to try and make room for our next DDD!

We had our Westy parked on Larry & Cindy's property, at the back of the property they have a second house, which we parked infront of.. 

Larry and Cindy's home in Geneva on the Lake.

While in Cleveland we drove by where Jerry & Larry grew up. You see, Jerry & Larry meet way back on the first day of kindergarten. There was some discussion as to who cried the most that day.  So, we drove by each of their childhood homes and fields (which are no longer fields) they played in and places they hung out.

Above is a picture of the house Jerry, his parents and bother where in from birth until Jerry & his brother Frank were 12ish years old.. right on Lake Erie, it was beautiful.

Cleveland was full of wonderful surprises, it has pockets of unique neighborhoods and architecture all through the down town.  I had no idea!  Thanks to our Tours guides Larry and Cindy, we got to see places we wouldn't have know existed! 

We had a half day delay, which is expected, it was due to trying to get our selves all setup with the Verizon highspeed internet services.  After 26 hours, and 8 people and 5 hours in the Verizon store, we are now on the road, south on Hwy 71.. with a HOTSPOT all set up in our Westy! As long as there is Cell coverage, i can be online! YES!! We will be in places without coverage, but, not for a few days now. Good thing Jerry is as calm and patient as he is, or we would have been gone this morning, without any high-speed connection, as i was definitely losing it, he is very calm.  Just so you know, incase you ever need a turbo stick or wireless hub while traveling, you indeed need to remove any other wireless modem software you have on your laptops, or it causes a conflict and won't load the new software, and 1 out of 8 people, generally don't know that little bit of information.. secondly, when you then want to pay for a prepaid wireless service, most of their systems will give you the annual service by default, so, when you go to connect, you won't be able to.. again 1 out of 8 people know how to fix that in their systems.. however, everyone is very nice while they try to help!

So, our next stop is two days away, Bubbbas in Eureka Springs, AR.  It's not a part of DDD, it is in the book 1001 Places to Visit Before You Die.  We met the owners of Babas while camped in Mexico two winters ago. From there we head West and South..

Well, that's all for now! We aren't sure where we will end up tonight, we might make it out of Ohio today, no hurry!

Sofie..

Leaving finally

First stop 10 min from home, now waiting at the border

Night before we leave for our Road Trip!

Well, long but very productive day.. everything's done, we're ready to be gone for 5 weeks!  We had lots happen this past week.. not going to get into those details, but, lets just say we had to deal with funerals and births, now however, we're ready.. humans, dog and van...

Duke knows we're ready, he's been gathering his toys around the front door so we don't forget any!

One small issue, Jerry thinks I have too many clothes.. I'm sure it'll be fine.  We just need to be ready for both casual and somewhat professional.   Also, we'll be passing through so many different types of weather, best to be ready for anything (and we are).

I'm grateful our dear friend T will be staying the house.. Don't know what we'd do without T's constant help and friendship!   Words are not enough.

OK, going to watch some TV, then ready for what we both hope is an early start!

First stop tomorrow will be Geneva on the Lake in Ohio.  We'll stay there for a couple nights visiting good friends. Geneva on the Lake is a cool beach town.. more on that tomorrow.

Hugs
Sofie, Jerry & Duke..

The Prep Continues

Still puttering away at on the van , I'm going to pull the rear taillight housing and clean everything up inside, it's been an on going problem with intermittent light failures . The other thing I'd like to do is get at all the ground points and get them clean.
  At the moment I have a kayak strapped to the top it's going to Belleville so Tyler can take it out west with him. We are going to celebrate Ryliegh's birthday too.

Back to work