In the beginning.......

In March 1973, we were married and on our way to our first military assignment. We had no computer, probably didn't really even know what one was. Now 37 years later, we are traveling, have a nice state of the art laptop and still don't have a computer. Signals for computers are really hard to find; thus my tomorrow has been very long in coming. We are going to check into one of those hot spot thingies so we can always have access to the Internet when we travel. I must really be addicted to my computer as I go into withdrawals when I don't have a signal. It just ruins my day. Okay, now on with the beginning.

On Oct. 4, 2010 we left the state of Missouri, heading to Utah to pick up a trailer we were buying from my niece. Since we don't have the trailer, we are tenting it. We have all the equipment; air mattress, tent, bedding and reservations for the three nights we'd be traveling. We are members of Coast to Coast camping resorts, so that will save us money at the camps we stay at.

Our first stop is in Russell, KS. We had to go on a toll road and we tried to confuse the toll person by giving her two Susan B. Anthony dollars with some quarters. It didn't work. She was talking to someone in the booth with her and she kept on talking and put the money in the till. Darn. We thought it would work. We find our spot and as we get out of the car, the wind hits us full force. Not good. We get everything out and attempt to set up the tent. The wind wasn't helping us at all. At this point, I should say that this is the first time Drew and I have tried to put the tent up by ourselves. The kids have always been with us and helped. I had to play Statue of Liberty, trying to hold up the poles inside the tent. Drew had to re-stake some of the pegs several times. You could hear the poles snapping in the wind, not a good sign. We finally ended up tying the tent to some playground equipment that was behind us. We left the top cover off as it was not helping with keeping the tent upright. We went out to dinner and when we came back, we were surprised the tent was still there. It was starting to get dark and cold, so we put the top cover on; because the top of the tent was tied to the playground equipment, the rope would not let the cover, completely cover the tent, thus leaving a gap in the back. We get the air mattress made up; flannel sheets, blankets and bedspread. At this point it is really cold with the wind blowing so we decide to sleep with our clothes on. We make a bathroom run; the bathrooms were very nice. It was an individual bath that included a shower with sliding glass doors. I was quite impressed. I consider the bathroom at the top of my list on how good a campground is.  On to bed, saying a prayer that the winds would calm down so we would not get hurt. We still froze that night, even with our clothes on. We were really glad to get up the next morning so we could go. We took the tent down, finding one rod on each pole shattered. Really not good.  No using the tent again. We would see if we could upgrade to a cabin at our next stop.