Day Two

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Day Two/Tuesday,March 16, 2010
We left London at 8:30 and entered the USA at Sarnia/Port Huron and drove to La Porte, Indiana for a visit with Donna Hay Ludwig and Ed. We arrived at 3:30pm Indiana time. (we gained an hour) We were their guests at a lovely Country Club for dinner. Donna and I had breakfast to-gether on Wednesday and then we left for Chicago.

Day Three/Wednesday, March 17
We arrived at the home of John and Patty Lehman shortly after the firemen had departed. John had put a corn beef on the stove to slow cook while they went to Aurora to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with son Shea at the local pub. Needless to say dinner was over cooked and the house full of smoke. (yes, there was smoke damage but not enough that we could not stay in the house. The cleaning crew was arriving as we left). The other couple Carol and Mike De Paolo arrived with the corn beef and cabbabe dinner. It was delicious. (Not the first time a guest had to bring dinner!). We had a wonderful relaxing and fun filled three days with the Lehman's. Thank you to Kathleen and Kevin Halleyberry (their daughter) for a wonderul evening and dinner with their family. We arrived in 70-75*F weather to snow and 35*F on Saturday.

Day Seven/Sunday, March 21
Depart Lehman's for St. Louis at 10:30 . It was good driving weather dull but clear
Stopped at the Cracker Barrel for lunch. A favorite. (right Karina!)
Arrive at Pacific, Missouri for an over nght at the Comfort Inn. We wanted to get around St. Louis and not get into Monday morning traffic
We left on Monday morning at 9 for Branson and stopped on the way at the Fantastic Caves. It was a great experience being driven in a jeep through the caves,. Perfect for Kirk. He loves this kind of thing.
We arrived in Branson to check into Branson Nantucket a beautiful time share on the top of the mountain over looking the Table Top Lake.

Day Eight through Eleven/Monday, March 22-Friday, March 26
Our condo was perfect. We enjoyed wonderful meals at some fun restaurants with singing waiters. We saw The Liverpool Legends/beatles: John Denver Show; Top 10 Rock and Roll of the 50's and 60's; Legends; Every show was excellent, great music and all the impersonators were so like the originals. The Elvis won the contest in Collingwood when he was only 15.

Day Twelve/Friday, March 26
We waited for the heavy fog to lift before we headed down the windy mountain roads to Rogers, Arkansas.
We stopped at Big Cedar (timeshare that we have stayed in on many previous visits to Branson) for lunch in the rustic diningroom.
We stopped in Eureka Springs for tea and then on to seend just saying wow! wow! the Thornwood Chapel on the way to Rogers. A beautiful simple structure of wood and glass in the middle of the woods. A Frank Lloyd Wright design. You could feel the presence of God.
We arrived in Rogers at our friends Jan and Dean Muetzel at 5:00. (as planned...not sure how it happened, it just did1)
Jan went to school with Kirk at U of T and they were in the same graduating class. She tells us how all the girls were in love with him but he never asked any of them out. He said he could not afford it. She said 'they would have paid!!"

Day Thirteen/Saturday March 27
We visited a wonderful nature perserve The Hobb Center. Kirk was in his glory and even had his picture taken with the "life size racoon"
Dean is preparing a salmon dinner for us to-night and we leave in the morning to continue our drive West.
The drive through Arkansa over the tops of the mountains Dean has said is absolutley beautiful so we are looking forward to to-morrow. Not sure where we will be stopping along the way but we will go through Oaklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.
We will meet Douglas and Kay in Santa Fe, New Mexico on Wednesday, March 31 and stay until Sunday, April 4.
We will be at a timeshare Internationale Villas of Sante Fe for 4 nights.
Our plan is to see Painted Mountain and stay near here for the night of April 4 and then go on to Sedona, Arizona where we check into our timeshare there from Monday, April 5-9.
We leave on April 9 and drive to Palm Desert where we will be at Desert Breezes for two weeks.
I will update our journey the next time I can get connected. it does not always happen as I would like.
Kirk has not stopped saying how lucky he is to be seeing all this, how wonderful he feels, he feels blessed. So it is good to hear him so excited about it all. His favorite word these days is WOW.
We love you all. Miss you.
Keep in touch through the e-mail. I keep my phone on for emergencies but it is very expensive to use. We will call when we get to a land line and can use our calling card.
If anyone wants to fly to meet us on a part of our journey we would love to have you. let us know and we can make it work. We love to share our expericnces with you. Maybe Vancouver would be a good destination as flight are reasonable.

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Comments

[dancingspirit]

Great trip