Latest news first - we sold our house in France!
Friday, November 4 we had the formal closing with the buyer and notaire and as they say "The check's in the mail".  As our friend Bill said "Happy Times!".  This has been a difficult time showing the house, not having lookers, finally having lookers and then an offer that we quickly snapped up.  As this is being written we are in a hotel at the airport in Marseille waiting to fly out tomorrow for home.
But it's not all been all work and no play.
The balloon carrying tourists came over the house in Roussillon several time a week.

We had some summer evenings at a local winery where we had music, food and some good wine.

We sold our beloved Peugeot 207 to one of the real estate agents that sold the house.

We had some great meals at some of our favorite restaurants.

Some of the fall colors of Provence:

September 29, 2016
Oklahoma City to Amarillo, TX
271 miles today with the sun at our back and the new motorhome performing just as we wanted, trouble-free.  The Fort Amarillo Campground was very comfortable with good WiFi.  We had stayed here on an earlier trip.  Iris drove for the first time today for about 1.5 hours.  She was quite comfortable and did a fine job.

September 30, 2016
Amariillo to Santa Fe
Leaving the campground we drive back along I-40 Business to find a supermarket where we stocked up on essentials and to Walmart to fill up with fuel.  The on to I-40 W for our drive today to Santa Fe.  271 miles again today.  Wind was a little tough driving so Iris declined to drive today.  Stopped in Santa Rosa, NM at the Silver Moon Cafe for lunch with a nice big parking lot for trucks and RV’s.  Green chili cheeseburger and green chili stew that we split, both were very good.  Arriving in Santa Fe we checked in at the Los Suenos Park, got settled, did the laundry and cleaned house then spent the evening with a short read and crashed.

October 1, 2016
Santa Fe
After breakfast we rode the bus into town from Los Suenos, $1 each for all day use of the bus.  We stopped at the French Bakery for cafe latte and a couple of pain-au-raisins, walked around the Plaza looking at the Indian jewelry for sale by the indians sitting under the portals, then met Robin at The Shed for margaritas and New Mexican food (Bob & Robin had layered enchiladas with red chili sauce and a fried egg on top that was delicious.  Iris had pork carne adovada that was good also).  Then a shopping walk with Robin around the Plaze before we returned by bus to our motorhome while Robin checked into her motel.  Robin drove to our motorhome later for wine and smoked summer sausage and cheese.

October 2, 2016
Santa Fe
Robin picked us up at 10:30 AM and we went to Museum Hill where we saw the Wheelwright Museum, today was first Sunday thus free admission.  We enjoyed the beautiful jewelry and implements used by the Navajo and Zuni to make items from silver and beads.  Had a coffee at the Museum Hill Cafe before looking at the items for sale at the Museum of Indian Culture and Heritage.  Robin bought lovely earrings.  Then a drive to Tesuque, out from Santa Fe for lunch at the Tesuque Market Place.  Blood orange margaritas went down smoothly followed by smoked brisket  with green chili slices on a bun for Iris and Bob had red chili enchiladas and again we shared half of each.  We drove back to town for a stop at Trader Joe’s for peanut butter and flowers and Robin needed a few things also.  A stop at El Ray to see Robin’s motel, old but nice then she took us back to our  motorhome and we said our goodbyes.

October 3, 2016
Santa Fe to Colorado Springs
324 miles today in high winds.  Had lunch in Raton, NM where we have many times stopped for a meal but everything we used to go to was closed so we tried K-Bob’s where we thought we’d have our last NM meal before entering Colorado.  Disappointed!  Back on the road driving in the strong winds.  Passed Pueblo where Donald Trump was holding a rally, unknown to us,   Just before arriving at Colorado Springs we exited the freeway to go to Cheyenne Mountain State Park, our home for the next three nights.  The campground is very modern with great hook-ups, paved roads and level concrete pads for parking the motorhome.  We were set up quickly and called Bob & Sylvia to announce our arrival.  They came to the campground where we did the show and tell about the new motorhome and had a glass of wine before going to Tapateria.   We enjoyed many different tapas and some nice Spanish wine.  Nice place, good food, attentive staff, enjoyable.

October 4, 2016
Colorado Springs
After getting ready for the day Bob picked us up and drove us to their house where Sylvia  was working to prepare a fantastic lunch of grilled lamb chops, sweet potatoes and green peas with a super merlot.  Needless to say the meal was delicious.  We had a great time talking about current events as well as some old memories.  It was like we had never been apart even though it has been five years since we were together.  We made an early departure so we could watch the VP debate and promptly went to bed.

 What a setting!

Roughing it!

October 5, 2016
Colorado Springs
Bob & Sylvia picked us up at 10:30 for our drive up to  into the mountains west of Colorado Springs  and lunch at Swiss Chalet Restaurant where to food is always exceptional and today was no different.  B&S are regulars and we were treated like royalty.  We both had veal brats and kraut and is was really good.  We also enjoyed  a nice bottle of merlot.  After lunch we drove on to Mueller State Park to see the aspen colors and lots of deer.  We scouted out some RV sites for future use then drove back to Colorado Springs to their house for more visiting.  Sylvia had recently had back surgery but is recovering nicely.  While there we checked our emails as we don’t have WiFi in the state park and what fantastic news - our notary is setting the closing date for the sale of our house in France so either October 28 or November 4 was offered.  We are trying to get organized to make it for the 4th of November.  Yippee!!!!!!!!!  This is our last place to visit before heading back to Georgetown.

Iris' new hat!
October 6, 2016
Colorado Springs to Amarillo
Nice drive today but long, 350 miles, from the fuel stop in Colorado Springs after we left Cheyenne Mountain State Park until we arrived in Amarillo.   Rain was drizzling when we woke, then windy crossing Raton Pass, but after leaving Raton with Iris driving, it was pretty nice.  Iris pulled into the Rabbit Ear Cafe in  Clayton, NM about 12:20 PM where we had our last New Mexico meal for awhile, enchiladas for Bob and chili rellanos for Iris.  Yum!  Then on to Amarillo where we stopped at Walmart for fuel before arriving at Fort Amarillo RV Park again for the night.



October 7, 2016
We are leaving Amarillo this morning, 37 degrees, heading for the night in Abilene and home tomorrow early afternoon.

First Motorhome Trip

September 21, 2016

Left Georgetown around 9 AM in the new Unity motorhome, Bob was still sick so we cancelled our stops in Waxahachie and Dallas so as not to infect anyone.  Arrived late afternoon at Mt. Vernon, TX where we pulled in to Still Meadows RV Park, $27, nice level spot, nice campground, had a few permanents that reminded us of South Arkansas (junk under and around trailers) but we had an enjoyable evening eating our leftover Mexican food from a couple of days ago.  Easy and fast.

September 22, 2016

Left Still Meadows and continued north on I-30 with a stop at Hope, AR for Walmart purchases and fuel.  Continued on to Little Rock where we picked up our rental car from Hertz and made it to the Maumelle Corps of Engineers campground. There we set up in space B-32 with a great view of the Arkansas River flowing West to East.  Nice level spot so Bob was happy.  Lots of big, old trees so a really beautiful spot and our long time favorite in Little Rock.  As the temperature was 96 F we decided some A/C would be in order.  Both tired so relaxed in our lounge chairs and got ready to watch the evening news with a glass of vino.

Dinner at Capers, a favorite, close to the Maumelle Campground with Richard and Anne, good food and fun evening.

September 23, 2016

Little Rock

To Starbucks for internet then to Trios for lunch with Kathy and Charles, good food, Bob had his favorite, chicken and dumplings, afterward a nap back at Maumelle Park.  Went to the Core’s at 6 PM for wine and snacks then to a fabulous restaurant, Brave New, where we sat on the deck overlooking the Arkansas River.  After dark we could see the Little Rock skyline reflected in the water.  We had the scollops and they were exceptional.  Fun evening with good friends, Mac & Carol.

September 24, 2016

Little Rock

Because of the big bicycle race starting at Pinnacle Mountain and past Maumelle Park we left early to meet John, Sean and Shea at Mexico Chichita on Highway 10 where we chowed down on Mexican food.  We returned to the motorhome where they inspected the new motorhome and we visited sitting on the banks of the Arkansas River.  Early evening as we are driving to Branson tomorrow.

September 25, 2016

Little Rock to Branson

Picked up John and Sean at 9:30 AM in our rent car for our drive to Branson.  We had a stop at St Joe, Arkansas at Coursey’s Smoked Meat for ham and turkey sandwiches with smoked cheddar cheese.  Fantastic as usual. A beautiful drive into Branson through Northeast Arkansas and South Missouri.  Then on to Branson where we checked John and Sean into the Hampton Inn close to the house of to Lucy (Bob’s niece) and John. We visited awhile before picking up John and Sean and heading to the White River Fish House at Bass Pro Shop beside Lake Tanycomo.  We enjoyed great fish dishes and some crisp white wine.  The night’s entertainments was at the Lawrence Welk Theater to see the Million Dollar Quartet, tributes to Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash, all recording at Sun Records in Memphis at the same time.  Good show, good 50”s music (Sean had never heard any of the songs).  Between the food and entertainment, John and Lucy drove us around the area for an overview for Sean of the area.  John is a great tour guide.  We stayed with John & Lucy for the night in their nice guest room.

September 26, 2016

Branson

Today is the main reason for being in Branson, for Sean to tour College of the Ozarks.  We were in the Admissions office at 9:00 AM, our appointed tour time where a second year student gave us an excellent tour of the campus including a mens’ dorm room, the chapel was a highlight (constructed by students in the 1950’s) with spectacular woodwork and stained glass windows.  After the tour we went to the museum where John and Sean enjoyed the top floor with the guns and weapons display while Iris and Bob enjoyed the displays on the first floor.  College of the Ozarks has a work program so that any student accepted (only 500 accepted each year out of 4,000 applicants).  COO requires good grades and hight ACT scores, each student must agree to not use tobacco, alcohol or drugs during their time at COO, zero tolerance.  If caught the student has 24 hours to be gone.  Upon completion of four years the student can graduate with zero student loans as the work program pays 100% of tuition plus if a student works during the summer his room and board are paid also.

Lucy and John met us for lunch at the restaurant at the Keeter Center, 4-star lodge where all the servers are students (freshmen).

We left COO and drove back to St Joe to pick up some bacon and summer sausage to stock the motorhome refrigerator.  The beautiful drive from there to Little Rock went pretty fast and we arrived back to let John and Sean off before we had to have the rent car back by 5 PM.  The agent from Hertz drove us back to the campground and we were glad to put our feet up as it was a tiring two days.

September 27, 2016

Little Rock to Oklahoma City

Leaving Maumelle Park we got on IH-40 West from Little Rock to Oklahoma City where we checked into the Twin Fountains RV Park.  We called and made plans to visit Burianella at her house the next day.  

September 28, 2016

Edmond, OK

Arriving in Edmond we parked the motorhome in the dead end street behind her house and had a good visit before Burianella drove us the the Interurban Cafe where we had some of the best Mexican enchiladas  we’ve ever had north of Mexico.  After lunch some more visiting (never a lag  in the conversation) and then we drove back to the RV park to spend our second night.

New Motorhome

September 7-12, 2016

Arrival NYC.  This is where we last left you.  We flew to Sarasota where we saw our new beautiful motorhome for the first time after ordering it in January.  We spent two nights at the dealership getting familiar with the coach, a 2017 Unity 24MB manufactured by Leisure Travel Vans in Winkler, Manitoba, Canada.  Leaving Sarasota, our first night on the road was at Tallahassee, FL, second night at Biloxi, MS, then lunch at Prejean’s in Lafayette, LA with overnight at Beaumont, TX before arrival in Georgetown.

September 13-20, 2016

Laundry, laundry and laundry.  But also we got to our Sunday School class once, had dinner with friends (usual suspects), loaded the motorhome, contracted for storage of the coach about 2 miles from the house, saw some doctors, ate some of the things we’ve missed in France all summer like Dale’s hamburgers, fried catfish, chicken fried steak, Mexican and generally prepared for our maiden voyage in the motorhome.

New York

September 5, 2016

At Sea!

Well the captain was right.  During the night we started rolling and rocking.  This morning at 5:30 AM we had 8 on the Beaufort scale and folks, that’s rough.  We’re still making 22 knots and headed straight for NYC.  We’ve now cruised 4,222 nautical miles (we think that is 7,600 land miles).  The north Atlantic crossing, well known for rough seas, was calm for us; but Hermine has us now.  

At noon we were seriously rocking, lunch was a balancing act trying to keep glasses and silverware on the table.

By 6 PM we had 80 MPH winds and 12 on the Beaufort scale and that is really rough seas.  Entertainment was cancelled due to unstable conditions for the dancers and musicians.

September 6, 2016

New York City

6 AM finds us coming into NY harbor with winds down to 40 MPH so we are protected somewhat from the high winds.  Should be tied up by 7:30 AM after which we will depart for our overnight stay at a hotel at Laguardia Airport before our flight tomorrow for Florida.  Tied up at 7:15 AM, temperature 72 F, total nautical miles cruised 4,547, wind 25 MPH, overcast. 

St Johns, Newfoundland

September 2, 2016

At Sea

Big activities today - ate three times, saw two lectures, one on the Northern Lights, other on St Johns, Newfoundland and Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Too tired for the entertainment so went to bed.  Iris fell in the night a couple of days ago trying to get a cramp out of her leg, hit the nightstand pretty hard with her back so she’s  sore and bruised.  Lucky she didn’t hit her head.  

September 3, 2016

St Johns, Newfoundland

Slept 9.5 hours last night.  Cruising is very tiring.  Up for coffee early.

Met our group of 8 near the door so we could go off as a group to meet our guide for today, Blair, who drove us all around St Johns beginning with views of the beautiful harbor of St Johns with the fishing boats and the oil platform supply boats.  

Then a drive to the eastern-most point of North America, Cape Spear with two light houses, one old one that has been refurbished and one in use today; 

visits to the bunkers, gun placements and munitions storage built by Canadian and US troops during WW II.  Maddox Cove is a bedroom community outside St Johns on the way to Petty Harbor (original it was Petit Harbor).  

Back closer to town we visited Signal Hill where Marconi received the first wireless transatlantic radio signal in 1901, great views of the city from here then a drive around the city including the university, the Catholic Cathedral (St John the Baptist), the Anglican Cathedral, St George Street (32 bars), Jelly Bean houses so named for the colors.  It was cold today and we had sprinkles but no real rain. The wind was tough on us all to the point that Iris had to buy a knitted wool hat, cute!  

Back on board we were really tired from our day so we had some supper in the Lido and Bob was in bed by 7 (claimed to be reading), at 8 the captain came over the intercom with word that due to hurricane Hermine we would be skipping Halifax and heading straight to New York in order to avoid the storm and stay west.  So early to bed.

September 4, 2016

At Sea!

Slept in, breakfast after 8 AM today, grumblings about missing Halifax.  We don’t know yet when we will arrive NYC but trying to plan how to make our flight on the 7th to Florida.  Waiting on word from our motorhome salesman that all is well with our new motorhome after the storm passed Florida.  Had a light lunch as tonight is formal and we’ve made reservations to eat in the main dining room so we can see Fauzi, our assistant waiter on the 2013 World Cruise.  Bob had already seen Fauzi in the Lido where he works from midnight to 5:30 AM.  He was really happy to finally see Iris, big hugs, and brought us up to date about his family.  After dinner we attended a Q&A session with the Location Guide trying to determine what we should do about getting to Laguardia airport.  Entertainment tonight was preceded by the Zuiderdam Chorale made up of passengers under the direction of the ship musical director.  They sang three numbers and then the show began with Rogerio Tutti playing piano and then Natalie Toro doing Broadway show numbers.  Set the clocks back another hour tonight so we are now on Eastern time (our bodies are not).  We were warned that some time in the night we will encounter heavier seas and that we should be cautious and use the handrails and batten down anything loose in our cabins.

Nanortalik, Greenland

September 1, 2016

Nanortalik is the southernmost town in Greenland with a population of 1,300.  Nanortalik means “place of bears” as polar bears are occasional guests in the area in late spring and early sinner as they arrive on ice flows.  Several have been shot in recent years.  Founded in 1797, 50 people lived here in 1805, by 1850 there were 165 residents.  The local wooden church (1916) was the entertainment for today with the Greenlandic choir performing songs in the native Inuit language.  

We visited the open air museum with several buildings including a sod house and buildings housing long boats and kayaks used in harvesting fish, seals and whales.  Today these foods are supplemented with sheep and cattle kept indoors in the winter and in grass fields in the summer.  This would have been a good day to be inside.as the temperature was 43 F but fortunately very little wind.  Our stay was from dropping anchor at 7 AM with departure at 1 PM.  This provided plenty of time to see Nanortalik.

The town symbol is three polar bears.

Kids turned out from school to see the funny cruise passengers.

We arrived back at the ship in time for lunch in the crowded Lido as everyone had to back on board by 12:30 PM.  Nap in the afternoon, Iris woke thinking she was getting a cold, to dinner in the Lido.  Iris stayed in, Bob went to the show, girl singer with Broadway tunes, to bed.

Greenland

August 30, 2016

At sea

Today promises to be a big day.  After leaving our coats to save seats at 4:44AM, by 8 AM we were in the Crow’s Nest as the ship entered the Prins Christian Sund Fjord of Greenland, this is in the southern end of Greenland consisting of many large and small islands with a complex network of narrow channels and fjords.  Cape Farewell is at the tip of Greenland and contains the weather station.  Sailing through this remote wonderland of steep granite mountains, glaciers, waterfalls and icebergs gives a view of this rugged landscape formed by carving glaciers during the ice age.  The sound is 36 miles long and at the narrowest point only 350 meters wide.  The water depth ranges from 600-900 meters.  We passed the village of Aappilattoq, home to 130 hardy souls whose only transport is small fishing boat or helicopter and whose food is mostly fish and seals.  Houses, the little store and the church were all prefabricated in Denmark and shipped to this location and reassembled.  Residents can only walk 1.2 miles in any direction from the village.  The steep vertical 900 meter mountain blocks the village from anywhere except the sea.

We had sandwiches for lunch in order to retain our good location in the Crow’s Nest but about 3 PM we had enough so we made our way back to the room for a little lie-down.  Then the usual drinks in the Ocean Bar and supper in the Lido.  Tonight the entertainment was a young pianist - nice.

Can’t say enough about the beauty of the scenery we encountered today, glaciers, waterfalls, mountains, fjords.  It was truly amazing or as the kids used to say “awesome”.

August 31, 2016

Qaqortoq, Greenland

Qaqortoq means “white” for the white colored granite cliffs.  Our ship anchored just off the village, founded in 1775 by the Norwegian trader, Anders Olsen, and we used the life boats for moving everyone from the ship to the village.  About a 10 minute ride.  Arriving at the pier we found a map of the town, 3,500 inhabitants, with a couple of variety stores with lots of stuff from China to sell the tourists.  

One interesting store had a bakery and sold rifles and ammo.

The town square (it’s round) contains the village fountain (1927).

One point of interest was the old church (1832) but there is also a new church.

We had intended to have lunch at the local hotel but the knats were so bad we decided to go back to the Zuiderdam for our lunch.

Also of interest are the stone sculptures carved by various artists in to the local cliffs.  Fish, ram’s head and faces of locals are featured.

This village is Greenland’s main trading post.  There is no road connecting to Qaqortoq and no airport.   Helicopters and ferries are used for public transport.  Interestingly no two towns in Greenland are connected by road.

Had a nice Indonesian lunch in the Lido followed by a nice nap in the room.

Entertainment tonight was Carlos Bonell playing classical Spanish guitar.   Very entertaining and claimed to have the distinction of recording with Paul McCartney on the only album that was a flop.  Nice evening.