Ah, what a view!

                                    Our view of culverts, chain link fence and 55 gal. barrels

We are spending over a week in the beautiful City of Gowrie RV Park.  The ambience is scintillating, right up to the stray cats, and the city municipal storage area out our back windows.  Piles of dirt and gravel, culverts, chain link fence rolls and gates, and 55 gallon drums (hopefully empty).  The view pretty much sucks, but it is cheap, ($10 a night) and close to daughter Erin's house ...actually only 3 blocks.  Oh, I forgot to mention that one edge of the park butts up to the railroad tracks so we are about 80 feet from the thundering iron horse lugging ethanol tank cars!!!

Visiting Erin's family is a lot of excitement and fun.  Never a dull moment with 4 kids, 3 cats and 3 dogs in the house.  We have introduced them to Settlers of Catan, and that has spawned some really late night gaming.  It has been great to see the grandkids again.

We have had really nasty weather here, with hot and humid days, lots of rain and severe thunderstorms.  We bailed out of the RV one night after midnite for the possible safety of Erin's basement.  80% chance of rain today too.  Lots of little lakes at the RV park.

We are getting close to Matt's arrival from Colombia South America!  He is flying up here in 8 days.  Excited to see him, and we have planned an Alaskan cruise with him and his girlfriend Nohora also from Medellin, Colombia.  We are pumped, as we have not done a cruise for several years, and it should be great fun with Matt and Nohora.

                                A fellow "RVer" (somewhat permanent) at the Gowrie RV Park

Where's Waldo? and what is his PSA?

No, really it is Where's Tim and Ellen!  I can't believe a month and a half has passed since my last post.  It's been like a vacation I didn't want to take.   We are currently in Fort Dodge, enjoying the Pendry RV Park...

Beautiful weather, sunshine, good friends.  We have had good times with our great friends and fellow fulltimers Don and Connie Sarver, and Jim and Judie Ives.  All six of us were at the Excel Family Reunion in Smith Center Kansas.  310 Excel RVs camped out around the SC High School!  It was very cool.  We had a great time with seminars, group get-togethers, a sock hop, great food and a final night concert by acapella group Marcoux Corner from Minneapolis followed by fireworks.

We then went to Guthrie Center and had some warranty work done on the coach, finallymaking our way up to FD.

I will try to be more diligent on this blog thing, and maybe catch readers up on some other things that happened during my silence.

The best news is that I got my results on my three month PSA Test (which indicated likely prostate cancer)---when I was diagnosed it was 4.3, when I finished treatment it was 2.1, and my 3 month PSA was 1.0 !!!!!!  Huzzah!  We are so happy about this I cannot describe it.

Two Months Out

We've been traveling the past two days, so I haven't been able to celebrate my two month anniversary.  It was two months ago (Feb. 10) when I received my last radiation treatment at the Proton Institute in Jacksonville, FL.  I find that incredible!  Amazing how time flies.  

So, two months of no problems.  Hooray, thank God, and thanks to the team at UFPTI.  And thanks again to Pat McNamara for leading us to this cancer treatment.  The side effects were so minimal it was unbelievable.  Plus we got to meet and spend time with all kinds of interesting folks who were in the same boat as we were.

We are in Crossville, TN, at a beautiful hidden away RV Park 6 miles off I-40.  Deer Run RV Park nestles in woods and has a small manmade lake.  So quiet.  We head for Nashville Wednesday.

Colonial Williamsburg

We just spent two fun and fact-filled days at Colonial Williamsburg, VA.  If any of you have not been here, we highly recommend it!  We hope to return and catch sites and events we did not have time for.

Throughout the historical area there are guides, interpreters and actors in colonial period garb, sharing all kinds of tidbits and stories of the period.  They are fantastic.  Getting around the area is easy and inexpensive, as there are shuttle buses running constantly.  Shuttles are free with an admission ticket.  For seniors, it is $41 or $42 for a two day pass.

Ellen in front of the Governor's Palace

Williamsburg was Virginia's first colonial capitol.  British Governors ran things until the Revolution, when Patrick Henry became Governor, followed by Thomas Jefferson, who moved the Capitol to Richmond.  Some of the buildings are reconstructed, some are original.  All are interesting and magnificent.

John D. Rockefeller footed the bill for the creation and reconstruction of this historic town, starting in the late 1920's, and finishing in the mid-30s.  Not only are there government buildings (Capitol, Courthouse, Governor's Palace), but houses of wealthy Virginians, taverns, and shops, both retail and artisan.

The Palace was truly opulent, considering the average colonist might have had a house 12 by 8 or 10 feet with a dirt floor and no glass windows.  The entrance walls had over 600 swords and muskets displayed on the beautifully detailed walls. The grounds were beautifully manicured, including expansive gardens behind the palace, walls, gates, a hedge maze and the flowers were just starting to bloom. 
                                                           The gardens behind the Palace

Wealthy colonist homes also had more than they needed, both in terms of space and furniture, imported wallpaper and fancy wood trim.  One house was that of Peyton Randolph who may have become our first president had he not died just before independence was won.  He was the president of the early government. His funeral was witnessed by over 20,000.

His widow, Elizabeth, stuggled to keep things going, as the war complicated things for her.  Some of her servants/slaves left to serve in the British Military with the promise of freedom.  Elizabeth did not remarry, however, as to do so would let  her property go to her new husband. 

The house itself is huge and rambling, and painted a distinctive crimson red, a sign of royal richness.  The paint had to be imported. 

Throughout the skits and tours, the underlying issue of slavery bubbled and festered.  While these famous patriots exclaimed the need for freedom, most had servants and slaves who were not free.  We're not just talking about a tax on tea here.  Even a tavern owner had 20 slaves!

Bruton Parish Episcopal Church was open to the public, and this building was exceptional, complete with the pews with closing doors (for heat-bring your own hot coals-- and comfort) and the 400 year old baptismal font.

There is so much to see, we hope to return with a full week's ticket!

Yorktown

The Yorktown Battlefield from the British viewpoint

We are in the triangle of history here in eastern Virginia (Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown). We are staying at a condo in Williamsburg, enjoying a beautiful area of historical sites, architecture, and the birth of the United States.

Our first venture was to visit Yorktown, getting a history lesson on how Washington was able to get Cornwallis to surrender.  Washington laid siege pounding the dug in British for 8 or 9 days.  I am sure many of you know (I didn't) that the French Navy was victorious over the British warships in the Battle of the Capes, and England's fleet returned to New York for repairs.  This left Cornwallis no sea support, nor a means of escape.  He tried to escape across the York River in small boats, but a storm wrecked several of them and stopped this possibility.  Dug in on high ground with the river at his back, he had no choice but to surrender. 

The Yorktown Victory Center has a really nice museum and working 1780's farm, plus a simulated military encampment.  Lots of historical information, artifacts, plus interaction with the 'soldiers' and 'farmers'.

We also saw the Yorktown Victory Memorial, officially approved in 1788, but not erected and completed until 1884!   A tall, beautifully decorated column, with a gorgeous sculpture of 'Victory' on top.  All this resting on a base with inscriptions on four sides, acknowledging the French contributions, and a listing of those who paid the supreme sacrifice during the siege of Yorktown.

That's Ellen at the base of the Memorial This sculpture had to be replaced when it hit by lightning

Cough, gasp, a virus has us

What happened to Con-Ficker????  Well, we were able to contract a virus on our own, and our Toshiba is incapacitated.  What a mess.  While we were at Best Buy, we were browsing the computers, and were entranced with a Mac.  We are now a 2 laptop family.  Sorry Phil, the new addition is a Mac!  But we are enjoying it a lot, and finding it very user friendly.  Our Toshiba is resting....

However, we do not have our verizon broadband card capability, as we need to update to a verizon USB card/stick.  Meantime, we are stuck with whatever Wi-Fi we can find.  Our plan is to do the upgrade to use the Mac for Internet, and use the Toshiba for word processing, games, spreadsheet.

We are now in Edenton, NC, a quaint harbor town with tons of beautiful historic houses.  We are leaving tomorrow for Williamsburg....

Wait a minute, that wasn't a cemetery!

We spent the last week on Edisto Island, SC, at a Wyndham Resort. Yeah, we got into the time share points thing, and now we are trying to use our points before we lose them. We had a nice quiet week, not doing too much of anything, partly because the weather was chilly and/or windy.

Edisto Beach was nice, and we did some walking around. Had a great dinner at the Dockside Restaurant, and did an island history bus tour. That was where I found out that we were not in a cemetery at St. Simons Island in Georgia as I reported in my previous entry! Our guide let us know while we were at a church on Edisto, the grave markers were not a cemetery, but rather a graveyard. Cemeteries are at a distance from the church, while graveyards are are in the churchyard.

We are now at a beautiful county park at St. James Island, just south of Charleston, SC. The park is a bit pricey, but has it all, including WiFi, full hookups, and a shuttle (for a price) to downtown Charleston. We will use that as I am not sure I want to park the big truck downtown. More on our Charleston adventure as it unfolds.