Let's see, briefly, the high lights of this past year:
We did take the Fall Escape from IL allergies trip and it was successful beyond our highest expectations. (I explained in a previous blog post that I am horribly allergic to IL and especially during harvest. It wasn't TOO bad until "our farmer" added 3 HUGE Grain bins and a larger dryer(s?) etc, right next to our home, that I really started having trouble, including asthma so bad it got classified as COPD, inhalers, nebulizer treatments, coughing and choking, and losing my voice for up to 6 months that we decided to try a regimen of leaving IL during harvest, the only problem being that poor Mr. C can only be gone from his work for 30 days at a time, due to security issues, but we found a way around that).
September 2 to September 8 we made a short trip to Branson, which was fantastic. We stayed at America's Best Campground as usual. I would request a different campsite next year as we were directly under some high power electrical lines and that makes me personally uncomfortable. But, that aside, while we were there we saw our usual favorite: Keith Allyn with a Neil Diamond Tribute concert.
We were fortunate enough to be able to catch a performance by Collin Raye, which was also a fantastic performance.
Following Collin Raye we were entertained by Billy Dean and Steel Horses, as well as the commedian Garrett. Billy Dean is the consumate performer. He so obviously enjoys what he does and it shows through every minute of his shows (this is the second time we've seen them).
We truly enjoy ourselves at Branson, every time we go there. There have only been a couple shows we haven't thoroughly enjoyed, and surprisingly, they were "big name" musicians who were too "full of themselves".While driving around one evening, we were "fortunate enough" to see this beauty (anyone who knows us knows we enjoy seeing and photographing critters of all kinds). Yes, it's a Copperhead, aren't they pretty at least their pattern is pretty, I know a lot of people hate snakes, LOL.
Then we stayed home for a week or so and on September 19 left for the "Get out of IL during harvest" trip. We had a great growing season last year and the harvesting started about a week before we left, we'll have to work on that in the future.
Just before leaving I found an exciting critter out in our apple trees. This is the caterpillar of the Polyphemus moth and we had never seen one before. With great excitement I placed a mesh bag around his several apple branches in hopes of seeing his hatching the following spring.
Although this is out of order, here is the lovely moth he turned into, in the spring.
We started off with a night at Tom Sawyer Campground in West Memphis, Arkansas. We loved the campground, being right on the Mississippi River, but didn't much care for the West Memphis area as far as meals, shopping etc.
We ran into a slight snag as we traveled south. We had tried having a hitch attached to the back of the RV to carry our bike/terra trike; however, the hitch did not make it even through the first day's travel and when we arrived at the campground we saw it hanging nearly to the ground. We are lucky it didn't fall completely off.
Our campsite at Tom Sawyer's Campground was fantastic, we were right on the Mississippi River, and although it was not horribly busy, it was still interesting to see the river traffic and even just the river was fascinating to watch.
After a peaceful evening, night, and morning, we made our way to Shreveport where we had dinner with Becky and family before heading on to Galveston, TX, which will be our "home" for the next 18 days.
Trying to catch up with few posts and just the most important photos until I catch up to the present.
Smiles, Sue C
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