July 12, 2013 Friday Day 5 Departed early today, 6:15am. We thought the R & R Campground might refer to Rest & Relaxation, but at 2am we learned it stands for railroad. We were awakened by loud continuous blasts from THE longest train in the entire country. It must have rumbled by for at least 30 minutes. Every couple of minutes, the rumbling sounds were punctuated by screeching and bashing noises as if the train operator was slamming on his brakes at r...

July 11, 2013 Thursday Day 4 Iowa is vibrantly green, with a combination of rolling hills, and land so flat you can see for miles. Corn & grain fields & dairy farms. Red wing blackbirds. White Queen Anne's lace & periwinkle blue bachelor buttons line the highway. Everything is so clean; the roads are smooth, very little traffic, the people are friendly, with the cutest accents. Today our travels (503 miles) included: Iowa from Davenport to Cedar R...

July 10, 2013 Wednesday Thank you all for the emails & the messages on our blog. We really love hearing from you. It means so much to us. Just so you know, we may not be able to reply very often because we can't always get wifi & we need to conserve our 4g use a bit. But we love that you are following our adventure! Day 3 Got away before 7am -Yay! Well ok, it was 6:55am, but hey, we're making progress in decreasing our time to get it all together &...

July 9, 2013 Day 2 Nine hour drive. Drove to Nashville, Tennessee then north through the Cumberland Mountains. We stopped for the night just north of the Kentucky border at the spectacular Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, which is part of the US Forest system. Land Between the Lakes is an example of our public lands that are set aside for the enjoyment of all Americans. Michael is quite proud to have been a forest ranger with the US Forest Servi...

July 8, 2013 Day 1 - we are off to a great start! We left Emerald Isle at 7:30am, had a good drive, arrived in Pisgah Forest, NC around 4:30pm. It was slightly cloudy but beautiful with a mist hovering over the mountains & lake. Our campsite, with it's own dock was right on Cascade Lake. Michael cooked sea bass & corn for dinner; then his kids-Andrew, Natalya & boyfriend Ben came out to eat with us & take Max. Max will be living on the farm with...