A GOOD FIRST DAY ON THE ROAD…..BUT, NO INTERNET YET:((

THIS IS MY HAPPY RVING FACE TODAY:))
Saturday November 12th 2011……..As expected, we ran into some unexpected problems hooking up our Verizon equipment Saturday night!!
Hauled my frame out of the recliner for the last time this year at 4:28 a.m. Saturday morning.   Surprisingly, Kelly was already up and had coffee brewing.  Lots to do and everything single thing was last minute stuff…again.  Still dark outside under a clear starry sky as we loaded the last few things into the rig.  Big bright moon.  Pre-ignition and systems check at 6 a.m. with main ignition 35 minutes later.  Lift off at 6:38 a.m.  We are finally underway.  Destination….the great American Southwest:)

<<< OUR ANNUAL MORNING DEPARTURE PHOTOS
Unlike like last years snow and fog on the way to the border we had a beautiful morning going for us.  Not cold, cloudy or raining.  Fiery sunrise into a clear blue sky.  Reached the four lane highway 402 at 7:45 and the border at 8:05.  It will either be Jacksboro or St. Jo Texas before we get to set our wheels back on a good old secondary two lane highway again.  I will answer the question of why I prefer this route over going through St. Louis, Oklahoma City, etc in a later post.
Thought we were cooked at the border crossing for sure because the lane we picked had a young male border officer checking each vehicle closely.  Opening car doors and trunks for a look see.  Sent the SUV two vehicles ahead of us to the guard house.  Figured for sure he was the kinda guy to pink slip us for an agriculture check for sure.  But no, just the standard dozen questions or so and he handed our passports back and waved us through with a, “have a good day folks.”
 
 
IT’S QUITE A SNUGGLY CREW WE HAVE ABOARD:))
We barely had time to savor our good fortune when just a quarter mile from the border we were siphoned off down a ramp into what turned out be a long and poorly marked detour through the very heart of downtown of Port Huron.  Road work was apparently being done on I-69 but we eventually found our way back to the Interstate without any wrong turns. 
We had heard there was some confusing road construction around Lansing Michigan but we never did see any.  Picked up I-94 and headed for Kalamazoo.  Made a couple Rest Area doggy pit stops along the way and the guys did fine.  Pheebs was so excited at every stop she nearly jumped out of her fur.  We noticed a big change in Motormouse too.  She was so happy to be traveling again because at each Rest Area she was out running around like a happy little puppy dog.  It was fun to watch both her and the Pheebs playing together.
 
We reached our day’s Wal-Mart destination of Benton Harbor shortly after 2.  Way to early to be coming off the road for us but we slipped in for some groceries while we were there anyway.  This was the same place we stayed on our first night a year ago.
Back on the road we continued west for another hour and a half to Gary Indiana.  Kelly had found a Cracker Barrel using our ‘Next Exit’ book so figured that’s where we would do our overnighter.  This location turned out to be a bonus find because Cracker Barrel is right next door to the nicely landscaped and state of the art Indiana Welcome Center.   There is even a small lake here.  Even found a large vacant parking area for the guys to rip and tear around.  You can actually see the excitement in their little doggy eyes.  The Welcome Center had a very impressive Christmas theme going on inside based on the movie, ‘The Christmas Story.’  I will include more pics of this display in the days leading up to Christmas.

 
OUR OVERNIGHT SPOT BEHIND CRACKER BARREL AND THE INDIANA WELCOME CENTER
A great supper at Cracker Barrel with Kelly having some of those shrimp things and Al having a yummy open faced roast beef sandwich including mashed potatoes and gravy.  Mashed potatoes and gravy sure beats the heck out of Shrimp things in my book.  At the moment I am typing this in our rig parked directly behind Cracker Barrel.  Both Motor and the Pheebs are sound asleep from all their tearing around today.  Pheebs is right beside me on my bed and Motor is curled up in my fleece lined blue jean jacket.  My bed is not wide enough for both Pheebs and I so this will be the first night she will not be able to sleep with me on my bed.  She will have to get used to her own padded doggy bed on the floor.  Motor will sleep on one of our two chair.  We’ll see how our first night goes.  We all have a lot of adjusting to do now that we are on the road.  It’s all a part of being a Snow Bird:))
In the morning we will slip over to a nearby McDonald’s before hitting the road and see if we can check our email and maybe get this blog posted.    Right now our Verizon router is in the process of charging and we are hoping that is all our problem is.  We’ll know tomorrow. (update)  It’s 4:30 Sunday morning and Kelly just got us online) 

THIS INDIANA WELCOME CENTER HAS A CRACKER BARREL RIGHT BESIDE IT AND THIS IS WHERE WE ARE FOR OUR FIRST OVERNIGHTER:))
We are currently being buffeted by wind gusts and did hear on the 6 o’clock news there will be a wind advisory in this area tomorrow.  Yep, sure is good to be back on the road again alright…….10-4:))  I’ll get Groaner’s Corner up and running later today.