New GPS

In my April 11 post, I mentioned that our Garmin GPS had developed vertical lines on the screen. Well, I researched the problem on the internet and Garmin's website and found out that we needed to buy a new GPS - that there wasn't a fix for the problem. So after some research and shopping online, I ordered a Garmin nuvi 68LMT from Amazon. It has a 5.4" screen which is larger than our old 4" Garmin. There are differences between the two and so it will take a little time to get used to using the new Garmin.

We've just been taking it easy the rest of this month. We did have breakfast at Sebastian Roadhouse on the 23rd and had lunch at Olive Garden yesterday - all you can eat soup and salad, always a good choice!

I did join the Florida State Genealogical Society today - $35 for a family membership.

Busy week after returning home from Illinois

We got back home on Monday from our trip to southern Illinois and the next day was the monthly meeting of the Indian River Genealogical Society in Vero. The guest speaker was
Diahan Southard from Genealogy Gems and her topic was "Back to Basics - DNA". Mike & I had our DNA tested at Ancestry almost 2 years ago and we're going to get a Y-DNA test for Mike soon. Diahan is really good at explaining DNA and how to use it in genealogical research. I signed up for a private session with her on Wednesday and she went over our DNA matches on Ancestry. She explained how to use the matches and how to analyze them.

Yesterday Mike and I attended the monthly MOAA (Military Officers of America Association) luncheon at the Vero Beach Country Club. Mike and I chose the chicken entrée when we mailed in our reservation. Then for dinner I went to Little Caesar's and got a pizza. Don't get me wrong, lunch was excellent at the country club, but we both were craving a pizza.

We don't have anything scheduled for the rest of this month and it will be nice to have some time just to take it easy after our trip to Illinois.


 

Back home after 9 days and 2064 miles

We got up this morning about 7:30, walked and fed Tinker and then packed the car. We left the motel at 8:30 and drove over the Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Mike ordered the Double Meat breakfast with bacon & sausage, scrambled eggs, grits and biscuits and gravy. I had the Old Timer's breakfast with scrambled eggs, bacon, grits, biscuits and gravy. 

We always save a little piece or two of bacon to give to Tinker when we get back to the car. The weather has warmed up since we are further south, so we left the car running with the A/C on and locked while we ate breakfast. We left Cracker Barrel about 9:15 and stopped at a Flash Foods station to get gas ($1.859 a gallon) and a Starbucks for another cup of coffee before getting back out on I-75. 

We stayed on I-75 south until we reached I-10 and then went east to Jacksonville and then south on I-95. We stopped for lunch at a Steak n Shake at a Melbourne exit and were back on the road by 1:00. 

When we got off of I-95 at the Sebastian exit, we stopped to get gas ($1.879 a gallon) before going home. We arrived home at 2:15. 

We were gone for 9 days and traveled 2064 miles. We had a great visit with my cousins and our friend Symphony, but it is nice to be back home and to sleep in our own bed tonight.

While we were traveling, the screen on our Garmin GPS developed vertical lines on the map. I'm going to research that to see what is causing it and if it can be fixed, but I'm thinking that a new GPS is in our future.

Attending church and then leaving to start home

The weatherman was right - it was 46° with a wind chill of 44° when we got up this morning. After breakfast Mike and I packed up the car because we're leaving today and then we changed clothes so we could go to church with Symphony. We kept out a change of clothes from the suitcase for both of us, so we can change from our "church" clothes before leaving the church and getting on the road.

Thank goodness it was chilly this morning, because we brought Tinker with us in the car when we went to church otherwise we would have had to leave the car running with him in it. We arrived at Collinsville Baptist Church about 10:45 plenty of time before the 11:00 service started. Before the service starts, Pastor John Morgan always asks if there are any visitors and Symphony introduced us and Pastor John remembered us from our previous visits - which maybe is once every year or two.

Usually on Sunday after the 11:00 service, they have a pot luck lunch and we have attended them and have always left stuffed with good  home-cooked food and today was no different. After we ate, we got our change of

Collinsville Trade Day with friends

The cold front has made its way down here now - it was 46° yesterday morning with a wind chill of 42°, but by the afternoon it had warmed up to about 59°. Symphony has a Class C Brave motorhome and she wanted Mike to check a few things on it for her and he did that yesterday. We spent the rest of the day catching up with each other's news.

Today Symphony took us down to Collinsville to go to Trade Day which is a huge outdoor market with handmade crafts, antiques, homemade pastries and canned food, fresh fruits and vegetables, clothing, tools, furniture and booths serving hot food. We have been to Trade Day before when we visited with Symphony and its just fun to see what all is there. 

This morning it was 44° with a wind chill of 38° when we got up, but it had warmed up a little by the time we were in Collinsville. We've been here when it was much warmer, but today was really pleasant and we didn't get overheated walking around the market. We bought some homemade cheese and canned pickles from an Amish booth. We also bought a "N" medallion at another booth that Mike is going to paint and put on a front wall of the house.

After leaving the market, Symphony took us over to a friend's house for us to meet him. Chuck had been ill earlier this year and Symphony had helped him out until he recovered. We visited for quite a while and then we all realized that we were hungry. We said that Symphony and Chuck could choose the restaurant and that we would pay for dinner. They suggested eating at Don Chico's Mexican Restaurant in town - it sounded good to us since we always like trying out different Mexican restaurants. The food was very good and we had a good time with Symphony and Chuck - such a good time I can't remember exactly what we all ordered, but it was very good. After dinner Chuck left to go home and we headed back to Symphony's house.

It did warm up to about 55° today and is supposed to be in the mid-40's tomorrow morning.

Leaving Illinois and heading to Alabama

It was a little warmer when we got up yesterday morning - 57° with a high of 68°. We spent yesterday at Frances and Jack's house and just relaxed. We did go to WalMart to get a couple of things we needed for the trip home and got gas in the Outback ($1.839 a gallon).

We got up early this morning and had coffee with Frances and Jack before loading the car. They offered to fix breakfast before we left, but we declined and said we'd stop somewhere on the road and get something. It was hard to pass up one of Jack's homemade breakfasts, especially since this morning's temp was 48° with a wind chill of 39°. 

We left their house at 8:00 and took IL-34 south to connect with IL-142 at Eldorado and then down to IL-1 to Cave-in-Rock. We stopped at Hardee's in Harrisburg on IL-34 about 9:00 for a quick breakfast. We arrived at Cave-in-Rock about 10:00 just as the ferry was leaving.

While we waited for the ferry to return, we walked Tinker down to the river and he watched the ferry leaving and crossing the Ohio River.

The ferry was back by 10:20 and we were the first vehicle on board. 

We arrived on the Kentucky side at 10:30 and took KY-91 south to Marion, KY and then south on US-641 to Eddyville, KY and stopped at McDonald's for lunch before heading down to I-24 and over to Nashville. 

Looking at Old Family Photos at Jimmy & Sally's

Jack fixed us another great breakfast this morning - biscuits and sausage gravy. Yummy! Breakfast was especially good this morning because the temperature was 34° with a wind chill of 28° when we got up this morning.

We all just lazed around the house this morning and caught up on email and I entered our trip expenses in Quicken. 

This afternoon we drove over to Jimmy and Sally's house in separate cars in case Mike and I wanted to stay longer and visit more. Frances and Jimmy's sister Eva drove over this morning from Troy, IL to be there when we visit. 

Sally had fixed lunch for all of us and as usual everything was great. We had barbecue pork sandwiches with all the fixings, potato salad, baked beans and of course, dessert. Shortly after lunch, Jimmy brought out several photo albums for us to look through - I think there must have been about a dozen albums. The four of us (Frances, Eva, Jimmy and myself) sat on the sofa with the albums in front of us. Mike took a photo of us and he said something funny and snapped a picture as all four of us were laughing. I wish I could remember exactly what he said, but can't.

We started looking through the albums and some of the photos were taken before any of us had been born. I saw photos of my parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles that I hadn't seen before and didn't have copies of. Thank goodness for smart phones - I took photos of the pictures (and the names on back) with my iPhone.

After a few hours, Mike and Jack decided to go back to Frances & Jack's house for some

Visiting with Frances & Jack

We spent today visiting with Frances and Jack. As usual Jack fixed one of his great breakfasts - bacon and waffles - always a special treat. It was nice and cool this morning 59°.

I mentioned how I would like to have time to go down to the Johnson County Courthouse in Vienna to do a little genealogical research and Jack said he and Frances would take us down there. So this afternoon we drove down to Vienna where Frances & my Jones grandparents and great grandparents had lived. Jack and Mike said they would stay in the car while Frances and I went into the court clerk's office. A nice young lady showed us where the birth, death and marriage record books were and left us to do our research. I had hoped to get copies made, but the cost per page was too much and I just wrote down on a pad the information I was looking for. I did find some information that I hadn't had before, so it was a good trip even it it was a short one. 

On the way back to their house, the subject of supper came up and we said we would buy dinner, but Frances and Jack had to pick the restaurant. After some discussion they settled on O'Charley's in Marion. We ordered the Potato Skins for an appetizer, I had the grilled Atlantic salmon and everyone else order steaks. The food was really good and the restaurant was a great choice.

Afterwards we came back to Frances and Jack's house and are now watching TV. We're going over to visit with my other cousin Jimmy and his wife Sally tomorrow.

It's supposed to much colder tomorrow morning - I think in the mid-30's. Today was nice and cool and it warmed up to 64° - a nice change from southern Florida.

Acworth, GA to Benton, IL

We didn't have as many miles to drive today, so we slept in a little this morning and ate breakfast at the motel. After packing the car and checking out (the room cost $96.64), we were on the road at 9:20 and heading north on I-75. 

About 30 minutes after leaving Acworth, we saw that the southbound traffic on I-75 was backed up for miles

I remember thinking how lucky we were that it was on the other side since we had been stuck yesterday with traffic backed up for miles.

Traffic was flowing along nicely on I-75 today until we were about 7 south of Dalton, GA. We had just passed the southern exit to Dalton when traffic came

Heading up to Illinois

We got up this morning at 6:00 and after loading the last minute items in the car, we left the house at 7:45 and headed north on I-95. We took I-95 up to Jacksonville and then I-10 west and got onto I-75 north. We stopped at Camping World at Lake Park, GA and bought a Next Exit book to give to my cousin Frances and a small utility leaf blower for us. We stopped at a Flash Foods in Byron, GA to get gas and paid $1.879 a gallon. 

About 45 minutes after leaving the gas station, the northbound traffic on I-75 came to a halt. We decided to exit I-75 south of McDonough, GA and try to go around the traffic. We took exit 216 and headed north on US-23 into McDonough. We did have traffic backed up in

Preparations for Trip to Illinois

I had made Tinker an appointment with the groomer for this morning and he was clipped and bathed and is ready for the trip.

We spent today running last minute errands in preparation for our trip to Illinois. We stopped at Hale Groves here to buy a couple of bags of oranges to take with us to give to my cousins Jimmy and his sister Frances and we filled the tank in the Outback at Speedway and paid $1.879 a gallon. 

By the time we finished with our errands, we were hungry and decided to stop at Ay Jalisco in Sebastian for dinner before going home and packing the car for our trip. 

We've been watching the weather forecast for Benton, IL and it looks like a cold front will be moving in there about the time we arrive, so we are packing some long sleeve shirts and a jacket for each of us and we should be OK. If it gets too cold for the clothes we packed, there is always Walmart.