One week and 1618 miles: miles 0 - 487

We left Sunday (mile 0) at 10a and headed to our hometown of Wilmington (OH).

When we stopped for fuel (mile 102), we saw a dually from South Dakota also fueling.  "You're not from South Dakota, either, are you?", I asked.  "Nope.  We're full time RV'ers."  The club is large.

While I was a senior (and Connie was a sophomore), our high school had a Rotary Exchange student from Australia named Rob McKerras.  He and his two children were going to be back in town to visit, so Connie and I headed there to meet him and some other old friends (mile 256) that were having a picnic for him at J.W. Denver Williams, Jr. Memorial Park.

Bye, Bye Birdie from
my senior year in high school

Rob was 'Conrad Birdie' in Bye, Bye, Birdie that year.  Was supposed to have been "my role", but he moved in and was really terrific.  That's Rob in the foreground, me in the back in a choir robe.

Had a great time, saw some people we hadn't seen in almost 35 years.  Lots of catching up.

The Murphy Theater

We stayed the night at Connie's parents who still live in Wilmington (different bed #1 of the week).  Monday, I went downtown for some nostalgia and to put out some munzees.  It was a treat to be given a tour of the Murphy Theatre.  Hadn't been in there for quite a few years.  Great video about her here.  Monday was also Connie's Mom's birthday and we celebrated by taking her out to Bob Evans.

Tuesday, we had decided to hook up her parents car to their car caddy and drag it to Cleveland and our daughter's house.  They were going to dog sit our girls and Bethany's dog while we were off to Baltimore.

We had all kinds of problems that could have been alleviated if I'd have worked at it Monday.  Oz (Connie's dad) had a different light adapter than we thought, and we couldn't find the light bar for the tow vehicle.  His RV is out for repairs, so we had to make a couple of trips out there.  Alas, it was buried in his shed.  We hooked it up, realized he was missing a couple of pins also.  So, off we went to Tractor Supply.

We worked on the lights while Connie and her mother (Dorothy) ate in Arby's.  It was a lost cause.  Too many problems, bad wires/connections.  After about two hours of messing around, we decided to just run the flashers and get on the road.

We arrived at Bethany's house (mile 487) around 5p on Tuesday, had some pizza and settled in for the night (different bed #2).