Colorado Springs

We spent 8 days in Colorado Springs going to doctor, dental, optometry and haircut appointments. Our friend Wendy came for dinner on Friday night at Cheyenne Mountain State Park and we caught up since she visited us in Key West last March.

On Sunday night we enjoyed seeing old friends Rick and Diana at a new, small craft brewery, Peaks N Pine. 

On Monday we enjoyed dinner at Olive Garden and visiting with my two daughters and two granddaughters. Our oldest granddaughter Audrey turned 13 in July and is in 8^th grade. Hannah is 10 and is in 5^th grade.

 

Our friends Mike and Candy and their daughter Misha joined us for dinner on Wednesday night. It was cool and rainy so we ate inside the motorhome. On Thursday night, our long-time friend Cheryl and Julie’s sister Deborah joined us for dinner.

We departed Colorado Springs last Friday, and after an overnight in Alamosa, arrived at Navajo State Park last Saturday, August 27^th. We’re spending two weeks here just hanging out and relaxing.

 

Steve & Julie Cornelius

New Home

We overnighted on Tuesday, August 16^th at St. Vrain State Park near Longmont. On Wednesday we took delivery on our new 2016 Winnebego Tour 42QD motorhome. We spent all day at Camping World of Longmont doing the walk-through, paperwork, and waiting for the technicians to move our Air Force One braking system from our old motorhome to the new one. Finally, about 3:30PM, we began moving into the new motorhome. It took us nearly 4 hours.

We finally left Longmont around 7:30PM and headed south on I-25 through Denver and Colorado Springs, arriving at Cheyenne Mountain State Park around 9:30PM. We were exhausted from the move and glad to finally get settled in for the night. 

We’re in Colorado Springs until next Friday, August 26^th and will be busy with doctor, dental, optometry and haircut appointments. We also plan to visit with family and as many friends as we can while we’re here.

 

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Iowa-Nebraska

We overnighted in Amana, Iowa on Monday, August 8^th and headed to Forest City, Iowa on Tuesday. On the way we stopped for lunch at The Machine Shed, a Midwestern chain offering home-style cooking. The food was very good.

We arrived in Forest City at the Winnebego Service Center where we had a 2-day appointment to have our cracked windshield replaced, the dash A/C unit repaired and front-door electronic lock repaired. They are always busy there and many RV owners show up without an appointment but wait on the stand-by list.

 

We enjoyed dinner out at Mitchell's in Leland near Forest City for their all you can eat fried chicken and ribs. Very good!

 

Friday morning, Aug 12^th we drove to my hometown, Denison, Iowa for a 2-night stay at Yellow Smoke County Park. It’s a very nice park with small fishing lake, swim beach, and many RV sites with electric and water. They don’t take reservations and it’s tough sometimes to get a camp site in this very popular park. My step-sister Karen and brother-in-law Joe snagged a campsite for us the day before we arrived.

 

 

On Saturday night we enjoyed dinner with our old friends Tedd and Nancy. Tedd and I graduated from high school together.

Sunday morning we drove 70-miles to the Offutt AFB family campground near Omaha. We visited with old friends Sal and Terri who moved from Colorado Springs a year ago. Their new house in Bellevue was spacious. We visited awhile and then enjoyed dinner at Roma Italian Restaurant.

We continued heading west and arrived in Colorado on Tuesday, August 16^th. We’re staying overnight at St. Vrain State Park near Longmont. Colorado State Parks are giving all military veterans a free park pass for the month of August. That’ll save us $7.00 / day for the two weeks we’re here.   

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Fairborn, Ohio

We left the Philadelphia area last Thursday and headed west across Pennsylvania. We overnighted in Washington, PA at a small KOA. There are very few campgrounds in Pennsylvania and those that exist are built in the hills. This KOA had its office at the bottom of the hill and the campsites on top of the hill. The campsites were terraced into the side of another hill. It wasn’t ideal, but good enough for an overnight stay.

Friday we drove to Fairborn, Ohio for a 2-night stay at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base FamCamp. We arrived early enough to go to the commissary and pick up some groceries.

Julie wanted to relax on Saturday, if you call cleaning and doing laundry relaxing. I wanted to go back to the National United States Air Force Museum to see the displays in the new Hanger 4. We both enjoyed a full day visiting the museum in July 2013. It was much more than old aircraft on display. It is a very large museum (3 hangers then, 4 now), very well organized, many displays, and detailed history of the Air Force.

The new Hanger 4, opened on June 7, 2016, included four galleries on space, research & development, global reach (airlift), and presidential aircraft.

It was special for me to see the "Hanoi Taxi" C-141 aircraft that transported the POWs out of Hanoi at the end of the Vietnam war.

It was very interesting to walk through each of the presidential aircraft (FDRs, Truman's, Eisenhower's and the historic Special Air Mission 26000 Air Force One which served 8 presidents (Kennedy through Clinton).  

 

 

 

Today we drove from Fairborn, Ohio, across Indiana, through Indianapolis, northwest into Illinois. We’re overnighting at a very nice campground in Champaign, IL. Tomorrow we head to Amana, Iowa to overnight and then arrive in Forest City, Iowa on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we’re going to the Winnebego service center to get our motorhome windshield replaced and a couple of other small repairs done.   

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Philadelphia

We arrived safely at Timberlane Campground this past Tuesday and were pleasantly surprised. It was a nicely maintained campground and very convenient to visit Philadelphia.  

We decided to go into Philadelphia yesterday but first we had to get breakfast at a typical New Jersey diner. We pick out a diner called Cherry Hill Diner and drove about 20 minutes to get there. The breakfast was very good, especially the hash browns, with everything homemade. We picked this diner because it was fairly close to the train station, where we would take a subway into downtown Philadelphia.

 

 

The subway was only about a 25-minute ride to where we disembarked at 8^th & Market, just two blocks from the Independence National Historical Park. Julie has visited Philadelphia before but I never had, so it was especially interesting for me. Walking to the park we passed by Declaration House. This was the actual site where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

 

 

Next, we visited Liberty Bell Center. There were many visitors there but not too crowded.

Then we walked a few blocks down the street to Franklin Court to a small post office to get a post card stamped with a special Benjamin Franklin post mark. We decided to visit the Benjamin Franklin Museum run by the National Park Service. It was very interesting and presented a chronological history of his life, including his printing businesses, travels, and inventions. I was surprised to learn that his printing businesses did so well that he was able to retire when he was 42. It also surprised me that he invented a better streetlight, bifocal eyeglasses, a wood burning stove known today as the “Franklin stove”, and much work with electricity.

Finally we walked up to the famous Reading Terminal Market near the convention center to have an early dinner. The Reading Terminal Market, established in 1892 is the nation’s oldest continuously operating farmers’ market. We both tried authentic Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches and they were very good.

We headed west today across Pennsylvania and the drive was very hilly, crossing both the Appalachian and Allegany mountain ranges, even on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. .

Steve & Julie Cornelius

New York City

We met with my sister Marcia and brother-in-law Mike on Saturday in Jersey City, NJ at the Liberty Harbor RV Park. It began raining shortly after we got set up. We rode with Mike & Marcia and went out for dinner at Harold's New York Deli, somewhere past the Newark airport. The portions were absolutely huge.

 

Sunday morning we headed out to visit Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, which Julie and I had never visited before. We took a tour boat from New Jersey’s Liberty State Park. The Ellis Island museum was extremely interesting. From the 1890s until the beginning of World War I, some 12 million immigrants came through Ellis Island. It was interesting that 40% of today’s current U.S. population is either one of those Ellis Island immigrants or a decedent of one of those immigrants.

 

We enjoyed visiting the Statue of Liberty. We had seen it before from Battery Park, but had never been out to the island.

 

Yesterday, Monday morning, we rode with Mike & Marcia and drove into New York City from Jersey City. We found an underground parking lot and then walked to the World Trade Center. We spent several hours at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Julie and I had not been to the WTC site since September 2002 and the new museum and memorial opened in 2011. It was very extensive, detailed and emotionally moved us to tears.

 

We spotted a NYPD Smart Car near the WTC. Then we headed to China Town for an early dinner.

Today we drove about 100-miles to Clarksboro, NJ and Timberlane Campground, which is the closest campground to Philadelphia.

Steve & Julie Cornelius