We made it. Our goal of 80 days of golf & sightseeing around the USA has come to an end. We arrived home @2pm, did a quick unload of "Old Faithful", took her over to Marty and Janet Finan's house (where she'll be until we sell her in PA or take her back to FL in January to sell), and went to our nearby nearly empty polling location to vote.
Sorry to say that it's been eleven days since our last post. We've had tons of fun since then. When we last reported in, we were on our way to NC to visit family. We first stopped at Mark and Tricia Wilson's, where we enjoyed dinner with them. After a one-night stay (Tuesday) at a local RV park, we drove to the Winston-Salem area, where we spent the next three nights with the Poppe family at Christine and Craig's house. We had a wonderful time with all of them. We played golf three days in a row (twice with Lynne and once with Craig). Wednesday night, we watched our Phillies beat our Rays to win the World Series. An amazing aside to this is that the last time the Phillies won the Series (1980), Jim was visiting the Poppe's. Next time the Phils are in the World Series, we'll make it a point to visit the Poppe's for any potential winning games. On Thursday, Brian and Kisha (and Brooke) drove over from the Raleigh area to celebrate Brian's birthday with us. We were lucky enough to be there for Halloween
night to see Trevor and Elizabeth in their really cool costumes. We left there Saturday am and were given very nice going away gifts from Elizabeth and Trevor - including a mascot for "Old Faithful" that we named "Hippy". Our thanks to everybody!
We next drove to the Smith Mountain Lake area of SW Virginia, to visit with Jim and Gwen Naples. Saturday afternoon, we played golf with Jim, while Gwen babysat the grand kids. That evening we were treated to pasta with the famous Naples sauce (a secret family recipe). After dinner, we sat out by the patio fire pit, and reminisced about old times (and talked politics). Their home is truly beautiful with a terrific view of the lake. Another wonderful visit.Sunday am we headed to NE Virginia to visit with Mike McCullough. Along the way, we stopped
at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford. Bedford was chosen as the site of the Memorial because it had the highest percentage per capita of soldiers killed in action at Normandy on June 6, 1944 (19). It's a well done tribute to those brave soldiers. The ride from Jim and Gwen's to Mike's was spectacular. We must have hit the ultimate peak of fall foliage as we drove along the Blue Ridge Mountains. Unbelievable!We arrived at Mike's house about 3pm, but that didn't deter us from a quick nine holes at his club. We played golf with Mike and his friend, Pat, and went back to the house for a steak dinner afterwards. Yesterday we played a full round at the same club. It turned out to be special, because Jim had his low round of the trip (a three-over 75). That evening, the four of us headed to Bonefish Grille for dinner and more fun. We left Mike's @10 am on E-Day and (as mentioned above) got to Glen Mills about 2pm.
Overall, we traveled just under 11,200 miles in our 80 days on the road. We left PA on August 17 - where we filled up for $4.09/gallon. Today we paid $1.99/gallon in Virginia. That's a drop of more than 50% in 80 days. You probably all think we should stay on the road a little longer.
"Old Faithful" ran great, and we averaged 17-18 mpg on the trip (with lows of @15 mpg in the mountains and highs of @20 mpg in Iowa and Nebraska). We played exactly 40 rounds of golf along the way (an average of once every other day).
We had anticipated that the trip would be fun. We had no idea just how much. It was beyond our wildest expectations. It's nice to be "home', but we wouldn't have minded more time on the road. It was fantastic. Many thanks for reading, and thanks to all of you who welcomed us into your homes along the way. We really do appreciate it and we hope that you can visit us in Florida over the winter.
Warmest regards to everybody,
J&B
