It is Saturday morning and things are a little cloudy both outside and inside my head, as we expected the Ward family has accepted us like part of the family, this was a destination Miss Laurie and I had decided on in early summer when our schedule made it very apparent that a summer visit was not going to happen. The Ward family home is beautiful, and the property around the home is almost a park setting with the back yard being home to a pond, that has been the family gathering spot for years. When we last seen Butch and Betty they were talking about selling this family home and moving into a new build in a nearby subdivision, but have since decided instead to do a number of renovations to their home that make it a more open concept, obviously a great decision. Their home could grace any magazine, the detail to workmanship, design, decoration, and functionality, but any one that spent any time with the Wards would expect nothing less.

So our Saturday started with fresh perked coffee and some butter pecan moonshine, and progressed from there, we were treated to a tour of the area, we seen Luke’s homestead (Butch and Betty’s son) and some of the more than 700 acres that he works, we seen where Lindsay and Brian live (their daughter and son in law) we toured downtown Pemberville, which Butch lovingly referred to small town USA, and as we walked into the local grocery Butch was greeted by name, and as he picked up what would become the evenings dining experience that Brian was going to prepare for us for dinner it became very apparent how proud Butch was of his, town, state, and family. We toured the area and seen how that most of their family live just within a few miles of family home, it is a wonderful little town, and as we drove around Miss Laurie commented on how much pride everyone shows with how well taken care of all the properties were.

We then ventured off to Bowling Green, which is an university town located on I-75 just south of Toledo and about ten miles west of Pemberville, again a clean little town with lots of locally owned fast food / pizza / bars & pubs which cater to the university crowd which almost doubles the population of Bowling Green every fall at enrolment time. We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant (average people) that featured bloody Mary’s and Mimosa’s, what could possibly go wrong…lunch was great, other than I eat way to much. We headed back to Pemberville and made a couple of stops on the way to visit and get to know the Ward family, and their life on a day to day basis. And as we hurried back to the family home our thought was, there might be enough time for a little nap before the dinner preparations started…but things don’t always work out as planned…

Now dinner and the preparations were a true dining experience, picture a 64 ounce (almost 2 kg) Tomahawk Steak, I know how difficult that might be so I managed a couple of pictures just to help, well Brian (Lindsay’s Brian) marinated this chunk of beef then grilled it to perfection, it was melt in your mouth, cut it with a fork kind of perfection. That we were able to enjoy with the Ward family, and was followed by Butch’s world famous brandy Alexander’s blended to perfection as well. This has been a great visit, we have talked for two days and the conversations flowed almost as freely as the cocktails, to be welcomed into the Ward family as we have is quite overwhelming and has touched our hearts.

These last two days have been a whirlwind of events, we have met so many members of the family, enjoyed seeing all the places of which Butch and Betty had spoke of last winter, that this visit will stay with us forever, it has been an honour to be invited, and as we plan our departure tomorrow we will leave with heavy hearts knowing that it will be another five months or so before we get to visit the Ward family again.

Day 761

Well it was a windy night, not too bad for cold but just windy, rain off and on through out the night, it was like a war zone here last night. By midnight we had a couple of shopping carts that had ran into the coach. It is 38 or 3 degrees this morning, so I have cranked up the generator to recharge the batteries, and allow me to run the space heater, the forecast high here today is 42 or 6, those are heading south numbers. We only travelled 32 miles yesterday and only brought in 9 amp hours of solar, the forecast here is overcast and windy but our destination is looking cool but sunny, so we are hoping to get a good solar day and a nice sunny day will keep the coach warm as we head west to Pemberville OH.

Now Pemberville may not be a destination on everyone’s must visit locations, but Miss Laurie and I have been looking forward to this visit a very long time, it is the home of the Ward family. No not the Ward family from the old TV show but the home of Butch and Betty Ward and their family, we spent a number of months with Butch and Betty over last winter at Oak Grove park in Florida. They are some of the kindest people I have ever met, except Butch got us hooked on brandy Alexander’s, pickle ball, and the game of corn hole of which, I have discovered it can be a great drinking game, I also discovered I am not real good at it, but according to Miss Francine, I just need to practise more!

So today is going to be a big day for us today, we normally only drive up to four hours a day, which while seeming pretty slow for most travellers, seems to fit our style quite well, but today looks like it could be a five hour plus day which is more than usual, but certainly doable. So our plan is to try to be on the road by 9 am, heading west on I-90 out of New York, through the tip of Pennsylvania, into Ohio past Cleveland onto I-80 then to Pemberville. The GPS has it at the best part of five hours but that doesn’t account for fuel and lunch stops. We would have normally drove a couple of hours after crossing the border, and ended at a Casino parking lot just outside of Erie PA but the rain was so miserable yesterday, and we were so late crossing we just shut it down in Niagara Falls.

Well it was a big day for us we covered 315 miles (507 kms) into our third state, so the GPS was pretty accurate we pulled out of Naiagra Falls a few minutes after 9am and our first stop was just outside of Cleveland OH. Where Miss Laurie made us a grilled cheese for lunch, now there was no napping today as I wanted to get through Cleveland before any sign of heavy traffic, and I pleasantly surprised with the road condition through Cleveland, nice rebuilt road 5 or 6 lanes all the way through. It was a cold drive in Thunder with a cold wind off of Lake Erie and heavy cloud so no help from the sun at all until after Cleveland then the sun came out, and the temperature went up close to ten degrees in the coach. We stopped for fuel at the service plaza on I-80 we were able to dump our tanks for free and then put a little more than 30 gallons (115 litres) into the diesel tank, now that did not totally fill the tank but with a credit card purchase at most pumps they shut you off at $100 dollars, so we just fuel accordingly. We were still above half a tank but because the generator and the heater pull from the same tank we always stop with at least 3/4 of a tank, specially when it’s cold enough to need the boiler on for heat.

Uh So we pulled into Pemberville just before 4pm (see a really big day for us almost six hours I will be putting in for overtime on this one) and were greeted by Butch, who had driven out to met us. We disconnected the towed and I backed into a spot in their driveway for the night. The rest of the afternoon was spent over a cocktail or two catching up and enjoying a great home cooked meal, we have met a lot of people over the first two years of doing this, but there some that just fit into a different level of friendship, the make up the group that we lovingly refer to as our RV family, and Butch and Miss Betty are in that category of friends. We are going to spend a day or two here so more later…I have to close now because Miss Laurie says I get a little wordy at times and I have a feeling this could be one of those times…it’s just because I have so much to say…just saying!

Day 760