Heading East - Homeward Bound

Time to land this plane.  Getting situated back into “normal” life got in the way of finishing up episoding our trip.  So this is the concluding installment on our Coast-to-Coast Roadtrip 2023.  

As you might remember, our trip was planned out to hit these highlight along the way from our starting point (Norfolk, VA) to our mid-point (San Diego/Del Mar, CA) and back home.

We got as far as Pensacola, Fl before our final two days changed somewhat to this 

Things mostly went according to the original plan but we were unable to get a good tee time near Jacksonville (at TPC Sawgrass) so we charted a more direct route home after Pensacola.

To pick up where we left off on our trek, we left Del Mar, CA and traveled to Tucson, AZ for an overnight stay with eldest brother Marty and wife Elena.  They had returned a few days earlier from our week long Brother's and Wive’s Reunion in Albuquerque.  

They have a beautiful home with a great view of the golf course out their backyard.

Before we departed, Marty and I had time to go to the RV campground where he is storing his new MH.  I walked him through some of the finer points of emptying his tanks.

We always love going to Tucson (actually Saddlebrook which is a few miles north of Tucson).  The majestic Catalina Mountains (one of our all-time favorite places) were on full display.

After Tucson, we continued on I-10 and drove to Deming NM.  Along the way we tried to absorb the beauty of the Sonoran Desert with its huge vistas, open skies and distant mountains.  There is nothing like the view in all the world.  It was spectacular.  

Our travel routine seemed to be working out:  I get going with the driving for an hour or 90 min, Pam takes over at a rest stop along the way. I take a short nap and while she drives fand then we trade off every hour or two during the day.  We drove between 350-450 miles each day, depending on which leg of the trip we were on. 

From Deming, we went through El Paso, TX, which seemed in great shape.  The interstate was good and even looking across the border from the highway, we couldn’t really tell much about the border situation.  We purposely did not plan on a stay in the city because safety concerns were on our minds.  Also, while at our La Quinta hotel in Deming the night before, we saw some Army personnel who were there on assignment.  They were working on the border security operations but understandably could not say they were working on border security operations.

From Deming, we drove through El Paso, and then had an overnight stop in Midland, TX. The next day we continued on to the Fort Worth TX area (Aledo, TX) and a couple of nights with Brad and Sue.  We thoroughly enjoyed our time with them and got to hang out and recharge for a minute.

Brad and I snuck in 18 holes of golf at his favorite local course and it was a lot of fun.

They too, have a very nice place and there home borders a golf course.  

From Aledo, we drove over to see our lifelong friend Betty.  She lives in Frisco, north of Dallas.

It is always so good to see her and spend a few moments together.  We first met her and her husband (Brent-now deceased) in the mid 1980s while we were stationed in Hawaii with the USAF.

Later that day we drove over to Houston TX to have dinner with Brad and Sue’s two boys and their families.  We were reminded again that rush hour Houston traffic is a bit tough.

Gladly, we made our way to our hotel without incident, then met everyone at Mark and Dean-na's (And Kayley’s).  (Above at the top in the picture at a local restuarant.) 

And we met nephew Drew and his fiancé Chelsey.  It was a great evening together.

After a good night’s rest, we had a long driving day to Pensacola FL.  We were fortunate to be able to stay at the Navy Lodge which is just down the street from the Navy’s Blue Angels.  It is also not far from the Oak Grove RV campground at Pensacola Naval Air Station where we stayed many times.

There, we were glad to be able to find a good seafood restaurant for dinner.

The evening sunset on the beach was terrific.

The sunset was only matched by the sunrise at the beach.  Pretty cool to see a group of Navy people out playing volleyball before 6 am.

Then, we had the joy of meeting up with long time friend, Bill. Brother Bill and wife Linda (now deceased) and their four littles ones were at the Christian Serviceman’s Center in Kunsan AB, Korea in 1979-80 when Pam and I were stationed there.

It was another great time catching up and sharing about our children who are all grown now. We met for breakfast and then had to head on down the road.  

One more overnight stop--this time in Greenville, SC.  We pushed on for day 29 of our Coast-to-Coast Roadtrip 2023.  

Back home we have plenty to do.  It rained a lot and they guy I had lined up missed mowing my lawn.  But I love to mow grass (maybe from my early days working on the golf course?) so that got taken care of pretty quickly.  Pam’s garden was thriving but we had a lot of work to do there too.

We hardly recognized the boys the next day when they came over.  How can they change so much in 29 days?  

Grandma put them to work doing what they love to do -- working in the garden and this time harvesting produce from the raised garden area.

Here they are pulling up the carrots that were ripe and ready to eat.

It was great to be home!

We drove over 6846 miles averaging 20.2 mpg.  We had a full and glorious time seeing everyone and have memories galore.  It was simply fantastic. 

That’s it for this edition of the Roadrunner Chronicles.  Thanks for joining us.