Hi Steve,

We were saddened by the dramatic and heartbreaking loss of your beautiful little mechanical friend.

Thankfully there were no physical injuries and everyone is safe.

While losing your faithful VW bus is undoubtedly painful, we know you'll come up with another great project and create a fun new tagalong friend.

(We echo the sentiment's from Kevin's wonderful card!)

All our best,
Wally, Connie and Zoey

Hopped in the car, left about 10 AM Sunday. Liz drove to Tennessee, I drove through Tennessee and Kentucky. We stopped two hours around 3AM to sleep at a Walmart, no choice... (We encountered a Kentucky DOT trick called a "rolling roadblock!" At 3AM late Sunday night we are dead stopped for road maintenance!!!!)

Drove out of KY to rest stop north of Dayton, slept another hour.

Drove to Canton, in SE Michigan. I had a dentist appt at noon. Bragged to the dentist I had driven 1280 miles to this appt, better be worth it!

Another 3 1/2 hrs on the road and we arrived home around 4PM.

A total of 30 hrs including dds time.

The most tedious, frustrating trip we have ever had. We encountered stop and go traffic every day but one.

Hundreds of trucks, two lanes wide, "passing" on hills, side by side, at 48 mph on the hills. Only left lane gets by (no room for slow coaches either....)

Lost my handy little old VW. Amazing sight. The only quicker way to get rid of a vehicle would be to push it over a cliff!

However, on the bright side, the coach was great, ran perfectly and is "winterized" now. The Sable started right up like it was run yesterday, and ran perfectly all the way back. We closed on the sale of our house near Detroit on Wednesday. Good to have that finalized.

Already looking forward to getting back to the coach and the sunshine soon.

Have Barth, but no toad

With luck like that be thankful you didn't fly down.

My luck is consistent....

Rude homecoming, first day back! (The Mercury was sitting in sunny 80 degrees on Sunday, now 1/2" snow!)

12 degrees this morning, cloudy... leaving for Florida Saturday. I am so ready. We have had snow cover most of November and only 2 days of sunshine.

Here is the car now. More snow on the way tonight.

We are cold for the last few days, but no snow. Steve why Stay till Saturday...hit the road today!!!

Liz and I have DDS appts tomorrow.

Rather than leave and drive on Thursday and Friday through Cincinnati, Knoxville, Atlanta etc with all the trucks and traffic, we have learned our lesson and will leave Saturday and arrive Sunday.

Have Barth, waiting in Fla

drive careful lots of nuts out there. see ya the first of Jan.

See you soon, Tom!

Well, Mother Nature decided that Saturday was a bad idea. The storms that killed over 50 people buried the Midwest.

We got several hours of rain, which killed much of our snow pack, followed by another 3 inches of snow.

Left Sunday morning, finally drove to Florida. We had icy roads the first hour, but sunny and clear. Liz did the payback for all the miles I have driven the coach. She drove from Kalkaska to a rest stop just north of Macon Georgia!

Left Kalkaska at 915 AM. Ohio line at 1 PM. Kentucky line at 430 PM. Tennessee line at 730 PM. Georgia line at 1030 PM. Smooth run through Atlanta by 1150 PM. Stopped at rest area at 100 AM and slept for hour and a half.

I drove at 230 AM until we hit Florida line about 5 AM. So far a smooth run, but wait: the I75 turd fairy found us.
North of Tampa all lanes of 75 were blocked just north of I 4. Traffic backed up for miles. We did stop and go for an hour and made two miles, with two more to go...

I finally bailed onto back roads, added another long hour to an already long trp.

I am begining to think of Tampa like Atlanta....
In October southbound with the coach, we had 1 hour and 20 minutes of stop and go, mid day... on the return trip it was a half hour in the car, mid morning. Now another hour on this trip at about 830 AM. What the hell do I have to do to get by Tampa?

Finally arrived at the park about 1030 AM. Other than the Tampa area it was a good run. The Prius drove 70-80 for 1500 miles. Only got 42 mpg due to cold temps and serious head winds in MI and OH. Not bad for a 12 year old car with 190,000 miles on it.

Sunny and 80 here. I am in shorts and sandals and life is good.

Have Barth, will stay here now!

Welcome back! We came home Sunday and Tampa traffic was fine. Friday going up it was a little heavy, but nothing compared to the jam just north of Venice. 2 semis crashed and we were in it for about 2 hours, not good when you have a leaky brake booster. We were OK though and made it to a rest area for a fresh drink of stop juice.
Still haven't taken on the windshield repair, so when you get a minute to come over maybe you can show me how it's done.
Get settled in and give me a holler when you get the chance.

Thanks Danny. A little weird here without the VW patio room.
Sure was nice to escape Michigan. Tuesday morning 12, Wednesday 17 with nearly a foot of snow. Thought it was January.

Got up this morning 67. Nice. 80 now. Life is good. Attitude improving.

We will see you soon. Still getting things set up for the winter stay.

Getting settled in. I got most of the smoky stuff salvaged from the VW sorted and cleaned up.

Sunny and 80's all week. Cooler today but really nice. We went over to the beach on Monday. (Still strange for me to do this in December!)

I checked sunrise/sunset times for the shortest day of the year. We have one hour and one minute more daylight here before sunrise and 35 minutes more daylight after sunset than Kalkaska! An hour and 36 more minutes and sunshine at that!

Life is good with a Barth in Florida!

Hey Steve, hope this Florida weather isn't getting you down. Day after day of blue skies and near 80 can get to a Michigan guy. Why don't you guys come over this weekend and we'll commiserate together.

Sounds like a good idea. I will check with the boss! We are pretty much settled in finally. Will call you later..

Yeah 10:15 and minus 6 degrees in Minnesnowta life’s a B??ch. Two EE’s are not the letters inserted there.