Subj : Go West was: Real Deal To : Dave Drum From : Ruth Haffly Date : Sun Apr 28 2024 15:15:40 Hi Dave, DD> I'd not want to do it pulling a cramper trailer. But, other than a few DD> areas of urban sprawl it can be a pretty drive. And once in RH> We've towed on all kinds of roads so it wouldn't be a problem. As long RH> as the GPS is accurate and traffic is flowing well, cities are not a RH> problem. Last year we went thru Austin on a Saturday afternoon--lots RH> more traffic and construction than we'd anticipated but the GPS was RH> accurate and we got thru without incident. DD> How did we get along before the GPS driving coach? Road maps and atlas books. The GPS is much easier to use--we got our first one in late 2006/early 2007 (in GA, after coming back from HI). It's a lot easier to plug a destination into the box and let it do the calculating than to do it yourself, especially on our cross country trips. DD> Canuckistan you can jump on the 401, one of Canada's nice East-West DD> highways and zoom west until you get to to Windsor. Then drop back DD> into USA and the Interstate system and keep on West until one of DD> the daughters is near. DD> Shawn messaged me that "zooming" on the 401 will be clogged with DD> traffic. But I thik that just in the urban sprawl of Toronto. Which, depending on the time of day, day of the week, may/may not be too bad. Coming thru Atlanta on I-85 is usually no picnic but several years ago we went thru it around 8pm on a week night. All the back ups, traffic jams, etc were gone so going thru, even towing, was not a problem. RH> we're usually gone about a month with them. Interesting, along the way, RH> shopping in different supermarkets--found a Lowe's out in New Mexico RH> that claimed no affiliation with the NC chain but did carry the same RH> house brands. Harmon's, just down the road from our daughter in UT, has RH> a good sized store that is very similar to Wegman's, maybe closer to RH> Publix or a big Harris Teeter but a fun store to shop in. DD> Never shopped in a Lowe's grocery store. Just their hardware/lumber/ DD> plumbing stores. And I find that I prefer Menard's (who carry DD> groceries at really good price points) overall. We've got both the supermarket and the hardware/lumber chain here in WF. Used to, when we first moved here, we shopped the supermarket quite a bit as it was convenient to where we lived. DD> For groceries locally I prefer Hy-Vee for staples, Humphrey's for meat DD> and store-bought produce. With Hy-Vee I can order staple items, have DD> their minions pick the and bag order and put it in my car - if I buy a DD> U$25 or more order. And we know that's not hard to do in today's DD> economy. Most all of the stores around here do that but we still do our own shopping and furnish the bags for baggers. Or, we'll take them out to the truck in the buggy and bag them ourselves if we've not grabbed the bags on the way in. Most of our shopping is done at Wegman's, for convenience, value, etc. Food Lion had a special on London broil so we went there so Steve could get some to make jerky--that's where I had the fall. The back is doing much better now, still have some "nice" bruises but getting around a lot better. RH> ... Books are better than TV; they exercise your imagination. DD> True dat. If youm watch the tube or the mvies you get the director's DD> vision of what the author meant. Reading a book your mind builds your DD> own vision .... Exactly! Fun part of our first echo picnic was putting faces with names. We'd met a few folks in the first 13 years or so we were on the echo but got to meet a lot more "in real life" at the event the Shipps hosted in 2007. --- Catch you later, Ruth rchaffly{at}earthlink{dot}net FIDO 1:396/45.28 .... Nothing is ever lost. It's just where it doesn't belong. --- PPoint 3.01 * Origin: Sew! That's My Point (1:396/45.28) .