Olivia Arlene Lunnen was given a name and a blessing this afternoon. It was definitely a special occasion and Kirk gave her a lovely blessing. She has a wonderful disposition. Later this afternoon I was able to hold her for a while and we both fell asleep. Very nice!

After the blessing ordinance was finished, we took several family pictures. Kate wasn’t very happy at the prospect having to be on the floor rather than standing on the couch behind mom and dad. She pulled a very special face! I had to take a few closeups of that pout. She wasn’t able to hold the pout very long, however.

It has finally stopped raining for a while. We had a very nice Saturday (see a previous post). Then I woke up to the sound of rain on the motorhome rooftop. We got up to rain this morning and it continued to rain throughout the morning. When we got out of Stake Conference, the sun was out and the rain was finished. It has been quite windy today, blowing the clouds away as a warm front came through. We should have very nice driving weather tomorrow.

We have had a very nice visit here despite the weather. It is a pretty time of the year to be in this part of the country. We’ve enjoyed spending time with Dawnmarie, Kirk, and the grandkids. Hopefully we’ve also been a bit of a help to Dawnmarie as she recovers from delivering the baby. We’ll leave in the morning for Philadelphia. We hope to arrive around five or six in the evening. The current plan is to not drive on the freeway / toll roads. We’ll take route 422 to Altoona, then drop south to US 30 and drive through Gettysburg and Lancaster on our way to Phoenixville. A nice, leisurely drive eastward. This will be the only driving day where we won’t have to press hard to get the miles behind us. I’m enjoying this small vacation.

The phone here at Dawnmarie’s house has literally rung off the hook this past week. On Monday while Dawnmarie was in the hospital to have the baby the phone ringing started and has continued through the rest of the week. Their circle of friends and acquaintences seems to be quite large here and everyone is calling to offer their congratulations. This was equally apparent when we went up to the college for Kate’s pre-school nursery class Closing Program. The room was crowded with three and four year old children in the class as well as their parents, grandparents, and other family members. In all of that, Dawnmarie and Olivia were the center of attention. It possibly helped that Olivia slept through the entire episode and never made a peep….

I’ve posted a few more pictures in the picture album from the past couple of days. It’s still raining — but now the rain is coming in showers rather than being non-stop. Monday is forecast to be beautiful — which is when we’ll leave here and head eastward towards Philadelphia. We’ll take a leisurely drive that direction and spend some time on Monday evening and Tuesday with Daryl. Then we’ll start the trek westward. It has been a fun, relaxing week here in New Wilmington. I’ve enjoyed the visit.

We have had a lovely visit at Dawnmarie and Kirk’s. Their baby girl, named Olivia Arlene Lunnen, arrived on Monday early evening in fine style. She is a typical beautiful baby and I’m so pleased that all has gone well. Dawnmarie and Olivia came home from the hospital this morning. Of course, Olivia is the center of attention and everyone wants to hold her, touch her, feed her, and kiss her. Olivia should enjoy it while she can as that attention will soon wane. Nina has a great picture of Olivia on her blog. I’ve also posted a few pictures in my picture album.

The weather word has been rain. This afternoon we saw a brief period of sunshine, but the rain soon returned. The forecast suggests that maybe Monday will be a partly sunny day. Of course, that’s when we’ll be leaving! Today it warmed all the way up to 60 degrees while the weather bug is telling me in Pocatello at 8:30 in the evening it is 86 degrees. We’ve spent most of our time inside. Tomorrow Kirk will help me put together a small desk for the passenger side of the motorhome so I’ve got a place to put my computer, or open up a map, or read from a guidebook. We picked up the lumber for it this afternoon and have done the first rough cut. Tomorrow we’ll do the finishing touches and may even make a quick trip to Harbor Freight. Kirk has never been there….!!

The long drive came to an end yesterday evening a little after 5 p.m. EDT when we arrived at Dawnmarie’s home in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. The motorhome is now parked in their driveway and — it’s still raining. The news reports talk about flooding in New England and I believe it is being under-reported. It has been raining incessantly and with great vigor since we arrived. Everywhere there is standing water, water running, water washing away roads, streams and creeks over their banks, and then more water. I think we drove through more water yesterday than Idaho gets in a year….

Dawnmarie is at the doctor’s office for a final checkup. If all is OK, the doctor will break Dawnmarie’s water and a little girl will be born sometime today or this evening. I’m doing bus-driver duty today. I’ll pick Kate up from nursery school at 11:40 (about an hour from now), and then pick the other three kids up from school at 3:15 this afternoon (in the rain, of course). The birds outside don’t seem to mind the rain — they’re all over the yard because, I think, the rain is driving the worms to the surface and the birds are being well fed. I wonder if cows like munching wet grass better that dry grass?? I’m off to ponder more of life’s great mysteries….

“Every major city should have a route around the city,” Nina told me as we were making our way on I-270 around the west side of Columbus, Ohio. It has been raining most of the morning and the temperatures are very cool. The heat in the cab feels good and being outside in a short-sleeved shirt is uncomfortable. There has been a lot of construction on I-70 between the Indiana border and Columbus. We’ve just made the turn north on I-71 towards Cleveland are, once again, in a construction zone. Construction in thse northern states can only really be done in the late spring through early fall, when the traffic volume is also the highest. I’m sure that highway planners would like some other option but so far no one has thought of it.

We have a little less than four hours to go before arriving in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. It will be good to get there and park the motorhome for a week or so. It will be good to not be bouncing around in the vehicle as we maneuver through construction zones!

This is Mother’s Day in the United States. I expect that in thousands of Mormon wards throughout the U.S., the closing song in Sacrament meeting was “There Is Beauty All Around, When There’s Love At Home“. Instead, we listened to a Tabernacle Choir CD this morning. We did Mothers Day a week early last week in Soda Springs, but we also called this morning to wish my mother a Happy Mother’s Day. I’m happy that she’s my mother. We have really enjoyed the past couple of years getting to know both mother and dad once again when we could be much more involved in their lives. Nina and mother talk at least once a day and sometimes more often. When I’m back from Manila in mid-June we’ll start going to the temple once a month with them. I’m looking forward to that time as well. So, Happy Mother’s Day, mother!

There sure is a lot of traffic on the roads today — particularly big truck traffic. With fuel prices as high as they are, most of the trucks are driving about 60 mph to save on fuel. That often makes for long lines of trucks to be passed. We’ve been driving about 65 where the speed limit allows that speed or higher. It does make a difference in the gas mileage. The highest price we’ve paid was the last gas stop where 87 octane was $2.899 a gallon. Previously the highest price was in Limon, Colorado at a price of $2.799 for 85 octane. So, we’re still moving towards New Wilmington. We’ll continue up I-71 to I-76 to Akron and Youngstown, which will merge with I-80 in Pennsylvania. We’ll take Route 60 south to New Wilmington right after we cross into Pennsylvania and the trip will come to an end.

I’ve never before heard of a campground that doesn’t allow after-hours checkins. But I’ve found one. The Good Sam Park in Effingham, Illinois politely declined our reservation and helpfully pointed out some other campgrounds along I-70 that we might try. I decided we’d go a little further east. I called a KOA in Casey, Illinois and not ony were they glad to have us, they said they’d be open until we arrived. That’s nice service. They were open when we got here about 8:30 p.m. CDT. This looks to be (in the dark) a nice campground and is reasonably full for this time of the year. Very friendly people at the front desk, as well. Yesterday was the KOA Free Night of Camping. The lady at the front desk said it was very successful for them. Another very nice thing: this campground has free WiFi. Both Nina and I are sitting at the table in the motorhome connected to the internet, writing in our blogs, and doing email. Life continues to be good!

We went around the south end of Kansas City and took Route 71 south, then Route 7 through Clinton, and finally Route 13 into Springfield. It was a very pleasant drive. There are probably fifty or more antique shops along Route 13. We didn’t stop at any of them, but some looked to be interesting. I want to come back and explore parts of this country some day. There were signs, for instance, touting a restaurant featuring “throwed rolls.” The sign has a drawing of a woman throwing rolls across the room…. I’d kind of like to know what “throwed rolls” means.

We had no trouble finding Jim’s house. It’s a nice home in a quiet neighborhood with a great backyard. We unloaded the buffet, toured the house, and headed eastward. We wanted to get as far east as possible to shorten the drive tomorrow. We’re about 105 miles from Indianapolis and almost out of the State of Illinois. I think we’ve got about ten hours of driving tomorrow so we should definitely get there in time to watch the finale of Survivor. We’ll spend more time there on the way back and hopefully post a few pictures. Ta Ta For Now!

We’ve arrived in Springfield, Missouri and have about 20 minutes until we get to Jim’s house. The directions are clear and the map says it’s not difficult. Driving across country is an interesting experience. I’m always impressed with how large the country is and how much open space there is. I’ve been told that we could take the area from the Canadian border to the Texas border, from the Rocky Mountains east to the Atlantic Ocean and put the entire population of the world in that space and be able to give every family an acre of ground. Someday I’ll need to verify that, but driving across Kansas and Missouri sure seems to validate the theory.

We’ve seen a lot of police on this trip. We’ve been driving around 65 or so and thus below the speed limit, so that has been no worry. However, yesterday afternoon and this morning we had folks fly by us at speeds in excess of 90 mph — and a mile or so down the road, we pass them while they’re getting a ticket. Sweet! This morning’s incident had a sports car flying past us and sqeezing between to cars ahead of us. Had that not worked, we would also have been in the accident as there wouldn’t have been to avoid all the cars flying around. We particularly appreciated seeing him off to the side of the road with two police cars! Ahhhh, joy!