Buttons

Making upholstery buttons for the GMC dinette. Arrow shows the shorter ram I made so I could use the reloading press for the button die. Middle image is the die, cutter, and a fabric circle ready to assemble. Top image is the die in the press and some finished buttons. Made both wire eye and prong back buttons for this project.

Christmas gathering

We had a Christmas Buffet. Ham AND turkey. An additional ham Jerry Pat saw the camera and cheesed it up.

Eastern Oklahoma mini road trip

We got to go three days down to eastern Oklahoma. Went in the Yaris this time.
It gets GREAT mileage. Here it is in Louisburg Kansas just off HWY 69 on the way south.

Oklahoma 10 in the eastern side of the state

Talimena scenic byway

This is overlook is on Talimena byway in Oklahoma. There is a tremendous variety of landscape in Oklahoma.

The end of the Niagara Falls trip

I got the order of this trip blog reversed and the end is on top!
After cruising Indiana and Illinois we crossed into Iowa and drove north on part of the great river road that we had not done before. This short stretch is gravel. I believed MS streets and trips and got on a dead end with a steep hill to get back out of. Was glad to get back up as the tires were at their traction limit.
We got back home the next day. 2661 miles and $679 for gas. For nine nights and what we saw I think it was a bargain!

More Ohio. We spent the night at the Stockholm's in Xenia Ohio. They are GMC'ers who we met at at a GMC rally. Both of them had the day off by chance and they were gracious enough to spend the evening and morning with us. It was suggested that we check out the museum at Wright Patterson air force base which we did and spent the afternoon there.

Had Gyros salads in Mansfield Ohio. Talked to a lady who was building a boat In Paraguay at a shop Sue was haunting. She was in Ohio for relatives and was very interesting to talk to. The boat was their life's dream and was under construction in Paraguay and when the builder couldn't finish they had to go down and do it themselves. Labor is less there and that is how got construction started there. She said they had to import about everything but the workers were good. It is a diesel catamaran no sails with an engine in each hull for backup. Boat is a fiberglass displacement hull with a 17 knot cruise speed. Said she imported lots of fiberglass. No wind generator but maybe some solar panels. She had just got an Iridium satellite phone and was not going to put in a HF radio setup. I was going to ask about a water maker and some other stuff but it was time to move on.

We finally got out of the snow the weather turned more like the fall I was expecting. We stopped at a Ohio state park to look around.

This was Pennsylvania still running south to get out of the snow.

This was south of Batavia and the roads were still warm enough that snow didn't build up.

This is what we woke up to in Batavia. The other Wally was right and we needed to go south. Hoping to avoid lake effect snow we stayed east of the lakes. The snow got worse.

This is Lake Ontario east of Fort Niagara. We saw another GMC parked along the way and stopped to chat. No one was home so I was putting a card on the windshield and the owner drove up. He has owned his for 14 years and had it outside because he lost storage in the barn he had it in and was fixing to get inside another place. His name was Wally also! He asked where we were going and said we should not go much farther east as there was a snow storm coming. Hmmm, I was operating on a 3 day old forecast so we took his advice and went south to Batavia NY.

Crossed over to Canada at Buffalo NY. Canadian customs was kind of different this time. We had our passports and nothing to hide. The officer was kind of a hard guy and questioned me and must not have liked what or how I answered. I thought I was being polite. They ended up searching the coach for a little while and made us sit on a bench outside. Finding nothing they let us go on our way. We did overhear him say to another officer "that is quite a chariot". He did notice the clear engine cover and Sue told him that way we can see where the gas is going. Drove on up to Niagara Falls and got an $8 all day parking spot at the Skylon tower. Walked down the the Falls and it was not the tourist season, cold windy and not many others there. Had a pricey lunch at Planet Hollywood and headed back across to the US. The US customs officer had a trainee and she was trying to be serious. The guy had never seen a GMC before (too young) and I was eating gummy worms and speaking thru the small side window. He was laughing and she got stuck when we didn't have an answer where we were staying. I said wherever we stop we stay and I didn't know for sure. They let us back in without a search.
We headed north to Lake Ontario and Fort Niagara. The image shows the Toronto skyline across the lake You can just barely see it and the wind was blowing hard out of the north. The image will enlarge if you click it.

We got some time off and got in a nine night road trip. We thought when we left that Niagara Falls would be the general direction to go.
Here is the GMC in Lackawanna New York.