Pining for the Fjords

Howdy, everyone!  Things have been progressing like crazy at the new house, and I promise to put together a blog entry with tons of pictures here soon (well, soon-ish - we're still pretty busy).  In the meantime, however, how about a filler post on what we've been getting up to around town when we're not unpacking boxes and making wallpaper decisions?  I'll take that as a yes, so here we go! Happy to be in the new house! As of 2022, our new home of Richmond had around 36,000 residents; most of these are full-time, but Richmond also houses around 10,000 students attending Eastern Kentucky University , or EKU.  The city has a small historic downtown with a nearby area devoted to the University campus as well as a bypass road running around the perimeter of both. Our house is on the outside of the bypass ring, past the local Nissan dealership; according to the folks in the city recycling office, our address is in Richmond, but we're not technically within city limits (

Did you read Part 6 of the blog?  You should - it's a good one - it's got yummy food, national parks, and potentially inclement weather! A tired Zoe is enjoying staying in place for more than two days at a time Since we'd spent Saturday night in Grayville, Illinois instead of St. Louis, our expected eight hour drive to our Airbnb in Winchester, Kentucky (northeast of Lexington) was reduced a bit.  This meant we could take our time waking up on Sunday morning; Chris started an extremely thorough flush of the tanks, since we didn't have plans to use the rig after this (other than to drive it to a service spot and be like, "please fix the slide!"); I took a shower and then headed to nearby New Harmony, Indiana to Black Lodge Coffee Roasters for breakfast and caffeine options. The drive was lovely - it is so green in this area of the country right now due to all the rain - but I could see why the flood warnings were justified.  We didn't experience any iss

In Part 5 of the blog, we traveled past Uranus to make it to the Gateway to the West, St. Louis, Missouri! Family Arch selfie! Despite the KOA St. Louis West RV park being crowded on a Friday night, everyone was extremely respectful (even the screaming Boxer), and we slept pretty well (a little bit of freeway noise and a few trains, but that's to be expected).  This would be our day to see St. Louis (what we could see with these two nuts in tow, of course), and we started off with a good breakfast of pancakes and bacon, as well as a meander around the grounds. The girls near the stream that runs through the back of the KOA's property Breakfast time! Before too long, we were on the road, heading east into St. Louis proper, about a 30 minute drive.  As we drew closer, we started to catch glimpses of its star attraction and our first destination, Gateway Arch National Park . I see it! I see it from a different angle! We parked in a lot near our lunch pick, the downtown location