Duramed Futures Tour

Last week the Duramed Futures Tour made it's stop at the Links at Gettysburg. The Duramed Futures Tour is for lady golfers trying to make the LPGA Tour.

Last year Tom worked as a volunteer for the Pro-Am days as well as the first two days of the tournament. He did the same again this year and we also hosted two of the players. Lili Alvarez from Durango, Mexico and Alissa Kuczka from Phoenix, Az.

We enjoyed having the ladies around for the week, learning about their backgrounds and what they have to go through on the tour. The lifestyle, being on the road for six months out of the year, finding sponsors and funding to stay on tour, and many times not knowing where and with whom you will be staying each week does not hold a lot of glamour. But they are following their dreams of playing in the LPGA.

We were really pulling for the ladies, but they did not make the 36 hole cut. How sad for them and to a degree for us. It is amazing to see how they cope with not making the cut and support their friends that do.

Alissa and Lili if you read this, best of luck to you both and we can not wait to see you both on the LPGA tour.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Well our trip came to an end today as we traveled up I-81 through the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, then through a small part of West Virginia to Maryland. Again the traffic was heavy with truck traffic but did move at a good pace. We stopped at a Ryan's restaurant for lunch in Martinsburg, W.Va and the arrived home about at 2p.m. We traveled 3861 miles these past 6 weeks without any major problems. It was a nice trip- now where do we go next?

Sunday, August 3, 2008

I forgot to mention before, that as we traveled down through Kentucky to Tennessee on Friday we went back into Central time from Eastern time. It just seemed strange to return to Central time since we had changed time zones in the Upper Pennisula of Michigan and we felt we were moving in a southeastern direction. So after 2 days we returned today to Eastern time as we traveled from Crossville, Tennessee to just south of Roanoke, Virginia. The traffic, especially truck traffic, was heavy on I-40 and I-81. We stopped after a little more than 300 miles at Dixie Caverns Campground. This campground could use some cosmetic work although we do have full hook-ups including 50 amp electric, cable TV and WiFi. Tomorrow we plan to be home, with about 270 more miles of travel. Gas prices were close to $4.00 when we started our trip, hit a high of $4.25 and now we are seeing prices as low as $3.55.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Yesterday, August 1, was my bithday. I told Tom the night before that I was not cooking on my birthday and he said "okay". After checking the "Exit Authority" Tom said that we would get up and go about 12 miles down the road and stop at a Cracker Barrel. So we did and I had a wonderful French toast breakfast, not my normal oatmeal breakfast. We drove down I-75 and then picked up Rte. 127 from Danville. It was scenic, hilly and curvy and could have used more guard-railing in some places for my comfort. Along the way there were flea markets set up. We were told later that these fleas markets will be increasing for the next several weeks until the markets will stretch for hundreds of miles through 3 states on route 127.
We checked into Spring Lake Campground in Crossville, Tennessee. And then we finished the day by going to La Costa Restarant for dinner.

This morning after walking around the campground's lake with Travis we set out on a drive in this area. There are many RVers that have settled in this area and we were curious. We stopped and went through an open house of a house situated on a lake- very nice property but the house was much larger than we thought. There is an entire community of homes with RV garages in Crossville. We drove through that area. The community is very attractive and well maintained.
We had contacted a friend, Lois Howard, that lives in the area and arranged to meet. We drove to Lois' home that is being built and then we went to Cooksville for lunch at a Cheddars restaurant. We had a very enjoyable time catching up.

It has been quite warm and humid so the air conditioning is going full blast. Well tomorrow we'll be moving closer to home as we head out I-40 to I-81 up through Virginia.