Sugar Starts...

Susan, myself and a nice lady sitting next to me...

Not a lot to write about today as it has mainly been taken up with classes...

Anita Shakleford

Page Johnson

The best part about today was talking to people..... especially those that you get to know online only to  walk past them in the corridor.... though I think thanks to the blog I keep seeing people looking at me like they recognised... I smile back and hope that they might come over for a chat...

Jo Blade... hey what happened to the quilt on the screen

Here no flash....

it is so funny.... now we don't have an accent but if I had a dollar everytime someone says to us.... "I could just stand here and listen to you talk all day "   LOL  I would be rich.... funny thing is I think the same thing LOL.....

My new Mates... Georgia and Ivan Stull....

Hey Ros!!! I have new bling for our cruise.....

Weather Report from Columbia....

eeeww... it's raining, it's pouring a storm is a brewing.....

As I look out my window it looks really bleak... and those clouds that sped past my window looked ominous.... are we in tornedo country

Sunday in Columbia

Susan Checking in.... looks like Al is lending a hand,,,

There is really not much to report day... unless you want to hear about another day of mindlessly wandering around the shops, wondering if you are missing out on a real bargin if you don't look harder...

Slowly but surely the hotel seems to be filling up with other Sugar Attendees...

Ivan and Georgia Stull ... co presidents

This evening we had the SUGAR ( different to the conference suger ) meeting where the committee introduced themselves.  Once again we were introduce to Mildred and Paul Statler who were given a standing ovation.....

Finally Columbia Missouri and Sugar

a sad farwell

We had a bit of a sleep in today and we were all ready to leave by 9am... as we drove off we were waved off by the 4 that we left behind....

we now have our own parking spot

It was not a big driving day today but we had to fill in time before we reached the hotel....
Well it must be at least 2 days since we had been to a Walmart so that was our first mission today....

Most importantly our remaining contingent need to once again stock up suitcases. Once again there was an hour of shopping frenzy with trolleys heading in all directions...




bags galore

Then we headed to a little town called Rochport where we were able to wander around the many little antique shops an buy a little lunch if you wanted it....

Then it was Columbia here we come.... only 11 miles away.... we were all starting to get a little nervous when we looked around the bus and saw everything that had to come off....  Suddenly we were faced with having to get our own luggage off the bus and into our rooms.... the scary part is that this is a trial of what to expect when we try to get around the airport.





We said our sad goodbyes to Howard and Bobby ( don't think you could wipe the smiles of their faces ... no not really) . Luckily our rooms were ready as our biggest fear was that we would have to sit in the foyer with our mounds of Luggage...

Once the dust had settled we now had to prepare to head out to Paul and Mildred Statler for a welcoming BBQ.



Our limousine was a big yellow school bus which Kim Diamond had organised for us... Once out there Paul welcomed us and had his tractor and trailer ready to take us all on a tour of the farm.... this worked well until we were on the other side of the ridge and the tractor broke down... Paul tried to ring Mildred but service was low...  Dawn and I decided to be hero's and walk back to the party for help.... as we walked over the rise everyone back at the BBQ just looked at us... probably thinking we were coming back for a drink.... we waved .... they waved back..... we arrived and told them of our plight and they laughed..... Mildred and Bruce jumped into the other little tractor to save the day....  It was a funny site to see the little tractor pulling the big tractor and trailer back.

I'll just ring Mildred

saved by the Kabuto

our wonderful hosts

Now Al what did you say about us and Hancocks!!!

Back at the hotel we were being stopped by other Sugar attendee's who noticed our Australian twang and ask if we were part of THAT GROUP...... :-)

I think we are all looking forward to spending the next 5 nights in one bed !!!!!

Kansas City

Kevin Helping Allison with her stockings

Today we headed over to Kansas City ... here is abit of trivia.... Kansas City is in both the state of Missouri and Kansas.

These last few days we really felt like we had been doing alot of driving.... we spent all morning on the road until we stopped for lunch and then drove a little further until we reached the museum dedicated to the Steamship Arabia.... This  is steamer which sunk in the Missouri river not just to the bottom of the river floor but deep down into it..... there it laid for over 150 years....
Over time the Missouri river has changed positions and when a group of friends decided to go in search of the Arabia, she was 45 ft down in somebodies corn field...
This bit of mud bath that she laid in helped preserve her and the museum is full of artifacts that they dug up.... The Arabia was a supply ship as well as a passenger ship so they managed to uncover everything from small glass beads to beautiful china and cloths.. We had a tour and watched a short film and then was treated to a short talk from one of the original members from the excavation team.

We then drove on to Kayes favourite Antique  mall called Mission Rd Antiques. This was a large mall selling everything that you can imagine.... Personally I love the jewellery shop and they were having a 50% sale... problem was that sale still didn't take away that comma which made everything a little rich for me....

But true to form there were alot of antique quilts that made their way back on to the bus.... you know we could get caught in a Blizzard and with the amount of quilts on that bus we would well and truly survive and help a few passers by whilst we were at it...

Our Hotel is another one of those Drury Inns with food.... but with more variety similar to Indianapolis....  Outside looks like the others but inside finished beautifully as they are fairly new....

Hot Dogs, salad, Taco's, refried beans and baked potato's and 3 free drinks.... all to be consumed in the 45 minutes we had before the bus left for The Plaza in Kansas City.

Only 17 of us decided on the trip into town... Between Bobby, Howard and the girl stuck to the windshield we manage to find where we were going ..... lets say the scenic way!!!

Once there we were excited to see the buzz happening around this 2-3 block section full of restuarants and shops.... well until 5 min later when all the shops started closing... Hello Kansas..... friday night, streets full and Australian women with money burning a hole in their pockets... all we wanted was a couple more hours....

Though there was a great atmosphere down there ... there we musicians on several street corners, the aroma's from the bbq restuarants were fantastic.... There were 4 of us that decided to go for a 20 minute horse and buggy ride to get  good view of the plaza... The buildings in the area had a lovely spanish feel with its wrought iron and tiled decoration... Our driver whose name now escapes me now told us of a couple who travelled to Seville Spain.... fell in love with it and came home to recreate it...

There was alot of laughter once again happening on the bus on the way home.... Once again there was Bobby and 17 backstreet drivers... Howard was no help, he didn't know where we were going... Bobby gave me the job of finding our exit off the motorway.... exit 17.... started at 4..... hmmm I think his motive was the keep me quiet for a while.... Haaaa ... didn't work.... as we all helped to count the numbers down.....

Another great day and tomorrow we loose a passengers who are not moving onto Sugar but one we get to Columbia it will be good bye to our new mates.... Howard and Bobby.... Man who is going to take us to Walmart....

Gerry and Sarah's - Sangria in a bucket... what else could you want...

Oh man they are coming to get us...

A few weeks before I left home I got an email from a Statler Sister Sarah inviting us for supper on the night we were in Lincoln..... hmm when Kaye wrote back to her she did mention that there were 31 of us..... Yeah sure come on over, Al said we had to meet you ......

So here we were riding in Bobby's Big Red Bus down a long dirt road somewhere in the back blocks of Nebraska....  Looking for rings in the corn fields we were pretty sure that we were just being lured in for the aliens to come and get us..... but just as we thought this is it.... out of nowhere sprang the big black letter box we were looking for... We left the Big red Bus on half of the road and we all wandered up the long driveway until we were greeted by Sarah and Gerry.

Sharon, Sarah and Kaye

Yay... Sangria :-)

They made us all feel so welcome and it was so exciting to enter their beautiful home... Having been reading the blog they were ready for us complete with the big bucket of Sangria....hmm now where did they get the idea they needed that much :-)

We had a wonderful array of foods to eat, twice cooked smoked chicken, calico beans, hot dog, pasta salad and frozen fruit salad just to name a few... did I mention the Sangria :-)

This was all topped off with desert Apple Crisp ( for those in australia... apple crumble ) and Chocolate Brownie both topped with ice cream .... Bobby sure liked that ice cream...

We decided to use this opportunity to do a few presentations...

1.  An Australian themed quilt top ( hey she is a quilter ) to Sarah for having us all in her lovely  home.....








2. An Australian themed quilt ( yes already quilted ) to Howard, to thank him for taking such wonderful care of us and putting up with obession with shopping and that ever changing itinerary.

Bobby, bet you Obama never gave you a quilt!!!!

3. Ditto to our Bobby Bear for driving us around to where ever we wanted to go.... and keeping us entertained with his singing.

I know I can speak for our bus that if were to think of the most enjoyable parts of our trip Howard and Bobby would be one of the first that would pop to mind...
Also thankyou to Val Malcolmn for making these beautiful Quilts



Did you say Ice cream

Our Boys

So of course this meant lots of photo opportunities until it was time for us to leave...

Yay free service!!

Bruce was true to form and could not pass a gammill quilting machine without giving it a quick service... lucky Sarah!!




 

Back to hotel we went feeling full and relaxed  once again.... only one more full day and then onto Columbia on Saturday morning...

NB for you all tucked up in bed... it is 11.53pm and I am finnally pressing the publish button.....  night all