After spending a night with
son Dan and family, we had brunch with son Mark in the morning and arrived in
Elkhart on the 10th of April, only to be greeted with 35 mile an
hour winds and snow! Since then its been several trips to the storage area to
gather more items that needed to come to our apartment. I think we’ve finally
gotten halfway back to normal. It’s amazing how 3 months away left us confused
as to where things were in the apartment. Notice how I attributed the confusion
to our 3 months away and not to our aging dementia.
It’s really great to be home,
but we’ve already started a box for items we will need in our condo next year.
Even though the condo is competely furnished and equippecd, there are things
like office supplies, printer, CD’s, trash bags and files that we will need. It
goes without saying, we are looking forward to the Navarre vacation with the
Gulf of Mexico just 20 steps away from our back door. Of course there is also
the benefit of great gas mileage next year since we won’t be dragging the
Sunset Trail behind my gas guzzling truck. We’ll be driving Mary Ellen’s little
PT Cruiser.
Our agenda over the next two
months requires a few road trips. In May we’re going to CT for my youngest
grandson’s First Communion, On our way back we’ll be stopping in Stow, OH at
Mary Ellen’s sister’s and visiting my sister in Akron. In June we’ll be going
to Nauvoo, IL to meet up with my good friend Steve McBride. Its been about 20
years since I’ve seen Steve. We both were employed at Bayer Diagnostics. Steve
lives in Salt Lake City, but he and his wife, Darcy, are spending a year in
Nauvoo on a
Morman Mission. When we leave
Nauvoo we’ll travel to Quincy, IL and spend a couple weeks with our friends
Diane and Jeff Bloss. Now that Jeff has gotten up off the floor, I should confess I made up the part about a
couple weeks. Ten days should be plenty of time to get reaquainted!! We didn’t
see much of Jeff and Diane at Emerald Beach RV park in Navarre. Jeff and Diane
moved to the high rent district of the park. Jeff made the lame excuse that he
needed more space for their new travel trailer. We saw right through that one.
They simply wanted a change of scenery if you know what I mean! Ten days in
Quincy should more than make up for that!
In July we will take the
Sunset Trail out of storage and set up camp at Spaulding Campground in Niles,
MI. Since Spaulding is only 25 miles from home, I’m sure we’ll be back and
forth a few times during the month. Lastly, our summer reunion with the Emerald
Beach gang is scheduled for September. This year we’ll be setting up camp in
Indiana. The site hasn’t been finalized as yet, but it looks like it’ll be Bass
Lake Beach in Knox, IN. Mary Ellen and I will check out the place in May to see
if it meets our very high standards!
I should mention that our
trip home from Florida almost came off without a problem. The brakes on the
truck worked well and the tires on the trailer ran smoothly. The one problem
occurred at our last campground before Indy. We were staying at the Louisville
South KOA. The morning prior to leaving for Indy I planned to flush the black
water tank. I opened the valve to drain it and nothing happened. After spending
an hour applying my vast amount of knowledge in an attempt to solve the problem,
I resigned myself to spending some $$$ and having a real expert solve the
problem. However, the ever crafty Mary Ellen approached Rex, the work camper,
and used her best “poor female in distress” approach. Rex fell for it and told
her he thought he might be able to help. He brought his magic wand with hose
attached and after about 20 minutes he broke up the log jam and the draining
began! I would recommend the KOA south in Louisville if your in the
neighborhood. Tell Rex ‘thanks again’.
jim
