Blessings in Disguise

One of these days I'm going to get used to the "mysterious way" God sometimes works. Today, I believe, has been what we sometimes call a blessing in disguise.

Today was the day we left Minnesota for Spokane. We pulled out of Le Sueur at about 10:30 in the morning, and barely got past Mankato before Mark started noticing problems with vibration and acceleration. Below 1,600 rpm the coach would shudder; above 2,000 rpm we lost power and couldn't get above 40 or 45 mph. At the junction of Hwy 60 and Interstate 90, we pulled off into a truck stop for fuel and decided to call our roadside service (CoachNet) and talk to a technician. They recommended we try to make it to Sioux Falls, as it was a bigger town and more likely to have a truck service business that were open on the weekend.

Mark and I discussed whether we should try to go further, to Mitchell, SD, our first scheduled stop, since we had found a truck service company there, and so we sailed...well, more like limped past Sioux Falls. In the meantime, we called the company in Mitchell, only to discover they were booked up through next week. They recommended I-Truck, a company in Sioux Falls. I-Truck would have the diagnostic tools to tell us what was wrong. So we turned around and headed back, pulling in at a little after four o'clock. One of their service techs came out, did some nosing around, and told us that our turbo charger was coming apart. Literally coming apart. We needed a new one. Nothing could be done today as they closed at six. Tomorrow they were closed all day. An appointment was made for first thing Monday morning.

Our turbo charger was shot! This was not discovered when PPL (the dealer that sold the motor home to us) looked at the engine. It was not discovered when we took it to Boyer Ford the first time for the "tune up" in September. And, it was not discovered when we took it back to Boyer this week for the radiator work. Why it wasn't discovered any of those times is a mystery to me. But apparently, the good Lord was not about to let us tackle the Rocky Mountains with a turbo charger that could blow out at any moment.

So here we are, sitting in the I-Truck parking lot where they graciously gave us permission to stay until Monday morning. We had a delicious dinner of BLTs and left-overs. Mark is using this pause to try to get the Dish Network receiver working (he's on the phone with their tech support as I write). In a few minutes we'll put out our slides, and it will feel like home again...in spite of the view.

All of the RV parks we had lined up for our stops this week have been called and cancelled. God willing, the engine will be fixed on Monday and we can be on our way again.

But tomorrow we'll go to church (probably online) and thank God (formally) for His loving providence.

Then we'll get in the car and see what Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has to offer on a Sunday.

The Storm Before The Calm

It's been a difficult week...all the hardships of travel and few of the joys. But, tired stiff bodies and ragged nerves notwithstanding, we're now licensed to drive, which is somewhat important when one lives in a motor home.

Tuesday the air conditioner was finally installed. We have cool air AND heat throughout the coach. Yay! This has been a two-month project. Tom of Tom's RV also looked at our refrigerator, which was cooling at about 60 degrees, somewhat warmer than a Minnesota summer. Eventually we're going to need a new LP burner for it, but he cleaned it up and it's back down to the recommended 38. It should keep until spring.

On our journey back from Texas, we developed some overheating problems in the engine that we want to make sure don't plague us as we head over the Rocky Mountains to Spokane, so the coach went back into the shop (Boyer Truck) on Wednesday for a radiator flush and a repair to the tail pipe, which fell off somewhere on the Oklahoma tollway...probably about the same time we lost our center visor. Mark was able to reinstall the visor the next day after super-gluing the plastic piece that had snapped off from all the shaking. I'm still trying to work out what Oklahoma is doing with all that toll money they collect, because it doesn't appear to be going to road upkeep.

While our home was in the shop, we had the pleasure of spending part of the day with Mark's kids and grandkids, some of whom are visiting from Georgia. We had lunch and then peeked into the St. Paul Cathedral before taking a tour of the James J. Hill House, dubbed "Minnesota's Downton Abby." For those who don't know, James J. Hill, among other accomplishments, built the Great Northern Railroad from St. Paul to Seattle.

We didn't get our coach back until nearly 7 pm, and by the time we got to our next stopping place, Peaceful Valley Campground in Le Sueur, it was dark. Still, Mark did a superb job backing into our spot and got us all hooked up to electric, water, and sewer before we settled in for the night.

And the park does indeed have a peaceful ambience, a welcome change from Walmart parking lots. However, they charge for guests...$3 per day, per person. Not cool. You shouldn't have to pay extra for short-term visitors.

Mark spent yesterday with his family, beginning with an early breakfast - he was out the door before my eyes opened in the morning. I, on the other hand, had a quiet, restorative day alone - something introverts require to keep them sane. By late afternoon, I was ready for visitors again when Mark brought home Melanie and the kids for a tasty rotisserie chicken dinner, particularly pleasant in that I didn't have to cook anything. And it just dawned on me that I took no pictures at all! (I'm going to have to do better at this blog thing.) Olive is growing so much. She's a delightful baby, full of smiles. Though she isn't quite ready for this stranger to get too close, I did get a few kisses in, and managed to hold her once or twice without too much complaint. The boys are a delight to talk to. They are bright and cheerful, inquisitive and full of energy. Asher (who is 7) told me he wants to be a pet store salesman...and if that doesn't work out, a pilot. Asa (11) thinks he'll be a businesman. And according to Asher, Alex (16) has a 70% chance of going to college. I'd give him better odds than that, but brothers will be brothers.

This morning we'll be having a late breakfast with them before they head back to Georgia. Then Mark and I will sit down and work out the details of our trip to Spokane.

Legal Texans at Last

Lake Livingston

Mark and I left Livingston yesterday morning around ten o'clock, heading for the little town of Stromford, TX, which is about fifty miles south of Haskell, our ultimate destination for completing the driver license road test requirement. We did our due-diligence advance planning and found a Walmart Supercenter there where we could park for the night. We meant to leave by eight o'clock, and that would have worked perfectly, but with the later start time, we ran out of time and daylight, and pulled into a Walmart in Abilene instead, which is about fifty miles south of Stromford. We were tired, but with the knowledge that this should be the last hard push to get somewhere on a schedule, we were okay with the long day.

We arrived in Haskell this morning and found an empty lot to park in that was close to the county offices where Mark would take his road test. There we unloaded the car from the trailer, separated the trailer from the coach and hooked the trailer to the car. This way, Mark would only have to worry about the motor home on his test. Then we drove the vehicles separately and parked them at the curb near the testing center. He went in to find out where he should wait with the RV until his testing appointment, and then he promptly drove to that spot.

Don't park and tex

So there I was, parked along the road in a wide shoulder area across the street from the local drug store. A woman in a white SUV proceeded to back out of her parking spot ...across the oncoming lane of traffic (which was clear), across the center turn lane (which was also clear), across the lane of traffic she was planning to enter (clear)...and into the shoulder lane, which was decidedly not clear. I was at that moment sending a brief text to Mark to tell him I was going to move the car to the empty lot where we disconnected and wait for him there. I never saw her coming. Apparently, texting and parking is just as dangerous as texting and driving. She smashed her rear bumper right into my driver's side headlight. Had I been looking up instead of at my phone, I would have laid on my horn and hopefully averted the impending disaster.

Hard to see, but headlight is smashed and fender dented below

The bang and crunched of getting hit is very unnerving. Once I had recovered my senses, I attempted to open the car door so I could get out and talk to the woman who had by that time pulled over in front of me. Except the door wouldn't open. So I had to climb over the center console to the passenger's door to get out. I walked over to the lady, put my arm around her and gave her a hug. What else could I do?

Without going into every detail, we exchanged information, I had a nice chat with Teresa (the assailant) and her daughter, and spoke with the police office who showed up about five minutes after he was called and told us if we wanted to settle the matter among ourselves that would be fine. Teresa then directed me to the paint and body shop around the corner to see if they could at least get my driver door to open, assuring me she would take care of any charges.

All during this time, I was trying to get a hold of Mark, who was still waiting to take his road test. Eventually I gave up and drove over to the body shop to take care of the door. In the meantime, (I found out later), Teresa had seen where Mark and the motor home were parked, stopped to talk to him and the testing officer whom it turns out she knew personally, and then pulled into the body shop just as I drove up. She walked into the office with me and talked to the owner, whom she also knew personally, and in no time at all, he had popped out the dented fender so that my door would open and close.

Ya gotta love small towns.

The car is drive-able, at least. Teresa was very sweet and apologetic, and her insurance agent (State Farm) assured us they would take care of us. We can get the car fixed any place of our choice, anywhere in the country. And, at this point, it will probably be Spokane, since we won't be anywhere else long enough to get it done.

Mark holding his Texas Class B CDL

Oh, and by the way, Mark passed his test with flying colors. Unfortunately, the excitement of his success was somewhat dampened by my own personal drama.

"This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." ...even when things don't seem to be going perfectly. God is good. Always.

Another issue that came up on this trip is an overheating problem. We'll have to once again take our house into the shop for engine work. Mark says it likely needs to have the radiator flushed. That will be next week-- AFTER the air conditioner is installed.

Tonight we're in a rest stop on Interstate 44, south of Oklahoma City. We were both exhausted from the stress of the day by the time we pulled in a little after five o'clock. And we once again committed to trying very hard to keep our travel time down to 300 miles, or no more than six hours.

After all, we ARE on vacation... I think.

Almost Legal

Our parking spot at "Rainbow's End"

It's interesting that in spite of all the blogs Mark has perused praising the ease of becoming a Texan, we have yet to experience that phenomenon. We arrived Monday thinking that we would be able to breeze into a Licensing office, apply, take (and pass) our test and get our road test over with by Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest. Yeah...no.

The application was indeed a breeze and we got our class C license without a hitch. Then we discussed applying for the CDL (Commercial Driver License), which the lovely Department of Public Safety agent initiated for us. Then came the test.

I had gone online and taken the practice test a few days before, which I passed just fine, so ... who needs to study?! With all the confidence in the world, I sat down at the computer and got started. Question after question asked me ridiculous things like, "When disabled at the side of a two lane road, at what distances should you place your flares or flags (complimentary picture included)?...This, this, or that?" And, "What color are the clearance lights on the front of a vehicle? Red, White, Amber, Blue?" Or, "All vehicles built after the following dates must be equipped with turn signals. 1970, 1959, 1948, 2004?" Who can be expected to know stuff like THAT?!

Needless to say, I failed. Mark, who had spent all day studying the manual, also failed.

But, all is not lost. We had two more chances, she said, "Come back tomorrow."

So, as of yesterday, we found ourselves in a motor home we're not legally licensed to drive. Mark picked up his computer and buried himself in the manual. I can't be sure, but it's possible that he read all 178 pages of it, in addition to taking a 130 question practice exam. I don't think he slept very much last night. My plan was slightly different. Maybe we don't have to have a CDL at all, I reasoned. After all, there is a sentence in the CDL handbook that sounds very much like, "RVs for personal use are exempt." I would call them in the morning and find out exactly what that meant. Then and only then would I resort to something as drastic as studying the handbook.

Next morning I called. Yes we're exempt, but not really...only sort of exempt. We don't have to know the whole CDL handbook, only "Section 14." And, yes, we do have to take a road test.

Well, that's not too bad. Section 14 was about fifteen pages, with lots of pictures. I printed it off and we both read through it and reviewed it again before returning for our second try. It's amazing how much easier a test is when you actually know the material.

And yes, we both passed. Now the only thing left to do is take the road test. Mark was worried about things like mud flaps and emergency roadside reflective triangles (neither of which, it turns out, we're required to have). So he put in a call to an RV service center about the mud flaps and we drove over to Walmart to see if they had any reflective triangles in their automotive department. With us, we had a large zipper envelope in which was all the documentation we had put together to get our licenses. It contained our passports, our Social Security cards, the title to the coach, insurance and registration documents on both vehicles and our CDL paperwork. When we left Walmart, it was nowhere to be found. By this time, Mark was a frazzled mess from all the stress of trying to pass the exam and now having lost every important document we own. We searched everywhere in the car to no avail, and then returned to Walmart to see if it was still in the cart we left in the cart rack. It wasn't. Mark went into the store and asked at Customer Service if it had been turned in. It hadn't.

"Be anxious for nothing, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, make your requests known unto God. And the peace that passes understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7

No time to cook. Dinner at "Shrimp Boat Manny's"

This was the passage that was swirling around in my head, and had been since yesterday. My prayer and supplication was that we would recover our important documents. The only thing left to do now was to trust our good God, go home, and wait. Mark left his phone number with Walmart and we drove home. No sooner had we arrived home than Mark got a message on his phone that the envelope had been located. All I can say is, Praise God!... and Thank You to all the good people at the Livingston Walmart.

Our last task now is to take the road test. We had to make that appointment online. The soonest available appointment within 200 miles was for next week. That won't work. We have to be back in Minnesota next week to install our basement air. We discussed the possibility of coming back to Texas yet a third time once the air conditioner was done, but that idea grated badly on our sensibilities. There had to be another solution. So we started looking at testing centers in northern Texas that we might be able to stop at on our way to Minnesota. Sure enough, he found an available appointment for Friday morning in the little town of Haskell. They had only one slot, so Mark will take the test, I will get a CDL "permit" that allows me to drive the coach with a licensed driver in the passenger's seat. By the next time we're in Texas, I should have had enough practice to be able to pass the road test with my eyes closed...well, not literally.

Thursday's potential route

Tomorrow morning we pack up again and hit the road. We'll stop for the night at a nearby Walmart, and by Friday we should finally be legit.

What a week! At some point, our retirement will start to feel more like a vacation and less like work...I just know it.

Park vs. Parking Lot Camping

This is day 3 of our trip to Texas. The reason we are making this trip to Texas is so that we can get our Texas driver's licenses, which we should have obtained the first time we were in Texas, but ran out of time. As I thought about it today, it seemed somewhat ludicrous to make an eight day round trip for the purpose of spending one day at the DMV, but we had a 90-day grace period, and that grace period is almost up. We don't have to be back in Minnesota until the last week of September, so we decided to take advantage of the dead time to get this important task done. This will give us more of October to spend in Spokane, our next venue.

What we thought was going to be a three day trip from Sturgeon Bay to Livingston turned out to be a four day trip. We spent the first night in a Walmart parking lot and the second night in a roadside rest area. Mark seems to be less sensitive to the travel weariness that affects me so, and he was just fine with another parking lot night, but I started looking for an RV park at about three o'clock.

I have two apps on my phone that help with site hunting - "All Stays," which lists all types of parking options, and "Passport America," which lists the parks that offer the Passport America discount, of which we are members. We expected to stop for the night somewhere in the vicinity of Texarkana, and in short order, I found a couple suitable parks. We settled on this one--Texarkana RV Park, which is right on Hwy 59, the last leg of our journey. What a great park! It's not fancy, but there were plenty of vacancies, a pool, and after our 50% Passport America discount was applied, the cost was reasonable. We were able to get a pull-through site (no unhooking the car trailer) with full hookups...and did I mention they have a pool??

We pulled in at a little before 5:00, got parked and connected, pulled out the swimming suits and headed for the pool. The temps in this part of the country this week are in the 90s, so that cool water sure felt good. Being in a park also has the advantage of being able to open our living room slide and stretch out a little. And the power hookup means we don't have to run the generator all night for cool air. The little rooftop cooler is not really adequate for these hot temps, but at least we're not boiling in our bed.

Sweetie is still not handling the traveling very well. I had her on my lap most of the time today, and she seemed calm and fairly content for the most part. But by the end of the day she was listless and just looked like she didn't feel well. It could just be the heat. Maybe the constant motion bothers her. Hard to say. Prior to this trip, Sweetie was running to the back of the coach and crouching on the floor behind the bed every time we closed up and moved. She is afraid of the bumps and noises of the moving house. But it's not good for her to stay back there so long without coming out to eat and drink or use the little box. So I've been putting on her harness and leash and more or less forcing her to be in the front of the coach with us. Usually I start her out in the carrier, then let her out on the leash. She always tries to hightail it to the back, but I've been keeping the leash short and she eventually ends up on my lap or beside me. We're hoping to get her over her fears with gentle persistence. When she gets to the point where she stays in the front of her own volition, the leash and harness will come off.

One thing is sure, we are decidedly happier campers this evening than we were the first two nights of our trip (except perhaps for the cat).

Side note:  I had a request for pictures of the inside of our motor home and realized that I haven't really posted too many. Here is the living area looking from the front toward the back. I'll post more next time (after I've had a chance to clean house. :-).

It's bigger on the inside

A Look at Door County

Door County is famous for its cherries. 

In its heyday, during the 1900s, Sturgeon Bay, where we camped, was a bustling ship-building town and for some time was rolling out one new ship every five days. But that industry is no more -- at least in Sturgeon Bay. Now cherries rule. Everywhere you go, you'll find businesses that make and sell all things cherry. Among other things, we bought cherry jam, cherry butter, cherry pie (of course), cherry sausage...and, yes, cherry wine. 

Besides cherries, Door county also has a number of vineyards. Mark and I visited six of the eight area wine-makers, tasting a wonderful variety of wines from both imported and local grapes as well as cherries and other fruits. 

In spite of the "homemade" labels on many of the foods, though, it was still difficult to find products free of the typical soy isolates, fructose, and preservatives. I passed up many items that I would have purchased had they been truly "home" made. It's probably a good thing because I would have spent my entire food budget on non-essentials. Nonetheless, my pantry is well loaded with carbs and sugars, and I'm sure I'll be chiding myself later.

One of the things I wanted to do while in Door County was to visit a dear sweet lady whom I've known for the past twenty years or so, Florence Thoms. On September 1, she turned 101 years of age. She's just as sharp now as the day I met her. Florence lives in an assisted living complex in Sister Bay, which is one of the northernmost towns on the peninsula. She spends her days walking (with a walker), drawing and painting, and volunteering wherever and however she can. She loves God and is looking for the Second Coming of Christ with great joy. Last year she broke her hip and had to have a hip replacement. It's amazing to me that they would do that for a one hundred year old woman, but they did. I asked her how she was feeling. She said, "I feel great (big smile); I have no pains." What a blessing it is to know her. She's a true inspiration. When we got ready to go, Flo walked us out to the curb.

On our way to Sturgeon Bay, we developed a bit of an electrical problem under the dash. We started smelling the unmistakable acrid "burning wire" smell and had to pull over and check it out. But once the radio stopped working, the smell went away for a while, so we decided to keep going and investigate it later. Coincidentally, the place where we pulled over was right next to a hardware store, so I thought this might be a good time to buy some fire extinguishers. The only one we had in the coach was empty and so old that it couldn't even be charged anymore. I bought two for the inside (front and back) and one to keep in an outside compartment. Mark was able to rewire the radio, which he discovered was not wired properly by the genius who installed it, and now we have music again...and hopefully no more electrical fire worries.

Since we left our house in Chaska, we have had no cable TV (gasp!) We've been carrying around all the parts for a month, and Joel and Jesse helped Mark install the satellite dish onto the roof of the coach while we were there a couple weeks ago. But every time Mark tried to set up the receiver with Dish Network, he ran into failure problems. Finally while we were here, he got on the phone with their tech support. We got nearly all the way through the setup process only to learn that the receiver unit that Camper World sold us was bad. It was returned to Camper World by the previous buyer and they were informed at that time that the unit would have to be returned to the factory. Instead, they put it back on their shelf and sold it ... to us. A new receiver and we'll be back in touch with the world again. (I'm still deciding whether that's good or bad.)

Our stay at Tranquil Timbers was a nice one. It's a beautiful park. But it's designed more for smaller trailers and tent camping. There are only a few sites with full hookups and most of the roads inside the park are very narrow. Traversing them with a 38-foot motorhome was tricky enough, not to mention dragging behind us another ten feet of car and trailer. Fortunately they had a wide open area for larger rigs like ours. But, again, those sites had no sewer.

We will probably not come to this particular park again, though I would highly recommend it to someone with a smaller rig.

There's still no word on our basement air conditioner, so tomorrow morning we are packing up and driving down to Livingston, Texas, to get our driver's licenses and pick up our mail. After that, we'll be back in Minnesota for a week or so and then off to Spokane. I'll update the itinerary once we have our camp site reservations made.

P. S. If you're deciding between Madeline Island and Door County for a camping trip or visit, my recommendation is Door County -- hands down.

Some more Door County photos...

Sturgeon Bay

Gills Rock, north end of the peninsula (ferry to Washington Island)

Bailey's Harbor

Egg Harbor

Stained glass window at the Maritime Museum

Fun on Madeline Island

Our Madeline Island trip is over. We were somewhat underwhelmed by our experience. The Island has one town on it, La Pointe, that has a few restaurants, a laundromat (which I availed myself of), and not much else. Big Bay Town Park, where we stayed, has a nice picturesque beach, which we visited a few times, and a boardwalk that connects to the Big Bay State Park, which we never actually visited. The state park is much bigger, but allows only tent camping. I'm told there are lots of trails for hiking, but we never got up the gumption to do anything that strenuous.

The highlight of our trip was that my brother and his wife, George and Bev, joined us for the greater part of our stay. They recently purchased a travel trailer and were able to reserve the site just across the path from us. The four of us went on the Apostle Island "Grand Tour" out of Bayfield on Friday. It's a nice tour, The air was chilly, but the scenery was pretty-- lots of tree clad islands surrounded by water. Somehow we got the impression that the tour would be two hours long. It was four and a half hours long, and dark by the time we returned to Bayfield. We were starved, but worried we wouldn't be able to get a meal ordered and eaten before the last ferry back to Madeline Island at 8:30. Fortunately we found a wonderful restaurant, the Bayfield Inn, that fed us a delicious meal and had us on our way back to the ferry with time to spare. If you're ever there, be sure to try their seafood chowder.

All in all it was a great family visit, sharing meals and conversation, and sitting around the campfire dodging smoke and drinking coffee.

George and Bev headed home on Sunday morning, and Mark and I got in the car and drove around the whole of the Island. We were surprised at the seeming lack of wildlife. We saw one deer along the side of the road once, but no squirrels, no rabbits, barely any birds, and absolutely no "roadkill." The camp sight had a "bear activity" warning posted on their office door, so we were on the lookout for bears all the while we were there. And it's a good thing too, because we did finally see one.

After spending a full week at a rustic camp on Madeline Island, we decided that, however lovely it is (and it was lovely), that kind of camping is not for us-- at least not often. Our next stop was to be another state camp at the north end of Door County, and we cancelled it in favor of an Encore/Thousand Trails resort in Sturgeon Bay with the enticing name, Tranquil Timbers. Mark made the reservation for a full week, and we headed across Wisconsin by way of Rice Lake.

Why Rice Lake, you ask? It is the home of one of our favorite meat vendors, Northstar Bison, owned by our friend and fellow "foodie" Mary Graese with her husband and family. She was running a great sale on pastured pork and grass-fed ground beef, so we filled up our little freezer with meat.

After lunch we started for Sturgeon Bay. At about 4 p.m. we stopped for gas and thought about dry-docking somewhere until the next day. We SHOULD have done it. But we had a reservation at Tranquil Timbers arriving that day, so we pushed through. That was the second mistake we made. The first was not clearly understanding the hookups on the site we reserved.

How can that happen? (If you read our last blog post, I know you must be asking this question, since that is exactly what happened at the last site.)

Assumptions, that's how.

Never assume! Anything.

The site was labeled as having water and electric, but the only thing we could find (in the dark) was water. Exhausted and cranky, we parked, put out the bedroom slide and crashed for the night.

This is typically when the doubts hit. Is this lifestyle for us? Really? There are times when I question it. This week is one of them. In the dark, after a tiring day, when all you can think about is, "What was I thinking when I decided to sell my house and be a nomad?!"

But the light of a new day generally brings with it a new perspective, and in the morning, we walked over to the office and requested a sight with full hookups.

No can do, in short, was the response. But we did get a site with water AND electric, dumped our waste water, parked and leveled our rig, and put out the slides. It will be adequate for a few days. (Will post a few pictures next time.)

Now we're off to explore the famous Door County and hunt for cherry pie.

Tomorrow we'll sit down and fine tune our next six weeks...over pie and ice cream.

Be Prepared...Or Else

The full-time RV lifestyle, we are discovering the hard way, requires a certain amount of planning and preparation. It's particularly important to make sure you know--in advance--what amenities your camp sites will have so you can prepare accordingly.

It's also important to develop a routine for setting up and "tearing down" -- and then be consistent. Every time. But then, that's the definition of consistent, isn't it?

We blew it this week on both those things.

When our time was up at Dakota Meadows, a very nice park with all the hookups, we dumped our tanks, buttoned everything up, and headed up to our nephew's for the weekend. By the second day we had no water.

How did that happen?! When we were at Dakota Meadows, we were hooked directly to the city water and didn't believe we were pulling anything from the fresh water tank, so it should be full. We thought. But it wasn't full, and we didn't follow protocol and fill it before we left.

Lesson learned. ALWAYS fill up the fresh water tank before leaving a site that has fresh water.

The view outside our window at Joel & Beth's

Fortunately for us, our hosts have a well on their property and were gracious enough to allow us to fill our tank from their garden hose. A public "Thank You!" to Joel and Beth for their generous hospitality. (Romans 12:13)

Over the weekend, we were able to get three major things checked off our "to do" list, with the help of Joel and Jesse. Joel's creativity and welding skills were tapped to create a specialized hitch so that we could mount Mark's bike rack without impeding the car or the motor home. And the boys helped Mark mount the new satellite dish on the roof. And, finally, Mark removed all the grease from the main slide rails.
   Check.
   Check.
   Check.
As a bonus, Beth offered her laundry facilities to me and I was able to get three big loads of wash done. This was a significant help because it amounts to about ten loads in my tiny home washing machine.

Mark and the custom hitch

It was definitely a Labor Day weekend. And by Monday morning we were ready to head out.

Our trip to Madeline Island was lovely. We left Isanti at about 10 a.m. Monday morning, made a couple stops along the way, and arrived at the Bayfield Ferry landing in time to take the 3:30 ferry to the island. Our rig got plenty of attention. Apparently they don't get too many big motor homes that make the trip across. I suppose most people don't consider a motor home "camping." By the way, anyone planning to make a motor home crossing should be prepared to pay extra. The round trip charge for two people in a 35-40 foot motor home pulling a trailer was $198 - almost as much as our site fees for the whole week at the campground!

The ferry to Madeline Island

The ferry people were great, though. They guided us onto the boat, blocked the wheels, and guided us off again at the end of the trip. Sitting at our dining booth looking out the window felt remarkably like being on a cruise ship...only smaller.

Because we expected to dump our waste water tanks when we hooked up at our site at Big Bay Town Park on Madeline Island, we didn't look for a place to dump them after our long weekend of drydocking. To our surprise, when we arrived at the campground we discovered that the only amenity it has is electric. No fresh water. No sewer. Now what?! More to the point, how did it happen that we booked this site and didn't know this information in advance?! Major "newbie" mistake.

We'll be here a full week and will have to find a dump site...on the island. But not today.

The park is beautiful, rustic, and quiet. We arrived in the pouring rain, but Mark managed to get us parked and plugged in without getting too badly soaked (thanks to a rain poncho we had the good sense to keep). Today we have fresh water, and the waste water tanks aren't full...yet. We will rest, enjoy the evening, and worry about the tanks tomorrow. As the Good Book says, "...Do not be anxious about tomorrow...Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." (Matthew 6:34)

Now, all I need is internet service, and I'll get this post posted.

More pictures...

Sweetie "enjoying" the view.

Coming off the ferry onto Madeline Island.

Mark parking and connecting the power...in the rain.

Retired! ... Officially.

Today we are officially retired. It is Mark's last day at Twin Cities Federal Bank. We are parked in the parking lot at TCF, Plymouth, while he fulfills his final day of saying goodbye, cleaning out his desk, and eating cake. The car dolly is across the street getting new tires.

This morning we showed off our new rig to my former coworkers at ACS Motion Control in Bloomington. All our goodbyes have been said and we are heading up to Joel & Beth's for the weekend (our very gracious nephew and niece).

We're as ready for traveling as we're going to be.

The living room slide seems to be cooperating for the most part. We're able to take it out and pull it in, sometimes with a little coaxing, sometimes without. Our RV expert (Tom) advised us to remove the grease off the slide rails immediately. It's like glue, he said. So, that will be one of Mark's task for tomorrow, along with installing the Dish Network satellite.

Eventually, we'll probably have to replace the slide motor, but we hope to be able to put it off until the spring. There's a place in Shreveport, LA, that specializes in Alfa motorhomes, and we'll be checking in with him on our way across the south, God willing.

The only major problem remaining is the air conditioner.

Two weeks ago, we hired Tom's Mobile RV Service to replace the AC. He ordered the "refurbished" unit and brought it out on Thursday to do the swap, only to discover-- after five hours of grueling labor taking out the old one --that the company had sent us the wrong unit. The outside case was identical, but the intake and exhaust ducting were in the wrong place. So now, Tom has to ship the refurbed unit back, along with our original AC unit, and the company will repair/rebuild and return our original unit - then Tom will install it. The question is:  WHEN?

It takes a week to ship to California, and a week to ship back. That leaves them one week to fix the unit. Can they do it? If not, Tom will be gone to his winter work location in Naples, FL, and we will be on the road to Spokane and parts southwest. The good news is-- it's winter, and our furnace works great. The "bad" news is-- we may need to plan a trip to Naples, FL. Things could be worse.

Next week we should know more about what to expect and how to plan.

In the meantime, have a safe and pleasant Labor Day weekend. May your last days of summer be warm and dry!