REUNION AND A RALLY

Yesterday was a sweet reunion with Don and Connie Sarver, fellow full timers from NW Ohio. Our rendezvous was supposed to be at a Wal-Mart in Van Wert Ohio. They were coming from the north, but couldn't find it, and they asked some guy in a pick up truck about the store's location, and he was nice enough to lead them to it on the north side of Van Wert. We followed our GPS from a store listing on line, and were led to what is now a Pik'N'Save on the city's southwest side! A cell phone conversation got us up to where they were waiting.

We then drove to Celina for the Eastern Gypsy Journal rally, at the Mercer County Fairgrounds. This is a beautiful fairgrounds, compared to the several we have seen or camped at. Lots of mature trees, nicely maintained buildings, and paved roadways. This is our 2nd Gypsy Rally, and we are looking forward to learning some RV stuff and meeting new folks, as well as enjoying spending time exploring Celina.

Nice to catch up with our good friends, sharing what has been happening with our families and our respective RV's. We both have Excels, theirs being a 2009 version of our 2008 LMKO.

Fall has fell

On this first day of fall we motored down highway 4 in central Iowa, totally enjoying the changing fields of corn and soybeans. What beautiful colors! Bean fields ran the gamut from green to bright yellow, to rust and finally a dull brown. Corn fields showed changes vertically, as the plants dry out, there is a variety of greens to dull yellows on each stalk.

We then turned west on highway 44 heading to Guthrie Center, where we have a service appointment at Bob and Jo's RV for a list of warranty work. The scenery is awesome with rolling hills and changing foliage. We know it will get better as time goes on, but the start of the changing leaf colors is exciting.

Our list is a big one, as things have piled up. Most important is the toilet issue, as I have been manually flushing our stool for quite some time. Ugh! Jason, our tech here, has the part coming in and we will have a real, functioning toilet tomorrow!

Other big issues are replacing our blown microwave convection oven and replacing our water pump. Several little things are being addressed as well.

We still love this life, even when we seem to be under a dark cloud for periods like these past few weeks. We are so lucky to be able to move around and see and do things, almost at will...someone said last week that it is like you are on a permanent vacation. Well said, but the vacation will be much more fun with that flushing commode.

RV Woes

Well, Full time RVing is really a lot of fun.....usually. Not so this weekend, as Saturday, I discovered that when I depressed the foot pedal toilet flusher, all that happened was the water ran into the bowl! Yes, picture this---the ball (that allows the stuff to go down the soil pipe) did not move.

After looking at things while lying on the floor, I deduced that something broke inside the flushing mechanism. The ball was not stuck. So now I am manually reaching in there with a rubber glove on and manually moving the ball to the side to allow the bowl contents to drain down the soil pipe. Yuck.

It is a 3 day weekend, and we will not be able to contact anyone until Tuesday morning.... :-(

Great Check up for Ellen

Labor Day Weekend...hmmmm....I haven't worked for three years now, but I still get the day off. Retirement sure has hastened the speed with which time flies. I hope all get to enjoy the last taste of summer.

We are in Rochester, MN, where Ellen has gotten another great check up! Hooray!!!! She is still being monitored for repercussions from a thyroidectomy about 5 years ago. The check up was so good that now she has to report back only once a year instead of twice a year. This is great news! We don't return until September of 2010, so this should loosen up our travel schedule. But the best part is that Ellen's blood and mineral levels are doing fine, as is her bone density. We are ecstatic!

I still have my check up in Jacksonville every 6 months, :( but we have decided to have me fly solo from wherever we are for a day or two. We are fortunate to have good friends in Jacksonville, John and Cindy Dahl. John will actually pick me up at the JAX airport, let me use one of their cars to go to my appointment, and then drop me off at the airport!!! Wow, that is simply awesome. This should cut the cost of a trip to JAX by about two-thirds. THANK YOU John and Cindy!