May 30

Pictures Coming Next Week

May 30, 2004

FEASTS!

Now I remember one reason we leave Eden in the summer. When we woke this morning it was in the 50s. The sun was shining and I could feel biscuits, figs, sausage and tea in the air.

As I lay in bed soaking up the new day I could hear the sound of incoming coaches and the attendant shifting that went with parking. That would be followed by the sounds of jacks going down and air tanks emptying.

Onie had been up for a while and I could smell her coffee. When I joined her she had completed arranging the first week of scrawlings and getting it ready for posting on our website. She had also arranged files by week for me for the entire summer so all I have to do now is fill in the blanks.

I started doing that while the biscuits baked and the tea steeped. Then we sat down to our feast.

As the morning, actually early afternoon, wore on we had visitors, volunteers bringing us information about registration and markers for our coach and the toad.

A little housekeeping, dish washing, jewelry repair, showers, etc occupied us before I sat back down to the computer and Onie, all dolled up and looking great, set out to help the local economy.

In the comfort of the Marlin I pecked away and sort of watched the Indy 500 until it was stopped because of rain. Then I just pecked away in the growing darkness. It wasn’t evening yet but the clouds that promised rain were moving in. After a while I had to stop and turn on some light and I decided to restart the TV and just in time to see the restart of the 500.

Onie was still out shopping but she had left a pork loin in the oven, cooking for dinner. The damp air from the rain that was now coming down very steady held the good smell in the coach. It would sure have my appetite running rampant by the time dinner got here.

Rain fell with increasing intensity and I couldn’t help but think about our decision to move from the low spot. I was also a little concerned about Onie driving in such a frog strangler but then I remembered she learned to drive in Louisiana and Texas. It would be a piece of cake for her. I just hoped the trolls could handle it. When it was the darkest of the day and the rain was pummeling down with the force of hail I heard the car. Onie was home, safe.

With the groceries put away it was time to tune, strum and sing awhile. It had been a couple of weeks but Onie is so good now that when she began to play I couldn’t even tell it had been a while. Her playing and our singing filled the coach with bluegrass and gospel in concert with the drumming rain.

While Onie got dinner ready I practiced my two chords and introduced a third one. Once I get these three down and can transition quickly I will try a song. In the meantime my practice isn’t much to hear.

Once the tenderloin was out of the oven and I could really smell it I knew it was way past dinner time. In short order the avocado, tomato and English cucumber salad was as ready as I was. That was followed by sautéed okra and onion and the piece de resistance, the tenderloin. Ah! Feast!

Dominoes followed dinner and then came dessert followed by a movie.

With the movie over it was time to rest.

The thunderstorm that had been in the making for a while opened in all its grandeur. Lightning flashed, thunder rolled and rain fell in a deluge. How long it went on I can’t say because the effect was too much for me. I was quickly asleep.

May 31, 2004

More Rain

What a restful night’s sleep.

I woke at eight thirty and started the coffee and tea. Outside it looked like the thunderstorm that put us to sleep has just been on hold for a few minutes and might resume at anytime. Onie continued to rest.

Later when the coffee was ready I took a cup to Onie, she had been stirring awhile. Another little shower moved through accompanied by some wind. We were snug and dry in the coach.

Boon docking requires conserving water. As a result our baths are very brief. Here we have electricity but no sewer connection so we still have to be careful with water lest we fill our holding tank and have to take down and go to a sanitary dump. What I am getting at is that after breakfast we both traipsed off to the community showers and indulged ourselves for a long spell.

Refreshed we spent the afternoon pecking, playing Spider or Solitaire. Onie also did some housekeeping and I did a little stint outside engaged in bug removal. I also got out our water hoses, both of them, a total of 75 feet, and our splitter. By tapping into our neighbor’s connection I was able to get us a little shore water. There were three coaches drawing off one faucet but that is okay and normal for this rally. All in all it was a very enjoyable afternoon, one without rain, just a few sprinkles, interrupted by a couple of branches banging down on the roof after coming loose from overhanging branches, in the wind.

The strains of Floyd Cramer kept us company while we had our evening meal.

We have been acquiring a good number of DVDs. Many come from the dump bin at Wally World, $5.50 each. This evening we watched one of them. It was a U.S War Department compilation of movies made during the War in the Pacific and much of it was actual combat footage. Three hours after the beginning we watched the trivia and it reminded us of what it takes to bring a violent people to submission. On Guadalcanal the U.S. forces lost 12,500 killed and the Japanese lost 30,000. That was in five months. Later at Hiroshima an entire city was demolished with a loss of 70,000 lives, mostly civilians. When capitulation wasn’t immediate another nuclear bomb was dropped on Nagasaki with an additional 20,000 Japanese dying. That brought submission without the cost of another American life. War is hell and it is unending hell when it isn’t fought to win. People die in battle, combatants and civilians. When war becomes “surgical” it becomes nearly impossible to win a decisive victory. The enemy must lose the will to fight, the means to fight; i.e. loss of material and munitions, the ability to make more and want peace more than anything else and that includes the civilians as well as the combatants. A civilian population that really desires peace will help in ridding themselves of combatants who fought in their behalf.

With the sound of wind whistling around the Marlin we turned out the lights.

June 1, 2004

BACK TO SCHOOL

It was cold last night and is supposed to be colder tonight, down in the forties. Right now the heat of Eden seems a long way off.

The kids are out of school. We are going back. Today the classes here at the rally start. One of the reasons we attend rallies is for the education on coach maintenance, safety and amenities. By attending the seminars one can gather all kind of useful info that might take a lifetime to accumulate, through experience.

After breakfast Onie headed off to a seminar on how to make use of Velcro in the coach, storing things, hanging things, tying things down and how to use more in general and by the way the teach is selling the stuff. I had a class scheduled for later but stayed in the coach to peck.

Lunch was skipped since we had a late breakfast but when lunch time was over we both went to a seminar on living safely in the coach and at home.

This is a course that should be taught in school. An educator could turn it into a whole semester and milk the state/feds for big bucks to teach it while in fact the two hours we spent in tutelage was sufficient. The instructor talked about dos and don’ts of motor home living and travel. This included information on the different kinds of smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors and propane detectors along with very good information about how to select a detector and the proper placement of same. He also talked about the proper response should you be alerted by one of the sensors. This included exiting the coach through one of the emergency escape exits. You may not sit or sleep next to one of these if you are fifteen years of age or younger or feel you would be unable to properly operate the hatch in the event of an emergency or could not help fellow passengers. He then took us outside the tent for a demonstration on fire fighting. Onie and I got near the front and she volunteered to use a fire extinguisher during part of the demo. Onie was up first. Once a fire was going she was told to use the extinguisher to put it out. The extinguisher was charged with powder but had no propellant gas in it so when she pressed down on the handle to discharge the extinguishing material nothing happened. Of course this was done to demonstrate that extinguishers should be checked on a regular basis to be sure they will work properly if they are needed. The instructor then set different kinds of fires and had different women use an extinguisher to put the fire out. Onie was one of those ladies and got to use a working unit. She did a great job as a fire fighter. Many different kinds of extinguishing agents were demonstrated but the most impressive is a relatively new kind of foam that smothers the fire and in the case of burning liquids acts as a surfactant. Though long, by rally standards, it was worth every minute we spent in it. If we ever have an emergency what we learned may save our lives. If not we may be toast.

All that knowledge absorption made us hungry so as soon as the last fire was out we headed to the hall where dinner would be served. We were a little early so I got us water and soft drinks while we waited. I got a cola and got Onie a Coconut Lemon Pie drink. Dinner included brisket. It’s too bad they didn’t invite a good old south westerner to smoke it for them. Then it would have been good. One of the chocolate desserts I had was great but the German chocolate cake was a disappointment.

After dinner we went back to the coach and watched three hours of Second World War battles in the Pacific before nodding off to sleep. The thunderstorm that accompanied our movie ended with it.

June 2, 2004

ETCETERA

Today we are scheduled for coach maintenance. This requires all the work as if we were going three hundred miles. Breakfast was abbreviated and then we made the two miles to the shop. After checking in we waited for the downpour to subside and then went to the toad in the light rain. We skipped lunch again. Onie took her laptop to the computer room to do some upload and surfing.

Vendors make all the rallies and we needed some 303 for the outside of the coach so I went off to find it. The guy selling it lived in Soldotna, Alaska before selling his construction business in 1993 and becoming a full timer. He had gotten a divorce after 41 years of married life. He said he couldn’t live in the same town with his ex-wife, ex-mother-in-law and ex-grandmother-in-law so he bought a coach and hit the road. We visited about fishing for reds at the city park, construction in Alaska, plate size cinnamon rolls that he once ate at a little café there and numerous other Alaskan things. When I left his rig I thought I saw a few of those cinnamon rolls hanging over his belt but he allowed as how that wasn’t cinnamon rolls. He has a middle age disease, Done Lops Disease. That is where your belly done lops over your belt. He sure enough had a good case of it.

A few rigs away was a lady hawking tours. On a tour you pay somebody to tell you when to get up, where to go, when to quit driving and when to go to bed. I think the same people who like being tied up go on these things. Onie and I like our freedom so we don’t go there. Besides Onie finds a whole lot of interesting things for us to see and do that we would miss if we were in a caravan. But I stopped anyway to visit because their rig was a Marlin, like ours. We talked about the coaches for a while before she brought up Alaska. They were there in ’01 when we were. They bought their rig in April of that year and headed north. Very similar to us, we bought in January ’01 and were in Alaska by June ’01. Her husband fished but had only caught pinks. The Indians of Alaska feed pinks to their dogs but I didn’t tell her that. She did tell me that pinks weren’t very good to eat. About that time her husband came up and I told them about our fishing experiences in Alaska, or at least some of them. He loves to fish and his face really lit up when I talked about catching 12 reds that weighed ninety pounds and a 90 pound halibut. He asked when we were going again and I told him probably ’06. Then I gave him my name and phone number and told him to call me to arrange a fishing tour once he got to Soldotna. He assured me he would and then gave me his name, address and phone number for his place in Ohio. He invited us to come up and visit, he has full hookups at his place, and we could discuss details. I quietly told him we would try to get up his way, as I gently reeled him in.

Now it was time for a class on hazard recognition and avoidance. The instructor was a former Michigan Highway Patrolman. He seemed compelled to regale us with some of his experiences, as such. I started to tell him I wanted equal time for my deeds as a deputy sheriff but thought better of it when I realized he was getting paid and I would be sharing all my good stuff for free. Well he talked about how many people we kill each year in the good ole U.S. of A. on our highways, over 40,000. Then he talked about how the public was starting to complain because we had lost about 600 people in Iraq since that war began but they were at least dying for a worthy cause, making the world safer, and many of the 40,000 died because they were trying to save a few seconds. Now this guy was sounding like a real teacher. I intended to apologize to him for thinking ill of his braggadocio, regarding his police exploits, if the opportunity came up. T never did. Outside the tent water was falling from the heavens like we were in south Texas. I hoped Onie was still in the computer room. The guy doing the talking kicked his volume up a notch and waded ahead. I was learning a few of his favorite phrases. One was” I could do this wrong” and I figured he could with that attitude. He should be thinking I can do this right. After lots of rain and statistics we began a little video that showed different driving situations. Each participant had a test paper to complete. The idea was to identify hazards from the video and then mark them on the multiple guess test. The ex-cop stressed that this was not pass/fail but was to teach us to see and identify driving hazards. The rain ended just before the class. We ran half an hour over and Onie was calling on the phone looking for me. It was time to go get the coach.

On the way to the toad I stopped and asked about windshield repair, holding tank vent covers and sun screens for the windshield and front windows. I still got back in about ten minutes instead of three or four. I can spend money quickly when I have to but I wasn’t spending money today, just asking questions.

Onie was going to drive us to get the coach but a Spartan Courtesy Van was right there so we rode with him to the factory. Chris, the service writer, had us all ready to go; we paid our bill and headed back to the campground. Before going back to our site we stopped to empty the holding tanks. While there I noticed a little chipmunk that was living in the adjacent plumbing.

As soon as we had gotten backed in Bill came over to visit. We talked about everything from soup to nuts including the price of eggs in China. As soon as we had resolved the world’s problems I set about getting shore power and water to the coach. There were a few things to store in the basement and I got inside just as the mosquitoes were beginning to bite.

The country rebel, Waylon Jennings, sang to us while we enjoyed our dinner. Onie settled down to the computer for a few games and I worked crosswords for a while. Later Onie began watching TV and went to the bedroom so she could watch from bed. I took my turn at the laptop games and then retired.

No rain came tonight but the clear skies did bring colder weather.

June 3, 2004

SERVICE PLEASE

I had a lot of catching up to do on my pecking. I also had to get the trash out as I missed yesterday’s pickup. We just put the trash in front of the coach and some folks come along each morning around ten and pick it up.

With the coffee and tea made and the trash out I settled down to write. Onie woke later and gave me some sausage to go with my tea.

The propane truck came by and filled our tank.

Onie was mapping a route to Nova Scotia, figuring mileages, tolls and looking at roads, in the U.S. and in Canada. It was shorter in Canada but the fuel was higher. The U.S. route was longer with lower fuel costs but a lot of toll roads. We decided on the Canadian route.

I kept writing as the clock hands past noon.

The fellow I had talked to yesterday about windshield repair came by, looked over the job and gave us a price on the eight dings we had. We agreed to it and he said he was going to get a bite and would be back in an hour or so. We visited a little before he left. Visiting with other RVers is a big part of rallies.

I kept writing.

We both had seminars later in afternoon and then a riverboat cruise dinner with no time to change between so we would have to dress before the seminars.

Pecking continued until time to get ready. Waylon kept me company.

Shortly before two Richard, the glass repair guy came back to the coach to get repairs started. He had all his tools and supplies in the back of his SUV. I watched through the windshield as I continued to peck.

Onie got ready and left for her seminar.

Richard had mirrors that he placed on the inside of the windshield so he could see the dings better. I moved these for him as necessary and decided to skip my seminar since I would have to leave the rig unlocked for him to go in and out. Staying would also let me catch up on my scribbling. He worked on the windshield, I scribbled the afternoon away.

After a while Onie returned unable to find the seminar site.

With her available to help with the windshield I decided to get ready for our evening out and then go check on the sun screens we are considering.

The folks who make and install the screens were out so I left a note and returned to the coach. Work on the windshield was still in progress.

Three and a half hours after he started Richard was finished. The windshield looked almost new.

With the windshield looking almost new Onie and I set off to catch the school bus to go to the river. If you remember from last year Spartan rents buses and drivers from the local ISD to cart us around to off site events. We rode on a bus used to haul kindergarteners and over each seat were pictures identifying where each student was to sit. I think we sat with Raggedy Ann. The ride to the Grand River, the longest river in Michigan, took half an hour or so. Once there we unloaded and boarded the Michigan Princess Riverboat. The boat was built in 1878 and used in riverboat trade until the river was dammed in several places. Then it became a passenger vessel between a couple of the dams charging five cents each way. With the coming of World War I it was laid up. Later it was fitted with diesel truck engines and used in conjunction with an amusement park owned by R. E. Olds, founder of the Oldsmobile Car Company, on the river. Upon his death it was again laid up. During the estate liquidation the current owners went to the auction in hopes of buying some life jackets off the boat for their fledgling canoe rental business. They ended up buying the boat along with the life vests. They, husband and wife, spent the next two years refurbishing the boat and installing two new marine diesel engines. They then put the boat back in service in its current capacity. In 1990 they hauled her out and put in new engines and repaired the superstructure and relaunched her in 1991. The Princess is available for charter and is used by groups such as ours, weddings, proms, company functions, etc. She can accommodate about 240 people.

On board we found a table on the second deck. Two other couples were already seated. One of the couples was Don and Beverly Ann Pipes. He is an account manager for Spartan Chassis. They are a delightful couple and he provided a lot of insight into the industry in general and Spartan in particular. She works in education. They RV also and look forward to the time they can hit the road for extended periods. We talked about family, theirs and ours, and visited about our journeys and their experiences as a military family. He was a military pilot before joining Spartan nine years ago. They have lived many different places including Europe and had many fascinating tales to relate. Dinner passed quite pleasantly and soon we found ourselves outside leaning on the rail watching the passing scenery. A couple of fishermen were throwing plastic worms toward the rock riprap that lined the banks. On the grassy bank a family was picnicking and the kids were throwing a Frisbee. Folks in row boats went by between us and the shore and behind us a high speed outboard roared past. Many fine homes with manicured lawns and gardens line the road that follows the river and we noticed them all but paid particular notice to the most elegant ones. All too soon the captain had us back at the wharf. We said our goodbyes and headed for a bus and the ride back home.

Although it was eight thirty the sinking sun still shone brightly even if it did provide less warmth. On the way over we rode with the windows down. Now that it was cooler windows went up. Onie and I looked for deer on the trip through the farming area. We saw none.

Nine o’clock saw us back home safe, sound and warm.

Onie settled in with a movie and I with the laptop.

When the movie was nearing its end and my energy was in the same predicament I got ready for bed. Onie served our Jell-O in bed. Then it was lights out.

June 4, 2004

THREE TIMES

This morning breakfast was served courtesy of the Spartan employees. They cooked and served. Breakfast was between 7:00 and 8:30. We got there at eight and picked up a complimentary copy of USA Today on the way in. During breakfast we read the news and when we were finished eating we worked the crossword.

With the crossword finished Onie headed off to the seminar on Hazard Recognition and Avoidance and I headed out shopping, for sun screens, again. I talked to Lois and Louis some more and watched them work on a set for someone else. I looked at a completed set, in white, on their coach and then went and saw a set in gray on a white coach. Onie and I had already seen black on white and the burnt sienna didn’t interest us. By the time my wanderings were over it was past time to go to the Spartan Chassis International Club business meeting and lunch. Sometimes even a blind hog finds an acorn and today I did. When I got to the meeting the business part was over and all that was left was the eating and giving away door prizes. To my amazement the meal was not a carboholics delight. Salad, green beans, wax beans and snap beans along with fish and chicken was the meal. It was so low in carbs I had another piece of that chocolate dessert from the other night. It was just too good to pass up. While I was swooning over my chocolate someone began giving away neat stuff, Spartan caps, Spartan jackets, Spartan mugs, good stuff, usable stuff. I won a stuffed Dalmatian about five inches high. He will spend the rest of his life velcroed to the dash looking at me and Butch.

After lunch I walked the five blocks back to the coach where Onie was waiting. Her class had run so long she didn’t get any lunch. She got a snack in the coach and then we went to look at the gray sun screen on the white coach. We discussed it some more and finally decided on gray. I had already placed an order for a set but left the color open. I stuck a sample of the gray material under our wiper blades, as agreed with Lois and Louis, so our choice would be known.

Nine days out and it was time to do a little washing. Onie sorted it in the coach and we loaded it in the toad and headed off to the washateria. Between us we remembered where it was. Three washer loads and three dryer loads later we were folding and putting things back in the toad. We had to hurry because the closing dinner was at five.

We got to dinner in time to get a good table. The food was more carbs with just enough protein to tease a mouse but the same good dessert was there so I didn’t complain too loudly. After all this was somewhat of a record for me. I had eaten our three times in the same day. Hopefully that won’t happen again too soon. I really do like Onie’s cooking and our everyday meals. After dinner came another drawing for more door prizes. A whole stack of loot covered the stage. More of the good stuff they had at the chassis club meeting as well as gallons of 303, miniature clock radios, gpses and lots of other stuff covered the stage. A girl about thirty began calling names. On and on she went until there was but one name left in the barrel, mine, and then she ran out of prizes. I hope she has quads and they are mean as snakes. Do you know 303 sells for about sixty dollars a gallon and we didn’t even get a pint. I had to buy ours. On that happy note we repaired to the coach.

We had just settled our disappointed selves in for the evening when the sun screen folks came by to measure. It was still early and they thought if they were lucky they might get us completed today. With measurements in hand they hurried off. We did too, to the showers. Onie forgot her towel and I got to be a Super Hero by spotting it and taking it to her. I arrived just a she began hunting for it. Timing is everything. Just as I got back from my shower the L&L Sun Screen truck pulled up.

Lois and Louis got out and went straight to work. I knew a check would have to be written as soon as they finished so I tried to engage them in lengthy conversation but they weren’t buying into my program. They seem to think that yes or no are very good answers for even lengthy questions and when I inquired if they had married so they would have he right initials for their business they just replied yes and no and kept working. Before too long I could tell that other RVers had probably tried this tactic so I began trying to remember, out loud, if I had remembered to bring my check book. Without a pause Lois told me Sylvia had her’s. Foiled at this turn I began searching for another ploy to delay payment but before I came up with another dodge they had finished. These folks are nice and even offered to come into the coach and wait while I wrote a check, mine or Sylvia’s. Reminding them that darkness was nigh and they had a big day tomorrow I took my checkbook from my hip pocket, wrote them a check and bade them goodnight. Then I went inside with Onie. We sat and looked at our newest acquisition and bragged on ourselves for making such a wise purchase. After a while we tired of this entertainment.

We opened up the laptop and played a little Spider before Onie turned to the TV. Me, I stayed with the laptop and pecked away for there is always a little something to put down.

Later we had some Jell-o before turning in.

June 5, 2004

OUT BOUND

Sometime before eight the sound of a Cummins firing woke me. It was one of our early bird neighbors. Apparently they had taken in their coach decorations and were leaving their site. The engine revved a little and then you could tell the coach was moving. Then it stopped. They would be hooking up their toad. A few minutes later it revved again and then became fainter and fainter until it was gone. Another coach, toad and contents were headed for new places. Dozing I heard this repeated continually only interrupted by the sound of the coffee pot brewing and signaling it was done. I had fixed it last night before going to bed and set it to go off at eight. Occasionally a Cat would fire up and move out but the majority of the rigs leaving sounded like they were Cummins powered.

After a while Onie stirred, smelled the coffee and got up to get a cup and start biscuits.

I rose and sat down with the laptop. After breakfast we made some phone calls and cleaned house before heading off to the post office and shopping to get some four inch PVC pipe to store our new sunscreens in. After having the pipe cut to length at Tractor Supply we took it home along with our groceries. At the coach we took the sunscreens off and stored them in the basement. Then we completed our prep for the road.

A stop at the sanitary dump station got us road ready as I filled our fresh water tank while the holding tanks drained. A fellow from Charlotte stopped while I was so engaged and we visited about coaches, rallies, weather and trolls. Then Onie, the coach, toad and I were on the road again.

We were back on 69 headed east to Lansing and on to Port Huron. Before we got to Port Huron we endured some of the worst road of the trip, to date. It was so bad it was judged to be Michigan dentists’ best friend. Even sound teeth can be loosed on this piece of washboard. If we remember nothing else of our last day in Michigan in ’04 we will remember this road. To tell you how bad it really was it was so rough that it killed several deer while they were trying to cross it. Sometimes we would see two or three deer in a five mile stretch. My best guess is they broke a leg or two trying to tiptoe across this poor excuse for a road. It was obvious after this happened someone had run over them to put them out of their misery.

Before we got to Port Huron we found a brand new Flying J and wheeled in for some fuel for us and the coach. We ate in their restaurant figuring this would be our last meal out on U.S. soil for quite some time.

In Port Huron we found the welcome area and pulled in for the night.

While Onie was getting dinner ready I turned on the TV and found out the Great Communicator had died. This man was truly “my president” and the president of all true patriots. He was a man of resolve, integrity, high morals, hope and action. What a shame we have such a tremendous propensity to disparage people when they are alive and praise them when they are dead. How much better to tell them how much they mean to us, what a good job they are doing and how much they are respected while they are still alive and it will mean something to them. When they are dead and gone you can say all the mean things you want and not hurt that person, at all. Our mottos should be “Give me my flowers while I’m living and I will give you yours”. The greatest man who ever lived said it even better, “Do unto to others as you would have them do unto you”. Reagan is gone but not forgotten and what he did for America will live on, hopefully for generations.

As we like to do we spent our afternoon and evening of this last day in the U.S. visiting with our family via cell phone.

Later that evening Onie watched a movie on Lifetime while I watched The Road to Bali, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Lauren Bacall, on DVD.

Around eleven the traffic was subdued and we were to. It was bedtime.