Thursday
Day 24
Putnam County Fairgrounds, Henry IL

We were up at about 6:45 am. Good Lord, I hope this doesn’t be come a habit! I can’t take it! Pancakes this morning. The last time we had pancakes at a rally the fella they hired had this huge, I mean huge flat griddle. It seemed to be about 30 feet long and attached to the sides, running along a rail type rigging, there was a funnel contraption that had four nozzles. As the guy moved the funnel along the sides of the griddle, he was piping out four pancakes at a time, perfectly round, perfectly spaced. By the time he hit the end of the griddle, it was time to run back to the beginning and start flipping. Out of the blue, he would yell, “Heads up!” and flip a pancake at some unsuspecting soul waiting in line. Amazing. This guy was perfection. What a great idea, and such a clever set up. The couple running the griddles this morning had a similar set up, only the griddles were only about 12 feet each, and there were two, a husband and wife team who were working like crazy. She was a wild gal, and was quite good at flipping a cake at someone standing in line. She had one heck of a flip and usually hit one of the helpers standing behind the folks waiting in line for food. I almost wet my pants when she yelled “Catch!” and the pancake landed on a volunteer worker’s head…who was bald. I wonder if it burnt his head! The pancakes were delicious and I devoured both of mine. I usually can eat only one, but they were very light and smallish so I cleaned my plate.

A word about last night’s entertainment. The Caterpillar Big Band played. They are employees, or relatives of employees of Caterpillar workers. Hmmm. I wonder. They were quite professional. And incredibly good. It was like Glenn Miller had been resurrected and was up there leading these guys. The singer was good also. They played mostly songs from the Big Band Era and I just loved it. So did everyone else!! They were well received and the appreciative audience gave them several standing ovations. I must say (and this is the skeptic in me I guess…) thinks that these guys are professional musicians and they have token jobs at the Cat plant. Any one of these folks could easily quit Cat and become a successful musician in any orchestra or band around. Just me. I am going to have to find out from someone who knows. The guy on alto sax was superb and the trumpet player who was one big fella was like Tommy Dorsey. I am not making this up!


Ok, back to today. As we were dining on Patty Cakes pancakes, a huge storm rolled in. The wind was blowing so hard the metal walls of the building we were in made a really loud rattling sound. Uh oh….I went back to the rig, my umbrella almost turning inside out in the strong winds. I guess that the display coaches will be closed up until the rain stops. I don’t think I’d want muddy shoes walking thru one of my honking new coaches if I was a dealer. I think the inside vender’s area will be jammed. Grandpa is sleeping on the couch as I write this, and Paulie is off to a FMCA Benefits seminar. We need to find out if grandpa has to join FMCA to have the benefits or he is considered part of our family (like a kid would be covered traveling with his parents). He is family, he travels with us in the rig, so I think he should be covered, but you can never be sure.

I wanted to go to a RV chemicals seminar, but think I’ll stay in and do dishes. I hate walking in thunderstorms. I always think I’ll be struck by a bolt of lightening. I haven’t been too nice lately. (Just kidding…I am always nice…!)

Well, there are 5 wifi’s available here, all privately owned by folks with internet satellite dishes and all code encrypted. Rats. If I find someone who owns one of them, I will offer to pay them for a bit of access so I can dump my blog. I would do that if someone asked me and I owned one!

Well, the dishes are calling me…and then I want to go to an Alaska seminar at 11. Maybe the rain will dissipate over the next couple of hours. It doesn’t seem to be letting up however, and the thunder is just booming. Believe it or not, my ears are just aching, but the fatigue hasn’t hit yet. I think the barometer was falling while I was trying to sleep. Had a very rough night, tossing and turning all night. Paul is a saint to put up with me. Ha ha ha, what choice does he have…its me or grandpa! And Pepi sleeps with grandpa. At least I don’t snort like a piggy when I sleep. Like Pepi! Well, not that I am aware of anyways!

Later,

Dee

P.S. I will download some pix later if I can link up. I don’t have too many, but I do have one of grandpa with a fish he caught in Geneseo…

Day 24 continued…

Paulie came back to the rig and by this time it had stopped raining. Amazing. One minute it’s pouring, the next minute the sun starts to peek through.

We looked at a few coaches on the way to the seminar on Alaska. I found a really nice Travel Supreme. Only $314,000. But it was a 2006, so I figure they will let it go at less than MSRP. I think I’ll offer 200 and see if they bite. LOL! Heck I can count all the pennies in my mason jar!

The Alaska seminar at 11 was almost full when we got there at 10:40. At 11:05 the presenters tried to start but people kept coming into the room. Each time, the presenters had to stop the presentation, turn the lights on (it was a slide show) and pass out materials including a raffle sheet. Again and again they were interrupted by latecomers. Grrrr. I hate these inconsiderate goofs. If the seminar starts at 11, they should BE there by 11. I swear…the entire presentation was ruined for me. I was getting madder by the minute. At 11:50 yes, ten minutes before the end, they still came in and interrupted. The gall. I wrote all over the comments sheet that once the seminar starts, especially one with visual stuff that the monitor should not allow any late comers ten minutes after it starts. Yeah, that’ll fly. At the end, they collected the raffle sheets. These damm nervy idiots were all pissy that they didn’t get one to fill out so they had a chance to win. The presenters, very, very nice folks, passed around some additional sheets and the entire room had to wait until they filled out their raffle sheets. Well, as fate would have it, one of the late ignoramus’ won. By now I am livid and had to actually bite my tongue so I wouldn’t say something evil and nasty. I am still pissed.

We went back to the rig and had some lunch. After lunch, grandpa went with us to look at coaches. We saw some nice ones…all way overpriced for our meager budget. Afterwards, we went to another seminar and grandpa went back to the rig. This seminar was about how to use simple things like Velcro and cord winders to make your rig more organized and to be less stressed. Stress and frustration go hand and hand with rv’ing. Maybe some of these ideas will help. I tease Paulie all the time that perhaps full-time on the road would be too stressful for him. Every time there is a little problem, he goes off. He used to be so laid back and calm. What ever happened to that Paulie? Well, Zack I guess, lol!

After the seminar we went back to the motorhome and picked up grandpa. We went into Henry to look for a place to eat. Paul and I had eaten four years ago at the bar and grill on the square, but we thought we’d try somewhere else. We wound up at Mother’s. Well, if ever there was a place that was small town, old and hokey, it was this place. We were the only customers for dinner and it was almost 5:30 p.m. I had the special…meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy and fugly green beans. The salad was served in a dessert bowl and grandpa ordered blue cheese dressing and the waitress arrived carrying a bottle of Kraft Blue Cheese. Honest. The meatloaf was tasty and the potatoes were really smashed taters…a nice surprise. Grandpa had a steak which he said was very good. Just as we were finishing up, a group of 8 came in, also from the FMCA rally. This poor waitress was just overwhelmed. Poor girl. We left her a nice tip, probably more than she had made all day. On the way home, we stopped at the dollar store for some dish soap and some other paper goods. Paulie walked next door and bought some more beer…my fav Killian’s Red. Such a nice guy, eh?

Well, I decided not to go see Dave and Daphne, the entertainment duo for the evening. We saw them in Albert Lea, and although Dave is a really great guitar picker, Daphne’s voice just grates on me. She sang Cabaret and it was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Icky. Paul and grandpa went and of course, grandpa was all ga ga over this Daphne chick, I know he does this stuff just to irritate me. It works.

While they gone, I finished up my printing for the chapter fair on Saturday. I am gonna be a dead woman walking by Saturday evening. Paulie and I man the chapter fair table
from 9 to one. Then at one, our Red Hatter’s tea goes until two. At 2:30 to four, I am monitoring my last seminar, a scrapbooking thing. Then at 5:30 we will have a get together here at our rig for the Cenois members here at the MAC rally. Horseydovers are on the menu. Everyone will bring something, and a chair and we can discuss the events over the week. We plan on leaving right after the entertainment. Some middle-aged babe and her four aces or some such act. Gosh, it must be hard to find good entertainment that is affordable for these rallies.

Well, it’s almost bedtime. Yanno, 7 a.m. is just to darn early for my psyche to deal with.

Later…

Dee