Finally access...I wrote a note to ya'll at the start of the newest entries...scroll down to begin so you can read in sequence.

hugs

dee

Sunday
Day whatever…

I am going to stop putting down the day number. I know we have been gone a long time so who needs numbers?

We stopped at a Flying J just inside the Indiana border about 11 last night. For all Paulie’s planning to “miss” the traffic jam at the construction on I80/I90 it was for naught. It took us an hour and a half to get through about a 15 minute section of road.
We were awakened about 5 a.m. by the kitty litter pan continuously running. (For the uninformed, we have used the automatic litter disposal pans for about 10 years or so…wouldn’t do without one.) Anyways, Snickers likes to move every speck of litter to the right side of the pan which screws up the sensors and makes the sweeper thingy run and run. Paul decides that he has to use the bathroom and since I have already used it, he has clear access off my side of the bed since I am standing there shivering. Then when he gets back to bed he decides that he should wake up grandpa like he did to us yesterday, ruining our final minutes of available sleep. Foolish man. I tell the goof that his plan has one major flaw. Of course, grandpa will get up, have a cup of coffee and then as we mosey on down the highway, he will promptly fall asleep in his seat. I will have already moved to sleep on the couch and Paulie would be all by his lonesome, just driving. Just who is “getting” who says I? Defeated, he grumbles some unintelligible words and in minutes, he is once again sawing logs. Not me. Oh no. Not nocturnal dysfunctional moi. I finally fall asleep and it seems like five minutes later Paul is giving me a nudge to get up. We dress, walk over to the store at the Flying J and get some coffee and doughnuts. Crispy crèmes. Yuk they are really bad. No wonder they are losing money…they make lousy doughnuts.

We make it into Michigan and before we know it, we are pulling into the campground at the Elks club in Muskegon. After setting up, we have some lunch. Leftover cocktail party appetizers. My ears are making some awfully strange noises (for a brief moment I thought I was intercepting alien telecommunications signals) so after lunch before I fell down, I went and laid down. My brain does its thing and completely shuts down and I am passed out within minutes. I wake up about three thirty and Paulie has the awning out, the palm tree and all our outdoorsy stuff set out. Whata guy. They tell me that Sue had stopped by earlier but I was asleep. I take a shower and get dressed. Soon we are off to Suzie and Larry’s house to have dinner. Amy and Casey are surprised to see grandpa in his beard. We have a drink and some appetizers while catching up on what’s going on in everyone’s life. Lar makes wonderful grilled pork tenderloin, accompanied by grilled potatoes and onions. Wow, everything was great. We sit around and talk, grandpa telling stories of his family and the war. We left about nine and back to the rig. I thought I’d write a bit while things are fresh in my mind. We will find a laundry and wifi hot spot tomorrow and probably do some grocery shopping. We also want to visit the beach here at the campground. I am watching the TV weather guy and tomorrow is going to be like today…overcast and occasional showers are expected. That’s ok…errands need to be run anyways.

Later

Dee

Saturday
Day 26

To finish up last night’s activities…I had two bloody mary’s and was tipsy. Gee, it takes so little these days to make me tipsy.

We were awakened at 6:30 a.m. by grandpa yelling, “It’s time to get up!” Grrrr. I need that extra half hour of sleep to be at the very least, relatively human. Paulie and I got up, I made coffee and the sofa bed, and then made myself a protein. Busy day today. Paul and I load up the car with the stuff for the chapter fair table. I didn’t think we had that much, but it sure filled up the back seat. We all then walked to breakfast. This time grandpa and I brought coffee that I had made. The MAC coffee is um, shall we say in my Daddy’s own words…”bug juice”. Yep, bug juice. Three packets of creamer didn’t change the muddy black stuff, and then when I put in the splenda, the spoon stood up in the center of the cup. No, really. Once again, the Patty Cakes pancake makers were tossing around cakes at everyone. They just insist on giving me three cakes when I ask for two. I can’t EAT three, why waste it? They had eggs leftover from yesterday. I told the ladies spooning them out that I was allergic and couldn’t eat them, all the while making gacking sounds… “Oh my,” they said in unison. Didn’t have the heart to tell them their eggs sucked.

After breakfast, Paul and I went back to the car and headed over to Bldg 9 where we were to set up the Cenois chapter table. By the time we got there, at 8:30, about 6 tables were already up and hogging all the space. I can always count on Paulie to make people move and do what he wants. We set up our table and it looked ok. The tablecloth from the dollar store was a bit short, but we managed. We still had all the Americana stuff in the rig from our May rally. I had purchased a couple of bags of hard candy and also had the Illinois map with pins stuck in it to represent where the membership of Cenois came from. Not my idea, Bev Stear gave this to me when I took over as secretary and I just stuck it in the closet. It was actually a big hit. However, my power point slide show presented with the big band sounds of Rod Stewart singing oldies was the biggie. Everyone was impressed. Even me. Hahaha.

It was a long morning. We started at nine, and were to stay until one. Everyone except me packed up at noon and was gone. I was the only one left. It was good for me as lots of folks came in after the seminars were over at 12 and 12:30 and I was it. Too kewl. I sure hope some of the folks who seemed interested in our chapter some out to see us at a rally in the future.

After we repacked the car, we decided to visit the 4H food booth and we both got a “barbeque” sandwich. I asked what kind of BBQ and the little girl said “Beef”. Ok, that sounds good, so when Paulie picks up the plates, we get sloppy joes. BBQ? Is a loose meat sandwich a.k.a. sloppy joe really considered a barbeque? Hmmm. Semantics. Gotta love small towns. Maybe its just me…I never thought of a sloppy joe as BBQ.
It actually was a pretty good sloppy joe, er, BBQ. We sat with the Stears and I was supposed to go to the Red Hat Tea at 1. I was a bit tired so I decided to skip it. Paulie gave me a ration of crap about that…finally I told him to button it up…the darn ticket only cost me a buck. PIA. We get back to the rig and grandpa is missing, again. I make myself an iced tea and Paulie goes to look for his dad. At 2 I get ready to go to my last monitor duty which is a scrapbooking craft class that is an hour and a half. I have to make appetizers for our Cenois get together at 5:30. This outta be good. I arrive at the seminar location and there is another seminar still going. I check the book and see that this fella doing a battery seminar is scheduled from 1:30 to 2:30. Ooops. My seminar starts at 2:30. We should have at least a half hour between. All the attendees for the 2:30 seminar are standing out in the hot sun while this group finally breaks up. Of course, they all have more questions for the guy and want to buy his product while here we are trying to set up the craft tables. Then the nitwit monitor from this class removes the bucket with the packets. I had first taken my seminar packet out as soon as I got into the room and took all the pens…what this goof was doing is still beyond me. The bucket with all the seminar surveys are to be left in the room for the seminar coordinator to pick up. Well it just gets better. All the attendees came empty handed. The seminar description said to bring three photos and there would be a ten dollar fee for supplies. Geez…RFB. (Read the freakin’ brochure…!) So, here the scrapbooking lady has 10 signed up and thinks she is gonna make about a hundred bucks for her time. Well, needless to say, she was not thrilled with the group. I certainly don’t blame her. It’s hard to prepare a craft class that can be done in a certain amount of time and she hauled all this crap to the room. Then, to top it off, that group of loud mouthed males were still bugging the previous speaker. The scrapbooking lady had had enough and told the men in no uncertain terms that they needed to move their booty and let her do her seminar. I almost applauded her. I was just getting up to ask them to leave when she spoke up. Thankfully she took it all in stride after a moment of frustration and gave a nice talk about the craft. After an hour, she was done so I was free to go. Off I go back to the rig. Paulie and grandpa came within an INCH of buying an Alfa. Good grief. I leave them for an hour or so and this is what they do. Grandpa had a great time talking to sales people and touring all the coaches. Both he and Paul just love this Alfa coach. Well, I guess Paul came back to earth fast when he found out how much the payment would be. Grandpa wanted to buy it and pay the payments. Gotta love him.

We scurried around and got ready for our guests. I had made Bisquik sausage balls, bruchetta and a round loaf of bread hollowed and filled up with dill dip and bread pieces. Paul had made BBQ wings. By the time everyone arrived, we had wonderful deviled eggs, a sausage and cheese plate, a fruit plate, popcorn and a bunch of other goodies. We all had a great time and everyone was tired but happy that the rally had been a success.

After everyone left for the entertainment about seven, I cleaned up the rig, and Paulie and grandpa packed up the outdoor stuff. We were on I80 by 8:35. We are rolling on 80 as I type this. Well, its pretty dark and I can’t see the keys too well. I’ll write more tomorrow. Hopefully we can find someplace with wifi so I can post these past days entries.

Later

Dee

Day 25
Friday
Henry, IL

It seems I am waking up at 3 a.m. every single night, and then have a hard time going back to sleep. Seems my hip is just achy enough to keep me uncomfortable and unable to sleep. This morning, same stuff. Geesh. Then I have to get up at 7. My brain is a mess. Well, I have a busy morning, monitoring two seminars and then I can go watch my soaps. Cliffhanger Friday you know. The breakfast this morning was eggs and sausage. Um, thanks but no thanks. I made a hot protein and then my sister Jan called. Great, an excuse NOT to go to breakfast. We talked for awhile. I swear, she gets three steps ahead and then has to take two steps back. This week the shower fixture went belly up and of course, it is so old they don’t stock ‘em any more. She is getting her van ready for resale. Hope she can get what she needs. She wants to do replacement windows, and now may have to put in an all new shower plumbing fixture which means tearing out a wall. Good grief.

I met up with Paulie and grandpa. They were grousing about the eggs. Gee, you think I should have spoken up? Nah, live and learn I always say.

I stopped in the vender’s area a bought a water bottle holder that you stick in your pants waist or belt. Really neat. Now all I have to figure out is how to prevent the sweat from the bottle down my leg.

I arrive at my first seminar location and already the presenter is telling jokes. There are about 10 people already there. I pass out survey sheets to those there and hand one to each new arrival. I am determined NOT to let latecomers ruin MY seminar. Tardies were met at the door, told to sit where I told them to sit and I gave them the seminar info booklets and the survey sheet. I think I did quite well, and my presenter did not have to stop the presentation for these tardies. My presenter was quite the talker and I kept trying to get his attention to tell him time was running out. He ignored me; on purpose I am sure, lol! Finally, he acknowledged me, but he was determined to show all his slides and went over the allotted time. I had another seminar which had originally been scheduled at the same location, but was changed to accommodate a larger crowd. I was supposed to be there 15 minutes before the start time to get my stuff together. Finally he shut up (!) and everyone filed out. They all seemed very, very pleased with this gentleman. Paulie later went to another seminar he taught about RV chemicals and batteries.

We book to the next seminar and do the same drill all over again, however this room was huge and we had over 60 attendees. Unlike the Alaska seminar, the tardy folks didn’t disrupt the entire presentation, and thankfully the older couple who were presenting it, didn’t stop at each interruption of tardies. Again, the MODERTOR WAS TOTALLY IN CONTROL…LOL!

It seems my cap lock key is on the fritz. Crap, just what I needed, a problem with my new computer.

I guess my lock key is stuck. Hmmm, how do you fix that?

I GUESS I WILL CALL MY SON…GRRRR, WHY DOES THIS STUFF HAPPEN TO ME? I pried up the key and it looks like it’s fried. I could just scream. OK, enough complaining. I can’t write in all caps, it gives me a headache. I will try to post more later when I am not so pissed. Hey!!! Well I guess I fixed it…there is a selection on the font box on the tool bar. Whew….

Well, those fuglies at Al’s Motorhomes sold my coach. How dare they? It was mine I tell you. All mine! It was a Travel Supreme, 40 foot quad slide, colors inside and out were a rich caramel and black. King bed, beautiful maple cabinetry with an antique overlay. A wonderfully large desk on the curb side and a comfy Euro recliner. A 42, yes 42 inch flat screen TV over the front of the rig. Awesome. I would have been in heaven. It also had a STACKED washer drier…none of that typical Splendide thing which is a combination washer/dryer that everyone says sucks. *Sigh*. Even grandpa wanted this one. He could have had his own sink and medicine cabinet…there were two, one in the bathroom (toilet and sink) separate from the second sink paired with the shower. Beautiful high quality slate tiles The super-sized sofa was leather and it was like butter…really. I could lay totally stretched out, not like ours. No oven, but a convection microwave combo…no stupid stove. Ah, but where would I store bread and grandpa’s cookies? A ceramic smooth top range. The only thing missing was a dishwasher, but I have Paulie. A huge, deep kitchen with beautiful marble counters. OH, it was my dream coach. Well, next time maybe. Or when we sell the house we can trade up. Grandpa and I are in agreement. Sell that stick house and hit the road for great adventures. Like I said…it was only $314,000.00 and it was a 2006…bet they will be dealing tomorrow. Too bad grandpa didn’t bring his check book, lol! OK, OK, its out of our league. One can dream right? I will start looking for used coaches just like this one. Tomorrow I will get the model number and maybe some specs. Oh darn. I will also take pictures so I can look at my dream coach every day.

Well, the boys are at the entertainment for the evening. A joke telling juggler. Gosh. What a great show, I betcha. Well, not for me. Jugglers, magicians, tumblers and the man on the flying trapeze are just not my idea of entertainment. Clowns freak me out and so do ventriloquists. Too many horror movies in my early years I think. I have chills just thinking about somebody who thinks a hunk of wood TALKS for god’s sake. My hip is really bothering me and I am going to take a nice hot shower and relax in the recliner. As I noted earlier, we have a full day tomorrow.

Later guys…

Dee

Day 25 continued…

Gee, I wrote all the above and forgot to tell you about two exciting parts of my day…one just happened in the shower…! I was showering in the rig, nice hot water, new Mary Kay cleansing gel (great stuff Maureen, if you’re reading this. However…the tube is defective…half the gel gushed out the bottom seam…must not have been connected/glued correctly. Love it though!) Anyways, the glob of gel wound up on the shower floor and immediately foamed up and made the floor of the shower just a tad slippery. Of course, we all know that I am not the best balanced person in the world, and in an instant my every present dizziness ratcheted up a notch and I started to fall…my ass hit the shower door, it popped open, water gushed out onto the bathroom floor. I was quick enough to grab the door jab. Once again, my shoulder jammed up against the door frame (can’t I take just one fall without popping my bad shoulder out? Grrr.). Whew, that was a close one…I can’t imagine what damage I would have done to my old body not to mention the damage to the rig’s bathroom. Then of course, I can just imagine Paulie’s face coming home to that spectacle. Well, so much for taking a shower alone in the rig again!

Earlier today, during the second seminar, about half way thru the presentation, Paulie left to go check on grandpa at the rig. I needed to go to the bathroom in the worst way. I kept jiggling around waiting for Paul to come back and let me get away to the bathroom. He finally got back and I made a beeline to the ladies room. It was like a block away. I don’t walk fast to begin with but I finally made it to the stall, and started to take off my jeans skort (shorts under a mini type skirt is a skort). Well, I couldn’t unbutton and unzip in time. I just wet my pants. How embarrassing!!! And I am actually writing about it and letting you all laugh at me! How stupid is that? I had to take off my icky panties and put them in my fanny pack. Ugh. Thank the good Lord; the skirt part of the skort covered the wet spot. I gotta go and have this checked out when we get home. It’s been almost 10 years since my last bladder surgery so I guess I am due. I cannot even fathom having another one, but I have read that ten years is about all they last. Good grief. It just never ends!

Well, the boys are back from the entertainment and Paulie is fixing us a drink. It was a beautiful day today, sunny yet cool with a nice breeze. It is now past sunset and again, it’s a beautiful night. Hopefully, I will have some time to write tomorrow. After the entertainment tomorrow evening, we will be taking off. Paulie wants to get past the I80/I90/I94 craziness when traffic is light, hopefully by 11 or so when we get there, it will be smooth sailing. We will most likely stay at a rest area, WalMart or truck stop and get an early start Sunday a.m. We alerted the Elk’s campground that our plans have changed and we won’t arrive until Sunday. Can’t wait to see Suzie, Lar and the girls.

Later…

Dee

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

Wednesday,
Day four thousand six hundred and eleven…

OK, so I can’t remember…one of those senior moments I reckon….

We finally arrived at the Henry Putnam County fairgrounds. Wow. Motorhomes as far as the eye can see. Ok. Well, maybe they just fill the fairgrounds. Looks to be about 375 rigs here. I did see one 5th wheel. Must be a vendor…nothing but motorhomes allowed here for goodness sakes. With all these big dollar coaches, I bet the guy in the 5th wheel feels like a poor ol’ piker. I never cease to be amazed at the number of coaches that retail over $500,000.00 at these things. If I could afford a half a mil for a home, I sure as hell wouldn’t spend it on a tin can on wheels for goodness sakes. I’d buy a lakefront or ocean front villa on either Lake Como or near Sanibel Island. Well, maybe not Sanibel…they are more like 4 or 6 million…can’t afford the taxes on those puppies.

We had to wait almost two hours to get parked. One of the parking volunteers said that two out of three coaches were handicapped. They ran out of spots for us handicappers…we lucked out since we were placed in a plumb spot. We are in with the Midwest Frustrated Maestros, the group of folks that entertain us at breakfast each day. We are 200 feet from the display coaches and just about 600 feet from the arena where the entertainment will be each night. Paulie took our lawn chairs over all ready so we can get a good seat in the handicapped section. So many of our friends from Cenois are here, and have really important jobs to boot. Good to have friends in high places as they say lol!

We are planning on steak for dinner. I was starving so I made two brushettas for myself. Crisp bread topped with tomato and onion in spiced olive oil and then topped with mozzarella cheese. Oh they are soooooo good. I planned on bringing them to our Cenois club get together but now, I just might do something else. I hate to part with something so good. Selfish girl…yep that’s me!

Well, I am so hungry I could eat the proverbial horse. Where is Paulie for heaven’s sake? I’ve got to eat or have another low blood sugar problem. Last time it was 46. NOT good.

Later

Dee

Dear Readers...START HERE FOR UPDATES!!


Ok my friends...I am sitting in a comfortably overstuffed arm chair in the new Barnes and Nobels in Muskegon. I have popped two (yes, two) vicodin from Paulies old stash from his shoulder surgery, so I am not only PAIN free for a couple of hours, I am also in a pretty good mood, LOL!

I am going to post the last week's blog entries as this is the first opportunity to get wifi. I apologize but the folks in Henry IL didn't have a clue what wifi was so you can imagine my frustration. Sorry that you will have to go backwards, but actually there's not alot I can do. However I will post them individually with the day on them so it may make it easier. I sure hope everyone is enjoying this as much as I am enjoying practicing my writing skills. It has been suggested to me that I use this as a basis for a book on fulltiming in our RV...hmmm, such as what not to do? Or don't do this because...just ask me how I know....

well, off to cut and paste. Miss you all, but we are having a ball. Grandpa still wants that Alfa he fell in love with...I think he and Paulie are gonna call Pontiac RV and see if the deal they worked out is still good. Hey, whatever grandpa wants...he is having a great time and I am so very happy about that. Not to mention that he and I are tossing back a few cocktails and have never had more fun talking and listening to his stories. He is a real card. I think I am going to get out the video camera and start recording these sessions. I love looking at Daddy's videos. Makes me realize how truly wonderful his stories were and makes me miss him, but in a good way. I still see his twinkling blue eyes and that goofy grin he made when he knew he was joshing ya.
I will regret not getting grandpa Gene on tape.

hugs

dee