Monday

Well, we secured the rig, loaded up the furkids and some of grandpa's stuff and hit I74 for the 2 hour ride to Rochester.

We got home and as expected, the house was dirty...I expected this, Paulie is pissed. I don't know why he thought the house would be clean. It is after all, still standing. There were no holes in the wall, no burnt food in the oven, no dirty dishes all over and all the furniture was still in one piece. Dirt is something a 20 year old boy doesn't see. Doesn't he get this? Disappointed my tushie...as I said, it was almost cleaner that I thought it would be. Nothing is broken, everything is still in place and the plants are even still alive. Paul needs to chill. And then the weather is so great...99 in the shade! The house is starting to cool down...but the outside flowers are pretty well goners, I have yet to see the tomatoes. Where I had planted annuals, the weeds have taken over the plants everywhere. Oh well, it'll just have to stay that way...no way in hell is anyone gonna pick weeds in this weather. And since I can barely walk, weeds can do whatever they please.

We will head back to kickapoo on Wednesday evening....I am planning on getting together with my cousin Nancy who lives near there. After the Cenois FMCA meeting is over on Saturday morning, Paulie and I will head home in the rig. Gee...since grandpa won't be with us, I will actually be able to sit in the FRONT seat instead of the frickn' recliner in the back. Wow, I am soooo excited.

later

dee

Sunday July 16th.

We had a nice breakfest of fresh fruit, bagels and scones. One by one, the out of towners got ready and had to pack up to leave. We finally got on the road around noon. It was hard to leave Michigan...we enjoyed our time here. We took a red road (red on the map) which was a strait shot down to Lafayette from Michigan City. We will stay at Kickapoo Sunday night, leave the rig and then bring grandpa back to Rochester on Monday. I have to see the doc on Tuesday morning and Paulie is doing some driving for the special needs folks.

Once we made it to Kickapoo, we set up the rig and then had a run to Tilfton or some such place for dinner. We went to Monical's pizza and it was truly bad. Oh well, we will know next time.

hugs

dee

Saturday July 15

We broke camp (or should I say Paulie broke camp?) and headed over to the Williams.
Steph and Matt arrived soon followed by Ricky and Linny. We had some snacks at the house then headed to Grand Haven for dinner. The place could only seat us outside. Half the table was in the shade and the other half of us sat in the sun. It was almost unbearable out there. Finally another table in the shade left and Amy and I went and sat in the shade by ourselves. After dinner the group headed for a walk but Sue and I went across to the coffee shop and I got a frozen coffee. The group had stopped for some ice cream and then we headed back to the house. We sat around and talked for a while. Since Matt had to umpire some games back home he and Steph had to leave about 9. We planned to have coffee and bagels in the morning.

Friday July 14

I crawled out of the air mattress about 8 a.m. I just couldn’t take it anymore, I felt like I was suffocating. Why Paulie was able to sleep is beyond me. It is another overcast day, the expected high to be around 90 degrees which is unheard of here in this part of the world. I am really hurting today. I just am counting the days until I get this freaking hip fixed. I hate to continually complain around the old farts so I just bitch about it here!

I guess I will go to B&N to post this. While I am out I will have to get another air mattress. I haven’t taken any pictures lately…so there isn’t too much to post in that area, but what I have, I will get up. We have to break camp here tomorrow as the campground is full up on Saturday. We had originally planned to head home tomorrow, but our plans changed when cousin Ricky could only make it here this weekend. So, we will probably park the rig at Wally world overnight. Sunday is still up in the air. We are going to avoid the I90/I80 crap and head south into Indiana. We will drop the rig off at Kickapoo State park near Danville and then just load up the car and head home to Rochester. The Cenois group is meeting in Kickapoo next weekend and it is cheaper to pay the daily fee at the park than drive the rig home and then back 150 or so miles with the cost of fuel. Hank and Elizabeth Kerr are arriving on Tuesday so they will be early arrivals and will undoubtedly keep an eye out on the rig for us, not that anything would happen. We will return on Wednesday or Thursday and stay until after the club meeting on Saturday. We have a wedding and a retirement party Saturday night.

Well, I am off to get dressed and then maybe Paulie and I will go to the mall and get the mattress.

Later

Dee

Friday continued…

Well, they say the best laid plains…

We wound up sticking around here. Paulie started to clear up the outside and put stuff away in anticipation of breaking camp tomorrow. He had a terrible time getting the awning in. I just don’t understand. I watch a ton of folks set up camp and then take it down again. NOBODY has the problems Paulie does. I don’t know if its just fate or he is doing things his own way and not bothering to do things the right way. As if I would even know the right way from the wrong way. For example, the clip thing on one end of the awning was jammed. Nothing could un-jam the thing. He finally had to get on a ladder and unlock the thing with pliers. Geesh. I watch folks putting out and pulling in awnings and I have never seen anyone have any difficulty…at all. I did pretty much of nothing…so what else is new? I did have to lie down for a while. Paulie also cleaned all the windows on the front of the rig.

We are supposed to go to a margarita party tonight. I am not in any mood to be pleasant. Just am not in a very good mood. Don’t know why. Maybe I am depressed ‘because we have to go home. I shouldn’t be…we’ve had a great time. And I do want to get this hip thing over and done with. Maybe I am just tired from the bad sleep I had last night and the nap didn’t really help. I am going nuts from about 25 mosquito bites I got sitting out at the beach with the campground folks last night. How can a bite still make you itch like crazy a day after you’ve been bitten? That’s just not right. I am scratching the skin off in places! I didn’t get a very refreshing nap either. Nope. Nothing promising so far about this evening!

We are having hot dogs, corn on the cob and potato chip fragments for dinner. I don’t know who is eating all these chips, I haven’t had any. I haven’t had any in months…ugh. When I think of all the chips I ate when I had my binge/cravings I get sick all over again. Finally the sun is out…it’s now 6:30 p.m. and the sun decides to show up. It is supposed to be really hot and humid tomorrow, very rare for this area. Looking forward to seeing Steph, Lindsey and Unca’ Rick.

Later

dee

Thursday July 13

We had some errands to run this morning so we took grandpa to Toast and Jams. Well, I ordered the eggs benedict; Paulie the French toast and grandpa got a pecan roll. My eggs were delish, but I could only eat one egg. Paulie could only eat one slice of toast, and grandpa didn’t like his pecan roll…it had caramel sauce all over and pooled on the plate. Not his kinda pecan roll. A real bust actually.

We proceeded to Sam’s Club to check out ribeye steaks. We wanted to buy the fixings for dinner on Saturday when Rick and the girls get here. The whole ribeyes were outrageously priced. Twice the price as at home. By the time we would buy the meat, side dishes etc, we could eat out without the hassle and the messy clean up.

We then went to Walmart for RV black water tank stuff and to get grandpa’s favorite nut rolls. We had talked to Sue and made plans to go to meet at the Old World Buffet for dinner around 6:30. The sun was out, and the humidity was rising. When we got back to the rig, we changed and went down to the beach. It was very hot. We only stayed by the water for about an hour and a half. The sun was just so intense, I had to cover up about ten minutes after we got there. Back at the rig, I needed to nap, so I shut myself up in the bedroom while Paulie and grandpa watched a poker tournament on TV. I was hurting and really didn’t nap but it was nice and quiet in the bedroom plus I had pulled down the shades. We had turned on the air conditioning before we left in the morning in anticipation of the heat and humidity so the rig was nice and comfortable.

We left the rig to meet the William’s about 6:10. While on our way, Sue called and said they would be on their way shortly. When we got to the buffet, it was pretty busy. We looked around the deli checking out the imported foods. Just as we decided to go sit and have a iced tea while waiting, a huge group of about 20 people came in…and they had teenage boys. By the time Sue and Casey had arrived…the buffet had been decimated. Teenage boys. What more does one need to say?

The sausage, cabbage rolls and the sauerkraut dishes were all superb. Why else would we have returned? Those rotten teenagers ate the entire dish of potato pancakes. The nice lady at the buffet said she would get me some and about two minutes later three hot, sizzling pancakes were sitting in front of me. Pure heaven. Why don’t my potato pancakes taste like these?
I gotta learn how to cook better polish, its soooooo good. There is a dish called Bogi or something like that which is a sauerkraut stew made with meat. Oh, my goodness. It is very good. Gotta get that recipe off the net.

After dinner, Paulie and I went up to watch the sunset again, and were joined again by some of the folks from the campground. It was a beautiful sunset once again. We watched a bit of TV and then it was dreamland. We were hoping the air would stay in the mattress where it belonged, however I again woke up about 3 a.m. and the air was half gone. How uncomfortable that is…sleeping on a half filled air mattress that is on top of the most unbearable sleep sofa mattress ever created. It was sticky and hot ‘cause I kept sinking into the plastic of the mattress. Gosh. Then I wonder why I hurt when I get up. The air mattress really had been a godsend for my fibro…I sleep well on it and it is not hard like my other mattresses at all. Actually I was thinking of replacing our mattress with the sleep number but then changed my mind when I saw the price tag!

Wednesday July 12


OK, I am now starting to get pissy. Rain again. Overcast skies. Déjà vu all over again as Yogi would say. We started out this trip with continuous rain and now it’s haunting us again. Sometimes I wonder if its just us, or there really is something to this luck thing. If we have been gone six weeks, probably three have been rain, overcast and just plain yucky. I give up.

Don’t know what our plans are for today. Paulie has volunteered to help the Elks Lodge here serve a veteran’s steak dinner. I don’t know the details as of yet. Maybe I will go to WalMart in the town north of here. The Muskegon super WalMart is not scheduled to open until July 19th. Just walking around WalMart is better than sitting here watching the idiot box.

BTW, after I was kicked out of Barnes and Noble at 9:45 last night, I tried to call the mad shopper Paulie. Obviously no signal in the Meijers Superstore. I wait and I wait and I WAIT. Finally at 10:15 I get a hold of him. He pulls up and is all innocent like. I ask him if he just does this stuff to piss me off. Again, Mr. Innocence tells me I told him B&N closes at ten…well, my dear that’s HALF of what I told you. I remind him I also told him that they shag everyone out 15 minutes before closing and I would be out in front at about 9:45 or 9:50. Conveniently, that part of our conversation has been forgotten. Ya think he does this on purpose just to honk me off? Or to make me even pissier, he half listens…and forgets most of the details. He’s trying to get me committed. I just know it. Can I prove this…yeah right…every crazy person claims to be sane. That’s the gig.

I did talk to Maureen briefly yesterday. Nothing new on that front. Also talked to Jan for a minute. She has to buy a new mower. Again. This is like three in two years. I’d give up. Find some neighborhood kid with a mower and pay him ten bucks and be done with it.

Well, since it’s gonna be another crappy day, I suppose I should pull out Zack’s sweater and start knitting. Problem is today is supposed to be a bit on the hot and humid side and that thing weighs a ton! Hmmm. Maybe I’ll work on my new purple top that I am making out of microspun. This sucker will take forever…size 5 needles for a tunic with long sleeves. I must be a glutton for punishment as Daddy would say. OK, I’ll stop my endless complaining here and get productive. Maybe I’ll just go back to bed!

Hugs

Dee

Wednesday continued…

Well, the sun did eventually show its face this afternoon, so the three of us went down to sit on the beach. We stayed about two hours as the clouds kept the hot part of the sun at bay. Lots of kids playing in the sand and water.

Paul went and bought a rotisserie chicken from Meijers for dinner. It was very good and he had purchased some side dishes; fried apples and candied yams. Pretty good slap it together dinner.

After dinner we went up to the beach to watch the sunset. We never get tired of watching a sunset. This evening, it was very different…the sun dropped out of a cloud just before it went down. Quite different than any we’ve seen thus far. We sat and talked with some folks from a fifth wheel rig across the way. They are from Midland, and are hopeful that they will get a permanent site next year. They have a huge basset hound that stinks really bad (to me anyways). He is huge, about 80 pounds at least, all really close to the ground. The appeal of that dog escapes me. Ugh. He kept nudging me to pet him…I did very reluctantly and paid the price…stinky doggie smellie hands until I got back to the rig.

We got back to the rig about 10:15…grandpa was sitting outside waiting for us. He had been waiting for about 45 minutes…he told us he just figured we were “having sex on the beach” that made us late. Oh yeah, me and Paulie have been wanting to do that for so long…riiiiiiight. We sat outside for a couple of hours before going to bed.

About three am, I woke up and both Paulie and I had rolled into the center of the air mattress…like two hotdogs in a bun. The mattress was leaking. Well, when we got up, we realized that Paulie hadn’t affixed the cap on the intake valve properly. Hopefully, that’s all it is and we won’t have to get a new air mattress.