Today, 6-4-08, we drove over to King’s Campers in Wausau to see the new motorhome and go over the placement of the accessories they are going to install. The new coach looks very nice. You wouldn’t think 2 ½ feet would be very noticeable, but losing 17 inches in the bedroom made quite a difference, especially going from a queen to a king size bed.
Minneapolis has had about four inches of rain over the last week, 6-5 to 6-12. On the 5th we had hail with 1.62 inches of rain and winds up to 29 MPH. We were getting concerned about the motorhome as it was going to be traded in a couple of weeks, but nothing was damaged.
This is June, 17th and the start of picking up our new motorhome. We drove to Camp King’s where we will be spending the next few days as they get our new one ready and we then transfer all of our stuff. Parking is just in the back of their lot, but at least it has electric and water hookups.
It’s Monday the 23rd and we are moving stuff from our old motorhome to the new one. I told Sandy that this should take a couple of hours. Of course, she didn’t believe me as it took 5 hours to move out of our class “C” into our tow vehicle. We started at 5:00 PM and were almost done at 10:30 PM. How did we ever get so much stuff into that motorhome? Here is a picture of the old and the new and one of Sandy moving a box between the units.
The next day we finished up several items on the motorhome and signed all the paper work. Then we headed back to the Minneapolis to spend the night before heading to Staples for the weekend and my niece, Mary’s, wedding.
When we got to my Dad’s place and unhooked the pickup, Sandy could not get it to come out of neutral gear. After she tried several times I also tried several times, but to no avail. So I unloaded the boat trailer from the pickup and called the local GM dealer and made arrangements to have it towed in the next day and have them fix it. After that was all done I thought I should give it one more try and, guess what, it came out of neutral so we could drive it. I called the dealer and cancelled the appointment. It’s one of those things that leave you wondering when it will happen again.
This, Saturday the 28th, is my niece, Mary’s, wedding day. Mary and her family worked so hard planning a beautiful outdoor wedding. Unfortunately, mother nature decided to storm and we quickly adapted the outdoor wedding to a semi-outdoor wedding. It was a real nice wedding that had a western theme, as they had met while going to the University of Montana in Missoula. Mary’s husband is “Tuff” Chester Harris and this will be his second year in the NFL as a defensive back. This year he will be in the New Orleans Saints training camp and we wish Tuff all the best for the season.
On Monday we drove back to the Minneapolis and the Mystic Lake Campground to spend the next week with friends, Chuck and Lorraine, who we had meet at Red Bay, AL. Along with them are their daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter from California. The kids are staying in a hotel near the Mall Of America so they could do some shopping. Chuck and Lorraine are staying in town for the National FMCA Rally in St. Paul, MN. They had gone to a FMCA rally in Wisconsin a month ago and Lorraine joined the Frustrated Maestros singing group. They performed each morning in the breakfast hall. I told Lorraine that they should have me singing so that the people would not want to linger and listen to the music so more people could be fed in a shorter time.
It was 57.6 degrees for a low last night and the high was 83.8 degrees. It was perfect weather for the 4th of July. We grilled steaks and corn for supper with potato salad and fruit salad. Later we had apple pie for dessert. After supper we just sat around, played cards and visited until it got dark and watched a great display of fireworks put on by the Casino. We saw some fireworks that we had not seen before. There were hearts in a ring, smiley faces and more. They only bad thing was that the Minnesota Vultures (mosquitoes) were out in full force.
Chuck, Lorraine, Sandy and I have been spending some time together. We took a couple of drives around town to show them some of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. One day we went downtown and took a walk out on the Stone Arch Bridge that is by the Mill Museum, just west of the new 35W bridge that is being built. As you may recall, the “old” bridge collapsed last summer. You also can look upstream and see Saint Anthony Falls.
We have also been sharing some good meals together.
Chuck and Lorraine left for the FMCA Rally on 7-11-08. We will still get to see them a couple of times when we go up to some seminars, but it was a sad day to start saying goodbye to our new friends.
