Get your motors runnin'. . . head out on the highway. . .

In just a few days, we will be leaving northern Indiana. Hardly seems possible our time here as slumlords is drawing to a close. We have finished up with all of the landlording tasks and hopefully things will run smoothly through the winter months for our manager. The only thing he really has to do is collect rent. If it snows, he has to plow and if anyone has a problem, he has to call a repairman, but on a good day, he has little or nothing to do. We try to get all the routine maintenance items done in the summer while we are here so that there are no surprises other times of the year.

Monday was a special treat for us. We drove down to sister Nita and Jim's place and we went with them and another couple to the ZZ Top concert in Wabash, Indiana. The venue there is the Honeywell Center and they have a very nice theater, the Ford Theater, and they have some pretty big-name entertainment there. We have seen Herman's Hermits and now ZZ. ZZ was opened by a garbage band, as far as I am concerned. They played for 30 minutes. . . a long and greasy haired, baseball hatted trio with a strutting rooster for a lead singer. The only thing I did like was watching the lap-steel guitarist who was a pretty awesome musician.

ZZ came out and played for an hour. I was a little disappointed at that, but they did play another 15-minute encore, so that was better. They had their own stage props and at Wabash, it is much smaller than other venues they play, but they had a lot going on with lights, spots, videos, etc. It was a most enjoyable concert. "Old guys rule" was certainly the rule of the day!

Terry has finished our new valances and blinds in the motorhome. He did an awesome job. We replaced the cloth covered valences for solid oak finished to match the woodwork in the motorhome. Installed inside the valences are the roller shades. There are two at each window. One is cream colored and is a blackout shade for nighttime. No light can penetrate the blind. Then for daytime use is a screen which blocks out a significant portion of sunlight, but allows use to see out from the inside. People on the outside cannot see in unless we have lights on, then they might be able to see images. There are a couple manufacturers of these blinds, but we used United Shade in Elkhart. Their blinds were considerably cheaper in price than others we see in use in RV's today and they were about one-third the cost for a much better quality.

Monday we leave here and head down to central Indiana to a camp where we can leave Phaeton Place for a couple days. We are flying to Florida on Tuesday so I can attend a bridal shower on Wednesday for my "soon-to-be" daughter-in-law, Megan! Then on Thursday we fly back. We then move the motorhome to the state park where we will have our annual picnic of my former co-workers. After the picnic, we move back to the other camp where we stay when we have our local doctor appointments. Why all the moving? The state park doesn't have full hookups and we prefer those when we are getting ready for doctor appointments. And we don't feel comfortable leaving Phaeton Place in the state park while we are gone out of state. After a week of doctor appointments, we will probably drive the car back up north and check things out one last time at the apartments. Then we will return to the motorhome to pack our suitcases once again. This time we will fly to Houston for Terry's six-month cancer checkup. We fly out on Sunday, appointment Monday, fly back on Tuesday. As long as all goes well with the appointments, we are then headed out. . . first to Virginia to see Ronan and family, then onward to Florida. We will stop in Ormond Beach to get our Datastorm fixed, then on to Melbourne to spend time before the wedding of Megan and Brandon, our son, on 11/11/11! We will remain in Melbourne to take care of our grand-dog Jax while the kids are on their honeymoon, then we will start to make our way back to Texas for the winter.

A busy final two weeks in September awaits!

Till next time. . .

Dale