Sorry!

I must confess. . . I forgot the blog! Oops! Grandchildren have a way of making you forget the doldrums of everyday life. I must confess, mine were happy when they were here and always anxious to see us. It warms your heart when the kids call for you when you arrive and throw their arms around you. I can't get enough of it.

Our dogs got along great with them. Duchess is not a real social animal but she didn't shy away from the attention. Butterscotch was often in the middle of whatever Aenea was doing as Aenea loved petting her and talking to her. There were times, though, when the dogs would wander off and settle in behind the recliner or at the back door, etc. The noise level was obviously higher and at times I think they just wanted a quiet place to rest. They were always ready to head to the motorhome at day's end.

On Saturday the 19th, we found ourselves in Indianapolis babysitting from about 5:30 on while Jocelyn and Tom attended her 20th high school reunion. We attend all our reunions and really enjoy touching base with people who were an important part of our lives. They were able to enjoy the evening without worrying about the kids. We fed them, then took them to the pool, then back to the room where we read, watched movies, and Ronan played on the IPad. When Tom arrived back around 11 p.m., Ronan was asleep in bed and Aenea was doing her best to stay awake. At least she is not fussy when she is sleepy. It was a great time for all of us. The kids stayed on at the house until Wednesday when they headed back to Virginia. They camped along the way.

We continue to work at the apartments, getting all the shrubs trimmed. That is a big job, even though we only do 4 of the 5 houses. The main house itself has bushes completely surrounding it, so that takes a couple days even with both of us working. But that is finished. Not sure we will have to do it again. With the really cold winter, they didn't grow a great deal.

Terry has been working at installing a new TV in the front of the motorhome. He did a great job, as usual, and it is now finished. We now have HD TV in the motorhome and it is a big difference over the picture we had before. They TV that was in the box in front weighed about 60 pounds, so Terry is glad to have that out of the front and replaced with a thin lightweight model.

We have had quite a bit of service work done on the motorhome this summer but hopefully that will keep us safely rolling on the road. We had the 100,000 service done. . . hard to believe we have traveled that much, but that is nine years on the road, with 4 month stops in the winter in Texas. We also had an exhaust leak repaired. We noticed a couple flat spots on the front tires, so we had an alignment done. While they were doing that, they said we might want to have the shocks checked. We had the tires rotated and put the front tires to the back and put two of the newer back tires on the front. And while they were doing that, they did see that one of the front shocks was leaking. So Terry checked around for a place to do it. We found a truck stop in Elkhart where a friend used to do all his service work. They would order the shocks and install them. We had that done yesterday. Our appointment was at 8:30 and they were done at 9:30. They were very gracious and we think we have found a new service business for Phaeton Place. So now all our service work is done, the upgrades Terry wanted to do. . . done. So she should be ready to go. We have her over here at the condo in preparation for a month long trip into Wisconsin, but not sure when we will leave now. We have some urgent business with the apartments and we are hanging out here till it gets done.

We do think we will head down to Warsaw to the fairgrounds for the weekend. That way we can spend some time with Mom and Dad and be a bit closer to them. We may head over to Shipshewana when we leave there. One of our favorite places and we never get a chance to see all the shops, so perhaps we will do that.

The dogs were sick last week. Not bad, but apparently they picked up kennel cough from their one night in the kennel while we were in Indianapolis. They had the appropriate vaccinations, but they can still get kennel cough, just not as bad. We found a wonderful vet up here and the dogs did very well with their exams. They have some medications and started responding very quickly to the treatment. They seem to be better every day. I am so glad I took them in when I did. They were sniffing, snorting and sneezing. While it wasn't bad, it did get worse daily and they would occasionally wake me up at night. They are so sweet. I hate that they got this. We won't be boarding again. . . we will try and find a pet sitter if we need to be away overnight.

Our neighbors were over the other night. They have wanted to look at our Alaska pictures and they are embarking on a cruise next week for Alaska. They were more interested in the places they are going on their cruise, the Inside Passage, so I just concentrated on those pictures, since we were stopped at every one of their stops. They really enjoyed it, I think. Dave, especially, is excited about seeing the places we had pictures of.

Speaking of Alaska, our friends who did the trip with us were up to Elkhart for the weekend. They came over to visit Saturday night and then we all went to dinner at Heinnies. Great prime rib! They were in the area to sightsee and also visit a niece who lives in northwest Indiana. On Tuesday morning before they left, we met up again and had breakfast together. It was great seeing them and I'm sure we will see them again before we head south.

Till next time. . .

Dale

North to Alaska!

Tomorrow is the day we start our epic journey to Alaska. It will be about 10,000 miles round trip. . . give or take a few hundred miles. Two years of planning have gone into this journey and we hope to have a great time.

We are having to watch some weather to the west of us and hope it clears out of the way before we start through that area. We will go west, up to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, over to the Badlands and Black Hills and continue on to Great Falls, Montana. From there we will head north to the Canadian border and up through Banff and Jasper National Parks. Continuing north from there we reach Dawson Creek. Then we start our trek through British Columbia and the Yukon Territory.

Once we cross into Alaska, we will do what is known as the "Grand Tour," a circuitous route taking in as many sites as we can. Eventually we will make our way to Haines where we will hop onto the Alaska Marine Highway System and "ferry hop" down to Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, and finally Prince Rupert, where we will disembark for the last time and start east across British Columbia and eventually back to Indiana where we will probably board a plane soon after and fly to Florida to see our newest grandbaby, due August 4.

Whew. . . I'm tired just thinking about what lies ahead for the next 10 weeks.

We are at the Elkhart Campground tonight with Tab and Deanna finalizing plans for our departure tomorrow. Our rigs are sitting side by side and we spent the afternoon chatting about the adventure ahead.

So here we are. . . Team Alaska!

 Our rig, MinnieMee

 Tab and Deanna's rig

Follow us here on our adventure. I will try to post our nightly location on Facebook, if I can figure out the Spot Connect.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Welcome Back to the Blog. . .

It's been a while, but we haven't been doing much of anything interesting. Just trying to get some doctor and dentist visits out of the way.

I was a bit bummed out by our family doctor who decided I had some mysterious ailment relating to my "dry eyes and dry mouth." He insisted I see a rheumatologist and an ophthalmologist. I don't mind seeking second opinions, but with a month before departure on the Great Alaskan Adventure, it wasn't exactly on my calendar. He accused me of "recreation over health." I guess what really aggravated me was that whenever I suggested testing for something, he blows me off. Then out of the blue he comes up with this strange diagnosis when I was certain (and still am) it was the result of taking an OTC acid reflux pill on a daily basis, which is when my symptoms developed.

But I did see a rheumatologist Friday and he agreed with me. He did order a lot of bloodwork, so if anything strange pops up we will know. But most likely the problem is related to the pill and the fact that those symptoms occur as a natural part of the aging process. He did also indicate that my arthritis is more likely the early early stages of psoriatic arthritis, since I have been plagued by psoriasis for 53 years. He talked about some of those new meds, the biologics, which I will totally resist taking. We talked about my love of a cortisone shot twice a year and at that "infreqency" he agreed I was likely to suffer no side effects from that medication. And because of that would consider it much safer than the biologics. At least for now. Whoo hoo. He injected my aching bursitis plagued hip, too! So I'm feeling much better than I did when my doctor heaped all that on me.

Tuesday I see the opthamologist, but I'm not worried about that. Never a bad thing to have the eyes checked out.

We have found a new dentist and we really like him. Thanks to sister Nita who recommended him to us. We have two trips back to see him and get all our work done before leaving for Alaska, but we will be fixed up then and shouldn't have any worries about having problems on our trip.

Last week Tab and Deanna, fellow Alaska travelers called and wanted to get together, so we are camping at the Elkhart County Fairgrounds here in Goshen. They brought their little motorhome and we could have brought MinnieMee since we just got her out of storage. But we did need to dump the tanks on Phaeton Place and decided this would be a better place to do that since we have full hookups. Terry will be able to dump and rinse the tanks and get things really clean before putting her in storage for the summer. And I had a few cupboards I wanted to clean out, foodstuffs, etc. Easier to do here with the slides out and on level ground. So we have a working morning ahead of us. And. . . wouldn't you know. . . it's raining! But no matter. . . not raining hard, so we will "get 'er dun. . . "

Yesterday we spent running around to the rv surplus places for a few spare parts Tab and Terry wanted. We actually found everything they wanted, then celebrated by having lunch at Essenhaus in Middlebury. Afterwards we came back to the camp and built a fire. Eventually we put on some hobo stew and cooked it over the fire.

The real treat last night was that here at the fairgrounds there was a "training session" for teaching people how to safely set off fireworks. Apparently it was for people who put on the big professional type displays. So we got to see fireworks! Pretty cool. I got my new camera out and took some shots. I got some pretty impressive shots, but afterwards doing the editing, I found I had a "FIREWORKS"

 

 

 

shot setting on my camera. Whooda thunk? Guess I should have been learning more about my camera, eh? Maybe practice a bit more before trying to shoot wildlife on the trip. LOL

Today we will return to the condo, park Phaeton Place beside MinnieMee to make the final transfer of stuff. Then when it stops raining, we will wash PP and take her over to storage. We have three weeks to go. We have moved our departure date to May 20, provided the satellite phone has arrived by that time.

Till next time. . .

Dale