Tuesday, February 21, 2006
02/12/06 Sunday
More catch up!! We left Fresno, CA and headed for St. Robert, Mo., where Mary’s Sist
er Sheila lives. We had a real good visit with Lois and JD. We always enjoy ourselves here because they always make us feel welcome. We have given ourselves five days for this trip, so we won’t have to drive long days and rush. It is always good to cross the Colorado River and leave California behind as we get into Arizona. That is a long stretch of road from the state line to Bakersfield. We stayed in a couple of truck stop parking lots and a couple of Happy Camper Camp Grounds on this leg of the trip. We joined a group called Happy Camper which has a lot of campgrounds that give you 50% off their going rate if you have a Happy Camper Membership Card. We use these as overnight sites when we are on straight through trips such as this. If we drive late we just sleep in a truck stop lot where we fuel. The trip was uneventful and we spent the last night in Joplin, MO
which is only about 75 miles from Sheila’s home, because we didn’t want to get there ahead of the time we told them we would arrive, we got to St. Robert about 11:00AM and spent the day visiting with Charlie and their kids and grandkids. LeeAnn and her husband have a new baby boy. Chris, her husband, is in war zone. He did get to come home for the birth of his new son. Charlie is retired from the Army and he also worked on Ft. Leonard Wood in a civil service job transporting military personnel around the Fort. He took us on a tour of the Fort. I was surprised that it is as open as it is considering state of security the nation has. Charlie has taken a second retirement and they plan to continue to live right there. We had dinner with them and spent the night in our RV Park in St. Robert.
The next morning we headed for Elkhart, Indiana. The factory service center for our Motor Home is there and we had an appointment for some repairs. I’m including a picture which Mary took through my window as we were going through St. Louis. If you look closely you
can see the Gateway Arch in the background. I wasn’t sure how long it would take to make the trip so we ended up with an extra night stay over waiting for our appointed time. Again we stayed in a Happy Camper Park and we just stayed over two nights. It was north of Indianapolis and only about a two hour drive to our destination. We arrived at the Monaco Service center and got checked in. They have a campground behind the shops where we stayed at night and they just pulled our house inside, worked on it during the day and brought it back to us at night. During the day while they were working on the coach there was a customer lounge with recliners and 
couches in it. There were a couple of big screen TV’s, newspapers, computer desks with modem connection and lady named Caroline who served as the concierge. If you had a problem she could solve it, or find someone who could. They wo
rked on the coach for four days and got all our little problems taken care of.
If you read earlier, you’ll remember the entry I made about the damage to our coach which occurred during the unloading from the tow truck in Canada. We were met by an appraiser who did an estimate on the damage for the towing company’s insurance company. They had already agreed to allow us to have the repair done at the factory so basically what he did was forward the estimate which the body shop did. That insurance company was very cooperative. The owner of the towing company had already told us that if
the insurance gave us any grief to let him know and he would pay for the repair. He said he had been business for fourteen years and had never had an insurance claim. He said that they accepted full responsibility, and that the driver knew better to try to unload that bus in that fashion.
The only problem we had was that we had to make a separate appointment for the body shop. They were so back-logged that we had to wait about three weeks to get it in. We had options to leave and come back or to stay there in their free campground and wait for our appointment. With the price of diesel just after the big storm in Louisiana guess which option we took. We stayed with them until they were finished the body work. While we were there, Caroline did a lot of really good things for the group of customers. She had field trips with tours of interesting things in the area. We did a tour of the assembly shops at the factory.
We toured Notre Dame University and a 
Chocolate Factory in South Bend, which was only about twenty miles away. Mary spent more time on the campus and got some extra pictures. I spent some time in the bookstore contemplating. I also got my picture taken with TOUCHDOWN JESUS and at the entrance to the stadium where you can see ban
ners proclaiming National Championship ye
ars. As an old football coach I could not help but bask in the history of football at this University. Perhaps the most beautiful building on campus was the
Basilica Cathedral We went up into Michigan and saw the Great Lake. Mary got someone who was on the beach with us to take our picture with Lake Michigan in the background. There is a very large Amish population in that part of Indiana. Caroline took groups on shopping trips in the Amish shops and stores. Mary and I took a driving tour of the county with a CD that gave us directions and told us where to stop for points of interest. We had lunch in a great Amish restaurant in some small town of Shipshewana, which is south of Elkhart. It was a common sight to see the Amish traveling down the highways in their buggies. They also had sections in parking lots with hitching rails for the horses to be tied 
up while their owners were inside shopping. We saw some of them with sheds to protect the animals while they were parked and tied. Another real advantage which we had was that there were so many parking lots around the Monaco Center that we could ride our bikes around the perimeter and have a mile and a half track with no stop signs and no traffic, if we road at the right time of day. We got a lot of good exercise. We needed it because we took in a lot of calories having breakfast and lunch down the street at the Cock-a-Doodle Diner. We had a name tag we had to wear to use the customer lounge. If we wore it to the Diner, we got a discount on our food. They had something there that they called fried mush. It was like grits fried into silver dollar pancake size nuggets and you put syrup on them. The people at the next table had an order and they were really pretty, but we decided that we would not spend any money on them.
We ran this right through September, and Mia’s birthday arrived. Bill and Liz postponed the family party to celebrate the birthday
hoping that we would get there in time for the party. Since we had to wait three weeks, we were not going to get there in time. We decided that we would leave our coach there and go home to Atlanta for Mia’s party. We had pl
enty of time to do that. We went and we had a great time. It was really good to see everyone because we had left Atlanta on June 19th. Mary and I, Sam and Darlene came and brought Sage, Mike and Donna Ford and my sister Sue and her husband Tom Nash were there from Bill’s side of the family. Sue and Tom brought Glen Alan, Alan and Cathy had gone to New York. Liz’s Grandmother, her Mother Paula, her bother Steve, and her sister Trish along with her daughter Sylvie, were there. We had a great time. Mia really got into opening her gifts with help from Sage and Sylvie. She didn’t need help serving the cake!!
We had another major event in our lives while we were in Atlanta for Mia’s party. Earlier in the summer, Sam had told us that he had a new Lady in his life. They had been friends for some years and their relationship had developed into a romantic interest. By the time we got to Atlanta in early October he had already been to North Carolina to meet her Parents. She came to Atlanta on that weekend to meet his fam
ily and attend Mia’s party. On Friday night, Bill, Liz, Mia, Mary and I met Sam and Darlene at a restaurant to eat supper and then we went back to Bill’s house for dessert. We enjoyed the evening and were proud that Sam had found such a nice Lady. We were afraid that we had not made a very good first impression. We met at Bill’s and drove over in his car. Mia’s car seat took so much room that someone had to sit behind the back seat in the cargo area of their SUV. Liz convinced Bill to drive and let her sit on the floor behind the back seat. When we got to the restaurant Sam and Darlene were out front waiting for us. In order to get Liz out of the car, we had to open the lift door in the rear and she crawled out over the back bumper. After we were introduced, I told Darlene that we usually didn’t make our Daughter in Law ride in the floor in the back.
A couple of days after we got back to Elkhart they had a cancellation and we got moved up in the rotation. They took our coach in early and they had finished and we were back in Atlanta before the date of our appointment.
It felt like coming home to get back to Jones RV Park.
More catch up!! We left Fresno, CA and headed for St. Robert, Mo., where Mary’s Sist
er Sheila lives. We had a real good visit with Lois and JD. We always enjoy ourselves here because they always make us feel welcome. We have given ourselves five days for this trip, so we won’t have to drive long days and rush. It is always good to cross the Colorado River and leave California behind as we get into Arizona. That is a long stretch of road from the state line to Bakersfield. We stayed in a couple of truck stop parking lots and a couple of Happy Camper Camp Grounds on this leg of the trip. We joined a group called Happy Camper which has a lot of campgrounds that give you 50% off their going rate if you have a Happy Camper Membership Card. We use these as overnight sites when we are on straight through trips such as this. If we drive late we just sleep in a truck stop lot where we fuel. The trip was uneventful and we spent the last night in Joplin, MO
which is only about 75 miles from Sheila’s home, because we didn’t want to get there ahead of the time we told them we would arrive, we got to St. Robert about 11:00AM and spent the day visiting with Charlie and their kids and grandkids. LeeAnn and her husband have a new baby boy. Chris, her husband, is in war zone. He did get to come home for the birth of his new son. Charlie is retired from the Army and he also worked on Ft. Leonard Wood in a civil service job transporting military personnel around the Fort. He took us on a tour of the Fort. I was surprised that it is as open as it is considering state of security the nation has. Charlie has taken a second retirement and they plan to continue to live right there. We had dinner with them and spent the night in our RV Park in St. Robert.The next morning we headed for Elkhart, Indiana. The factory service center for our Motor Home is there and we had an appointment for some repairs. I’m including a picture which Mary took through my window as we were going through St. Louis. If you look closely you
can see the Gateway Arch in the background. I wasn’t sure how long it would take to make the trip so we ended up with an extra night stay over waiting for our appointed time. Again we stayed in a Happy Camper Park and we just stayed over two nights. It was north of Indianapolis and only about a two hour drive to our destination. We arrived at the Monaco Service center and got checked in. They have a campground behind the shops where we stayed at night and they just pulled our house inside, worked on it during the day and brought it back to us at night. During the day while they were working on the coach there was a customer lounge with recliners and couches in it. There were a couple of big screen TV’s, newspapers, computer desks with modem connection and lady named Caroline who served as the concierge. If you had a problem she could solve it, or find someone who could. They wo
rked on the coach for four days and got all our little problems taken care of.If you read earlier, you’ll remember the entry I made about the damage to our coach which occurred during the unloading from the tow truck in Canada. We were met by an appraiser who did an estimate on the damage for the towing company’s insurance company. They had already agreed to allow us to have the repair done at the factory so basically what he did was forward the estimate which the body shop did. That insurance company was very cooperative. The owner of the towing company had already told us that if
the insurance gave us any grief to let him know and he would pay for the repair. He said he had been business for fourteen years and had never had an insurance claim. He said that they accepted full responsibility, and that the driver knew better to try to unload that bus in that fashion.The only problem we had was that we had to make a separate appointment for the body shop. They were so back-logged that we had to wait about three weeks to get it in. We had options to leave and come back or to stay there in their free campground and wait for our appointment. With the price of diesel just after the big storm in Louisiana guess which option we took. We stayed with them until they were finished the body work. While we were there, Caroline did a lot of really good things for the group of customers. She had field trips with tours of interesting things in the area. We did a tour of the assembly shops at the factory.
We toured Notre Dame University and a Chocolate Factory in South Bend, which was only about twenty miles away. Mary spent more time on the campus and got some extra pictures. I spent some time in the bookstore contemplating. I also got my picture taken with TOUCHDOWN JESUS and at the entrance to the stadium where you can see banners proclaiming National Championship ye
ars. As an old football coach I could not help but bask in the history of football at this University. Perhaps the most beautiful building on campus was the
Basilica Cathedral We went up into Michigan and saw the Great Lake. Mary got someone who was on the beach with us to take our picture with Lake Michigan in the background. There is a very large Amish population in that part of Indiana. Caroline took groups on shopping trips in the Amish shops and stores. Mary and I took a driving tour of the county with a CD that gave us directions and told us where to stop for points of interest. We had lunch in a great Amish restaurant in some small town of Shipshewana, which is south of Elkhart. It was a common sight to see the Amish traveling down the highways in their buggies. They also had sections in parking lots with hitching rails for the horses to be tied up while their owners were inside shopping. We saw some of them with sheds to protect the animals while they were parked and tied. Another real advantage which we had was that there were so many parking lots around the Monaco Center that we could ride our bikes around the perimeter and have a mile and a half track with no stop signs and no traffic, if we road at the right time of day. We got a lot of good exercise. We needed it because we took in a lot of calories having breakfast and lunch down the street at the Cock-a-Doodle Diner. We had a name tag we had to wear to use the customer lounge. If we wore it to the Diner, we got a discount on our food. They had something there that they called fried mush. It was like grits fried into silver dollar pancake size nuggets and you put syrup on them. The people at the next table had an order and they were really pretty, but we decided that we would not spend any money on them.We ran this right through September, and Mia’s birthday arrived. Bill and Liz postponed the family party to celebrate the birthday
hoping that we would get there in time for the party. Since we had to wait three weeks, we were not going to get there in time. We decided that we would leave our coach there and go home to Atlanta for Mia’s party. We had pl
enty of time to do that. We went and we had a great time. It was really good to see everyone because we had left Atlanta on June 19th. Mary and I, Sam and Darlene came and brought Sage, Mike and Donna Ford and my sister Sue and her husband Tom Nash were there from Bill’s side of the family. Sue and Tom brought Glen Alan, Alan and Cathy had gone to New York. Liz’s Grandmother, her Mother Paula, her bother Steve, and her sister Trish along with her daughter Sylvie, were there. We had a great time. Mia really got into opening her gifts with help from Sage and Sylvie. She didn’t need help serving the cake!!We had another major event in our lives while we were in Atlanta for Mia’s party. Earlier in the summer, Sam had told us that he had a new Lady in his life. They had been friends for some years and their relationship had developed into a romantic interest. By the time we got to Atlanta in early October he had already been to North Carolina to meet her Parents. She came to Atlanta on that weekend to meet his fam
ily and attend Mia’s party. On Friday night, Bill, Liz, Mia, Mary and I met Sam and Darlene at a restaurant to eat supper and then we went back to Bill’s house for dessert. We enjoyed the evening and were proud that Sam had found such a nice Lady. We were afraid that we had not made a very good first impression. We met at Bill’s and drove over in his car. Mia’s car seat took so much room that someone had to sit behind the back seat in the cargo area of their SUV. Liz convinced Bill to drive and let her sit on the floor behind the back seat. When we got to the restaurant Sam and Darlene were out front waiting for us. In order to get Liz out of the car, we had to open the lift door in the rear and she crawled out over the back bumper. After we were introduced, I told Darlene that we usually didn’t make our Daughter in Law ride in the floor in the back.A couple of days after we got back to Elkhart they had a cancellation and we got moved up in the rotation. They took our coach in early and they had finished and we were back in Atlanta before the date of our appointment.
It felt like coming home to get back to Jones RV Park.
