Joan on the Road...of Life

A couple of really relaxing days...what did we do? As the rain cleared lots of different birds appeared in the surrounding trees. A few cardinals, lots of robins, a pair of bluebirds, some bright yellow and black birds that might be orioles all provided entertainment during breakfast and coffee, along with the resident black squirrels. Several times we've seen a mama deer and her two teen Bambis munching their way through the shrubs. They meander down the road and at the sound of a car stop and then leap away. I'm enjoying all the wildlife except the little skunk who ran under the motorhome last week. Don't like thinking I might disturb him/her at night.

We found a good "friends of the library" and picked up 8 books for $12. Great buy! A few Spenser detective stories by Robert Parker, a couple of Scott Turow and a Grisham novel. All hard cover. The donation for the books goes back into the library funds. Everyone wins. I just finished a clever old cold war spy novel, Telefon by Walter Wager. Charles Bronson and Lee Remick starred in the movie which I think we still have on VHS in storage. Just some light, easy reading for awhile :)

I joined a couple of forums and started perusing blog links this morning. Four hours later.....) It's fun and interesting to go from one link to another; what a crazy world there is in the blogosphere! Someday, when I expand my blog to a real website, I'll put in links for the bloggers I enjoy reading. I do read George and Ms. Tioga daily and I get worried (Jeez) when George doesn't post! As if I didn't have enough to occupy my worry wart brain. I don't even know the guy...well when you read the blog daily you almost feel like you do! Right?

Jim is on a biking binge because there's lots of roads and trails here. He might go on 2-3 rides a day. I usually do one 30 minute ride along the lake and around the campground. The lake is an everchanging scene. Today we thought we'd take a dip but suddenly clouds came and it was tooooo cool. We like to scope out all the campsites and campers because there are a lot of "oldies" here. There's a 14 day limit to staying in the park but I'm sure there's a way around it because some of these guys look like they're here for the duration...and they are not the campground hosts :)

Usually we cap off the evening watching Angels Baseball. I don't care about other teams...just the Angesl. But I couldn't watch last night. Even with my MLB package...couldn't stand to see them throw away the game. Looks to me like they've given up for whatever reason. It really is a mental game and you can see by the facial expressions and body language...the winning spirit is gone.

Well, Jim went out to mail some letters and just came home with a solution to my dinner dilemma: spinach dip, liver pate, crackers, crab meat and sushi...a gourmet feast. What more could a girl ask for?

Posted by Joan at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Remember that calm lake picture with the footprints in the sand. Here's the same spot on a stormy day..

The waves were coming in so fast and strong that the noise was incredible. Our campsite is about 500' from the water, through the trees and over a berm, and we could clearly hear the crashing waves. No one on the beach today.

Our day started out early with light rain and predictions of more to come...and we HAD to empty our tanks. One look at the weather radar on the computer and we knew we better put our raincoats on and get our buns in gear because big rain was comin'. I'm happy to report that all systems worked perfectly. We packed up, went to the dump station, filled the water tank, reparked and got set up in an hour and a half. All between rain showers.

Lucky we did that because it poured almost the rest of the day :) So what to do on a rainy day?. Surf the web, check out web forums, play with pictures on Photoshop, watch a movie, walk by the lake, find some new recipes on the Food Network, go shopping for missing ingredients, check out the local library, prepare sweet and sour chicken, and watch Angels Baseball (they lost).

What's a typical RV day like? Whatever works for that day!

Posted by Joan at 07:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The weekend brings lots of tent camping families and groups to the beach and what a variety of setups we saw this weekend. Across the street was a large family including a baby with the biggest tent I've ever seen. Actually it was probably a military tent, big as a log cabin with a little side tent for the kids to play in. It was quite a setup. Lots of people bring several dome tents and set them up in a circle. The parade of bikini clad mom's had Jim's eye's popping, but the best of all was the soap opera across the street on two other sites.

Thursday a young couple came in and set up their tent in pouring rain. They crawled inside and disappeared for a day. Saturday some guys claimed the next site with lots of cooking stuff but no tents and the couple joined them, just lounging around a smoky fire (all fires here are smoky because the wood is wet). Suddenly in mid afternoon we heard a loud scream and looked out to see the couple shouting at each other and the guys standing back watching.

After a bit of shouting and fist waving (lots of other campers now watching the drama) SHE threw HIS lawnchair in the fire. HE hollered at her, jumped in his red car and fishtailed out of the campground. SHE is wildly strutting around the site, yelling, waving her hands, tossing her hair. yada yada. Then she goes over to her site and pulls the tent rods out collapsing their tent.

For the rest of the day she alternates between waving her fists at the sky and shouting, then putting her head on the table. The guys just sit there and watch her. Later she stacks up all their tent stuff and blankets and when night settles in she and the guys are sitting around the table and the smoky fire with no tents.

Sometime in the middle of the night.....SHE and the guys leave and HE arrives in his red car. So in the morning HE's sitting by the smoky fire, new chairs, new tablecloth, different grill and no tent. HE must live locally because he's been in and out, tied an American Flag to his campsite post and put out some tomatoes to give away. Today it's pouring rain again and HE's gone, leaving everything out in the rain. Sure makes you wonder what the story is....boy I could make up some good ones just watching the action :)

Posted by Joan at 09:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We have been hanging around the midwest so that Jim could get eye treatments from his favorite retinal specialist, Dr. Flood. Jim's eye condition is a form of macular degeneration that causes loss of central vision detail due to bleeding in that area. Dr. Flood seems to be "up" on the latest treatments and recommended that Jim get injections of Lucentis, a Genentech drug designed to stop the bleeding and absorb the old blood.

Last week he had the second treatment and his vision is noticeably improved! The thickenss of the retina has decreased by about 50% which means the fluid buildup is decreasing. This is really wonderful because we thought he might be headed for no driver's license...not what fulltime RVers need.

He'll have a third treatment in a month and then an evalutaion of progress. This is a new drug for this condition so the ongoing treatment and prognosis is unclear. But we're thrilled with the results so far.

Posted by Joan at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Quit whining and move on I told myself :) We are parked in a wonderful natural setting and it's time to enjoy it. I grabbed my camera and went for a long walk along the beach. Two deer ran through the woods in front of me but I couldn't get the camera going in time. Ahhh...be prepared.

Here's a view of the beach looking south on a hazy day.The water is about 70 degrees and on the weekends there are quite a few swimmers.

Illinois Beach State Park on Lake Michigan in Zion, IL

Lots of wildflowers grow in the dune grass like this pretty purple blue one. It almost looks like a strawflower...got to do some research.

This is a very good hiking and biking park. Who knows? Maybe I'll get in more exercise and lose a few pounds :)

Posted by Joan at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our move on Monday went fine with everything working until we arrived at Illinois Beach and started to put out the slide. It moved along fine for about a foot then creaked and groaned and wouldn't go further. We quickly realized that the slide topper awning/ window awning (all one piece) was jammed. The slide would not move. Trying to force it caused teeth on the awning gears to break. OK! That's Enough! I think this is the first time I've thought, "I want to go back to my house!"

What can you do but start trying to resolve the problem. After several phone calls we found we could get into Camping World in Bollingbrook, IL (about 50 miles) the next day. So we spent the evening with the slide in, doing the narrow aisle dance, got up at 6 AM and headed to Camping World. We drove separately because it was a short trip and, wouldn't you know, Jim took a wrong freeway turn. He went one way, I went the other. I guess he really missed his navigator. You can imagine the "business" I gave him!

He recovered quickly and we got to our appointment in time. They had the new slide topper on in an hour; the slideout worked fine. But they didn't have the correct window awnings for the side. In fact, it looks like we'll have to have an awning modified to fit the space we have. We'll have to do some research to get that problem solved.

We got back to the park by 3 PM and got all set up. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that cleaning out the schmutz from the HWH box has solved some of the problems :). I was absolutely and totally exhausted. I only got 3 hours sleep the night before being the worry wart that I am. So I crashed about 8 PM and slept around the clock. I felt immensely better after a good nights sleep and got my RVer spirit back :) The new slide topper was christened with wind and rain and held up very well and was very quiet...no wind vibration noise.

Today we bought some window film to block some of the sun and heat until we figure out what to do about the awning. The application process is not as easy as described but being the great team that we are, we got two windows covered and not looking too bad. It was easier than paddling a canoe together (a family joke).

Today we signed up to stay here at the beach for two weeks. That takes us through Labor Day. I need to relax!!

Posted by Joan at 06:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I really didn't want to write about Saturday's adventure but in the interests of recording our life, lessons learned and RVer tips....here goes.

We had a couple of relaxing days and took off on our park bike ride Saturday morning. Got back about half an hour later to find water gushing out of two side storage bins. Holy %$#@ we hollered and ran in to find out what had sprung a leak. Could be a number of things but it was right inside the door under the sink. The water filter housing had developed a crack and water was spraying all over....I mean every pot, pan and container under the sink, stove and inside the storage compartments was filled with water. We lost about 25 gallons of water from the water tank so it was almost empty. Later, a guy across the street helped Jim put together enough hose to reach water and fill the tank half way. (We only have electric on our side of the street.)

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry :) .....I chose to laugh. Jim said, "Well now we know what can happen next!"

Then we discovered that the power was out on all the plugs. Yikes! But the good old GFI (ground fault indicator) saved us again and popped out as soon as the water hit it. Unfortunately, in the process of getting the power on again, Jim's computer hung up in an endless loop and he could not get it started. It took his recovery program 16 hours to restore the drive...but it did come back just fine.

So the process began of emptying out cabinets, dumping water, wringing out towels and setting everything out to dry. We looked like tobacco road. Good thing it did not rain although the humidity was high. Also it was a good think we were slightly tilted to the passenger side, just enough so that the water ran right out that side. Otherwise we would have had all wet carpet.

Our cabinets are carpeted so Jim ran out and bought lots of Sunday papers so we could line the cabinets with paper, weight it down and soak up water. We did that twice then just left them open and empty to dry.

Now it's Monday morning and all but one little section of carpet is dry. We'll put everything away discarding little used stuff as we go. What a way to clean your cabinets! It's cool outside so I'm running the little heater to take away the last dampness. Then we'll pack it in and move back to Illinois Beach for a week.

Lesson learned (again)...turn off the water pump or water source when you leave. Then if something breaks at least you're close by and can stop it quickly. The water filter has a plastic housing that should not have cracked the way it did. Maybe we'll get a freebie new one from the manufacturer. It would be nice if you could do preventive maintenance checks for things like this but funny thing...those cracks don't give you warning, they just happen.

So it was a heck of a weekend. Yesterday we rode our bikes to the bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. This will be a beautiful fall spot for watching the trees change color. We really like this park and we'll be back.

Posted by Joan at 05:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We ate a light breakfast and took a double long bike ride in preparation for our gourmet food adventure. About noon we headed up Highway 38 to Culver's for our first ButterBurger experience. We'd heard a lot about this special burger and we're pleased to report that it is yummy. It's called a ButterBurger because the fresh ground beef patty is seared on a very hot griddle then served on a lightly toasted and buttered bun with your choice of accoutrements. Very juicy and tasty. The nice thing is that Culver's has a wide selection of menu items including the Dairyland special frozen custard. But no custard for us here because we have another destination.

I've been coming to Leon's since I was very young...maybe 8. My Mom and Dad used to go for Sunday drives to Milwaukee, about 50 miles, just to get frozen custard at Leon's. It looks pretty much the same today. A constant stream of customers walk away licking and sighing over the thick, rich, creamy, buttery custard that is at its best in the Dairyland. I had the usual, a triple scoop vanilla cone. No fancy flavors for me, just the original.

When we would visit Illinois after our move to CA we'd take a drive with the kids up to Leon's. We've been known to buy a cooler, fill it with ice and custard to fly back to CA. It worked...but never tasted the same as when we'd stand in line to get our cone and then couldn't lick it fast enough. Leon's, rumored to be the inspiration for Arnold's in Happy Days, has lots of competition but I'm a loyal fan and enjoy the memories this place brings to mind.

I was going to fix a healthy dinner of roasted veggies and teriyaki chicken strips tonight but we're still too full from our gourmet day.

Posted by Joan at 05:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Cliffside Park is 7 miles from Jellystone here in Racine County, WI. We should have come here first. What a lovely, well maintained, huge campsite park. We scoped it out after we dropped off the coach at Hanna Trailer and decided we'd move here and stay a few days. Although there are lots of trees we found several sites with satellite windows. Our site is so big I have a hard time fitting it all into a picture.

Jm is winding down after a hectic day. Here's how it unfolded. We took the coach over to Hanna Trailer at 8 AM. Of course, everything worked fne. We took off to have breakfast and waste time while the techs did their thing. After two hours we returned and the coach is sitting outside. Is this good or bad? Well, they could not duplicate our problems but did check out all the wiring and connections and found a "weather pack" connector that was not closed so they fixed that and said "possibly" that could be the trouble.

We drove to Cliffside Park, put down the jacks and suddenly the jack motor/pump started running and would not stop. It was like we were totally jacked up and it wanted to go higher. Only solution was turn off the switch and then it stopped. This happened 3 times so Jim called Hanna and said he was bringing it back.

Of course, when we got there....everything worked fine. Nothing they could do so we figured we're back to square one. Back at Cliffside everything worked fine and we got all set up. Jim called HWH, the jack system people, and our friend Frank told him to take the jack switch panel apart and look for "junk" in the box that might cause a short.

So that was today's project. To do that we had to pull in the slide, bring up the jacks and then he could look inside the jack switch box. It was full of schmutz...fuzz, dirt, little pebbles....yuk. Get the vacuum cleaner, Get the Q-tips.

After cleaning and rearranging a couple of wires, JIm closed up the box and ...voila...everything worked fine. I'd have to say that I think this may be the solution. It was reallly dirty and we've had prior experience with schmutz fouling up the electronic works. I really am amazed that several RV techs have looked inside this box and never bothered to clean it out. So we'll see....maybe the gremlin is gone. If not, I'm voting for a new control box because everything else has been checked out.

In the meantime we're going to enjoy 5 days here at Cliffside Park. Put this on your list of great places to stay if you want to be in the Chicago-Milwaukee area.

Oh ...I forgot to mention that while driving back to the park the second time the speedometer on the coach died. This means a repair trip to a Ford dealer. Will this never end? :)

Posted by Joan at 01:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

How do you celebrate 47 years of marriage? It's not a special milestone, just another year :) Of course, we did have champagne in our special Perrier flowered glasses. And filet mignon...and fresh corn. Other than that it was a fairly normal RVer day.

We packed up and moved 40 miles from Illinois Beach State Park to Jellystone Park in Caledonia, WI. This puts us just down the street from our repair place where we hope to get rid of the electrical gremlin. We had no problems today. Jacks worked, slide worked, engine started....go figure. I'm sure it will all work tomorrow and they'll have to take apart all the wiring in the HWH system to fix it.

We had fun finding a spot here at Jellystone where our satellite would work. It's a very wooded place, and very pricey. $37 for overnight PLUS $5 per person "amenity fee". Everybody pays even though everbody doesn't play...games, mini golf, swimming, etc. I think we would have tried some place else but I just didn't want all the hassle on my 47th :) Gotta pamper ourselves sometime!

Posted by Joan at 06:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The day started with our usual Starbucks Sumatra coffee. Then we had Marilyn Monroes for breakfast along with fresh peaches from Mom and Harry's tree. We headed out for a long bike ride along Lake Michigan and some side trails. It was great riding weather but somewhat distressing to see how rundown the facilities here at Illinois Beach State Park are. Shame on the State of Illinois. This park has such great potential but the maintenance is a disaster.

We cooled down with a Sam Adams while relaxing in the shade. Then we welcomed readers Steve and Rande who were interested in talking about our Datastorm satellite system and our lifestyle. it was great fun for me to meet people who read and enjoy my blog...when I just started it to keep in touch with family! Thanks for coming by guys :).

Jim took another bike ride while I relaxed and read. I was surprised when a couple of little bambis streaked across our space! I do enjoy the wildlife here and the humans aren't too bad either. We expected a rowdy weekend but it was very quiet (well after the firecracker guy got turned off last night).

I made a huge stir fry for dinner and then we enjoyed a TV show on TNT, The Ron Clark Story. It's a teacher story on the lines of To Sir With Love. We almost turned it off because the commercials are so bad but the true story got us hooked.

We'll end the evening with ice cream and blueberries and a good book. Lucky us to have such a stress free day.

Posted by Joan at 07:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, a plan is coming together. We have an appointment on Wednesday at an HWH Certified repair place (Hanna Trailer in Oak Creek, WI). They should be able to check everything out and get this problem solved. It's about 40 miles north and there's a Yogi Bear Campground just down the road so we'll move there on Tuesday if all goes well. That way we'll be a stone's throw from help :)

And....it's a lovely day at Illinois Beach. Temps are in the mid 70's, sky is blue, wind is light. A bike ride along the beach is in store. Life could absolutely be worse so I'm thankful that we have this lovely place to stay and we're set to get rid of our gremlins (we hope). Indiana and Ohio will have to wait until September.

Posted by Joan at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We planned to be on the road to Indiana today but another electrical gremlin appeared and we decided on a day of rest. Yesterday we headed for good old Sky Harbor RV to get the Chassis Battery indicator light fixed. As we though it must have been disconnected when the Battery Cuttoff switch was repaired. So ok...after an hour we were on the road to Illinois Beach State Park in Zion, IL for an overnight stay.

When we arrived Jim dumped the tanks while I scoped out a site. It poured rain but when he was done and we were parked the storm cleared and we were ready to set up. Uh oh! The HWH panel to operate the jacks and the slide was dead...I mean dead! Back to the RV place.

They checked fuses, jiggled cords and suddenly the panel is alive. Damn...I hate it when these intermittent gremlins appear. It seems there's no way to fix it when they can't pinpoint what's wrong.

We headed back to the beach, everything worked, we got set up and decided to stay two nights. Anyway, driving the 294 Tollroad toward Indiana should be better on Saturday. I'll relax today and try not to worry about whether things will work tomorrow or not. Yeah right :)

Posted by Joan at 07:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday I couldn't get going on anything and was kind of down in the dumps. Yes, even in this free and easy, lazy life one can get a bit down. I did laundry and not much else. No books to read and no hubby to keep me on track. ( whine, whine again). Jim was doing the IMac upgrade for my parents which seems to be working fine. Now they have the latest AOL and can read my blog (very important) and get all their emails with attachments.

Today the time flew. We were gone on errands most of the day. Picked up new maps, got a haircut, had lunch at Olive Garden where we love the soup and salad, bought a book for Mom and Harry, picked up books at the "friends of the library", did some hardware and grocery shopping and topped it off with a couple of gin and tonics.

Then, with a plate of cottage cheese, chips and fresh tomatoes for dinner (light fare) we watched the Angels beat the Indians. Yessss! Now I have a book to dig in to..."The Ya Yas In Bloom" by Rebecca Wells...which is must reading after the girls trip since we Gurnee Girls do have some Ya Ya characteristics :)

Posted by Joan at 07:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're hanging around Gurnee while we try to find the electrical gremlin that's giving us headaches in the coach. Friday we had the new battery switch board replaced. Got home and the chassis battery indicator is not lighting although it seems to be working. So it's probably another trip to Sky Harbor RV.

Jim is also waiting for software from Apple to upgrade Mom and Dad's IMac so hopefully they can get the latest AOL version and be able to open and see all emails. Nothing is easy and there are glitches everywhere. (whine, whine)

I'm trying to plan our next little journey to Ohio and can't decide which red road route to follow. I'd like to see Shipshewana, Indiana just because everyone mentions it and the name sort of rolls off the tongue. I'd also like to try staying in more state parks but when I looked at Indiana park prices I think we might as well stay at a KOA! $34 per day for weekends. Where did the cheap sites go?

Planning in the midwest is tough because there is always the rainy, stormy weather factor. Makes me miss the southwest where every day is sunny (well almost). Today was another hot, humid day and we're not getting enough outdoor time but I think cool weather is around the corner for a few days. So where to go and when is the topic of the day. Any ideas?

Posted by Joan at 08:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I needed a day of rest after spending five days in Door County, Wisconsin with these very good friends from early childhood. Why? Non-stop talking, eating, shopping, sight seeing, working puzzles, watching movies and attending the theater. It was reallllly hot and humid so we were not very active. Darn! In fact, we were downright physiclally lazy. But I think my brain got tired and I needed some time to sort through the fun we had.

We truly enjoyed our two Peninsula Players evenings. The Players are performing in a new "outdoor" theater that retains the open flavor of the old one but has wonderful comfy seats and construction details allowing better sets, sound, and space. We were very pleased with the new theater and delighted with the plays. We saw "Noises Off" on Sunday and "Cabaret" on Wednesday. Seeing the same repertory actors in two different roles just days apart was such fun. What an amazing talent to be a good actor!

Our best dinner was the Monday lobster special at Glidden Lodge. Oh my! With martini appetizers and Door County Cherry Pie for dessert it was a perfect evening.

We had lots of conversation time and found that even though we have a wide range of opinions we could share our ideas and thoughts without becoming antagonistic. That makes it a mentally stimulating and unstressful time. We did buy a couple of 9-square picture puzzles that stressed us out because we could not solve the puzzles. Well, maybe by next year!

There is an abundance of condos, inns and campgrounds for vacationers. We are fortunate to have our Maryann who invites us to share her family condo at Landmark each year. We can't thank her enough for her hospitality and the care she takes in finding fun things for us to do.

For me, the fulltime RVer, I enjoyed living in a house for several days but am happy to be back in my little abode. I passed up buying any stuff except for a new windsock to hang on the awning. And, oh joy, while I was gone Jim cleaned the carpet. I feel like a new woman :)

Posted by Joan at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)