Joan on the Road...of Life

One of the joys, to me, of fulltime living is the freedom from plants and growing things. No grass to cut, trees to trim, plants to water and no weeds to pull. But here in the lush midwest you gotta do something with all the growing stuff or you'll end up in a jungle.

Tuesday morning we were sitting under the patio having coffee and I decided to weed the little flower bed that grows beside the back porch. Mom and Harry have had a problem finding a good gardener to take care of the flower beds so I thought...I can do this little bit. Jim got motivated to clean up the apple windfalls. So....

By the time we were done, the flower bed was free of weeds leaving the purple cone flowers and peonies in place. Three bushel of apples were bagged for garbage, the fruit trees were trimmed and we were pooped. Jim kept asking me if I should be working so hard with my bad knee. Oh sure, I'm OK, I said. Right!

Yesterday I had a hard time walking. Guess I overdid it. But today the knee is better again. I really don't know if this waiting for the meniscus to feel better is going to work. I may still need to have that bit of surgery to clean it up.

Amyway the weather is beautiful here in Gurnee. We've missed the round of storms since Saturday and now the temps are in the mid 70's and the sky is clear blue. Yeah! We love having the windows open and the AC off. Gives us a chance to hear all the critters and bugs :)

Granddaughter Hilly is coming for a visit this weekend. She wants to see all the "old" places where I grew up and where her Mom lived her teen years. Small town, midwest America. It's a lot different than SoCal where Hilly has grown up. Wonder what she'll think?

Posted by Joan at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is Harry, the Harrelson Apple tree that is simply overloaded this year. Harry bears fruit every other year and he's outdone himself this time.

Every branch is jam packed. Let's see. What apple recipes do I have?

There are four fruit trees in the backyard--cherry, peach and two apple. Last year the peach tree gave its all. It is so spread out that it blocks the patio steps. This year the peaches dropped off early, hard as rocks. The birds usually get the cherries. The apples take turns so there's always an apple crop.

In past years Mom and Harry have made apple sauce and canned peaches along with growing a small garden. But that's getting to be too much for them to handle. This year we're going to need a shovel to clean up the windfalls and then figure out what to do with the rest.

Apples anyone?

Posted by Joan at 08:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Another uneventful, lovely travel day until we hit the Illinois state line. I had this great plan to get off the I-94 in Wisconsin to get to the east side of the flooded Des Plaines River but found both the roads I knew we could take were closed! So OK...we headed on down the 94 planning to take the Route 41 cutoff to Gurnee. Suddenly there were construction signs all over the place that were unreadable and confusing. Which way do we go?

We wound up locked in a single lane designated for cars only. It was about 9 feet wide; we are 8.5! There were concrete construction dividers on both sides! You see, this part of the interstate is being reconstructed to put in a toll booth and some bridges. Since we were in the wrong lane we couldn't get over to pay the toll. Jeez, I hope they did not have their cameras working. If we get a ticket for this I will claim utter confusion. (Note to self: Why didn't I take some pictures to defend us? Too scared!)

We survived it though, without a scratch and got off at Route 132 where we pulled into the busy Gurnee Mills parking lot to take a deep breath and unhook. Then we headed east and hoped the roads weren't flooded. All my worry was for nothing because we got to Mom and Harry's just fine although the water is up right to the edge of the highway and is flooding several business.

We met a nice fulltiming family from Mississippi last night. They work construction to support themselves and are taking the summer off work to complete some of their home schooling for two teens. The oldest will go to college in Florida this fall. Nice kids. We encouraged them not to take 94 but to take Interstate 39 so they could avoid the construction. Glad we did and hope they had a great trip today.

They live in a huge Teton 5th wheel that he tows and she follows in a pickup with their construction equipment and bikes. They get jobs just by word of mouth and referrals. Sounds like a crazy way to live but they seemed real happy and were pleased that they could give their kids this real life education. More power to 'em!

Posted by Joan at 08:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our drive to the Oakdale KOA in WI was uneventful except for the really rotten MN roads. No wonder the bridge fell in Minneapolis. They simply don't know how to maintain roads. Here and there is a smooth spot of concrete but for the most part....bam, bam, bam. We got off at one rest area where each section of pavement was slanted and offset from the next. The Bams were so bad that all my computer connections were shaken off the desk. What a mess! Fortunately no dishes hit the floor but it was the worst road we've been on...even worse than CA.

I think we've finally reached a rain clear area so today's adventure will be getting to our little town in Northern Illinois without going through flooded underpasses. This will be a good test of my memory. Our plan is to unhook the car just off the interstate and then I'll scout the road ahead. I'd hate to get stuck with the towed attached and have to manueuver through or around a flooded underpass. No way!

Stay tuned to see how the rainy adventure ends. -

Posted by Joan at 06:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We didn't make it to Story City, IA yesterday. When we got up the sky was dark and rain was pouring. Jim checked the weather radar and it looked pretty bad. So we called our friends and told them we'd have to delay. I changed the campground reservations and we sat back to enjoy the rain :) Well, more like we second guessed ourselves all morning because the rain stopped early and then the radar didn't look too bad.

Dave called about noon and said he and Kathy had checked out the campground we were coming to and it was half flooded. When they drove the campsites they felt they were sinking in. The campground is on the Skunk River. That did it for me! We changed plans again.

We'll catch a visit with Dave and Kathy another time. I know we missed a good dinner and visit but I don't want to be stuck in the Skunk River!

This morning it looks the rains will be ahead of us as we head to La Crosse, WI. Then the storms may be clearing out for several days and we'll see sun and drying up in Gurnee, IL....although the Des Plaines River is flooded there.

There are a few tent campers here at the Flying Goose and we sure don't envy them. Wet tents,soggy beds, damp wood, smoky fires. Ahhh...that's the real camping :)

Posted by Joan at 06:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We managed to work our way 200 miles east to Fairmont, MN and stay out of major rain. Just as we pulled into the Flying Goose CG the rain started. But we easily got parked, plugged in, leveled and put out the slide. Fifteen minutes and we're home again.

The weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow is more rain. I'll bet these midwest folks are totally tired of this. It's rained so much that the grass looks artifically green. We plan to head south on I-35 tomorrow for 170 miles to Story City where we'll have dinner with a couple we met in Mesa, AZ. Hopefully we won't have too severe storms. I don't mind the raincoat thing but I sure don't like the tornado warning stuff.

Posted by Joan at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's no rest for the weary :( At days end the bug guts need to be cleaned from the front. it's a lot easier now that the window is treated with Rain-X. Clear water and micro cloths take everything off.

Posted by Joan at 05:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Naturally, as soon as we decided to stay the extra day we checked out the weather again and the nasty stuff was out of the forecast. Oh well! We do the best we can with the tools we have. We'd be kicking ourselves if we ignored the warnings and then got clobbered.

Today we drove the 280 miles to Mitchell, SD home of the Corn Palace. We've been here before so no need to see the Palace again. But we do like this KOA and the mileage here is decent. It wouldn't have been too bad except we were naughty last night and stayed up til midnight watching the Angels beat the Yankees in 10 innings, 7-6. It was a great!!! game!!! Then today we faced powerful winds on the road and lots of construction with two-way traffic. So the drive was tiring.

We got a late start and finaly pulled in here at the KOA at 5 PM, pretty late for us. Oh, we also changed time today so we lost an hour. But we are safe, the weather is good at the moment, the Angels are in first place, and dinner is heating up. All's well that ends well :)

Posted by Joan at 04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every town ahead of us in the Midwest, where we plan to stop, now has severe weather. Rain, wind, hail, flood...jeez! We've had severe weather here every night. Last night was a great lightning and thunder show. Never see much of that in SoCal :)

We were headed for Mitchell, SD today but when the forecast says wind and large hail, 80% chance...no thank you. I just called the office and asked to stay here at Hart Ranch another day :)

So now what? We were up early planning to get propane and head out by 9 AM. Now we get to kick back another day. I think I'll go back to bed for a nap.

Posted by Joan at 07:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At 4 PM the clouds started to build and by 6 it was very dark and windy. Our little weather station started sounding warnings and then the rains came...for hours. We had some hail but only small, thank heaven. Of course I'm a nervous nellie when the tornado warnings sound. We looked at each other and said "what are we doing here?" Maybe August is not a good time to come through Rapid!

It's pretty darn noisy in our house when the rain is beating down and the wind is pounding the sides. We tried a little TV and discovered that our satellite was out due to rain and so was the local cable. So we read and listened to music until the storm died down.

By 10 PM we could get local TV and learned that Sturgis and other towns northwest of us got lots of damaging hail and over 3" of rain fell. Of course the area can use the rain. Too bad it doesn't come in smaller amounts and with less violence.

So this morning was puffy clouds and cool breeze. We sat outside with coffee and chatted with neighbors as they went by. We feel real lucky to have missed the bad hail again :)

Posted by Joan at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rapid City, Star of the West, is also known as the City of Presidents. On several street corners there are life size bronze statues of past U.S. Presidents. I'm partial to this one because it's so lifelike.

Yes, I've manipulated this pix a bit. I wanted to deemphasize the cluttered background and focus on the statue. I kind of like this. It looks like only about 30 Presidents are represented. I wonder if the project is still going on?

In other news, we went to the Rushmore Mall to find a Radio Shack to replace our LNB on the satellite dish. That's what gets us TV. Ours failed, again. Who knows how long it's been out because we watch very little TV. I wanted to see The Closer on TNT the other night and ...no go. So we got the new LNB and all's well again. In addition, the old one is under warranty so we'll get a free replacement for the next time it goes out. Seems they are like light bulbs.

Walking the mall was not a comfy experience. My knee really is painful after several minutes of walking so I'm not sure that improvement is in the works. I did take a bike ride last night and that does not hurt. But I don't think we'll be going to Mt. Rushmore this time around. Too much walking.

Today is a typical hot, windy day at Hart Ranch. I was going to do laundry and hang out at the clubhouse but I'm so lazy today that it's midafternoon and I haven't had lunch yet. My kind of day :)

We did discover a new Olive Garden at the mall so we continued our anniversary celebrations with an early dinner there yesterday. What a deal! Soup, salad and entrees for $23 for two. I sure wanted dessert, like a frozen tiramisu, but there was no room left. Instead I settled for a Black Cow for late dinner! Oh, by the way, the Black Cow Diet does not work :)

Posted by Joan at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Three uneventful travel days! That's how we like them. The biggest excitement was an overturned semi in Wyoming where there was a crew of guys cleaning up the boxes of cargo. Looked like the driver had fallen asleep and veered off the road.

Yesterday we decided we needed more than steak and champagne for our dinner so we were on the lookout for a WalMart. Using our Next Exit book we found one in Gillette close to the Interstate. It's always fun pulling into a big parking lot and figuring out where to stretch out our 55' and how to escape. But Jim did a good job. He ran in and got broccoli, potatoes and sour creme. So our feast was good :)

It's a bit cooler here in Rapid City. As usual, the clouds build up in the afternoon and thunderstorms flirt with the area. The guy who pulled in next to us was just returning from getting a damage estimate on his 5th wheel and car. Seems he was here for the August 3 mammoth hail storm. There are pictures of softball size hail. Jeez! I'm glad we missed that one :) Anyway, he has $12,000 worth of damage on his rig. Yikes!

Here at Hart Ranch, we're parked in the pet section so I can enjoy "other peoples' pets". Since half the park is for pet owners I may get my fill of doggies while we're here. Here's a picture of a rig just down the road from us. Yes, that is a car up behind the cab! Guess they don't like driving that big semi around town to get groceries and go to the mall :)

We finished off our anniversary celebration watching Casablanca and then Dave. I've seen Casablanca dozens of times but last night it seemed very fresh to me....and so romantic. I swear there were new scenes in the movie. How could that be?

Today I'm headed out to get my driver's license renewed. It expires next February but can be renewed 6 months early. Since we got delayed in our travels I'm now within that window. Yeah! And maybe we'll go see the Fab Four again. No visit to Rapid is complete without seeing Mt. Rushmore.

Posted by Joan at 07:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We arrived at Deer Park CG in Buffalo, WY about 3 pm. We've been here before but I'd forgotten how nice and "parklike" it is. Here we are in our satellite friendly site along with 2 other Datastormers nearby :)

By 3:30 we were outside visiting with neighbors Dick and Carol. We're all headed for Rapid City so we exchanged "things to do" with them. I'm looking forward to seeing the night show at Mt. Rushmore again.

We were visited by the resident turkey flock, begging for food. These guys are huge. Bet they don't make it through November. There's about a dozen of them gobbling their way through the campsites.

Today is our wedding anniversary...48 years. So to my special guy.....Happy Anniversary!! We have champagne on ice and steak in the fridge for a little celebration tonight.

Posted by Joan at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Son Jim requested a picture of my "sign" on the back of the coach advertising my blog address.

It's nothing fancy, just printed on a strip of paper and taped in the window. Maybe someday, when I'm rich and famous, I'll have it painted on the back or side! You know I just started writing this blog to keep in touch with family and friends. Now I have about 100 unique visitors each day and nearly a thousand unique visitors each month. I love having you all out there and enjoy the notes and drop-in visitors ;)

Anyway, we are on the move! We're parked at Bear Canyon CG east of Bozeman, MT. It's OK for overnight or to visit the area but the sites are pretty narrow. We lucked out and got this end site so we have a nice private view on the slideout side. A big rig pulled into that space on the left so we are pretty snug in here now.

Here's the view from the front window. We're above the freeway and a RR track. Yeah!

The description says to go 100 ft. off the freeway to the campground. Sounded pretty freeway close but turned out just fine.

Since it was a short day I felt relaxed and decided to cook a "dinner"...made Jim happy :) We had Lemon Lovers Meatloaf, Stouffer's Macaroni and Cheese and peas along with red wine. Very simple but very satisfying.

Hopefully tomorrow will take us to some cleaner air :)

Posted by Joan at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This was the air condition for about 200 miles today...pretty awful!

About 20 miles before our campground the air began to clear and is not too bad this afternoon.

Posted by Joan at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The afternoon sun tried to break through the smoke in Missoula but it didn't happen. There are dozens of fires burning in Montana some as close as 25 miles to Missoula. I think the wind blows the smoke in and then it settles down in the valleys and can't get out. It was a very eerie feeling to be in this amber glow all afternoon and evening.

Reader Ann stopped by with her dog, Karl. She'd seen my blog address on the back of the coach, read a few entries and stopped by here at Jim and Mary's to say Hi. Ann lives in the boonies of northwestern Montana and got a little edgy with all the fires around. She decided to come down to Missoula, be around people and get some repair work done on her coach. She thinks that next week will be better as the temps drop and the fires burn down.

Neighbor Mike stopped by to explain why we kept hearing beeping coming from his trailer. His wife Sue (names changed to protect the innocent) told us that the smoke kept setting off their propane detector. Mike, who had a wine glas filled with clear liquid, said that every time he makes martinis in the trailer the propane detector goes off. This time he got so mad he kicked it ....and broke it. He repaired it with glue...and you guessed it. The glue outgassed and set off the alarm. So they posted the grandson inside to shut off the alarm each time it sounded and went out to visit neighors. Finally, the glue dried and all was quiet again!

Posted by Joan at 06:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm prompted to write this because when we stop for awhile there are no great adventures and we tend to contemplate our little house and come up with things to do. The latest is adding a Honeywell digital thermostat for the furnace. The one we had was a real piece of junk. Everytime we moved the lever to turn it off I thought it would break. Now we are good to go within one degree of accuracy. Down at night, warm up in the morning :)

Our neighbors, who have a new 42' coach, stopped in and toured our humble abode (we're only 32'). Peter commented on how cozy and homey ours is. And we agree. We always come back to our coach after RV shows and are happy with what we have....because we've done some little things that make it more "ours".

We have small lamps that give great light for computer work and can be turned down for movie watching. We have warm braided rugs in the traffic areas. Our recliner rockers provide maximum relaxation and our Select Comfort mattress cradles our old bodies :)

Our satellite brings us the internet world and cell phones connect us to family and friends. Our 6000 songs and 300 movies are ready at a moments notice and we can pour a glass of wine from our tiny wine cellar or have an ice cream sundae from our double door fridge. Now what more could we ask for ?

Posted by Joan at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The good news today was that the ortho doc did not think I need any kind of knee repair surgery! Yeah! My knee has been steadily improving and after his testing and xrays he concludes it is a minor meniscal tear and over several weeks it will get better. He encouraged me to walk and bike ride. So OK!

Saturday we enjoyed having Laura and Steve over for dinner. We also invited our neighbors from New Zealand. Since I was kind of gimpy Jim did all the shopping and made dinner of grilled veggies and burgers. It was great food, company and conversation.

The neighbors treated us to dinner tonight with more good food, wine and conversation. It's very interesting to chat with people from another country and get the outside view of America. (They love it here!)

We had a few rain showers this evening which is good news for the fires here in Montana. There are a dozen or more burning in the western part of the state. The sky is often very smoky here in Missoula but nothing is burning very close to us. The weather is cooling so hopefully that brings down the fire danger.

In other good news, I weighed in this morning and found I'd lost a few pounds. I can't figure out why except that we've been having a Black Cow (root beer float) every night. Maybe we've discovered a new diet!

Posted by Joan at 09:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I learned a new word last weekend, meniscus, and I don't like it. The meniscus is spongy stuff in the knee joint that cushions the knee when we walk. Looks like I may have a tear in mine :(. I've been gimping around since early July when something happened, don't remember what, and my knee has been very painful. Dr. Steve worked on it a lot and got it 80% better. On Saturday he did a little ortho test that points to a tear or loose flap of the meniscus giving me pain....and he can't fix that. He felt bad and so did I :(

So I've been bummed out about that and trying to decide what to do. The steps are to see an orthopedic surgeon who will probably order an MRI. That will show if there's a tear. Then some kind of surgery to fix it would probably be indicated. This is not big deal knee surgery. Usually it is artheroscopic, out patient stuff. But I'm such a woos with things like this...I get really bummed.

In this traveling life it's hard to know what to do in a case like this because there's some recovery time when traveling is not good. So...options....stay in Missoula near Laura and Steve, go to Illinois where my parents are, go back to CA where Renee and Jim are.

We've decided to stay here at Jim and Mary's RV Park in Missoula to get things checked out. If surgery is required, we can still comfortably stay here for a month. Why? In Illinois there is no really good place to plop down and stay for a long time. We have to dump the sewer every 6 days and are not set up with the blue tank or macerator to make that easier. Back in Hemet, CA it is just tooooo hot! And it seems like any doctor we want is an hour or two away. Here in Missoula we can stay parked for however long we need, the docs and clinic are close, the weather is good and Dr. Steve is here to help me make decisions and check ups afterwards.

I stewed on this for 5 days and woke up in a panic yesterday thinking all doom and gloom. After a few cups of coffee and explaining to Jim how I was feeling, we sorted out and analyzed options and made our decision. We extended our stay here for 10 days, made the doc appointment and then I relaxed.

Jim went shopping and brought home pizza and beer for supper. I watched a few old reruns of Law and Order then went to bed and slept for 12 hours. I know...in the whole scope of human affairs my little aching knee is nothing. Today I can look at it that way and having made some decisions we'll just "git er done".

Posted by Joan at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)