scary moments at the RV show

Saturday morning we were up bright and early, let me rephrase that, we were up before the chickens, and the roosters and just about any other sensible creature :-).
We were meeting Rob and Jany and riding with them to the RV show Louisville. The drive to their home in Brownsburg took us about 40 minutes and since this is also where our "address" is we stopped in the UPS store and picked up our mail.
Rob and Jany were ready to go and we all piled into their SUV and headed out. We made a quick stop for breakfast and the sun was just starting to rise when we left the restaurant and drove south.

The RV show is held at the Louisville Expo Center and is a combination boat and RV show. We arrived shortly after the 10:00 am opening and was able to park fairly close to the doors :-). I did think the $8.00 parking fee was a little steep but I guess if you want to play you have to pay :-(.

The four of us headed straight for the RV section bypassing all the boats. They had several dealerships there and a good assortment of different makes and models.
Now for the scary part.
Rudee and I went into a 2011 Montana 3750FL which is a 5 slide front living room model. We have seen this floor plan before and were not really impressed. I'm not sure why the change but Rudee fell in love with it. Oh Oh!! I reminded her that this model only has a drop down type desk area next to the dinette and it does not have enough room for all the computer "stuff" her company requires (2 monitors, large printer/copier/scanner plus a computer tower).
That seemed to work as we moved on to other units, or so I thought.
She kept talking about the Montana and the features she liked. I was also impressed with the unit, The bathroom and bedroom were both very large and roomy. The one thing we both agreed on was not having two couches in the living area. We both like our recliners and this model comes with a wrap around couch on one wall and a sleeper sofa on the opposite. The front wall is the entertainment center and fireplace. I wander if we could remove one of the couches? Hmmmm.
I did what every husband would do when he is in a panic that his wife is doing serious RV shopping, I distracted her by dragging her into other RV's. We headed for the luxury diesel pushers :-). My hope was to put some distance between me and the payment book associated with that new Montana :-).

We enjoyed looking through the rest of the show and fantasized about being able to afford a $300,000 Tiffin luxury coach and traveling without having to work but until we hit the lottery .......... :-(

The show became extremely crowded and by 1pm we were all ready to leave and made our way out to the parking lot.
After we left the show our conversation turned towards all the units we had seen and of course at the top of the list was the Montana. I decided then to mention that since we don't use the dinette for eating on most of the time, Rudee could set up her office on there. This got her thinking, and talking some more. :-0
We are not quite ready to trade but who knows what the future holds, it was a nice unit :-).

We made it back to Rob and Jany's house and switched into our truck for the rest of the drive. Thanks for the great time guys, we had a ball. We were both tired from the trip as well as all the walking at the show and headed to bed fairly early.

We are heading to Plainfield today to pick up a cargo trailer for our son to use to move. They have found a new apartment in Lafayette and are moving next week end and he wanted to get the trailer so he could do same packing this week. As always, I'll keep you posted.

Hot time at the rally!

This past week end we attended the GWRRA Indiana Winter Rendezvous in Indianapolis. This is not your typical motorcycle rally since the weather in January in Indiana is not conducive to riding a motorcycle! They started this rally to kind of break up the long cold winter and get us all dreaming of warm riding weather!

Rudee and I took Friday off from work and met a few of our friends at Flapjack's in Lebanon for breakfast. Grumpy Williams was pulling his enclosed cargo trailer which held our float entry. Our friends have been working on the float for several weeks and had finished it up last Sunday. The theme for the rally is "Hillbilly Hoot-Nanny" so we made a replica of the Beverly Hillbilly's truck complete with rag dolls to represent the "hillbillies" driving to California. Here is a photo:

We arrived at the rally around noon and got checked into our room at the Marriott East Hotel in Indianapolis. They have held the rally here for the last three years and it is a really nice place.

There was not much happening so we changed into our suits and headed for the hot tub for a nice long soak. I do miss the hot tub we used to have on our patio back when we owned a house with out wheels :-)

Friday evening they held the talent show. Rudee joined several of our friends and they all got up on stage in their hillbilly clothes and sang a parody of the Beverly Hillbilly's theme song. They didn't win anything but had a fun time and they all looked good in their bib overalls and "billy-bob" teeth :-).

Once the talent show was over they allowed us to bring our floats in and store them inside until the "Grand Parade" on Saturday night. We went out to Grumpy's trailer and opened the ramp door and this is what we found:

The float had somehow caught on fire :-0! I still find it hard to believe that Grumpy's trailer didn't burn up too. The float had been covered with sheets and they were all burnt off. Two of the three dolls were burned as well as a good portion of the float! Needless to say we were all dumbfounded and just closed the trailer back up.

Saturday morning we all decided to enter the float in the parade anyway! We came to play and by golly we were going to compete! We unloaded the float and brought it inside and started assessing the damage. The lights all worked with the exception of the one headlight that had melted and we still had 1 1/2 rag dolls left. The guys busied themselves making the float look a little better while the gals kept soaking it with fabreeze to get the "stink" out :-). I even wrote a song that we sang while pulling it in the parade. The crowd seemed to love our little burned up float almost as much as we did. We even took 3rd place out of 6 entries! I bet we could have won easily if they had only seen it before the fire!

Sunday morning we checked out and headed for the Indiana State Fairgrounds where they were holding the Central Indiana RV Show. We browsed through most of the 5th wheels and motor homes they had on display. We didn't find anything we liked that we could afford so we came away empty handed. That's OK we are really happy with our Montana.

This week end we are going with Rob and Jany Runion to another Rv show at the fairgrounds in Louisville Kentucky, maybe we'll find something there ............. hmmmmmm :-). I'll keep you posted!

Oh Crud!

Well it's been a "cruddy" end to the week. :-(

First of all I woke up Tuesday morning with a scratchy throat and an annoying little cough. This turned into a full fledged "crud attack" by the end of the day. So far Rudee has kept her distance and has avoided it. I have been popping over the counter cold pills as well as taking Nyquill but am still all "stuffed up". Yuck.

We made the drive to Plainfield yesterday morning and took Rudee's Mom out to lunch. Her Dad was not feeling too good, he was fighting a cold too, and didn't feel like going out.
Rudee's sister BJ and bil David joined us and we had a nice lunch at Coachman's Restaurant.
We had did get the chance to visit with Rudee's Dad some after driving her Mom back home before heading hime ourselves.

Once back in Crawfordsville we made a grocery run and since the movie theater is right next door I suggested we check out an afternoon matinee. I love a good western and they have re-made one of my old John Wayne favorites "True Grit".
Jeff Bridges plays the role of "Rooster Cogburn" and does a great job of it. Rudee had never seen the John Wayne version and we both enjoyed the show.

We made it back to the 5th wheel and Rudee fixed us a quick supper of Tuna Casserole w/ garlic bread and "yum yum muffins" ( http://www.fox59.com/news/morningnews/wxin-yum-yum-brownie-muffins-01062011,0,5929468.story ). This was her first try at the muffins and they turned out great.

We settled in to watch the Colts play the Jets. The game was nip and tuck all the way and the Colts have almost always found a way to have the ball in the last 2 minutes and pull out a win. This game was coming down to the wire and the defense had made a great stop causing the Jets to punt it back to us with over 2 minutes left. All we needed to do was kill the remaining time. Well with all the injuries our team has had this year there are a lot of new faces and 3rd and 4th team rookies playing. One of these guys decided he was going to be a hero and when the Jets tried to punt he came blasting through and knocked the punter down long after he had kicked the ball. This is a 5 yard penalty and gave the Jets another first down. They made a couple of more plays and kicked a field goal winning the game at the last second. More Crud!

We had a small issue with our water heater last week end when we returned from Michigan. I have been using it on the LP gas instead of the electric (it works off of either) because the electric coils had stopped working. I am not sure what is going on with that. They were just replaced back in the fall and have quit again? I'll look into that once the weather gets above freezing! Anyway, we got back and I flipped the switch for the water heater to fire up and could hear it trying but would not light up no matter how many times I turned the switch on and off :-(
I went out side and removed the outer door and found it was leaking from the pressure relief valve. I was not sure what to do with it and "fiddled" with the valve some but it was still leaking a steady stream of water. I remembered on our toy hauler the valve would dribble some and if I tapped it with a screw driver it would "seat" itself and stop leaking. I got out a wrench and tapped the valve and it slowed down a lot but was still leaking some. I tapped on it some more and it quit! I got out Rudee's hair dryer and used it to dry everything out. I tried turning it back on and low and behold she lit up and we were back in business! Wow I'm a water heater repairman now! :-)
The only thing I can think of that caused it is by turning it off the pressure valve did not close like it should once the water in the tank cooled down. This caused it to dribble a small stream and wet everything down which in turn froze everything up. Moral of the story, don't be a cheapskate and shut the water heater off just to save a buck on propane :-)

We are going to our float building session this afternoon after being lazy all morning. Man that Nyquill really knocks a guy out. Hopefully it will knock this cold out too. I'll keep you posted.

Recovering from the Holidays

Work has been a zoo the last couple of weeks. Rudee and I both had short weeks due to the holidays but unfortunately the work just piled up and we have both been extra busy trying to catch up. The extra days off were nice but we are paying for it now :-(

New years Eve we were invited by Steve and Trish Suter to ride along with them to, where else, a casino. We first met our son Matthew and fiance' Mandy in Lafayette for breakfast before hooking up with the Suters' at their house.

We all piled into their car and the 2 hour drive went by pretty quick. We had reservations at a motel near the casino and decided to check in prior to trying our luck. Since we made our reservations fairly late we didn't have many options and the rooms were expensive. We decided to split the cost of a 2 room suite and it worked out well. The motel was even providing a shuttle service to and from the casino.

We gambled a little in the afternoon and I was doing pretty good and came away with a little of their $$. We didn't want to press our luck too much and decided to go find a place for dinner. Steve drove us into the town of New Buffalo Mi. and we found a nice sports bar that turned out to be a great little place. We all enjoyed our meals and it wasn't too expensive either.

After dinner we spent some time back at the motel and I even took a little nap hoping this would help me stay awake to usher in the New Year :-).

We took the shuttle back to the Casino around 8pm and the place was packed. We mostly walked around and people watched. The slot machines were all full and most had people standing behind them waiting their turn to play. This was not my idea of fun but the casino did provide some roving entertainment. Here is a photo that Rudee snapped on my cell phone of one of the dancers.

In case you are wondering, I'm the pervert on the left and Steve is the pervert on the right :-)

We fought the crowd for a couple of hours and decided that was enough and caught the shuttle back to the motel where we ordered a pizza and watched the ball drop in Times Square. Maybe I am old fashioned but I miss Dick Clark and his "rockin New Years".

We made the drive back home Saturday and it was nice to have another day off before going back to work. None of us really had any big New Years resolutions. I guess our only one is to pay off as many bills as we can so we can get closer to retirement. I even put a countdown timer on my phone that shows how many days I have left to work. Right now I am at 1429. That sounds like a lot but if you subtract week ends, holidays and vacation days it doesn't seem as bad. Who knows, maybe we can go sooner if we keep at it :-). I'll keep you posted.