and the beat goes on ...

Monday afternoon we dropped my Dad's car off at a local mechanic. He was going to keep it inside his shop overnight and work on it the next morning. He was pretty sure it was the window regulator (my guess as well, but what do I know) and would not be a hard fix.

Tuesday morning we woke up to snow. We had about 1/2" overnight and the roads were slick. I had a few appointments and just took it slow and made it around just fine. By lunch time the roads were clear and it was smooth sailing. The mechanic called and had the car fixed. $309 for a new window regulator and it was good as new. Matthew and Mandie came over in the afternoon to use the wifi so they could file their taxes. They dropped me off at the mechanics on their way home so I could pick up the car. I hate having car troubles but at least this was only a minor inconvenience.

Work picked up late last week and was almost back to normal numbers. I had 5 appointments Monday but then it slowed to a crawl again and I have not been busy at all. Wednesday we drove to Westfield to Buffalo Wild Wings for our weekly dinner ride with our motorcycle group. The food was good but the service was lacking. Our poor waitress had no help at all even though there were managers and other waiters standing around doing nothing but talking in the middle of the dining room. My opinion is they needed some "adult" leadership instead of giving the impression of a bunch of lazy kids standing around trying to do as little as possible.

We got a call from my sister who now lives in Tacoma Wa. that her father in law had passed away and she was coming back to Indiana for the funeral. She flew in Wednesday morning. We got together with her and my brother in law Frank Thursday evening. We had a nice time catching up and will be seeing them again tomorrow evening at the funeral home.

We are attending a training session for our Goldwing group this week end. The training is in Greenburg Indiana and lasts all day Saturday and until 1pm on Sunday. Not sure what we will be learning but I'll keep you posted.

busy week end

Wow I can't believe it's been almost a week since I blogged. Sorry about that.

We had a busy week end. We started out by taking Mandie and Matt out to eat to celebrate his new job and the end to his week of training. We met them at Red Lobster in Lafayette. We got there shortly after 5pm and still had to wait 40 minutes for a table! I guess everyone else had the same idea. We had a nice meal despite the wait. Matthew starts his regular shift Saturday night. They work 12 hour shifts, 3 days on then 2 days off then 2 days on and 3 days off. He will have every other weekend off and is really enjoying it so far.

Saturday morning I went out early to start my Dad's car since it has been sitting for at least a month. The car started just fine and I backed it out of the parking space to move it closer to the 5th wheel and let it finish warming up. I rolled the drivers side window down to clear off the snow and it wouldn't roll back up :-(. I could hear the motor running but the window wouldn't budge .... rats!! I got out the duct tape and garbage bags so I could cover it up to keep the rain out and parked it back in the spot again.

Rain? Did he say rain? Yep it got warm enough that it started raining Friday night and was still raining off and on Saturday. We headed for Indianapolis to the Boat Sport and Travel Show. We wanted to get an early start to try and beat the crowds since this is opening week end. I thought they opened at 9am so we timed it to get there about 9:30. Well you guessed it, they opened at 10am and we had to either stand in a long line that was wrapped around the building or stay in the car that was parked 1/4 mile away. Rudee decided we needed the exercise vs. standing in the rain and cold so we headed back to the car to wait for the doors to open :-).

We spent about 4 hours walking around the show spending most of our time in the vendor area and the RV section. We didn't see anything we wanted to trade for and our only big purchase was a bag of carmel corn. Here are some pics from the show.

We saw a couple of these 5th wheels that had two different color of cabinets. Why do they do that? Looks kind if strange to me.

Here is a different way to RV. This rig could get you into that private boondocking spot!

We left the show and drove to Amanda and Ryans house to pick up the grand kids for the night. We got them all loaded up and headed home. We stopped at the video store and picked up some kids movies so we could keep them entertained. We watched movies most of the evening and they all fell asleep around 9pm.

Sunday morning we were awakened by the sound of little feet ......... awwwwwwww. Actually we woke up to "Quit touching me"! "You're feet are in my face"! "Leave me alone"! :-)

I have come to the conclusion that I could not live fulltime in an RV if our kids were still small. I love my grand kids and love for them to come and visit us, it's also nice when they leave too.

A lot of the snow melted away this week end. We still have quite a bit here in the KOA but hopefully it will all melt off soon. I'll keep you posted.

Winter doldrums

We have been watching some of the Winter Olympics on TV. I like the racing, speed type events the best. I thought it was kind of funny though when they had to postpone some of the events because of lack of fresh snow. I guess they could have moved them to Dallas Texas!! Who would have thought? :-).

Indianapolis has a large sports show each year called "The Boat Sport and Travel Show". It is held at the State Fairgrounds and encompasses 4 large buildings. They have all kinds of boats and RV's on display as well as vendors of all sorts. For the fishermen they have an area called "tackletown" that has everything the modern fisherman could ever want. In the center of it all is an area where lodges and State Tourism people set up their booths and pass out all kinds of literature for visiting their area. We always look forward to the show and have gone to it for many years. I remember when the kids were little and we were struggling to make ends meet this show was the highlight of our winter. We could take the kids and spend the entire day going through the different displays. I would always bring home a huge stack of brochures and spend the next month looking through them and dreaming of the time I could travel to remote places. The show starts this Friday and we are planning on going either Saturday or Sunday.

This time of year can be depressing for me. I really get sick of winter pretty quickly and get the itch to go camping and motorcycle riding. You are probably asking "how can this guy miss camping when he lives in a camper?". Well what I miss is camping with our friends and all that goes along with it (campfires, pitch ins etc). I'm trying to do better and keep my attitude on an even keel and just wait for the big melt down/warm up.

Matthew's new job seems to be going well. He has been doing training all week and this morning was Taser training. He volunteered to be the bad guy and got "tased":-). He called me a little while ago and said it was the longest 5 seconds of his life. :-)

We have the grand kids overnight Saturday night while Amanda and Ryan go to an overnight party for his company. They have it in one of the nice Hotels in downtown Indy and all the rooms, meals, drinks, parking .... everything, is paid for. They usually give away some nice gifts and cash so we are keeping our fingers crossed for them.

We are going to our Goldwing meeting tonight in Lebanon. The meeting starts at 7pm and we are usually there by 6pm so we have plenty of time to eat and socialize. Our very first meeting was in February of 1990 and we have probably only missed a handful since that time. 20 years sure does go by awfully fast. as always I'll keep you posted.