New thrones for the King and Queen

We had a great time at Amanda and Ryan's house on Thanksgiving. Of course we all ate too much :-). Heck, isn't that a requirement for "turkey day"!
Ryan deep fried a large bird and it turned out fantastic. Had to have been the best Turkey I have ever eaten, very moist and flavorful. Besides the bird we had all the other customary dishes and they were all great.
We also combined our Thanksgiving celebration with a birthday party for our Grandson Nicholas. He turned 8 years old and is growing into a fine young man.


Friday morning Rudee and Amanda got up early and hit the stores for "black Friday" shopping. They left the 5th wheel at 4:00 a.m. :-0 !!
I told her I only recognized one 4 o'clock per day and this wasn't it, as I rolled over and went back to sleep! :-).


They didn't get to shop very long because we had plans to go to Northern Indiana. I drove to Frankfort and picked up our friend Steve Suter who was riding along with us (Trish, his wife, had to work all week end) and we met the girls at Hoops restaurant for breakfast.


After breakfast we transferred all of Rudee's packages from Amanda's van into our truck and headed North while Amanda headed home to take a nap. :-)


Our first destination was in Allen Michigan just over the state line. I had purchased a set of 50 amp extension cords from a fellow Escapee RV Club member ( http://www.escapees.com/index2.asp ) and stopped by his house to pick them up.


We made the short drive from Allen to White Pigeon Michigan and stopped at Bontrager's RV Surplus. http://bontragers.com/ For those that have never been, picture several pole barn type buildings crammed to the rafters with anything and everything that you would need to build your own RV.
They have switches, dials, lights, flooring, cabinets, fasteners, heaters, coolers, cookers and, of course, kitchen sinks :-). The only thing they didn't have was the heat turned on! The outside temperature was 29* and inside the building it wasn't much warmer :-(.

We browsed through most of the aisles but didn't find anything we absolutely had to have and the few items I was really looking to buy they didn't have :-(. Oh well that's the way it goes in the "surplus" business.

Steve was looking for a new recliner for their 5th wheel so I suggested we drive over to Shipshewanna Indiana to take a look at the furniture at Lambrights Comfort Chairs.

Camping friends Niles and Deb had purchased Euro Chairs here and Grumpy Williams had purchased recliners here as well. Both of them were very pleased with their chairs and recommended them to us.

Lambright's are a true Amish family who have a nice farm south of Shipshewanna. They also have a small "factory" and showroom adjacent to their farm. When we arrived a sign on the door of the showroom directed us back to the garage at the house where we could find them having a garage sale.

Beside the typical garage sale items in their garage they also had a couple of their "floor model" chairs they were selling for a discount plus they were offering a 20% discount on chairs ordered during the garage sale ...... cool!

We didn't see anything we liked at the garage sale so their son hopped in the truck with us and we drove back to the factory showroom to look at all they had to offer.

We all liked the quality of the chairs and since we were ordering and paying for 4 chairs all at once they cut us an even better deal :-). We ended up with 2 wall hugger recliners in a blue fabric to match the "saphire" decor of the Montana.

Steve, after consulting with Trish by phone, also bought 2 in a mauve color for their 5th wheel.

The chairs are being made as I write this and we will pick them in 2 weeks. :-). Here is a photo of the type of chairs we bought but in a little different color scheme.
One funny thing happened while we were at Lambright's. Rudee was looking at fabric samples trying to decide on a color and pattern. The sun was starting to set and it was getting pretty dark inside the building. Rudee, forgetting we were in an Amish business, asked our host if he could turn a light on. I got quite a chuckle about that since they don't have electricity :-).
We spent Friday night at a Hampton Inn in Elkhart and were up fairly early Saturday morning. I wanted to stop in to RV Surplus and Salvage ( http://www.rvsurplus.net/ ) and knew they closed at noon on Saturdays. After a quick "motel" breakfast we headed out only to find the stores parking lot empty and a sign on the door that they were closed all week end for Thanksgiving. Oh well, we are coming back in a couple of weeks to pick up the chairs, I'll stop in then.
Next stop was Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo Michigan where we tried our luck at the slot machines. We spent a couple of hours playing but no big winners :-( so we headed towards home.
Trish was due to get off work about the time we would be arriving at their house so Steve called her and we made plans to meet in Lafayette at Logan's Steakhouse. We timed it just right and arrived about 5 minutes apart and enjoyed a nice meal.
We parted company with Steve and Trish and headed back to the 5th wheel after a busy Holiday week end.

We have no big plans for the week ahead. I figure work will be extra busy since we had a long week end off and Rudee is planning on getting started wrapping all the Christmas presents she has purchased. Who knows what the week will bring but I'll keep you posted!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Rudee and I will make the short drive to our daughter Amanda's home to celebrate. Thanksgiving has always been a favorite of mine, not only because I love to eat (hence the bariatric surgery LOL) but also because it gives families the chance to spend time together. I will be driving to Avon and picking my Mom up and bringing her the festivities so she can spend some time with everyone as well

Last year we were in a campground in Georgia on our way back from Florida after my Dad passed away. The campground provided the traditional Turkey and we all pitched in a dish and ate together in their clubhouse. We were thankful for their friendship and hospitality and had a great time. I know many of you Fulltimers will be gathering together with your "campground families" in a similar fashion. We wish you all a happy and safe day.

Tomorrow is "black Friday" and all the hype is on about the great deals that can be had at the stores. People will be lining up at the doors in the wee hours of the morning hoping to pick up a bargain as long as they don't get trampled or worse.

Last year Rudee and her sister succumbed to the media pressure and headed to Wal Mart at 4am. They were in line and witnessed the mad rush when the doors opened. The X-box games were on special at ridiculously low prices and when the sales officially opened one guy knocked a worker and several customers aside and tore into the skid containing the games. He got his and begin throwing them to his friends nearby. By the time security arrived there was nothing left but an empty skid with no one around. Rudee said it was nuts! You couldn't pay me enough to get into that kind of mess!

We are both off work the rest of the week and plan to head up to Northern Indiana tomorrow and do some shopping at the RV surplus stores there. I am looking for a fender skirt that would replace the piece I lost on the 5er. I know it's a long shot but what the heck, I get to spend "black Friday" browsing leisurely through RV stuff, ain't ya jealous!! I'll keep you posted.

More cold weather prep

I have been busy at work the last several weeks and the time is flying by. Its hard to believe that Thanksgiving is next week and Christmas is only a few short weeks away.

I wanted to cover the windows of the 5th wheel with plastic wrap to help with keeping the heat in and the cold out so decided I had better get that job done this week end.
I looked at the the window covering "kits" at the hardware store and the only box that was marked "outdoor use" was for a patio door. I compared this with the ones marked "indoor" use and found that the plastic was the exact same thickness and the tape used to apply it was the same so I bought the 10 window indoor kit and am going to use it on the outside.
Back at the fifth wheel I got our Cosco multi position ladder down from it's rack on the 5th wheel's rear ladder. I really like this ladder, it adjusts to different heights and is really stable to climb on. http://www.coscoproducts.com/eng/Products/Professional-grade
To apply the plastic you first have to prep the surface by removing any moisture where you are mounting the 2 sided tape. The kit has alcohol wipes to use for this and then I just wiped the alcohol off with a dry cloth. The tape is then applied to all four sides "framing" the window. The plastic is then cut to size (note: we left about 2" excess on all 4 sides and trimmed after applying).
Peel the outer covering of the tape to expose the "sticky" and place the plastic over the window. We found it easier to do the top and one side first then stretch the plastic tight and stick it to the bottom and opposite side.
The final step is to shrink the plastic by heating it with a hair dryer. The whole job took us about 90 minutes for our 11 windows.
The benefit remains to be seen but so far it feels like the interior window frames are not as cold as before but that may just be wish full thinking :-).

Rudee wanted to get started on the Christmas shopping so we headed to Lafayette. We called Matthew and he and Mandie met us in the mall parking lot at Hooters for lunch. We watched some of the football games on TV while we ate and then headed for the mall.
I guess I am the "typical man" and don't really like shopping. I am a "get in and get out" kind of guy :-). Rudee usually likes to "browse". She did have an idea of what she wanted to pick up and which stores she wanted to go to and it was not as painful as I anticipated :-).

After the mall we made a stop at Best Buy. Our DVD player hooked to the bedroom TV died so we can't lay in bed and watch movies :-( . The TV's that came in the 5er were both pre-digital units and not the lighter flat screens. We changed out the living room one last year with a flat screen after the big "boat anchor" TV fell out of the cabinet while traveling.
We decided to go ahead and replace the bedroom TV and get one with the DVD built in. We had looked at Wal Mart but they didn't have one that would work for us. Best Buy had a flat screen TV/DVD combo that should work perfectly and it was on sale! Whoo Hoo!

We headed back to the 5th wheel with all of our purchases and picked up a small pizza to share and just vegged out in front of the TV the rest of the night.

Looks like Sunday will be another "project day" getting the new TV mounted. I'll keep you posted.