What a Week

WOW, I am really happy this week is OVER.  Not that we didn't have a lot of fun, but we have been BUSY. Many of our Rving friends are here, and it is always good seeing them.

 We arrived here at the Sedalia Fair grounds on the 12th, and the first person we saw was Bennett. He was on the parking crew and directed us to the gate where we had to enter the fair grounds. Then we see Fran, Sharon, and several others waiting to direct us to our site for the next several days.

 When we parked the rig we were next to Keith and Donna, Wanda and Wallace, Bob and Molly, and Bea and Bennett were parked in the row in front of us. Ron and Linda pulled in an hour or so later and parked right next to us. After a short visit we headed over to a meeting with the Escapade directors, ( Bob and Molly), and they wasted no time in putting us to work. Marcia made a run to Wal-Mart, Staples, and Lowe's while I got things set up.

 Later it was a happy hour with so many there I won't even start to try to name names. Everyone started eating the foods that many brought to share, milk shakes were made and served along with some margartias and wines, and some home brew even made it to Sedalia. The ONLY negative was the flies!!! There are tons of flies here at the fairgrounds.

The next couple of days we spent getting things ready for the 52nd Escapade. I was doing very little myself, but just watching everyone else running around made me so tired. Marcia was going shopping several times a day, and it was good spending someone Else's money, but she wasn't buying the things she really wanted.

Then the cold front hit us and I was feeling it, but I was still able to watch everyone else running around doing their thing. The Escapade started and everyone was having fun even though we were all ready for some rest. 576 rv's gathered to make this a great Escapade. Tuesday evening we had BINGO and I was the caller. I think it is more fun calling bingo than it is playing, and I thing everyone playing was having a good time. Several ask me later why I wasn't calling their numbers, but I can only call the ones that come out of the basket.

 Wednesday was a pretty easy day, the weather had warmed up some and we didn't have much to do so we did get a little rest before the rush Thursday. Thursday started of with us getting things ready for the chili cook off. Marcia was making chili with a Hawaiian theme. She had a lot of people helping her and Keith and Donna were truly life savers with their help. Marcia won third place, and the winner told everyone she cheated and the runner up cheated too, but it was all in fun and all the $$ raised went to C A R E.

 We had just enough time to eat before we had tonight's bingo. We got to the bingo room just in time to fin out they had already packed up the sound system. After a few phone calls I did get the use of the fairgrounds system, but the battery in the mike died on the third number I called on the first game. The crowd was very good and kept the noise down so I could call without a sound system. Not something I would ever want to do again, but it worked out for tonight.

 Today was also Marcia's birthday, so she worked hard on her birthday and didn't get a cake. I did take her out for ice cream after bingo was over, and she knows I'll make it up to her somewhere down the road. and I did buy her a dozen roses last week because I knew we would be very busy this week.

Happy Birthday Marcia, you are my bestest friend.

We will hang out here until Monday with lots of the gang, and then we will head SOUTH. We have about a month to get to Key West so we will be smelling the roses along the way...............

Gypsy Journal Rally is over

 We had a good time at the Gypsy Journal Rally in Celina Ohio last week. As always Nick and Terry put on a good rally. We are disappointed that this was their last rally, but we understand that they are too stressed out by all that is involved to continue having them.

 On Monday Marcia signed us up for a massage, Jean Damon has magical fingers when it comes to the massages that she gives. For one hour she worked those magical hands on me, and then she did the same for Marcia after she finished with me. Marcia enjoyed it so much she bought a bottle of Jean's massage oil. Now maybe Marcia will use the oil on me????

 We got to spend time with friends we have met over the past 5+ year, and met new friends that I'm sure we will cross paths with in the future. We learned a few things too, Marcia and I attended a class on cell phones and I not ashamed to say our smat phones are smartter than we are. But because of the class we both know a little more about using the,

 Friday was the last day so I endulged in the free donuts that were offered daily. (thanks Nick and Terry) and then is was saying "see you down the road" to many friends that were headed in different directions. Friday night it was dinner with 12 other couples honoring Nick and Terry, just one way we were able to thank them for putting on the rallies.

 Saturday we left Celina and headed west, the Kountry Star was riding really well with the new wheels and tires, and having all the fluids changed. We "wally-docked" Saturday night somewhere in IL It turned out to be a bad choice because there was a lot of truckers using the same wal-mart, and the trucks had frozen foods so the reefers ran off and on all night.

 Sunday we tried to find a city/county park we found on a new app we have for the smart phones. The directions we followed from the app took us to the wrong side of the lake, and was 1.5 miles from the CG. We had to unhook the jeep to drive around and find the CG, and we decided we didn't want to take the MH over the rough roads, and the narrow bridge to get to the CG.

 We are now at a Corp of Eng park on Mark Twain Lake outside of Hannibal MO. $12 a night for full hook ups sitting on a blacktop pad. The only draw back is the cell service is crappy, I don't think Verizon has any service here and we are using another service's towers, but this will only be a day or two until we head to Sedalia for the escapade.

so until then...................

Gypsy Journal Rally

We are currently at the Gypsy Journal Rally in Celina Ohio.

We spent 7 days at Phoenix Commercial Paint Inc getting their screw ups repaired. Last year they repaired the boo-boo I caused on the front end of the MH, and after 200 mile their repair needed repaired. Some of it needed re-done before we left but we wanted out of there so we had decided to live with it, until the part they repaired on the front cap came apart, then we knew we would have to return.

A lot has changed at Phoenix Paints, the owners split up, I guess he took off and went to FL leaving her the business and kids. With the economy the way it is she can't keep good help, she has one Mexican that comes in to work for her, but he has a regular day job so it is hit or miss if he shows up. She has several others that come in to work but as she says they just want a paycheck and have no pride in their work.

 She also has NO PRIDE in her work, our hood on the MH had a few spots in it that didn't get sanded well enough last year and at certain angles you could see the old graphics. I didn't like that, but wish I had never said anything about it. She sanded that part down and re-painted the hood, the problem is, we picked up a few rock chips over the past year and she didn't want to fix them, so she "tried" to tape over the graphics that are on the hood now and re-paint only the one color.

 Now you don't see any of the old graphics from any angle, but you do see how bad they did when the tried to cover the graphics to re-paint the hood. Now it isn't at certain angles you see the mistakes, it is any time you look in the direction of the hood that you see the screw ups. Pato, ( the Mexican ) did a good job of repairing the busted fiberglass, and he was upset that the owner told him to leave the hood looking as bad as it does, so she is the one that has no pride in her work.

I confronted her about it, and all she would say was it would have cost extra to have the rock chips repaired. I told her we would be taking it to the Gypsy Journal Rally, and then to Escapade, and it would be her name on it. She just said her name was already mud...... She also said she would be going out of business and closing the doors, and I told her she needed to!

Enough of the ranting, we will be looking to get the front end repainted somewhere down the road.

We arrived here at the Mercer County Fairgrounds Saturday morning, avoiding most of the rain. We did get just enough rain to get the rig covered with that fine misty dirt from the spray of water from the road and tires.

 Nick Russell met us as we pulled into the fairgrounds and showed us where to park the rig. It had been almost two years since we had seen Nick and Miss Terry. Later we were able to go to the local Pizza Hut for Pizza with Nick, Terry, Greg and Jan. We know they all are super busy before and during the rally so we felt really grateful that we were able to spend an evening with them.

 There is 100 + or - rigs here for what will be their last rally for a while. They have decided to quit having rallies because they are too much work and too little pay, and too many headaches dealing with the fairgrounds. They decided to just take some time off and left it open to start having rallies again in the future.

So since this will be their last rally we feel blessed that we are here, and we will try to make it as fun as we can........................