Fall has arrived

The summer flew by and we are most certainly into fall and I am ready to head south. We have had a beautiful fall here in Iowa which has made staying later than usual an ok thing but its definitely turning cooler. Work didn't end until mid September because the Kernels (minor league A) made all the way to the championship game in their league. We didn't win that series but it was fun to watch them thru the playoffs. We don't plan on working next summer because it just didn't work well with our granddaughter's schedule since she is in daycare every day now and we felt we just didn't get enough Evie time. We will miss the people we work with as that was the best part of this job. Next year we will just have to visit them while they work! 

 Grandparents Day at Daycare

 Time with Gabe and Melissa.

The other activity consuming our time has been the renovation of the rig which is an ongoing project. We have come a long way. We have new hickory floors in the all but the livingroom slides and the stairs. We are waiting for carpet that has been ordered for the slides and the stairs will have to wait until we get to Yuma as we need to order one more box of flooring and there just isn't time to get it in. The carpet had to be special ordered so that the edges could be finished and cut to fit. One piece was done but for some reason got sent to our South Dakota Address instead of the Home Depot here. I was not a happy camper. We had specifically requested it be sent to the store for pick up. After some discussion the carpet people decided it was easier to make a new piece and send it when they sent the other piece. Now to deal with the piece in SD. Terri, the gal who runs My Dakota Address is a gem and was glad to take the one there to a charity store. Its a bit oddly shaped but someone is getting a really nice rug. So now we are just waiting for both slide rugs to arrive. They did agree to ship it to the Yuma store if it doesn't get here this week sometime. The parks in our area start to close October 15th so our time here is limited by that.

So the floors are almost done but still in progress, the new window treatments are completed and the MCD shades (we love them!!), new backsplashes in the kitchen and bathroom areas, new pillows, throw blankets, and other such accessories are all done. John also changed out all our sound system. Earlier this year he changes out the reciever so now he wanted new speakers and subwoofer. The subwoofer is larger than the previous one so a drawer had to be modified to make it fit. In the process of doing that I came up with the idea of making that drawer a charging station for all our devices. I get so tired of all the chargers everywhere. I worked it out and so far it is working fairly well. 

Still left, are as I said finishing the wood on the stairs, laying the carpet on the slides, and building a new storage area by the dining room table. We have foud some hickory stock cabinites at Home Depot and will be combining two of those with some shelves and storage cubes. This will add some much needed storage in the kitchen. We have to wait until the carpet is in to do this so chances are it will not get finished until we get to Yuma. My goal is to have everything put away and convienient. 

Of course mixed in with this we have been trying to spend as much time with family and friends as possible. Evie is such a blessing in our lives and it seems there is never enough time to spend with her. I have spend time with Trudy almost every week and last weekend we took a little time off to go to Lanesboro and ride the Root River Bike Tail. We love this trail and it was such fun to camo and ride with good friends. We also took a couple days and went to visit our older son Gabe and his wife Melissa. So good to spend a little time. We got in a fun game of Pig-mania. Its a crazy kind of Yatsee with little piggies that land in interesting ways. Silly but such a hoot and I won!!!

I have also done a couple photo shoots with Evie and today went out with my Nephew Jordan and his family for a shoot. I am so rusty but it was fun to dust of the camera in such a purposeful way. I was just working on them and I am happy with the way they turned out.

I am really ready to get back on the road. I think I still have the wonderlust and am just not ready for a staionary life yet. I sat down and worked on a basic path down to Yuma and found some campgrounds along the way. Its about 1700 miles and since we don't like to travel more than 300 miles a day and prefer 200-250, it will take about a week to get there. There are a couple stops I have found that we would like to stay longer but its all going to be play it by ear and see what happens.

So for now Happy Trails...................