Peggy's Jibber-Jabber: Wata Week!

What a week this has been!
I hardly know where to start!
“The beginning Peg. Start at the beginning. That’s always a good place to start,” you say.
You guys! You are so smart! Okay, the beginning…
RV’s.
I loved our class C Winnebago Outlook but there was something wrong with the brakes. We had them worked on — I don’t know how many times! The last time they replaced all of our brake lines, under warranty of course, but still, from time to time, the break peddle would go the whole way to the floor. We never lost our brakes but it scared Mike and he kept talking about going back to a class A motor home.

A couple of years ago, while installing a new 50 amp plug outside our Mountain Home, Mike accidentally fried the electrical system in our Outlook — or at least that’s what we thought at the time. It turned out we only took out the inverter which saved the rest of the system. Anywho, we took the RV to Camping World in Bath, New York to have it fixed and while there, we were looking at class A’s.
Winnebago’s are like Jeeps; they hold their resale value.
They gave us a lot for our Bago and the Thor Hurricane is an entry level class A motor home (think cheap) so we got into it right, which allowed Mike to get back into his class A. And this Camping World sells way more class C’s than A’s and was in need of used RV’s. It was a win-win.
Mike has been wanting a Winnebago Adventurer for nearly as long as we have been RV’en. He looked at one when we bought the Thor Hurricane but it was out of reach.
“If you are not going to be happy with the Hurricane, then let’s just wait,” I told him.
“No, I really want out of the Bago,” he said.
And for two years we have been happy, or so I thought. Yeah, the quality of the Hurricane wasn’t nearly what we had in our Bago, but we knew that when we bought it. We knew we sacrificed workmanship for money but it was the only way we could swing a deal.
I didn’t know that Mike was in the habit of doing a Google search for Winnebago Adventurer’s from time to time and three weeks ago this deal popped up. A brand new leftover 2015, sitting at a Camping World in western Ohio with a price tag lower than anyone’s ever seen one go for. Mike jumped on the deal and for the next couple of weeks negotiated long distance.
“Can you send it to the Camping World here in Columbia, Missouri?” Mike asked them.
“No, there’s no room in the price for that. You’ll have to come and get it.”
Camping World would have loved to have closed the deal in March but we needed to be here at the first of the month to take care of business.
“What if we get there and it’s not what they represented it to be?” I asked Mike.
“Then we don’t have to buy it.”
“As long as we are going, why don’t we stop and see Tylar and our new great-granddaughter?”
“Sure, make the plans,” he agreed.
We haven’t seen Tylar since he was a little boy but thankfully, through Facebook, I have been able to keep tabs on him and his family through the years. I messaged Tylar and asked if he would like to have dinner with us when we get up in the area. He said yes.

“Is there a nice place to eat in Kendallville?” I asked.
“We have a Mexican place and an Applebee’s,” he replied. “Other than that you have to go to Auburn or Fort Wayne.”
We didn’t want to cause the kids any unnecessary trouble and Applebee’s was okay with us. “Do you like Applebee’s?”
“Yes I do,” came his answer.
And we made plans to meet either Monday or Tuesday evening at Applebee’s in Kendallville, Indiana. It all depended on how the sale went, if it went, and if we get everything moved over to the new RV. Those were things I couldn’t predict and would have to wait for time to tell.
We spent Friday getting ready for the trip and Saturday, after our usual weekly breakfast at Golden Corral, we headed out.
We had a horrible trip. The winds were gusty and strong and if we hadn’t been on a timetable we would have pulled over someplace and waited it out.
“Look in the side mirror, Peg,” Mike told me at one point. “The whole RV is leaning over.”
Well, that was reassuring. “Is it going to blow us over?” I asked and in my mind’s eye I could see our belongings scattered all over the interstate.
“Naw.” Mike knows this stuff. He was a truck driver for many years and he was (and still is) a good driver.
But I had to listen to plenty of expletives through the day, let me tell you! And I really didn’t need those swearwords to know when a wind gust grabbed us either. I could tell by the way we were being pushed around on the road, and I could see the semis getting pushed around too. Mike fought the wheel the whole trip! He was exhausted at the end of the driving day.
We pulled into Camping World in Rossford, Ohio on Sunday the third of April. Camping World was open but only for retail sales, there were no RV sales people at work on Sunday. We would have to wait until Monday to check out the Adventurer and sign the papers.
Right across the road from the Camping World is a big Bass Pro store. We spent a half hour or so walking around in there. They have a lot of dead animals in those stores as well as lots of things to kill with and clothes to wear while you kill and tons of antlers all over the front entryway and that’s all I’m going to say about that!

“This is a huge store,” Mike commented and that set us off on a debate of which is the bigger Bass Pro store, the one in Las Vegas or the one in Springfield, Missouri.
“Didn’t we go into the one in Springfield with your brother?” I asked Mike. “He wanted to go there because it’s supposed to be the biggest Bass Pro in the country?”
“I think that was in Las Vegas, Peg.”
“Well, ask your brother the next time you talk to him.”
I don’t know if Mike has asked his brother or not but if you were to Google it, as I have just done, you would find out that the Bass Pro in Springfield, Missouri is not only the original Bass Pro, but at almost 500,000 square feet it is the largest Bass Pro too.
I win!

It was cold in Ohio while we were there. I wasn’t happy to go from the warmth and blossoming flowers of spring in Missouri back to winter, let me tell you. But what are you going to do about it? Nothing! That’s what!
Monday morning we looked at the Winnebago, Mike agreed to the trade and while he took care of the paperwork, I started transferring our household goods and earthly treasures from the Hurricane to the Adventurer.
When he finally finished and came out to help he asked, “What do you want me to do?”
“Why don’t you take care of the stuff in the bays?”
“All that bending over will kill my back,” he stated.
“Take as many breaks as you need,” I encouraged.
It took him all day, with lots of breaks to go inside and talk with sales and service, but he did get the job done, it did hurt his back, and I was proud of him for not quitting and not asking me to help.
Mike offered to carry things over for me too, but everything has to find a new home when it gets there and it’s my house and I wanted to put things where I wanted them. I could see Mike setting everything down just inside the door then I would have a mountain to deal with. No thanks. I’d just as soon put it away as I carried it over.
Things were going well, and I wasn’t quite done, when late in the afternoon, I finally sat down with a glass of wine and checked the computer.
“When will you be here?” Tylar had messaged me on Facebook.
And I had to apologize for not doing a better job of keeping him informed. “It’ll be Tuesday if we don’t hit any snags,” I told him.
The two RV’s were parked in the lot of Camping World, door to door for easy transfer. It would have been easier if the steps in the Hurricane worked and even though we did bring a step stool with us, it was still a big step, and I had to be careful as I went in and out. It would have been nicer if they had a transfer bay like they have at the big RV dealerships where you can be inside and plug in while you work, but they don’t get enough of that kind of business to make it necessary.
Mike was in and out all day and helped where he could but he had to have all the loose ends tied up before the end of the business day. “Are we done?” Mike asked while I was chatting with Tylar.
“No not quite.”
“They said we can plug in over by the fence for the night, but we have to do it before they leave for the day. Do you want to move?” Mike asked.
“I don’t care.”
“Okay, hurry up, they’ll be leaving soon.”
“Oh! No. Then I don’t want to move. I was going to keep on working. I don’t want to carry things that far.” I envisioned that I had a few more hours, but that wasn’t the case. The guys in sales and service were gone long before the store closed at 7.
“Okay, we’ll just run the generator then,” Mike said amicably and he went back in to tell them we wouldn’t need to plug in after all.
It was getting on towards supper when Mike came back with the phone number of a local pizza place they recommended. While we waited for our pizza and bread sticks to be delivered, Mike turned on the radio. He was in the process of checking out the navigation feature when the screen went black.
It reminded me of my Nook and my Zen and even my computer when there are conflicts and it freezes. “There has to be a way to reboot it,” I told Mike.
We tried different combinations of buttons to get it to reboot but nothing was working. I pulled out the bag full of manuals that you get when you buy one of these things and went through everything twice but there was no manual on the radio. Actually, that isn’t quite true. The three-book owner’s guide has a small section on the general use of each piece of equipment in here but for more detailed information you have to refer to the manufactures instruction manuals included in your bag. Yeah. Having sat on the Camping World parking lot for a year, most of that stuff was gone. I don’t know why or how, all I know is that it wasn’t there.
No worries though. I’ve learned a long time ago that instruction manuals can be found on the internet. I Googled it but not knowing exactly which model we owned and not finding that information anywhere in anything they gave us, I couldn’t find our exact model. The closest model to ours that I did find had a tiny little hole for a reset.
Yes! I thought.
I looked in the same spot on ours but it wasn’t there. I looked all over the face of it just in case they moved it’s location, but to no avail. That victory was short lived. “Mike I can’t find it,” I finally had to admit defeat. “We’ll have to wait until they come in tomorrow.”
Our pizza and breadsticks came and I went out and paid the guy and guess what? It was snowing!
“That sucks!” you say.
I know, right!
We didn’t bother with plates as we sat in our new RV and ate pizza and bread sticks right over the open box.
“It’s getting cold in here, isn’t it?” Mike asked as we finished up dinner.
“I don’t know, I still have my sweatshirt on.”
Mike fooled with the newfangled thermostat and got it on and working. I carried a few more loads over while Mike programmed TV’s.
“You know what?” I asked Mike after carrying over another few loads.
“What?”
“It’s almost done. I’ve got the last of it staged right inside the door. I think I’ll put this one away and call it a night. I’ll finish in the morning.”
I started to head for the bedroom with a basketful of things when I looked down and realized they belonged under the bench seat of the table. I turned around and saw that the bench seat was where I had put a load of blankets and pillows and I just didn’t have the energy to deal with anymore. I had had enough. I decided it could wait till morning. I carried the loaded basket into the bathroom and stashed it in the shower — the only place I could find to put it where it wouldn’t be in the way for the night — and I quit.
Mike was watching TV and I was in front of my computer and pretty soon he notices it’s getting cold again. He gets up and checks the thermostat. “It says it’s 65 in here and it’s set at 71,” he informed me. He shut the system down, restarted it and fooled with zones and pretty soon it was on and blowing warm air again. Mike settled back down in front of his program, but it wasn’t long until he noticed the furnace wasn’t on again.
“It’s almost like it’s not getting enough gas,” Mike observed. “I’m going to check the tank.” He donned his jacket and grabbed a flashlight and went out. When he came back in he said that’s what it was. The tank wasn’t open very far. Heat once again restored, we climbed into bed.
I was warm and comfortable on our new king size Select Air mattress with a Tempur-pedic top and drifting off to sleep when all of a sudden Mike jumps out of bed. “Peg that heats not working again. It’s going to get really cold in here. Let’s go over to the other RV.”
So I get up and we get dressed and grabbed our pillows and blankets, the puppy dogs and out into the cold, dark night we went. A little dramatic maybe but it was cold and it was dark, we just didn’t have far to go.
“Peg, what about the cats?” you ask.
We actually left the cats in the grouse. We didn’t expect to be gone longer than a few days and the cats would be fine by themselves. We had Kevin stop a couple times while we were gone, just to check on them, but I left lots of food and water and two litter boxes. They’d be fine. Besides, we didn’t want to have to worry about them going out a door while we were transferring things over to the new RV, and traveling is so hard on Macchiato.
We climb in the Hurricane with it’s still broken steps and shut the door.
“It’s cold in here too!” Mike exclaimed.
Sitting all day with the heat on while I transferred our belongings ran the batteries down and the heater won’t work if the batteries are low. Mike started the engine so he could start the generator while I made the bed. I’ll tell you what. That was one freakin’ cold bed I climbed into that night!
The next morning I made a couple of forays into the wilderness of our new, very cold RV, hunted and gathered things for our breakfast and took everything back to the warmth of the Hurricane. That sounds brave doesn’t it? Really it just means I had to look in the cupboards to find where I had put stuff. I grabbed the cereal, milk, two bowls, spoons and had to make a second trip for Mike’s meds.
Once Camping World got open Mike went to talk to service and they got right on it. “The gas tank wasn’t fully turned on,” they told him. “They’ve had it on for a while now and it’s working fine.”
To me Mike says, “There was something not right about that valve. I turned it but it didn’t seem to be engaging. It just seemed to be spinning freely. I bet they replaced the valve.” This was supported by the level of gas in our tank. What started out as three-quarters full was only half full by the time we got the RV back. “They probably lost that much changing the valve,” he speculated.
Then, thinking about it for a while, Mike couldn’t decide if they could have done it that way or if they would’ve had to empty the tank to change the valve. Whichever way it goes, our tank was down by a third and we didn’t get to use any of it.
“It’s kind of a blessing we didn’t plug in,” I told Mike. “Otherwise we might not have caught that.”
After what seems like much too long of a time they came out with a verdict on the radio. “It’s shot,” they told Mike. “Winnebago will drop-ship a new one and it’ll be here tomorrow.”
Mike was not happy about that. “We have places to be. We can’t wait around for that. Could you have it sent to our Camping World in Missouri?”
Camping World wasn’t crazy about that idea. I guess some warranty work brings them big money but to keep Mike happy they reluctantly agreed.
“They will have the radio and change it out for you on Friday morning,” Sam in service told Mike. “They said they were too busy, but I explained the situation to them and they agreed they would do it.”
They brought our new Bago around to the front and together Mike and I finished transferring our things over, none of which got put away, then we got on the road. We jumped up onto the toll road for a little while.
“I’d better let Tylar know when we’ll be there.” I slid out the nifty desk on my side of the Adventurer, opened my laptop, logged on the internet and messaged Tylar to meet us at Applebee’s at 5:30. He sent me back his phone number in case we got delayed.
Coming across the wide open spaces of Ohio, the winds were just as fierce as our trip east but Mike could tell a difference in the performance of the two brands of RV’s. The Bago wasn’t pushed around near as much as the Thor had been, but be that as it may, Mike still had his hands full keeping it between the lines.
I noticed in Ohio and parts of Indiana there were a lot of these ‘double’ barns; two big barns joined together.
It must have been a prosperous time, was what I thought. I can’t imagine what it must have cost to build these barns...

...and now look at them.

When we crossed from Ohio into Indiana we decided to drop down and take route 20 across. We were familiar with the way from there because we used to live in the area, and Mike wanted to see what changes have happened over the years.
Coming through the square in Angola, Indiana Mike sees this truck. “Look at all the axles on that truck!” Mike exclaimed.
I raised my camera and fired off a few shots. Mike heard the clicks. “Did you get it?”
“I think so.”

“Peg, we are this close to our old place, you want to do a drive-by?”
“Sure. Why not.”
The old place is just used to sell fireworks during the season now and it looked pretty deserted when we went past.

Just before getting onto route 6 from 69 there was this giant mountain of…
Of…
I don’t know what it was!
But it sparkled in the sunlight!
Diamonds?
No. I’m sure not.
Glass?
Maybe.
It doesn’t matter. Girls like sparkly things.

I am curious as to what this is so maybe one of my Indiana friends can tell me what it is and what it’s used for.
We got to Kendallville and parked in the back of Applebee’s parking lot. After freshening up a bit Mike and I went inside a little early and got a table. The hostess showed us to a table and said, “Vanessa will be taking care of you tonight,” then she left us.
“Hello,” Vanessa said as she came to the table.
“Hi. Are you our waitress?” I asked.
“Waitperson,” she quickly corrected.
“I guess that is more [politically] correct. Would you take a picture for us when our grandson and his family get here?”
“Sure. What can I get for you while you wait?”
Mike only had water but I had a glass of wine and we sipped and chatted while we waited.
I recognized Tylar when he walked in. Thank you Facebook.

Maddie, short for Madison, is not only pretty on the outside, she really is a lovely young lady. She and Tylar make a handsome couple.

Kaydence, our brand spankin-new, three month old great-granddaughter was sleeping when they got there so we thought to let her sleep while we had our dinner.
We ordered and talked while we waited.

I have to tell you that conversations with strangers can be stilted and awkward and for all intents and purposes we are strangers. But it went really well and we really had a nice visit with Tylar and Maddie.
“Do you call her Kay for short?” I asked about Kaydence’s name.
“No, but my dad calls her Baby Kay,” Maddie answered.
We talked about lots of things and among those things we talked about jobs and school. Maddie works part time as well as takes on-line college courses so she can be home with the baby while she continues her education.
Tylar, just turned twenty-one on the twelfth of this month, is buying his own home. How awesome is that!
I had my back to the kitchen but Maddie was watching as some plates came out. She sat up a little straighter, “I think this is ours,” she said, then, “Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“I think she just dumped my ribs on the floor.”
Maddie was right. Her ribs were dumped on the floor. The manager came over, told us what happened and apologized. “I think you owe her a dessert for our wait,” I boldly proclaimed.
“Of course,” the manger was quick to reply. “I’d be happy to comp dessert for the table.”
After she walked away Mike admonished me, “Peg! We can afford to pay for it.”
“That’s not the point,” I told him and I didn’t even know if Maddie wanted a dessert. “Their waitperson dropped our food on the floor and now we have to wait longer. They should give us something.”
It didn’t take them too much longer to get our food out to us and long about that time, guess who wakes up?
Yeah. Baby Kay.

She cried a little but Maddie made her a bottle and she quickly quieted.
“Peg, you told me Maddie was breast feeding her!” I hear Momma say.
She is. Baby Kay is on breast milk. It’s just the delivery system was a little bit different this time.
Tylar was very adept at holding Baby Kay and her bottle while he ate his dinner. I was impressed.

At the end of the meal, when the check was presented, Vanessa, our waitperson, asked, “Would you like to donate to Make-A-Wish Foundation? The money stays local?” Then she just stood there.
I didn’t know what to say, but she was obviously waiting for an answer. “Not at this time,” I told her.
We said our goodbyes to this beautiful young family, shared hugs and promises to see them again the next time we came through the area, then Mike and I went a little way down the road and dry-camped in Wal*Mart’s parking lot. We paid our dues by shopping for a few things we needed for our trip.
“Yeah, like Cheetos Crunchy, Peg?” you say.
Doggone it! I can’t get anything past you guys! So’kay, maybe I did get a bag of Cheetos, but I was thinking about a snack mix I used to make when my kids were little and it had cereal in it.
Cereal is good for you right? If you get the right cereal I mean. None of that sugary stuff for me. But healthy stuff like Chex, and Cheerios, right?
Mike and I wandered the aisles of Wal*Mart and I picked up a box of Chex and checked the ingredients list and dang! It has sugar! So did the rice and wheat and I didn’t bother with the corn, I figured it probably had sugar in it too. So, Cheerios would be good in there, I thought.
We went a little further down the aisle and I picked up a box of Cheerios. I check their ingredients and I’ll be darned if they didn’t list sugar too!
I didn’t want to spend all night looking for a new brand of cereal to add to my travel mix, I’d just go with what I already knew had no sugar.
“What’s that, Peg?” you ask.
That would be Post Shredded Wheat, Bite Size. I put the box in our shopping cart, went to the end of the aisle, hooked a left and went around to the baking aisle where I snagged a bag of walnuts. Along with the pretzel rods I had already picked up, I figured I’d have a good and fairly healthy snack mix.

You know something?
Walnuts remind me of Christmas and my dad. We only had nuts in my house at Christmastime when I was growing up. But there was this one Christmas when we were sitting around, cracking nuts, and I was going for the yummy ones like Brazil nuts or almonds. I hated, and still do not like, filberts.
My dad was cracking and eating walnuts. I can see him, in my mind’s eye, holding a walnut in his big old hands and using a pick to finish prying the shell apart. If you used the nut cracker too heavy, you would break the nut. Half the fun of cracking your own was too see if you can get them out whole, or in the case of walnuts, whole halves.
My brothers liked to show off by cracking the walnut between their hands, but they wouldn’t eat the nut. They would just drop them back in the bowl.
I considered the walnuts junk nuts — filler, you know what I mean?
“Why are you eating those?” I asked my dad.
“Because I like them,” he told me.
That was a lot of years ago and today, walnuts are my favorite nut.
Later that night, after my popcorn was popped and my travel mix mixed, we settled down for the night and talked about our day, I asked Mike, “What was up with that waitress at Applebee’s? Was she deliberately trying to shame us into donating?”
“Maybe they were getting back at us for the free desserts.”
I don’t know guys, maybe that’s how it’s done now-a-days, although I’ve never had that happen to me before. And don’t get me wrong, we do donate to worthy causes, but I felt like asking for a donation in front of my guests was rude and a blatant attempt to shame me into donating.
I fixed her, didn’t I?
That night, spent in a Wal*Mart parking lot, found a semi parked beside us with the engine running.
“Rather than trying not to hear it why don’t you just listen to it,” I told Mike. “It’s kind of like white noise. It puts babies to sleep. That’s why we drive them around in a car when nothing else works.”
The next morning we head for Middlebury, Indiana. We drove up through Rome City and I see the little island in Sylvan Lake still has it’s stone house sitting on it.

“What’s in Middlebury?” you ask.
Oh. Didn’t I tell you?
Mike and I are trying to sell this place, we have been for years. Since we moved out of the apartment we have the garage packed full of junk, and one of the first rules — when you are trying to sell, is de-clutter.
Mike has been looking at trailers lately and even when you find a place that has them reasonably priced, the shipping charges add about a buck and a half a mile on top of it. “Since we are going to be right there where they make them, let’s look at trailers.” Mike suggested. “We can save the shipping costs.”
Camping World told Mike about this place and when he called them he found out they had one trailer coming in that fit Mike’s specifications. “If you want it, give me a deposit and I’ll put your name on it and hold it for you,” he was told. “Otherwise it may or may not be there when you get there. We sell twenty-five a day out of our Toledo store and eleven a day out of the Middlebury store.”
“We will be in the area on Wednesday,” Mike told him.
“The trailer is at the factory and it should be there by Wednesday,” he was told. So Mike put a deposit on it.
We had dinner with Tylar and Maddie on Tuesday night and drove to Middlebury on Wednesday morning.
I saw two round barns…

Three roofs with pictures in them…

Old buildings…

Farms, and barns…

Horses and tractors…

Although this part of Indiana has a lot of Amish, I didn’t really get any shots worth showing.
I saw a lot of fields with these purple flowers growing, (although I bet the farmers would label them as weeds) and I wondered if it was henbit.

And something common to all parts of this country, roadside markers —“Someone someone loved died there,” I say —

And cemeteries.

“You will be going right past a place that sells the best donuts,” we were told. “They call it Amish Crack; it’s that good!”
We stopped at a place called Das Dutchmen Essenhaus Amish Bakery in Middlebury.
“We were told you have the best donuts here,” we told the ladies behind the counter.
“Well we think so,” they replied.
They had two little tables against one wall for customers to sit at. One was empty and the other was occupied by a woman and two pre-teen kids. Mike and I took our donuts and my coffee over to the other table. It didn’t take long for Mike to strike up a conversation.
“I think the place you were talking about is down the road a little ways,” and she said the name of it, but I don’t remember now what it was. “The donuts there are so good they just melt in your mouth.”
“I think I saw the place,” I said and in my mind’s eye I remembered seeing it as we flew past it.
“We like the donuts there better, but this place is closer to home. We actually rented a room in the hotel,” and she nodded toward the building right outside the window we were sitting in front of, “so we could use the pool while the kids are on spring break. We go home at night to sleep.”
During the course of the conversation we found out that this lady was a teacher and they moved to Middlebury from Factoryville, Pennsylvania.
Factoryville is about thirty-five miles from our Mountain Home. Small world isn’t it!
Back in the RV, still sitting in the parking lot of Essenhaus, Mike called the trailer dealer and he didn’t seem to know anything about Mike’s deal. Mike got on the horn to Toledo and she checked. “The trailer is in transit right now and should be there within half an hour.” She gave Mike directions to the Middlebury dealer although I think our GPS would have taken us right to it, and by the time we got there the Toledo store had called them and told them what was going on.
When we arrived at the trailer dealer we parked outside their gate. Mike went in to talk to them while I hung out with the dogs, aka I got on Facebook.
“You’re addicted to Facebook!” Mike gives me a hard time about it.
“You’re addicted to the TV!” I give it right back at him.
After a while Mike came out and gave me a report. “They want us to park inside the gate.”
I spotted Mike while he drove in and backed into the spot they wanted him in and we hadn’t been there more than a few minutes when trailers started to arrive. The drivers would drop the trailers and a yard guy with a golf cart moved them around. The third one through the gate was ours and the yard guy staged it in front of the garage for us. I helped Mike check it out and it was good. While Mike did the paperwork more trailers came in. Two of them were left outside the gate. There really wasn’t a lot of room inside.
We get hooked up and head for our next stop. Camping World in Columbia, Missouri to get our radio fixed.
“We’ll be there early,” I told Mike. “It won’t take two days to drive from Indiana to Missouri.”
“Maybe they can take us early,” he speculated. “Then we can get home.”
The winds didn’t let up much this whole trip and Wednesday was no different. Mike had to keep both hands on the wheel so no gusts took him by surprise and pushed us someplace we didn’t want to go.
I happily clicked my way across the highway’s and byways of this great country of ours.

We arrived at Camping World and Mike went to check us in. Once again, when he came back to give me a report, he was told they didn’t know anything about anything. They didn’t know about fixing a radio and we didn’t have a Friday appointment.
Sigh.
And while we were driving I noticed that one of the drawers in the bedroom was open against a slide. I thought maybe I didn’t have it latched, but when I pushed it shut it wouldn’t latch. At Mike’s request, I stuck a pillow between it and the slide so nothing got marked or damaged until we could get it fixed.
We made out a work order for the radio and drawer and they said they would do their best to get those things taken care of in the morning — even though they are months out in scheduling work.
All night long we got to hear the giant 40x80ft American flag, atop a 135 foot flag pole, whipping and snapping in the wind. All the Camping Worlds have these huge flags and Mike found out they cost around $3,000 each; that’s just a by-the-way.
We spent a lot of time in Camping World parking lots the last few days, and I spent some of my time, usually while I was waiting for the girls to do their business, watching the flags in the wind.
Wow! I thought. This is mesmerizing. And the longer I watched the more fascinated I became with the waves and ripples.
The advice I gave Mike echoed back in my head as I remembered the last time we spent the night here and the snapping of the flag kept me awake. I decided to embrace it. As I laid in bed, every sound brought back the mesmerizing images of the flag as it danced with the wind and it worked. I was asleep before I ran out of pictures to go with the sounds.
The next morning they sent a service guy out to work on my drawer. When I pulled it open, there, laying across the top of my clothes, was the crossbar with the latch attached to it. I picked it up and flipped it over and there were the screws. Somehow, during the installation process, it got missed.
That was an easy fix.
The radio?
One of the guys got on the phone with the company that makes these radio’s for Winnebago and he told him to disconnect the power supply. That should reboot it. Bobby, the tech handling the radio, took the dash apart so he could unplug the radio harness. When he plugged it back in, it worked, and he put the dash back together.
“It’s still needs an upgrade though,” he told us. All of that can be handled with a thumb drive, which he agreed to mail to us so we didn’t have to make another trip to Columbia.
“It would have been easier to just disconnect the batteries,” Mike said, and I bet he’s right. It would have been easier and just as effective.
Now were are home, in Lake Ozark.
Mike washed the road grime from the Bago before putting it back in the grouse.

Macchiato missed Mike and barely left his side for the first two days we were home.

I didn’t waste much time till I hooked up the girls and took them for a walk. I reveled in the sunshine and warmth of the day and was anxious to see what had bloomed while we were gone.
Dogwoods are blooming.