Here we go!

As JB points out, I might have arrived here goofy, and the motel will not have any effect on that status.  LOL!

But it is now the lul before the storm, I am dressed and waiting for the little woman to get her final look together.  We have less than an hour to be out in the park where it is still 50 degrees and raining.  They have put up a big pavilion type tent, with sides facing the Southwest.  Of course that is the side that faces the Mississippi river.

The Vila Louis is on sort of an Island that protrudes out into the actual river, and if it would have been sunny and 70, it would have been really pretty.


I 'm sure it will be late tonight, so returning to post on the blog, will get me into more trouble than I can handle, so maybe tomorrow, I can sneak in a comment or two

Retired Rod

Prairie Du Chien

Just a quick post to say we are at the Country Inn's and Suites in Prairie Du Chien, Wisc.  We are here to participate in the marriage of Loyce's niece Lindsay, to Nick Harzel. 

We arrived late this afternoon, and several others arrived at the same time. It was rain rain rain all the way up here, and it is about 45 degrees here and overcast.

We did a hurry up packup of the Motorhome, and jammed it over the rain culvert to the storage side of the creek.  Let's hope it doesn't rain so much we can't get it back out.  After locking thing up, we blasted out of Des Moines in the car.  Never stopping for a minute anywhere until we arrived in Waterloo. 

We got off the Highway 20 bypass at the crossroads shopping mall, and did a quick Burger King!  Not too healthy, but it was quick and we were back on the road.  We kept at Highway 20 until Dyersville, where we intended to head North to Guttenburg.  We ran smack dab into the homecoming parade from Beckman Highshclool.  It blocked the highway right thru the center of town.  With the railroad tracks and creeks thru town, there was no bypass.  The GPS was befuddled!

I am stuck in a hotel for the next two nights, so lets hope the party is a long one, and the internet access doesn't become slow.  Or I'll be goofy by Sunday. LOL

Retired Rod

In Des Moines for a night.

Its late at night again, and we are in the Motorhome parked at the Timberline Campground just outside of Waukee, Iowa.  This is the Western edge of the Des Moines metro area.

We are in the country, and on a converted farm, way in the back of the place.  Our windows face the north grove, and the fence line of the property.  The fields seem to stretch forever beyond the campground.

We are only about 3 miles north of the I 80 interstate, but are sufficiently far enough that I can only hear the wind in the slide toppers.  Wind?  Why yes we had some wind on the way up here.

It seemed to start just as we were crossing the state line,  and suddenly the grim reaper had a hold of the side of the Rig!  Shaking me violently. I fought the battle for the next 70 miles.

The rain started about 50 miles North of KC, and we had 55 degrees most of the afternoon.  Tonight it is much colder, but I haven’t looked yet to see how cold.  I just set the propane heaters, to keep us in the mid 60’s. 

We also have an electric space heater in the bedroom too.  We should be like a bug in a rug.

Tonight we went into a Chinese buffet that my ham buddies use for a Friday luncheon meeting.  They have more food than you can possibly eat.  But I tried to get some of everything.  Well not exactly, but I sure am full.

The leaves are falling from the trees, and I hear them on the top of the rig, and the slide toppers make kind of a popping noise.  Then the silence is deafening.   I live in the city, and am used to all kinds of city sounds.  From our house I can hear the trains in the distance, and the constant noise of the cars on the major street two blocks North.  There’s the wind in the trees again.  Whooooosh……………..

Retired Rod

Loading up and a Birthday party!

The motor home came over to the house this morning, and has stayed all day.  It did not go back to storage tonight, as we will pull out by noon tomorrow.  I hope!

We really are not taking a lot of food stuff, as we will be leaving the rig and traveling by car, over the weekend.

I'm not sure what I did all day, as I never started the motor scooter.  Seems as though I spent a bunch of time at the command prompt in ubuntu linux, removing and reinstalling the latest Sun Java programs.  I'm not too good at the command prompt, and have to follow instructions very carefully, since even one letter typed in wrong kills the entire project.

Once you know the commands, you recognize mistakes more quickly, but since I am largely copying commands written by others, errors go unnoticed.  I was to enter the file /etc/jvm, and inadvertently entered /etc/jvn.  It took me the longest time to see the difference.

I never did get the application that I wanted to run correctly, but installing the latest version of  Java sure made facebook run a lot better.

I went to the bank and got some cash, and then carried a bunch of clothes out to the rig closet.

Tonight we had a birthday party for Emmerson, who turned 6 years old.  She went to school this year for kindergarten, since she missed the cut off last year by about a month.  She goes all day though, in a pilot program for kids who's parents think they can handle it.  Heck she's been going all day to preschool since she was 2 years old.  She would be lost if she had to cut back to half days.  Happy Birthday Ema!!!

Retired Rod    

Happy Happy Happy, I get to make diesel fuel into smoke tomorrow!