bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- It was 35 degrees when we woke up, but sunny. It rained during the day, then cleared out again. In the afternoon it reached the mid-60’s.

Bob walked the dogs and I checked the mail. Then we went to the Farmers Market where we picked up red pepper, broccoli, Vidalia onion, scallions, and some more bacon. They were just finishing cutting the Cherry Wood bacon, which had very little fat and was mostly meat. We bought 4 slices for tomorrows breakfast.

We returned to the apartment to put items in the refrigerator, then went to lunch at Granite City Brewery. They asked if we had been there before and I said no. So they took us to a nice table. The waitress explained the menu and the beers. Bob decided to get a beer sampler.

He had the Cuban sandwich and I had the Shrimp Tacos for lunch. Since we had never been there before, the manager came over and greeted us. He gave us a card for a free appetizer on our next visit and two packets of cookies to take with us. Wow! The service, beer and food were very good so we will go back!

We returned home, with me driving (LOL),  and took a nice nap. Then, since I had an email from REDBOX giving us a two for one, we went and picked up Captain Phillips and Gravity. Gravity was okay, but Captain Phillips was better. We discovered that we had forgotten the DVD player remote in the motor home, so we could not fast foreword through the ads and see what else was on the DVD’s.  We suffered through, LOL.

Sunday-  Sunny and warmer today with no rain predicted for the next three days. Notre Dame graduation is today, at 9AM, so the area is very busy. The ceremony is at the stadium, which is just across the street. At least we have parking.  Just looking at Eddy street, every parking space is filled, early in the morning, and so was the garage.

We ate a nice breakfast then settled in to do bills/budgeting and discovered that our accounts at NFCU had disappeared. I called and it seems they are doing some sort of upgrade. So we will have to work on that later.

We had a very lazy, quiet day. We read our books and the South Bend newspaper.  Bob worked on setting up a link for the Alfa Yahoo group of the MH renovation pictures. Other Alfa owners are following our renovation process. We followed friends Dale and Susan Prichard through their renovation process last year, here in Indiana.

We took a nice nap this afternoon and returned the DVDs to REDBOX. The parking garage is still full and there are lots of people out on the street. We kept seeing a lot of graduates wandering around in their cap and gowns with their proud parents. There are lots of U-hauls around, both trucks and trailers. Guess tomorrow the downtime will start,  before summer school. Hope all these kids can get jobs!

Monday- I had an 8:30 PT appt., so I was out the door early. I am having trouble getting used to the traffic here. Or rather, the lack of traffic! Even during rush hour, there is not a lot of traffic. Less than half the normal traffic in La Plata or Waldorf during the day!

South Bend has 100,000 residents. It is the largest city in the area with a lot of smaller towns close by. There are approximately 20,000 students at the University and local colleges. There are four colleges, with Notre Dame being the largest, and most well known. Then St. Mary’s, being the second largest.  St. Mary’s was/is the women’s college for Notre Dame, before Notre Dame went co-ed.. Their graduation was on Saturday.  We have also seen two other, single building  colleges. 

I finished at PT and returned to the apartment. We did laundry and ate lunch, then drove to Wakarusa. We went to the “Dime Store” ,a candy store. They had lots of candy, including Turkish Taffy, which I have not seen since I was a kid, and Necos. They had Jelly Belly jelly beans, regular size jelly beans and extra large jelly beans. All in every flavor imaginable and some that you could not imagine!  We bought two pieces of chocolate. We left and took back roads to Bremen to meet up with Megan at MCP( Mike’s Custom Painting). I had already sent Megan pictures of the design that I want, so now it was tweaking and choosing colors.

I liked the original, 2007-2008 Alfa colors and design, but felt the design was missing something.  I had seen one with a burgundy in it. So we had added the burgundy to the list. We have the base color, plus four extra colors that are included in our paint package. I wanted the strips outlined in black, but to do that, they have to do it an another base coat, and to do that, is really expensive, so I only went with a gold, golden brown, and the burgundy, with the  slightly off white base coat.  We took the samples outside to look at them in the sun. Glad that it was sunny today!

We left there and went over to McMillers in Nappanee to pick up some items from the motor home, like the DVD player remote. While there, we talked to PJ and Megan about a cabinet under the new refrigerator. They asked us to have the new refrigerator delivered earlier. They also told us about a place called Flair Interiors who have excess RV furniture, in  Goshen, so we went there to check out the furniture. We arrived after 4 PM and they had closed for the day.

We returned to our temporary home, ate dinner and watched the DVD Philomena. So sad….

Tuesday- We dropped off the DVD at REDBOX, then went to Best Buy to change the delivery of the refrigerator. We thought we had brought the receipt with us  to the apartment, but evidently we had filed it in the motor home file cabinet. At Best Buy, the gal was able to pull the sale up using our credit card.We had given them McMillers phone number, so they could not call it up under our phone numbers.  They gave us another receipt. They also could only move the delivery up to next Tuesday, as they  deliver to Nappanee on Tues-Thur-Sat.

From there we went back to Flair Interiors in Goshen. On the way, we stopped at Grandmas Panty in Wakarusa, an Amish store. They had a lot of Amish food items, including some low cost meats, but we knew we would be out most of the day so we did not buy anything.

We continued on to Goshen, to Flair Interiors, but they did not have anything we liked. So Bob Google’d  RV Surplus stores and we went to Elkhart to two different stores. We did not find anything. Most of the RV furniture is built directly for the RV manufacturers, and there are no stores that sell RV furniture directly, unless it is surplus. The only reason we are looking is because the surplus is so less expensive. The plan is to replace the sofa and recliner this winter in Phoenix.

We also stopped at Menards, as they had tarps for $1.79, with a $1.79 rebate. We bought two, as ours had fallen apart and we had thrown it away. You never know when you will need a tarp. They are cheap, but at ‘free’ who cares!

We returned home, walked the dogs, picked up the mail, took a very short nap, and cooked dinner. Elena called to invite me to Mahjongg tomorrow afternoon.

We started watching our next DVD, Dallas Buyers Club. Another sad story. At a little before 10, Bob walked the dogs as we noted that there were thunderstorms coming. So much for no rain these three days!

At about 10;30 the weather alert radio started blaring. Dangerous storms with hail, so Bob moved the car from the open 4th floor to the inside 3rd floor of the garage. We went to bed at 11, and the radio went off again two times. The third time it was for flash floods. No swirling air predicted, so we turned off the radio so we could get some sleep and not keep waking up the neighbors.

Wednesday- After breakfast, we left and went to the Apple Store, stopping on the way to drop off the DVD at the REDBOX. My I-pad would not let me download an app and I could not figure out how to fix the issue. I knew it was easy, I just could not find the place in ‘settings’. They guy at the store fixed it in a few seconds.

We returned, had lunch, then I went to Mahjongg. Bob cooked the dog food while I was gone and researched a tablet for himself. He decided on a Nexus 7. We ate dinner, watched TV, read and went to bed.

Thursday-  I had my PT this morning, so I headed over there. Then Bob and I went to Best Buy to purchase the Nexus 7. He had found it on sale on Amazon and since Best Buy will match their price, he bought it.

We returned home, ate lunch, then I went to a mani-pedi. Bob had bought me one on Groupon for $17. I returned home and we settled in for the evening. The temp had been in the 80’s today, but is dropping to 45 tonight, as the humidity leaves.

Bob’s new Nexus 7 tablet is not charging!

Friday- We left at 8:15 to go to the Farmers Market. Less than half of the stalls were open. We bought bacon and sandwich meat, then bell pepper, corn, spinach, and scallions. We returned to the apartment and walked the dogs again, before leaving for Michigan. We drove north to Buchannan. There is a Thousand Trails there ( Bear Cave) and we wanted to check it out for when the MH is completed.

The place was a dump. It is an Encore resort, which is also affiliated with Coast to Coast and RPI. We will not stay there. First the road was awful, the sites terrible, no security, and low hanging trees.  We need to find somewhere else to stay when we leave South Bend.

From there we went to New Buffalo. It was a pretty little beach town. We turned right to go to Lake Michigan, but a train was blocking the way. So we made a U-turn to go to the Visitor Center. It was not open. We turned around again and went back to the lake. We parked in a beach front park, which the town workers were working on getting ready for the weekend. It was free today to park. We walked up the 67 steps to the walkway over the sand dune and I took this picture. There were a lot of cute little stores, but they were the typical beach stores with T-shirts, etc . The lighthouse in the picture is just a little fake beach ornament.

On the way out of town we saw this sign about the highway. There are a number of different highways in the area which originally started as paths for animals. Eventually, roads were built over these paths. This is sign about one of them.

We drove southwest, crossing back into Indiana to Michigan City.

We quickly found the lighthouse area. There was another park with a lot of school buses and kids. We found the Lighthouse Museum.

The museum did not open until 1 PM, but a docent was standing at the gate. There was a tour by some of the school kids going on. But he told us a little bit about the the original lighthouse and the new light house. There was a woman who had run the light house for over 40 years before she retired. It took three men to replace her, as they had moved to the new lighthouse and it was lit by steam. The men had to keep the boiler stoked. Anyway, we decided we would go back at 1 PM, when the museum opened to the public. By this time it was 11:45, so we went to Shoreline Brewery for lunch. We walked in and there were no customers. We didn’t think much about it as the Yelp reviews had been good. We used the facilities and sat at a table. The waitress came over and Bob ordered the Singing Sands Oatmeal Stout. The waitress took our order and delivered our meals. The place started filling up around the time we were leaving. I noticed on my phone that the time was incorrect. So I changed it. It said it was now 11:20. We didn’t think anything of it….

We drove back over to the park and took this picture of the new lighthouse, which was built in 1858.

 

We decided to skip the Lighthouse Museum and drove downtown. This is main street.

The town was very pretty with lots of big houses. Below is the biggest, The Barker Mansion, which was built and owned by railroad industrialist John H. Barker. Since we had just gone through the Oliver House, we decided to skip this one.

We left Michigan City and drove southeast to La Porte. As we were driving through town, we noticed a couple of clocks which said it was 12:30. Our watches and the car clock said it was 1:30. We finally realized that when we re-entered Indiana, we were in Central Time. No wonder there was no one at the restaurant!!!!

We drove around town, then jumped on the Indian Toll Road. At the county line, where we were leaving La Porte County and entering  St. Joseph County( where South Bend is) there was a sign saying, now entering the Eastern Time Zone! Well, now we know! BTW,Michigan is all in the Eastern Time Zone.

We stopped at Culvers for some ice cream,( it was now about 2:15 EST) as we had a two for one coupon! We  ran through a car wash then returned home, walked the dogs, and Bob took his new tablet back to Best Buy to exchange it for one that works.

When he arrived back, I went across to the mail room and picked up our mail and a newspaper. They deliver the Wall Street Journal and the South Bend Ledger every day. It depends sometimes we are able to get both, some times only one, and occasionally, none. What can you say, we are getting them for free!

We ate left overs for dinner and Bob was able to get this tablet to charge and he is adding apps to it this evening.

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