bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday-  We left at about 8:45 to go to the Farmers Market. Except at the meat  counter, it was not really busy. We bought bananas, corn, celery, broccoli, tomatoes, lettuce, lean stew beef, short ribs, pork chops and apple wood bacon.

We returned to the apartment to wait for Blake to arrive; and waited, and waited! He kept saying he was coming over, but never arrived. By this time it was after lunch, so I took a nap.

Outside, on Eddy Street, there was a car show. Bob had decided he wanted to go look at the cars, so he went down to view them.

When he returned home, he also took a nap. Notice the Jeff Gordon Nascar, #24. We are not ‘into’ Nascar, so I had to look it up. This is actually one of his older cars. There were also some of the cars from the Studebaker museum. 

We have Blake set up for 10 AM tomorrow. He had not made the reservation for the U-Haul, waiting until this morning to make it. Guess he was not thinking about the fact that Saturdays are moving day! Needless to say, we were not happy. I was planning to go to the Family History Center today, for one last visit. I don’t think I will make it on Tuesday.

Bob was sitting with his mouth hanging open! He is also related to Charlemagne. His ancestor was an illegitimate son of Charlemagne,  who must have liked the son, as he gave him Italy. Yup, the whole country! Yes, Rhonda and Jacque, this is the Turpin side of the family! Cool huh!

We watched some shows on ‘On Demand” again tonight.

Sunday- We did our usual Sunday morning budgeting. Blake and Leslie arrived at 10:30. They took the king bed apart, moving the mattress, box spring, and bed. They also took the church pew and the bar stools. They were going to leave the bar stools, but we told them to take them. We can eat on the table, moving the laptops.  Less we have to deal with on Thursday! We are keeping the TV until then. Now the problem is getting Blake back into the apartment to pick up the TV and cable box. We are going to speak with Chris tomorrow to see if it is okay for him to leave it until Saturday. If not, we are going to have to assist Leslie to pick it up on Thursday evening. The place looks funny without the stools and the pew!

After they left we vacuumed Blake’s bedroom and started packing up some boxes. I already have some bags filled and ready to go. Other than that, it was a quiet day for us. We stayed home, read, worked on genealogy, and watched TV.

Monday- A busy day for us. We took the dogs for a 9 AM grooming session. As soon as we were getting close, Karlie knew where we were going and started squeaking.  She has only been there once! We dropped them off and went to Aldi’s for mushrooms and cherries. We returned to the apartment and went across the street to speak with Chris. We were asking if it was okay for Blake to pick up the TV on Saturday. We will turn in the keys on Friday and he will get them on Saturday. Chris also gave us a letter with move out procedures.

We stopped at the garage office and signed up for the elevator key. We have the freight elevator for 2 hours. We can have it longer if no one else is using it. 

When we returned into the apartment, I opened the washer/dryer door. I had put the blanket in to wash. I already had the quilt in the dryer. The washer/dryer (stacking) was turned about 20 degrees. Oops! Hmmm…. The top of the washer would not open, and the area around the opening had moved. You could actually see a bolt. The knob, which you have to pull to start the machine, had popped out (the entire thing, not just the pull part). EEEEK! I have killed the washer! I had been very careful about making sure that the blanket went around the entire inside so that the machine would not be off balance, but it was very heavy when wet. We put it, really soaking, into the dryer to dry. It took over 2 hours to dry on high.

I called Bob and he took one look at it and said we had to call maintenance. So he went to the office to have Chris make a maintenance request.  At 11:30, Bob left to pick up the dogs. I waited for the repair guy.

While he was gone, I started packing more boxes. We have all the boxes that we have full now. We made several trips last time, just reusing the boxes that we have. We plan to throw them away after we use them for the move.

Bob and dogs returned, we ate lunch, and I went to my 1:30  PT appointment. Chris could not get the knot out of my muscle. I was hoping he would be able to get it out before my shot tomorrow!

When I returned to the apartment, Bob had the sheets washing in the machine. The maintenance guy had arrived while I was gone. Bob said he messed with it for about 20 minutes, then ran it to check to make sure it worked. Fixed! I am sure this is not the first time the guy has had to fix one of these! Whew! Glad we do not have to purchase a new one!

We read and worked on packing some more items. We watched TV and wen to bed.

Tuesday- We left to drive to north Elkhart for my Orthopedic appointment. This time I was seeing Dr. Bridges, a very nice lady. She had a resident with her. She did the Ultrasound to check the shoulder. I have  a lot of fluid in the tear area. There is supposed to be some fluid there, but I have more than I should have.

Then under sterile technique, she did the steroid shot. I could have watched on the Ultrasound machine, and would have if it had not been MY shoulder. Someone else’s shoulder, yes, my shoulder, no! It was uncomfortable. Bob said he started to worry as I started hyperventilating. He was watching my breathing. He said he could see the injection going into the shoulder.

We paid them the $20 co-pay. This check out lady quickly figured out that they did not have the address in the computer system correctly, so that is why they could not accept the credit card at the last appointment. She corrected the address and the card went right through.

We left and went south. We stopped at Gramma’s Pantry in Wakarusa to see if they had any of the Shechler’s pickles. They did not. So we continued on to the Rise n’ Roll. We looked there, but they did not have any. We bought some hot pepper jelly and some chocolate chip cookies.

We stopped in a McMillers to check on the motor home. It looks great! It was inside, as PJ is working on the small bedroom slide. On Monday when Bob checked with Megan, she had said that MPC could not get the small slide in. It turns out it is not the motor (thank goodness!) it is the pin. It sheared off. So PJ is trying to get it out. Also, when they had put in the big slide, it scratched the new flooring. So PJ is fixing that.

Megan had been working on cleaning the inside, when another Alfa pulled in, without an appointment, for some repairs. We could tell that PJ and Megan were not happy with this other couple, as that is putting them, and us, behind.

We have told them that we are picking up the MH on Thursday morning, moving back in, and then can return for any follow up, Thursday evening. They can work on it again on Friday and Saturday if they need to, we have not made Michigan reservations yet, we’re waiting until we find out the situation.

We stopped at Amish Village Restaurant for lunch in Nappanee. Bob had a really good cheeseburger and I had a BLT. We returned to the apartment, stopping along the way to drop off books in one of the book containers on the side of the road. There are a lot of these containers in the area! I forgot to count how many books we dropped off, but it was a bigger bag than last time.

When we arrived back at the apartment, Bob took the dogs for a walk and I laid down, as the shoulder was starting to throb. When I woke up, I tried to make Labor Day reservations at the Thousand Trails in Sturbridge MA. It popped up saying that we could not have the dogs and we were in a handicap site. So I ended up calling TT. The gal on the phone said they are having problems with their website, so she made the reservation for a regular site and we can have the dogs. I also made the reservation for the night we leave there, in Pennsylvania. We cooked dinner and watched TV.

Wednesday- I have my final PT appointment at 8 AM. Bob wants to make more dog food, so he dropped me off at the PT appointment and went to the store to pick up the hamburger. He picked me up and I dropped him off at the apartment and continued on to my hair appointment.

The hairstylist, Dee Dee, had changed salons as her other salon was closing. Of course, now I have to find the new place. The GPS took me right to the wrong place. Right street address, but in South Bend, in a bad area. I looked around and knew she would not have moved to this area. So I had to call and get new directions. There is an east/west Lincoln Way in South Bend, but there is also an east/west Lincoln Way in Mishawaka. I finally arrived and had my hair done.  I had the address correctly in the GPS.

I returned in time for lunch. We went to the apartment management office to let them know we were bringing the motor home over to pack it up. They sent us to the parking office and the guard signed us up for using the freight elevator and the cart.  We did some more packing and then we went to the Jewish Center for me to say good-bye to my Mahjong players. We stopped at Kroger for gas($3.39 gal), then stopped at Ritter’s for frozen custard, using our last Groupon. II t really was a good deal!

We returned home, and ate dinner,. We decided to load the car with one load for moving tomorrow. Bob went and got the one of the carts from the office and we started to move boxes into the car. Of course, on the third trip I managed to lock us out of the apartment. Well that was not my brightest move! Neither of us had our cell phones with us! So I went next door and knocked on the neighbors door. He was really nice and he got the phone number for us and called the emergency number. We sat in the hallway, reading a book, as we had a bag with books on the cart. We only had to wait 1/2 hour, which we thought was pretty quick. We put the last load in the car,  watched TV and prepared for tomorrow.

Thursday- Moving Day!! We were up early and left the apartment at 8:15 driving to Bremen. PJ and Megan still have work to do on the MH. Our goal was to leave by 10:15, and we made it by 10:40. There are issues, some of which we anticipated.

We are driving down Rt. 6 and I could see one of the bay doors flapping. Unfortunately, our two way radio batteries were dead, and we did not have enough of the triple AAA’s to fill both radios. We have a second set of radios, but they were not charged either. I tried using the phone, but we must have been in a dead zone, as the phones did not work. I am honking and waving, and Bob finally figured out he needed to stop. We closed the bay door and continued to the apartment.

We went over to get the cart and Bob took the dogs around the block for a walk while I went to get the elevator key. The guard suggested that we use one of the loading docks. So we moved the MH inside and started the move. Neither of us kept count of the number of trips, but it sure seemed like a lot! It took us 4 .5 hours! It is a long walk and we were using the building cart and the grocery cart that we have been using for our groceries.

Finally, at around 5:30, we pulled out of the building. Our issue is of course, we had to put everything away and secure it for travel. Not like moving from house to house where you can leave items in boxes and put them away at your leisure.

We headed back to Nappanee, as we are taking the MH back to McMillers in the morning. I was noticing a problem on the drivers side towards the front. The phones worked this time, so Bob pulled over. The door to the water heater was broken and was flapping. When Bob went to open it, it fell off and was hanging by a security chain. Bob went back in the motor home and got a screw driver and took the chain off. He put the door on the sofa and we continued on our way.

McMillers has a deal with Newmar, so we are able to stay one or two nights in their RV parking. Newmar is a short way from McMillers, so we pulled into their RV parking. There were several sites, so we took one. There is water and 50 amp electric.

We were exhausted, but there was still so much to do. We did some work then ate leftover pot roast from yesterday for dinner The satellite is not working, so that is also an issue to be addressed. First, Direct had not restarted us as requested for today. The when Bob called, we could not get the satellite to connect to the King Dome antenna. Another issue to work on. We collapsed into bed at 10.

Friday-  We had a horrible nights sleep. The weather was perfect, in the low 50’s, so we had the windows open. The trains going by, every 20 minutes, where honking their horns the whole time! Gee, in Canada, they don’t do that! Wish we wouldn’t here in the States!

Then at 4 AM, the workers started arriving for work, via very loud motorcycles. Both of us were awake really early. We got up at around 5:30 and started working on putting the MH back together. Yesterday we had just dumped stuff everywhere! Now we had to get the stuff back where it belongs, and somehow it is just not fitting, LOL.

I drove the MH over to McMillers arriving around 8.. Yesterday, while following behind Bob in the MH, I had noticed a very loud noise in the engine. Bob could not hear it, since the engine is in the back, so he was driving behind, in the car, to listen. We  went over a few items with Megan and PJ then we headed back to South Bend stopping at Walmart for batteries and a few other items, including some dog treats.

Our next stop was at Bed, Bath and Beyond, where I purchased some hooks. We returned to the apartment. We watched “Who Do You Think You Are?” on the DVR. At noon, we left the dogs at the apartment and went to lunch at JW Changs. Jun greeted us like old friends. I had the pot stickers and won ton soup. Bob had the lunch plate with chicken fried rice, egg roll, and won ton soup. I helped him finish off the fried rice.

We stopped at Salvation Army and dropped off a few items, including the nice grocery cart we have been using! We returned to the apartment and decided to take a nap. The rental furniture is still there. We used the couch pillows and laid down on the bare mattress. Roxie was so funny. She likes to chew a bone prior to sleeping, so she kept hunting for a bone. All the dog toys are in a bag in the MH. So she would jump off the bed, go looking for a toy, then jump back up and stand on Bob, requesting assistance. We would tell her to lay down, and she would go looking again. She did this three times before she did a sad canine sigh and settled in to ‘snuggle and snooze’.

We had a short nap,did one more check of the apartment finding we had left the broom and dust pan,  then left to return to the parking garage. We drove out of the garage and luckily found a parking space on the street. We went in to give Mimi, in the office,  the dog treats. She has been giving our dogs treats every day ( she is now one of the dogs best friends, LOL) and for them to say good-bye to her. We gave Chris the apartment keys, mailbox keys and the beloved parking pass!

We set out for Bremen. About half way there, Megan texted Bob to let him know they were ready. We arrived and spent the next two and a half hours going over items and PJ fixing small issues.

One big issue is the strange noise in the MH engine. Bob and PJ took a look at everything and found that we have a blown gasket on the exhaust manifold (like I know what the heck that is, all I know is we needed to get it fixed!). .

So PJ got on the phone and called around. He found a guy, Glen Miller, at Millers Diesel Repair, (no relation to PJ) who said he would stay and check it out. So we took off driving the MH and car through Nappanee about 8 miles east to his shop. He looked at it and stated he needed to get the parts. He needed to check with Freightliner for the exact parts then he could either get them in a NAPA store or he would have to go to Ft. Wayne to get the parts. He is to call us later tonight or in the morning.

We left there and returned to Newmar to spend the night. We ate dinner and spent the evening putting items away. Bob set up the portable satellite, and sure enough, it worked. We had this problem when we returned from Canada/Alaska last September. The King Dome satellite dish needs to be re-programmed. Something is wrong with the mother board in the computer system. We know we are going to need it replaced, but are waiting until we buy new HD TV’s in the fall/winter.

We kept working on putting everything back where it belongs. I wish I had taken pictures of where items were, as they don’t seem to be fitting. In the MH, everything has a place and must be in that place only or we don’t have enough room. Oh well, it will all work out.!

Filed under: Uncategorized |