bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- We woke up to the park being as bad as we thought it was. We were under trees and it was dark and very wet. Lots of mud! After yesterday we were worried about getting out of the site tomorrow. We had no options as we do not have a working generator, so we can’t go anywhere else. Plus it did not make sense to move while the ground was still so wet.

We went into town and went to the Faribault COOP tire store. We talked with the guys and they could get the tires. So they told us to return on Monday morning.

We went to the nice little Farmers Market and wandered around, but did not purchase anything. We went to a lumber yard to pick up some new boards for the ramps Bob has made for us to use to level the MH. The ones we had, Bob had used to try to get us out of the mud at the fairgrounds, and the boards had broken.

The Penny’s was closing so they were having a 50-70% off sale. We went in and I bought two tops and Bob bought a new rain jacket as he had torn his old one. We went to lunch and to the Walmart.

We returned and Bob worked on sawing the boards and getting new ramps made. We had a quiet afternoon and evening at home.

Sunday- Check out was at 12, so we stayed until 11:45. We did not want to arrive at the next RV park before their weekend folks had left.

We only traveled 6 miles west to Maiden Rock West RV Park. It is just past the LaChance RV Repair where we are hoping to have the generator repaired on Monday.

We drove into the park and walked over to the office. This is not a great place! The road had pot holes filled with water. The office was really tacky and the staff were ‘hicks’. While we were checking in Bob asked about his medications which he had sent to the park. A younger guy sitting in a chair behind the lady checking us in, covered his face with his hands and slunk out of the room. We thought that was odd.

The gal said the package had not arrived. Bob stepped outside while I was completing the paperwork and looked up the package tracking on his phone. He came back in and showed the gal that the package had arrived. She said she would look for it.

We moved into a 50 amp FHU site for $54/night with taxes. We could have moved to a 30 amp site, but it was 88 degrees and they charged $6 per day for electric if you used your air conditioner. It would have cost $1 less per day. Whoopee, what a savings that would have been!(sic)

The site was in a field, with a little bit of gravel in the grass. We hoped we would be able to get out of the site if it rained!

About a half hour later the gal came over to the MH with Bob’s pills. She was very apologetic. The guy we had seen slinking out of the room had gotten the package. He had opened the box, torn the medication information off the bottles, AND OPENED ONE OF THE BOTTLES!

The idiot had then put the bottles into the golf cart, never telling the gal about them arriving, and they had been rained on! We could still see Bob’s name on the bottle. Bob counted the pills and they were all there! We were livid!

When we were at McMillers they had accidently opened one of our boxes. They had immediately closed the box and brought it to us with an apology. Then never opened anything inside the box! We were fine with that! But to open the pill bottles!Unacceptable! All we can think is that he was checking to see if he could sell the drugs! Nope, it was Bob’s blood pressure medication….

We settled in and I did laundry. We had a quiet evening at home, although it rained all night!

Monday- Since the radiator had not arrived on Friday, and we did not get a call on Sat. saying it had arrived, we drove over to the repair facility in the car when they opened at 8. Nope, it had not arrived. They thought it might arrive later today and they would have us come in after lunch if it arrived.

So we continued back to Faribault to the COOP and again discussed tires. They ordered them for us and said they could put them in on Friday. We asked if they could get them sooner and they made us an appointment for Wed. at 1 PM.

We stopped at a laundromat to wash the duvet and the towels. We ate lunch and returned to the MH. In the afternoon Bob called LaChance and they said that the radiator had not come in. They made an appointment with us for Wed. morning at 8 AM.

So we settled in for the rest of the day.

Tuesday-  I started some laundry and worked on the blog. I had the Roadrunner newsletter finished and the club president was reviewing it. He was out in the boonies and had no internet, so I was waiting for him to get it back to me.

At a little after 9, we walked over to the office to tell them that we had to stay another night and to pay them. There was no one there. We returned to the MH and Bob called the gal. She was not there but told us to come over when we saw her car there.

At 10:45 Bob’s phone rang. The radiator had arrived. Could we be there at LaChance at 12:30? YUP! So we ran around getting ready. Bob called the office and the crazy guy answered the phone. He did not know who we were and did not understand what Bob was telling him. Obviously he has issues! So we got ready to leave. At 11:50 as we were pulling out of the park, the lady’s car was there so I went into the office to let them know we were leaving.  There was no one there, although the door was unlocked,. So we said the heck with them and left.

We arrived at La Chance and they pulled us into one of the bays and started to repair the radiator. Fortunately, it was okay with them if we stayed in the MH. They hooked us up to 30 amp and we settled in for the afternoon.

It took 7 hours to put in the radiator. At least the service rate was $95 per hour. Most places it is $125-150. When the guy removed the generator, he also found that we needed new belts. One of them was really bad. So they had to hunt around the area to get the belts and then they had to run and get them. They were in two different locations. So it took awhile.

At 5 the gal from the office came to us to ask for a credit card. The two gals in the office were leaving for the day and it was going to be several more hours. So we gave her the number and ran to Faribault for dinner. It is hard to cook, inside the building, with the slide in!

Faribault has one claim to fame. They had the very first Tilt-a-Whirl. Here is the town mural about it.

We returned and the dogs seemed to have tolerated being left there. They were both asleep.  The guy was busy working on re-installing the generator. He finished around 7 PM. He backed us out of the bay and sent us on our way. The gal was to call us in the morning with the total. It was a good thing we were able to get this done today, since it took so long!

We drove to Faribault to the Walmart’s, parked and boon-docked in their parking lot. I had asked for permission the other day. We went to bed.

Wednesday- Bob left around 9 to return to LaChance. He got the receipt and they ran the credit card through. I sent out the Roadrunner newsletter. We did a little shopping at Walmart, and waited until 11. Bob called and the tires were not in yet. We were still to arrive at 1.

At 12:40, we left the Walmart with me following in the car. Bob drove the MH into the parking lot. They had him drive it into the bay and they started removing our tires, as the new ones had not arrived.

I sat in the car, in the shade, with the dogs. I watched the tires arrive at about 1:15. They stated putting them on. Bob joined us and we decided to check on a different way out of town so that we did not have to drive through downtown again. We found an alternate route, returned and sat reading our books. They finished at about 4:15. I went in and paid. They did give us some money on the other tires that still had thread on them. They will re-sell them to some trucker for his trailer.

The new tires are UniRoyal. They are made by Michelin, in the USA. They were less expensive, but the same rating as Goodyear or Michelin. Goodyear now owns Michelin and UniRoyal. The tires have the same 7 year warranty on them.

We left and drove to a park on Hwy. 60 that we had been passing every time that we ran to Faribault. There is a beautiful lake there, which is why the RV parks can get the expensive nightly fees!

We hooked up the car and drove about 50 miles to a PA park, Shady Oaks. It turned out to be another Fair Grounds. The gal was really nice about us arriving late. I had called to warn her we would be late and I called her again when we were about 3 miles out. She met us at the office and said we could pick from sites 29-30-31. 31 was a 50 amp site. $10.69 with tax. Water and electric.

Just as we made the turn to the campground, the tire monitor had gone off on the Edge. We stopped and Bob checked the tires. They were all okay. So we continued into the park.

We drove to site 31 and there was a guy there in a pop-up. It was two sided but he really fussed about us moving into the other half of the site. He was saving all of the sites.We told him we were told to take one of the these sites. They are all double sites.

So we moved into site 30. He had two others arriving this evening and one tomorrow. We told him we would be gone in the morning.

We settled in and cooked dinner. It was almost 7 pm by this time. Bob took off all the tire sensors and found one that needs its battery  to be replaced as it had leaked.  We will not put it back on in the morning.  We went to bed early and slept really well, as we were so tired!

Thursday- We stopped and dumped before we left. We have an almost full tank of water. We drove out of the park and traveled west on back roads, through pretty Minnesota farm fields. We turned on to a more major road and in a few miles ran into a detour. We took the detour and followed the GPS. We ended up having to detour another time. There is a  lot of road construction going on!

We stopped in a truck top and ate lunch. We continued through more small towns. One of them was advertising their festival. We saw a sign saying “Turkey Testical Festival”.  We both had a nice laugh over that!

We finally reached I-94 and turned west. Our destination was a Lions Club RV Park in Barnesville MN, about 22 miles east of Fargo. The park, Wagner Memorial Park Campground, does not accept reservations, so we had our fingers crossed. There are not a lot of RV parks in the Fargo area and they are very expensive.

We drove into the park and could see a lot of empty spots. I jumped out of the MH and grabbed one of the envelopes, as it is a self check in park. We started driving around the park and each of the empty sites had a reserved sign on it.

We stopped and realize we have a problem! So I call the town hall, which is the number on the envelope. The gal says, yes, this is the only weekend of the year that they take reservations! It is the Potato Festival! ( None of this was on their website!)

She tells me to hold on, she is going to get Robbie on the phone. Robbie (another gal), says that she can put us into the Fair Grounds as they just had a cancellation. She will meet us there. She gave me directions.

So we drove over to the fairgrounds and she shows us where to park, in a 50 amp site. No water or sewer, $22 each night. She also give us a brochure on the Potato Festival, along with an envelope to put a check in. We could drop it off at the Town Hall or just mail it in… trusting aren’t they!

We set up then went to Town Hall and gave them the $66 check for 3 nights.  We decided that we would go out to dinner. Of course, we found  there Bratwurst and Beer Restaurant in Fargo, and had to go there! Since we need to get the battery, we drove to Fargo. We stopped at a battery store and bought the battery we needed, then went to dinner.

Bob had a flight of beer. He absolutely loved the Leftbridge Cherry Lager. We had German for dinner. Bob had his pick of about 20 different brats. I had the Jaeger Schnitzel, which I was not impressed with. He even ordered a glass of the Cherry Lager, which is more than he usually drinks!.

I poured Bob back into the car and we attempted to return to Barnesville. We were stopped at a train track in downtown. There were trains going both ways. We sat, finally the westbound train was gone. The eastbound train kept going and going…. We don’t know how many cars there were, but there had to be well over 100. It was over 20 minutes!

We finally were able to move and traveled back east on I-94 to Barnesville. We settled in for the evening, with the windows and door open. People kept coming to the door, for some reason thinking we were the camp hosts! There are no camp host and we could not tell them where to park! This was Thursday, tomorrow is going to be even more busy. The folks did not have reservations….

Friday-  Bob called Michelin to make sure he had the right tire inflation chart. He then went out and filled the tires to the correct inflation. He also replaced the battery in the tire sensor. I worked on the blog.

At a little after 10 we left  and went downtown to visit the vendors. We wandered around and did not see anything that said take me home with you!

We returned to the MH and did some more tasks. We then went back for lunch. We ate and went to the 1 PM National Lefse Cook-Off. We did not know what a Lefse was; basically it is a crepe made from potato flour.

We watched them make the Lefse and bought two ($1 each with a glass of lemonade). You put butter and/or brown sugar on them rolled up. Been there done that! They were kind of lame. At the food court they served the sausages in them.

We wandered through the Quilt Show. Below is a Harley Davison/Sturgis quilt.

We went back to the MH and took a nap. Then we returned to town to watch the Mashed Potato Wrestling. It was a hoot!

   

They hosed the kids off.

BRRRR, it was 60 degrees! Can you imagine how cold the potatoes were and the water?? It was cold, wet, goo’ie, and slippery!   Obviously this little dude was cold! His father was the fireman. He looked like R2D2 wandering around with the cost on.

And then we had David and Goliath. They have done this before, as David had suspenders to keep his pants up. This was a return event for them. We think they were father and son and the tag team guy was an uncle.

We ate dinner at the food court and watched the Miss Tator Tot program.  The little girls first came out in an outfit made out of potato sacks. Then they brought them back in dressy clothes. The little girls were very cute and shy. They all cheered for each other which was really sweet!

It started to rain and we returned to the MH.

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