bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- We were able to move at around 9 to a W/E 50 amp site, $20 night. We barely put away anything with such a short drive. Bob backed the MH into the site and we set back up. We turned on the air conditioner as it is going to be hot today, in the 90’s.

When I opened the cabinet door to start up the satellite, the ‘grabber’ dropped down. I caught it, and put it back. A little bit later, I picked up my phone and the screen was broken. It is hard to see, but the cracks go all the way to the top of the phone. Evidently I had caught the ‘grabber’ on the re-bound, as I did not even realize it had hit the phone.

We ran  to Best Buy to have the phone repaired. We arrived and went to the Verizon booth. They sent us to Geek Squad. We pay $11 and change, each month on each phone. Over the many years that I have had a cell phone, I have never had to do a repair!

Anyway, it would be $150 to repair the phone, WITH the repair plan. We have already paid, since we purchased the phone, $130 for the plan for both phones. We were not happy! The guys said that if you break/lose the phone where it is new, the plan is worth it, but when the phone is worth less than $200, you should cancel the plan. Hmmmm…..

Anyway, so we walked back to the Verizon booth and found out that it would cost $175 for a new phone. The Best Buy guy said they had a Galaxy S8. I asked about the S9, oh yea, they have those and they cost less…Huh? So I purchased an S9 for less money. Of course, with everything else, like new cords ( S7 cords do not fit the S9) and a new cover ( old cover does not fit) we of course spent more than $175. Grrrr…. Anyway, I have a new phone to set up and learn….

We ran around town doing other various tasks. Bob wanted some beer, so we went in search of a store which sold beer. Idaho has state liquor stores, but they only sell the hard stuff. We never found a place to purchase some craft beer. They have the drive thru places which sell Budweiser etc.  We needed dog food which we can purchase at Safeway, so we were off to the store. Across the street was a Panera, so we had salads for lunch and there was a Farmers Market on the corner. This was a very nice FM under trees.

They had 3 rows of items. We did not purchase anything, but enjoyed walking around .

We also saw this nice mural.

We returned to the Elks Lodge and settled in. In the evening we went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.

Sunday-  We did out usual tasks, except for laundry. We left around 10:30 for downtown,Coeur D’Alene, about 5 miles away. This weekend was the Coeur D’Alene Street Fair, the Taste of Coeur D’Alene and the Art Show at the College.

We found street parking about 2 blocks away from the Street Fair. This fair was HUGE! It went 7 street blocks! We walked up one side and down the other. Then we walked over to the park along the lake for another, about 2 blocks, of the fair.

On the other side of the park, they had the food vendors for the Taste of Coeur D’Alene. We wandered through the food vendors. Bob had a brat and I had a shrimp taco. Bob’s brat was faster than my taco, so he went into the Beer Garden. I met up with him there. He was busy tasting beers, so I went to a picnic table and asked some folks if we could join them. They said yes and we chatted. Bob caught up with me and we ate lunch. He drank one beer, which he was not impressed with…

The folks we talked with where waiting for the band to play. They suggested that we visit the Art Show. So we walked over to the college campus to the very large Art Show. The walk took us along the lake.

The Art Show was under trees on the campus. Most of the vendors would not allow pictures, which was a shame. The cost of most of the items was very high. We saw a really interesting metal fire pit that was very well done, but cost $1500.

There were beautiful items, but my very favorite was the embroidery art. The woman who designed and embroidered these items was phenomenal. Most of the works were of birds. They were indescribable! I wish I could have taken pictures. Also, the majority of them cost $450, which was reasonable for what the items were…

We also saw this sand art.

We stopped for ice cream, as it was getting very hot. The temp at this point was high 90’s. At least there is not a lot of humidity. The ice cream was sponsored by the students. 2-3 scoops for $5. We split a bowel. We also at this point purchased some water.

There was a band in the center and another beer/wine/cider garden. We did not see any that we were interested in drinking.

We decided that we did not want to walk all the way back to the car, about 2 miles, in the sun, so we took the free shuttle bus. It dropped us about 2 blocks from the car. We returned home. We did not plan for visiting Coeur D’Alene on this weekend, but we really lucked out. This was very interesting and a lot of fun.

On the way back to the MH, we saw these statues.

 

Monday- Moving Day- We drove out of the Elks Lodge at around 9AM. We stopped at the Exon on the corner for diesel. $3.28 /gal. We only purchased 25 gallons, as the diesel is less expensive in Lolo MT.

We drove east on I-90.

We turned south in Missoula MT and drove thru horrible traffic in town to turn onto Hwy. 12 towards Lolo. At the turn to the RV park, on the left, was a Town Pump which is associated with Flying J. We turned in and filled up the tank. $3.18 gal.

We drove about 3 miles out of town to Lolo Montana Square Dance Center and Campground. We arrived and we were greeted by Barry Bartlette the co-owner. Barry and Bobbie Bartlette inherited the campground from Bobbie’s parents who were avid Square and Round Dancers, in addition to her father being a Caller and mother a Cue’r. Bobbie’s parents, Ray and Afton Granger, built the dance center  in 1978. The facility is located on 27 acres on the Lolo Creek. The dance hall has a cushioned maple floor and is air conditioned. There is also a mile long path around the park, and along the creek.

This area is on the Lewis and Clark trail, and the duo walked along this land on their travels to explore the Louisiana Purchase. We settled into our FHU 50 amp site. We were thrilled, that even through the beautiful pine trees, we were able to obtain satellite. The park has cable TV also. We settled in and had a quiet evening.

Tuesday- We traveled into downtown Missoula and looked around, as we have not visited Missoula before. We stopped for lunch at Edelweiss Café, which is on the second floor of Bayern Brewing. Bob had a flight of beer.

We had a nice German lunch. Bob had a brat and I had Jager Schnitzel. Both were okay. Not the best, not the worst, pun intended….

We left and continued our tour of the town.We visited the Missoula Carousel.  It is advertised as being the fastest in the world. I can agree with that, it was really moving. Notice that the kids are all wearing seat belts!

 

I put a video up on Facebook of the carousel moving. So you can go to my feed and look at it. It really is impressive, how fast this was moving! Here is the history of the carousel:

“MAGIC IS MADE BY VOLUNTEERS

“If you will give it a home, and promise no one will ever take it apart, I will build A Carousel for Missoula.”  That was the promise Missoula cabinet-maker Chuck Kaparich made to the Missoula City Council in 1991.  Kaparich, who had spent many childhood hours on the carousel at Columbia Gardens in Butte, Montana, had already carved four carousel ponies and had purchased an antique frame in thousands of pieces.  The Council agreed and Kaparich’s dream of A Carousel for Missoula became the dream of a community.

A board of directors was formed to facilitate organization and fund raising, Kaparich taught others to carve, mechanics began the process of restoring 16,066 pieces if the antique frame and motor, painters were recruited, and Missoula began working together to create a treasure.

By Opening Day, May 27, 1995, over 100,000 hours of volunteer time had gone into the construction of 38 permanent ponies; three replacement ponies; two chariots; 14 gargoyles, gargoyle frames and mirror frames; and the largest band organ in continuous use in the United States, all within a jewel box building.

Community members donated time, services, materials and encouragement.  School children collected over one-million pennies to adopt four ponies; stained glass artists constructed shimmering windows; mechanics poured Babbitt; majestic horses’ heads emerged from blocks of wood; and people found lasting friendships among the woodchips.  The community extended as far as Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where the Midnight Rose Carvers built a friendship horse for Missoula.  The story of the Carousel includes wood and metal, concrete and colored glass, hearts and hands, and countless hours of loving labor” http://carouselformissoula.com/our-story/

There is a nice park next to the carousel. It is located over a berm from the river and there is an amusement park next to it.

We drove through town. Here is the courthouse.

We stopped at Costco and Petsmart. We were hoping to get an appointment at Banfield for Karlie, but they did not have a Banfield at this location. It is the only Petsmart in town.

We returned to the MH and had a quiet evening, sitting outside reading. For some reason the dogs like this dirt and want to eat it! We had to keep a close watch on them trying to keep them from eating it. Yuck!

Wednesday- We left and went downtown to Missoula again. Our destination was near the carousel. The town has an “Out to Lunch” in Caras Park. It is a food truck park on Wednesdays. We easily found a parking space in the shade!

They have a list of the trucks in the Official 2018 Missoula Area Visitor Guide. Unfortunately, the trucks listed that we were interested in were not there today. We watched to see which truck had the longest line. So we ended up eating Chinese. It was okay.

We were asked to complete a survey of the “Out to Lunch”, which was a very busy place. There was a band playing on the stage.

So we completed that while we were eating. Then we went over to the overlook to view the river. There were folks swimming in the river. The temp was in the high 90’s.

We stopped at Walmart and returned to the MH for a quiet evening.

Thursday-  Bob wanted to visit the Lolo Brewery, so we went there for lunch. He had a flight. He really liked the light color beer in the front. It was a Huckleberry Beer. He liked it enough he ordered a pint of it….

We had a really nice lunch! The pub food was very good.

We returned to the RV park and ran into friends Helen and Jeff, from our SQ. Dance clubs in Sun City and Sun City West.  We spoke for a few minutes and Helen said she was going to the SQ. Dance Clothing store. So Bob and I dropped the car off and walked over to the main building. I was looking for two belts. I found them and purchased them for $6 each. We picked up a couple of books at the book exchange, returned to the MH, and took a short nap.  We ate dinner at home, then dressed to go to the dance. We walked over, taking 3 books with us for the book exchange. We met up with Gordon and Yvonne, other friends from our clubs in AZ. They are from Canada and drove 11 hours to be here. They are staying in a motel in Missoula.

We danced to Jerry Junck and Daryl Clendenin for 2 hours, from 7:30 to 9:30. We had a great time. We had 10 squares dancing. Interestingly, about 1/3rd of the folks here were familiar faces from Sun City and Sun City West. Many of them are both Sq. Dancers and Round Dancers. We even knew the Round Dance Que’ers, Larry and Susan.

Friday- I made a dessert for the Pot Luck tomorrow evening. At a little before 11, we walked over to the dance workshop. The Round’s workshop was from 10 to 11. Then the SQ Dance workshop was from 11 to 12:30.  This was not like a class. The Callers called the moves and they kept us going until they noted a problem. This entire Festival is Plus Level, so everyone has been through classes. In a class, the Caller teaches you the moves. In this workshop, they walked us through problem moves. Then repeated. It really helped!

We returned to the MH , ate lunch and took a nap. To give you an idea, I had walked over 6,000 steps in that 1.5 hours. Now we wanted to rest and be ready to dance for 2 hours this evening.

I did some laundry, we walked the dogs, ate dinner, then dressed to go to the dance. We again danced for 2 hours. We returned and went to bed.

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