Veterans Hospital, Des Moines, IA

Today, Oct 24th, is the day I have been dreading for six months, but more on that later.

We arrived at Griff’s Valley View RV Park last Monday, Oct 17th, and got settled in for our short stay. We immediately renewed an acquaintance from our previous stays, John Evans. Now John had quite a scar this past summer with an infection he had in the esophagus. The doctors do not know what caused the infection or can they give it a name, but with Someone watching over him from above and an abundant of prayers down here John has recovered to be able to continue his lifestyle. I know his wife Kathy made many a trip from the campground to the hospital and indeed stayed at the hospital at times when no one could predict which way John’s illness would go. We are grateful he is getting better and continues to improve each day.

We also had a great visit with Dick & Judy Wichael and Richard & Rose James, we spent the better part of Tuesday afternoon in Dick & Judy’s camper visiting and catching up on what has happened over the summer. This is what full timing is all about, getting together with friends you meet on the road and enjoying the good life on the road. Earlier in the day we took care of dental appointments, all is well for both of us.

Wednesday, Oct 19th, Sarah had her annual physical, everything was normal on her tests so she is good for another year. We had lunch with Norma Cairo, the better half of a couple I have known for over forty years. Sarah and Norma had to hit the local beauty supply store to stock up on whatever it is they stock up on. That night we had dinner with Norma and the other half of the better half, Orren,  which I believe to halves make a whole. We went to Prairie Meadows, the local casino and horse track. Wednesdays is the night of lower priced prime rib, although the cut and the quality is not lowered. We had a great time and a very good meal. We do have fun when we get together. Next time we are together I need a photo of the two of them. We hope to see them sometime this winter in AZ.

Thursday, was a day at the camper, laundry etc.

Friday the 21st was the beginning of my hell week, actually it only lasted five days but it seemed, at times longer. I had appointments with the Pulmonary and cardiac clinics.

Now the pulmonary clinic, for those of you who have never had these tests, it is the premise of how much of a blow hard you are. You sit in this little box and blow into this contraption to see how much capacity your lungs have I guess. Here is a good site to explain what they do: tp://www2.nau.edu/~daa/lecture/pft.htm/~daa/lecture/pft.htm

I was able to get through the test without much trouble. Although, when you have this guy standing next to you saying take a deep breath and then blow as hard as you can until he tells you to take a deep breath again or you begin to see stars and images of your long lost relatives, whichever comes first. Good news is my lungs are working fine.

The next was a cardiac ultrasound. This site explains this procedure: ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echocardiography. Now the doctor called it cardiac ultrasound but echocardiography is another name for it and I guess for dummies like me the first is easier to say but I always had trouble remembering what the name of the procedure was. Anyway, I was able to get the procedure done a couple hours earlier by going to the department and asking if they had any cancellations. So instead of 12:30 I got in at 10:30, at least I saved sitting around for a couple of hours. The technician did run into a bit of a problem, it seems the images he was getting were not of the quality he wanted. I thought well you should get better equipment, I didn’t even give it a moments thought that it could be my fat body blocking the signals. They, of course, had a solution and that was to give me an IV and put some type of dye in it, this worked and he was happy with the results. Someone said it is a radioactive dye, I suppose they might be right I did have a certain glow the rest of the day.

Friday night we met Mike and Sheri Cord,  they have been friends since we moved to Des Moines several years ago. They were our co-managers at Illahee Hills when we managed the facility there and Mike worked with me at Marsh the whole time I was there. We went to Felix & Oscar’s: http://felixandoscars.com/. They have some of the best pizza in town. We had a great visit with Mike and Sheri, Mike has a site on EBay called “qualityucantrust” he sells shoes at great prices, check it out you may see something you like. Mike said he had a couple of books for me and I suggested I would call him the next day and we could meet.

Saturday, Oct 22nd, we met Tiffany, Matt, Bryon, and Alexa,  for lunch at the Red Lobster in Ames, IA. It is fun getting together with them. We don’t see them enough throughout the year but we have fun when we do. However this time I was a bit rushed because of having to get ready for Monday. Carl and Merilee had come over earlier in the morning so they joined us for lunch. I don’t remember the last time they had seen Alexa but it was good to get together.

Saturday was also the day I began my liquid diet for my upcoming colonoscopy. I won’t go into the details of the prep but those of you who have been through it know the details, I will say the VA has you drink 4 liters of the prep and it isn’t fun.

Monday was the day, I was at the VA by 9:30 for my ten o’clock appointment. Everything went right on time and I found myself in the recovery room and going home by 12:30, so the day wasn’t too bad.

Tuesday morning I had to be at the VA for my annual physical which began with lab work at 7:30. I saw the nurse at 8:30 and the doctor at 9:00. All the tests were good and I don’t need another colonoscopy for ten years.

Later we went to lunch with Laurie Robinette, she is a manager at Marsh and I worked with her there, We met her at Culver’s and had a great visit. Thank you for the free yogurt.

Then that evening we met Candi and Russ Cerniglia for dinner at the Drake Diner, www.drakediner.com. We hope to see them in AZ this winter.

On Wednesday we left for Centerville, IA to visit mom and my sister Tara. We had a great visit and enjoyed being with mom. We stayed at Honey State Park, http://www.iowadnr.gov/Destinations/StateParksRecAreas?state_park_list=honey_creek.html, not to be confused with Honey Creek Resort.

On Saturday we took off for Smith Center, KS to the Excel service center to have some things taken care of on the camper. Then it is off to Mesa, AZ. I will wait until then to write again.

Dreams Do Come Again.

Correction to Previous Post

It has been pointed out to me that my parents raised SIX children not five as I stated, “I still don’t know how my folks raised five of us without going off the deep end”.

Tara, I apologize, I didn’t mean to forget about you.

Good Bye Omaha, Hello Des Moines

Our time in Omaha is over. We had a great time with the kids, it is interesting to see them go from not really knowing you and in Eli’s case he didn’t know who we were, to acting like you have always been there. We were able to watch the kids at different times so Marie could run errands etc. Again it was a lot of fun but it does get tiring. I really wish I had their energy. I still don’t know how my folks raised five of us without going off the deep end.

We got to celebrate three birthdays while we were there. Eli’s first birthday, his grandmother’s, Marie’s mom Elia, birthday, she is a few years older than Eli and Eli’s great grandmother, Jewell Marie’s grandmother, birthday, now she is a few years older than Elia. We had a great time with all.

I did lose my mind one day and helped Daniel rake leaves, I felt guilty since I mowed Robert’s front  yard when we were in WI so I helped Daniel with the leaves. He has one of the vacuum gizmos to suck up the leaves and grinds them to a fine mixture and then he puts them in the bags the city governments makes you buy so they can pick them up easily. The yard looked pretty good when we got done. Daniel still has a couple trees that haven’t lost their leaves yet so he'll be doing this again.

We had rain on our trip over to Des Moines this morning but other than that it was an uneventful trip. Not much going on this week other than doctor appointments and visiting with friends. So I’ll make this short and I will write more later.

Dreams Do Come True

Adventure for the Day

Wednesday the 12th my uncle Ernie and aunt Shirley came got us for a day of adventure. We stopped in Ashland, NE for lunch but before eating we went into artist Gene Roncka’s Gallery, www.generoncka.com. He has a photo of Ashland taken from 200 miles above the earth by Nebraska’s own astronaut Clayton C. Anderson. The Gallery is small but has some beautiful paintings, Roncka paints buildings a lot like Kincaid where the windows glow as if the lights are on in the house.

After buying some post cards, this was the only size pictures I could afford, we went to Cheri O’s Coffee House & Ice Cream Parlor, http://www.cherioscoffee.com/. The food was very good and the apple pie with ice cream was excellent. The purpose of our adventure for the day was to go to a licorice factory, then we discovered it was a place that sold licorice, this did not diminish our quest at all. But before we got to the licorice store we stopped at Baker’s Candies, http://www.bakerscandies.com/, in Greenwood, NE. They make a melt away caramel unlike any I have ever tried before. Of course I had to spend a few dollars there, they had the bridge mix I love.

Then it was off to Lincoln to see if we could find the licorice place. We did, it is a block from the Amtrak station in the Haymarket District and is know as Licorice International, www. licoriceinternational.com. Here is a copy of their brochure,

  

This is the store. They have licorice from over 40 countries. I didn’t know licorice was made in other countries but then again I never really gave it much thought. There is an Irish Toffee licorice that is very smooth and does not have the heavy licorice taste, it is very good. Australia has several different types of licorice. I bought a couple different ones, my favorite is the chocolate cover strawberry licorice. When you go in the store you see these shelves arranged by country of origin and you can sample each licorice to make sure you like what you are buying. It was a great visit and of course I bought several different types of licorice.

I highly recommend the Licorice International store any time you are in the Lincoln, NE area, you won’t be disappointed.

After buying plenty of licorice we headed back to the camper and visited for a while. It was the end to a great day and visiting places we would most likely not have seen. Thank you Shirley and Ernie for the great day.

Dreams Do Come True.

Our Last Week in Omaha

We are down to our last week in Omaha, we go to Des Moines next Monday and then we start with the doctor appointments, I have five and Sarah three, but then we are done for another year.

Eli and his sisters have kept Sarah and I busy and tired. Here are some of the things we have done, more will come later.

Sarah and I went to see the Holy Family Shrine, on a day where we didn’t go into see the kids until in the afternoon. The shrine is located not to far from the campground on the south side of I 80, you get a good view of it eastbound on I 80. Here are some pictures and their website, http://www.holyfamilyshrineproject.com/. It was a great visit.

Inside the chapel looking out past the altar.

I really like the etching of the Holy Family in the glass. According to a panel in the visitor center this piece of glass is 16’ x 8’. It would be interesting to know how they shipped it. I’ll bet it was VERY CAREFULLY.

This is the entrance to the visitor center and the rest of the shrine.

TThis is what you see from the interstate.

Since my last post we have been to  Pooley’s Pumpkin patch, this was a great place for the kids, www.pooleyspumpkinpatch.com. This pumpkin patch was not as crowded as the one we went to last year. They some animals for the kids to see and hold. The kids didn’t have to stand in line to do anything which made the visit better for the kids. We did eat there, now I know I have been accused of writing about nothing but food but this place had the best cheesecake funnel cake I have ever had. Well actually it was the first one I ever had but it was very good.

We found a Yogi Frozen yogurt store within a Scooters Coffee shop. Now if you have never had the pleasure of this type of store it is a bit different. We have been to a couple like establishments in Lenexa, KS and Rockford, Il. The yogurt is self served and is dispensed from wall mounted machines and then you put the toppings you want on the yogurt. The cost is by weight which can be a bit high if you load you cup up with heavy candies. But it is so good.

We have been able to sit with the kids a couple of times so Marie could run some errands. It is interesting to watch the three kids play together. As with Mason and Madyson it was fun to stay with the kids but I totally understand why we have our kids when we are young, I was tired at the end of the day and to be truthful Sarah worked harder than I did in playing with the kids. We have really enjoyed our visit to WI and now NE. Once we leave here it will be a while before we see them again and I am sure there will be some big changes in them when we see them next.

I am trying to learn how to build a web page, I did it once many years ago but it all seems to be more complicated now or maybe I have killed off to many brain cells and there aren’t enough left to process the instructions to build a web site.

More later.

Dreams Do Come True.

West Omaha KOA, Gretna, NE

We made it to Omaha after getting the brakes on the camper fixed in Des Moines. As you may remember we lost the brakes on the camper going to Green Bay, WI. After several phone calls I found a camper dealer in Appleton who said they would look at the problem and see what they could do. We set the appointment time for 9 am on Monday the 12th. We arrived before nine and I spoke with the service manager and gave him our information. We went to sit in the waiting area, they had wi-fi which was a plus, twenty minutes later the service manager came and told us they wouldn’t be able to fix the brakes because they didn’t know anything about disc brakes.

We got back in the truck and called Camping World in Madison, WI. They told me they could work us in that afternoon, I told him we would be there by noon. I was a bit worried because we had been there before and their parking lot is very crowded and I was concerned about getting in there and not being able to get out. However, as always my concerns were unfounded. When we arrived I went into the service desk and explained what I needed and was told by them that morning. It turns out they were trying to work four other campers in that afternoon and wouldn’t be able to get to us. We then made the decision to continue on to Iowa City and see what we could do later in the week to get the brakes fixed. I knew the truck could stop us without trailer brakes and I knew we had no BIG hills in our path. However, I forgot about the hill on Hwy 151/61 going south out of Dubuque. We crested the hill at about 40 mph and then I saw the stopped vehicles at the bottom of the hill, it looked like a 10% downhill grade, all I know is the truck worked well and we were able to go down the hill slowly so as not to run into anything at the bottom.

We arrived at Colony Country RV Park about four and got set up. The site we had wasn’t too bad. I had a small hill to back up on but the camper sat on level ground. In fact it was probably one of the most level sites we have been on and it was a gravel site. We had good satellite coverage and the site was quite roomy, at a bigger site than we had in De Pere.

I made some phone calls to get the camper brakes fixed and on a suggestion from Jason at Bob & Joe’s RV I called Mid-State Truck & Auto Center in Des Moines. They could get us in on Monday the 19th, I told them we’d be there.

We spent the rest of the week visiting with Carl & Merilee, Amy, Clancy, Maverick, Lilly and Kayla. We had a great time. Of course I ate too much but it was great. On Sunday Bob & Judy and Cynthia stopped by Carl & Merilee’s and we go to visit with them.

Before we knew it we were getting the camper ready to move out again. We got on the road at our usual time 8:30 and after an uneventful trip arrived in Des Moines at 10:30. Mid-States were able to get us in right away, so after backing the camper into an empty bay the technician got under the camper and quickly diagnosed the problem, a broken fitting on the brake line. They had NAPA come over to get the broken line and take it back to their place to make a new line. The service manager told us it would be about two before the camper would be done so we unhooked the camper and left. We went to the mall and walked around and had lunch. When we got back to Mid-States I got the bad news, NAPA made the line with the wrong connection on one end, it didn’t work. They had to take it back and redo it, so we didn’t leave Des Moines until 4:30 which put us in Omaha at 7:15.  The good news is the camper has brakes again and we are set up in Gretna, NE.

Wednesday was Eli’s first birthday,he is a cutie. Actually his birthday is today but his party is Saturday.

As we found in Wisconsin with Madyson and Mason, the little ones here, Emily, Isabel and Eli are not so little anymore. We are enjoying being with them.

Today we went out to eat with my uncle and aunt, Ernie & Shirley, to Stella’s, http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/248/1151124/restaurant/Omaha/Stellas-Hamburgers-Bellevue, the hamburger we had was one of the best I have ever had and it was huge. If you are ever in the Omaha area  you have to go there and have a burger.

Well, that is all for now. More to come later.

Remember, Dreams Do Come True.

Colony Country RV Park, North Liberty, IA

Monday, 9/5/11

Today Dick and I went to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, http://www.wisconsinmaritime.org/index.php,

this was something I have wanted to do for quite a few years. We lived in Wisconsin for over thirteen years and never made it to either the Maritime or EAA Museums. No pictures sorry, click on the link to read about the museum.

This is taken from one of the museum’s brochures:

“Shortly before the start of World War II, the U.S. navy was faced with a dilemma. There was only one commercial shipyard then building submarines-the Electric Boat Co. of Groton, CT. After studying the capabilities of various U.S. shipbuilders, the Navy asked the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Co. of Manitowoc, WI to join forces with Electric Boat Co. to increase the nation’s capacity to produce submarines in the quantities that would be needed during the wartime.

In 1940, Manitowoc Shipbuilding Co. was awarded a contract to build ten GATO-class submarines. By war’s end, a total of 73 submarines of that class were built at four shipyards-Electric Boat Co., Portsmouth Navy Yard, Marck Island Navy Yard, and Manitowoc Shipbuilding. In addition to the ten GATO-class subs, and additional 18 BALAO-class submarines were built in Manitowoc for a total of 28 submarines in just over four years.”

There were eighty men on board this boat, I would have never made it, to many people and to little space. The guy who gave the tour did a great job, he was very knowledgeable about the boat and it’s history.

Something I found interesting is how they launched the subs after they built them. Most of the ship launching I have seen pictures of is the back end of the ship or boat goes into the water first, with the subs launched at Manitowoc they were launched side ways into the river. This was done because the river was to narrow to launch them the conventional way.

Dick said he had a surprise for me and just to follow his instructions. It took us a couple times around the block but we finally found, are you ready, the location where a piece of Sputnik IV landed. Yes, that’s right, a piece of Sputnik IV landed in the middle of the street in Manitowoc, WI. Here is a link: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/12959. We didn’t see the piece but I had no idea this happened.

Tuesday, 9/6/11

Dick came down to the campground and we headed for the EAA museum, http://www.airventuremuseum.org/, to see what they had. It was great. There was an airplane on the grounds that Dick nor I knew the type. Here it is;

Anybody know the type?

We spent the entire afternoon going through the museum. They have quite a few interesting displays, here are a few;

Space Ship One, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne, the first private manned space flight.

 Voyager, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_Voyager.

This is the workhorse of WWII. During the Vietnam war they mounted Gatling guns in them and they were called “Puff the Magic Dragon”.

Navy Corsair

This was a car plane.

Replica of the Spirit of St Louis.

It was easy getting in but getting out was a different story.This is the atomic bomb, “The Fat Man”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man

The smallest airplane, I would like to see the person who flew it.

This an interesting airplane. I would love to see this fly.

Wednesday, 9/7/11

Cathy Gerdes asked us to go to the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help by Champion, WI. So today we did that. Here is a link, http://www.shrineofourladyofgoodhelp.com/. A couple of other links, http://www.catholic.org/hf/faith/story.php?id=39511, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine_of_Our_Lady_of_Good_Help.

This was an interesting visit because it is such a spiritual experience. Here are a couple of links to give you an idea of just how bad this fire was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshtigo_Fire

This link gives an eyewitness account of the fire.

http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/wmh&CISOPTR=46445&CISOSHOW=46360

Thursday, 9/8/11

I spent the day cleaning the camper using DriWash n Guard, http://www.dwginternational.com/WebSite/index.htm, it took me most of the day but the camper really looks nice and it will be much easier to clean in the future because all I have to do is wipe it off with a wet towel. This gets the bugs and dirt off of it, then I wipe the area with a dry towel and we have a clean camper. If you would like to order some of the product go to the website listed above and click on the order button and put in my number 288973 and it will take you to the order page. I guarantee you will be happy or I’ll buy the product back from you.

So much for my commercial.

Friday we didn’t do much, just stayed around the camper and relaxed.

Saturday was the wedding. Sarah Ann’s sister got married, she made a beautiful bride.

Mason, all dressed up.

Sarah Ann was Matron of Honor with her sister Tara.Madyson was truly a princess.

Catherine & Greg Jolly

A good picture of the Schneider family with their newest member Greg

Catherine and her mom.

I don’t know where this beautiful lady picked up this old guy.

The wedding was a beautiful event and we appreciate being invited.

A big THANK YOU to Dick and Teri for including us in their life the past 11 days.

We are at the Colony Country RV Park in North Liberty, IA for the next week, we will head for Omaha next Monday for a visit with Daniel and family.

So until later, Remember Dreams Do Come True.