World United States Wisconsin Portage

Bill and Helen's Fulltime Travels Here we go again and again

Catching up Sep 3, 2009

We had such a wonderful time when we were in Sioux Falls and when we continued on into Minnesota we followed the corn fields to the county park where Bill’s sister Elaine and her husband Arlis live… We had a delightful time with them just gabbing and eating the great dinner Elaine had fixed for us…. Early the next morning we all left to go to Willmar for an appointment with the staff at the nursing home where Bill’s mom lives.. We got there just in time to take Mom out to lunch before the meeting and then come back to good reports on her health… It was hard leaving this time as we knew we wouldn’t be back until next summer…

We got about half way back to the Dakotah Meadows Campground, where we had reserved a spot for one more night, when we heard a loud bang… To me it sounded like a gunshot. Bill thought the motor blew up in the truck but our Pressure Pro tire monitor started screaming and we knew that we had a blow-out on the trailer tire…. Now this was not fun at all. We called our Good Sam road emergency number and they said they would have a tire rescue truck to us within an hour… They asked if we just wanted to have them put the spare on or should they bring us a new tire… We told them to go ahead and bring a new tire since our time was running short in Minnesota…. Well we sat in the hot sun in the middle of a soybean field along a very busy highway until the repair truck got here… They mounted the new tire on the rim and a couple of hours later and $300.00 lighter in the pocket we finally drove the last 50 miles to the park…. Once we got settled at our camp site, Bill checked the tires and found that the new one was popping right off the rim… Scaaaary…. Early the next morning we were at a tire store having four new tires put on our house… The dealer recommended that we put on the Michelin tires which we did. By noon we had lightened the pocket by another $1000.00 and were finally on our way to the opposite side of the Metro where our kids live. It was Friday and our last weekend with the kids.. We got to the Lake Elmo Preserve that we always stay at only to find out that there weren’t any sites available except in the horse park and that didn’t even have electricity. We knew that we could have used our generator but since we do not carry the big generator, it would not run the air conditioner so we went a few miles away to a private campground that is quite pricy. They had a place for us but did not have any sewer hook-ups… That wasn’t a big problem since we would only be there for four nights so we got all set up and went out to stock up on some of the grocery items we like that we can not find once we get out of Minnesota. The rest of the weekend was spend visiting, eating and having a good time with our kids…. I even had the fun of going to my daughters and have her color my hair…. Not only saved me some $$ but I was able to have some girl time with Coleen. She is getting ready to move to Montana and has boxes packed all over the house but she still took the time to do something for her mom… Thanks Honey.

When the tire blew on the trailer, there was 80# of air that had to go somewhere and in our case it went to the under belly of the trailer; blowing out the bolts that were holding the cover on…. Bill spend a good part of the weekend getting that fixed up and although it is not what he likes, it is up enough to get us to Indiana where we can have it fixed like it should be. … While looking at the new tires though, we saw a stamp on the side that told the maximum axle weight these tires can carry and it was not quite enough for the 7000# axles we have on the Big Sky…. We were not comfortable with that at all….

Monday was the day we had our Doctor appointment’s for our annual check-up and another years prescriptions …. Both of our Doctors are about 35-40 miles away from the camp ground we were at so we had to leave early to get thru all the morning traffic… Our appointment’s weren’t until 10:30 and we could not eat or drink anything before the blood tests were done… That made us quite crabby by the time we got through the metro…. We survived through and as soon as we were finished we headed out to get a bite to eat….. We did stop for coffee on the way though…When we are in Minnesota we always go to Caribou Coffee instead of Starbucks since that has always been our favorite. Sure wish they would come to Florida.

We had been in touch with the trucking company that put the faulty tire on when we had the blow out and they told us to bring it back so after lunch we drove about another 70 miles to that tire shop…. They were real nice people and said they would be sending us a refund for the faulty tire as soon as the Goodyear rep came in to see it… He said that without a doubt, there was a flaw in this tire….. On the way home from that tire shop, we stopped at the one that put the four new Michelin’s on and told them that those tires were not heavy enough for our trailer…. They were so nice to us and said they would order new ones in that would be more than adequate for our weight and we could come in the next day for them… Tuesday morning we went all the way back across town to the West side and got four new correct F rated Carlisle tires installed… They gave us a full refund on the Michelins and charged us about twenty bucks more per tire for the heavier duty ones. We were very happy with their service… Oh I forgot to tell you that this was the Discount Tire Stores. This particular one was in Shakopee, MN. Nice people…

O.K. We are finally on our way….. It was great to spend the summer close to much of our family but the urge to hitch up and move was getting really bad. …. By now it was afternoon and we had a long way to go to get to Portage, WI. to see Randy and Robin before we head out for the winter.... We couldn’t bring ourselves to drive across the entire Metro area again so this time we headed south on I-35 then turned SE thru Rochester, MN and joined up with I-90 just before we arrived in La Crosse, WI…. By the time we reached La Crosse, we were tired and hungry so we found a Good Sam Park that sounded nice to us… What an understatement… It was one of the nicest parks we have stayed at… It is along the backwaters of the Mississippi River in a beautiful setting…. We had tons of room and the park wasn’t real full this night…. We called the kids and told them we were still 100 miles away but too tired to go on that night…… After having a nice homemade dinner of hot dogs and potato salad we went out to see the park……. As I got to the waters edge I looked across and spotted a bald eagle in the tree… It was such a nice surprise….. I am so glad that the population is increasing again.. If you are ever in the area of La Crosse, Wisconsin we highly recommend the Pettibone Resort. You’ll be glad you stopped.

Yesterday morning the river was a beautiful steamy sight because of the cold nights we have been having lately…. I just had to take some more pictures to share with you….

We finally continued on our way to Portage, stopping at all rest stops to re-torch the lug nuts….. They get a little less loose each time but we will continue to check for awhile longer… In fact, that is something that we check quite often, as well as the pressure in our tires… Of course with the Pressure Pro monitoring system we can do that by just pushing a button inside the truck…. Spoiled aren’t we?

As soon as we arrived at the Sky High RV Park we unhitched the truck and went the few blocks to Randy and Robins house… Randy was home for lunch and Robin promptly fixed us a wonderful meal also… Randy soon went back to work and Robin and I went to our house so I could finish setting up… Bill headed for the gas station since our low fuel light had been warning us for a long time that we were almost empty.

We had a wonderful time with Robin that afternoon and as soon as Randy finished work, we all went out for a Mexican dinner… Before we got there though, we went by the kid’s neighbor’s corn field and I had never seen such tall corn… We stopped and I had my picture taken inside the corn field.. Wow, It was way over my head… That would make a wonderful corn maze this fall…

The Mexican restaurant that we went to was delicious. … It also had some of the neatest décor I have seen. It was so busy that I couldn’t get a lot of pictures but I did get a couple so you can get the idea.

The kids came by about 7am this morning to say good-bye and to have a cup of our good coffee that I make in the Keurig individual cup pot… That stuff is as good as any Caribou or Starbucks and sure costs a lot less.

We said our good-byes and off we went…. Our destination was the Indiana National Seashore on Lake Michigan just around the corner from Chicago… It was only about a 200 mile drive but …. We drove 355 miles just to avoid going through downtown Chicago with our big house… We have driven that route in a car many times and it was awful… If you don’t speed up to 90 mph you get run over… We did not want to fight the semi’s since they are still bigger than we are so we went all the way down , over and back up on the Indiana side instead of straight across through Illinois… We were really beat when we arrived at the Michigan City Campground Resort but we are here for a week and already like the park and the location… We will relax tonight and start our vacation tomorrow… We plan on just being tourists and unwinding for the next week… Stay tuned…. I’ll tell you all about it…….Later………..