Nancy got back to Tucson late on Saturday 4/30. Sunday we picked up and went out for an early dinner at La Parilla Suiza with Karen and Gary.
Hit the road Monday morning May 2nd. There have been several days of high winds and they have closed I-10 between Benson and the New Mexico line several time over the last few days due to dust storms. We decided to take a slower route up through the mountains instead of risking issues with the dust storms.
A really pretty drive uo through Oracle, Globe and Show Low. The truck really performed well in the mountains, especially through Salt River Canyon.
Stopped in Show Low for lunch at Jalapeño Cafe. Picked it because of the large parking lot, but it turned out to be a great place to eat.
Long day on Monday, 10 hours on the road and stopped at Enchanted Trails just west of Albuquerque late in the evening.
Had an e-mail from Riverfront Chrysler Tuesday morning - our Jeep has arrived and we can pick it up on Friday. Yeah!
Off again early on Tuesday and another long day, 10 hours again and stopped at Rockwell RV Park in Oklahoma City. We decided to take it a bit easier on Wednesday and decided to stop in Missouri instead of pushing on into Illinois. May have to seek out another RV park in this area as Rockwell is getting a bit pricy, $45 with a Good Sam discount!
Found a nice little Passport america campground, Pheasant Acres in St James Mo. Small and nice, but a bit tight for our rig, lots of trees. They had one pull through that we fit in and I managed to back out of it and onto the road in the morning to avoid contact with trees.
Thursday we went on to the Big Rock Campground in Kane County. Nice place with large sites, very few RVs. Only drawback is no sewer hook-ups so we need to be judicious with our water to minimize moves to the dump station.
Friday morning we stopped at the bank and picked up checks for both cars and then over to Riverfront Chrysler. After a fair amount of time doing paperwork there was a lull and I had left my license plate in the truck, so I started to walk out to get it. Our Wrangler was sitting in the delivery area now and I looked it over. OH NO! It has full doors! Not the half doors I ordered. Back inside I told the salesman and there was a bit of a panic as they tried to figure out what happened. Turns out that line was missed when they put in the factory order!
This was a deal killer as the only reason we had to special order was to get the half doors - a non negotiable item! They offered “several hundred dollars” additional discount, but I would never be happy with full doors. They are going to reorder, said they could put a rush on the order and have it here in about three weeks.
Very disappointing after I had been anticipating it all week, but our original schedule had us arriving here on May 25th, so it’s not the end of the world.
Off to pick up Nancy’s new smart tomorrow morning.
Saturday 5/7 to Saturday 5/14
Stopped by Joan’s first thing in the AM then over to Mercedes Benz of Orland Park, one town over to pick up the smart. Took about two hours to get through all the paperwork, but the smart is exactly as advertised, 54 miles on the clock! We are really pleasantly surprised with this car. Only two years newer than the old one, but the ride and handling are substantially improved. Might be the performance tires and fancy Brabus wheels, but there seems to have been some suspension upgrades as well. Nancy really likes it.
Really pretty yellow and black CityFlame Edition, Nancy has named it Dumbledore! Trying to figure why to has been sitting unsold for three years. Finally decided it was the original cost. The base price was $12,490 but the CityFlame Edition added almost $5,200 to the window sticker! Yeah, it included everything added on the Passion models plus specially trimmed leather seats and black Brabus wheels, but that still seemed a bit rich. Lucky for us though since we picked up brand new car for the price of used one!
Spent the rest of the day at Joan’s then back to Big Rock to the campground. We’re about the same distance from her house as our old house in Geneva was.
Monday we went back to Joan’s and spent the night as we wanted to go over with Joan Tuesday morning and help her while the movers packed up their Mom’s apartment. There was a bit of a hassle as the facility staff decided to clean out the apartment on Friday without giving any notice to Joan! Several things were lost or damaged in the process, but after a fair amount of back and forth Joan and Nancy managed to get adequate compensation for the missing/and damaged items since they were still paying rent through May 13th!
Nothing of any consequence happening the rest of the week. Weather has been nasty, off and rain most of the week and heavy rain all night Thursday. On Friday evening we went to our close friend’s Ruth Ann and Ed’s house for dinner along with our other close friends Patt and John. Had a really nice evening catching up on things and an outstanding dinner!
On Thursday when I paid the next 7 days rent I asked the camp host if we really needed to move at the end of 14 days. The rule is you can only stay here 14 out of 21 days. We were planning on moving to another forest preserve campground about 20 miles north for 7 days before coming back here for another two weeks, then moving to Northern Indiana for another 3 weeks. He said yeah, we need to go out for 7 days.
Then just as we were leaving for dinner Friday evening he came by and said he talked to his boss. Turns out they need another campground host to be on duty overnight in case a camper needs assistance. On duty from 11 PM to 7 AM and all you have to do is be available if needed. He also said that has never actually happened! Only need to commit for a month and as compensation we get a free site and we don’t have to leave for that 7 days! Hey, that’s a no brainer! We can stay for six weeks. Will meet with the Forest Preserve Ranger on Monday. Should be a slam dunk since we are already Kane County Forest Preserve volunteers and have been for years.
Saturday the weather was downright nasty. High of 48 with a 15 to 20 mile an hour wind all day (and all last night!) Supposed to be in the low 30’s tonight! We huddled inside and watched movies.
