Updates for June-August

It's been a while for an update. This is Memorial Day weekend and we plan to have a cook out on Monday with some folks from the Rec Center at the campground. Speaking of the campground I guess everyone already had reservations. We had one camper the entire weekend! The weather has been crazy. Yesterday we had wind gusts up to 70mph and a lot of smoke and ash from fires hundreds of miles away. The awning hasn't been out for a week now because of the persistent winds. I'm starting to think this valley is like a wind tunnel and we'll just have to get used to it.

Kathy has found places to volunteer although not as many as in North Carolina. We have found a small church. The Community United Methodist Church has an average Sunday morning attendance of around 45-60 people. Every one is very friendly and we enjoy going there. Unlike Saline and Wilmington there is only one traditional service. It is really like a small family there. It's interesting that in both places, Carbondale and Wilmington both Pastor's are women. We heard all about the Annual UM Conference at the last service. The high points and low points.

Bill is doing good. The pool opened yesterday (Saturday) and attendance was so so with the weather. Bill said they had about 20-25 people. Today they had about 10 although its probably 15 degree's cooler today too, in the low 60's. He's been very busy get personnel hired and getting everything ready. Daisy (Bill's yellow lab) has become a play buddy of Chewie. We usually get Daisy from Bill's apartment in the afternoon and bring her over to the campground.  Generally Bill comes over for dinner and then we all go to the dog park to wear both of the dogs out.

Nikki got good news at her job. They are re-aligning her district so she covers the city of Wilmington and area's surrounding. It mean considerable less driving for her and hopefully consistent sales volume. She just got back from ten days in Italy with a customer. It was an all expense paid trip she won due to her sales.

Ah the truck....its a good thing I like it and want to keep it. A new muffler system is in the picture over the next couple of weeks. I swear they have all components built to be replaced in 5-6 years. And nothing is cheap on a heavy duty diesel! But from another perspective, we have another 2-3 years (before it gets traded in) of worry free time...well maybe ;)

Sunday, June 3rd I'm flying to scenic Newark, NJ for a consulting job and will be back late Monday night night June 3rd. Unlike Detroit there is no way out of here timely. Closest airport is Eagle, Co. I'm driving to Denver Sunday morning (3 hrs) to catch a 12:30 p.m. flight :(.

The last weekend in June, Steve and Suzanne are meeting us half way with Bill's furniture (in storage in their basement) in DesMoines, IA. Yup, their crazy too!  Who drives 10 hours on Saturday, moves contents from one trailer to another and goes home on Sunday?  That would be us!

The following weekend (7/6) we leave Carbondale and will be driving to Grand Island, NE for Saturday and Rock Island, IL on Sunday. We'll stay there until Wednesday 7/11 and then will be driving to Marshall, MI (Turkeyville) to spend the weekend with Steve and Suzanne.

We'll be in Saline, MI Sunday, July 15th through approximately August 15th and then will be off to Massachusetts to see Kathy's family. We plan to be there until September 5th. We'll work our way down to Delaware to visit some friends the following weekend and plan to be back in Wilmington, NC around the middle of September.

Our plan next year is much simpler - September 2012 thru March 2013, North Carolina.
Work our way across the south, up through Arizona and get to Carbondale, CO on May 1st. We plan to be Camp Host at this campground next summer too.