Ups and Downs

WoMAN down

Our Grand Daughter, Kristen Collins (Jeff's) after her first High School Cross Country Meet this past Tuesday.  This picture made the paper.  It was SO hot.  I don't know how any of them even finished, but the team missed 1st place by 1 point in the invitational.

We spent the night at an RV park so we could plug in and use the air.  We REALLY needed that.

Sun was up

Tire was down
It was not a good way to start out the day.  It was one of the new back dual tires, so we had to drive 20 miles where they put on a new tire.

We crossed from Iowa to Nebraska.  Traffic was not terrible, but there was a steady flow.


We traveled I80 and stopped at a rest area and saw this Memorial.

This was also at the same rest stop. Who knew?

This is part of the Great Platte Basin

The Archway Museum

We were greeted by this awesome looking sky and a little rain as we got close to Aurora, CO.

 

 

We drove past the Arapahoe Race Track.  This is where one of Jan Hortyk's horses race once in awhile. 

We are settled in front of Tana's and we have had fun catching up with the kids and grandkids.  Poor Barry just got home from work and I think we are all about ready to go to bed.

Sammy

Tana, Kyra, Cooper and Barry

Carter

Collin and Craig

Tomorrow we have a morning football game.

Mid-West Good-byes

It was hard to leave our home state of Indiana this morning.  We had to leave our two sons and their families and many other family and friends.  I'm sure we will be back again, but who knows when that will be.

We first moved to Colorado in 1993.  Someone there asked me where I was "from".  I said I was from the Mid-west.  They quickly corrected me by saying that Colorado was the Mid-west.  Go figure.  So maybe we aren't really leaving the Mid-west at all.

We got a bit of a late start this morning as we wanted to say good-bye to the grand kids before they headed out to school.

We don't like to travel too much more than 300 miles a day.  That's big change from our past as we drove straight through to almost anywhere we went.  We try to get the best gas mileage on this rig and it seems best when we hold it down to 55 - 60.  We also feel that we can better control it at those slower speeds.  BUT, it does seem to take forever to get wherever.

We are back on the west side of the Mississippi (I still say the old rhyme to spell that).  Here are a couple of pics that Craig took for me.

Leaving IL and entering Iowa

Iowa looks a little dry, but the crops are beautiful.

Craig took an hour nap this morning as I was driving, so when it came time to stop for lunch and rest... he wasn't tired.  It was also too hot to sleep in the RV, so we hit the road.  The air conditioning in the cab keeps up pretty well for the front of the RV, but you don't want to burn up gas while sitting still.

We parked in an RV park in Kellogg, Iowa.  We got set up, plugged into the 30 amp (without a hitch), fired up the air conditioner and it's cooling down nicely.  We ate some dinner and messed with the setting on the new Smart TV.  It doesn't seem too smart to me.  My ROKU device used to work on the old TV, but not on this one.  It doesn't like the internet connection.  I'll have to keep working on that when I have more patience.

Craig has gotten pretty good about getting level and all set up in a short amount of time.  Most RV parks have these electrical boxes where you have an option to use 20, 30 or even 50 amp service.

Tomorrow, we will press on to some where around Grand Island, NE and then make it on in to Aurora, CO on Friday night or Sat at the latest.  We imagine the traffic will start getting pretty bad by Friday because of the Holiday, so we plan to press on through if possible.

Enjoy the last few days of August.  September is coming around.  It will be interesting to see how long this heat stays around.

Blessings.

Tear it down, put it back

Craig and I worked with Jeff again today.  We tore out one window, a patio door and a hinged back door.  The object was to replace the patio door with a new window, replace the window with a new patio door and install a new back hinged door.

I didn't get a photo until we already had the siding off and the openings ready for the new products on the back of the house.

 

This is the back door that went on over to the left were Craig was working.

The stained doors leaning in the middle actually go to interior doors.  Here the new window and doors are installed and it's the view from the inside.  We didn't get the siding put back on because we needed to pick up some new, but this is the new doors and windows.

This is the same house with the new kitchen.  I am taking the day off tomorrow, but Craig and Jeff will come back to this place and finish laying floor tile since it will be WAY to hot to work on the siding.

Me?  I'm going to have coffee with some of my old girlfriends.  Then, I will put together some dinner before going to

Kristen's first track meet.  Ty has football practice and Kara cheer leading practice, so it may be a pretty late dinner on our last night here.  Wed, we pull out for Colorado.

Nite all!

Lake Michigan Beach

We took the day off Sunday and went to the beach and then Jeff and Rachel cooked up a great steak dinner followed by Marie's bread pudding.  I would have gone to bed early, but I was too full.

Here's some pics from the day.

Jeff and Ty

Mere Shadow of myself

Ty and Kristen

Jeff and Kathy

Kathy and Craig

Kathy and Todd

Todd looking for Crinoids

Here they are!

We topped off the day with a wonderful steak dinner at Jeff's.  Thanks kids for putting a fun day together!

Saturday in the Park... it's not even the 4th of July

It was a really nice day Saturday and we filled it to the max with activities.  Craig took the Whale in to get the flat tire fixed. It took some doing, but they put on a new tire for a $33 charge for the lifetime guarantee.

While Craig was taking care of the tire and going to a dump station, I went to the laundromat and did three loads of laundry.  I then visited my old good buddy, Bonnie and went by to visit my Aunt Rosie and her friend that is moving to Phoenix, Lorraine.  Her daughter and I grew up together.

We got back to the RV and Craig and Jeff had it set up again in front of Jeff's house, so we made lunch and rested for a few moments until we headed out to the first sporting/cheer leading games of the season.

This is Kara all ready to yell for her team.

Ty is in the lower right hand corner of this picture.

Kristen is running Cross Country on the CP Varsity Team.  She ran almost 7 miles yesterday morning in training.  She had the right idea of how to spend the afternoon.

Three Generations of Collins

Craig, Ty and Jeff

It got to be a long day at the park and resting in the shade became a pretty popular idea.


We rounded off the day with a meal out and then came back to the RV and started rearranging the living area.  We now have part of our sofa and the old bed mattress in Jeff's garage.  We need to get those on Craig's list and we have a few things to bolt back down.  The plan was to rest this morning before going up to the beach.  We'll see how that goes.

Enjoy the day of rest that the Lord has given to us.

First Day of School for Crown Point Schools

I started this blog yesterday, which was Thurs.

Lots went on today.

Jeff and Rachel's three kids had their first day of school.  They are in three different schools this year, so that will be a tough thing.  I remember the two years that our kids went to three schools and we only had one car at the time.

Like any first day of school, there was a lot of stuff going on.  We decided to get a photo and the neighbors dog started running around with the kids dog.  It was all at the last minute, but they made it to school on time.

Kara 6th, Kristen 9th and Ty 4th

The kids were off to school, Rachel went to work and Craig, Jeff and I went over and did painting, tiled a shower and a bathroom floor and started to wrap up one job Jeff has been working on.

We grabbed a bite for dinner with Rachel's new program of cooking lots for a month of meals plan.  It was great.  Then, it was off to Kara's cheer leading practice and Ty's football practice.

Ty, ready for some football.  First game is on Sat.

Kara (middle) warming up for her cheer leading practice. She will cheer for the team that Ty is playing against (or as the kids say these days, "versing")on Sat.  Should make for some fun.

Today (Friday) we went back up to the house that we started helping Jeff with while we were here before.  It's up off 41 and we had totally torn the inside apart while we were here.  Jeff kept working on it during the two weeks we were gone to IL and had the kitchen cabinets all set.  What a really nice space this is going to be.  I posted a video the day we tore it apart.  Jeff took down a couple of walls and built a couple more.

New kitchen cabinets

This customer has a kitchen that's larger than our whole living space in the Whale!  I could have kitchen envy.

The granite counter top for the island was installed today.  The guys came in with this 900 lb, one piece slab made just for the island.  It is really beautiful.

Jeff and Craig were watching the home owner enjoy her new counter top.
We made good progress on this remodel today so the family can start moving back into their kitchen.  There's still lots of work to do there, but we headed back to finish a tile job on the shower and the floor of a basement finish in CP.
Rachel had pizza ready for us when we finally got home.  The only reason that I'm still awake is because I'm typing.

At 8 am in the morning we need to be at Discount Tire to see what they can do with a flat tire that we have on the RV.

Yep, the Whale has a broken fin.