North Platte, NE

We finished up with our service center visit on Tuesday.  Paid our bill and purchased the cute table we had our eyes on.  The table fits nicely between our chairs.  Tuesday afternoon we took the factory tour and saw some of the new changes to the new models which are a good thing in our opinion.  Tuesday night, all four couples having work done met at Pizza Hut for dinner which was a lovely way to spend the evening. 

Wednesday morning we were still undecided as to whether to head towards Lincoln to stay at a campground  for a few days or just head towards North Platte.  After saying our goodbyes, we decided to go with the wind and headed towards North Platte.  We decided to hang out in North Platte for a week as the Custer area is having snow and rain showers.  Not too anxious to get in to that.  Our decision actually proved to be a good choice as the Lincoln area is having severe weather this evening along with tornado watches.

Smith Center, KS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MELISSA!!!!

We made it to the Excel Service Center late Friday afternoon and spent the weekend  backed up to one of the service bays.  Come Sunday afternoon, three other rigs rolled in to join us.  Another case of water intrusion due to lack of maintenance, a broken frame at the pin box, and several other issues with slides.  We almost feel guilty because we really don't have any "issues" but are here for a few small warranty items, preventative maintenance and to have a couple of items we want installed.    

We were up at 5 a.m. to shower and have breakfast before having to be out of the rig by 6:30 a.m.  Good heaven's . . . it was still dark outside.  Our list of items isn't very long so we may only be here a day or two.  We met with our technician and went over the items that were on our list.  Once that was done, we discussed some concerns of ours regarding maintenance.  We doing as much as possible to avoid experiencing the results of water intrusion ($$$) so John discussed what we've done and what we are planning on doing.  Our technician told John that we were on the right track and that we were ahead of the curve regarding the maintenance of our rig when compared to most RV owners.  Steve said that it was always amazing at how people who once owned homes and did regular maintenance on them, spend all this money on a  RV and then do nothing and then are surprised when they have problems.  I guess it pays to be anal . . .  err detail oriented.  

If our bill doesn't break the bank, we have our eye on a cute cherry colored folding table that could sit nicely between our two chairs and fit nicely with our decor.   Oh, oh.  The deal is if something comes in, something must go.  We'll have to give that some thought.   

Still hanging out at Wilson Lake

We've had a few decent days with which to enjoy the sun but the wind does blow daily.  Yesterday was the first day where we just had a slight breeze until late afternoon.  The Park Attendants have arrived for their summer shifts.  We spoke with one, Gary, who has his fifth wheel all tethered down to lag bolts in his site.  He confirmed that the wind really blows here.  He said that us visitors get to leave but they have to stay through all the bad weather.  Doesn't sound like my kind of job for the summer.  I get incredibly tired of the wind pretty quickly.

One nice morning, we got our inflatable pontoon boat out to put on the South Dakota tags so that we are legal when we want to use it.  Here's a picture of our SeaEagle Foldcat - looking at the stern to the bow.

The taller seat will be in the back for John to steer the electric motor and the short seat is well for the short one (me). 

While we had the boat out, John couldn't resist taking it out for a row as we had a nice little beach area where we could easily reach the water.

 John hadn't rowed anything since he was a kid so it was a bit of a challenge.  When he was coordinated, the boat went smoothly along.  It won't take him long to get the hang of it.  The oars are for backup should our battery die before we are done fishing or get back to shore.  Good thing we don't have neighbors because John and I sat on the seats out in the sunshine and talked for a while . . .  our neighbors would surely have thought we had a few screws loose.  Then again, maybe they'd be right!  We are looking forward to getting the boat out to do some fishing once we get to Custer and the weather improves.

Last night the thunder and lightning started around 2 a.m.  When I heard the first rumblings, I jumped up and got with deploying our satellite dish - don't want to encourage a lightning strike.  John slept through all of this until the big claps of thunder started in.  The thunderstorms kept on until almost 9 a.m. with more to come tonight.  Oh, goody.

John called me to our kitchen window to see that the pair of Canada Geese that hang out here were behind our rig along with a Cattle Egret.  First time we've seen anything other than the geese in the area.  He was rather pretty with all of his plumage blowing in the wind.

There haven't been many people camping here while we have been here.  A few rigs did come in for the weekend just past.  One of the rigs belonged to a couple with a Aliner Sportliner.  This unit is a bit smaller than the Aliner LXE we owned.  We had a total of 72 square feet of living space so I know they have even less.  Since A frame RV's are near and dear to our hearts, you would have to know that John would have a conversation with one of the owners.  Now get this, they are full-time RVers in this:

We did great on two-week vacations in the summer or weekend trips in the winter but to live full-time in one - crazy.  The couple were avid geocachers and were gone all day every day.  Now, I have no idea what they were doing, (laundry, grocery shopping, geocaching) but being gone every day all day seems like work to me. Also, these units have only a porta-potty and no shower.  The showers here won't open until May 1 so I guess military showers were the order of the day.  They were parked near the vault toilets.  I did comment to John that I know how small their refrigerator is and wonder how in the world they do it.  I complain about our 8 cu foot refrigerator not being big enough sometimes and theirs is only a 3 cu foot. Clothing and food storage?  Mercy.   My hat goes off to them because I know I couldn't live full-time in one.  They give a new meaning to the world minimalist.