2007 Dutch Star 4320 FOR SALE

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Where’s Mom - Found Mom…

We spent Wednesday night at a KMart.  Thursday we went about 325 miles and arrived in Baltimore.  Carol’s mom went into the hospital that morning via ambulance.  The problem was that no one new that.  After calling the police they told us which hospital she was in.  Carol’s Mom had called 911 thus the police had a record.  Calling the hospital and trying to get verification and information was like going thru a maze.  She was admitted for serious blood clotting yesterday (Thursday morning).  I don’t know the med term.  Her doctor wants her to go on Hospice when she is released next week.  Carol is visiting with her right now (Friday morning).

We weren’t sure about leaving our Escapade responsibilities.  Bob Pinner, Escapade Director, said for us to leave – family first!  Now that we are here it was a 100% right decision to leave Gillette more ways than you can imagine.  Thank you Bob for understanding.  We don’t know if we will be here a couple of weeks or ?????. Everyday questions are coming up and we don’t know until the day arrives.

It’s hot, humid and is suppose to rain off and on for the next 4 days.  We are at Carol’s bro home parked next to his garage.  Carol’s Mom lives here also for now.  We got 50 AMP full hook up.  I got work to get the rig up to where it usually is – pretty.  Washer/dryer motor brushes, install AC shrouds after straightening the AC fins, wash the rig and shine the wheels.  The jeep needs major cleaning too.  Just time and not hard work.

Again thanks for all the concerned emails.

See ya……

Thank you

Wow, I can’t even start to answer all the emails we got concerning Carol’s Mom.  I will answer everyone but for now I will say from us to you,  Thank You very much.

Monday we drove 500 miles.  Tuesday we went 600 miles.  We were ordered to leave a Sears parking lot at 2:30 AM.  We left after the police showed up and we had some fun jokes with them (police).  The police liked it when I said that we have been kicked out of better places. They also said they have never had a problem with RVers and enjoy talking to them.  I like talking to the police but 2:30 was a little early after a 600 mile day.  We went on down the road and ran into a horrific rain storm.  I got the rig washed by Blue Beacon earlier that day.  We went onto Elkhart.  Wednesday we got our brushes for the motor in the washer/dryer from Splendide.  Then is was to the RV Store that we got a Euro chair back in October.  The Euro chair was falling apart.  They replaced it with a new one.  Wow.  We went on down the road late Wednesday morning and got another 425 miles in and more rain.  Tomorrow we will have about 350 miles to Baltimore and Carol’s Mom.

We are rolling………

See ya…..

Surprise Surprise….

We are in Sioux Falls, SD.  Yes we are.  Carol’s Mom went into the emergency room yesterday morning (Sunday) and she refused treatment.  She’s back home in Columbia, (Baltimore), Maryland and we are in route.  Carol couldn’t really focus on work nor could I because of her concerns.  Mama ain’t happy nobody is happy.  Amen!  Family comes first so we left this morning with the blessing of Bob Pinner and I’m sure of all the staff.  I really would have liked to have worked that Escapade job but it wasn’t meant to be.

We also learned that we had hail damage to all three of our roof AC’s.  All of the shrouds have to be replaced.  They’re missing the rear portion from the hail.  Plus the fins on all three ACs have to be bent straight.  I will call Newmar tomorrow to see if they have them in stock and if so will stop in route.

The blog will not be out everyday.   

See ya…….

Rain, Wind & Hail And Then Some

It came…….. oh boy did it!

The white stuff on the ground is hail. 

The wind got this tree in front of us.  Most people put in their slides before the storm hit and it was very appropriate. 

It rained the day before and a few FMCA’ members got stuck.  I think tomorrow there will be more.  I will try and catch a few pictures of the departure of FMCA.

We are ready for the Escapade to start.   The next 10 days will be great weather and everything will be dry again.

See ya all……..

Can You Say Downsize!

The RV Show opened up here at the FMCA rally.  We  looked, looked and looked some more.  How about a Winnebago 36M special order.  Maybe or maybe not.  Can they meet OUR concrete terms?  Lazydays couldn’t.  Stay tuned.

See ya…

Escapade Prepping

Carol & I went to Village Inn for breakfast.  It was just OK.  Probably wouldn’t go back by ourselves.

Not a whole bunch going on as far as prepping for the Escapade.   Carol & I organized the Escapade shirts.  Not hard work but necessary to make things a little easier down the road.  All the staff really start cranking up around Thursday/Friday time frame.  Then it’s balls to the walls while FMCA is moving out.

The FMCA is in full swing.  Over a 1,000 rigs came into today to include the vendors.  It’s an organized cluster.  They are packing them in.

Late afternoon we got rain then very high winds. 

See ya…..

Another Prep Day

Well, FMCA is really packing them in here at the Camplex (fairgrounds) here in Gillette.  They have a parking force that looks like a small Army.  You can’t look anywhere and not see a parking team in waiting.

We did some work in the Escapade office catching up on new details.  Everything is going smoothly and well ahead of the game.

Sharon & Don are here for the FMCA rally.  I believe Sharon is giving a seminar and hopefully some RV driving lessons.  We went out to dinner at the Old Chicago restaurant.  What a great time.  We all came back to a small social at our rig area.  I think Sharon & Don really liked meeting the staff that they already knew.

Another day without the washer/dryer.  I talked to Splendide and will again tomorrow with more information for them like how many times the idiot light blinks on the thing.

See ya…..

Eat Some More

The morning started with a walk to the Elks across the street for breakfast.

It was eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuit/gravy, pancakes and fruit.  Of course coffee, milk, orange juice and pastries all for $7.  Beat that!

Our washer/dryer is not working so Carol went into town to do the laundry for us.  I watched NASCAR.  About the time she got back the girls started fixing dinner.  Us guys had to do some beer tasting to ensure we didn’t give beer Mark (new name for Mark the beer maker) any bad beer when he arrives.  We share ours with him as he does his with us…. oh boy, oh boy….

The Geeks stopped by to share stories and wine.  Then it was time for dinner

We even worked today but this blog isn’t about work.

See ya…..

Ride Um Cowboy

We all went to Buffalo for breakfast 

and then to Kaycee for a hometown rodeo.  I can only put a limited numbers of pictures on the blog so these are the best of the best.  I took over 1,000 pictures and most where pretty dog on good.  So hold on to your horses…..

See ya….!!!!!!!!

We Are Here

Isn’t this guy saying goodbye to us?

Moose don’t care…..

We left the Tetons Thursday morning as planned.  It was a nice beautiful drive.  Traffic was scarce across route 26 east to Casper.  When we arrived at the Passport America park it was windy as hell.  The last 50 miles was a head wind.  That was a change for the tailwind since California.  Anyhow, the park was full and it was only 1:30.  Well we figured we would just go north towards Gillette until we found some place to spend the night.  Well, 100 miles later we were in Gillette.  The Walmart was full so we went to KMart.  It was empty.  First we went to Flying J here and diesel was $3.80 with discounts.  Easy in and out for us.

Bob & Molly Pinner and Wanda & Wallace Lewis, the Escapade Directors and Assits,  came over later to greet us and welcomed us to Gillette.  We had our water guns in the ready just in case.  The wind did not quit and we got some rain.  The Beast is just about the dirtiest it’s been in a long long time.  Oh well. 

Friday…..we were up early and headed for the Camplex.  Camplex is a new word for a modern fairgrounds.  We are parked with Bob & Molly, Wanda & Wallace and Mark & Dortha, our bosses for the Escapade.  Later the Advance staff/crews for the FMCA rally started to come in.  WOW…..a lot of rigs.  I was told to expect about 2,200 rigs.  Wow, that’s a lot of rigs.  It looks like what it is.  A lot of rigs.  Their rally starts next week and we all are parked right in the middle of their staff.  They all seem pretty nice and of course we are.  We wear are Escapee shirts and name tags.  We do get some looks.

Our team is organizing the plan of attack when FMCA leaves on Sunday the 23rd.  It’s mostly muscle work left now and just some paperwork to update.  The others have really been on the ball getting everything done at least as much as possible.  We are ready to greet the Escapade Staff the 27th.

See ya…….

The Grand Teton & Yellowstone NPs

Campsites are not big at least not for a 43’ here in the lower Tetons.  They put us in a site for a 42 footer that we couldn’t fit into it.  They said take any site that we  felt we could fit.  We did and we kinda fit at an angle with the table and fire pit on the opposite site.  Hey, we’re in.  With the Golden Access card the site was $10.50 no hook ups.  We could have gotten  a full hook up but it was $45 a night and ONLY $35 with the Golden Access.  We thought about it for about a split second and declined.  They were big sites, full hook up, 50 AMP, paved and all that stuff.

Cell service is patchy along with the MiFi internet.  I got the blog out so it’s OK for being out in the Tetons.  Plus we got sat TV so what the hell!  We are in the sun and in the edge of trees.  We left the inverter on (12.8 V) when we went to bed at 10 PM.  I got up at 6 AM and we were still at 12.8 V.  We didn’t run the heat and the outside temp was 43 degrees and inside was 63 degrees.  The campground is about 75% filled.  You can run your generators from 8AM to 8PM but with our solar we don’t need to at least our first day/night.

The same moose was out and about 6:30 AM this morning.  Since I got about 50 pictures of him yesterday I saw no need to get any more.  I got to watch the 4-5 photographers taking pictures of the moose.  They were more entertaining.

We went thru the Tetons via Park Road north and up to Yellowstone too.  About 200 miles with a bunch of stops (Jeep).  We took over 200 pics so it was hard choosing only a few but here we go.

Our rig is just to the right.  That is The Grand Teton in the background

If you look real good you can see the antelope on the left that I’m shooting.

And here it is a little closer….love that 500 mm lens.

 

Near Deadman’s boat launch.  Walt can test his new brakes here…at least once.

Whew…what a long day.  Tomorrow we go south on the Teton Park Road.