At Home Base in Tennessee

Well, our stay in Missouri was pretty short. We did make a trip to Independence to the Truman Library and Museum. In addition to the usual, they had a temporary display of a model White House. I think it was almost 50' long and was accurate to the fineals on the chandilears and lights on the Christmas trees. This was a very interesting and educational stop. While we did enjoy our visit and had planned more activities in the area, Loretta called her daughter's house here in Tennessee for a visit. But she got the bad news that daughter Sharon was in the hospital with pneumonia and complications. So we decided to cut our visit short and head here. We did overnight in Sikeston, MO so we could dine at Lambert's (Home of the "Throwed Rolls"). The ride through the Ozarks was beautiful with the fall colors.

We arrived here late on Sunday and as we were pretty tired decided to wait till Monday to go to Columbia and visit Sharon. We found her pretty well bruised (I guess she had broken a blood vessel in a coughing spell) and hurting but she said she was much improved. Looking at earlier photos, I had to agree. We got settled in here and made several visits to the hospital this week as well as some shopping. There was a booth in the Wal-Mart in Columbia describing the upcoming Medicare Prescription Drug plan. This was provided by Humana Insurance which appears to have the lowest cost coverage available. So I took advantage of that to get more information so that hopefully by the time we can register for that we will be ready.

Yesterday we brought Sharon home from the hospital to finish her recuperation here. I understand she will need 24 hour a day care, but sure she is glad to be home after almost 3 weeks in the hospital.

OH YES, one final thing. The mail that had NOT arrived in Bloomington did not catch us in Missouri either. I have no idea the holdup, but hopefully it will either be forwarded to us here or returned here. Either way we will get it - I HOPE.

Weather is beautiful but most mornings have had frost in the meadow. Supposed to warm up a bit now but has been in 60's most days.

Andy and Loretta

Parked at our Fleetwood Travelcade Club friend's near Flint, MI 

Now in Adrian, MO

Good Morning;

We have had a busy couple of weeks. From DuQuoin, IL we went to the Fleetwood Travelcade Club rendezvous in Bloomington, IL. On the way there, we spent one night visiting Road Angels Truck Center near Brownstown, IL. A lot of changes since our last visit there. As the ground was quite wet in the campground which still needs lots of work, they parked us on the blacktop next to the building with 20 Amp electric and water available. Before leaving there Loretta did some of out laundry also.

We arrived at Interstate Conference Center near Bloomington where we parked and got set up. Then I remembered that we should have dumped. One of the others had a Blue Tank which we used to dump enough to hold us till the scheduled Pump-out. There was only one fresh water hydrant for the entire parking area, so we also filled our fresh water tank to be sure we could have water when needed. I was in charge of the Radio Talk-in, so scouted out a location and made sure that I had workers available - only had to handle one 2 hour shift myself.

As usual we had a good time at the rendezvous. There was always something to do and the evening entertainment was excellent. I took the tour to Caterpillar Manufacturing in Peoria where we toured the Track Vehicle assembly plant. Very impressive watching those giant earthmovers coming together. Another day we both took the tour to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, IL. This is new since our last visit to Springfield and was very interesting. Our bus driver took us to a Ryan's Restaurant where we had lunch. Then when boarding the bus again, he informed us that the nut holding the alternator pulley had come off and it would be over an hour before another bus could come to continue our tour. However we had another group that was doing a different route and were now at the Lincoln Museum for several hours. He arranged for that bus to come for us and after transferring the belongings from the other group to our bus, we then boarded theirs to continue the tour. On the way back to the fairgrounds we stopped at the Funk house and rock museum. The house was built by the founder of the Funk Seed Company. And he had also built a museum containing one of the best (if not the best) rock collections in the world. Both were very informative and educational.

Fleetwood Company provided food for our Welcome Social and the Catered Dinner - both excellent. The Ice Cream Social was supplied by and insurance company that was also one of our vendors. Fleetwood also had service technicians on site for 3 days to address minor repairs. They secured some loose ceiling fabric in our trailer and adjusted one of our slide our rooms. We enjoyed visiting with many old friends and making many new ones there. I think there were more First-Timers at this rendezvous than any we had ever attended. This is good as attendance has been falling off. They were off somewhat there also due to the high fuel prices at this time.

We had mail sent there which was not in on Tuesday. So we waited till the Post Office opened on Wednesday before getting hooked up to travel. NO, the mail still wasn't in, so I filled out a Change of Address form. We drove just over 300 miles on Wednesday through a part of the country we had never been in. So it was an interesting trip. By early evening, we started to look for a place to park for the night. We stopped to see what might be available in Carollton, MO and were told that we might find something in several towns not too far away. As I went back to the truck, a policeman came by and said "I can find a place for you here". He led us to the City Park where the VFW has donated a very nice RV parking area where the fee is only $5.00. They are full hookup sites that are very level side to side. Not too level front to back, but we didn't have to unhook to get a good nights sleep.

I walked the path in the Park before getting ready to leave Thursday morning. The cell phone that we had for several years had died in DuQuoin. The Verizon agent there was unable to make it work again and could not help us get a new one as we were out of our area. We had gone to Carbondale, IL where we called Verizon in Rochester, NY and they said the store there could help us. However the only phones they had were too expensive for us. In Bloomington, I had called the Verizon store, but the representative there was rather rude to me. He said that "They could NOT program a phone for us" and would not even consider talking to me about it. So Thursday we went to the Verizon store in Lees Summit, MO. They were very helpful, and after getting Rochester, NY on my phone were able to help us out. However they did not have the phone I wanted in stock either. So we got another Samsung phone that I do not like as well as those we have had in the past.

On the way to Adrian, MO we made a stop at the Flying J in Peculiar for fuel, propane and lunch. $350.00 to top the fuel tanks. Glad we can set a while now. We then came to the home of Loretta's sister and her husband near Adrian. They have a full-hookup site for us. Thursday we did basic setup and dumped tanks then visited into the evening. Yesterday I finished the setting up for a stay of a while and we made a trip to Harrisonville for some shopoing, etc. Not sure how long we will be staying here, but expect a few weeks as of now.

Till Later
Andy and Loretta