Rocks and Friends

We are in Seneca, Kansas where we planned on watching the eclipse.  (C on map below)

A few days ago, friends invited us to view the eclipse with them from their cabin just north and west of us.

Our drive from our nice campground near Henderson Nebraska (A) was eventful.  We took a rock in the window as we went around Grand Island Nebraska.  A four lane highway was undergoing repairs and narrowed down to a two lane highway.  An oncoming big truck went by us when we heard a very loud Bang!  I looked for a mark on the windshield and my side window but couldn't see any damage.

About 5 minutes after that, there was a very loud Pop! And my driver's side window had cracked into a thousand pieces.  Nothing had fallen out and thankfully we were able to pull into a Walmart with lots of room so we could assess things.

We decided to tape it.  It was the outside of a double paned window, so there is no problem driving it.

I used clear duct tape and went up and down and back and forth to cover the entire window.  I also used Gorilla tape to tape the duct tape to the outside window frame.  We continued our drive from the Walmart to the Prairie Oasis RV Campground near Henderson, NE.  It was about a 40 mile drive and the broken window held up fine.

Once at the campground, we made some calls and assessed our options.  We determined the best one is to stop in at Red Bay in a few weeks on our way to the Knoxville, TN area.  We called and made a reservation at Deaton's Custom Auto Body and Paint for the day after Labor Day.

I'm guessing that it will be about an $800 job unless we can get that single double paned window replaced.  We'll see about it when we get to Albuquerque the end of the week.  We will be there for about a week.

After taking a rock unexpectedly, things got much better.  We continued to our campground - Prairie Oasis Campground and Cabins in Henderson.  It got good reviews on RVparkreviews.com.  We were not disappointed.  It was great.

Patty in the office was great and so was Todd.  We followed him to our campsite which is always nice.  We wanted a site where our satellite dish DirecTV would work and got one.  It was a very pleasant, flat, level and well maintained campground.  Later, Todd came around and made sure we had enough firewood for a little campfire later.  This was free -- it is usually $5 for firewood so this just added to our great impression of the place.  We highly recommend it.

Next stop was here is Seneca, KS.  We snagged a site at the Stallbaumer RV Campground and Cabins.  It looked like a good site and ended up being OK.  We ended up having to park in the drive-through site backwards in order to get a satellite DirecTV connection.  With the Solheim Cup going on, we wanted to see that.

Our satellite dish is on top in the front of the Roadrunner and the tree is just close enough to be in the way.  My electric cord is about a foot short when the coach was pointed in the correct position.  We just could not make it work.  If the pedestal was in the normal position of the campsite, we would have had no problem.  Instead, we turned the Roadrunner around.  Now the hookups were in the wrong position, and we ran them under the belly of the motor home.  It's nice to have options.

We connected with our friends Mark and Alisanne and got together for lunch in Marysville.  That was a fun time and we spent a couple of leisurely hours catching up.  We had camped with their family and ours when we both lived in Fairfax VA in the 1990's.  The joys of this lifestyle and meeting up with friends continues...

And so does some random possibilities.  Bruce emailed me a few days ago and said, "I saw on your blog that you are going to be in our town...maybe we can get together..."  I followed up and we did get to meet them at a local restaurant.  What a nice couple.

She is local bank president and he is a retired and now part time High School teacher.  They have had a number of RVs over the years and will be traveling in their recently purchased 2011 Itasca 42' motor home.   They are NOMADS and look forward to incorporating volunteering into their travels in a couple of years when the have more time for travel.  For now, they take trips, get in touch with random RVing bloggers and let us get to meet them.  Their blog is here.

It was a full, adventurous day and one filled with getting together with new friends and old friends.  Can't beat that!

Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!