Swans 'n Smorz

It was a little windy yesterday but still a very nice day.  We can tell the temperature is going down a few degrees and it seems as if the days are getting a little shorter, too.  The longest day of the summer is already over...

I ran again and it felt pretty good.  I remember why I used to run a lot.  I enjoy it and feel better.  As long as I take it slow and stretch a lot, I should be in good shape.

Then, we each ran a few errands during the late morning.  I did some things online and then went to check to see if my car wax/polishing kit arrived.  Sure enough, it is here so I will have my work cut out for me for the next few days.

It was such a nice afternoon, I spent time out back by the lake.  I am reading James Michener's The Journey:  A Quest for Canadian Gold.   It is a historical novel of the Canadian wilderness around the end of the 19th century.  How about you?  What are you reading?

While reading I saw a couple of swans nearby.  They were really close since the lady a few campsites away was feeding them bread.  It was windy and I saw something I hadn't seen before, the swan was bowing out his wings to catch the wind.

Pretty interesting and beautiful.

While I was enjoying that, Pam was fixing another spectacular meal.  She worked on a recipe for quinoa, and also cooked some squash and baked some fish with bell peppers and spices.

The fish and squash were good and altho the quinoa was very tasty it wasn't one of our favorites.

After dinner, I went outside again and started another campfire.  When I got it going pretty good, Pam arrived with the smorz.  Not sure when the last time was that we had smorz.

We got our extendable prongs and loaded up the marshmallows, held it over the blazing fire and in no time they were ready to pull off in between the chocolate and graham crackers.

Umh...it was delightful!

The wind continued for a time and we finished up with the campfire and went inside.  Pam talked with sister-in-law Sue who called to ask about how she was doing.  They were also concerned about the tornado that touched down and caused a lot of damage and destruction outside of Detroit at a campground.  It was pretty awful but no where near us.

That was about it for us on a Roadrunner Monday...

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Hope you are having a good week ~

So Long, Shopping, Suds, Saw and Smoke

It was a busy day yesterday.  The sun barely up when we got up and got going.  We took Adam to the Detroit airport.  He will be in New York, Wash DC and Toronto for a few days.  He has some important work to be doing, among which is getting some input on setting up a non-profit.  So we were at the airport at 6:30 AM.

Next we came back to the Roadrunner and had breakfast, planned the day and got with it!  First we went over to the Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi to do some shopping.  (Mostly window shopping).  I haven't been to a mall in months.  We entered the mall through Macy's

 and the first thing I noticed was iPods for sale in a vending machine:

I have never seen that before!  Simple as swiping your credit card.

Pam went over to the women's clothes section and sent me on my way to the Apple store.  I am planning on buying a refurbished 3G(s) iPhone when the new iPhones come out in June (I am guessing).  I can get an older model at Best Buy for $100 that is fully warranted and as good as new.  I also looked at the iPads.

Anyone out there bought one yet?  What do you think on the iPads?  Is it handy for an RVer?

Next we went over to Gander Mountain which is one of our favorite stores.  Pam picked up some shoes and I got a 'fire start kit'.

It is not quite the same as 'flint and steel' that I used as a Cub Scout many years ago but I wanted to see if I could get a fire going with it.  I got my idea from Rod who used one last time we were at his house.

We came back to the Roadrunner and after lunch I jumped into action washing the cars.  I found out my all-purpose water bucket was not holding the suds like usual. It has a crack and will have to be retired soon.

Yet it worked long enough for me to get the mud and dirt off both vehicles.

Next I hooked up my Skil saw to the RV and proceeded to saw up the wood I have been collecting.

Those pallets were reduced to a stack of wood in no time.

I got cleaned up and we headed over to Rod and Lisa's for the evening.  After navigating through Detroit suburbs rush hour traffic on a Friday night (ugh!), we arrived in the early evening.

We got to meet their son Greg and wife Emily.  (We saw Greg last time when he was about 4 I think).  Greg and Emily have a 6 month old, Adeline, who is as sweet as she can be.

Lisa and Rod have the 'grand parent's glow'...  And who can blame them!

Rod cooked burgers and we had a huge spread that included a fresh fruit bowl topped off by birthday ice cream cake.

Emily was celebrating and we were glad to help!

Next, Rod and I got into the business of building a fire in his backyard fire pit. I got a pile of lint from the dryer and put it together with some small twigs and brush.

Rod got the camera ready and I got my fire-starter ready.   Then two quick flicks of the wrist and fingers and wha la!  Fire!  (Notice that superb camera action from Rod)
Man ~ that was cool!  Where was this handy little invention back when I was backpacking over the mountains in the New Mexico wilderness as a teenager?  This is great!  No more wet matches for me...

We got the fire going pretty good and sat around talking way into the night.  Emily came out an joined us for a bit.

And I snapped a couple of pictures.  The wind was blowing the smoke and none of my 'timed' pictures came out.  By the time I set the '10 second delay' and got back to my seat, it captured the smoke.

It looked like we were underwater or worse....  the camera really fixated on the smoke. Never the less~ we had a good time around the fire and seeing the Hamilton's again.

It was a busy day but a fun one.  We returned to the Roadrunner late and went to bed.

Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!

Honda and Habitat

I was motivated to finish off the getting our new tires re-calibrated.  I called and made an appointment with Suburban Honda in nearby Novi, Michigan for a front-end alignment.

Suburban Honda is a new dealership and the folks on the phone were nice.  I talked with Julie on the phone to schedule the appointment.  Then, when I brought the car in for service, I spoke with Lindsay who scheduled an alignment and I asked for all four wheels to be done.  I also had them check the rear window wash receptacle to see why we weren't getting any spray back there.

The waiting area was fine and the coffee and muffins were good too.  After about an hour I got the Honda back, all washed and tires aligned!  Julie explained the work that was done and walked me over to the checkout window.  The water reservoir was cracked and broken in the front and was not working in either the front or the back.  I can get that fixed for $231.  I decided to wait on that one.

I got back to the campground and vacuumed out the car and cleaned it.  Later, I searched online and found the nearest Habitat for Humanity ReStore location.  It was about the same distance to go to Detroit or Pontiac MI.  We chose the Pontiac location about 30 miles away and we  drove over their to check it out.

They have a pretty big facility with a showroom and large warehouse.  It also has offices for the Pontiac Habitat Staff  and lots of donated home improvement type inventory.  We talked with the volunteer coordinator and decided we want to work at a construction site instead of volunteering in the ReStore.  Looks like they have plenty of folks in the ReStore.  We got the address of the build site and will decide on a day next week to work there.

We also were not far from where Adam works and we met him for a few minutes before his shift started.   He just returned after spending a couple of days across the Canadian border seeing Meghan.

After chatting a few minutes with Adam, we headed back to the campground but not before we found the 'closest' laundromat to us.  It is about 7 or 8 miles away and takes about 15 minutes to get there.  We were hoping to find it a lot cheaper than the $1.75/load which is the price at our campground.  To our surprise--it was the same price.  So we will just do our laundry there at Haas Lake RV park.

We had a very hard time finding a laundromat.  They don't have a lot of them in this part of the country.  I guess apartment complexes all have there own facilities.  It is noteworthy that there just are not many in our area.

We got back to the campground a little after 4:00 and we hung around for a while.  I got a little too comfortable in my recliner and took a quick nap.  Pam fixed a nice dinner and it was still a pretty evening when I decided to sit "in our backyard" on the edge of the lake and contemplate for a while.

We watched a few minutes of the NFL draft.  I was interested to see that Tim Tebow went 25th in the first round.  I thought with all his notoriety he would be going higher.  What do I know?  Pam was thinking he might go until the second round...

Thanks for viewing the Roadrunner Chronicles today!

New Tires and such

It was another beautiful morning and I was out walking early.  The lakes are quite nice at that time of the day.

I have been walking more and there are plenty of 'trails' around the park to hike and of varying distances. The season doesn't start up here until May 1, so I expect it will still be a few days before people come and open up there RV's that have been buttoned up all winter.

On a different subject, we have had a strange sound in our new car for a number of months and decided to see if we could get it fixed.  In a previous post, I mentioned that the tires had only 15,000 miles on them.  I forgot to add the additional 16,000 miles they have traveled as a toad (towed vehicle) behind the Roadrunner.

Still --- 30,000+  miles is not a lot of miles on new tires.  I understand new cars sometimes don't have the highest quality tire on them but I was not excited about spending $600 on a set of new tires.  But that is what I did and we got some Michelin's.  We ordered them at Sam's Club and went over on Wednesday morning to get them mounted and balanced.

To my amazement the 'wubba wubba wubba' sound disappeared!  I could not believe the difference the tires made but we are very excited that it fixed!  Now to get them aligned and we'll be 100%...

Sam's Club is not far from IKEA so we went there again to see if there was something we couldn't do with out.  Sure enough-- we found a good sized squeegee for $1.49.  Now I can wash the front windshield on the Roadrunner a little quicker.  The one I have is a about 6" wide.  We also bought another clothes drying rack that is metal and will fold up easily.  At $1.75 to wash a load of clothes, we may be drying a lot of clothes outside.

We also went by Camping World and returned the 4" drop hitch that we bought there last week.  We have a Blue Ox towing system.  Camping World had a pretty good looking Roadmaster drop hitch and I got that.  When I installed it however, it was not a very snug fit.  I didn't like the idea of the toad swaying some so I took it back.

We went back to General RV Center and picked up the first 4" drop hitch we looked at.  It is a Blue Ox brand fits a lot better and I think that will also help the wear on the new tires.

After that, we had lunch and took a drive to get used to the area and got back to the coach in time for a quite dinner and some TV.

That was our Wednesday -- thanks for viewing the Roadrunner Chronicles!