Monday, July 20, 2020 - Early Morning Wakeup; Graveside Services for Longtime Friend; Moving to Arrowhead Point RV Campground; Pop and Smoke!

Monday, July 20, 2020 - Early Morning Wakeup; Graveside Services for Longtime Friend; Moving to Arrowhead Point RV Campground; Pop and Smoke!

For some reason I woke up around 3, needing to go to the restoom - and that rarely happens in the night.  I went back to bed, and after laying there wide awake, I gave up, and got up.  When I wake up, my neck is almost always aching and it was no different this morning.  Typically it goes away after I'm up for awhile.  Since laying in bed just was not working, a little after 3:30 I got up.  It gave me a chance to do the last load of laundry.  By the time I got the coffee pot ready (I didn't turn it on immediately), and loaded the clothes, my neck was fine.  I was too awake by now, to go back to bed.

I waited until after 4:00 before I turned the coffee pot on, then I set down to finish the blog post for the past two days.  I was glad to get it finished this morning as we have another busy day ahead of us.  Sometimes the days are too full to stay on top of it.  Since I had the time, I started putting things away downstairs for our move later this morning.  When Dean came downstairs I went upstairs to make the bed, store the TV and a few other things.

At 9:40 we left Bentley to attend graveside services for a dear friend of ours, Sandra.  I met her years ago when she started attending the same church we did.  My mom and her were good friends.  My sister Crystal lived next door to her for at least 25 years.  Recently, Sandra's health had declined and she went to live with her daughter.  Her son, David was in the same class as Marc and Brett.  When we arrived at the cemetery, my sisters (Cindy & Crystal) were just getting out of their cars.  We pulled in behind them, then walked to the covered structure they use for services.  It is really nice, as it provides protection from the sun, rain, etc.

After the minister gave a short sermon they played a selection of songs.  When they played "I'll Fly Away", I teared up, reminding me of all the times Sandra would sing and either my mom or me was playing the piano.  She wanted to sing it over and over!  She loved Jesus, and just thinking of what it must have been like for her as she entered Heaven made me smile.

It was good to see David and his family.  His children have really grown since I last saw them.  I noticed a young man and woman standing to our right, slightly in front of us.  I was sure I should know him.  It wasn't until later when he took his hat off that I realized it was one of David's (and our sons) classmates, Brad.  I was hoping to speak to him after the service, however before I had a chance he was already at his vehicle.  As we were walking back to our cars, a vehicle was pulling into the cemetery, then parked.  It was another classmate of these boys, Kye, who had just got off work.  Brad had stopped when he saw Kye.  They shook hands and spoke for a minute, then Kye gave me a quick hug, before he left to visit with David.  I turned to Brad and said his name...he said, "I thought I recognized you as Marc's mom, but I just wasn't sure.  He gave me a big hug too.  It was sure good to see those boys and I'm sorry Marc and Brett could not attend, as they had other commitments.

We returned to Bentley, where I dropped Dean off to drive the truck to the garage so I could store the car.  Back at the park, we finished the last few chores before we hooked up Bentley and left the park.  It was 11:10am as we pulled out of our site, headed to Arrowhead Point RV Park near Osceola, MO.  On the way, we made a quick stop at Walmart in Nevada to pick up a few things we needed.

It was an enjoyable ride today, especially since we didn't have to travel too far.  As we neared the park, we almost missed a sign on the right side of the road.  We could barely read the name of the park.  As I turned back toward the road, I noticed another sign on the left, just past what we soon learned was the entrance road.  It came up quickly and with several cars and trucks behind us, we couldn't stop in time to pull in.  Dean pulled into the next entrance.  We were already committed to the turn, when we both saw the sign "Private Drive".  We were on a hilly and curvy part of the road, so we couldn't stop and back up at that point.  We hoped the homeowner would not be too upset with us.  Dean pulled up, then walked to the door and knocked to see if we could turn around in their yard.  Fortunately, it was the owner of the RV Park's home.  Thank you God!  With a back way into the park, he led the way on his golf cart to the office, located at the north end of the park.  There is a loop leading back to the RV sites.  What a nice young couple they were!  We paid, then the owner led us to our site.  What a relief, it all worked out just fine!!

The owner pulled us into the site next to Keith & Drena at 2:52 p.m., a little over 3.5 hours after we left home.  They were outside, so we visited with them for a few minutes before we went inside to go through our setup process.  We were hungry, so I made a light lunch.  It we too late to eat too much, since dinner is only 3 hours away.  I made us each a large insulated cup of ice water before we went out to join our neighbors.  We were visiting away when Alvin walked over, follow by his wife Linda a short time later.  Later Stan & Linda, Mike & Maryann, and Jerry carried their chairs over to join us, practicing social distancing. 

It was nearly 6 when we each returned to our individual rigs for dinner.  I had originally planned to grill prepared chicken breasts I bought at our local grocery store.  We really like them - they roll them, wrap them in bacon with a seasoning added.  However, I forgot to lay them out to thaw, so instead, we had coney's using the leftover chili from yesterday.  They hit the spot - and best of all, it was really easy!

As usual when we arrive at a site, the inside of the rig is usually pretty warm when the temperatures are 80 or higher.  Once I have the slides open, the first thing I do is to turn the air conditioners on at a lower temperature than normal to cool it down.  When we came in for dinner I noticed the bedroom was really cool - it always cools down faster (smaller space and lower ceiling), so I turned the thermostat up two degrees.  I went back downstairs to finish setting up.  After several minutes I realized the air conditioner upstairs was still running, so I went up and turned it up another degree.  As I turned to go back to the living area, I heard a loud pop downstairs.  I hurried down to see what it was, when there was another loud pop.  That is when I noticed smoke coming from the cabinet above the TV where our DVD player, and Wally Dish box is located.  I told Dean (actually I probably yelled), there is smoke coming out of the cabinet.  He ran over to it and quickly unplugged the Dish Box when he saw that's where the smoke was coming from.  The next hour or two was interesting.  Our outside Progressive EMS surge protector was not tripped, but whatever happened toasted the Dish box, and our heavy duty power strip that we use to recharge our phones, laptops, printer and operate our electric reclining chairs.  When Dean took it apart later you could see where both had melted inside.  We've tested everything else we can think of and all seems to work just fine.  At this point we do not know what caused the problem.  No codes showed up on our Progressive EMS that indicated a problem, and no breakers had been tripped.  However, it did take awhile for the air conditioners to come on and stay on.  When we first tried, they would come on and immediately shut off, so we waited awhile before trying it again and since then they have worked just fine.  Dean checked the electrical outlet where our power strip is plugged in and the outlet is working fine.  

I have to tell you it was a little unnerving.  Before going to bed we made sure our fire extinguishers were nearby as well as a couple of flashlights.  As I am writing this on Tuesday morning, we are alive and well and everything is working, except for the two items I mentioned.  We are thankful it was no worse, but we'd sure like to know what caused the problem.