The Best of Intentions

I've gotten to be a real lazybones in my retirement. I used to claim I only needed about 8 hours of sleep a night when I worked full time. Now, I need ten, at least that seems to be my pattern these days. Whats with that?  Maybe it's because I'm getting more physical exercise than I used to, I don't know. At any rate, Eldy gets up early every morning and I get up a couple hours later. He said he wanted to leave much earlier this morning as we were going to lose an hour driving east towards Elkhart, IN.  I put a little "note to self" in my mind before I went to sleep last night and most of the time I can sort of program myself to wake up earlier. I did, we packed up and left at 7:45 this morning. Things were going great until we got to the Goshen, IN (Elkhart County fairgrounds) and proceeded to choose a site. I didn't have to do my "carry the computer around in the car to find a good site" method (see previous blog a couple of days ago), it's 3G everywhere in the main part of town and at the fairgrounds. Several parts of the fairgrounds were closed off to camping, ok, no problem, we picked a site and backed in. Not to worry, we had plenty of daylight left to get hooked up, because we left about three hours earlier this morning than we normally do. Even with the time change, we still had plenty of time to get situated.

After we backed in, I noticed that we were butt up against the backs of two other units. Eldy had already put the jacks down.  I, being the thoughtful, considerate person I am, say to Eldy, "Honey, would it bother you if a big rig pulled up right behind our living room when there are lots of other spaces to choose from?" And Eldy, being the polite, considerate guy he is, says, "Yes, it probably would. (Big pause) So I guess that means you want me to move?" (I was the one that picked out the site in the first place, because I didn't want to be snotty and put our rig far away from everyone else as if we were too good to park in the same place as everyone else) I said, "Well, I really think we should." He says  nothing but sighs--which in Eldo speak means, "I wish the heck you would make up your mind!" He pulls up the leveling jacks, and we move across the way to a totally empty part of the lot with nary another coach in sight on this part of the lot. Clue #1.  We let the air bags down, then down come the levelers but they weren't coming down right and didn't look right. Eldy retracts the leveling jacks. I get down on the ground to put leveling pads down under the rear levelers. Down again come the jacks slowly, I'm peering underneath the coach to see if the plastic pads are right under the levelers , when POW! A loud pop about blows me off of my crouching stance. It scared me to death! "What the heck was that?!!!"  Something is definitely wrong with our leveling jacks. That's the second time we're heard a loud POP coming from them. They aren't coming down right and they aren't leveling right. But, we got them down...Eldy goes to hook up the electric and flips the switch--nothing, nada, zip. We try different switches, nothing. It's a dead pole, there's no electric to the site. That was clue #2--At this point, Eldy gets back in the RV, retracts the jacks AGAIN, and heads over to a third spot, back amongst the other RVers. He's feeling a little embarrassed, I'm explaining to anybody within earshot who happens to be out and about, that he's practicing his parking skills. No, just kidding....I did mention to a guy who happened to be outside his rig, that we were having electric problems and had to move again. In the third spot, we finally got settled just as darkness was setting in...good thing we had some extra time today...I hate to see Eldy get stressed out when darkness is falling, we can't see things as well when we are setting up. I should have brought him a beer.  (I did, after we got finished.)

We are in the city of Goshen...at the Elkhart County Fairgrounds....the rate is 26.50 a night for full hookup...it seems expensive after those corps of engineer parks...but this is the only place open all year round in this area this close to Eldy's family. Oh, yes, this is also the campground that has trains running night and day in their backyard because there is a main rail system between Elkhart and Chicago.  I'm going to have to find those earplugs! Photos today are left over from yesterday's Gun Creek Campground in Benton, IL, the Rend Lake Recreation Area. This was our site, and the heron was down at the water's edge just as the sun set....nothing planned for tomorrow, but we'll see what happens. Bye for now.....

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