We have been very busy since the last blog posting. [So busy that Jeffrey is the guest writer for this blog post]
We left Raleigh in May dodging the weather fronts. The weather was cooperating and we were generally a day before or a day after the storms until we got close to Iowa for an appointment at HWH to have the motorhome leveling jacks inspected. The winds were projected to be high and would be hitting us at a right angle, so we stayed an extra night in one campground and then drove 2 days distance the next day to keep our appointment. It was only a little less windy that day and 450 miles was alot to drive a motorhome fighting the wind -- our longest day EVER. We were glad that we stopped at HWH as the jack that was replaced in Florida had bent brackets and the valve was leaking. HWH has electric hookups in their parking lot so we can live without running the generator while staying overnight -- even ended up staying an extra night because of the continuing high winds.
Our next destination was an Iowa state park to visit with friends, Jeff and Dawn. We get to see them in Florida every winter and they often get stuck (volunteer) to watch our motorhome while we fly away from Max for a week, but they are very nice and we really enjoy time spent with them.
From there we went to visit my relatives in Rochester, Minnesota. and had a nice visit with my mom's siblings; my aunt Margaret and her husband Merlyn, my aunt Loiuse and cousin Michael. We then ventured on to Minneapolis where we had planned a flight to visit Sheila in Burlington, WA, and also to check out a indoor storage location where we would be leaving Max a month later for our trip to Iceland and Norway. Since the weather can be severe in this area, we hoped to store Max indoors. Over the internet we had found an indoor storage location with electricity so Max could be plugged in while we were gone. We are sure glad we checked the facility out in person as the electricity was not working on the steel post where we were to park. The other option was to put us next to an area with a lot of foot traffic, band saws (and their dust) and sharing an outlet with that equipment plus a big refigerator! Plan B involved leaving Max at a campground that was prone to flooding and had recently damaged our motorhome paint with their lawn mower!
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| Us with Uncle Merlyn and Aunt Margaret |
Time for Plan C. I got on the web and found another indoor storage location but they only do in-once/out-once storage during the winter. When I explained the situtation, they made an exception could even do electricity. They just needed us to arrive after hours to drop Max off and pick him up very early on our return because they work during the summer months. It seemed too good to be true, but after a quick inspection we had our new plan and the price was much less too. Crisis averted.
With the new plan in place, back to our busy schedule. We flew to the northwest to visit Sheila and her cat Tay. My allergy shots seem to be working well (and Tay isn't allowed in "our" bedroom or bathroom). Sheila had made plans to have close friends and family on a boat ride in Puget Sound to scatter Rick's ashes. The weather was a big concern but it turned out to be absolutely beautiful for the ceremony. Afterwards, Rick's cousins had everyone over to their house with good food and fond memories for all.
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| Our memorial service for Rick near Deception Pass, Washington (L to R: Rick's sister, Pat, Sheila, and Maren) |
On our return to Minneapolis, we hustled down to Forest City, IA for a service appointment at Winnebago's factory service center. A short list of things were fixed under our new extended warranty (the last extended warranty paid for itself many times over) and then we offhandedly asked Winnebago to look at the back of our water heater. We have had an ongoing issue of a slow, persistent leak which years ago had even shorted the water heater's electriral wiring. While it had seemed to be stable for many years, we were with the experts, so we asked them to double check things. It turned out our tank was actually cracked. Then the new extended warranty company got very quiet! Luckily after a day and a half they said, yes, they'll cover replacing the water heater. We are just glad our tiny leak hadn't turned into a basement flood. We then went down the street to have some paint work done at the company that does much of Winnebago's full body painting. We had used them a couple of years ago and they were great then. Several small touchups plus a medium-sized dent from some construction debris kicked up by a passing truck was repaired and one big noise nuisance with a awning topper was resolved. We are very happy and looking good too.
Back up to Minneapolis we went and into our new indoor storage facility for our big overseas trip. We dropped off Max, now all alone in a big empty horse barn with electrcity for his battery charger and we flew to Iceland. Iceland airlines will let you stop over in Iceland for up to a week for the same ticket price, so we planned a 3-day stop over to explore before heading to London for the Norway cruise. Sheila met us in Rejkavik, Iceland, and it is an interesting place. We explored around town on foot and also took the Golden Circle tour. We saw waterfalls, geysers, historical sites and beautifui landscapes. Sheila even fullfilled a dream of riding an Icelandic horse. Everything is very expensive in Iceland as much has to be imported. The sun doesn't go down for long during the summer and little darkness and some jetlag made sleep interesting. When we got up at 4am to go to the airport the streets were still crowded with young people. Turns out they were all just coming home from the bars, but in any other town all of this would just be covered by the darkness of the night.
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| A very friendly Icelandic horse with great hair |
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| The 3 of us at Faxafoss (Faxi Falls) |
The three of us then flew to London and bus transferred to our cruise ship, the Pacific Princess. This is the smallest ship in their fleet and with only 600 or so passengers it is very much less crowded. We had planned to do this cruise back in 2016 with Dad and Sheila but it got cancelled when he got sick. We decided to go this year in his memory. After a lumpy night/day/night at sea we got our sea legs back and arrived in our first stop in Norway.
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| Our cruise itinerary |
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| Sheila and Maren all dressy on a cruise formal night |
Norway is a very beautiful country and every stop going up and then back down the coast was amazing. The days kept getting longer and longer until the captain announced that sunset was cancelled. We had reached the arctic circle, also known as the place of the midnight sun and 24 hour daylight. The sun didn't set until 7 days later on our way back south. We traveled north all the way up the coast to the northern most point in Europe and then even further north to Svalbard, Norway. The town of Longyearbyen on the island of Spitsbergen is at 78 degrees north latitude. I don't know how much further north the ice cap was, but there isn't much earth north of where we were. We were expecting temps in the 30s, but it was 54F that day and I think everyone was overdressed except a few locals who took advantage of the day and were out in shorts.
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| Sheila adding even more color to the Trondheim waterfront |
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| Me dipping my feet in very cold fjord water in Skjolden |
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| Two Gators in Longyearben, Svalbard |
The fjords of Norway are amazing. Tall cliffs, many waterfalls, scenic views of adjacent valleys and farms. The Creator really had fun with the norwegian coastline. At one point, we were over 100 miles inland from the ocean and still in a deep fjord.
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| Waterfall in the fjord on the way to Geiranger |
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| Viewpoint overlooking Geiranger and the cruise ships |
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| Jostedal Glacier near Skjolden |
With the cruise finished we returned to London and flew back to Minneapolis. Sheila flew with us to Iceland where we all changed planes to our final destinations. After we picked up Max (all safe and secure) from storage, we headed back south to Forest City, IA for Winnebago's annual Grand National Rally. The rally grounds at the factory filled up over the next few days with over 900 RVs. There was great entertainment, education and social opportunities and many vendors were there to help people with issues. We saw some old friends and made some new friends too. We arrived early for a few pre-rally days and experienced several rainy days and some stormy and windy weather, again reenforcing why we opted for indoor storage while we were gone. For the actual rally week, the weather was perfect. Though it was a very hectic week, we had some time to relax and get back on our US timezone.
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| We are where the red arrow is pointing |
We are now heading towards Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico, but first a stop in Omaha, Nebraska, so Maren could see some giraffe...
