October 14, 2008 Final entry for a while!

We have been tied up most of this summer and now Carol is about to have her knees replaced. She has been in pain for a long time and hopefully this will return a decent quality of life that she has not had for so long. If it is God's Will, she will be pain free and we will begin traveling again in the spring. We look forward to seeing Mt. Rushmore and area when the spring flowers are abloom and the wildlife have their babies running around. We have wanted to take this trip for several years now and each time something has arisen to stop us. Who knows - we may start out and disappear for a long time, giving our location only to our grandchildren. Thank you so much for allowing me and/or us to vent and share our experiences with you on these pages. We look forward to resuming in the spring.

October 5, 2008 Grand Blanc, MI

I am finally getting some sleep. We got home at 2:00 PM Thursday and we met with Carol's surgeon at 3:00. She is now scheduled for total knee replacement surgery on November 3. My cataract surgery on my right eye is this Wednesday. I worked as "Ranger Jim" Friday and Saturday nights and now we will try to discover what we learned from that great MOC Rally so that the next Wagon Masters will be able to have an even better one. Three more weeks to work as a park ranger and then Carol's rehab after her surgery and then we will decide whether or not we will be going to Florida and Walt Disney World this winter. Stay Tuned!

October 1, 2008 Goshen, IN

Today was the day that most people from the Montana Owners Club (MOC) who had attended the 2008 MOC Fall Rally left the campgrounds heading for all the points of the compass to go to their next destination. Wow! What an adventure this has been. I appologize for the lack of entries in the blog this summer but will be back now for a while again. We just finished a one week MOC rally in Goshen, IN. Carol and I were the Wagon Masters for this rally, a very new experience for us both. We were fortunate to have been surrounded by a host of very helpful folks that made our efforts easy to do. If what we were told by the participants during this week and as they left, they liked it very much. Keystone Montana supplied representatives, sometimes the owners, of the builders of the component parts of our Montana 5th Wheels and the week was filled by seminar by these people, techs, designers and engineers from Montana and the use of their fine Service Center. We met and were invited into the lives of people from all over North America. We had excellent Assistant Wagon Masters and activity coordinators and a host of volunteers for all sorts of activities. The rally went so smoothly that, even when glitches arose, we were able to work around them with no problems. The crock pot dinner, pot luck, ice cream social, beverage and cheese session and all other food activities just added to the understanding that RVers really know how to eat. This national rally was different from regional rallies in that Keystone opened their doors for us. Even those of us who have attended in the past were impressed with the factory tour and we were allowed peeks at some prototypes. Montane asks our opinions of ideas that they have and over the years have taken some of these ideas and put them into production. This is great marketing for Montana. They really want to know what we think and so we feel part of the company. We are camping at the Elkhart County Fairgrounds. When we first heard that we were going to be camping in a fairgrounds before our first national rally, we were skeptical - dusty fields with possible water and electric. Were we ever pleasantly suprised. Nice grassy sites with full, 50 amp hookups. We will post more about this rally as time goes by so stay tuned. Have safe travels now, hear?