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20050824 Dayton OH 54/88 Clear, warm.
John took me to Midas, where I waited a short time, paid them, and took the truck back to the ranch.
The summation was: Replaced LR (Left Rear) caliper, RR Bearings (Inner and Outer), RR SpeedySleeve, and supplied me with the correct Midas part numbers for all the rear axle parts.
We hooked up the trailer and headed down the road. I screwed up the route so we wandered all over southeast Michigan in getting to Middlebury, Indiana.
We dropped off the trailer’s broken leaf spring and its counterpart from the other side at the Jayco Service Center for Roger Johnson's use in figuring out what happened. Then we went onward toward Dayton.
The engine temperature gage on the dashboard is acting funny again. Separately, the engine temp was high as we neared Dayton, and we found the coolant level low after we arrived. Hmmm....
We called the FAMCAMP at Wright-Patterson AFB to say we'd be late. They told us we were late by one month. Some screwup had us there in July in their system. When we arrived there, we found a note telling us to take site 35, so we did.
We called Susan and arranged to meet them at Los Mariachis and did. We chatted and laughed. We returned to their house and played with the cats and talked some more.
We left early so Susan could sleep prior to work tomorrow and returned to the little house, where we settled in and read books.
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20050825 Dayton OH ?/? Clear, warm.
We got up and ate. I hiked to the office, where I found out the manager had worked a way where we could stay in site 35 for our whole stay here. Yay!!
We cleaned up, and did laundry, and straightened things. I added coolant to the truck and found out the location of the engine coolant temp sensor (very much hidden). I'll watch the gage performance again and monitor coolant level for a while before I try to get at that sensor.
Dolores wanted a haircut, so we went to the exchange/commissary complex. I bought beer & wine, then looked around the exchange while she got the haircut. Talked with another submariner about old New London days. He says the base has been saved from the BRAC-ordered shutdown (along with Portsmouth Naval Shipyard).
We had sandwiches in the food court, then bought bananas & coke in the commissary. We returned to the little house and put it all away.
Then we went to Susan & Wyatt's place. We gave them a few gifts we'd picked up in Alaska. The cats got little mice to play with, which they ignored. We chatted, then showed them some pictures of the trip. I got the email (including a warning about the tropical storm in the Bahamas that might get to our house) using their hi-speed network.
Susan didn't sleep well last night. We decided to go out for a casual dinner, then quit and rest. So we went to the Olive Garden and ate. Not too bad.
Dolores said she wanted to get Susan something for completing the program and getting her Masters of Library and Information Science (MLIS)). So we went next door to Best Buy and looked at digital cameras. Susan will do some research and tell us which she wants.
They headed home and we returned to the little house on the big air base. We were settling in when a guy knocked on the door. He turned out to be a retired submarine guy (E8 Torpedoman). I sat outside with him and swapped stories for an hour. He came out way ahead. He's on his way to the convention/reunion we're skipping.
I came back inside and now I'll finish these notes.
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20050826 Dayton OH ?/? Cloudy, intermittent rain.
We got up and loafed around for a while. We had told Susan and Wyatt we'd be at their place about noon.
Finally, we drove over to the exchange to look for the camera Susan wanted. They didn't have it, so we went to Best Buy and bought it there. Then we went to Susan's and Wyatt's.
We gave Susan the camera and showed her a few things about it. Then I went with Wyatt to get a few things for tomorrow's party.
We did some cleaning with Susan and made reservations for dinner. We drove down in both vehicles to the Oregon district of Dayton to the restaurant named Blue Moon. After a little work, we found a parking place and so did Wyatt.
The dinner to congratulate Susan was very nice. Good service. Wyatt ordered the wines so they were good. We had a table at a front window, so we could watch the foot traffic on 5th Street. It was a good dinner.
Then we came back to the little house while Susan and Wyatt went home. We settled in and took it easy in the little house on the foggy air base.
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20050827 Dayton OH ?/? Mostly cloudy, intermittent mist & rain.
Well, hurricane Katrina keeps flapping around in the gulf. At morning, we still looked like a candidate to be hit by it. By evening, New Orleans appears to be the target and we're off the hook.
We got to Susan's & Wyatt's by noon. We cleaned and straightened. I went to get more stuff. I went to get more stuff again. I chopped cheese into cubes and put toothpicks in them. Dolores made the cheese amoeba (it didn't firm into a cheese ball in the refrigerator as it should have). The party started fairly promptly at 2:00pm.
Folks kept coming in, including Sarah (who now has Susan's old job in the office with the General) and Christa (Susan's current boss), and Jeff (who started at the museum with Susan). Several others came along. Wyatt was cooking sausages and corn, everybody found something to drink, we all looked at the cats and then re-exiled them to the bedroom, and lots of talk.
Turns out the historian, Ed Underwood (who showed up in kilt) and his wife served a couple of years at Tyndall in Panama City, so we could talk with them about that. We chatted with Jeff (now has two kids, and his wife's twin sister found a job locally so they're back together) about how things had come together. We chatted with Christa and Sarah and invited them to stop in if they get assigned a trip down our way.
Finally, the crowd wandered off. Susan started taking pictures with her new camera. Then she downloaded them to her computer and marveled at the clarity even when zoomed way in.
After a session of that, we decided we'd take off for Florida tomorrow after church. The rain could be wild Monday, depending on where Katrina comes ashore. Tomorrow (Sunday) we'll run east of our previously intended route - to the Knoxville area - so we can choose an alternate path on Monday if we need to do that.
And, if it gets really crappy, we'll just hole up for the day and go home Tuesday.
Almost home, and a hurricane stops us. Humph.
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