Friends,

When I ended last time we had arrived (after an eventful day of travel) at Springboro, OH at John and Amy Frazier's and met up with Dolph and Jane Diamond who had traveled from their home in Hendersonville, NC that day.

John and Amy run Adventure RV Service and Dolph and Jane had made arrangement with John to have him do some work on their 5th wheel on Friday August 19. We were all invited to Bill and Barb Fishers house in Richmond, IN for that weekend. And when I say "all" that included Andersons, Fraziers, Diamonds, Bruckners, and George and Karen Stieger(sp?). All six of the ladies were in the same nursing class at Hinsdale - once upon a time.

I mentioned last time that the Andersons had not traveled to Ohio with us. On Sunday, August 7, I was cutting up some trees that the tornado had deposited beside Anderson's house. I was cutting a limb that was about 6 feet in the air and did not notice that Doug had come over near me to pick up some small branches that were on the ground. When I cut through the limb it came down and hit Doug's ankle. I thought it was just a glancing blow, and Doug claimed he was OK but about a week later it became very painful and Sharon insisted he see a doctor. The doctor told Doug to keep his foot elevated and that he should not plan to drive to Ohio. So Doug and Sharon were not able to attend the weekend at the Fisher's home. When Doug was able to see his regular doctor, he was enough better that the doctor gave him permission to travel and they joined us on Sunday evening, August 21.

Friday morning John helped get my van into the repair shop he uses which was only two blocks from where we were staying. They added refrigerant to the AC but were not able to identify any major leaks. They did find a couple of other minor problems, and by 3:00 pm called that the van was fixed. So Dolph and I walked over and picked it up and headed out to check on getting a couple of new tires for the van. The first place we stopped at was only a few blocks from the repair shop, but the second place John suggested we try was in south Dayton. We had not gone very far on I75 when we noticed that the air was not as cool as when we started and by the time we got to the second tire place it was clear that the air conditioning was not fixed. But the day was gone, we needed to head over to Fisher's place for the weekend, and further repairs would have to wait until Monday.

We had a wonderful weekend at Bill and Barb's place. Lots of laughs, food, talking, food, fun, food. Oh, did I mention the food? It was great. Sunday afternoon Bill rented a boat and we all had a wonderful time on the water. Afterwards, we ate at the cafe by the lake. There, food again! Great fun!! When we got back to John and Amy's the Andersons had arrived.

Doug also had some work he wanted John to do on his 5th wheel trailer, so it was planned for Monday and Tuesday if needed. Also, it was discovered that Diamond's trailer needed a new hot water heater, which would not arrive until Tuesday. And my van also needed the air conditioning fixed. I took the van to the repair shop on Monday morning and John continued to work on the two trailers. So it looked like John and Amy were stuck with us for two more days.

I really don't remember all that we did on Monday, but we did some shopping and I waited for a call from the repair shop about the van. When it did come it was not good news. They were having a problem finding what was wrong with the air conditioning system. So the van remained in the shop overnight. So on Monday night none of us travelers, Andersons, Diamonds, and Bruckners were ready to travel!

I will stop there for now, but must at least tell you what we travelers had planned for the trip. Plan A was to drive back to Alaska. But Plan A was dependent on the price of fuel. You all know how that turned out. So this trip was a Plan B, which was to ride our bikes on some of the great bike trails in MI and WI. But we were not even in MI yet. But, there are some good bike trails in Ohio! More later.

Jared