The Ray Adventures: China, Mi., Decatur, In and Dayton, Ohio

Wah hoo!! After months of fussing and stewing, the coach is fixed. I have to compliment Allied Recreation Group, they went through our entire list of "issues" completely and satisfied each and every one. The coach was in the shop for two weeks, the first week and a half entirely in the shop. The body work on Gary's "boo-boo" looks like new. The time went fast for us thanks for Suzanne, Gary's sister, we stayed with them for 12 nights, she and her family were gracious hosts.

Saturday, April 11th, Suzanne got up very early to pick up 6 laying hens. She was so excited to finish the chicken coop and fence. (made out of what else, chicken wire). The hens had a traumatic trip, an hour drive, hen- pecking each other along the way, some of them looked a little bald. Suzanne said there was no picking or choosing her hens, the lady just grabbed them from the crowd, which was frenzied. Gary, Luci and I geo cached the Macomb Orchard Trail, a rail road bed from days gone by, picking up 13. The trail is 23 miles long, we only walked 4 miles, very busy with bicyclists, joggers and walkers. After getting back and admiring the chickens, we prettied up to go to Fishbones, a sushi restaurant in St. Clair Shores about 40 minutes drive toward Detroit on Lake St. Clair. We had some excellent rolls, Boom Boom, made of smoked salmon, eel and shrimp, a spicy tuna and salmon skin, we'd tried the salmon skin one in Austin and it was delish, this one not so much. We ate way too much, then we topped it off with DQ ice cream---bad idea.

Sunday, April 12th, Gary, Luci and I went back to the Macomb trail for more geo cacheing. We walked a little more than 4 miles this time picking up 15, they were all real easy to finds. This time there was a lot of spandex, many serious bicyclists. When we got back, Suzanne was so excited, she got her first egg! She fixed BBQ's baby back ribs for dinner, excellent!

Monday, April 13th, Gary called Decatur, the coach will be done Tuesday. The day started out to be nice so I washed my car, oh man was it gross. I made (thanks Costco) a pot roast with veggies, salad and biscuits, Suzanne made an apple pie. Gary isn't used to home made pies, he was in heaven.

Tuesday, April 14th, Well one more day, Gary called Decatur, they were waiting for the liquor cabinet mirrors to arrive from Indy. The "mirrors" have been flawed from the day we brought it home, I thought they just forgot to clean them, but no, I couldn't get the spots off. Why would anyone send something out of the factory that was obviously bad. We left Luci with Suzanne while we took a drive to the top of the thumb of Michigan, north past Port Huron our first stop was Port Sanilac, thought we'd go to the lighthouse since we have a Harbor Lights replica in our collection. Yes, we still have our stupid lighthouse collection, no one wanted to buy any at our sale. We walked out a short jetty, we were so surprised to see the clear blue water. We think we saw ice off shore a little ways. A local lady stopped to visit with us, she's lived in Port Sanilac about 15 years, a retired photographer, she took several pictures of us in front of the lighthouse. While we were there we picked up a geo cache in a park across the street. We continued north along the shore, catching glimpses of beautiful mansions, to Port Austin at the "top", we walked out a jetty, it was such a beautiful day, as Jeff would say "a perfect Michigan day". We had lunch at the Stock Pot, Gary had piergoits (sp) a gob of goo deep fried. I think it was a Polish dish, if so, now I know why there are so many Polish jokes. I ate breakfast, yum, yum, yum! On the drive we noticed many barns and homes collapsed, they were aged, it looked like the weight of snow must have been too much for them. Suzanne told us to stop in Lexington to walk the jetty there. We saw the prettiest duck, since the water was so clear we see him dive to the bottom for his dinner. After the jetty walk I checked out a few of the tourist stores, cute clothes, good thing Gary was there I might have parted with a little cash. After getting back to Suzanne's I called our CPA in Salem, he hadn't e-mailed our tax returns to us, I was a little "tweaked", I took him all of our information in February when I was in Salem. So again, we had to do an extension. That's all I'm going to say about that! Suzanne fixed lemon shrimp fettuccine for dinner, Gary isn't used to good cooking like that. We started packing for our early departure to Decatur, they close at 2:30 and it's a good four hour drive.

Wednesday, April 15th, Tax day, I did get our extension in the mail, that frees me up to worry about something else. We left by 8:45, a pretty drive after we got out of the Detroit blight, through mostly Ohio countryside. Still waiting for the mirrors but everything else was completed. We've had poor water pressure for a year, wow, what a difference. They cleaned a lot of construction "gunk" from the pipes. No food in the frig so we drove 10 miles out in the country to Hoagland's Pizza and Pub. Lots of local flavor, smoking is allowed, cough, cough but the pizza was good. Bev, the bartender/waitress, is a credit union manager, but says this is her fun job once a week. She gave us complementary "Dick bites" baked garlic bread bites, just what we needed, but we couldn't turn them down. Delish! We ate a few and took the rest along with pizza back to the coach for re-runs.

Thursday, April 16th, We had to get up early to take the coach for a fuel stop (it took 93 gallons, the most ever) then back to ARG to await the mirrors. We had heavy rain during the night but woke to a beautiful day. Gary and I took the 2 hour Fleetwood Factory tour, only given Friday mornings because the production line is closed. They also manufacture American Eagle, Monaco and Holiday Rambler at the plant, all high end motorhomes. The only work going on was clean up in building one and painting and prep for delivery in building two. The first building was divided into three lines, the first for the smaller motorhomes and class C, the second, mid size up to 38 feet and the third for the big rigs, 39 feet and up to 45. We started, naturally, from the chassis, engines, floors etc to the roof, then on to building 2 for painting. It was interesting to see how the design is put on, stencil like papers are taped on, then the first color to be applied are the smallest, graduating up to the over all color. Three coats of paint (4 for the high end coaches) followed by a clear coat. Then we got to tour completed coaches, the first, an American Eagle, which retails for $800,000 and up. This last week they started production on the 2016 models, we toured a 2016 Discovery, exactly like ours (I did check out the liquor cabinet mirrors) except they added an adjustable bed. No cameras were allowed in the factory, dang! Poor Luci was stuck in the car, it was sunny but fortunately still cool. We grabbed a Subway sandwich then drove into town to pick the geo cache we had to skip last week because of muggles. Stacy called, he is doing good, more mobility and less pain. Still enjoying the afternoon naps. As we were sitting on the park bench talking to him, a Amish couple went by in their horse and buggy, making Luci nuts, she hates horses. We'd seen several couples of Amish the day before in the Dollar Store wearing the same style clothing but when they drove off in their mini-van I figured they must have been Mennonite. We picked up the coach (yes, the mirrors are good) and headed toward Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio, home to the largest aviation air museum, arriving around 5. It is a nice Fam Camp, the spaces are nice size and lots of grass for Luci to run. We will be here a week, making side trips to Cincinnati (home of the Bengals) and Columbus.

That's it for this week,

TTFN,

Gary and Pam