YIKES!!

From IVP, we left for Elkhart, IN, and needed repairs on Viewfinder. After family camp, Jim had been working on a baggage door latch and was under the MH. He happened to notice that the compartment that holds the 5 marine batteries, had some obvious rust. Each of the batteries around 40 pounds. Mastertech is the company making the repairs and when we arrived to get some items out of Viewfinder, the lead tech, James, said he had to show us something.

This is all that was left of the support bars and the floor of the compartment. He did not know how we had not lost the batteries which would have done serious damage to the coach. We do! Our Heavenly Father was taking care of us!

Final Day at IVP

32 years successfully completed working at InterVarsity Press. We had a wonderful day, giving tours of Viewfinder which was parked in the parking lot. Holding a hot dog tail gate party for the first 30 people, and having Jim honored at his official party. Here's the pics to prove it.

MOMENTOUS !!

Today, we say "goodbye" to our campsite of the last five months

Heading over to IVP for retirement day! Hopefully, more pics of the day later!

Hummingbirds at the Window

Petite Hummingbird, so delicate, so small, beautiful little feet that cling to the feeder. Little drop of nectar on the beak. Love to see them so close. Have you ever looked straight into the eyes of a Hummingbird?

Last Sunday was a beautiful day for exploring nearby forest preserves around the campground. The first was Lake Chaminwood preserve. The lovely dragonfly stopped long enough for Jim to get this great pic. My friend, Cindy, would know which kind it is, but I was too lazy to look it up.

The second preserve was Rock Run. There are several places to access this preserve, but in this location there is a lovely lake with several islands! It is a rookery for Herons, Egrets and other
migrating birds. We found this majestic Heron silently watching the water.

FINAL COUNTDOWN!

September 16, 2016, 12 days! Only 8 workdays and 32 years of work for IVP comes to an end. As I compose this, Jim is cleaning out files, notebooks and books whose final destination is the dumpster! I think this is harder than moving out of the townhouse! 

     We are enjoying this Labor Day weekend. The campground  is the fullest and busiest we have seen. Bigger than July 4th. Today, we are going to the pig roast. The cooker arrived two days ago, but as we left this morning, there was no action in the cooker. How long does it take to cook a pig? It's supposed to be done by 3 PM. 

Detour

Unplanned detour only 10 min into our travel to Cedar Campus via Menomonee, MI. A trucker pulled even with us (bless him) motioned that something was not right with the MH. We pulled off and Jim found a lot of red sticky fluid coming out of the engine. NOT GOOD!

Miracle #1:  The tow truck arrived 45 min. ahead of schedule, but it took three hours to get us to a shop that could help us. Fortunately, we were still near home and had several shops to call. Only one said they would try to help us. Others said middle of the next week, maybe.

Miracle #2:  The shop in Elmhurst would allow us to stay in the MH overnight. It was a shop that ran two shifts and they had a transmission specialist on the evening shift. They would have him look at it so parts could be ordered. After going out to dinner, we spent about two more hours in their customer lounge before the supervisor came to see us. He asked if we had driven or been towed to the shop. If we had driven, he was pretty sure we would have severely damaged the engine.

Miracle #3:  We had lost a clamp that held a hose in the cooling system! They had the clamp, replaced it (a few hundred dollars later) and we were back on the road by 9:30 PM. Made it to Menomonee by late morning in time to be ready for the Chris Hagens to arrive for the night.

All of us: Jim Hagens, Chris Hagens and the Bos family arrived at camp and settled in.