Pella Revisited and Sailing at Saylorville

Now that we have lots of time during the week, in addition to getting a whole list of motorhome "to-do" items completed, we have been seeing more of the Des Moines area, and having some great fun taking advantage of the beautiful fall weather here.

But first, we want to give you a preview of a beautiful new addition to our coach.  Sue has been working all summer on a painting for us to put in our coach, replacing the metal sculpture which was installed by Tiffin on the slide wall adjacent to our dinette table.  She finished it this week, and its a beauty!  It really adds a colorful note to our living space, and we are very proud to have it.


We had a great time earlier this week going on an afternoon sailing adventure on Saylorville Reservoir just north of Des Moines.  One of the managers here at Adventureland has a 28 foot Hunter sailboat that he moors there, and he looks forward to taking Adventureland staff out for an afternoon of relaxing sailing on the lake.  As you can see from the pictures, we had a great time.
 

Yesterday we took the opportunity to visit Pella, Iowa again.  We'd been there earlier in the season, and enjoyed it a lot, so we decided that a return visit was the thing to do on a beautiful fall day.  As you may know, Pella is the headquarters of the Pella Window Corporation, one of the premier thermopane window and sliding door manufacturers in the world.
Mark, Sue, Mandy, and I went with John, Sharon, Terry, and Vicky, all of who we work with in the rides department here at the park.  We went to the Dutch bakery and the nearby meat market to pick up a few things, and also took the tours of the Dutch Village and the landmark 30 meter working windmill, all of which border the beautiful town square. 
The windmill tower also includes a floor where various artists in Pella have constructed a miniature traditional Dutch village from the 1850's.  Over one hundred buildings and architectural features have been constructed in miniature, all along traditional Dutch canals -- also showing both winter and summer seasons.  It was a very impressive display, and we spent some time looking at all the detail.


We also explored the restored Dutch village, which charts the history of the development of the town since the middle 1800's, and well as seeing the beautifully restored Opera House.  It was really a great day, and we had a blast.
 


Yesterday afternoon Mark, Sue, Mandy, and I took advantage of a beautiful evening and linked up with our friends Chuck and Phyllis, and drove about 25 miles south of Des Moines to the Summerset Winery in Indianola, for a Friday night wine tasting.  They have a great venue with live music (which was a great local band - the Flying Silos), and we spent the evening relaxing with good wine, having a few snacks, and listening to a good group. 
  


We'll be working this weekend, and then using next week to prepare for hitting the road again and heading south.  We will finish out the season here next weekend, and will hit the road on Monday, the 29th, traveling with Mark and Sue, and heading for the Tiffin factory in Red Bay, Alabama, where we have our one year warranty appointment on October 8. 
We'll stop on the way to spend a few days at one of our favorite parks -- Tom Sawyer RV Park in West Memphis, Arkansas, right along the mighty Mississippi River -- meeting up there with fellow Tiffin owners Richard and Patsy, and Manuel and Connie.  From there, Richard and Patsy will be heading for the northeast, and the rest of us will head east across northern Mississippi to Red Bay -- with Mark and Sue anxious to watch the birth of their 2009 Phaeton at the factory, while the rest of us have our warranty fixes taken care of.
We plan on heading for Texas as soon as we get finished in Red Bay, hopefully arriving just in time for the birth of our new granddaughter.  After spending a month there with our growing family, we'll head west on I-10 to Yuma for the rest of the winter. 
We also made a purchase this week which will enable us to electronically keep in touch more consistently -- we have purchased a Verizon cellular broadband modem, and have installed it with a small wireless router, and made a "hotspot" for our computers in the motorhome.  This will give us the ability to be on line anywhere we have a Verizon cell signal (some places faster than others) and be able to stay in touch will all our friends.  For more details see www.3gstore.com .

A day at the track -- and other updates

Once the season begins to slow down here at Adventureland, the management sponsors a number of activities for their workamper staff -- the one that we went to the other day was a day at the races -- horse races, that is -- just across the way from us at Prairie Meadows Casino and Racetrack.
We had only been to horse races once before, years ago at Longacres Race Track in Seattle, so we knew nothing about the races or about betting on them.  Undeterred, we waded in with our racing forms and began picking out the most promising horses and riders.  At the end of the day, we'd only lost a little over $20, so we went up to the casino, and in our usual fashion, increased our losses a bit more.
All in all we had a great time with about 40 other Adventureland workampers -- and will now know better than to try it again soon.  Horse races and fixed income just do not co-exist well together.

                      Mark and Terry discussing their bets                 Lined up at the window to put down their $$ 


                      They're off and running . . . .                                 Our horse (#2) at the finish


                      We won!!!                                                                 Collecting our winnings (first race only!)

                   
                                                       Sue, Greg, Chuck and Vicky enjoying the lunch
               

In other news -- our son Brian and his wife Christy gave us the happy news this week that they're expecting their second baby!   I guess we'll have to set up a secondary residence in Texas, as we'll be there in November for the birth of Kevin and Stephanie's daughter, and then back there in May of 09 for Brian and Christy's new one. 

One last item -- Greg recently published a recap of the additions and improvements that we've made on our Phaeton on a new blog that he established for that purpose.  If any readers are interested in what we've done to improve our motorhome in the year that we've had it, please use the link listed in the side column of this blog, or go directly to www.roadbound.spaces.live.com. 
It's a bit long-winded and technical, but if you're curious, we'd love to have you take a look.  Our plan is to update it periodically with other service and maintenance experiences with our Phaeton, as well as detail of any other customizations or additions to our "home on wheels".