Monday, August 19, 2013

Greetings from Kansas!



Well hello there faithful readers!  Sorry it's been so long since I posted.....life has been a little busy around here!

On August 6th, we arrived at the Cottonwood RV Park in Bonner Springs, KS.  We've had Aaron and Alyssa this summer.  They travelled along with us in Aaron's car and then headed on to South Dakota the next day.  They made it safely home that evening!  Alyssa started back to school at St. Joe's on August 12 and Aaron will start college at South Dakota State University on August 26th.  We had such a wonderful summer with the kids!  Alyssa will be coming back to spend Christmas with us.  Aaron mentioned that he might bring her down here for Christmas so we're keeping our fingers crossed that we get to see them both over the holidays!

Life is slowly settling back into place here in the 'trailerhood.'  ;-)    Our neighbor in the camper next door told us, 'if you're gonna have an RV, you're gonna be an RV mechanic.'  We are learning that lesson rather quickly!  We bought a brand new surge protector in OKC and when we plugged it in here we discovered that it was wired wrong at the factory!  Right after that our converter went out.  The converter converts AC power to DC power so none of our DC powered stuff in the camper would work.  It also affected our battery in the camper.........it wouldn't stay charged so every evening we'd have to hook up jumper cables to the pick-up and charge the battery otherwise all our lights would start to fade and the carbon monoxide detector would start going off!

It seems lately with the camper and our vehicles we've had nothing but bad luck!  The streak can end now as far as I'm concerned!

I love the area we're in now!  We are a 20 minute drive from downtown Kansas City, MO.  We are less than 4 miles from the Kansas Speedway and a super-cool shopping area called The Legends.  Last weekend they were having a GRANDAM racing event at the speedway and we could hear them going round and round!  Bruce Jenner was even there racing a Lamborghini!


Here's our home on wheels in her new spot!  We can actually leave the awning out without fear of it getting ripped off by hurricane force Texas winds!


This is the view from the nose of our camper!  Just over that hill is Bonner Springs but you'd never know it from where we are!  It is so quiet and peaceful but all the advantages of the big city are just minutes away!

Danny started back to work last week.  He is working for PAR.

Another cool thing about working here is that Danny is actually considered a 'local' since he is out of IBEW Local 53 in Kansas City.



Here is a picture of the Local 53 building.  I was excited to finally get to see it in person!  This area is a VERY pro union area unlike Oklahoma and Texas.  Oklahoma and Texas, of course, have unions but they are not very strong unions.  Since being with Danny I have learned so much about the union and what they stand for.  I have a very strong sense of union pride and I appreciate, not just what they do for us, but what they do for all American workers!  The IBEW has provided us with a very good life and I will never take them for granted!



Of course, Jaye is with us and loving it!  This is her overlooking downtown Kansas City from Local 53.  She is such an amazing traveling dog!  Nothing phases her, she is always up for an adventure!  If she thinks you are going somewhere she will do whatever it takes to get to come along for the ride!  She's my little saving grace while Danny is at work.  Life would be much more boring without her and her silly ways!

I hope you are all doing well!  We miss our family and friends but we sure do love life on the road!  We will probably be here until the end end of the year so if you want to take a road trip we'd love to see you!  There is so much to do around this area!  Until next time, take care!!

Cheers!

Shayla