NOTE: This post has one (1) photo with caption. Photo taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.
MONDAY 12 August 2024 — More BdW guests, burning yard debris, and international/overseas travel (not us)
Linda and Diane met at the park to walk this morning, the first time since the funeral for Diane’s mother on July 23rd. We had Boondockers Welcome guests arriving today, so I had a few chores to take are of ahead of time.
First, I pruned some of the weeds and saplings along the edge of the wooded area that parallels the south edge of our visitor RV site. These grow out to the north (towards the site) looking for light, and eventually become an impediment to working on the south side of rig, or mowing along the edge of the forest. I got out the lawn tractor and trailer and moved all of the pruned material to our fire pit. I then drove around the rest of the property collecting downed branches and transporting them to the fire pit. I removed all of the material that had accumulated in the fire pit and sorted it by size and type before piling it around the outside, about 8 feet away. This left only the central stack of organized twigs and larger pieces of branches I had built a couple of weeks ago to serve as the core of the bonfire I was about to light.
While deep-cleaning the kitchen, Linda found a package of fire-starters. They were wax impregnated corrugated cardboard. We typically use shredded paper to start our bonfires (we usually have a lot of it), but it doesn’t always light well if it has absorbed moisture. The fire-starters did the trick, and fairly quickly I had a nice, but not overly large, fire. I added some of the stacked material to the fire and then mowed the areas on either side of the driveway by our guest RV site. The weather has been dry, so Keith will be here tomorrow to mow the whole property, but this way he won’t have to mow right next to someone’s RV.
The bonfire has been lit (right side of wood stack in the fire pit). Various sizes of branches, and a pile of weeds, waiting o be added to the burn pile.
Our BdW guests, Mike & Sheila M., arrived around 2 PM. They were aiming for 1 PM, but got caught in really bad traffic on westbound I-96 between Novi and Brighton. The improvements to the highway system in our area will be amazing when they are finished and operational but until then, getting anywhere during the daytime can be difficult. (You need patience to make sure you don’t become a patient.) I met them in the street, per usual, and directed them into our guest RV site. Linda came out to meet them as well. We chatted briefly, invited them to get-together on the deck later if so inclined, and then left them to make camp.
Our guests came over around 5:45 PM and we had along, spirited conversation. Mike is native Hawaiian. Sheila was from the Carolinas, but moved to Hawaii many years ago and stayed. They moved to the mainland a few years ago, bought a Coach House Platinum Class B+ MH, and started full-time RVing. They flat tow a Toyota CJ Cruiser. The Toyota required a driveshaft disconnect modification. The MH is able to handle the weight of this vehicle, but struggles on steep upgrades, so they got a custom/tuned ECM program installed. Apparently it makes quite a difference in the vehicle’s performance.
Around 8:30 PM, our son and his family took off from DTW enroute to Sweden via Reykjavik, Iceland. Their destination was Stockholm (Shawna had a conference in Uppsala, so it was a work-related trip). There were, however, several reasons for the intermediate waypoint in Iceland. He and Shawna had been to both countries before, but this would be the first time for the girls to visit either one. At 11-1/2 years old, Mads sees herself as a sophisticated world traveler, and at 5-3/4 years, Sadie is up for almost any adventure. The stopover in Iceland would also break up the flight into two legs of more reasonable length and time, which would be much easier on everyone. But what really made this interesting, to us as well as them, was that Iceland Air allows passengers to book this as a single, continuing (round-trip) flight, rather than two separate flights, AND allows the layover to be up to seven (7) days! Obviously Iceland Air has a very good and cooperative relationship with whomever is in charge of tourism for the country. Icelandair will come up again in a future post.
…