summer trip nl june 2011

7/29/2019 Summer Trip NL June 2011

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Summer Tri 2011

• Newsletter #2: May 27-June 11, 2011 • On the Road with Chris & Sally Mendola •

Day 15; Friday, May 27Dave & Chris were at it again –working on the new laundry roominstalling electrical boxes,connecting wiring to the mainpanel, cutting & installing drywall,

adding more framing, etc. They’vestill got a long way to go but it’sreally shaping up!

We took a break for what Davecalls, “fun time”. Dave & Margotreated us to an afternoon movie,The Pirates of the Caribbean,followed by dinner-out at Perkins.

What a fun time we all hadtogether.

Day 16: Saturday, May 28We continued working on thelaundry room by going to Home

Depot for some tools and supplies. Applied drywall compound betweenthe joints and on the corners. Setup a fan to help it dry faster.

Day 17: Sunday, May 29 A quick breakfast had us on our

way to Margo & Dave’s church,Redeemer Free Church, followedby lunch at Fazoli’s Italian fast food.We then went to Home Depot,Hobo’s, and Menard’s, all buildingsupply stores nearby, picking upFormica-style countertop surfacing,vinyl floor sheeting, and other supplies.

Sally and I went out for frozen

custard and then a walk around theneighborhood. We saw two

teenage boys struggling to get ariding mower started. Chris gavethem some ideas, and then wefinished our walk. Chris chose to goback to them after changing intowork clothes and further diagnosedwiring faults. He left them to their own devices after running out of ideas.

Jon, Dave & Margo’s middle child,back from graduate school, joined

us as we watched a PBS special onSimon & Garfunkel. A knock at thedoor produced the “mower boys”who, finding our camper, asked inthe “Florida man” was inside. Ispoke with them and found theyhad changed spark plugs and themower ran. I toured our camper with them and they thanked Chrisfor all his efforts. It gave him a good



feeling to help these boys.

Day 18: Monday, May 30Worked on the laundry room allday, sanding the joint compound sothe drywall panels are flush, readyfor primer. At the end of the dayChris looked like the Abominable

Snowman, covered from head-to-toe in white dust. Still not done yet!

Day 19: Tuesday, May 31Continued sanding today. Almostdone. Helped Dave with someplumbing related to this project.

Day 20: Wednesday, June 1 Applied primer to the drywall, firstwith a brush at the joints where onewall meets another, and then Sallyapplied the primer to the rest of the

walls & ceilings with a roller. Christhen applied ceiling white to theceilings.

After supper Chris “cut-in” the lightbeige paint on the edges where thewalls meet the ceiling, and thenpainted the corner joints, followedby rollering the walls. Looks great!

Day 21: Thursday, June 2Sally & Margo went to lunch withJackie, Greg’s mother. Greg isHolly Parker’s fiancé, and Holly isour niece and godchild from

Tampa. (Greg was originally fromMilwaukee, and a neighbor of Dave& Margo.)

Dave concentrated on plumbing,and enclosing the (exterior) garage-

side of the laundry room withplywood & drywall sections.

Chris built the countertopframework making it strong enoughto stand on to reach deep shelvesabove. He then cut pieces from thelaminate countertop materials tocover the plywood. Because thecountertop had to be built in place,he had to make a template and cuteach piece of counter material byhand, taking hours. He finallyfinished all the edges and caulkedthe slight grooves between counter and walls. He finished the task ataround 9:30 tonight.

Day 22: Friday, June 3The goal today was for Chris toinstall the one-piece sheet vinylflooring in the new laundry room.

The floor part was done today sothat it would tack-dry overnight. Thestaircase to the basement enterspart of the closet that we’ve made

into the laundry room. This ceilingwas just lumber studs that becameexposed during construction. Togain some useful space from thisarea we converted the area to anopen cabinet in which we will installshelves. A portion of the slantedceiling now forms a slanted wallthat intrudes just a little into thelaundry room. On top of this we will



Sally & Margo spent several hourscleaning wood trim from the oldcloset (now the laundry room).Then they stained & painted it to bready for installation tomorrow.

Day 25: Monday, June 6With the wood trim installed, and a

few finishing touches, the laundryroom is essentially complete. Dave& Chris moved on to install the newtub faucet. The planning and somedisassembly were done today.

Day 26: Tuesday, June 7The entire plumbing job was starte& finished today but it wasn’t aseasy as one might guess from suca simple sentence. Since thenwe’ve been plagued with random“trash” getting into the tub valveand blocking it or causing dripping

Chris has done several ‘flushes’ ofthe system but we’re still gettingsome residual particles that seemto dislodge in pipes when major plumbing work is done.

AND electrical power went out for about 4500 households due to awiring junction below groundshorting out. This occurred whileMargo’s new washer & dryer werebeing installed by Home Depot subcontractors (see next page). Marg& Sally had to pull our supper out the (electric) oven and take It to achurch friend’s house for the finalhalf-hour of overtime. They camehome with hot food a minute after power was restored.

install leftover vinyl flooring to giveit a more ‘finished’ look.

Supper was Dave & Margo’s treatto us at Famous Dave’s BBQ.We’ve enjoyed their food before,and Chris thinks their BBQ saucesrival that of Sonny’s BBQ in theSouth.

Day 23: Saturday, June 4Chris glued down the vinyl on theslanted wall. Dave worked oninstalling drywall in the garage onthe back wall of the laundry room.Both Chris & Dave worked onsoldering copper pipes to supplywater to the laundry room. This alltook the entire day.

Day 24: Sunday, June 5We attended Dave & Margo’schurch again, then did our day’sshopping at Home Depot. (Seemswe go there everyday!) Lunch wasat Fazoli’s Italian fast foodrestaurant. They have very goodmeals at reduced prices!

Chris installed metal trim on theslanted wall to keep the edges of the vinyl flooring from becomingfrayed or torn. Dave painted thedrywall in the garage. We plannedthe final steps to complete thelaundry room by tomorrow for thewasher & dryer’s arrival Tuesday.

The Culinary

Comments Corner Our daughter, Cindi, oftencomments that we should be foodcritics as we often make commentsabout eating establishments whileon our trips. Our ultimate purpose

is to give a hooray to those eaterieswho are better than average, whilealerting folks to those so bad theyshould be avoided.

The large chain restaurants can becounted on to generally deliver thesame ‘taste’ from location to thenext. But several months ago wehad CRAP at Bob Evans and Chrisis looking forward to it again! (?)Some of you may be familiar with

the beverage named the ArnoldPalmer – half iced tea and half lemonade. At our Silver Springs, FLBob Evans the waiter offered toadd raspberry syrup or cherrysyrup to our iced tea. Duringsupper I tried both individually, thentook the wild, free spirit path byasking for BOTH cherry ANDr aspberry syrup in my ArnoldPalmer. It was FANTASTIC, and it

was crap.So if you venture to a Bob Evansrestaurant, ask if they have bothcherry and raspberry syrup for inclusion in ice tea. Then, if theydo, tell them you heard so manygood things about their CRAP andthat you want to try it for yourself. If you like sweet drinks, you’ll lovethe crap they’ll serve you. I usuallyask for unsweetened ice tea and

add one packet of artificialsweetener, but it can easily get toosweet. You may even want to talkto the manager and express your thanks for the CRAP your host/hostess served. Just don’t dowhat I did and tell everyone aroundyou that you enjoy the crap thisrestaurant serves… you probablywon’t be understood.



Day 27: Wednesday,June 8Chris purged the tub’s valve againtoday and Chris & Dave rotated thedryer receptacle 90º for a better fit.

Then we drove 1.5 hours toWaterloo, Wisconsin to take a tour

of the Trek bicycle factory. On theway we experienced a hailstorm.This US plant makes the high-endbikes made by Trek, costing from$5,000 to $12,000 each!

All of these high-end bikes aremade of a special carbon fiber witha proprietary method of construction. They produce severalhundred bikes per day andeveryone we saw was already soldby advanced, custom order.

The tour was great and our tour

guide, Jason Mountford, (below)with the Trek sales department, dida superior job of taking us aroundand providing expert informationabout the company, its employees,and its products.

On our way to lunch we took a walkaround the river park area of Waukesha, Wisconsin. The parkalong the Fox River was very pretty

(see below).

Dave & Margo treated us to a grand

luncheon buffet at the GoldenCorral, followed by a short trip tothe Salvation Army thrift store.

While doing odd jobs in the eveningMargo heard a weather alert tellingof severe weather heading towardMilwaukee. A sudden drop in tempfrom the afternoon high in the 90sto mid-50s temps resulted in aforecast of straight-line winds from50-100 miles-per-hour! We begancovering cars with blankets due toexpected hail.

Sally brought forth a great &sudden thought, “We need to lower the Aliner while we have time!” Andso we did, moving important itemsindoors in case we had to ride outthe storm tonite. After two hours wewere able to reset-up the Aliner.

Some may ask, “With your wind kiin place why not leave the trailer up?” We never expect our wind kitto handle 100MPH winds!! It’salways wiser to take the safer pathand not gamble on the results. Witan Aliner you can take-down in lesthan a minute, and set-up just as

fast. Wouldn’t it be foolish not toprotect your investment (your Aliner) by droppin’-the-top until thestorm passes, and then set it upagain?

Day 28; Thursday, June 9Sally & I awoke a bit later thismorning. I stayed in bed while Salstepped out to head indoors for apotty visit and some breakfast

coffee. Within a few seconds of heleaving I heard her yell, “Chris! It’sall wet!” We had covered the roof and windshield of our car withbeach towels, and then coveredthem with two large blankets. Thiswas intended to provide protectionfrom hailstones that were predicteto fall last night. Chris secured theblanket by pinching them in doorsand the tailgate so winds (50-100MPH prediction) wouldn’t blowthem away. We never removedthem when the winds stopped, soduring the night the blankets serveas wicks to… you guessed it…carry the night’s rain indoors over many of our belongings.

We spent most of the day dryingout items, especially books,magazines, maps and clothing. Buit could have been much worse!

Tonight Dave & Margo treated us a fabulous supper at Michael’sItalian Restaurant in Waukesha.They had manicotti and we shared



a pizza (with anchovies, of course!).

Day 29: Friday, June 10 After seeing the window shadesystem that Dave & Margo have intheir family room, Sally wanted tosee if any styles would meet theneeds of our dining room. This

shopping trip also saw Chris buy acouple hundred special nuts tomeet the sudden results of additional Aliner kit sales.

After having dealt with the smallravages of rain damage inflicted onthe contents of our car fromyesterday, we expected an easier day today. No such luck. Our GPSwouldn’t work even though it wasn’t

water damaged. In the interest of time we borrowed Dave’s GPS(same model we have), so our travels in unfamiliar locations wasmuch easier.

Upon getting back to base Chris &Dave took the GPS apart. Chrishad a feeling the battery was the

culprit as this same GPS wouldn’twork a year ago and we replacedthe old battery in Milwaukee lastsummer. Sure enough, the plug onthe battery (lower arrow) hadsomehow slipped a sliver of amicron from the socket on thecircuit board. Once pushed back init fired right up! Praise the Lord! Hewas watching out for our welfareas He alwa s does.

Supper was stew with Dave,Margo, their daughter, Emily andgranddaughter, Elly.

Husband, Eric, joined us later after work. Elly did her first extendeddistance walking on her owntonight. We expect she’ll be a proby next week.

Day 30: Saturday, June 11This is our last full day inMilwaukee and we still have a few jobs to finish. Sally did somepacking of the items that got wet inthe car. Chris installed a shelf inMargo’s new laundry room. We allwent out to Fazoli’s for lunch, andthen back home so Chris couldwash the VW and Aliner. Davemade more shelves for Margo. Wealso took in a movie, Super 8,which is a very good adult versionof ET, but the language is adult anda bit bloody in some parts. Middleschool and above could manage it.Very exciting.

Dave installed the vent system for the dryer.

We pack up tomorrow morning andhead off to the Aliner RV Rally inSparta, Illinois.

Don’t Throw Out

hat GPS As mentioned in this newsletter,our GPS wouldn’t turn on. Chriswent into ‘diagnosis mode. Hewanted to share his findings withour readers…

Brother Dave has the same model(Garmin) GPS, so we borrowed hisunit and plugged it into our charger base. It lit up showing that thecharger base was operative. Our unit quit last year and we installeda new battery (2.5 years old). Itthen started fine. This phenomenonalso occurs with older laptopcomputers – they need ancharged, operating battery to start,even if plugged in.

Chris used a special, tiny Torxscrewdriver to remove the twoscrews, then popped open the case

by carefully prying open thebottom, sides & top of the GPS. Hefound the battery’s plug was slightlyajar (see lower red arrow on left).He carefully pulled off the plug andthen reinserted it. Whahlah! Startedand ran fine. So… take a chanceand carefully check your unit beforediscarding it. A $30 battery is better than a new $200 GPS! Oh yeah!

summer trip nl june 2011

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