Into the home straight – 100 left to run!

Coincidentally, if we had stuck to our original departure date, the 100 day mark would have fallen on our 42^nd wedding anniversary in 2 days time. I am also down to my last 50 sachets of Crystal Light Orange Sunrise drink which I bought as we were leaving last trip, so I have enough to last me through as long as I ration myself to one every 2 days. The sugar-free Pecan Delights won’t make it though as I’m down to the last bag of them. Still, I figure I can be proud of my restraint. When I bought them at Walmart in LA in September last year, the checkout lady asked if we were having a party, I guess from the number of packets we were buying. When I told her that they had to last till next June, she said, while looking me up and down (in my best southern African-American accent); “Woooeee, honey, they ain’t gonna last you till next sat’day!”

Since the last blog, we have had 2 postponements of visitors which actually suits us better. Charlie and Pauline are still coming to visit 3 weeks after we get there. It is likely that we will take the boat back to Kenosha where Harborside Yachts have a slip (berth) for us and we will provision from there, as we can’t find anything in Milwaukee. We will now probably rent a car locally for a month so we will be able to pick C & P up from Chicago and show them round a bit. When we leave Kenosha, we will travel up the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan and through the Sturgeon Bay Canal into Green Bay. It looks real nice up there – I am presently reading about it in Ron & Eva Stobs book about side trips (they also wrote “Honey lets buy a boat”). We can drop C & P off at Green Bay City (where the “Packers” come from) and they can catch a Greyhound bus back to Chicago to fly out after their 3 week stint with us. After that we will stooge back down to Chicago by early to mid August and start the Loop proper

Kathy and Dennis have postponed their visit until September. They are doing a “Route 66” tour starting on the 27^th from Chicago and want to go and see the largest Christmas shop in the world in Frankenmuth, MI first. So the plan now is they will get a rental car, go to Frankenmuth, then come down and find us and stay a week before returning to Chicago to start their tour. We expect we will be down around Kentucky/Barkley, or Pickwick Lakes by then and be in striking distance of Nashville, Memphis etc. As they will have a rental car we will be able to go and visit these and other places over that week.

Cheryl, our friend from Whangarei has decided to postpone her visit till stage 2, probably from Florida when we return in March 2013.

Preparations continue. We have applied for our US Visae (plural of Visa) online….what a rigmarole that is!.......and have made an appointment with the Consulate for our interviews next week. All going well we should have those before the end of this month.

I got sent this Pic of the Wharehine New Years Eve dance and felt obliged to post it. (wow, that was over 2 months ago!) My Gogo dancers really threw themselves into their routines (they’re my Great Nieces, by the way)! I think I was thumping out “Hotel California” at the time.