July 30th Meadowfest, a Party!

One of our Mustang Ponies (JT Vogt, our talk show host and interviewer extraordinaire)  is having a party at his house, which he holds annually, at the end of the week of Airventure Oshkosh.  Since we are in Wisconsin already, we decided to go – little did we know it would be a 4 1/2 hour drive!  (Who knew Wisconsin was so big?)

     Since the Party runs from 4 p.m. – 11 p.m. (he has a live band and fireworks too!) we decided to get a hotel room (Choice Hotels is having their stay 2, get 1 special) in Shawano, WI for tonight night and then drive back Sunday.  We were expecting good driving weather, but instead a very black cloud followed us the whole way.  It let loose just as we got to the motel, but was only a narrow band of storms.   We went on to the party, which had moved into the garage but by then the rain had stopped.  It was a lot of fun and we met some nice people.

A friend asked: Do we like Hawaii or Mexico better?

We like Hawaii better – that is, the Big Island.    We love Kona.
       We like Hawaii better than Mexico because the weather doesn’t get so hot – it’s in the 80’s mostly in Kona – we stayed there 6 weeks last summer to see how hot it got, and it was comfortable all the time….and they speak English, which makes things more comfortable.  Since Costco and Target have come in, prices are lower than they were.
       However, the BIG difference is accessibility.  It is simply too far away for family.  Yes, as one person said, when you live in Hawaii, everyone wants to come visit.  But…..they can’t afford it regularly. Our friends who live in Kona have seen their grandchildren 4 times in 7 years – and they were okay with that.  Not us!
     AND, we have to have a car here….and the cost of the rental car!  Too much, much less the cost of the airplane ticket here is so much greater than going to Mexico.
     So to answer your question, [], we prefer to travel to Mexico. 

(Heh heh, not a direct answer I know.)

      However, ….Mexico…we feel PV is safe.  But in Acapulco, where we loved the WIVC Mar Azul timeshare we got there – now AAA says it is not safe.  And the WIVC Coral Mar, which we like best in Cancun, because we can so easily take the bus over to our favored restaurants in the OLD city – not so sure about that area anymore.  Generally I am not boycotting Mexico at all because of the news, but we are sticking with PV.  What do you think?

July 10th-24th Two weeks at Telemark Pointe,

We arrived safely at Telemark Pointe, checking in, moving in, and then enjoying getting reacquainted with the area and our friends here and made new friends too.  We got fishing licenses; need to get an annual one since we’ll be back in October for 2 more weeks. I have already written in past posts about Telemark itself, so do not need to repeat.  The 16^th, we went on the Cable’ s Museum Garden Tour.  We were happy to get to go: too often, we miss them in the various communities as we move around so much.  Although they were all beautiful, the highlight was probably the garden train.
     We'll be spending the next two weeks at the Telemark Villas.

July 22nd Ron Said It!

Sitting on the deck, enjoying the view of the lake, reading his book, in the perfect weather, he said, “I might be able to stand the snow up here if we could do this the rest of the time.”

And there are sunsets elsewhere, too!

Oh oh…..

Well, thought Joan, because we have a timeshare here, we can enjoy doing this every year, but without the snow the rest of the year!  ??

July 14th Appliances in Timeshares

We did it!  We bought a coffee machine.  The one here took 1 hour and 15 minutes to finish sputtering and steaming away ½ of the water so that the6 cups of water put in resulted in 3 cups of coffee.  So we went to Wal-mart and bought a Hamilton Beach Brew Station, like the one we bought for the 3 BD condo in Seattle, which we like so well.  So many timeshare coffee pots (except the new Cuisinart ones in the Wyndhams!) are older and sputtering so this will get good use.
     We had bought an electric  grill last year since so many of the stoves have burners that are crooked, inconsistent heating elements,  and frying pans in which the Teflon covering is scratched, so it is so much easier now to cook Ron’s breakfast.  We purchased an electric hand mixer since many places do not have them and whipping cream ourselves is so much cheaper than using the aerosol can.   We had already been carrying Joan’s old crock pot around since it was so easy to put something in it in the morning, go away for the day, and then return to a meal ready…just like we did at home when we worked!  It works well for the homemade vegetable soup that Ron can eat for his pancreatitis diet.

July 8th Two More Days to Telemark!

We are so anxious!  Not that we don’t like being in Seattle – didn’t get to finish the weeding! --  or not that we didn’t have a good time with Keenan and kids in Springfield, IL – didn’t get to finish the weeding, mulching, and planting there! – and not that we don’t like visiting with Ron’s aunt in Rochester, MN which we do on the way up and back… but we just feel like we are going HOME soon, up north in the Northwoods!
           An email note to a friend in Telemark explains it all: 

“We are talking about how much we look forward to going to Telemark, what makes it
 so special (also St Augustine Fl when we go to that timeshare in
 January ) out of all the different timeshares we go to, and guessed it's
 because we feel so at home and the PEOPLE! !! That's YOU! Thanks for
 the fun times and see you soon.” 

Telemark has a very special “feel” to it and we look forward each year to going.

July 5th- 6th Exactly 24 hours late, getting to Bloomington IL airport (BMI)

The SEA-MSP flight was fine but in MSP, we did volunteer to be “bumped” by Delta from MSP-BMI.  They had oversold five seats and asked for volunteers, and no one was interested!  Offering $400 each!!  Plus hotel and food.  We grabbed that!

We stayed at the Ramada Mall of America with a Delta voucher and found it to be one of our most enjoyable stays.  The entire staff was friendly, free airport shuttles and shuttle to the Mall of America.  It is a large older hotel but which has been either remodeled or very well maintained.  Our room was large, clean, with a flat screened TV.  The bathroom was small (toilet and small shower in separate room) but the marble (!)  vanity was large.  The beds were fabulous.  The outdoor pool is large with lots of lounges and chairs (for a hotel pool) , and the indoor pool is also large in a beautiful circular addition, with a hot tub.  But the greatest upgrade is The ‘Backyard’, a resort-like patio adjacent to the pool with a snack bar, gardens, comfortable chairs, umbrellas, and a stage where live music is presented during the summer.  The brainstorm of an employee, it is a great success. We wish all motels would have that!  We ate salads for lunch there, and for dinner, we visited the inside restaurant, the Boulevard Pub, and had delicious meals (breakfast is served in the Boulevard Café.) We would love to come back!

July 2nd To a Hotel, or????

WA is serious about the ferries!

     Since the condo was rented from July 2^nd for a week, and we weren’t leaving Seattle until the 5^th, we needed to move.   After some discussion about where/when to go, we decided to visit Joan’s dad for the holiday weekend.  We'll spend the weekend with Joan’s dad and return to Seattle Monday....wow, what a ferry line that will be...and I-5 too...so we’ll leave early to hopefully miss the traffic, see her mother, then go to a motel Monday night with an airport shuttle as we leave on an early plane Tuesday.  We will drop the van off at the condo and call a taxi to get us to the motel.

Sunset view from NAS room

We spent the morning Saturday packing, taking stuff to the storage unit, then cleaning the condo for the renters.  We wanted to take the ferry to Whidbey Island but when the sign at the road to Everett said that the ferry wait time was 2 hours, we gave up going to the ferry and turned north to get on I-5.   BUT, then we checked Joan’s phone traffic map and I-5 north was totally blocked all the way into Everett! So we went back to the ferry road!  It wasn’t bad, just waiting at the dock for an hour, and eating the delicious meatloaf sandwiches Joan made!!!! And listening to KIXI radio=oldies.
      We stayed 2 nights at the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station’s temporary quarter and had a wonderful visit with Joan’s dad and left the 4^th after taking him out for lunch at one of his favorite restaurants in Coupeville which he had not been to for over two years since his wife, Betty, had been sick that long.  We left for the ferry about 2 p.m. hoping to beat the 4^th of July rush back to Seattle. 

Mt Baker overlooks the NAS

JULY 4th!
 Mt Baker was out on all her glory.  All the mountains were out with blue sky behind and no clouds: Baker, Rainier, the Cascades, and the Olympics, all in sight from Whidbey Island and the ferry:  this is a day Northwesterners wade through 11 months of rain for, and it happened on the 4th of July!

We got back to Seattle about 4:30 and visited Joan’s mother, then went to the hotel to check in and leave our bags.  We went to the storage unit again to return some things we had used during the weekend, and then took the van to the condo to park it and grab a taxi to the motel.  Unfortunately, the taxi did not come, even as we called three times, they finally displaced another one, after we had  waited an hour and a half outside.  That had never happened with this taxi company!  But we eventually got there.  We picked a motel with an airport shuttle to catch the plane the next morning.