Monday May 25 Sedalia MO and Escapade

The first and most important thing to say today is God Bless all of our soldiers, especially those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms!!

Well, another one of those mornings where I awakened at “O dark thirty” to the dark sky and… rain!! So, I jumped up and shut all of the roof vents and windows. It was muggy last night, but not bad enough to turn on the air conditioning, so I was letting the breezes in.

I had planned on getting up early to attend a stretching class, then a class on Medical Emergencies on the Road. I managed to oversleep (should have set the alarm) and by the time I gave the dogs breakfast, dressed and ate a yogurt, and took the dogs out (in the pouring rain), it was already close to class time.

One thing I couldn’t find is my rain poncho. I think I put it in my cycling stuff, and I don’t have any big black garbage bags. Bad me. Unless they are in the storage under Blue, but I’ll have to look when it’s not raining.

I took the panniers off the bike (luckily I had covered the seat and the trunk pack with plastic bags), added a new plastic bag to the seat and rode off for class. I was a couple of minutes late and quite damp.

BUT!!! I am excited! I talked to one of the volunteers that drives a golf cart to shuttle folks, as we were both heading for the under road passage. She asked me “bet you’re going under there?” and I replied “yep… my goal by Friday is to be able to ride up the other side!” So I took off, tucked in (like Allen going down Mason hill) peddled like crazy… AND MADE IT!!! I could hear the driver cheering! Whew hoo!

Glad I went to the Medical Class. I do need to go over my Progressive RV policy (which includes some coverage for the Furr-babies) and my Kaiser policy for things like which type of medical facility to go to and transport, etc. I’ve been thinking about that since before my dad got sick, what if I got sick on one of my journeys?

There is a lady on the Life with a Lazy Daze site who DID get sick, and it was up to the kindness of strangers to help her out with her rig and pet, while she was in the hospital.

I rode back to Blue, hoping there wouldn’t be any “surprises” when I opened the door. Nope! Only the pencil holder and candy cup (which are Velcro-ed in place) were scattered on the floor. Smudge must have been barking at someone. So, I took the kids out for a nice, long walk. They didn’t go, and didn’t go, and then they both went. I didn’t have enough bags!! So, go back, tie up the dogs, get more bags, ride the bike back out in the middle of the field, and clean up. The motto here is “one dog, one bag”. They forgot to say, don’t feed them chicken skin and batten down the milk bones!!!

I poured myself a bowl of cereal, and sat down to finish my murder mystery. I am watching the clock because I want to hear the founders of Escapees, Kay and Joe Peterson (SKP #1), speak at 11am. The topic is “They’re going to have a depression, but we are not invited”. I always enjoy Kay’s articles in the Escapees magazine, and I am really glad I got the opportunity to hear them both (contemporaries of my folks). They had the entire stadium in stitches at times.

After the speech, I went down to the floor to take photos of the various Escapade banners and I had a moment to personally thank Kay for coming up with the idea of the Escapees group and shake her hand. She was hoping to have 100 families as members originally, they are now over 100,000 and going on the third generation of running the club!!I picked up my name tag that I had made yesterday, and after waiting in line (3rd time) I was told “go check the table”, and there it was. So now I’m official!! We do have to have our “ribbons” on at all times to go into the classes, etc, as there are other groups here, or will be starting tomorrow. The different ribbon colors are for first time, returning, vendor, staff, etc. Lots of yellow ribbons, which are the first Escapaders, but lots of blue ones too.
I came home again and made lunch and hooked the kids up outside as it isn’t raining at the moment. I ended up letting them back in as the rain started up again. Took a nice little nap after setting the alarm so I could go to my next class “Backing your rig” at 2:45pm. Well, the best laid plans! I decided to ignore the alarms and doze (missed too much sleep last night, I guess) as it was still pouring rain and I was just damp enough to not want to be soaked. At least it isn’t cold, but it is awfully grey. A different style of Airstream.... pretty classy looking
More buildings around the Fairgrounds

Once I woke up, I decided to do kitchen chores and make a pot of Desert Gardens “Southwest Chicken Chowder”. Smells good in here!! I did talk to a couple of the other Lazy Dazers, we are going to try to meet in a nearby pavilion for a little social time. I believe there are a total of 8 LDs here.

After dinner, I took the dogs out and got ready to ride over to the main stadium (which is indoors, fortunately) in the rain. At 7:15 they start calling for door prizes, and at 8pm there was a 2 hour show by the “Brett Family” that normally plays in Branson.

I found a seat in the upper level near the stage, and the folks around me were teasing me because I was wet. During the show, the rain REALLY started pouring down and hammering on the stadium roof. I got more ribbing then.

The show was very entertaining, a mother and father, two sons and one daughter sang, played piano, read a poem for Memorial Day, danced and the sons did a Harlem Globetrotters basketball routine. Very talented family (who happen to be LDS). I went down after the show to thank the mother for the wonderful poem she read, which I will order a copy of. I didn’t take my wallet or glasses due to the rain, and I really should have, as the stage is blurry and I could have purchased a CD of their music for my Mom.

It wasn’t raining too hard after the show, but the line of cars going back to the camping area was pretty thick. I was able to zip right past them through the underpass, although I almost didn’t make it up the other side because I didn’t go as fast as this morning due to the water. I just got to the top and tipped into the fence. I righted myself and kept on going. I did see a couple of people walking, but no other cyclists.

Once back at Blue, I took the kids out for their last walk and took a shower (with warm water ;-), then talked to Steve and my Mom. This kid always knows where the treats are!