Sunday June 8, 2014 Couer d'Alene, ID

Last night we were again blessed with comfortable sleeping temperatures.  I got up and prepared the coffee and as usual we drank it while catching up on e-mail and Facebook.  Gerri sent a trip update and pictures from our visit in Lewiston to family members who may not follow us on Facebook.  Our friend Alan Howeth stopped writing his blog last Saturday.  He is the one that got me started blogging our travels.  I will miss reading his blog daily.

At 10 we tuned into Church services that are net cast from the Oakey Boulevard Church of Christ  We enjoy those net-casts and seeing members of our home congregation.

After Church I went to Home Depot to try to get the parts to our sewer dump system that I had lost in Reno.  I don't think I wrote about that .  When unhooking from the sewer dump in Reno I laid one of the fittings down near the sewer while I removed the connection.  When I removed the connection the fitting rolled into the sewer inlet and out of sight.  That fitting was the one I use to plug my sewer hose while travelling and it also adapts the sewer hose to fit a garden type hose if I have to pump waste more than 30'.  Sewer dumping is one of the unpleasant duties associated with the RV lifestyle.  Home Depot didn't have all the parts I needed so I made a later trip to Lowe's.  I stopped to try to find one cache, but the GPS was acting up and my heart wasn't in it..

Our financial adviser had mailed some paper to the house after we left and I had him e-mail the part he needed signed for some new investments so I could sign and mail them back to him.  I dreaded messing with the printer in the coach because it seems that every time we don't use it for awhile I have to re-install it over the wireless network.  Much to my surprise the PDF that Scott had sent printed on the first try.  I guess it was to keep me from becoming complacent but later when I tried to print a Word document it wouldn't print.  It's a good thing we don't need to print very often.  I may get a label for the printer, "Devil Machine".

We are officially caravan members, stickers and all

While I was out Gerri met the tail gunner for our caravan.  He came by with some paper work that needed signed and put decals on the front and back of the coach with the company logo and a unit number.  We are number 3, I guess they were assigned alphabetically.  The tail gunners job is to see that everyone leaves a park on time and then bring up the rear, making sure everyone gets to the next destination safely. There is also a wagon master who leaves first and makes sure the next destination is ready for us and to assign parking sites.  These two couples also act as hosts for the group at activities along the way.  Before we leave we will all receive name tags so that will help us remember names of the other members of the caravan. Counting our hosts there are 25 coaches in the group.  The official arrival time is tomorrow but I believe all but five or six of the coaches have arrived here at Blackwell Island.

Everything you ever wanted to know about driving to Alaska

We spent a leisurely late afternoon and had dinner at about 7:30.  Gerri prepared flank steaks on the George grill with rice and gravy to go with it.  A great meal and we have my beloved leftovers for another meal.  We called it a night at about 11:30.