Before heading home to Buffalo NY area, we attended the Monaco Rally in Wilbur, MN. We had a great time seeing old friends, renewing acquaintance and meeting many new friends plus seeing all the new coaches. You never know what to expect at these events but are always guaranteed a great time. An unexpected event happened Friday night, the last night of the rally, while we were getting ready to have dinner. We knew we were under sever weather warnings but did not expect the tornado sirens to go off. We all were ushered into the locker rooms at the civic center and waited for about 15 minutes. Fortunately we did not have any problems on the north side of town, where we were – with over 400 coaches. However the tornado did touch down on the south side of town destroying some homes and buildings. This is one of those events we fear and hope we never have to face – this was as close as we want to get.

Next we travelled to Faribault, MN to rest (?) up a day or two. We ventured out to Mall of America for a day and it took most of the day to walk around the four level mall. The fourth floor was not occupied (fortunately) but there was more than enough to see. In the middle of the mall is adventure land for the kids including water world, Lego world, and rides of all kinds plus in the basement of the mall is a large aquarium. This place is huge and a place you must see. Next day we headed to the FMCA Rally for the day – choosing not to stay at the grounds for the week. This is the big rally with many vendors and stuff to buy from clothing, jewelry to anything you want to put on or in your RV. Course you also have all the brands of RVs to view including the new Country Coach with the veranda – what a sight to see.

After two days of continuous walking, shopping, we headed back to camp to pack up and head out to Ohio. It took two days including driving around Chicago in 4:00 traffic but we finally made it to Wauseon, OH where we met up with our good friends, Chuck and Joanne for a fantastic home cooked meal. It was a short but great time. Next stop was Avon, OH where we stopped to see a high school friend, Doris. Another great visit with nonstop talking for hours on end trying to get caught up with each others families. Time to head home to see Scott after almost 8 months.

Scott and Meg were getting ready for her 25th birthday party and graduation from grad school the following weekend. It was a “little” work for all of us but got the house in order which included painting, weeding, putting up doors, new windows and baseboards. He is almost finished with his downstairs remodeling job which also included laying ceramic tile before we arrived. What an amazing job he did. We finished shortly (less than an hour) before the party started. It was a great party and we got to meet and visit with her parents and brother, sister-in-law and nephew from Argentina.

Time to go back to Buffalo for some much needed R&R as we see many of our friends plus visit the doctors, dentist, hair salon, etc. before flying out to California for the August 16 wedding of Chad and Katy.