11 May - Offutt Area and Visitors!

11 May
A beautiful night at Offutt Air Force Base and a gorgeous day as well.  Rain is gone and the sunshine prevails!  We started out the morning with a nice walk with little Liberty onto the peninsula that extends into Lake Offutt here at the campground.

Our campsite.  The grounds are very well maintained and it is appreciated!

Old Glory and our Air Force colors flying high and proud.  We love our telescopic flag pole!

Another shot of the campsite,

Offutt Lake.  The left side of the photo is the campground.

Offutt in the background behind the lake.

Zebra Mussels taking over the lake.  This is a shame.  We saw this when we scuba dived the Great Lakes also.

We came back from our walk and then headed into the base and visited the Base Exchange to pick up a few items.  Doreen found her "perfect Mother's Day present" at Military Clothing Sales!  She wanted a lightweight jacket for our various adventures on this trip, so she should be all set now!

We returned to the campground and had not been there too long when there was a knock at the door and it was MSgt (ret) Dave VanHaaften, a friend and retiree from the Des Moines Air Guard unit!  Dave was an armorer until he retired from the Air Guard a few years ago.  Now he works at Offutt AFB Civil Engineering unit as a carpenter and stopped by our campsite to give us a hollar.  Dave and his wife commute from their home in Pella Iowa to Offutt each week.  It was great to see Dave again.

 So we had some lunch and then were again very pleasantly surprised with another knock on the door!  This time it was Lt Col(ret) Jim Freese, another great friend and retiree from the Des Moines Air Guard base.  Jim was in the area working a military career fair event and stopped by to see us.  Jim and I deployed and served together in Iraq during a very rough time.  We will forever be connected in a special way.  Jim is also a huge baseball fan as we are.  True baseball fans have a passion for the game and appreciate great talent and competition.  We have our favorite teams but can appreciate great players and great plays.  With that, Jim is a Cardinal fan but has also been know to frequent Wrigley Field and root for the Cubs!!  So we were talking about our trip today and talking baseball too.  We will be attending the St Louis Cardinals at the Colorado Rockies on Sunday 28 May and so is Jim Freese!!  So we are looking forward to seeing him there and seeing some great baseball,

  

Lt Col Jim Freese and I at one of the Security Forces posts at Kirkuk Air Base Iraq in 2006

Later we headed into Menards and Walmart to pick up a few items and then returned to the campsite for the evening. 

After last year's excursion to Maine and back, Doreen and I talked a lot about that trip and what we could do to make things easier and more efficient before this year's trip.  One this we did was to re-evaluate what we carry in the RV and eliminate stuff we don't use.  We also attempted to lighten the load as much as possible, especially considering the mountains we will encounter.  So we have a very nice Camp Chef two burner grill but it is huge and heavy - great for camping with the grand kids but much more than Doreen and I need on these trips.  I left it home and we got a nice Weber Q2200 which I modified to work off the on-board propane but still capable of operating off the disposable cylinders as well as a 20lb tank.  Works great!

The Weber Q2200 with fold-out trays on the side

The quick-disconnect propane line visible here.

Great trip so far.  Tomorrow we will visit one of the local RV dealers to pick up a replacement part for one of our blinds (fell apart today), then supper with our friend Rusty Rosenbaum and his friend Lynn tomorrow night!  Saturday we will head to Kansas and McConnell Air Force Base!