12 May - Last Day at Offutt

12 May
This is our last day at Offutt before we move on to McConnell Air Force Base at Wichita KS.  I will apologize in advance this might be a bit boring.  No cosmic tourist pictures yet, just life on the road in an RV..  But please stay tuned - It will get more exciting :-)

 Last year before we took off on out excursion to Maine we camped a week in the Des Moines area to make sure everything was good to go.  We could not do that this year, so the stay at Offutt has kind of been that "shake down cruise".  Today was kind of a maintenance day where we took care of a couple issues, nothing major but nice to have time to get a few things done before we get serious with the sightseeing.

Yesterday we had one of the plastic retainers break that secure the strings for out retractable blinds.  Today we took advantage of a well-stocked local RV dealer to get the parts to repair this.  It happens to be the same place we bought our new RV stairs a week ago,  So this morning we drove there and picked up the parts.  On the way home we stopped at the Bellevue NE post office to see if they had received a couple Mother's Day cards from the Ervin's in Oak Creek WI.  Unfortunately they had not arrived yet, so they will be returning them to Michelle and we will get them in September when we camp there on the way home.

I also took the opportunity today to run a water line and shut off valve for our ice machine.  I'm glad I tackled it today as it forced me to empty our "basement" storage area to access the panels that hide the water systems.  I quickly discovered I had a small leak which had saturated the bottom of the panels.  RV's typically use cheesy crimp clamps for their water lines and IMHO they are junk and prone to leaks.  Sure enough another crimp clamp was leaking so we cut it off and replaced it with a worm gear clamp.

Crimp clamps - unreliable

Worm gear hose clamps - reliable.  This is the tee installed for the ice machine water line. 

With the leak repaired and water line installed, we got things buttoned up and then got ready to head out for supper with a longtime friend Rusty Rosenbaum and his friend Lynn,

We met Rusty and Lynn at the Catfish Lake Restaurant.  This place is off the beaten path and the parking lot was packed so we were likely in for some great chow.  Rusty and I shared oysters and gizzards!  Our table ordered walleye, pork chops, prime rib and steak.  The portions were huge and very tasty.

After supper we all returned to the campground which was only a couple miles away and gave Rusty and Lynn a tour of our condo-on-wheels.  Rusty had the honors of placing our Nebraska sticker on the map.

Tomorrow morning we will head out early for McConnell Air Force Base.  The trip is estimated at about 293 miles.  Next report from Kansas, Toto!