Friday, May 14th

Lift off – trip to the Orlando airport and arrival in Minneapolis airport.

The day started early -- really early for Wallie. Our driver, Doug, picked us up promptly at 9:30 as arranged. Unlike Wallie, Doug did not get lost going to the airport in mystifying Orlando. He did entertain us with lots of stories of little consequence. Good news: He was born and raised in Miami, even though he talked like a yankee.

The plane was on time leaving Orlando and we arrived in Minneapolis/St. Paul about 20 minutes ahead of schedule. We suffered through horrible airport sandwiches at Chic-Fillet -- my very first and very last experience at this ubiquitous establishment. Through the good graces and help of the folks in the information kiosks, we found the loading area for the bus which would take us and a whole bunch of other people to Forest City, Iowa, to the Winnebago manufacturing plant. Unbelievably, there were two motor coaches full, approximately 50 people per bus, and some of these people were repeat offenders (we discovered that one couple was on their 13th trip). I can see it now: Eighty-five year old Cliff and almost eighty-five year old Wallie hobbling off the bus to get to their Winnebago to take it to the folks in Alaska. Oh, my, what an image.

Fast forward: Most of our “stuff” (remember George Carlin?) has been stowed and Cliff is in his upper berth over the power module (i.e., where you drive and/or navigate) fast asleep. He said the bed is quite comfortable – and we both hope he doesn’t roll over and fall on the obstacles below. : (

Funniest thing – I just heard a furnace come on near us. The inside temp right now is 68 degrees. Panty waists. Ha! Feels good to me. When I finish this, I’ll go back and crawl under a blanket which is something I haven’t done in a while.

Tomorrow we have a continental breakfast and indoctrination/orientation. We found out tonight that we are not scheduled until 11:15 which means that we will be hard pressed to make it to the FedEx office in Sioux Falls by 5:00 to pick up our HUGE (80 pounds) box of essentials. Laugh, laugh. We are now trying to figure out just exactly where we are going to PUT this “stuff” that we were pretty sure we were going to need. Oh, well, it’s our maiden voyage and I’m sure that by the time we are 85-ish, we will have perfected it.