Cruising American RV, Celina, Ohio August 15-25, 2011

We didn’t move very far and fast.  Gary had scheduled our first stop only about 200 miles down the road at an RV service shop so we could have some needed accessories installed.  We arrived at Cruising America Center in Celina, Ohio on our first day out.  Kevin, the owner, and John, his trusty right hand technician are both former employees of American Coach in Decatur, Indiana.  Gary had some work done down there last Fall and this time we were scheduled to have a washer/dryer installed, along with an auto satellite dish, and a whole long list of other installs and repairs.  Within the first two days after our arrival the list was largely completed.  Gary called to order up satellite TV boxes and service and that was when the saga began.  The day after placing the order, he called back with a minor update to the information he had provided less than 24 hours earlier, but that set off the interception of the shipment of the boxes, the waiting for them to be logged back into the warehouse, many many unpleasant phone conversations,  etc, etc.    By the time we finally had satellite boxes (from another satellite service retailer) installed and were on our way again, it was 10 days later.  Kevin was a very gracious host the entire time we camped at “Kamp Kevin”.  We can’t forget to mention our kitty, Alley.  She has adjusted quite well to a life on the road.  She had a couple of “under the weather” days at Kamp Kevin due to the flea treatment she gets once a month.  Since then she has been her old self enjoying her daily brushings and getting to wear her harness and go outside.

Even though the satellite service situation was very frustrating, we still enjoyed our stay at “Kamp Kevin”.  We drove over to Indiana twice to visit Gary’s mother in her nursing home.  The second time it was on Gary’s 60^th birthday.  We also celebrated Mom’s 89^th birthday which was earlier in the month with a homemade blueberry pie made in the motor home.  We also met up twice with Gary’s son who lives in Ohio.  We had 50 amp service off the back of Kevin’s building and not once did he threaten to kick us out of there.  We made the acquaintance of other motor homers there for service and one evening Kevin even threw a cookout for all of us.  But just the same, we were well into our third week of full time RVing and we had never camped anywhere except the back of some garage.