A year to forget, a New Year to remember
“Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.”
Yep, still here in Forest City, Iowa.
Today we woke up to a brisk 11 - feels like 3 - degrees with a nice gentle breeze. At least it was clear with no precipitation. Would have been a good day to get on the road, however our first stop (Kansas City) is expected to get a nasty ice storm tonight and tomorrow morning. That’s got us hunkered down here at the Cobblestone and Lichtsinn for a couple more days.
This really turned out to be a blessing in disguise. What better way to learn all the coach subsystems than having a seasoned group of experts just a few steps away?
Today, we dove deeper into the electrical subsystems. Just when we thought we understood everything, we’d stumble across another switch or knob or control panel that turned something off that we wanted on. The guys at Lichtsinn were super helpful and patient. Never an eye roll or a smirk or a huff. At least not to our faces. I did overhear them talking about the over/under regarding number of times we’d come back in with silly questions before we finally got on the road.
After finally hitting Shooterz last night, we decided to step it up tonight. I mean, it’s New Year’s Eve. Perhaps the most unusual New Year’s Eve in our history, but still a special night.
We started the feast with a little bubbly. Kept properly chilled by the snow bank nestled up nicely against the rear of the coach.
For starters, we had an incredible Antispasti. Some of you might know this as the Subway Spicy Italian minus the sub.
For our main course, we both went with the recommended prime beef. Hy-Vee came through again with a good old-fashioned meatloaf. With gravy.
As our sides, we had mashed potatoes (more gravy), mac-n-cheese, glazed carrots and green beans (with the time-tested Durkee fried onions).
And no 5 star dinner would be complete without an over-the-top dessert. And it was just exquisite. Chocolate. Chip. Cookies. With Ghiradelli chocolates. Warmed in the microwave. Yes, we had the knobs and switches in the correct position! OK, we cheated. We were hooked up to shore power. Can’t get that one wrong.
So there it is. Another year in the books. And this one was memorable for oh so many reasons. We honestly couldn’t think of a better way or better place to close out the year. Perhaps this is the start of a new tradition.
Happy New Year to all!
