26 Sep
Today Doreen and I worked on preparations for our return Thursday and unloading of the coach. We basically went room by room, cabinet by cabinet and drawer by drawer and created a detailed inventory spreadsheet. Then we marked each item that will be removed at the end of the season (not stored in the coach) vs that which will stay in the coach (in bins) while in winter storage. We also marked anything being removed as to whether or not it will be reloaded next spring. After living in here for 5-6 months each year for the past three years you get a pretty good idea if the item is actually needed or not!
This list will be of great benefit when we get home for unloading, and next spring when we go to reload. It would also be valuable in case we would have a catastrophic loss such as fire, etc. We have a little bit to finish in the outside compartments but for the most part the majority is done. We will take pictures of each compartment and drawer also so we know exactly how to reload next spring. This was time very well spent.
This evening we met Mark Forster and his wife Pamela (pictured above) at a nearly barbecue restaurant for dinner. Mark was a boom operator on the KC-135 refueling aircraft at Lincoln Air National Guard base before he was selected as State Command Chief (CCM) for Nebraska like I was for Iowa. We served together for three out of the four years I was State CCM and we both served together on the Air National Guard's Enlisted Field Advisory Council in Washington DC.
I retired as State CCM in 2015 and Mark in 2016. Since then he has worked for the Veteran's Administration as well as Sheel's Sporting Goods. Mark is an avid bicyclist and is involved with the Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc, which is "dedicated to the physical and emotional rehabilitation of disabled active military service personnel and disabled veterans through fly fishing and associated activities including education and outings." What a great organization!
Reconnecting with military comrades, friends and relatives is one of the things Doreen and I enjoy most about our travels. It was great to see Mark again and meet Pamela. Tomorrow we will have lunch with another good friend for life, Chief Master Sergeant (ret) Leo Kreifels and his wife Phyllis. Leo and I go WAY back as we were both communications maintenance technicians, Leo at Lincoln NE Air Guard base and me at the Des Moines IA Air Guard base. We both saw so many changes in the communications field during our careers, including the arrival of the first desktop and laptop computers and the installation of fiber optic cables and local area networks at our bases. Wow, how that changed the way our Airmen did business! So it will be great to see Leo again. It has been a long time!
Tomorrow we may check out the lighthouse on the way to Lincoln - YES I said lighthouse!!
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