Getting Race Ready

It rained all morning off and on – mostly on. I spent most of the morning reading while Donna worked at her laptop,doing book promotion. The skies finally cleared around 2:30pm. Donna went out for a walk and found the paved bike trail at Spring Lake Regional Park (map). She walked a little over five miles.

I took the scooter to the store to replenish our bottled water supply. Ozark spent most of the day napping. When I returned from the store, I saw we had a new neighbor setting up in the site next to us here at the Dakotah Meadows RV Park.

After a while, I saw him come out of his fifth wheel trailer and unplug the power cord. He sprayed the contacts with cleaner and plugged it back in. A few minutes later, he was at the back of his RV jiggling the plug again. I picked up my Fluke multimeter and went outside. I asked him if he was having an electrical problem. He said he didn’t have any 120-volt AC power, only 12-volt DC.

We unplugged his power cord from the pedestal and I checked it with my meter. We had 120-volt AC on both legs of the 50amp socket. I plugged his cord back into the pedestal and checked the socket on the end of the cord. We had power there. I told him to check his circuit breaker inside because power was getting to the coach. He came out a few minutes later and said all was good. He thanked me and went inside without telling me what the problem was. I’m assuming the breaker was tripped inside and all he had to do was reset it.

Dakotah Meadows RV Park site A39

Dakotah Meadows RV Park site A39

Donna made meatloaf for dinner. She improvised and changed up her usual recipe by adding diced sun-dried tomatoes, prosciutto and fresh herbs. The side dish was a winner – it was a warm potato and green bean salad. Delicious!

Meatloaf with warm potato and green bean salad

Meatloaf with warm potato and green bean salad

After dinner, I played with Ozark for a while. She batted her parchment toy around and I encouraged her to scratch the scratching post. I was hoping the activity would tire her enough to sleep through the night. It almost worked. She was up at 6am, running from the bedroom to the front of the coach and back. She attacked the bathroom rug and was bouncing off the walls. I finally gave up on sleeping and got out of bed at 7am.

Today’s forecast calls for a lovely day with clear skies and a high temperature of 70 degrees. I’ll scooter Donna over to the Enterprise rental office in Shakopee around noon. We’re renting a car for the next few days. This afternoon, we’ll drive to the Minneapolis Convention Center to pick up Donna’s race packet. Then we’ll head over to the fairgrounds to preview the bicycle race course. While we’re out, we plan to make a stop to visit Donna’s friend, Shannon. When we were here in August of 2013, Shannon and her husband Paul along with their two children visited us and we grilled dinner together here at the park.

There’s a Costco near Shannon’s house so we’ll stop there and stock up before heading home. The main reason we are renting a car is for tomorrow’s Senior Olympics bicycle race. I’ll drive Donna to the race site in the morning. The race starts at 9am, so we’ll be up early to get there well ahead of time during the morning rush hour.

The weather for the race should be fine. It will be cool – in the 60s in the morning and shouldn’t be too windy. I won’t post again until Thursday when I can give the race results. Donna says her goal is to finish without crashing.