Grand nephew Daniel, 25 yrs, old gets married. No, I was not there. Apparently it was a great wedding, as all weddings should be.

The other day, was hanging out at a Starbucks as it is my custom in the mornings, having a hot chocolate. Was furiously working on the computer since I had only 12% power left. An elderly gentleman, yep, much elder than me, he was chatting at me, I was not paying much attention to him, and that is not like me, but wanted to finnish before the computer power shut off. Anyway, in his chatting, he said his wife passed last week, OK, I closed the computer and focused my attention on this elder gentleman. He had been married 65 yrs, that is longer than I been around. He spent lots time telling me his life story, I listened and gave him feedback here and then. That way he knew I was listening. He had come home from WWII at 19 yrs old, 1945. Went to school on the GI Bill, and spent his career as a salesman. When he got married he was a door to door salesman in Chicago for many years. After about an hour of telling his life story, he wanted to know why a young man was hanging out in the middle of the day at Starbucks. So I told him a bit of the Rouel life story. He apologized that he could not see me very well, and thought I was much younger, but he was particularly impressed that I had retired so young. He said people of his generation could never retire at 56, that 65 was pretty common. Then his buddies showed up, one had a walker, the other had a fancy cane, walked slowly with a limp. It looked like perhaps one of their grand kids had dropped them off at the Starbucks. I ask him how did he get there, he said “my daughter drops me off here everyday to spend time with his friends”. Everyone at the Starbucks know them, they set down and their favorite drinks appear without them ordering. They always pay later when they leave. He wanted to shake my hand and slowly went outside to sit with his friends. They were all well dressed, lite suit, and sported hats. 

Anyway, I like days like that. Someday some young person should listen to my story. But not yet, am still much to young, and have lots of things to do.

On my way here to San Diego had a blowout on the RV at 70 mph, that scared me silly. Actually it was the noise of the flapping rubber that was scary, and all the damage it caused. RV’s are not made to get blowouts.  My tires are fairly new, less than 20 K mi. But the roads in our America are getting pretty terrible from lack of proper maintenance and tires on heavy vehicles take a beating.

Got lots of damage from the blowout. The flapping tire pieces completely disintegrated the wheel well compartment. And destroyed the house batteries and that compartment and an adjacent compartment. It is all made from fiberglass and metal.  I have straightened most of the metal, but have to replace the torn fiberglass.  I think am going to try to repair all this damage my self. Will have to learn to work fiberglass, create molds and layer the fiberglass to desired thicknesses and rebuild the wheel well and the broken compartments. Have till mid Aug to learn and fix. Because that’s when I plan to go cruising.