Hi all,

We just left Rick Thum’s workshop and we’re headin’ to Branson, MO.

Yesterday we enjoyed Rick’s hospitality. He gave us a really interesting tour of his workshop. I’ll post photos, as soon as I have a chance. Quite an operation!

(Note: For those of you who aren’t familiar with Rick Thum, he’s the supplier of instruments I sell on http://dulcimers.biz. He’s been one of my workshop leaders since I started doing workshops at Evart 11 years ago.)

Rick’s workshop was a marvel of planning and forethought. He has really created an efficient operation. The attention to detail is impressive. The results show. Her’s a photo of Rick hard at work:

After the tour, he invited us to his home. He’d suggested that we stay there, with him and his lovely wife, but since we have Willow (our dog) with us and we are comfortable in our place, we declined his invitation. The house is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen! On second thought, it was THE most beautiful. What a place! A marvelous view, wonderful hardwood floors, huge spacious windows, decorating that is perfect, and wonderful touches like a church pipe organ. It is over 5,000 square feet and just perfect!

Toward the front door/entry was just as impressive:

Not so humble bath area:

It’s not totally complete, but truly impressive!

For dinner, the four of us went to a Mexican restaurant where we enjoyed a pitcher of margarettas and great fajiatas.

We were back at the fifthwheel about 8:30.

But our evening didn’t end then.

We were all set to hook up to electricity and water, but unfortunately the best laid plans didn’t work out. Out hot water tank, which we hadn’t used since last fall, had ruptured over the winter. (Yes, John had carefully winterized it, but something apparently didn’t drain, and the tank has a major hole.) We will wait until we get to Branson to see about getting it fixed or replacing the tank. We’re not going to let it affect our trip. Just a small glitch. At least at Branson, we will have wonderful facilities at the ABC campground, so we can shower there, until it’s fixed.

Oh, and about the title to this posting.. We just stopped at a gas station and the on-ramp we took said “To Cuba.” You never can tell where this trip will take us.