Friday 8-20 Getting the Minnie

Getting the Minnie ready for our trip

We had a beautiful day with clouds and temperature in the mid 90's.

I started the day off by doing the Daily Challenges and Event: Easy Street Mini of 15 games. It took me 32 minutes and 5 seconds to complete, which put me in 19th place in my group. I continued play the Spider games in the 20th Anniversary of the X-Box. I did the Mahjong Daily Challenges.

While I played games Larry continued working on a paper project. 

Larry signed me up for a Medicare Supplement Plan. Starting September 1st I will have Traditional Medicare, a Medicare Supplement Plan and Prescription drug plan. A grand total of about $250 a month and it will increase every year. For comparison we have been choosing a Bronze Plan via the Affordable Care Act Program (Obama Care) and most years we have payed nothing. Of course all of the Bronze plans have deductibles over $7000 and are HMO's. Fortunately Larry and I have remained healthy and neither of us are on any prescription drugs so we have spent very little on medical care. 

One big problem with HMO's is they only pay when you are in network. Since we normally travel quite a bit this is not ideal. If you are out of town they are suppose to pay for emergency treatment but good luck in getting them to pay. A number of years ago we were in California and Larry's finger got badly infected, he ended up going to a minor emergency care center where they had to cut the finger open to drain and clean it out. He was prescribed a number of drugs and told if it got worse go directly to the hospital. There was a chance he might lose the finger. We were told to stay in the area and come back for a followup. He received terrific care and everything came out fine but our insurance declined the bill. Said he used an out of network provider. The policy clearly stated if you were out of the area they would pay for emergency services. Probably should have fought it but it was easier and less stressful to pay the bill and move on.

Finger Treated and Wrapped

We attended two virtual square dances. First was Dayle Hodge's Weekly A1/A2 Four Couples at 11:00. He had 14 participants for the two A1 tips and 13 participants for the two A2 tips. We had a great time.

Second was Di Green's Weekly C1 Workshop at 2:00. She worked on Mini Busy Concepts, Triple Boxes/Columns/Lines, Interlocking Diamonds and other C1 concepts and moves. She had 28 participants. I did the workshop by myself and had a fun afternoon.

Before the dances we went to the storage center to get the Minnie. About a week before we leave on a long trip we bring the Minnie home to get it ready. We normally park it in our driveway so it is easier to load, Larry has a large extension cord that reaches from our RV to a power plug so we can run the AC as we load it up. Larry designed the house so that we have a RV parking spot on the side of the house and we have full hookups.

In the evening we watched an Amazon documentary called Time Well Spent. It was about four young surfers who have endured poverty, abandonment, abuse and death. They are invited to go to Panama to find themselves. One of the surfers visa was turned down so he went to the Philippines to find himself. It was very well done and good. Afterwards we watched a live concert on YouTube: The Petersens. It was good. Larry continues working on our photos. I started watching the 12th season of Silent Witness. I ended up doing 27,500 steps, which put me in 2nd place in my group.