Our Travels, Gene & Sandy Teggatz

Baby, it's cold outside

2012-02-13T19:58:00.001-08:00

Okay, Florida got its "come uppance" or what ever you call it. Old man winter zapped us a good one last night. Tonight is to be warmer, but it is still cold. After tomorrow morning, the lows are low 60s and the highs are upper 70s.

Today we went to the flea market in the neighboring town of Webster and I picked up a TV antenna which included a built in rotator. Well, as luck would have it, I got a bummer. It rotates about 30 degrees and dies. So back it goes next Monday. There are 6 here in the park and everyone loves them.

We were amazed by some of the prices in the fruit market. At Immokalee, (the source) a half lug of strawberries sold for $8. Last Sunday we bought from a road side vendor near the park and paid $11 and thought it was reasonable. Today one of the vendors was selling strawberries for $6 a half lug. (We didn't get any, as Sandy said we had plenty in the refrigerator yet.)

Let's keep this one short. Perhaps more tomorrow.

Gene

Ouch, the cold wave is arriving tonight!!!!!

2012-02-11T19:13:00.000-08:00

Well, winter is showing us that it can get cold around here. Supposedly, we'll have frosty temperatures by morning. But we have hope that in a couple of days (they promised us), the daytime temperatures will be back into the 70s. What I really love is that the night time temperatures are to be in the lower 60s. Folks, that isn't bad!

Supposedly, there was a drive way sale this morning. However, after having pancakes in the club house, I walked all of the streets. Not one lot was selling anything. I'm beginning to think that the only place for fleas is the market about 15 miles east at the little town of Webster.

It is to be bone chilling cold until Monday morning. My neighbor has a new fangled TV antenna that he claims works like "gang busters". We need one, as this piece of junk we have is a sad excuse for an antenna. I originally thought it worked well, but we're currently not happy.

So here is a short blog.

Gene

Bushnell, FL for a few days

2012-02-07T18:36:00.000-08:00

I've been very busy and haven't written a blog entry since Jan 30. I'm not sure what I've done, but it was obviously very important. We have really been relaxing out in the prairies of Florida. I'm sorry about neglecting other more mundane things, like writing a blog.

Today we left our spot at Three Lakes WMA (Wildlife Management Area) and headed for civilization again. For starters we passed by the southern edge of Orlando and was on the highway just south of Disney World. I didn't want to be there, but there was no other way. So we grinned, bit our teeth and intended to bear it. What a joy to finally clear highway 27. We headed west on a good county road. From a very urban environment (Disneyworld traffic) to lots of country peace and quiet. It was a contrast one rarely sees. It was another hour before we arrived at the Sumter Oaks RV park and checked ourselves in to the last motorhome site.

Actually, what happened was that I observed a bit of burn out in Sandy as far as roughing it with limited electricity. So we are taking break between two rendezvous, so why not live in style for a little bit. While here, I'll update my part of Quicken so that we can also get serious with our taxes. (Quicken does a nice job of grouping related entries together if they are recorded!)

At the social hour this afternoon, we met another couple that is a member of the Escapee Boondockers. However they haven't attended any of our east coast rendezvous gatherings. So we have a week or so to do some arm twisting. We had a wonderful time comparing notes on where they have traveled with the boondockers out west.

For those of you that remember we had hydraulic slide and jack problems a couple of weeks ago. I'm happy to report that the slides now work flawlessly. However, the jacks are still a problem, but we are not letting them be a show stopper. (We know how to open the emergency return valves to retract the jacks if need be.) We can ride with it this way until we get back to Iowa and then we can visit HWH at Moscow, IA. We'll let the real factory experts fix it verses paying some shade tree mechanic to make an educated guess!

This is long enough. When I posted the previous blog, I got myself into lots of problems. My resident critic was not too happy about what had been written. So it was fixed a couple of days later. Proof reading is not one of my strong points!

Gene

Three Lakes WMA and watching the world pass us by!

2012-01-30T17:46:00.000-08:00

We are having a delightful time here at Three Lakes WMA, relaxing and visiting with others. What a way to spend one's time, just watching the world go by. I didn't realize that it has been 5 days since the last time I blogged. My apologies for neglecting you.

Yesterday, the fellows made a trip to another WMA about 45 miles north of here. We were met by the volunteer at the gate who was checking in (and out) the hunters. It looked to me like it was a very slow day for him and he was delighted to have someone stop in and ask lots of questions.

The first question was "tell us about the campground." It is rather small compared to Three Lakes, but very nice with just a few rigs and the grass was mowed short. He explained to us what days we could camp and and for how long. During the general hunting season, the campground is open from Thanksgiving until about January 22nd. From then on, the campground is only open on some weekends from Thursday until Monday evening.

What we loved to hear was that we could schedule our rendezvous there if we were inside of that time frame. We'll work on that. There are a number of trails radiating out from the campground, so there are adequate opportunities to go hiking. There is much more we can do on our stay there.

In the mean time, we are planning to visit it once we leave Three Lakes, which is in early February. We could stay in this WMA until about the fourth of March if we wanted to. (Our next rendezvous starts February 25, so we have a little time to work in something extra.)

Today was laundry day in our household and it was obvious that we're in tourist country, as the washer and dryer fees were the most we've ever paid. I guess they want to make all of their profit in the short winter season. If you have been following the weather here in Florida, it is almost unreal. The low was 46 this morning, it was 56 in our living room and 60 in the bedroom. I've never paid attention before on how much impact our body heat has on the bedroom heat. It does make a difference.

There is not much else to say, so we'll call it a day with this one.

Gene

Three Lakes WMA and loving it

2012-01-25T17:27:00.000-08:00

We were able to leave the repair shop yesterday afternoon at 3 PM. A little late to hit the road, but I was ready. (Sandy really wasn't all that in favor of such a late start for a 100 mile run.) Traffic on Florida 27 was moderate, and we quickly exited to a county road, east bound through more orange groves. It felt good to be on the road, away from the traffic noise at the repair shop and soon to join our other boondocking friends.

Thanks to the GPS co-ordinates and Sandy's trucker's version of the Garmin GPS, we went right to the location. (The car version suggested a different shorter route that I wanted to use, but Sandy said "no way". We found out today that the short route has 8 miles of dirt road, with three soft spots.) Our friends saw us coming and waved us in; what a great feeling to be back among friends. We parked the rig on the interior road and walked the group's area before deciding where we'd park. What a joy it was to hit the right buttons and have the jacks go down and the slides go out. (I did notice one error but chose to ignore it for the time being.) We then joined the group for a brief social hour before breaking for dinner and then I went to the campfire hosted by another group that they have become friends with.

The error that I noticed last night was that one of the jacks didn't extend. So today we borrowed a can of ?? to coat the jack shaft so that they would work better. Things went from bad to worse. Then we had one jack that refused to retract once the coach weight was off of it. We pushed, pried and finally using a different switch combination were able to make it retract some. We didn't push our luck once we had the coach mostly level. Perhaps tomorrow we'll try it again.

Since we were intending to visit an area south of here, we had some mail sent there earlier. But we aren't there, so I made a phone call to the post office to have the mail sent to the local post office. Sorry, but they will only do it if I submit a "change of address card" so that they know where they have sent it. So we went to the local post office to fill out the card and spent 5 minutes trying to convince her that there was only one mailing envelope involved. Finally, she agreed with me. In the process, I did lay my sunglasses down and lost them. Oh, the challenges one faces in life.

Officially this campground is an unregulated "hunt camp". Hunters are allowed to bring their rigs in and leave them for the duration of the season. So while the camp appears to be full, about three quarters of the rigs are un-occupied except on weekends, if then. In a walk about the camp this morning, we met a couple from Iowa that has been here since early December and plan to remain here until the end of February. The campground is roughly a 20 acre field with a few trees scattered about with a loop road through it and no specific parking sites. Everyone parks to suit themselves.

I need to mention that while there is some truck traffic on the road, but it stops at 6 pm or so. It is very peaceful here tonight and as we used to say as kids, "Dark as the Ace of Spades!" Once I stepped outside tonight, it was black. There are no street lights anywhere near here.

Gene

Patiently Waiting for a part

2012-01-23T18:19:00.000-08:00

We're still here in Avon Park, patiently waiting for the replacement part for our HWH hydraulics. I know we shouldn't complain, but it is tiring to think we're spinning our wheels here when we could be out in the rough with friends. But the weather has been fantastic and we have electric (which keeps Sandy very happy). The lows are about 58 and the highs are close to 80. It is just very nice.

Supposedly, the part we need is coming in tomorrow. At least Tuesday is two business days from Friday and we asked for 2 day delivery. Of course, who knows what the nasty weather in Iowa has done scheduling. However, we'll wait!

Today we went to Walmart to replenish our stores and pick up two prescriptions. Sandy did a good job of getting the groceries. On the prescriptions, thankfully they are not critical. We did get Sandy's prescription. But for prescription, they were to get a new prescription from the doctor and they claimed it didn't happen. I won't bore you with the details on Sandy's prescription, but suffice it to say, it wasn't just a walk in and pick it up. We also stopped at a small auto shop and had the Honda serviced. So now we're good for another 8000 miles more or less.

We're going to think positive tomorrow morning and top off the water tank early. We'll also put the rig into travel mode by storing stuff. I shudder to think what our GVW has done to in the last few years. We have lots of books, files etc that occupy space and weigh something!

What we won't miss leaving here is the highway noise. It is constant from about 6:30 in the morning to about 9:30 in the evening. But again, we know it will end.

Gene

Slideouts -- Be careful when buying them in your RV

2012-01-20T19:20:00.000-08:00

If you have been reading our blog, you're well aware that we had a major system failure last Tuesday. The hydraulic system that controls the jacks and the slides failed. Let me tell you folks, it is a very demoralizing event. As our motorhome sat there with the slides out, it couldn't be towed down the road. (It is much too wide.)

Since we have RV'd for more years then we care to remember, we had a good idea of what we needed when we purchased this motorhome. We wanted access to the kitchen and refrigerator so that we could use it during the noon breaks. We also needed access to the bathroom facilities. (Isn't carrying your own potty one of the advantages to using an RV?) We are the owner/moderator of a yahoogroup called Walmartrving and many of its members get very concerned about the use of a slideout in a commercial parking lot. How are they going to sleep overnight if the slide does not go out?

We have seen some units, especially fifth wheels, where you couldn't access the refrigerator or many of the kitchen facilities while the slides are in. With that in mind, how do you expect to resupply and store your groceries when you make a quick stop at Walmart while enroute? It doesn't work very well.

Those are the short-comings that the trusty salesman won't tell you about. All he is looking for is that commission check when he sells a unit to gullible you. Remember, it is buyer beware.

So how did we fare with our three days of living in a compressed RV? Well, it was challenging. The meals were fine. We did have to change the seating arrangement slightly for me. (Slides in or out, Sandy has full access to the kitchen area.) Where we were slightly inconvenienced was in the bedroom. Since our plan had been to do the laundry on Tuesday, Sandy had set the laundry bag out of the tall closet. Sandy had been able to retract the bedroom slide, but that was it. Had the laundry bag been left in the tall closet, our clothing supply would have been zip! The hanging things in the short closets were available. Anything in the bedroom chest of drawers was kind of available via a 3 inch opening of the drawer. However, they were empty as we were headed to the laundromat. We had lots of clothes after visiting the laundromat, just no place to store them!

This morning at 8 AM, the mechanic showed up with the cap to make a slight change in the hydraulic pump to see if the problem was the pump or a valve. Thankfully, it was the valve (easier to fix) and it was music to our ears when I pushed on the "Extend" button and the slide moved out. Sandy and I both wanted to let out a shout that it works. Sandy then tried the bedroom slide and it worked! HURRAH!!! (Finally after three days, Sandy could make sure that the bed covers were all properly in place and stretched.) This afternoon, we even tested the "Retract" button and it works. Amazing what technology can do.

Tomorrow morning Sandy wants to vacuum and then we need to move from this location to another one. (In the beginning, we were told that if we stayed, we might have to move after a couple of days. We can handle that.) Our new location will be closer to the highway but very level. I failed to mention that the slight change on the pump plumbing was to leave the jacks disabled. So we have no leveling jacks right now. (They will always come up, but they need the pump to go down.) Our new location is in their work area, so they'll want to get us in and out. The replacement part is scheduled in on Tuesday (providing old man weather doesn't mess things up!)

Remember, if you're going to purchase an RV with a slide-out, seriously consider how you can live in it when the slide fails. (Murphy is alive and well. It will fail sometime.)

Gene

We're patiently waiting in the dealers lot

2012-01-19T19:39:00.000-08:00

Here we sit, patiently waiting in the service shop's lot. But we're living high on the hog by Sandy's standards. We have electric, water and sewer connections. So Sandy gets to cook with her convection oven. That opens up a whole new world for meals. So we're not complaining about that either.

We did keep busy today with housekeeping chores. First on the list was getting our laundry done at a laundromat. No big deal if you bring it (the laundry) along. When we arrived at the laundry, Sandy asked, "where are the towels?" She had rolled them into a roll in the bathroom and I had carried them forward in the motorhome, stopping to put my shoes on. The towels never made it to the car. So I had to return to fetch the towels from the driver's seat. Thankfully, it was only a mile one way and traffic wasn't too bad.

I've always thought of Avon Park as being a kind of upscale area for snowbirds. Well, we walked out of the first laundromat, a first for us. The floor was dirty, water was leaking from some machines and even the machines were dirty on the outside. So we found another laundromat only a half mile closer. It had a unique wall on two sides (just an iron grating). It was a little better. Sandy's big complaint was that one of the dryers had very little heat. Also, I was surprised to see that the change machine was mounted in an iron framework on the outside of the building.

With the laundry done and our letters mailed, our next task was to make ready to travel again. So since we have plenty of good water available, we emptied our fresh water tank and refilled it. So now we're ready to leave if the rightful owner of this lot returns early. (He is off site attending a "flywheelers' gathering" in the next town south. Flywheelers are old steam engines and antique tractors.)

It was about 5:30 when the shop manager showed up and asked if they could take a look at our problem. Obviously, we invited them in. It was readily apparent to me that the mechanic that was along had worked on HWH systems before. A quick call to HWH in Iowa and a short discussion between the mechanic here and the service tech at HWH quickly identified what had to be done. Unfortunately, we were stymied for the night because they need a brass cap from someone's tool box so that they can pull a hydraulic line. With that line pulled and capped, they can point to the failed unit if certain things happen. They'll finish that part of the job in the morning.

They left and I was assigned the task of unwinding the emergency mechanical retraction screws that pulled the slide in. Sandy and I figured that it would take about 300 turns on each of two rods. The retraction rods need to be released so that the hydraulic system can retract and extend the slide. I have the needed tools and it just takes some time to make that many turns on the rod.

Let's just hope that tomorrow morning they decide that the bad item is a small valve, which HWH has in stock (they have already checked) The next issue is getting it here. Thankfully, our schedule for the next few days is very flexible. Sandy likes the services here, so she is in no hurry to head back to the boonies.

But we both are getting tired of living in a very confined space! It is tight quarters!

Gene

We're at the dealer, a-waiting service

2012-01-18T17:50:00.000-08:00

Just as planned, this time we actually pulled out of the park and headed "down the road". Since we had some prescriptions being ordered a the Clewiston Walmart, we went north via Clewiston. In Clewiston, I suggested that we skip the laundry task and wait and do it at the dealer today or tomorrow. Sandy reluctantly agreed. (I had surfed and knew that the dealer we were headed for in Wildwood had a launtry facility in his mini park for the customers.

On the way to Wildwood, my plan was to stop at the dealer at Avon Park in case he was willing to take on our problem. We arrived at Avon Park at 3 PM. I talked with the dealer and yes, they'd put us in the Que as long as I understood that it might be a while. We happily agreed.

So here we sit, parked in his mini park with 3 point hookups. As Sandy said, "you mean I get electric for a while?" While Sandy was shopping this morning, I was looking up information about the dealers. I also called HWH for more advice about which dealer to use. The tech that I've been working with commented to me that it is probably not the pump, but the shuttle valve. Okay, so it is a smaller item, but it can be a show stopper just as well if they have to order it from Iowa.

We are very much jammed in here at the dealer's lot. I told Sandy that his show room is similarly configured. There is no wasted space in the office area. Also, no big inside work area that is spic and span. The "shop" is on some old concrete in front of the office (in the sunshine). The reason we came here was that online reviews and a personal friend who lives in an adjoining town that said "Go to Stuarts". So here we are!

We really enjoyed our stay at Dinner Island Ranch. Yes, it is a rustic place, but it has what we needed, open space to spread out and make maximum use of the solar sunshine. The ranger stopped by yesterday afternoon and filled us in on more of the background of the area. What we'd really like to see is installation of a dump station and a fresh water source. But we're happy with what it is, basic camping that is free!

Gene

A show stopper, No Hydraulic slide retraction power

2012-01-17T19:00:00.000-08:00

Today was to be one of those days when you venture forth and do a lot of things and in the end find a new site to park the rig for a while. But a-lass, it was not too be! We had returned everything to its rightful place, filled in the fire pit, stored the firewood and the last thing I had to do was bring in the living room slide and we're ready to roll. Major problem--- The hydraulic power unit to drive the slide seems to run, but no retraction action takes place.

We called HWH and they gave us some directions. But nothing worked, so we decided to explore the services of a Mobile RV Service Tech. Well, his prices were just a bit more than we wanted to spend ($200 service charge to just drive out and look at it.) So we decided to pull the slide in with the mechanical override. Yes, it can be done, but it is not fast. So now we have the slides in and we're living in cramped quarters, not fun!!!!

Since this was to be a moving day, we had left the laundry clothes out. Also, it was necessary to move, as the holding tanks are about full. Our fresh water tank was also about empty. (We dumped a 6 gallons of water before we knew we had a problem.) Also, last night I noticed the "stink" oder of the LP flame. So it is time to find an LP supplier. But here we sit!

We've located three possible dealers that we'll call in the morning. One of them will get a visit from us, hopefully late tomorrow. (Before we get there, we need to buy groceries, pick up some prescriptions, get the LP tank filled, find a hair salon for Sandy and fill up the motorhome with diesel. And then drive another 100 miles plus. But life could be worse. The low tonight is to be about 60 and tomorrows high is about 80. I think we can handle it okay.

I guess we'll look back on today as just another "bump on the road". At least we're healthy.

Gene

A Great Day in Southern Florida

2012-01-15T11:07:00.000-08:00

Today is a great day here in southern Florida. Admittedly, it was a bit cool this morning (frost on the Honda), but this noon it was delightful. The breeze was a bit much, but we can handle that when we're parked here at Dinner Island Ranch.

This morning while we were sitting in the down wind side of one of the motorhomes, we had another couple come in. So naturally, a couple of us went to meet them and help them get parked. One of his first words to me was "I'm here because of what you've written in your Blog!" (http://edteggatz.blogspot.com/) Okay, I knew a few friends have read it, but this couple was a stranger to us. (We soon became well acquainted.)

They are snowbirds from Illinois and hoping to spend the winter in Florida without getting themselves bankrupted by camping fees. It didn't take long for the group to welcome them and perhaps overwhelm them with where we're planning to park (in free or nearly free locations.) Like ourselves months ago, it is hard to imagine that this place (and many more in Florida) are completely free other than our expense to dump and load up with water. Before we part company tomorrow, I'm sure we'll have them convinced to become members of the SKPs.

Yesterday while browsing on the web, we found a place close to Punta Gorda (and our park Paradise Park) that also has free camping. It has two locations (one immediately off of the interstate) that are free in November, December and the first two weeks of January. It is part of the Babcock-Webb Wildlife Management area. Officially, it is a hunt camp, but I think open to all users. A friend has already volunteered to check it out for us.

On Tuesday we leave this park and go to the Dupuis WMA for a week. It is free, and includes a water hydrant and a dump station. Frankly,that is hard to beat. As a friend has said, "We're always looking for low cost parking locations, cheaper is better and free can't be beat!" While at Dupuis, we intend to check out another WMA called J.W. Corbett WMA. Supposedly, it has free camping, but we'll have to pay a yearly entry fee of 29 dollars (or a daily of $3). The entry fee is good for all of the WMA areas for one year. So the price becomes a non-issue. After Dupuis, we go to Three Lakes WMA for two to four weeks, so we'll get good use of our entry permit.

When I use the abbreviation of WMA, it can mean "Water Management Area" or it can mean "Wildlife Management Area". Yes, confusing, but I didn't name them.

Gene

We're well into Week II of the Rendezvous

2012-01-13T16:51:00.000-08:00

We're entering the wind down mode here at the rendezvous and there seems like so much to do. Today we had one of the members leave. I thought he left before telling us where his secret find of grapefruit was. However, he had told one of the members and so this afternoon, all of us went "grapefruit picking". It is no easy task, as the grapefruit trees are in a forest and very tall! I had a 20 foot pole and many of them required the full length of the pole to reach the fruit.

When we returned to our rigs and eventually sorted the haul, I think all of us were nearly overwhelmed by how many we had obtained. Now our only challenge is to eat them. (We already had 40 grapefruit purchased on Tuesday when we visited the market in Immokalee.) The site also had an orange tree, with all of the oranges above the 20 foot line. The reason the citrus trees are so tall is that they are in a tall cypress and palm tree forest.

We are heading to a Florida Conservation park that requires an entry fee or the purchase of a yearly pass. I've visited their web site a couple of times and became frustrated trying to find the route to purchase the permit. Today, we were successful at purchasing the permit with our credit card. Obviously, we don't have it yet. However, they give you an online receipt that you print and keep in your vehicle. The receipt includes a validation number that someone can use to verify that we purchased the permit.

One reason we wanted to get the permit early was so that we can use it to explore another area owned by the same Florida division. As we explore various online Florida divisions, I find that they have a number of campgrounds. There is the Florida Water Management Districts (5 of them), the Florida Fish and Wildlife Service, the Florida State Forests and I suspect a couple of others. Of course there is the over used Florida State Park system, which is very popular (and VERY expensive).

I suggested to Sandy today that perhaps we ought to go into Immokalee on Monday and get some ice cream and enough strawberries from the market to serve everyone. Her reaction was that everyone is probably about filled with strawberries after Tuesday. Tonight we took a brief count and everyone is still working on the strawberries that they purchased on Tuesday. We still have two days to think about it.

Tonight a cold wave arrives and is supposedly changing our daytime temperatures.. The low tomorrow morning is to be 47 and 45 on Sunday. The day time temperatures will be in the mid 60s. But by next week, the temperatures will rise to mid 70s during the day. We kind of like that, especially after seeing what is happening in the northern snow belt states. Florida isn't too bad!

Gene

Watching the World Pass us by!

2012-01-12T10:33:00.000-08:00

I was going to write a blog entry last night, but other things got in the way. First it was reading the news, then the email, then it was time for my evening snack. Oh yes, we were going to do a blog entry and I turned the computer back on to do it. But first we have to load Chrome and it brought up the Google News which I had to read. Then something struck my fancy and I loaded our email program to see if there were any very important late messages. Of course, there was an attachment or two that needed reading.

The evening news was on and I finally decided that it was time for the sack. It was only when I was in bed that I remembered that I hadn't written my blog. The thought occurred that perhaps I should get up and do it. But why hurry it along, it can wait until morning.

I was awake very early this morning and decided that I should get up early and do the blog. But first, while I was in bed, I thought about what I wanted to cover. It must have been heavy thinking because I later realized that it was nearly 6 AM and I still hadn't written the blog. Of course, Sandy decided to get up then and it threw my whole plan off schedule. So we'll do it after breakfast.

Well, breakfast came and went, the dishes were washed and finally we fired up the computer to write the blog. Of course, it was new news and we had to read all of the email. Then it was Nick's blog which is always interesting. Eventually we had the email read and the Google News read and it was time to head outside for some productive work. As we headed out, I remembered that the mission for today was to write the blog. Okay, we'll work on the door first and write the blog later. Now is later and it is finally getting done.

Last Tuesday, most of us here headed into Immokalee and the Farmer's Market. However, this is not just any market, but a market where most of the sales are done via pallets of product or for small quantity, only a lug. However, we found a few vendors that were selling small quantities and we loaded up. A lug of grapefruit, a flat (1' by 2') of strawberries, a big bag of beans, a watermelon, a couple of butternut squash and I think that was it.

When we purchased the string beans, the vendor had a long pickup box filled with string beans. I asked her how long it would take to sell the whole load? She replied that they'd be gone by tomorrow night. That is a lot of string beans!

Back at the campground we settled in for a long afternoon nap before our usual 4 PM social hour. It was a bit windy, so we gathered around the fireplace, but no fire. Perhaps tonight. A cold front went through (so they say) but we didn't really notice any difference. Okay, the high was 77 verses getting up to 80. We can handle that.

There are 6 rigs in our group and in the timbered campground there are 3 tents and 3 rigs, all part of another group. Time to publish this and enjoy a nap!

Gene

Dinner Island Ranch boondocking

2012-01-07T19:41:00.000-08:00

We arrived here at the Ranch on Tuesday and we have spent most of the time just plain relaxing. No heavy hitting. After getting settled in, we did go out on a fire wood scavenger hunt and located a nice downed tree that seems to have almost fixed us up for the 2 week rendezvous. We think we have enough firewood.

This morning was our day to make things happen. We served them pancakes for breakfast at 8 AM. I was surprised that about half of the group was really pushing to have the start time at 8:30 or later. I may be in trouble, but I just said that it would start at 8 AM. Everyone was present and all seemed in a good spirits. I enjoyed it very much, thanks to the great pancakes (from scratch) mixed up by Sandy. The key ingredient was "oatmeal". We did not use the campfire to bake the pancakes, but instead used an electric griddle powered by our Honda 2000i generator. The generator was hidden behind our motorhome with a 100 foot cord running to the griddle. I don't think anyone heard the generator, especially when all were present.

I received an email from my sister last night that my mother was not eating and not exactly with it. (She is only 100 years old.) But a call this morning to the nursing supervisor at the care center reported that mother was her old self again and had finished 3/4 of her grapefruit for breakfast. That alone is enough good news to really make my day! We are fortunate to have several sisters living in the area where mother is so she does get several visitors. One sister calls me on her cellphone to tell me when mother is available to talk.

It is time to call it a day.

Gene

Dinner Island Ranch WMA, (boondocking)s

2012-01-04T05:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we bid goodbye to our park friends and hit the road to another Boondocker's Rendezvous. It was a great time to leave, as a cold wave was coming in. This morning we felt the full effect of the cold wave. The bottom line is that we're still married, but I'm sure Sandy is wondering how much more of this stuff she can take! It was only 36 on my table this morning, after the heater had been on for 10 minutes. The bedroom was 38. Outside, it was a cool 28 degrees.

In case you're wondering, we do not use any heat at night in the motorhome. Yes, there is a heater, but we've just ignored it ever since we purchased it. When we're boondocking, they don't recommend using them because you can take a battery down before the night is over. And when you're in a park, why use your gas when an electric heater works so much better? Ah, the joys of boondocking with friends!

Dinner Island Ranch WMA is 25 miles east of Immokalee (FL) and it must be in the heart of citrus growing country. We are parked in a treeless flat plain, probably about 1000 by 500 feet. Lots of room and we have only 4 rigs here. There is an adjacent campground in the trees and it only had one rig last night. Today's activities are to locate some firewood. We can cut up any down trees, so we need to find them.

It is time to get outside and enjoy the fresh air. Everyone have a nice day.

Gene

Happy New Year 2012

2011-12-31T19:31:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year.

Time just keeps marching on. It seems like it was only yesterday that there was the great concern that the world would stop turning when the year 2000 arrived. A friend of ours put it very nicely when he told a news reporter when she asked what his opinion was of the Year 2000 issue. He responded "It is only an issue created by a few people so that they can write volumes of books and get everyone excited about it so that their books sell!" Such was the case.

Sandy and I are enjoying a quiet evening here in our motorhome, both of us on the computer becoming more educated about the world around us. I read lots of news articles and Sandy searches the internet for appetizing sounding dishes that she can make while we're boondocking. (We leave our park (with full hookups) on Tuesday with the intent to boondock (i.e. no hookups) until April.) We may weaken a day or two between rendezvous That is why we have a Passport America membership.

.We had a first in the park today. A member of the park fell off of the steps of her RV and severely gashed her head. We learned about it when the local siren sounded off. It was then only a minute or so until about a half dozen golf carts went zipping by. Then it was only 2 or 3 minutes until the local fire district EMS truck arrived. The truck was guided by a local resident who met the truck at the road gate. In another 5 minutes, the big fire truck showed up and shortly thereafter an ambulance arrived.

In summary it was very satisfying to see how the park residents responded to the emergency, since we are several miles out of town. Some members served as traffic control, others grabbed the medical equipment and everyone converged at the accident site. (I didn't stick around to get in the way, so I'm not sure what caused the lady to fall.) Considering the age of the park residents, we're fortunate to have so many willing volunteers.

Again, Happy New Year.

Gene

Wrapping up 2011, looking forward to 2012

2011-12-30T17:18:00.000-08:00

We've had a moderately relaxing week here at Paradise Park. Nothing earth-shattering that upset the apple cart. (And we like it that way.) We thought that there would be some comments about a "Mud Track" west of the park two miles that has a 3 day event starting today. But it is not to be. Friends who went into town said that everything went well, no lines or hold ups for them going either way. Considering all of the stories that were going around earlier, we're happy to hear that it was a nothing today.

Yesterday we worked on Lavonne bathroom stool. What a pain. Airstream has the stool in a little room so small that you can't even get your hand down beside it. I had to lay on the floor to un-bolt it. Plus the water line had to be removed by feel. We took the stool out to see why it would not hold water in the bowl. I thought that they problem was a lime build up on the active surface of the seal. So we used lime away and cleaned the seal as best as we could. But this morning, she reported that all of my effort was wasted. It did not hold water. (I guess as a friend in the service used to say, "You win some; you loose some and some get rained out."

On Wednesday, I helped Lee replace a since faucet in Lavonne's shed behind the trailer. This job was a little bit easier. The problem was that we could only rotate the sink, not pull it into the open. Miraculously, the four screw on connections held water. I guess it helps when they are not cross threaded to begin with.

A friend came over yesterday morning with his computer and his Mi-fi card. He had taken his computer into Office Depot to be speeded up and now he can't get onto his Mi-Fi. It was our first look at a Mi-Fi and it was impressive. His problem was that they had taken his wireless driver out of his startup file, so the wireless adapter never ran. We fell into the solution real quick. However, when we tried to connect our notebook to the Mi-Fi, it was a no go. As we talked with him, we learned that the Mi-Fi is a replacement for him. When they sent it too him, they had told him to switch the "chip" from the old unit to the replacement unit. The end result is that Mi-Fi has an attached label that is wrong. It is no problem until he needs to replace his computer and now doesn't know what the security code is. We sent him on his way with instructions to lean on Verizon until they tell him what the code is. He needs it if he gets a new computer or e-book.

We are really done with any productive work here in the park. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve and it will be a quiet one in this house. Sunday will be a quiet day as most of the folks have stayed up well beyond their bed time hours. Monday is our last day here, so we're putting the final touches on our stuff and Tuesday we hit the road again, pull the anchor up or what ever you want to call it. Tuesday, we're headed off to another location to join our "Boondocking" friends!

Gene

One week left to empty my bucket list!

2011-12-27T17:44:00.000-08:00

We leave the park one week from today and so far our list of things to get done is getting whittled down. I think we'll make it. Today we went with Lavonne to Arcadia for fuel (her car) and to give her moral support to pump it herself. I feel like a hick standing there while she pumps it, but that is the only way she will learn how it is done. One of her problems is that she has difficulty reading the LCD panels at the pumps.

While there it was grocery time, but that came second to Sandy getting her Kindle touch. We turned in her Kindle 3G last Friday and the Punta Gorda store was out of the touch. So now she has her toy! She decided that the 3G version was un-necessary since we have a router and she does not intend to buy books from Amazon. She has learned of a number of sites where she can obtain books for free via libraries and another place. (The 3G version would also do the wi-fi to our router, but she didn't need the 3G capability, which costs and extra 50 bucks.)

Back at the park, we briefly worked on our backup LP tank connection. We are carrying a 20 pound LP tank to use when the main tank runs empty. At least that is the plan. The reason is that the gauges on LP tanks are wildly in-accurate and too often we find that we are filling when we still had nearly a half of tank of gas. Now we can run it nearly empty if we want to! (And not be in trouble if it does run out.)

I've been kind of bragging about the weather here for the last month. Well, the worm has turned, briefly we hope. This evenings temperatures outside are 15 degrees lower then they were yesterday. They may get into the 40s tonight.

Enough for tonight!

Gene

Christmas Day and we're winding down

2011-12-25T17:43:00.000-08:00

Christmas day is nearly spent and we're relaxing here in the rig. Of course, our tummy is still well satisfied from dinner at 2 pm today. A late afternoon walk did not wear it down either. I guess like so many other things in life, "Just give it some time and all will settle down."

I was pleased to learn a little tid-bit about hip replacements today. One of the fellows at our table sitting next to Sandy had a hip replaced not too long ago using a new approach. He was ecstatic about how well it worked for him. I was enough impressed with his comments that I looked up his surgeon online to see what was said about the surgery. I've known for years that since my mother had both hips replaced, my dad had one hip replaced and three sisters have each had one hip replaced, it is probably something that I can expect.

The only fly in the ointment is that last summer as part of my physical, they x-rayed my hips. The results were, "yes, I had a problem developing in the right hip, but it is the left hip that needs replacing". I think they looked at the slides backwards! One thing it did do is to convince me that when the time comes, I want a second opinion!

For those of you that are envious of our temperatures here in south Florida, you'll be happy to hear that on Wednesday, it will drop by about 10 degrees. The days will be in the mid 70s and the nights about to the mid 50s. I think we can hand that okay!

We trust all of our friends have enjoyed Christmas also. God bless you all.

Gene

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

2011-12-25T07:39:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS (and remember the reason for the season.)

What a Joy it is to celebrate another of Christ's births. Here we relax in the sunshine of south Florida where if anyone is complaining, it is because the temperature is headed for 85 degrees again today. No bundling up or putting a coat on around here. We've had our morning walk (to the dumpsters) and Sandy is currently out for her morning walk around the park. With the fog about gone and the sun beginning to appear, it is going to be another nice day. As a friend says, "Another great day in Paradise".

We went to the early Christmas Eve service last night at church so that we could return to the park before it was too dark. (At 6:30, it was really dark!) We had little time to waste, but for some reason, I was driving with the cruise control on at 50 mph. Suddenly we noticed a dark blob in the right ditch that was moving towards the road. Instinctively, we hit the brakes and watched a black wild hog cross the road in front of us. We cleared it by ten to fifteen feet as it darted across the road. One gives thanks immediately that we missed it.

For those from the farm, Texas and Florida wild hogs are usually coal black and flat as a pancake side to side, perhaps five inches at most. I suspect that they are about 200 pounds more or less. We've often seen the results of their rooting in the ditches but this was first one that we've seen at night. Let's hope it is also the last one. (We learned that it is better to drive below 50 mph while in the Everglades 3 weeks ago. The speed limit on the Tamiami Trail between the Everglades NP and the Big Cypress Preserve is 60 in the daytime and 45 at night, in an effort to reduce car-panther collisions.)

Friday was our shopping trip to the big city so that Sandy could return her newly purchased Kendle 3G back to Walmart. The advantage of the Kendle 3G over the cheaper model is that the 3G version has unlimited access online, but only to the Amazon bookstore to buy books, so she found out. But why does she want that when she can get all of the books she needs free from many online library sources? Plus the unit automatically reverts to the wifi link if there is an active wifi in range. So since our Cradlepoint router is always on (if we have AC to the rig), her Kendle would be using our wifi, not the 3G service. When using the wifi service, the Kendle has unlimited online access via the used network. She returned the 3G model and then we went to buy the cheaper wifi only version. Sorry, but they were out of stock. Come back next week!

This afternoon we'll join the others in the park for our Christmas dinner. I was a little late again this year about pushing to change how the park does the Christmas dinner. We sign up on a table of 8 for the dinner. The park provides the meat and gravy and the members of the table provide the rest, usually one item per couple. I'd like to see it done in a table setting of 16 (2 eight foot tables). Then you have two choices of everything. However, it has always been with a table of 8 and a table of 8 it shall be!

I finally made a temporary fixture for one of the LED lamps I've purchased via eBay from Hong Kong. I put the lamp in a tin can with aluminium foil to provide a reflector. Well, the house chairman vetoed it as a suitable lamp. The light it too blue-esh. So I'm back in the market for a suitable fixture. Someday we'll find one. (I love it because the lamp is very low power and saves on my battery when boondocking.)

Again, Merry Christmas.

Gene

We're getting into the park routine and out of the writing routine

2011-12-20T19:14:00.000-08:00

I just realized this evening that we haven't been posting anything to our blog. An even greater misfortune is that we haven't been updating our journal which is a daily diary of our activities. Perhaps we're too busy? Or perhaps we can blame it on the fact that we now have electrical hookups, and we're surfing too much. But it has only been four days since the previous posting.

We're gradually getting things crossed off of our bucket list (our to do list). I did get a call back finally from Shurflo about our water pump problem. He asked if I needed it right away and I said "no, we are using a friend's pump!" His reason for asking was that he'd like to not send me a pump for about a month, after which he'll have a new version of the pump. (Of course, the new version will be better, more reliable etc.) I agreed to wait a month or more so that we can have the better pump. We hope it is better.

Yesterday, our renter from last year stopped in and returned our gate opener control. We had asked them about it and they thought they had turned it into the park. But they just found it and realized where it belonged. So we returned the one we checked out from the park. Now if we could only get the opener we have for our park in Casa Grande to do both gates! It has two buttons.

For those of you not following the weather, it turned bitterly cold Sunday night. Yesterday morning the low was 55 degrees and we turned some heat on in the motorhome. Tomorrow is to be a bit better. The high today must have been up to 80, which was just fine for us.

In the cool of the morning sunshine today, we decided to work on our black tank drain valve. (We emptied the tanks, then use the jacks to tilt the motorhome so that there is no drippage out of the tank. Then I can pull the valve to clean it. The problem is that the inside of the tank, drain tubing and valve pick up a layer of lime. The lime is rough and is like sand paper, which will eventually cut the valve seal. We noticed that the valve was dragging some, so we cleaned it before it ruined the seal. Interestingly, the lime problem is only in the black tank. The gray tank lining is smooth as silk, probably the result of the various soaps that we use.

One of the joys of being here for 2 weeks is that we can get our mail and have other things shipped in. We've ordered four LED lamp assemblies from Hong Kong, so we hope they'll make it also. The lamp is one of the best ones we've seen for light output. (It only has 120 LEDs.) The other benefit of the lamp is that the current draw is only 0.6 Amps, about one fourth of the other lamps.

One of the downers of getting our mail is all of the "stuff" we get from our Medicare provider. There were some major changes in our health insurance this year and we hope that we end up covered about the same way. I'm sure we'll have less coverage and it will cost more, all part of Obama-care. (Enough about politics!)

Gene

We're back in Paradise Park near Punta Gorda, FL

2011-12-16T05:48:00.000-08:00

(This should have been posted last night.)

Yesterday was the last day we could stay free at Monument Lake, so we (like just about everyone else in the campground) bailed out. It was a decent drive to our park with a stop at the small town of Immokalee, which is a migrant and farmers' business community. English is rarely heard and the town is nearly over-run with semis hauling farmers' products now. We decided to do some exploring at the local commerical exchange for the growers.

The first problem was finding a parking place for the RV and car. Then I went to the market while Sandy stayed with the RV in case someone didn't like the way we were parked. I've never seen so much in the way of good garden product and it looked great. We decided to price a lug of grapefruit and when she told me $6 for the lug, I decided I could carry it back to the RV. (They may not speak much English, but they all know how to price the produce in American dollars!)

It was then another 20 miles on up the road to the next small town where we refilled the pantry. Sandy was able to get what we needed but she complained about the prices (not Wally prices). We finally reached Florida highway 74 and headed west to our park. What a refreshing drive, finally we had a tail
wind! (While heading north, we had a strong cross wind.)

Once in the park, we settled in and relaxed. It is always a great feeling at the end of the day to be able to park it, hit the automatic levelers, plug in the power cord and relax. Friday starts our list of "to do" items, which needs to be done in two and a half weeks. Already Sandy is complaining that she'll barely get used to living with connections when we'll pull up and head back to the world of boondocking.

Life moves on.

Gene

Winding up our stay

2011-12-14T17:37:00.000-08:00

Today has been our last full day here in the Monument Lake Campground and also our stay in the Big Cypress Swamp Preserve. Did we do a lot? I'm not sure but the time flew. Did we learn anything? Yes, duck (really duck) when there is a mangrove branch coming your way in the canoe. Were there a lot of birds and alligators? No, the water is too high so the alligators are not congregating at the large watering holes and it is too warm so the birds are still up north!

This morning Sandy and I served pancakes to the other two rigs here using our electric griddle and the Honda generator. It worked fine until we ran out of gas. Thankfully, we had more in the jug! It was really a shake down test for our outing in about 3 weeks.

Our biggest challenge has been trying to burn the green fire wood we picked up on our first day here. It will burn, but not willingly. One needs to have a bed of coals to boil the moisture out of it first. Thankfully, a late arriving couple from Ft. Meyers brought us some dry oak, so we've had success getting the bed of coals ready. The local oak is even reasonably straight and splits well with the splitting maul I have along (If I can hit the log.) Another fellow told me that I must have a non-standard handle because he also has trouble hitting the log.

The weather here has been either fantastic or the pits depending upon how you want to look at it. The last 3 or 4 days have been somewhat windy with intermittent very light showers. On the other hand, we ought not to complain, as they told us on the TV tonight that a year ago, the early morning temperature was in the mid 30s. (For the last week, the night time low has been in the low 60s and the highs have often just hit 80. We can handle that.)

We've spent each evening solving the world's problems sitting around the camp fire. There have been a few mosquitoes, but they haven't bothered us too bad. Perhaps the smoke from our green wood has helped control them. (When the sun goes down, Sandy heads for the motorhome and does not fight the few bugs around.)

We've had 4 rigs here for the last two weeks and tomorrow we head in 4 different directions. One couple headed home yesterday to Fort Meyers, Florida to spend Christmas with the children. One of our party is heading for a campground in Everglades National Park with a trip to Key West eventually. Another member is moving a whole 7 miles to another campground. (This campground starts charging $16 a night tomorrow and he is moving to another campground here in the preserve that is free until January 6th. It is classified as a "hunting camp", with no bath house with flush toilets.) To close it out, we're heading to our RV Resort Park 100 miles north of here where we'll be living in luxury with water, electric and sewer connections Plus we have paved streets and neighbors every 30 feet on both sides of the road. What a switch from our style here. (I should add that we have to go 50 miles for groceries here verses only 25 miles from our resort park.) Life can be tough at times!

We've had a wonderful time here at the Rendezvous with our Escapee friends.

Gene

Taking a peek at the Everglades

2011-12-12T19:50:00.000-08:00

A group decision today said that we'd head for Shark Valley 25 miles east of here to see the gators and what else they had. So we piled into 2 vehicles and headed east after lunch.

Shark Valley is a tourist information area for everyone interested in seeing the Everglades. However, since today was Monday and most tourists are weekenders, it was very quiet today. Our first observation was that the tourists forgot what the day was and they all stayed home. (Shark Valley was nearly deserted by the tourists and by the alligators.) The speaker said that the alligators are still around, but since it rained two days ago, the alligators are still dispersed with the high water. We also realized that the quantity of birds was really down. Again the birds are dispersed because of the warm weather. So we'll have to see them another day.!

It is late and I'm tired, so again a shorter than normal blog. Have a nice day.

Gene

Going for groceries

2011-12-08T16:25:00.000-08:00

It has been a couple of days since the last update and this time, there is real reporting to do. We're fine and enjoying some real Florida sunshine and warm temperatures. It turned cold last night and today the morning temperatures were in the mid 60s, (cold). But on Thursday, it starts to warm up (to the low 80s).

Yesterday was Sandy's day to push the keyboard while Gene went canoeing on the Turner River here in the swamp. All went pretty well although I do have a few deep scratches on my scalp. (I lost my hat when I apparently was using my head as a battering ram as we went under one of several low tree limbs. It did hurt.)

We were on the water for 5 hours, of which 2 of them were in a very narrow channel that was carved out of a mangrove forest. The route must have been laid out by a drunken sailor, as at times making the turns with the canoe was a challenge. On the return, we used our hands on the brush instead of using the paddles. In our group of 5 canoes, no one tipped over although we had a very close call! The channel depth was from 18 to 48 inches, so there was no real danger.

We were planning to have a fire last night to relax a bit. Unfortunately, the wood we picked up is still TOO green and would not burn. However, this morning almost all of the wood in the fire ring is gone. I think it turned to charcoal and smoldered all night. At least for tonight, we have some dry ends that didn't burn!

Today we went to Naples, Florida for groceries and to do our laundry. Naples is a classy city, very neat and it looks to be expensive. We found a laundromat for that duty and then the Walmart. We didn't go to the nearest one, as we called in a a prescription refill to one 6 miles up the highway. (There are 6 Walmarts in the Naples metropolitan area. )

Gene

It is 80 degrees out and NICE.

2011-12-05T12:32:00.000-08:00

It is just plain hard to get too excited about anything around here today or even the last week. It is in the 80s and we're loving it. Perhaps a bit windy, but we're not about to complain. For you folks north and west, we're sorry to hear about your troubles. Just hang in and it will improve.

I didn't realize that it has been 4 days since we have posted a blog. I guess when we're having fun, the priorities get switched around. The first day on site was a work day. 3 of us fellows put the chain saw in a pickup and went about 10 miles to a pile of wood. The bad news is that I think it is too green to even burn, but we'll try it anyway.

Saturday was spent at the visitor's center attending some history seminars. I didn't learn that much, but the seminars were well done and informative, especially for anyone who hasn't spent much time in the area. But it was a good refresher for us. Sunday night we went on a night walk on a observation boardwalk. I hate to say it, but at my age, walking in the dark is a challenge, at least to go in a straight line. We had no problems, but we were aware of different environment. There was very little wildlife seen or heard. But the lead ranger gave a good tutorial as we went.

Tomorrow we're going to check out a museum in Everglades City. Then to a sandwich shop for lunch followed by another museum near by. On Wednesday, I'm going on a 5 hour canoe trip. We have been told to bring a change of clothes in case we roll the canoe. I also understand that the path is not always very wide or tall, so we may have a few battles with the brush on the way.

That is about enough for one report. Our solar panels seem to almost do a good job. About every other day, we need to run the generator an hour in the morning. The downer has been a couple of days with a heavy cloud cover. But we're doing well otherwise.

Have a great day (we are!)

Gene

Monument Lake Campground and loving it

2011-12-01T16:56:00.000-08:00

Today was moving day and we went a whole 120 miles, from our RV Resort park near Punta Gorda to Monument Lake Campground, on highway 41 or the Tamiami Trail or we're in the Cypress National Preserve or we're just on the north edge of the Everglades National Park or 20 miles east of Everglades City. But let it be said that we have lots of room, it is quiet and the alligators haven't bothered us at all.

We had a pleasant drive here and an even better one when our friends from the Pow-Wow arrived (very late) to tell us that they had two blow-outs this afternoon on the interstate. It was not a good day for them, but no one was hurt and road service took good care of them.

We stopped in Immokalee for my B-12 prescription and took care of that little issue. We had stopped earlier to top off the pantry stocks so that we'd have enough food for the next two weeks. We're parked in what used to be the group camping area. However, they have changed the rules and will only let us have one RV per picnic table. So far we're okay.

But I dare not complain, as we also asked about a campfire on the ground, which they said no, no! The local host said he'd see if he could find a fire ring for us, which I doubted if it would happen. However, 2 hours later, in comes a maintenance worker with a brand new campfire ring with a grill on top. Now my problem is to get some firewood. The host has told us where there was some available, so we'll check it out in the morning. I have the chainsaw along plus a splitting mall and a wedge. We're going to have a fire!

We're mighty happy to be here, especially when we hear about the winds in California and the cold air in Colorado and Iowa. We have been blessed to be here, with a predicted low next week to be 68 each day. (I can handle that.)

Gene

At Paradise Park, Punta Gorda, Florida

2011-11-29T19:28:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned last night, we arrived at the park last evening and settled in. What a great feeling to be off of the road again. So today it was housekeeping activities. Laundry was a must and I expected to be vacuuming the motorhome. The laundry was done and the vacumning will happen tomorrow plus she threw another one at me, defrosting the freezer compartments. I guess we can get both done tomorrow.

It was laundry day and did we have a load of clothes, plus sheets and pillow cases. Thankfully, the laundromat was not busy, but only 3 of the 4 machines were available. But eventually we finished it and we were back in the rig by noon.

I also spent more time trying to locate a source for my injectable vitamin B-12 and a location that would inject it for me. We found a Walgreens in a small town we're heading through on Thursday. However, the problem is finding a location that will do the injection. Unless you are a patient of theirs, forget it. We did find one clinic that said they'd do it, and the office call charge was $35. Perhaps I need to man up to it and learn how to do it myself. (Better yet, train my other half to do it for me.) The pharmacy will train me how to do it, but? Getting a shot is painful.

We also did a little bit of visiting in the park. It is always fun to meet up with old friends when there is so much to catch up on. Also, we picked up some information on the gate wireless connection. We bought a door opener for our park in Casa Grande and we'd like to use the same one here. However, the instructions are not very clear to me. I guess we'll try it and see how it goes. While at the office, we saw the local vegetable vendor, so we bought a few items. Finally, we are able to get grapefruit at a reasonable price. (I love the red or pink ones.)

While at the laundromat, I looked at the ads on lots for sale or rent. I guess the housing crunch has finally hit here. Bare lot prices similar to what we have are about 50 percent of what they were a year ago. That is not good news for seniors who might need to sell the winter home or parking location. (Our lot value in Casa Grande was down some, but still above what we paid for it.) At least for us, we are invested for the long term.

For you yankees wanting to come south for a few weeks and stroll the beaches, slow it down. We saw on the news that there is a large area west of Florida that has a "Red Tide" problem. The Red Tide kills the fish and poisons the clams. That won't bother us, as we're not beach walkers. (Some of the beaches also have a very pungent smell from the decaying fish.)

I love this winter temperature.

Gene

We have arrived at our Park near Punta Gorda, FL

2011-11-28T19:47:00.000-08:00

We put in a full day moving ourselves from the Pow-wow near Ocala to our park near Punta Gorda in the south of Florida (about 250 miles). It rained about half of the time, but the real killer was the gusty winds that were mostly head on. Our mileage probably really took a hit.

We stopped at the Best Buy in Ocala to look at a Kindle Touch for Sandy (Ouch). No purchase yet, but it is getting close. While there, she had to take in a couple of yarn shops for good measure. We finally departed Ocala by 11 AM and put in a steady day heading south. I remember the weather map from last night as a straight line of showers, N to S and I suspect that we were driving in it all the way. The traffic was moderate.

We stopped at Arcadia for fuel, groceries and to see if I could get my B-12 shot. In the end, the shot idea was for naught, as Walgreens didn't have it in stock. I guess I'll see if I can find it on down the road. One complication is that in Florida, the pharmacy can administer shots for the flu, but nothing else. So we have to pick up the prescription and then find a nurse that will give us the shot. (I'm chicken and can't do it myself.)

Upon arriving at the park, Sandy went to the call box and announced our presence so that they would open the gate. Thankfully, the rain was only a heavy mist at the time. (We don't have a remote opener yet.) All the little things that aren't important until you're here. Tomorrow is laundry day so that we have some clean clothes again. The laundry bag is full and needs to be worked on, but: I drug my feet for two reasons, a:) I didn't want to take time away from the Pow-wow and b:) It is much cheaper here in the park and much more convenient! We're here only two days, and presently, no plans to leave the park until we head for the Rendezvous in Cypress Preserve (near the Everglades).

I may have trouble sleeping tonight. There are no chickens nearby to crow, nor are there any dogs barking now and then. Also, we're far enough from the road I think so that there is not any road noise. In short, it is so quiet here that it may be hard to take. But I'm sure we'll enjoy it!

One thing I failed to mention was how great it felt when we had finally parked this beast on the lot and turned the engine off. It was time for my glass of wine while Sandy was busy preparing supper. (I avoid eating much during the day while driving, so dinner in the evening is a real treat.)

The challenge tomorrow will be getting my to do list done in spite of the neighbors stopping by to welcome us into the park again. We'll not tell them that we leave on the First of December again.

Gene

The 2011 Chandler's Farm Pow-wow is History

2011-11-27T20:57:00.000-08:00

My apologies, but I slipped up on yesterday's blog. No excuses, other than we were so busy with the shut eye that I couldn't type it in. I guess I fell asleep early in the evening and when Sandy woke me up, it was time for the sack!

Tonight it was a tad batter. I wasn't sleeping, but we had a long phone call from an old friend from my home town area and college. We talked for about 3/4 of an hour and it was great to visit again. Afterwards, we sent him an email, and posted some other stuff and I was ready for the sack. But then we remembered, we had more work to do. (Find a phone number of a Walgreens, transfer some money to cover a check, and write a blog entry for today.) So here I am with the first two items done.

I think that in the last entry, I had mentioned that we both had some food poisoning. I recovered rather fast, but Sandy has had to struggle with it. Today (Sunday) has really been a better day finally. I think it will still be another day or two for her system to get back into the swing of things. After all, you have to reload all of the food processing after it has been cleaned out. Such is life!

We went to the final Pow-Wow activities this afternoon. It may been good, but the mind can only absorb so much after the posterior has had enough. (We even took our own good lawn chairs.) Of course, one never knows when things will happen here either. The local joke is that it starts at 1 PM (IT). (The IT stands for Indian Time, which means it will happen sometime today!) Starting time for the previous evening activities has always been listed as (6:00 or 7:00) PM. On Thursday, it was shortly after 7. On Friday, it was shortly after 6 and Saturday night was closer to 6:30 pm. So one never knows.

With most of us leaving tomorrow, there has been a lot of activity about where each is going and when. Plus there has been some help sessions to resolve some questions on the RV. In a group like this, there are numerous experts, with some more expert than others. One of the issues has been phantom electrical loads on the battery. This has become a front and center issue since we are boondocking here on the farm this weekend. Suddenly folks get real concerned about their battery charge.

No one has been stranded or left without power, since I think everyone has a generator. But they do ask what voltage reading they should look for when they are not plugged in. Also, how long to run the generator?

When we leave tomorrow, we're heading a Best Buy store in Ocala where Sandy wants to see an e-book reader (or something similar I think). She feels left out when others talk about all of these items and she has no idea what it really is. I guess we'll be getting one sooner verses later.

We sprung for a new GPS this weekend also. She has been mumbling a little about her current GPS has not been updated and has an old map. So I decided that a new Trucker's GPS by Garmin would be the better solution. (After all, the RV is really the same as a medium sized truck.) But it will take a while to get it to us, as it has to go to daughter's house first before being included in our mail bag. Hopefully, we'll get it before Christmas.

It is close to midnight, so maybe I'll sleep the night through!

Gene

Black Friday was a bummer

2011-11-25T16:59:00.000-08:00

This is a rare event, as we are cranking out two blog entries in one day. The first one this morning at 4:30 AM and this one at 8 PM. But there is a reason. What I didn't mention this morning was that both of us were up early because we were suffering from a case of food poisoning. I was up at 4:15 and went back to bed in 10 minutes. Sandy rose at 4:30 and I was back up at 4:40 AM.

Sandy's first comment was, "Was it about 12 hours ago that we ate dinner?" I'm not sure which poisoning it is, but I seem to remember that it takes about 12 hours to hit you. Needless to say, we didn't do much for most of the day. (Sandy suffered much more than I did.) By evening, I was pretty well back to par while Sandy was very weak. We've now had dinner and an evening shower and she appears to be much better.

We know that it was food poisoning because about a third of our group here suffered. I went out to the morning fire this morning and those there seemed to be pretty normal. Finally I decided to raise the question about every one's health and my concern for any singles and explained our problem. Suddenly about half of that group admitted that one or both in their RV had a problem. We compared notes on who ate what and concluded that it had to be the turkey or the gravy. ( The turkey had been picked off of the bones and was not even warm when we were served.) Since no gloves were used in the serving line, we suspect that no gloves were used when the meat was removed from the bones. I intend to speak with the head cook tomorrow.

Otherwise, there isn't much to report. The sunshine continued to brighten our day with temperatures in the mid 70s. We can handle that.

Gene

Thanksgiving, 2011

2011-11-25T02:17:00.000-08:00

We in this country, especially ourselves, have much to be thankful for. Especially while many of our friends suffer through the cold in the north, we relax here in Florida (north end, about 45 Friday this morning). We're not fighting airline delays or highway traffic problems.

Enough of that. I had troublle sleeping this morning, so we decided to rise early and bang out the blog that I missed last night. (I'm sorry, I was napping at the switch.) I sometimes think I'm getting my nights and morning mixed up. I want to sleep in the evening in my chair and then this morning after 4 AM, I'm wide awake in bed. A very revolting development. Or is it genetic, as I remember that my dad used to rise very early.

Or do I blame it on the local rooster contingent, which started crowing (with gusto) at 4 AM? Normally they announce the new day by 2 AM!

The Pow-Wow started yesterday at 1 PM and continues on for the rest of the weekend. By Sunday evening, the boom, boom, boom of the drums will be well set in our heads. (Last night long after the program ended, someone here in the parking area either had a recording or else he was practicing with his new drum set.)

Enough for this morning.

Gene

The Rally has started, the rains have stopped!

2011-11-23T19:13:00.000-08:00

We started the day as a very cloudy and dreary looking day, but by night fall, things have brightened up. We had our first meeting of the group, a potluck meal. There was plenty of food and I think all were happy. Also a fire was included for any that wanted to sit around the fire.

We were joined by 6 or 8 more motorhomes from the FMCA chapter and I think they have been merged into the group. The grounds have been marked with lots of yellow ribbons for various reasons. The only one that is obvious is there seems to be a 5 foot square marked out at several ground hog holes where a very small palm tree is planted. I'm not really sure if the two are connected, but that is what it appears to be. I think the trees are recent plantings, as not all of them are alive.

We drove into Fort McCoy again today to get our mail, which was in. I still wonder why two post offices have the same zip code. Some others here have avoided that problem by ordering their mail to a town 6 miles north of us. Should we return, I'll keep that in mind.

Tonight Sandy is getting frustrated trying to make sure she orders the correct Garmin Trucker's GPS with Lifetime Updates. No, we don't have a truck, but the trucker's version allows the user to program several options for big rigs. (I think she has ordered it. Now to get it to us. It is being sent to daughter's house.) I wanted to order a power cord, but I can't find my bid snip web site. (I found it later - Snipeswipe). I tell them what my maximum bid is and they submit it in the last few seconds of the bidding. Supposedly this prevents others from raising their bid at the last minute. Ah, the games people play!

We have been quoting from the "An Old Farmer's Advice", as printed in a classmate's Memorial program. You may find it online by doing a Google for "the old farmer's advice". There are several variations so I have found. Here is one site: http://www.appleseeds.org/Farmers-Advice.htm

Gene

It is raining, and we should be cheering

2011-11-22T18:04:00.000-08:00

It may sound kind of strange that we're camping in the rough and we are still cheering about rain. But these people need the rain and I'm not about to object. What little I've seen of some ponds and water holes, they need lots liquid sunshine! Everyone may be happy that the south eastern part of the U.S.A. hasn't been hit by a hurricane this year, but it is those hurricane rains that fill the ponds and swamps.

A few more RV'rs arrived today and again to my embarrassment, I didn't remember a lady from an earlier event. After she was parked and came to the social circle for introductions, when it came my turn, she said, "I was parked next to you last year!" I guess in a nutshell, her presence last year didn't register with me. I haven't counted faces, but I'd guess that about half of the members here now claim to recognize me from earlier encounters.

I mentioned last night about the many subjects that were addressed during the social discussions. I really tried to record some of the subjects today and sometimes it was hard to summarize in a couple of words what the subject was. The subjects ranged from Buffalo herds in Custer State Park in South Dakota to guns when crossing the borders to Hobo Pies. At least we're not getting bored being around each other.

We went into Fort McCoy today to pick up our mail. Well, just as in previous years, it went to the other post office that has the same ZIP code. That is right, two post offices here have the same ZIP code. So even though it was addressed to Fort McCoy, FL , they sent it to Salt Springs, FL. Two years ago when we wanted our mail to be in Salt Springs, it went to Fort McCoy. So they'll send it to Fort McCoy tonight and I can get it tomorrow. Such is the life of wandering senior citizen.

According to our hostess, we're supposed to get another dozen or so RV's tomorrow from an FMCA chapter. however, several of them have canceled because Cynthia was not providing them with a 50 amp connection. I guess roughing it is not in their vocabulary.

The old farmer's advice: "Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God."

Gene

Social Hour, all day long

2011-11-21T18:37:00.000-08:00

This is a first full day of being at the Chamber's farm for the pow wow and we've certainly used the time. There has been one nearly continuous social hour outside of our door. I mentioned last night that I should have kept track of the various subjects addressed. Well, I was reminded of that this morning by Tom, but I was too lazy to start writing. How can you be a part of the conversation if you're trying to keep notes? Sometimes the subjects change very fast!

Sandy and I did take a break and walked the field from north to south where the cars will be parked. We needed the exercise and I wanted to see what was under the trees along the border. We did learn that there is running water (a hose bib) about every hundred yards. So the grounds can accommodate lots of tent campers. Also, the area under the trees to the west has been somewhat cleared of the underbrush. Back at the site, later we walked up to the area where the vendors will be parking and the event circle is located. People are showing up, but all was quiet.

Back at the motorhome, Tom helped us perform a little performance test on our solar panels. We covered all of the panels but one to see how much power was being obtained from the uncovered panel. We did this for the four panels and I was disappointed that all are working (more or less). I was kind of hoping that one of the panels would be kaput so we could fix it. Then we could expect more solar power in the days to come. But I guess we'll live with what we have. (The batteries were recharged by 2 pm, so things aren't too bad. Tom who is parked next to us mentioned what his solar package is, so we ended up doing an inspection of each. Our package has about 10 percent more collector capacity than his and we're getting about the same power out of the system. So we concluded that both systems are probably working correctly.

There were many subjects addressed by the group. For starters, when one talks solar, one has to talk about batteries. (Lots of hot air spent there.) Of course, when talking solar, one also has to talk about Quartzsite and the SLABs, where a good solar installer is located. We were interrupted once when my sister called to ask if I wanted to talk with my mother? Of course we do. (Mother is in a care center and has no phone in her room. So sister calls me so that I can call the office to take the cordless phone to mother.) She is very hard of hearing and conversation is at best difficult. But she knows me and we know she is doing well (at the age of 100 plus).

There were several other subjects addressed, most like a bump in the road, "here and gone in an instant!" but everyone gets to have their input, if they can out talk the dominate talkers. (Watch that one bite me later.)

We're back on the farm and one could be up with the chickens. We have several in the neighborhood and they certainly seem to sound off very early. However, we try to sleep in a little longer!

The old farmer's advice: If you get to thinkin' that you're a person of influence, try ordering somebody else's dog around.

Gene

We're at Chamber's Farm north of Fort McCoy, Florida

2011-11-20T19:27:00.000-08:00

It was about 11 AM this morning when we pulled into the grounds. We spent 50 miles on I-10, which had only moderate traffic. However, traffic on I-75 was much worse. But we made it with no problems.

We were pleased to meet some old friends that we haven't seen in years. One fellow told us that we helped him with his PC about 6 years ago. Okay, but I've seen so many computers, any individual help session becomes a blurr. I'm sorry, but that is the way it is. (Or am I a candidate for loosing my mind?)

This PM, about 8 of us sat under our awning solving the world's problems. Someday, I ought to keep a log of what is discussed. The subjects are very wide-ranging.

We got a late start on writing this blog tonight, so we'll keep it short.

The old farmer's advice: Letting the cat out of the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in!

Gene

We're in Florida, almost to our first stop.

2011-11-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

Today we made the big trek from Alabama into the heart of Florida (Live Oak, FL). Another hundred miles and we'll reach our first destination, Fort McCoy. All has been going well other than fuel prices are around $4 a gallon for diesel and we've been pushing a gusty head wind all day. I guess that makes up for the tail winds we've had sometimes.

I was almost in the sack when I realized that we hadn't published our blog. Sandy commented that we have been so busy this evening (I took a nap after 8 pm.) So we'll kick out a quick report and leave it go at that.

We're parked in our friendly Walmart here at Live Oak, FL, along with 4 other rigs. It was a bit noisy early in the evening, but it has quieted down now. I think we can handle it. Before dinner, Sandy did her grocery shopping for the next week plus we fueled up the coach. I think Walmart came out ahead on the deal. But it is convenient any way you cut it.

The old Farmer's Advice: Good judgement comes from experience; and a lot of that comes from bad judgement!

Gene

A Day of Rest before hitting the road.

2011-11-18T18:18:00.000-08:00

We've been here at the Plantation RV Park west of Summerdale, Alabama for 2 days and it has been great. Have we done much? NO. Have we relaxed? Yes. So tomorrow we hit the road again. As I mentioned yesterday, we're boondocking here and last night we had second thoughts. It was just plain cold even though we piled on the blankets. This morning, it was 51 degrees in the bedroom and 44 degrees in the kitchen/living room. I was surprised that body heat would raise the bedroom that much. But since we're planning to boondock throughout Florida this winter, I guess we need to become accustomed to the cold!

Our goal tomorrow is the SuperWalmart at Live Oak, Florida, just off of the interstate. Yes, we called and a polite telephone operator said yes, we can park there, as long as it is away from the building. That is good enough for us. Besides, if one parks near the building, there is lots of traffic.

We used the house battery pretty heavy last night and it was cloudy this morning, so we fired up the Honda generator for 90 minutes to recharge our batteries. It worked, as by noon, the solar system had finished the recharging. That is the recommended approach and it works. (Use the generator to do the initial bulk charging and let the solar system do the finishing charge.) We used the generator again in the evening when Sandy wanted to bake a squash for dinner. Our Honda 2000i is just large enough to power the convection oven in either oven or microwave mode. Isn't technology wonderful?

It is a 310 mile run tomorrow on almost all interstate which should make it a decent drive. On Sunday, we only have a hundred miles to cover.

The old Farmer's Advice: Always drink upstream from the herd!

Gene

Summerdale, AL and now taking a day of rest

2011-11-16T18:10:00.000-08:00

We left Jennings, LA this morning in bright sunshine and headed east, fully expecting to run into some showers. However, we traveled all day going east and the storm front stayed ahead of us. From the news reports, I'm happy we didn't drive into it.

We planned to stop at the Walmart north of Biloxi, MS this afternoon. However, when we got there the parking lot was nearly full, similar to the pre-Christmas rush. We walked the entire lot and decided that the only place to park would have been next to the road, which was where we were 3 years ago. It was noisy then and probably not any better today. So we pressed on.

Our next parking option was the Walmart at Daphne, AL where we were also going to fuel up. That parking lot was only about a third full with lots of space available. BUT there were signs on several posts of: "No truck or trailer Parking". Perhaps we should have visited the store, but we decided to just leave and go to the SKP park (15 miles) at Summerdale at $5 a night for Boondocking. When I finally got into the motorhome, Sandy's comment was "only if I get electric tonight". So much for being cheap. However, when we arrived at the park, she insisted that we get a "dry camping" spot.

So here we are settled in, living on battery and our trusty inverter. We watched the evening news plus Sandy got her "Wheel of Fortune" fix. Now we're both surfing.

The old farmer's advice: The biggest trouble maker you'll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin'

Gene

Today we traveled through Dry East Texas

2011-11-15T16:23:00.000-08:00

Today we meandered our way through east Texas and finally arrived at a little town near Lake Charles, LA. We found a very nice laundromat in Jasper, TX that is probably the largest one we've been in and we were the only customers. Plus the parking lot was large enough to accommodate our motorhome and toad.

Since leaving Hillsboro (Texas) we've been on highways 287 and 190. What surprised us was the variability of the surfaces. The highways went from divided 4 lane to a very narrow two lane with zero shoulder if you fell off of the asphalt and back again. But we successfully managed to travel it with no problems.

We're parked tonight at a friendly Walmart in Jennings, Louisiana The entry was a challenge until we found the last entrance. At the third entrance, there was a sign on a post of "Trucks and RVs use last entrance". So we knew that they were thinking of us. We went to customer service to get permission and the gal there was very accommodating. They don't want us parking near the building, which is understandable. So we're tucked in a far out corner away from all of the traffic, which is great.

The old farmer's advice: Sometimes you Get and sometimes you get Got!

Gene

Leaving Texas finally

2011-11-14T18:10:00.000-08:00

We're not gone yet, but we're getting close to the border on the east. Texas is a big state, no matter how you cross it. We have about a hundred miles to go before we exit it. We left our friends this morning shortly after 8 AM and pushed east. It was Whitney, Hillsboro, and a few more small towns. We picked up highway 287 and have been following it until we got to Woodville when we picked up highway 190. 287 ranges from a four lane highway to a very narrow 2 lane highway, with zero shoulders. But we took it easy plus we had a strong cross wind most of the day. Mileage will not be good.

I had a list of things I was going to talk about tonight. But it is all for naught. They have done disappeared from the memory bank. Tonight we are resting in luxuries comfort in a COE park. (Our plan was to stop at a Walmart along the way; this is much better and only $9.) The park is flat as a pancake and really spaced out. No crowding here. When I called to see if it was open, the fellow on the line was very hesitant until I said it was for only one night. Apparently this campground will filll up and be over flowing by Thanksgiving. (Most of the sites have a reserved sticker on them telling us that we can't stay long.) It is a very nice, spaced out place. Sandy has even mentioned that a second night here would be okay. Was that a hint?

Tomorrow we'll cross over into Louisiana, drop down to Lake Charles and then push east on I-10/12. It warmed up yesterday and tonight the temperatures must be in the high 70s yet. No frost on the pumpkin around here tonight. The forecast is for rain tomorrow afternoon, so that will be a small incentive to keep moving east. On the other hand, Texas needs the rain, lots of it.

The Old Farmer's Advice: If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.

Gene

Getting ready to roll east shortly

2011-11-13T20:38:00.000-08:00

We spent Sunday (today) relaxing our time away with friends. It just felt nice to be off of the road. But we're getting in the mood to hit the road again. We've planned out the route and are looking forward to "getting their".

The last couple of days have been a warm-up to our more extended boondocking plans. We did not plug into our friends AC but depended upon our solar to carry us through. And it did a fine job of keeping the lights on and providing power for the inverter to power the computers. We anticipate that one the road, we'll be staying at Walmart parking lots, and it is all boondocking (parking without hookups).

We've had a wonderful time here in Lakeside Village visiting friends of ours from the days when we went to Pharr, TX each winter. Lou is a real computer whiz and it was great listing to him tell about the trials and tribulations of fixing other peoples machines. The price is right (free) and he enjoys helping others. The grapevine works very well to bring in more business (which he really isn't after.)

The old Farmer's Advice: Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance!

Gene

Home Sweet Home, It is great to be back in the RV!

2011-11-12T18:42:00.000-08:00

It was early afternoon today when we arrived back at our stored RV. What a great feeling to be safely off the road and into familiar surroundings. Tonight, my very own bed again. I almost get tired just dreaming of sleeping in my own bed. (I can't complain really about our motel stays, or when we stayed with Lavonne. There never was a noise problem any night.)

I failed to mention much last night about our dinner location. It was a Western Sizzler, similar to a Ryan's, a dinner buffet place. For starters, the price just about blew me over for the buffet only ($28.00 for two). I'm not sure if the price was up because it was Friday and they had an assortment of fish on the menu, including lobster. The problem was that I wasn't in the mood for fish, or was I interested in crushing the shells for a meal.

So tonight, it was again a buffet, here at the local volunteer Firehouse. It was hosted by the local fireman's axillary, and I like it. I cleaned my plate, and yes, I feel stuffed. I loved the piece of pecan pie that I had afterwards. It was good, no matter what you say about it.

Our original travel plans were to return to the motorhome and immediately hit the road again tomorrow. However, we have decided that our schedule will allow us a day of rest, so we're going to really rest here. We have 8 or 9 days to make it to northeastern Florida, so we should be able to handle that challenge.

We have unpacked and everything is stored away in the motorhome. But one item missing is my listing of the Old Farmer's Advice. And now in my looking for it, I deleted the active page of the blog. Thankfully, Google had saved a copy for me to recover. It sure is nice when others look out for you. I'll get a copy of the advice via Google. Success!

The old Farmer's Advice: Don't interfere with somethin' that ain't botherin' you none!

Gene

McAlester Oklahoma with one more day on the road

2011-11-11T20:24:00.000-08:00

Today we went from Bethany, MO to McAlester, OK. I thought we were going to make it to Texas until Sandy told me that we had another hundred miles to go. She had misread her GPS, so our goal was here, not Paris, TX.

Isn't it funny how one can have all kinds of subjects to write about until one gets the computer open. While behind the wheel, the ideas just floated to my mind. Now I can't remember a thing to write about.

When we got to Joplin, MO, we found our way into the city and we were appalled by the destruction. All of the demolished houses have been cleaned up. You can easily see how much damage there was by the number of basement slabs that are bare. Thank goodness for the GPS, as there were no street signs either. We were planning to stop at a church that has served as a recovery center. However, the parking lot was full of cars from various states, all worker crews that are on site. We decided our presence would be a distraction.

I'm tired and mislaid my listing of the Old Farmer's Advice. Next time.

Gene

Bethany, MO and heading south

2011-11-10T19:36:00.000-08:00

Yes, we're headed south finally, but only after going north 180 miles this morning. Sandy learned last night that a cousin of hers had lost her husband and we felt that we ought to pay our respects to the family. So we were up early this morning to drive the 180 miles north before 10:30 AM today.

After the funeral, grave side service and luncheon at the church, we were finally able to leave. However, we continued going north to see Sandy's brother who is in a care center about 30 miles north. Of course, it was a joy to see him for the short visit. (He suffers from some right side paralysis as a result of a stroke.) He was obviously very surprised to see us.

Finally we broke away from all of the visiting and headed south. Our first observation was that we were getting better gas mileage, since the northwest wind was now a little bit behind us. It appears that the Honda mileage went from 25 mpg while going north to about 30 mpg while going south. Of course we're on the interstate and we were holding the speed close to about 65 mph more or less. We cleared Des Moines at 4 PM and traffic was busy, but not slowing up the traffic.

We have spent the last 5 days with Lavonne helping her some as she recovers from the loss of her husband Dennis after 50 years of marriage. We spent lost of time looking through computer items, both hardware and paper. Dennis had everything filed or boxed, so it was easy to look at it and ask the question, "Is this something Lavonne will use?" (Or is it obsolete by newer versions?) In the basement, I looked for items that were amateur radio related and should be grouped accordingly. (None of the relatives helping Lavonne are familiar with amateur radio equipment.) One item that I did not find is an antenna that is about 40 inches long and has a bayonet mount. I removed the mount from the car, but the actual antenna is missing. (Lavonne remembers that Denny didn't like it left on the Suburban because the antenna would hit the overhead in the garage or the beams in a parking garage. He used the antenna only when traveling during the summer or in the south during the winter.)

One of the pains of using the computer in the motel as we travel is that I don't have my nice easy chair to sit in and trying to work on a computer while relaxing on the bed is the pits. (Sandy has the easy chair.) I guess I could rent a bigger room, but I'm too cheap to do that! Give me a couple of days and we'll be back in the bus!

The old farmer's advice: Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you can enjoy it a second time.

Gene

Snow, it is not welcome

2011-11-09T17:15:00.000-08:00

We're here in Iowa for another day or so. To our great disappointment, it snowed last night. Not much and it melted off by noon, but it was cold, especially since we left Arizona about 2 weeks ago when we were using the AC to keep cool. Give us about 3 days and we'll be warmer I hope.

Today we went to visit with my mother again in the care center. We had made prior arrangements to eat with her and what a joy. We had a cloth covered table outside of the main dining room. I wasn't really turned on with the menu, but it was more than adequate.

We've about wrapped up our efforts here to sort the computer equipment and the radio equipment. Even today we found another box on his work bench instead of stacked with the radio equipment. It was a radio antenna tester that I didn't even realize Denny had.

Sandy resorted our bags so that we have everything we need for the next few days in one bag. One of the advantages of doing that is that we also now have more room in our bedroom. This living out of a suitcase (or 2 plus 3 tote bags) is a pain. The problem is that I can't remember what is where.

The Old Farmer's Advice: Live a good honorable life.

Gene

Winter is still here

2011-11-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

When we poked our nose out of the door this morning, it was cold and raining, which is what it did all day. Tonight, we went to a friend's house for dinner and it seemed like it was colder. It certainly is time to get serious about heading to warmer climates. Our plan is to head south on Thursday, and it won't be soon enough.

We spent more time sorting and looking for a few items. We're trying to gather all of the radio equipment together so that when non-radio people help Lavonne, they won't dispose of something that the radio needs. The antenna I'm looking for is probably about 36 to 48 inches long with a bayonet mount. It probably also has a center loading coil. Thus it is a unique piece of equipment and should be easily recognized.

We've spent some time this afternoon plotting our route south. It is about 950 miles, so it ought to be an easy 3 days. (Very little of it is interstate and much of it is on roads that we have traveled before.) It will be nearly straight south and finally angling west to pass south of Dallas, I'm ready to hit the road.

The Old Farmer's Advice: Remember that Silence is sometimes the best answer!

Gene

More sorting and little stuff

2011-11-07T19:18:00.000-08:00

We did some sorting on Sunday and lots more today. Sandy and Lavonne went to Iowa City for an appointment (2 of them) for Lavonne. Just before she was to leave, she said that she had pulled out two computer cases from under the bed. They were too heavy for her to lift (15 pound limit), so we moved them into the living room and then all of us left.

I ran some errands and then returned to the house. So why not see what was in the cases. One had a 3.5 inch USB drive plus lots of papers and some miscellaneous stuff. The second case had a Dell Inspiron 5100 that Denny had used up until 4 years ago. As I recall, Denny replaced it because it was "so slow". So we plugged it in and he was right, it took for ever to boot up.

We also noticed that one of the hinges is broke (or breaking). I ran one clean up program on it and it helped. I think what I'll do is take it with us and later this winter, I'll run some of my other clean up programs. Perhaps we can get it back to a more normal speed so that Lavonne can give it to a one of her relatives children. To fix the broken hinge, I'll probably have to see if we can beef up the plastic lid in that area.

We have rounded up all of Denny's radio equipment, except for one mobile antenna. It is a special CB antenna with a snap mount onto a base. We have the base, and the antenna has to be around here, as it is probably 40 to 50 inches tall. Lavonne says that they usually removed it since it hit the top of the garage door frame. We think we've looked everywhere, but obviously not all!

The Old Farmer's Advice: Don't judge people by their relatives!

Gene

Sorting through someone else's computer stuff

2011-11-06T19:37:00.000-08:00

We've been here with Lavonne since Friday and already we've missed one daily blog. I intended to put out something last night and suddenly we realized that it was bed time and the computer was off. Oh well, skip it tonight.

Lavonne asked for help to determine what was useful computer equipment and literature in the spare bedroom, which was also their "computer room". So we have had fun looking, sorting and checking if things are working. For starters, just about everything labeled as "Windows 95" was pitched. Such books as "Windows 95 for Dummies" were given the boot! It sure pains me to think that such books are no longer useful, considering their cost. (I think most were being packaged for a distant relative of Lavonne's. If they can't use them, they can pitch them. )

Sandy and Beth worked with the computer equipment and books. The entire issue is one of down sizing and what Lavonne needs. Plus Denny had lots of things filed neatly in marked and unmarked envelopes. There is enough stuff there for Lavonne to spend 100 percent of her time with the computer.

We also pulled the amateur radio equipment out of the cabinet and out of the trailer. It was pretty easy going until I got to the antenna on top of the trailer. Every bolt (small) was rusty and refused to release with the screw driver. Finally, I pulled the antenna base out and left the bracket. We've found all of the radio equipment and coax I think.

Tomorrow Sandy takes Lavonne to Iowa City for some medical appointments while I need to run some errands here in Williamsburg. It will cause a few strange looks from friends who don't know that I'm back in town (but not for long).

The old Farmer's Advice: Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen, anyway!

Gene

Arrived in Williamsburg, Off the road for a while

2011-11-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

We put into two long hard days on the road with the Honda and made it to our destination in Williamsburg, Iowa. We are staying with the recent widow of a life long friend from our days in high school. So much to help her with in our short time here.

We did succeed in cracking a code for one of his computer connections. We found the needed information in a little notebook that he wrote everything in. Our real challenge was deciphering his hand writing. We have one more computer challenge to resolve to make life easier. It is to figure out the password for his linksys network. If push comes to shove, we'll press the reset button and set it up again. The embarrassing thing is that I think I gave him the router and set up years ago. I think it is a WRT-11, so we'll do some searching online before we do the reset. Plus I'll get my old XP machine in so that I can find way through the network stuff.

The Old Farmer's Advice: (my book is in the car, so we'll skip it tonight.)

Gene

Wichita,KS after a long day

2011-11-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

We were up early (after being up very late) and had hoped to get an early start. Well, it was before 9 AM. We didn't want to leave before 8 AM because if we did, we'd probably get tangled up in RUSH hour traffic. Anyway, we pulled out at 8:45 and traffic was moderate (or heavy in my opinion).

I should say that going through Ft. Worth was a lot better this time since Sandy had her GPS programmed to lead the way. She would give me a "head's up" warning about which lane or side of the highway I needed to be in. In fact, it went very well.

After we cleared Ft. Worth, Sandy took over the driving duties for a couple of hours. It was wonderful for me to sit there in the passenger seat of the Honda and watch the world go by. I was so relaxed that I even found myself sleeping some. We found Oklahoma City to also be busy with lots of cars, but again Sandy and her GPS gave us good directions so that we could be in the right lanes at the right time.

When we reached Kansas, we stopped at the first visitors rest area so that we could learn where the motels were at in Wichita. In the visitor's center, we moved to the far end to read the literature and call the motels. I was a little taken back when the girl behind the desk showed up right near us and apologized that she was going to run the carpet sweeper. Okay we moved to the front of center. Shortly, she was near us again with her loud carpet sweeper roaring away. Sandy and I decided it was time to leave. I should have given her a piece of my mind, but I quietly left. Her actions were totally uncalled for.

When we reached Wichita, traffic was terrible. It was 5:05 PM and I think just about every employee in Wichita was getting off of work. So instead of finding a motel, we found a restaurant and got off of the street. An hour later, traffic was more reasonable. It was great to hang up driving for the day.

The Old Farmer's Advice: The Best Sermons are lived, not preached.

Gene

Lakeside Village, TX (south of Ft. Worth) and it is late.

2011-11-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

We made it to the little village of Lakeside Village, which is about half way from anywhere. For starters, it is here that we're going to leave our motorhome with some friends for 10 to 12 days. It is parked right where everyone can see it. I wonder how many folks will think Lou and Ginny have acquired another RV?

Sandy said that we put in almost the same mileage that we did yesterday. How often do you split it that close and have the two days travels being only a mile different? Today I was glad when it ended, as the wind was picking up. Also tonight, the cold air set in and there was no doubt that winter is here.

It has been a long day, so this is going to be short, like real short. It is late, past midnight, which is extremely late for us. Sandy has made me pack everything I need and be ready to travel. We'll see if we can clear out of here by 8 AM tomorrow morning? We hope so.

The old Farmer's Advice: "When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty!"

Gene

On the move, currently at Seminole, TX

2011-11-01T19:37:00.000-07:00

We put in a full day at the wheel and made it to Seminole, TX where we're hole'd up in a free city park, with 30 Amp electric. But we're paying for it also. I think the park is where the local kids hang out. There is a lot of car traffic it seems. On the other hand, it may be only one or two cars with loud pipes going round and round. So we'll ignore them at this hour (9pm).

Some people have asked "How do we find these city parks with free camping sites?" It is through a fellow in the Escapee's RV club, who has made it his mission to log free and low cost stopping places. He makes the list available to members of the Escapee's RV club.

Since the listing is created from information provided by various individuals, all of which may have different rules than we do, we always stay flexible as to where we're stopping. I refer to it as having a backup plan in case the first option does not meet our needs. This park was described as having 6 back-in 30 foot sites. That is a bit short for us. (Our backup site was 40 miles on down the road.) However, since we're the only one here, we parallel parked the rig and there is plenty of room. We had to call on the police department to open the lock so that we could plug in. No real problem, other than they only provided a 7 digit phone number! So what area code do we use? We decided to just go visit city hall and solve it. But city hall has temporally moved. We finally spotted a police car parked (at the police station), so we finally got our message to the right people.

Tomorrow we hope to make it to our friends location south of Ft. Worth/Dallas. They are gone for the evening, but we'll make do. We obviously will visit with them a while late into the evening, but hopefully we can get enough sleep to get a decent start on Thursday for Iowa. Since the interstate goes right through downtown Ft. Worth, we plan to be a little late. Hopefully, rush hour will be past when we get into Ft. Worth. (They are about a hour south of Ft. Worth.) The motorhome stays and we'll only drive the car north to Iowa. We'll try living out of a suitcase again.

It is now 9:35 and things have really quieted down outside. Perhaps it won't be too bad here tonight.

The Old Farmer's Advice: You cannot unsay a cruel word.

Gene

A good day with lots of show stoppers!

2011-10-31T19:46:00.000-07:00

Today was to be a day of relaxation for us while we did a few little things. It was true but it seems that everything was a challenge. For starters, we were slow getting out and heading for the border town to buy our bi-annual supply of vanilla. We passed the first filling station because the gas price was too high. The next one was on the wrong side of the busy road. Finally, as we were leaving Deming, we found a station and the gas was even higher.OUCH, but we filled up. Yep, a mile down the road was another station 20 cents cheaper. We were about half way to Columbus when Sandy suddenly said, "We forgot our passports!" That is a real show stopper if you are crossing the border, as we were.

So it was back to Deming where we had lunch before trying it again. Yes, we dug out the passports and headed south. For the rest of that activity, all went well and we were back in about 90 minutes (30 miles south, 10 minutes to walk to The Pink Store and get 7 liters of real vanilla and 30 miles back to Deming. (Some of the vanilla is for friends.) Then there was a quick stop at Walmart before we went to the motorhome.

Back at the motorhome, we dug into a problem that was bothering us for the last couple of days. I thought our friendly SHURFLO water pump was getting air and refusing to pump again. Finally we figured out that the problem was the presure switch in the SHURFLO pump was not turning the pump on to pump water when the pressure dropped. The problem would only manifest itself if the pump sat there for a little while under full pressure before being asked it to pump again.

Eventually we figured out that by turning the pump off and back on, the pump would restart on its own. Needless to say, I was very exasperated. We fought that problem last winter with one of our many pumps and the current pump was given to me (new pump) by the Shurflo technician at the Winnebago National Rally at Forest City in July. It has worked flawlessly since then. It was not used while at Casa Grande and now that we need it, we have our problem again.

I want to call the service technician who gave it to me, but I can't find his calling card. So tomorrow we call Winnebago and find out his name. There is a pressure adjustment on the pump, but I'm trying to be a good user and not twiddling with everything until the expert says to. At least now we can make it pump on demand.

Tomorrow we are going to call and maybe stop at one of two major RV stores in Las Cruces in hopes of getting a "three-way ball valve" to replace the leaky one in the rig. The real challenge is to find one that is a direct replacement. Perhaps I could order it from Winnebago, but where do we have it shipped ? We're on the road again. Another challenge of this life style.

The old Farmer's Advice: It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge!

Gene

Deming, NM again

2011-10-30T22:30:00.000-07:00

We left the casino early this morning, like at 7:30 AM. For some reason neither one of us could sleep long, so we were both up by 6 AM. The good news of that is that traffic was light on the road and no wind.

Right now, it is way past our bed time. I just realized as we were getting ready for bed that I hadn't kicked out a blog and I try to do that, especially when we've moved. We're at the Escapee's Dream Catcher RV park here in Deming, NM, which is a typical RV park. But for now, it is only half full, so lots of empty spaces around us and I'm not complaining. We like it that way. We're here for two nights.

Tonight when Sandy wanted to wash the dishes, we couldn't get water out of the faucet. It seemed that our old problem of a leaky valve down by the water pump was leaking air again into the inlet side of the pump and then the pump can't get enough prime to really pump water. The valve is a switch for adding anti-freeze to the system should we want to winterize it the motorhome. We don't use it that way ourselves. We use the inlet to draw water in from the barrel on the farm while parked their. Anyway, we'll try to find a replacement tomorrow after we return from Mexico. Then of course, there is the problem of crawling inside of the basement to change it out.

This afternoon, we went to the park ice cream social in the club house at 4 PM. I love the ice cream, but it sure ruins any need for dinner. And the ice cream servings are not small. So Sandy took a nap and I guess I may have also dropped off some.

I was reading my book on Napoleon Bonaparte and I'm in the area where he came back from his first expulsion. He returned to France, reclaimed his position, created an army of 200,000 or 300,000 men and proceeded to go attack the British in Belgium. He was badly beaten again and ended up getting thrown out of France for good and exiled to a distant island. Sandy and I visited the battlefield outside of Brussels several years ago, thus my interest in the details.

Monday we go to a Mexico border town to get some Mexican vanilla, which Sandy loves to use in the kitchen. The locals here say that it is a safe town and that they go often. So if we don't make it back, you know what happened. Hopefully, we'll be back soon enough so that I can get the part I need to fix the air leak in our water system.

(It is not a problem, just another opportunity to learn what is in the system and how it goes together.)

The Old Farmer's Advice: Don't corner something that you know is meaner than you!

Gene

Dinner at the Desert Diamond Casino, Green Valley, (Tuscon), AZ

2011-10-29T20:56:00.000-07:00

True to our planning, we left the park this morning. What a great feeling that the shed is done and we're on the road again. Okay, it was only a 76 mile jaunt, but we're moving. Tonight we had dinner in the casino (paying our parking fee) with my cousin Larry Siems and his wife Carol. We've done this often, since they moved here a few years ago.

We're actually boondocking in the casino parking lot with about 20 other RVs. It is quiet, other than the constant road noise from the interstate nearby. I guess that will put us to sleep tonight. It could be worse, such as a train every 30 minutes, or big trucks starting and stopping. Tonight, all I hear are cars, cars and more cars.

Since it was a short drive this morning, we took a long nap this afternoon during the heat of the day. It was to get up to 85 or so today. We made it okay.

Paul: I responded to your comment with another comment this morning.

The Old Farmer's Advice: Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.

Gene

Friday night, we're ready to roll

2011-10-28T22:32:00.000-07:00

Here it is Friday night and we're ready to roll. In fact, I've been goofing off for a day or two. But better that way verses being late. Just now I realized that I've been so busy that I have forgotten to fill our water tank with fresh water. (I did empty the holding tanks yesterday afternoon.)

While here in the park, I have read two books that I had a hard time putting down. Two years ago, I read the book by Steven Ambrose called "The Band of Brothers". It is the WW2 history of Easy Company of (I forget the details.) I really enjoyed it. In the park library are two more books related to the Band of Brothers. The first one was by Dick Winters (Major) who went from being a Lt. with a squad to being the battalion commander. Lt. Winters was a "People Person" who earned the respect of his men and ended up being Battalion commander after the airplane with the command staff was shot down and all hands aboard were lost on D-Day. Lt Winters knew what the mission was and made it happen. Dick Winters wrote his book after Steven Ambrose returned all of the notes that Ambrose had gathered in order to write his book.

Dick Winters looked at the notes and realized that a lot of what he thought was important was left out, so Dick Winters wrote what was really a biography of his military career. It obviously was written showing the trials and tribulations of a leader placed in an extremely difficult position.

The second book was written by two GI's in the company. It is written from their prospective as two GI's who were often called to do the impossible. Both books were easy reading for me.

As we hit the road tomorrow, I have a thick book about Napoleon Bonaparte that I haven't finished yet. It is an interesting work detailing the ups and downs of Napoleon's career. The one problem I have is that it was written by a Frenchman, who often left quotes in French verses giving the English version.

The reason we came here this fall was to get a shed onto our lot, one way or another. Three years ago, the local committee rejected my request because it was too close to a power transformer. Well, nothing moved. However, we have new members on the committee and after they looked at the permit request and the rules on the transformer, they said, "It looks okay to us." So we bought a metal shed from Home Depot and last week, we assembled it. This week, we had a load of gravel delivered and leveled and later we had the anchors installed for our shed.

With all of that done, we're ready to leave. (And the really good news is that the lot is rented for the rest of the season.)

The Old Farmer's Advice: Meanness don't just happen overnight.

Gene

Winding down our stay

2011-10-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, but we're on our last days here at Sunscape. The gravel is leveled, the bills are paid and the shed has been hosed out. If we're not careful, we'll be ready to leave tomorrow, rain or shine. On the road again.

Today has been a fantastic day so far temperature wise. Inside the motorhome, it is 80 degrees, with only the vent fan running on low. It is delightful. I understand that in 2 or 3 days, another heat wave will roll in. We should be long gone by then.

Sandy was even outside this morning with the scrub brush and bucket, washing the windshield of the motorhome. She has a real adversion to spots on the windows or on my glasses.

Since we've not done much, there isn't much to write about. So we'll sign off for now.

Old Farmer's Advice: Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled.

Gene

A Cotton Tour that wasn't

2011-10-25T21:53:00.000-07:00

We were up early so that we could go on a cotton tour. We found the tour starting point, only to learn that the cotton plants were too green to harvest. (When the mechanical cotton picker rubs on the green leaves, it picks up a green residue which then rubs onto the white cotton. The stained cotton is thus graded poorer verses a pure white cotton fiber.) Thus, no cotton tour today.

Perhaps I need to tell you about the Visitor's Center where the Cotton Tour was to begin. It is located adjacent to a small town that has a divided 4 lane highway for main street (with lots of pot holes). Very few of the streets are paved. In other words, there isn't much money in the town.

With no Cotton Tour, we were leaving the building and noticed a fellow out on the sidewalk talking like he knew much of the local background. So we decided to stick around and listen for a while. When there was a break and he had been talking about irrigation, I asked him how deep the water table was or is? It turns out that when the first farmers showed up in the area, the water table was down about 40 feet. However, today the water table is typically down 800 feet. (To pump water from 800 feet down costs lots of money, thus we see lots of abandoned irrigation fields.)

As we listened, he started to tell us about the schools that were on the visitor center grounds. There were two schools on the grounds, one school for the Anglos and Hispanics and the other school for the blacks. Each school had their own privy, the white kids had indoor facilities while the black kids had to use an outdoor privy. What was interesting was that the class schedule was such that recess was at the same time so that all of the kids could play together.

In the white kids school, there were showers in both bathrooms The standard morning was for the kids to be inspected by the school nurse for cleanliness. If she felt that a kid was dirty, she sent them to the showers. (His comment was that most of the homes had very little water, and the kids bathed in the irrigation ditch.) The black kids school was about the size of a country school and made out of wood. The white kids school was made out of brick and concrete and was about twice the black school size. Both schools were built in the late 30s.

Our speaker was a local volunteer who enjoyed telling everyone what it was like way back when. (He had lived in the area all of his life.) The two schools were being refurbished and would be used as the town museum. So the Visitor's Center was actually a mobile home on the museum grounds.

Back at the RV park, we did a few things and waited for 10 tons of gravel to be delivered for our lot. In Iowa, the gravel would be very wet, but not so here in Arizona. When he dumped the gravel, there was a big cloud of dust created. I tried to water it down and finally gave up. Later in the week, the maintenance man is bringing the tractor and bucket to spread the gravel out. It would take me a month or longer to do it with a wheel barrow. Isn't technology great?

The Old Farmer's Advice: A bumblebee is considerably faster than an International Tractor.

Gene

Is it Wrapping up or Winding down our stay at Casa Grande ?

2011-10-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

This was a great day for us. What we wanted to get done happened, so we're pleased. For starters, we stopped at the Walgreen's drug store to get a vitamin B twelve shot and there was a minor hiccup, but in the end, we succeeded.

Then we headed down the freeway to a sand and gravel place to buy a load of gravel to put on our lot in the park. We were there at 10:30 AM this morning and probably we could have had the gravel on our lot by noon. I think you can say that business is kind of slow. They will bring the gravel out after lunch tomorrow (Tuesday).

From the gravel pit, we headed to downtown Casa Grande for more stops, all of which were successful. As Sandy said when we left Casa Grande, "To think we had 6 stops on our schedule and all were successful. That is 6 fewer stops we won't have to make later in the week.

Our plan is to leave here on Saturday and it looks like it will work out. We're probably leaving just as the weather turns much cooler (highs only in the 70s.)

Per the old Farmer: Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

Gene

Sunday, our day of rest

2011-10-23T19:51:00.000-07:00

We really made this our day of rest. We were not even in the shed except to get our bicycle out for a ride around the park. I think I also took a nap this afternoon in the chair.

We've got our list of things to get done in the next week. Bearing some show stopper, we should have it done by Saturday. The catch is that so much of it depends upon someone else. So there is always some question of will we get the service we're expecting.

When we leave here, our first stop is at a Casino on the south of Tuscon along I-19. It is convenient to the highway, has a good restaurant and free parking for our RV. We'll spend one night here and have dinner with Larry and Carol Siems, a cousin. Our next stop is Deming, NM. We'll spend two nights there so that we can make a drive south to Columbus, NM and walk across the border to get some Mexican Vanilla. Then it is on to Dallas and visiting a friend from our time visiting south Texas. That is enough planning for now.

The temperature here in Casa Grande hit 93 degrees today again. By Wednesday, they are saying it should break, with the high in the lower 80s. We're ready forit.

An old Farmer's Advice: Keep skunks and bankers and lawyers at a distance!

Gene

The Life of Leasure

2011-10-22T22:02:00.000-07:00

One would think that with the shed construction complete and no other big projects on the way for the lot in Casa Grande, we'd be relaxing. Well, perhaps some day, but not now. I guess it is like having extra space in the RV; if you have the space, you just have to fill it. In this case, I gave myself a week to wrap up any remaining details. and the list keeps growing.

Monday I get a vitamin B12 shot; Then we go visit a gravel dealer to order some crushed stone for the lot parking area. Tuesday we join a park tour to see how cotton is harvested and processed. Wednesday, the fellow from the maintenance shop is going to drill 6 holes in the shed pad to anchor the shed. Hopefully, the gravel we want will be delivered. Thursday will be the day to have the park tractor level the gravel. Friday is the day to wrap up what we missed earlier. Saturday we'll think about leaving, assuming that nothing breaks or bends in the mean time.

A whirl wind went through the middle of our RV and I had to re-stack my flat file system. In the process, I came across the handout that I picked up at a classmates funeral. Gerald was a real country boy and enjoyed life to the fullest. One page of the handout was a saying from the "Old Farmers Almanac" So you'll see a line per posting for a while.

Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull strong.

Gene

The SHED is finished, and are we happy!

2011-10-21T22:53:00.000-07:00

We spent a couple of hours this morning putting on the finishing touches to our storage shed. What a relief to have it done! Perhaps the most frustrating part was that we could only put in 3 or 4 hours of work each day before the heat drove us into cooler surroundings.

The one remaining issue is the need to anchor the shed to the concrete pad. We have made arrangements for the park maintenance department to drill the needed holes. They have a drill that is both a hammer and a drill. It is also a real workhorse verses the little drill I have.

Since the shed is finished and we have some time on our hands, we are getting a load of gravel to spread on the lot parking area. We need it for two reasons. The original gravel is a pea gravel and does not pack down. Thus it is like walking on (or in) dry sand. The other reason is that it is a very thin layer and during a heavy rain, past renters have told me that the parking area is a big sloppy mess. At least a good layer of coarse gravel will provide a solid surface to walk on, rain or shine.

With the shed done, we have started thinking about traveling, perhaps in a week or two. If for nothing else, we would love to find a cooler climate. I'm tired of these temperatures!

Gene

Progress on the shed is slow, but study

2011-10-20T22:08:00.000-07:00

We were up before 5:30 AM and out working on the shed by 7:30 AM. Actually I could have been out sooner, but I like to watch 30 to 60 minutes of GMA.

Today's task was to install the ridge covers on the roof. It is not really a difficult task if you could reach where you wanted to go. But some of the holes are about 4 feet inward and my arms are just a bit short. But by standing near the top of the step ladder with Sandy holding the ladder, we could reach the screws. The problem was that I also wanted/needed Sandy inside of the shed holding a wrench on the nut so that it would tighten up. So those will have to wait until I can find a helper.

It sure is a good feeling to think that tomorrow is really clean up on the shed. The last major task is to get a masonry drill to drill into the floor to anchor the shed to the concrete. In the afternoon, we hung the doors onto the shed. So tonight, we cleaned up the stuff outside of the shed and put it where it is out of site.

After I gave up working on our shed, I went across the street to visit with a neighbor who is building a shed made out of pre-cut lumber. It will be interesting to compare sheds 10 or 15 years from now.

We are happy that things are moving along nicely. We are beginning to plan our trip east when we stop near Dallas so that we can take the Honda back to Iowa. Tentatively, we want to be in Iowa at least a week before Thanksgiving. So when you take out our travel time to Dallas from here plus time to have dinner with a cousin in Tuscon, we don't have much time left. It won't be long until we can sing out the opening line of "On the Road Again".

The temperature high today was only 95 in Phoenix and supposedly it will only get up to 90 tomorrow. We're ready for some cooler days!

Gene

The building program continues

2011-10-18T19:25:00.000-07:00

We were at it again today and all went well. Progress is slow, but we're not in a race nor is there a deadline looming before us. Actually there is a deadline, but it is a month away. I should be done by this weekend.

Assembling the doors and overhead beams went ahead without any problems. Raising the beams to the roof top height was a challenge, but we solved it with a coat hanger. We picked up a coat hanger at the laundry and cut two wires to make hooks to hold the beams. Thus with only one step ladder and only one ladder climber, we could raise the beam up and hook the wire before working on the other end. It worked very well.

We finished the beams by noon and decided to go ahead and assemble the doors. It is a great feeling to have the doors ready to attach to the shed. But that will have to wait for another day.

Today we also purchased a remote garage door opener to use as a gate opener to get into the park. We have a card that we lay on the gate input and the input recognizes the card and we're in. However, it is very inconvenient to use unless you have arms that are about 6 feet long. The remote has two buttons so we can supposedly program the second button for our park in Florida. But looking at the instructions makes me wonder how? It is not very clear!

It was only 95 in Phoenix today and cooler tomorrow. By Saturday, the temperatures here are to be in the high 80s, and will that be a blessing. No one will complain.

Life has been good to us.

Gene

Assembling the shed, a puzzle

2011-10-18T06:37:00.000-07:00

I intended to write this last night, but fell asleep. So we'll do it this morning. But Sandy got up just after I did. I had expected that I would have had an hour to kill before breakfast. So we need to be moving on to the shed activities.

At least I don't have to drive to work. Watching TV and the traffic tie-ups in Phoenix just make me thankful I don't have to traverse those highways.

The assembly of the shed progressed well yesterday. We were able to install all four sides minus the door. The winds (or breeze) held off until we had all of the panels in place. In the afternoon, we put in a few more screws in the base area. Today, we start the roof area. We're not in a hurry, so don't expect miracles

Off to the salt mines.

Gene

Slow progress, working only in part of the AM

2011-10-16T21:25:00.000-07:00

We said in the Friday night posting that construction has started. That was right, we opened the box of parts and peaked in. Okay, a big jig saw puzzle.

Saturday we got into the nitty-gritty and started putting parts together. Sandy has been a big help, as she reads the instructions and tells me what to do. When we quit Saturday morning, we had all of the sub-assemblies done and we were ready to start mounting stuff to the base frame. But the instructions said quit until you can finish the next N steps in one day. As a partially completed shed, it is very susceptible to wind. We can't have that.

Monday morning, bright and early, we start putting the outside skin on, then the bracing to hold it together. For the initial assembly, the only thing holding stuff up-right is the metal skin.

Monday promises to be another great day, with the thermometer only getting to 99. So we'll see how long we last. Putting the assemblies together wasn't too bad, but I was able to work in the shade all morning. Assembling the shed is going to be in the sunlight with all of its radiant glory. We'll see how tough we are.

Today was Sunday, so there was no work done today. The real challenge will be the need to do productive work while my sinuses are apparently reacting to something around here. At times, my nose runs like a water faucet and tonight, I have a mild sinus headache. Ah, the life of a busy man. But we shall keep going.

My gut feeling is that this ought to be a one week job. Next week-end, you can see how good my bidding effort is. Once the shed is done, we plan to add some gravel to the parking area. It is okay now, but we understand when they have had some rainy days, the water kind of sits on the lot and walking is hazardous (or sloppy). The lot is covered with a pea gravel that has no firmness to it. We want a more course rock so that when it packs in, it won't move under your feet.

Enough for now

Gene

Construction has started,

2011-10-14T20:43:00.000-07:00

Today we did two remarkable things for us. Our first task was to visit Lowe's and see what they had for 8 by 10 foot sheds. We got a simple answer: They didn't handle the one we wanted. So our only option was to go to Home Depot for our shed.

The other remarkable thing we did was "eat out" for lunch or dinner at noon. We made sure we were at the Golden Corral before 11 AM so that the breakfast menu was available. Why you ask? Well, they had a special, steak and eggs. So I had a very nice piece of meat, grilled to the way I like it. It was delicious. Yes, I probably made a pig of myself, but it was all good stuff. Of course we topped it off with a final dish of ice cream and a piece of fudge. Yes, we had enough. We made up for it tonight, we had a small dish of pea salad.

After our noon dinner, we went to Home Depot and purchased the shed we wanted for our lot. The clerk tried to tell me that I couldn't carry it in our Honda CR-V, but I argued and she finally agreed. (I didn't want to spend another 80 dollars and wait a week for it to get here. Or I could have ordered it online with Home Depot and had it delivered to the lot, with no shipping charge.) We folded the seats in back and rearranged the stuff I carry in the rear and the stockroom forklift operator helped me slide it into the Honda. We picked up some twine from them and tied it in and then drove very modestly back to our park.

Tonight, we have the box opened and it is really nothing more than a big jig saw puzzle, with instructions where all of the pieces go. It ought to be a piece of cake, but we shall see. Just as with a regular puzzle, we started to lay some of the pieces out on the patio so that we can identify what we have. Perhaps I can get Sandy to read the instructions while I do the assembly work. For me to read the instructions -and follow them would be a near first!

While we were out shopping, we left the motorhome closed with no air conditioning on and it felt like it when we returned. It was about 108 inside, so Sandy turned on the air conditioning and then bailed out and went into the next door activity center library and read. Everyone was happy.

One downer for yesterday was that we went to the evening potluck dinner. A retired pastor that we know joined us at our table, but otherwise, to most people, it was as if we didn't exist. Not a good sign for a group that wants to be friendly and have others move into the park.

All in all, it was a good day today.

Gene

Things go our way, Hurrah

2011-10-12T21:38:00.000-07:00

Today was a real "red letter" day in our books. But first the bad stuff, "It was HOT again, and more heat tomorrow!" I suggested to Sandy that since the Activity Center had good air conditioning, we ought to just grab our computers and go into the library, which we did in the afternoon. At this time of the year, hardly anyone is around and it is comfortable. (The motorhome is air conditioned, but I hate to run it because of the noise!)

The really good news occurred in the afternoon. We met with the Architecture committee about our planned storage shed, which had been rejected 2 years ago. The bottom line was that the electrical power supplier had asked that the park keep all improvements away from the power transformers by 3 feet in the front and 5 feet to the right and left. The request did not specify a circle or a clear area. So after some discussion, it was agreed that the building location plan was in compliance. For a while, they were thinking of asking the power suppliers for clarification but then decided to make the decision. So we get a shed as planned.

Our other big success was to find a bicycle for me to use here. Sandy spotted it last night on her walk so after the building permit was resolved, I went looking for it. It was available and I qualified as new owner to him. (Any one would qualify, it was free.) So I road it home, happy as a lark. It may not be the fanciest bike in town, but it will work for me.

Our plan had been to make a bee line into town and buy a metal storage shed tomorrow. However, we then remember that we have a pot luck dinner to attend tomorrow night, so we're waiting a day to buy our shed. The conflict was that I had suggested that we eat out at the Golden Corral at noon for dinner after we bought the shed. But our dietary specialist says that one dinner a day is enough, not two. So tomorrow we'll round up some tools we need to drill holes in concrete and other stuff. We buy the shed on Friday and eat out. (Unlike some couples, eating out is a special occasion for us. I prefer to eat in most of the time.)

I told Sandy that if the storage shed goes together as easy as it did for our neighbor 3 years ago, we should be able to have it installed and finished by next weekend. That would mean that we could leave here if we wanted to and head for Florida. Maybe we should say, "Not so fast."

I would say that things are looking up!

Gene

No complaints, but it is getting warm here

2011-10-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

We didn't exactly over work ourselves here today. For starters, it was cold out. I even put on my jacket when I went out. But it didn't take long to realize that it was warming up fast. We ditched the jacket and later even switched to Bermudas.

We are extremely low on propane in the motorhome and we've been wanting to get it filled at the tank here in the park. Monday was a no go when the operator didn't show up. So the office manager left him a message on his answering machine. I heard nothing back. This noon, we picked up our cell phone only to realize that there was a voice message for us. It told us that the propane operator would be at the tank at 9 AM today, 3 hours ago. Scratch that one. Supposedly, the operator would be there between 3 and 4 today (daily times), so we were there waiting. Sorry, but no operator appeared. At least we have not moved the motorhome each time.

This afternoon, we sat in the shade of the RV and made some notes for future travels. It is hard to believe that we probably will be traveling in about 7 weeks when our renter shows up. I guess we brought it on ourselves.

Gene

Getting into the park routine

2011-10-10T21:44:00.000-07:00

We arrived on Saturday, rested on Sunday after church and Monday was a work day! We met with the park manager about the shed that I want to build on our lot and I think he understands our desires (and frustrations).

Of course, it all depends upon the rules and he didn't remember if it is a "park" rule or an imposed rule from the local electrical power supplier. The minor problem we have is that two years ago, they gave us permission to pour a patio and a shed base on the lot, supposedly in accordance with the rules. When we returned 2 months later to install the shed, they denied our building permit because it was too close to the power transformer box. The transformer is between our lot and a neighbors and 20 feet from the Activity Center. It is about 20 feet to the activity center building, so there is no question about getting heavy equipment in to replace the transformer.

The manager brought the local committee chairman around to look the area over and both seemed to agree that placing the shed on the current poured concrete base would not restrict the power company, should they need to replace the transformer. But the chairman did not have the rule books with him, so again, we don't know exactly what is required. If need be, I will go to the power company asking for a waiver. Otherwise, it is probably a $500 bill to add a 2 foot section to the already poured concrete floor. Oh, the joys of working with city hall (and they are fellow park members.)

We did a lot of walking today and it felt good. Sandy and I even went out for a long walk around the park perimeter after dinner (I cheated and cut the last leg short.). While walking, we welcomed another couple that came in this afternoon. While visiting with her, she learned where we were parked and said, "Oh, we've talked before. We tried to rent your lot 2 years ago." She also said that the absence of a shed was the killer to the deal.

While all of this was going on, Sandy was having an email conversation with a fellow that wanted to rent our lot in the park starting in December. And before the afternoon was over, the lot was rented. So we now have about 6 or 7 weeks to make it all happen before we get booted from our own lot. But that is a good feeling, since we wanted to rent it. Two years ago on the 23 of December, a fellow came to our door and asked if we were really serious about renting the lot, with immediate availability? We said yes. He said that he was currently in the park on a park owned lot. He had tried to extend his stay there, but the park had already rented the lot to another party starting tomorrow. So he needed a new place to stay starting on the 24th of December. We said we'd be gone by noon on the 24th. In the end, everyone was happy!

Yesterday we received some really bad news, news that we had expected, just not so soon. It sure hurts to lose a high school buddy that has helped us more than once. We had driven him to chemo treatments several times this summer and realized that he was not gaining ground. We considered returning to Iowa, but the funeral is soon, so we decided that we'd wait until we head for Florida in December and make a route detour via Iowa. Presently, his widow has several family members close by, so other than an eyeball contact, we'd have little time with her. Never-the-less, it is a reminder about our own mortality. In the meantime, we shall live life to the fullest!

Gene

Sunscape RV Resort, we made it

2011-10-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

We were up early because it was COLD last night at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. So we had breakfast and then went touring at some nearby Indian ruins. (You can not walk up the volcano cinder cone, but you see cinders everywhere one goes.) Supposedly, the Indians abandoned the area and then came back a few years later when the volcano eruptions had died out. It must have been a frightening site to see the eruptions and also see some lava flowing out of the ground.

It eventually was close to 11 AM when we finally pulled stakes and hit the road for Casa Grande (south of Phoenix) and our lot in Sunscape Park. Traffic was not bad in our direction until we reached Phoenix. However, Sandy did a marvelous job of keeping me on track and in the right lanes as we went through the heart of Phoenix and came out on the south side on Interstate 10. It was then a cake walk to Casa Grande and the park. As Sandy said, "The GPS paid for itself today as we traveled through Phoenix." So if you don't have one yet, consider getting one, especially if you are going to travel to some unfamiliar areas. (Get it soon enough so that you know how it works.)

We parked outside of the park, unhooked and checked in with the office before driving through the gate. It is an automatic gate and I had Sandy stand in front of it so that it didn't close on me. Our lot looked mighty good as we arrived. It didn't take long to back into position, turn the motor off, hit the level button and give a sigh of relief. We made it again.

Tomorrow is a day of rest and we shall make it that. It will be church in the morning, pick up a few groceries and head back to the park. It is amazing how warm and welcoming a familiar surrounding can be! We've been on the road for about 18 days and it is time to park it for a little while.

Plus I'm going to like the local temperatures for the upcoming week, lows in the upper 60s and the highs in the 80s, maybe 90. Maybe we came just a bit too soon.

Gene

Sunset Crater, few miles, long day

2011-10-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

(Written Friday night, but posted on Saturday, no internet here.)

We were short on miles today, but we didn't get into the park too early. For starters, we emptied the tanks and refilled the water tank and the way everyone lays out the dump and fresh water connections, it can be a long time waiting. First we wouldn't dump because another user was in there. Then when he finished, he pulled forward to fill his water tank and held us up some more. Finally, we emptied and filled and were on our way -- almost.

Of course, our direction was east, up the hill and through the tunnel again. At the tunnel, we had to wait until traffic cleared from the east until we could proceed going east. Of course, we drove in the middle, straddling the center lines. And we made it with no dents or scratches on the top side.

Our next hold up was 20 miles down the road when we fueled up. Of course, we passed the most economical station first, so we did a loop and went back a quarter of a mile to fill. We filled using a slow pump for about 50 gallons. Finally, we were ready to hit the road!

All went well the rest of the morning. At noon, we spotted a Visitor's Center, so of course we had to pull in and see what we could learn. It was a visitor's center for an obscure National Monument. We visited with the off duty volunteer a bit before wandering inside where the lone volunteer at the desk was tied up with three others. We listened a little bit and decided that they were going to take much longer than we were willing to wait, so we left...

Down the 15 miles was a another Visitor's Center for the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) area to the east of the road. As we were walking into the building, a fellow arrived with a government coat on. I may have insulted him by asking if he was a volunteer. No, he was the chief naturalist. What a salesman he was. He gave us a description of all of the dinosaurs on display. He claimed that they have found hundreds of dinosaur fossils in the last 10 years and currently have 21 recovery teams working on the ground.

Back in our rig, we proceeded on down the road to the Glen Canyon Dam Visitors Center. (More time killed.) We read some of the displays and finally decided that we needed to move on down the road. We first crossed the bridge and skirted Page, AZ and then headed south. It seemed like we got an early start after lunch, but when we finally arrived at our current site, it was 5 PM. To help us out, we went from Utah (on MDT) to Arizona which is on MST, so our day is an hour longer (and we needed it.)

As we drive the road into the monument, we saw two rangers in cars just parked like they were looking for someone. Shortly thereafter, a fellow in a red sports car decided he could write his own rules and passed us on the yellow line. And shortly thereafter, the ranger appeared behind me with his lights flashing. We pulled over, but he was really wanting the red sports car and disappeared on down the road.

A quick check at the visitor's center gave us the weather forecast (+26 tonight) and clear. but there is no alternative campground close by at a much lower elevation. So we found a site in the NF campground across the road and have made ourselves comfortable. A big downer is that after we were set up, we realized that there is no Verizon signal, so no telephone and no internet for us tonight. I guess we'll have to talk to each other tonight directly.

We may stay here another night or we may just hump it on south to our lot in Casa Grande (Sunscape RV Resort park). I think we're both ready to park the rig for a while.

Gene

Zion National Park, day 5

2011-10-06T21:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've lost track of how many days we've been here. I guess that is okay, as we have no deadlines right now. Tomorrow we leave for warmer climates I hope, but fear that it will be cooler. We're heading south 200 miles, but upwards about 2000 feet I think. We'll tell you tomorrow.

What did we do today? NOT Much. For some reason, we were just plain lazy. We did ride the shuttle up the canyon only so we could ride it back down the canyon. It was at least an opportunity to get some fresh air.

The weather here the last two days has been a little bit miserable. Some mist at times, other times it has rained. We did go to the Visitor's Center to see what information we could get on some parks south of here. Nothing exception that caused us to pull stakes and move on. I was hoping that there would be an overwhelming reason that when we leave, that we should take the long route. But no such luck. The long route is mostly in the low country, i.e. no mountains. The shorter route is via the road we came in on, i.e. via the tunnel, stay in the middle and watch your driving. Plus it is up hill for a few miles.

Our solar continues to keep us in power. We finally ran our Honda 2000i generator out of gas this morning. Roughly speaking, that was about 10 hours of use on one gallon of gas. Yesterday we had picked up another gallon, so we're good to go for our stay in Arizona. (Sunday night we reach our park in Casa Grande where we'll have full hookups and wall to wall sunshine when the clouds cooperate.)

So enough for now. Time for the sack. Tomorrow is a big moving day, 220 miles down the road.

Gene

Visiting the Grand Canyon NP, but staying at Zion NP.

2011-10-05T19:52:00.000-07:00

Today we drove from Zion to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It is about a 120 miles, good roads and moderate hills. The weather was cool (really cold for us) and with almost no sunshine. But it was a pleasant drive otherwise.

Upon arriving at the north rim, we proceeded to the visitor's center (our standard policy). It is small, with a few items of educational value. As I read some of them, I tuned into one of the Ranger's behind the counter explaining something to another visitor. Later I went to her to inquire if she had ever kept track of how often she went through her spiel? She admitted she had never thought of it that way, but also, she defended the practice saying that her customers would never tolerate a recording (which I agree with her on.) But it is nearly the same for each visitor.

We then went to the Lodge, which is built on the very edge of the canyon wall. As you walk into the lobby and look south through the viewing windows, it is a big empty valley. There is nothing in the foreground. We went out a side door intending to take a short walk. At one point, Sandy turned to me and said, "What a big hole!" I reminded her that perhaps it should more properly be called "a Big Ditch".

It is hard to describe. It is awesome The space between the two walls is tremendous plus the depth of a mile is further mind boggling. Our quarter of a mile walk ended about half way through. It was windy and very cold plus to be honest about it, I became chicken! That walking on the edge of space is just not my cup of tea. So we returned to the lodge and listened to a ranger's talk until she finished.

By then I knew I was in trouble. We were to drive out to a point called Cape Royal, about 20 miles out on a ridge projecting into the canyon. Of course, the road goes up and down plus from one peninsula wall to the other. I drove (slowly) and we made it, but there was no way you were going to get me to go on the eighth of a mile walk into never never land. The observation point is on a stone pillar connected by a stone slab to the base ridge. (It looks very much like the Crazy Horse monument in SD, if you built a viewing platform on top of the horse's head and you had a walk way the length of his arm.) It probably has been there for thousands of years and even today has a guard rail around the top, but forget it. I may gamble like all farmers with my crops, but I'm not about to gamble with my life. Why push my luck?

Perhaps the message here ought to be to our daughters (the rest of you ), do those things while you're young and adventurous. I had always wanted to hike across the canyon. Then when my hips bothered me, it was to ride the mules across. It never happened, not because of money but we just didn't have enough time. There were too many other challenges (or opportunities) in life that got into the way. Until today when we do have the time, but no guts! (I think at one time there was also an age limit, which we also now exceed.)

We had a pleasant drive back to Zion NP, with Sandy doing some of the driving. How nice it is to be in our motorhome, with the heater on and able to surf some. It was cloudy and rainy all day here and our solar panels did not recharge our batteries one little bit. So we ran our generator from 6 to 8 (generator hours) and I think fully recharged our batteries. So we're good to surf as long as we want to this evening. It continues to rain (heavily) out, so perhaps we'll see how fast the runoff really is on this rocky landscape. We are parked well away from the Virgin River and on higher ground, so I don't think we have much to worry about. But we do have plenty of food, so even if we get blocked in (missing bridges) for a few days, we'll survive. Okay, so the meals might not meet the proper mix of foods, but if one is hungry, anything will work (except liver!)

It is about 45 degrees out and the rain continues to play on the roof top. At least we don't hear any other noises.

Gene

Zion National Park, Day 3

2011-10-04T18:50:00.000-07:00

This place continues to amaze us by the number of people here. I guess it is normal according to one of the rangers at the Visitor's Center. His opinion is that it is too warm for many in the summer, so they all show up for the months of September and October. We won't be around later, but I guess if we'd have been 2 weeks later, the traffic would have been more sane!

Today we road the shuttle up the valley to a location where we could hike into a side valley to see some pools of water and lots of water just dripping out of the sandstone. We learned that the trail quickly climbs upward. It is not a steep climb, but enough that it works the leg muscles. But we hung in and finished the hike.

The first half of the hike was on concrete or asphalt, usually 6 feet wide. The last half was anything but smooth. It included loose sand, big rocks, uneven steps and one small patch of water. But we made it and neither one of us fell. There were lots of people on the first half, so it was almost like walking on a busy city sidewalk.

We finished the hike a little after noon and came back to the motorhome for a well earned rest after a short lunch. Once recovered from the hike, the big decision was "What are we doing tomorrow?" Are we going to leave here and go to the Grand Canyon? or What? More knowledgeable people of the area tell us that the south rim of the Grand Canyon is a tourist zoo now. Sandy had looked up the camping opportunities and they are full in the park. In the end, we decided to drive to the North Rim area of the park as a day trip. Sandy has never been there and I was there for about an hour or two on my way to a ROTC summer camp in Las Vegas, many years ago! Supposedly, it is pretty laid back and no one is in a hurry.

Doing that on Wednesday also begs the question of "what are we doing for the rest of the week?" Thursday is to have nasty weather around here, with wind and perhaps some snow. It is to be no better on the south rim either. (If you've been following the news, they had three major pileups today on the interstate south of Phoenix because of the blinding dust storms.) That weather may also determine how fast we head south. (Our tentative goal was to drive through Phoenix on Sunday. But all is subject to change.)

For right now, we're trying to relax and enjoy ourselves.

Gene

Zion National Park, Day 2

2011-10-03T21:06:00.000-07:00

For some reason, arriving at this park was very tiring. So tiring that we turned in early and slept like a log. However, we were up at our regular time of 6 AM or so. It was time to have breakfast and do some surfing before walking to the Visitor Center to start the day's activities.

Our first order of business was to see if we could get on the 9 AM tour led by a ranger. His answer was, "Well, normally no, but today we have lots of openings!" So that occupied the AM part of the day and provided us much background on different aspects of the park.

In the PM, we road the bus again back to the "Narrows" and then hiked the trail to where there is longer a trail, only a long mile walk up the path. It went well other than I'd swear that when we were here 48 years ago, we went up much further. I think at that time, we were able to cross the river on stones and continue on to the other bank. Eventually, the valley closes in with the walls being only about 10 to 15 feet apart and upwards about a thousand feet. Knowledgeable people say don't even get near it on a day like today with possible showers. With rain in the high country and no soil or vegetation to hold the moisture, flash flooding is a common occurrence

It sure felt great to get back to our motorhome tonight. But tomorrow we'll do another walk of the interesting locations. We also learned today that there is a need for a small student sized backpack. Since we can't take our car up the valley, but have to ride a bus, what we take is critical. If you don't take it, you can't have it. If you take it, you have so much loose stuff that it becomes difficult to handle. A nice student sized pack would work just great. Perhaps when we see our granddaughters in the following years, we can acquire one that no longer meets their approval as a proper student backpack.

Our solar electric power system system didn't perform very well today because of the excessive number of clouds. So tonight we used our small Honda 2000i to bring the batteries back to full charge. Isn't technology wonderful?

It has been a tiring day with all of the walking, so it will be early to bed (and soon).

Gene

Zion National Park, we're here

2011-10-02T19:25:00.000-07:00

Today was a very easy day driving wise. Only about 80 plus miles and almost all easy valley driving. We came into the east entrance to Zion and had to pay the fee to come through the tunnel. (We're too tall to stay in our lane, so they charge us extra and stop all cars so that taller units can drive in the middle of the highway.) The tunnel is a mile long and with a couple of S curves in it, plus no lights. All you have are your headlights to light the way.

Once into the valley, we went straight to the campground and found us a resting place. Our contact on the east had told us that the campground with electrical outlets was full, so we went to the other one. We arrived at 12:30 and this campground posted the full sign at 1:30 PM. In short, this place is crawling with people. Probably three quarters of the sites are occupied by tents and they aren't using any generators. So it is really very quiet for a campground of about 140 sites.

Sandy dug out her old journal on what we did 48 years ago when passing through herre. Neither one of us remembered a thing about it, other than the walk into the narrows of the canyon. So tomorrow, we'll see what we've forgotten over time. One big change is that we can't drive up the canyon anymore. Everyone has to use the free park shuttles, which are very nice buses.

It has been a long day; I'm tired; So this is a shorter blog!

Gene

Day 2, Bryce Canyon N.P.

2011-10-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

It was a great and interesting day here in Bryce Canyon NP. Sandy found an old journal that was kept those many years ago. In it were the names of some of the locations etc. However, little seems to match what we remember. (I guess they are permitted to make improvements over 50 years.)

We checked out all of the sites for viewing the valley. No, we didn't take any valley walks. The effort to just walk from the car to the rim let us know that we were in no shape to descend on a trail over 500 feet to the valley floor. (Of course, then you have to climb, walk or crawl back up the 500 foot decent.)

This place is a zoo for people with more tour buses then I would have guessed during prime season. Most of the people are foreigners. Even our Aussie friends sound like foreigners sometimes. Today was much cooler than yesterday and we felt it. It really felt nice to get back into the car after it had been sitting in the sun.

We have tested our Honda generator and it does the job, as we knew it would. But one never knows after it has been sitting so long. We used it this morning for about 30 minutes to do some of the bulk charge and then shut it down and left to do some sight seeing. Later we returned for 15 minutes and fired it up again. At noon when we returned, the solar panels had finished the job in-spite of being parked in the trees. I think that there was an hour or two when the sun could look down directly on our rig and the panels did their job.

We're amazed how few people here are running generators. Most of the motorhomes here are rental units, which I assume have a generator. One thing that has changed from 50 years ago is that wood gathering for a fire is absolutely forbidden. Even if it was permitted, I think there would be very little wood left after 50 years of gathering it by campers. (It was permitted 50 years ago and we cooked over the wood fire.)

Tomorrow we'll head to Zion NP for a few days. It will be interesting to see again. Where as Bryce has the viewers on a plateau looking down on the spires, at Zion, the viewers are on the river bank, looking up at the sandstone hills that nearly goes straight up. The good news is that one campground has most of the sites electrified. The bad news may be that they are only available by reservation. (I assume that non-reserved sites are available to us who can't plan ahead!) But there are few trees in the campground, so the solar should work like a charm.

Life continues to be one big adventure.

Gene

Bryce Canyon National Park, we arrived!

2011-09-30T20:46:00.000-07:00

It was supposed to be a short day with only 250 miles to cover, but it took time. For starters, the trucker next to us last night was using a noisy generator and he parked so that it blasted right into our bedroom on the motorhome. The generator was a old fashioned type, constant speed and it groaned a bit each time the air conditioner (or heat pump) kicked in. So we were up at 5:00 AM, and left the rest area by 6:15 AM, skipping breakfast until later.

We drove about 50 miles to a large truck stop (and very clean) in Green River, UT, where we fueled up the thirsty beast and also fed ourselves breakfast.

Upon leaving the truck stop, it was on down the very good interstate surface wise. I didn't keep track of how many times we left the top of the plateau and crossed the valley to do it again the next one over. However, the motorhome CAT engine did a respectable job going up the hills and holding us back going down the hills.

The thing I remember from 50 years ago when Sandy and I traveled the area was that most of the highways were along the rivers, very few hills to climb. And so it was that when we left the interstate and headed south on state highway 89, the road was almost all in the valley until we reached Bryce Canyon National Park. The developed park area is on the plateau and tomorrow we get to look at the spires growing out of the valley floor.

We really haven't been keeping track of time and when we arrived, I decided that we were either a day late or two days early to avoid the check in crowd.

At least, my assumption is the normal run of tourist in the park plus the extra weekenders, makes for a much larger check in crowd on Friday. Also, the sites in this park are the same small sites that they laid out when vacationers traveled in a 16 to 18 foot tow-behinds or used a tent 50 years ago, so people have a hard time deciding which one will work for them. But we found a site and squeezed in. (The Honda is parked else-where.)

Hopefully by tomorrow we'll have adapted well enough to the higher altitude so that we can do some walking in the park. (I think the plateau elevation is in the mid 8K range.)

One downer for us is that the campgrounds are in the trees. Thus my solar system isn't going to do much. But that is why we also carry a generator.

Gene

We're in Utah already

2011-09-29T20:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, we're moving fast, perhaps too fast. This morning, we left the park shortly after 8 AM, headed for a Walmart and a service station. We found both, but the Walmart related service station (Mirastar) was locked up. So we had to pay full price at another station. A bummer. (Getting fuel was urgent, as the needle was bouncing on EMPTY!)

We then hit the road, I-76 into the heart of Denver, then switching to I-70 for the rest of the day. Thanks to Sandy's navigating skills and her trusty GPS, we sailed through Denver and headed out to the mountains. The cat engine in this buggy got a workout, but it held right in there. About 2 hours out, we stopped for a break, only to find that parking is difficult to come by. The welcome center lot appeared to be full plus I wasn't sure we could get around in it with our toad behind. So it was down the road to another part of some small town.

We took a couple of additional breaks and missed a couple more. Then we stopped at a welcome center in a small burg on both sides of the interstate to see if we could spend the night in their lot. Simple answer: NO. That was a bummer, as other information we had indicated that folks had been given permission before. So we trucked on down the road. We were going to stop at the next welcome center and missed it. There were no signs indicating that it was off of the highway, so we didn't exit. Big mistake.

Our next option was a welcome center just inside of Utah. What a looser that one was. There was a crossroads there, but nothing else. The interstate sign said, "No Services". So on down the road to the next cross road where our GPS said it had an information booth. Well, scratch that one also. No services. So on down the road to where the GPS said there were some city streets. But before we got there, we found a rest stop. We pulled in and we shall pay for it tonight. An 18 wheeler pulled in a little bit ago and is now running his refrigerator unit. Of course, he parked real close to us also!

We put in a 12 hour driving day only because we couldn't find a suitable place to park it for the evening. What little we've seen of the landscape west of Grand Junction, CO indicates that it is pretty barren. We shall see tomorrow and you can bet, it will be a more relaxing day. (It was 12 hours behind the wheel and 400 miles down the road.)

Gene

On the Road -- West

2011-09-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

We left Iowa on Monday, heading west. The Missouri River flooding changed our route plans some, but we drove around it. Our first night was at Stromburg, NE and it was almost a bummer. Very little TV and almost no Internet. My air card was as slow as my old TTY machine. We finally gave up and went to bed early.

On our way west, we stopped at another park that was an option for us (only about 50 miles further). It was also free and the Internet there was fantastic. It was just too bad we didn't proceed further on Monday afternoon. I guess that besides checking for electric power at the posts, we need to fire up the computers and verify that we can surf to our satisfaction. So we need electricity, Internet access and a reasonably quiet park. I forgot to mention that of course, we're looking for a free park also. Tonight, we're in the city park at Brush, CO with excellent Internet and it is very quiet (and free for one night). (We're about a mile from the interstate.)

Today we put in a long day but it was made shorter because we switched to Mountain time on the way. Interestingly, we could have had interstate all the way but decided to take the roads less traveled and dropped down to old Highway 6 and then highway 34. It was a very good road with very little traffic. Most of the traffic was related to the harvesting that is just starting (wheat, soybeans and corn). We saw a number of feed lots and late this afternoon, there were a number of cattle trucks heading towards the pens. They probably load them out in the evening for overnight delivery.

We may change our plans after this evening. While I was outside fixing something, Sandy was busy getting dinner ready. When I came in, she was beat, exhausted, or nearly wiped out. It has been some years since we have been at these altitudes and Sandy was definitely suffering altitude sickness. So instead of heading on west of Denver via I-70 and the tunnel tomorrow, I think we'll give her a day here to get a little more acclimated. (The elevation here is 4600 feet above sea level.)

We'll make good use of our non-travel day tomorrow. Sandy tells me that the laundry needs to be done. So life goes on.

Gene

Wind Turbins and then some

2011-09-24T05:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our day for touring here at Webster City and it was fun. For starters, it was off to see a "Wind Turbine" up close and friendly. As expected, the steel involved in the tower is massive. What I was surprised at was the depth of the concrete base. There is a lot of it and I didn't think it was deep enough. But they do stand, so it must work. The big disappointment was that on Friday morning, there was no wind. We were in a wind farm of about a hundred turbines and all of them sat there like bumps on a log! Once in a while, one would move a little bit.

What I really wanted to hear was the noise that some claim to hear when the blades rotate. Our tour guide explained that sometimes there is lots of swish noise from the blade tip when it is damaged. The blade tip damage is from a lightening strike to a metal core wire in the blade. The lightening strike instantly vaporizes any moisture contained in the blade. The instant steam pressure explodes the blade tip, usually blowing a hole in the blade near the tip. (They even have drain holes in the blade tip to let the moisture out.

When a blade is struck by lightening and damaged, they actually do a fiberglass repair on it. They tie a harness to the hub and then bring a man up from the ground to do the repairs. It quickly became obvious that being a tower technician is not a job I would want! But thankfully, heights don't bother some people, especially when there is nothing below them!

In the PM, we visited the local museum in Webster City and we were given a nice tour by one of the local leaders. The museum is on grounds that were originally homesteaded by the first settlers of the community. It was next to the Boone River (for water power) and also a small stream for fresh water. A young girl of the family kept a diary of family life through-out her years, which has been a blessing to many historians to understand life on the prairie.

Back at the county park campground, several of us men used my electric chain saw to cut some firewood from some dead and downed small trees in the nearby woods. (It is permissible to cut the wood as long as we didn't use a gas chain saw!) After dinner we had a fire in the pit and every one formed a circle around the fire. There was lots of light conversation and banter among the members. It cooled off as the sun went down and I bailed out early. I guess with little meat on my bones, I also cool off fast when just sitting around.

Our current plans after the rally are to head west to Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. However, with the games that the JOKERS in Washington, D.C. are playing, it makes us wonder if we ought to make other plans in case the government shuts down. Sometimes life is not easy. But then these problems are minor compared to the health problems some of my friends are battling. We are so blessed to be able to travel.

Sandy just read my previous posting and it finally soaked in that she is doing more driving! I guess it didn't register on Thursday when she was driving.

Gene

At the fall Rally

2011-09-23T03:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, we pulled stakes and are slowly headed southwest. We think of the song sung by a popular singer of, "On the Road Again" and sung in a joyous mood. We pulled off of the farm at 9:30 am, about our regular time for a departure. We headed north to highway 30, then west to highway 17 and north to our destination. Just before passing Tama, we pulled over and I said, "Sandy, it is your turn to drive!" It was four lane and very little traffic. Sandy took the wheel and did a marvelous job. (But I have to admit that I was kind of nervous sitting there on the right seat.) I think Sandy drove the coach more miles that morning then she has driven in the 6 years we've had the coach. I've also let her know that starting now, we are sharing the driving.

The plan was for Sandy to drive until we ran out of 4 lane, then for me to take over. Surprise, highway 30 is four lane from Tama to near Boone, Iowa. Sandy drove the entire distance plus 20 miles north on 2 lane highway 17, where we stopped for a break I think I now have an approved relief driver!

We actually came to the rally a day early, only to find that most of the rally participants were already here. So we had no trouble settling in and getting a hug from so many friends we haven't seen in a few months.

(A different culture!) A week ago was my high school 55th class reunion. It provided a very interesting contrast in people verses our Escapee's group. The class was only 38 members and I've always said that everyone has been very friendly. About 30 percent of the class were together from kindergarten, with another 40 percent joining at high school and the rest at random times. But the personal greetings were decidedly cool when compared to our RV group. The words were free flowing. The personal contact was strictly by the formal hand shake, be it man to man or man to woman or woman to woman. Not a hug in the crowd. Is that called an area culture? Or is it that RV'ers know that it is here today, gone tomorrow? My RV friends are hugger's! My home town friends are NOT huggers!

I've sometimes thought that it would be interesting to go back to school and study psychology. People around the country all have their unique characteristics. I think I need to quit, before I get into really deep trouble using those big words that I know not how to spell. (Hopefully, the spell checker will come to my rescue! And did!)

Gene

It is Time to leave soon

2011-09-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

It is time to consider our stay here on the farm to be over. Tomorrow we head to CR for a B twelve shot, then one final visit with mother. On Wednesday, we pull the stakes and roll, first northwest, then west to Arizona. Iowa was hit with a cold wave which really chilled my bones. We were to a class reunion gathering on Friday night in a basically open shelter. It was cold. (If they'd had it a week earlier, it would have been fantastic.) The more formal reunion was Saturday night with most of the class in attendance.

Sunday noon saw us stuffing ourselves again at a sit down dinner at our close friends house. He is having a rough go at it to beat a colon cancer bug. (If you're over 55, please get yourself a colonoscopy periodically, it pays!) Three couples were there, each bringing something to the table, but the hostess provided most of the meal, and it was good.

This morning saw me cleaning up outside of the motorhome or more correctly, putting stuff back into its proper place. But with 75 degree temperatures predicted for today, maybe Iowa isn't too bad! But by this weekend, I think the bottom is to drop out again, so sign us out for the season..

I mentioned earlier about our class reunion. What a joy to visit with school classmates (10 years in the same school). No, they haven't really changed. The loud mouths are still loud and the quiet ones are just as quiet.. But they've had some new and different experiences. One couple was involved in the closing of a mausoleum in a city cemetery that had been abandoned 60 years ago. Supposedly, all of the bodies were to have been removed, but for some odd reason, the city fathers pocketed the money obtained from relatives and left the bodies on the shelf. The building was deteriorating to the point that something had to be done. As the class member said, "I'm now also a grave digger!"

For the next 3 months, our travel plans are to spend the coming weekend at our Iowa chapter rally in Webster City, make a Sunday trip to Mason City to see Sandy's brother and family, then head west, picking up I-80 and then I-70 into southern Utah. We want to revisit two national parks that we briefly saw shortly after I got out of the service in 1963. At that time, we were in a tent and froze, so we didn't spend much time seeing the sites. From there it is to the Grand Canyon and then to our lot in a park in Casa Grande for a month or two.

Right now the sun is shining outside with a light breeze. So I need to get moving and stash more stuff for the winter.

Gene

Fall is here with GUSTO.

2011-09-14T20:27:00.000-07:00

It is cold out. Ouch.

I'm ready to head south. Next week is not soon enough. Current plan is to leave next Wednesday for an Escapee's Rally in NW Iowa. Then to the southwest, Casa Grande, AZ. Temperatures are hitting almost a 100 there still. Ouch, that is warm.

Gene

Summer has ended

2011-09-13T17:24:00.000-07:00

Today was another super day weather wise and tomorrow is to be different. A norther is to blow in and tomorrow night there is the possiblity of frost in places. It is soon time to head for warmer climates.

Today was another slow day for both of us. We went to the Sandersfelds where Sandy road with Lavonne to Iowa City for some appointments. Lavonne has not driven much since she has her new eyes and was reluctant to do it alone (Sandy was the backup driver). However, Sandy reported that Lavonne did all of the driving and did just fine.

(Dennis no longer drives and Lavonne hesitates to leave him a lone for long. Since getting this round of chemo treatments, he is much weaker and has some problems getting around.)

We spent some time this afternoon trying to get ourselves organized in the motorhome basement and around the farm. It is hard to believe, but I always loose something. Today it was a box of power strips. I have a couple in the motorhome, but I wanted to trade them for two in my box that have 15 foot cords. However, they could not be found. Perhaps if we quit looking for them, they will appear.

Today I also abandoned the idea of setting up a webcam on a Turkey Vulture nest site. The site is in an old silo on an adjoining farm which has no electricity. So to do it, we have to install a solar electric package plus the webcam. Just too much to get done in a weeks time. We can gather up the needed items this winter and install it next spring. We'll probably miss the early nesting activities, but we can follow the final fly away.

Tomorrow we make our weekly journey to Cedar Rapids again, this time for a vitamin B twelve shot. So we'll lay in a supply of groceries and any other items of note before returning.

Gene

Monday and a new week

2011-09-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

We survived our family gathering this Sunday with little fanfare. Actually, it would appear that we were somewhat stood up. But so be it. We'll do it next spring to celebrate mothers 101st birthday. We only had representatives from 4 of the 8 kids. But we had a good time.

We are now in the serious count down mode for our fall departure. We plan to depart in about 10 days, probably for a chapter Rally in Northwest Iowa, then head on west. While there, we'll go visit Sandy's brother who is currently spending time in a Mason City re-hab center to resolve some lasting effects of a stroke. Taking care of one's health is even more important when you see the impact on someone else's life.

Beth (youngest daughter) left us yesterday afternoon after the family gathering. She was happy as a lark, feeling that she had convinced me to ditch some stuff from the motorhome. Actually I had already decided on most it before her arrivial and by keeping her busy at the motorhome, she had no time to get in our storage trailer. Its called creating a diversion to keep her busy.

She and I have different opinions on the worth of some items. Right at the door, is a piece of old weathered wood that is about 4 feet long. It is really the tap root of a tree that fell over in the Medicine Bow National Forest. When we were on a family hike, they fell in love with it, so I cut off the log part and we carried it to the trailer. It stands about 4 feet high. I think it is neat. I also have a rock that I carried off of the mountain that today is more than I can carry. The rock currently rests in a patch of ferns behind the old garage. It is at ground level and you wouldn't know it is there unless someone told you. (For many years, it was a flag stone in our brick patio at our house in Marion.)

To lighten our load, we are leaving a few boxes of stuff that really hasn't been used. I think Sandy and Beth left several pieces of material that Sandy had stored in a suitcase in our basement. But in its place went several trays of slides. Supposedly, Sandy is going to scan the slides into the computer this winter. Something to do to occupy all of her free time!

I left two boxes of computer stuff, such as cables, routers, books etc. In its place goes two kettles and it leaves space for a possible turkey cooker burner! Needed items for our way of life when joining the Boondocker's Rendezvous in the sticks!

This is the last day of summer according to the weather man. The weather is just plan delightful today. I guess tomorrow is to be something else!

Gene

Back in our house (motorhome) again

2011-09-07T20:51:00.000-07:00

With all of our duties accomplished in daughter's house, it was time to return to the farm. It is amazing how nice it feels to be back in my chair. Even thou I have to dry dishes here, it is great.

We spent 3 days with daughter and heard no end of complaining about my stuff in the storage trailer. I think she has a bee in her bonnet and won't be happy until there is nothing left of mine (or Sandy's). (It makes life simplier for her when we check out. I've told her that when that time comes, she can hire a dumpster and pack it away. In the meantime, it is mine and to be kept.

On our return, we stopped at our friendly Walmart for groceries and a prescription for Sandy. Sandy was very disappointed, as they didn't have it in the system to be filled, as if the doctor's office hadn't called it in. As we debated on what to do, I asked her if she had told them the east or west Walmart. Ups, big slip up. When she called the doctor's office, she had directed them to call the west side and we were in the east side.

So when we finished the groceries, it was off to the west side, where we expected to be in and out. But nothing is ever simple. Sandy had to wait an hour for them to fill the order and then we only got it when I received the Walmart phone call that our prescription was ready. The clerk had to search for it first, probably indicating that someone dropped the ball somewhere.

Tomorrow I drive a friend to Iowa City for his weekly Chemo treatment. So we'll learn what is new in the local area. Plus, I hope to have a lawnmower belt in the post office. I broke the one I bought 3 months ago and did not want another generic belt. The OEM belt has 3 heavy cords in the belt where as the general belt has nothing but a rubber center and a fine weave on the inner and outer surface. The killer is the belt tightner runs on the back side and severly bends the belt, the belt is getting bent both in the normal direction and in a reverse direction.

See you later.

Gene

Sorting photos (old ones from mother)

2011-09-06T06:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we brought a box of old photos down to the living room and the three of us (Beth, Sandy and myself) proceeded to sort through them. The box was removed from my mother's apartment when she moved from there into the care center. It is a very interesting task.

For starters, most of the photographs are not labeled. That's no problem for those that were taken in the last 20 years. But when you have photos of some of the more distant cousins taken in the 40s and 50s, it is sometimes a real guess who it is. Many of the identifications were done by noting who else was in the photograph. What we couldn't discern for now was laid aside for a family gathering next weekend. Lesson for all: Have your parents label old photos now.

We also grouped loose photos according to family. So each one of my siblings will get a package, as will some cousins and my one living uncle. There are a couple of photos that I assume were classmates of mothers when she was confirmed 85 years ago. We'll find out for certain next weekend.

Of course, there were a few conflicts also. There were a couple of fuzzy photos that I felt we ought to keep (and did keep). I know that the picture quality was poor, but it reminded me of some hard times of years ago. One photo that I've wanted to see for along time was found. It is a picture of dad's tractor with a mounted corn picker buried to the axles in mud in the corn field. Eventually they used a couple of tractors (with steel lugs) and a team of horses to finally free it. I was about 5 at the time and obviously, not much help. We did find a photo of an old hay baler that dad had. It was a wire baler where dad poked the wires from one side and I sat on a seat on the other side and tied them while my older brother drove the tractor. (I was about 8 then.)

Today it is on to bigger and better things. Beth is back into the office and thus Sandy and I can set our own schedule. Beth is coming to the farm next weekend to make sure we seriously sort the stuff in the basement of our motorhome. We're still looking for our wedding photo album (besides trying to reduce our load). After two years of looking, we found Sandy's wedding dress this spring in a box on the floor of one of Beth's spare bedroom closets. We were looking for a white box. It was in a white box, but hidden in a black bag, neatly wrapped. At our family reunion, a granddaughter modeled the dress as part of our 50th anniversary celebration.

Doing more stuff today!

Gene

Visiting Beth for a long weekend.

2011-09-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

One of the ways to avoid feeling guilty about not getting stuff done on the farm is to leave the farm. Thus, we're visiting daughter Beth for a late Labor Day weekend. I think our only mandatory task here is to dismount the window screens on 3 windows and install the storm windows. I can handle that. (Beth has done some of the windows when we're really late in the spring, so she could do it all on her own.)

Sunday morning was kind of a zoo in our house (motorhome), as we were also hosting a homing pigeon release at 7 AM and again at 8 AM. Actually, there was nothing for us to do really. A friend brings the pigeons in, the guests are friends from the park in Florida and afterwards, everyone goes to a restaurant for breakfast. (The release was scheduled for Saturday, but was delayed for a day because of the forecasted rain.)

Sandy and I actually only stayed for the 7 AM release. The pigeons leaped from the cages and headed for the wild blue yonder! They flew directly away from the trailer, climbed for some altitude and then circled to the right. I think they did two large circles and then turned and headed towards Milwaukee. But when we last saw them in the distance, they seemed to be on a more northerly course. Perhaps the sun was too bright for them to fly directly east into the early morning sun. Sandy and I then left the group and headed to Marion to our home church. What a joy to see so many friends again. It was also great to be in the church and listen to some real singing from the heart. (The church has a strong choir director and many members that know how to sing, especially the often used liturgy. )

The drive from Marion to Dodgeville was uneventful. I started driving and turned it over to Sandy after 40 miles. (Yes, I was tired.) Sandy drove it to Dubuque where we visited the friendly Hardee's for a quick snack and on to Dodgeville. I did catch some shut-eye on that leg. I woke up when Sandy was exiting the freeway to go into Dodgeville, so I didn't miss a thing.

For the next 3 days, we live a different life style. Beth avoids using heat in the house (if possible) so I'm always cold! Meals are unplanned happenings, usually something from her share of a farm co-op she is a member of. Finally, the TV is on non-stop, irrespective if she is watching it! But I do have my computer along so if push comes to shove, we can retreat to the Internet. (I just don't have my easy chair and my flat file table!)

Enough for now.

Gene

It's Raining (and we love it)

2011-09-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

Here it is Saturday after lunch and we are having intermittent showers. We love it. It won't make much difference with the crop yields, but I think that folks this year are learning that timely rains are a blessing from heaven!

Today was laundry day again and for once, I went with Sandy (I drove). It goes faster when there are two folks sorting and folding clothes. Besides,, I get to see how the crops are maturing! Actually, we get to see where there is some very poor soil in the hillside, otherwise known as a Sand spot. We've got a couple of them here on our farm and you don't grow much when the crop is stressed like this summer.

Labor Day is about here which means it is time to think about heading south for the winter. We spent our extra time this morning plotting routes as we head for Casa Grande later this month. We're leaving early so that we can visit some National Parks in Utah. We briefly saw both parks in 1963 when we did our extended camping trip upon parting from the Air Force. The thing we remember most clearly was that is was November 15th and there was a light snow on the hills and it was cold. It was so cold that we froze our buts. Eventually we got up and spent the remainder of the night in the heated bathroom.

I saw an article in yesterdays paper about the highways in western Iowa. Several of the roads that cross the Missouri River are not open yet and won't be for months to come. We saw a photo of Interstate 680 which is the north route into Omaha. The asphalt is broken into pieces of 1 to 2 feet and tilted at various angles. The flooding river worked its way into the various cracks and totally undermined the road. It wouldn't look any worse if they had gone through the road with a farmers' chisel plow. They also said that it won't be ready for travel until November of 2012, a year from now. It appears that the only route into Nebraska from Iowa is via interstate 80 through the heart of Omaha.

Time marches on.

Gene

September is here already

2011-09-01T06:11:00.000-07:00

Here it is September already and like it or not, time to think about heading to warmer climates. It is hard to write that when we're expecting the high today of 95 plus. Yes, it is another example of our weather extremes.

We were going to mow the lawn last week and presto, the belt broke again. The store says I installed it wrong. I maintain that the belt wasn't up to the task. Anyway, a new one is supposedly on the way. The good belt has internal cords to keep it together. The generic belt only uses a light cloth on the outside and rubber inside. The killer is that the belt tightener runs on the back side which weakens the belt.

Today we drive a friend to Iowa City for a Chemo treatment. I've always said that we'd continue to be fulltimers as long as our health holds out. As we help Dennis the truth of that statement is more obvious. We need to enjoy our good health while we can.

Our daughter and son-in-law were caught with a 24 hour power outage in New Jersey because of Hurricane Irene. They are between Atlantic City and Philadelphia and had only rain and a light wind besides losing power. When they lose power, it means also loss of water since they have their own well. So they are getting real serious about installing a backup generator and rewiring the power panel so that they can survive an extended power outage better. They had parked the RV next to the house, so they really weren't too bad off. But tell two teenage granddaughters that.

Each day when I write this, I say to myself that I won't wait so long next time. Somehow, time just seems to slip away from us. But we're vertical and you'll get it when it happens. So enjoy fall, it is here after tomorrow they say.

Gene

Two down, Three to go

2011-08-25T19:19:00.000-07:00

Again, my apologies for forgetting about you.

We've been back on the farm since about Aug 5 and we have 3 family gatherings down and four more gatherings to go. Then we're free to roam. But the last gathering is September 17th (my class reunion), so we have a few weeks yet.)

During the first week of August, we had our daughters plus Julie's family here. Things were kind of tight, but we really enjoyed their presence. They are long gone. Last weekend, we journeyed to northern Iowa for Sandy's family reunion. It was a long day, but again very enjoyable.

I haven't really done much here on the farm, except pay bills and dream of what needs to happen. So much of it spends money, so naturally we drag our feet some. For the last 3 weeks on Thursday, we have driven a friend to Iowa City for Chemo treatments. One doesn't realize how nice we have it until you get tied into helping a friend like that. Suddenly, good health is nearly priceless. Little things like dental cleaning and new eye glasses are nothing but an inconvenience for a short time.

This weekend, we have a luncheon to attend for past presidents of an RV club we used to belong to. It is always great to see them once a year even though we no longer belong to that club. Then on the Saturday before Labor Day, we are hosting a "Homing Pigeon release". A friend from Milwaukee, WI is bringing a trailer loaded with about 200 homing pigeons. They will be released at 7 and 8 AM, then several of us will go out for breakfast. We met him at the park in Florida that we own a lot in. So it is nice to see him and many other friends that come to see the pigeons off. (The pigeons will probably beat him home to Milwaukee.)

Sometime this fall, we want to visit with daughter Beth in Dodgeville, WI, perhaps after Labor Day weekend. We're not sure of our plans. We also have a Field Day dinner hosted by our custom farm operator to attend next Tuesday (after we get a filling fixed.) So life is not dull in this household.

It is getting pretty dry here in SE Iowa, but in our case, the crops are well enough along to maturity. We are very thankful for what we have. Now we wait for hurricane Irene to drench the east coast with excess moisture. Our daughter Julie and family live in New Jersey between Philadelphia and Atlantic City, so you know we'll be watching the news closely.

In due season, it will rain!

Gene

It is "Peace on the Hilltop" again.

2011-08-15T19:29:00.000-07:00

The end of the week has arrived and again there is peace on our hilltop. Our daughters have left with our only grand children. So now we can try to return to a normal way of life.

Getting back to normal will take some time. Friday, we almost pushed the daughter and family out so that we could travel to Ames and pick up a neighbor's daughter from a 4-H event. We used the time in Ames to visit a former roommate of mine that is in the appliance business. I wanted him to give me a short course on "Ice Makers" built into the refrigerators. Besides learning how they work, I got a real education on the various models, their pluses and minuses. They really are pretty simple devices. (Ken had enough junked ice makers to fill a standard sized dryer shipping box.)

We parked our car in the church parking lot across from the student union and went into the church to make sure it was okay. There we met the pastor who was there when both of our daughters were students. He recognized us and even called me by name. (Our daughters graduated 20 plus years ago.) That ability to remember names has to be a special gift from God. You can introduce yourself to me and five minutes later I've forgotten it.

We kept the storage trailer locked on Thursday so our youngest daughter wasn't able to sort stuff on her own. On Wednesday, Julie, Beth and Sandy sorted through several boxes labeled "kitchen" on the inventory. A lot of it went out, such as plastics that probably has picked up the moth ball oder. A few items were consigned to the burn pile, others to a niece who is into home canning, some to daughters and a little bit for our motorhome. (It grows!) The box count was reduced some and they were happier. Since it was all kitchen, I pretty well stayed out of it or was left out!

On Thursday, Sandy went with Julie and grand-daughters to the State Fair in Des Monies, which surprised me very much. Three years ago, the grand-daughters were VERY un-impressed with the state fair. What un-impressed me afterwards were the prices that were charged for some of the items. One ride was $25 per individual. Even the grand-daughters told Julie (their mother) that it was too much and didn't go on it. They also avoided a ride that one had gotten an upset stomach on the last time. Plus they expressed or took more of an interest in some of the 4-H show items, which really pleased Sandy. The other thing was the prices on vendor food items. Sandy bought a "sticky roll" with no nuts for $5. It was six dollars if she wanted one with nuts. I think some of these vendor prices are as unreasonable as the parking fees at many airports! (Or do I sound like my dad?)

What am I doing today? mowing part of the lawn I think. But nothing with heavy planning. Sandy also is making noises that it is laundry time. Oh Well!

Gene

(As a farmer here in Iowa, we need some rain to fill out the kernnels on a bumper crop of corn. It has been 4 weeks since we've had any and the grass is dying.)

Day Three of daughters here

2011-08-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

This is now the third day with our two daughters and family here. And sometimes, it is a three ring circus in the motorhome. But I think we'll survive. We sorted some stuff in the storage trailer again and daughter Beth didn't press me on too many issues. I did get caught on some towels that I had retrieved from the burn pile and put them in a box back in the trailer. The mistake I made was not to have buried the box back on a shelf. So today Beth grabbed the box to see what it was and recognized the contents. Dad got a lecture!

Today we refilled the water tank in the motorhome and in the process, I learned where my air leak was. For the last year or more we have been fighting what I thought was a bad water pump or a leaky intake line. But today we broke the code.

To add water to the RV storage tank, we use the internal pump to draw water from a 100 gallon barrel at ground level into the rig. We use the "Winterize" valve setting on the pump intake, which pumps from a 3 foot plastic hose that normally would be in a one gallon anti-freeze jug. We extend the line to my 100 gallon barrel and all is well.

Today when I pulled the plug out of the anti-freeze line to connect it to the external hose, I heard a strange sucking sound. The valve was leaking air and allowing the water in the pump intake line to drain back to the internal supply tank. It was frustrating to hear, but now we know why we've had so many problems with three different water pumps. So either I replace the valve or we make sure to tightly plug the winterize hose when not needed.

The weather has been just delightful here on the farm. The humidity has been low, the night time temperatures in the lower 60 range and the days in the mid 70s. We can handle that. But as a gentleman farmer, we need to complain just a bit. Son-in-law and I went into the cornfield and pulled off a couple of green ears. The bad news is that the kernels are starting to dent and they appear to be short. But the corn is standing well, so we'll take what we get. (As a friend used to say to me, "you farmers are never happy!")

Tomorrow Sandy is going to the state fair with daughter Julie and grand-daughters while I'm going in the opposite direction to drive a friend to the hospital for his chemo treatment. I'm surprised that the grand-daughters wanted to (or were willing) to go to the fair. Two years ago, they had a less than impressive opinion of the fair. All they wanted to do was go on the rides and the first one upset their stomach a bit.

Life goes on.

Gene

The Family is HERE!

2011-08-09T05:54:00.000-07:00

The peace and quiet here on the farm has been interrupted (and not rudely). Julie and family arrived late yesterday afternoon after traveling from our family gathering by way of Ames, Iowa. Julie wanted to show the granddaughters where all of us went to school. They appeared to have had a very good time.

Beth also went by way of Ames, not for a tour, but to visit with a room mate from her years in college.

Yesterday afternoon, we were able to mow some of our lawn. The grass isn't just long, it is more like a hay field. But by mowing it after the dew was gone, the grass clippings dispersed themselves well. If only my mower blades were "true" verses being slightly bent. I guess I've hit one too many something over the years.

The next 3 days are going to be very interesting. Beth is determined to dispose of all of my goodies in the storage trailer. Obviously, I intend to keep them. After all, a fellow has to make some plans for the time between the end of RVing and the finally packaging! At least, for now I'm the only one who knows the lock combination, until I'm forced to divulge it.

Gene

Weekend over, back on the farm

2011-08-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

Our last posting told you that we were headed for a family (Sandy's side) reunion. We arrived on Friday afternoon after stopping for a long break at a city park at Prairie Meadow in Minnesota. Then when we arrived at Spring Valley, I was informed that we had time to stop so that I could get a haircut (which I had been resisting). So with no more excuses, I was forced to comply.

The barber in town is an interesting character. His main occupation is being a barber, but he has numerous other interests to take care of the slack time For starters, he repairs clocks, all kinds. He has a mount so that he can work on grand father clock innards outside of the case. Then I noticed a rack of zippers. He repairs (replaces) zippers on coats and other items. To do that he has a heavy duty sewing machine. While I was sitting in the chair, a lady brought in a chain saw to get the blade sharpened. (He asked her to take it home and bring in only the chain.) With all of those sidelines, he was still a decent barber!

I should mention that he has been in business for 42 years and loves it. I shouldn't complain, but he also only charges $10, probably the same as when he started. Considering the prices of everything else, I couldn't complain if he raised his price a buck or two.

We'll save our comments on the how the reunion went until tomorrow. It was great.

After the reunion was over this afternoon, Sandy and I headed back to the farm near Williamsburg. It was only a 180 miles, but it seemed to take us a long time to get here. Of course, we stopped at Walmart to fuel up the beast and get a few groceries. (It was a thirsty beast also.) Tomorrow both daughters show up for the week. That will liven up this motorhome.

Gene

A quiet County Park in Iowa

2011-08-05T05:26:00.000-07:00

We came to this park last Tuesday and it has been very quiet. Almost too quiet. We didn't even have the locals driving through to see how it was. (Perhaps they can just see enough from the street.) However, yesterday afternoon all that changed. Suddenly we were no longer alone, as 8 new rigs came in to pick their prime spot for the weekend. But of the 8 new rigs, only 3 of them stuck around for the night. Five of them set up the rig and then bailed out for the night. Okay, it is their buck.

So today we're leaving, heading north to a family gathering this week-end. It is now a little after 7 and the first one for today has arrived. We plan to leave by 9. I have to admit I'm curious how much traffic shows up through-out the day. It is an interesting statistic on how users show up for a function. It just takes time and a commitment to collect the data.

The good news about leaving is that perhaps we'll have better TV service. Presently, only have access to CBS and PBS. What I have missed is the ABC evening news and the ABC GMA in the morning. We did have access to "Wheel of Fortune", so there was peace in the house!

We have broke a record while here. For three days running, we have had a fire in the fire-pit and cooked the meat dish over the fire. Most of the time, we think we should but never do it.

Time to get moving for the day.

Gene

Exploring another County Park

2011-08-02T20:45:00.000-07:00

We moved today from the Cerro Gordo County park near Rockwell, IA to another county park on the outskirts of Rock Falls, IA (NE of Mason City). The park name is Wilkinson Pioneer County Park. Its claim to fame in my book was that the data I had showed that it had over 40 sites with electrical hookups. It does have 42 sites and one electrical post per every two sites. Upon arrivial, we spent about 10 minutes deciding which site we wanted. Actually we had too many available sites, since only one site (of 42) was occupied.

We settled in finally and relaxed this afternoon. I did spot a nice pile of firewood that someone left, so we helped our self. So we had a fire to roast some brats for dinner and later I sat round the fire until it was too dark to read my book.

The book is one that I picked up at a rally 2 months ago. A lady brought in a few books and no one wanted this book called "Napoleon Bonaparte". I find it very interesting to read what was going on in France during the time that our country was just getting her feet on the ground. Napoleon had a number of good ideas and a few bad ones. (Remember, we bought the Louisiana Territory because France had a dollar problem.)

Yesterday evening, Sandy's niece Judy stopped in to stay the night. Judy had just finished her fourth ride on RAGBRAI (Register Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa). We got an in depth report of what it was like to be riding in RAGBRAI. When she finally finished, I got a lecture (sales pitch or ??) on why I don't need a notebook computer, just get an IPhone. I have to admit that the human factors built into the IPhone are impressive. It is an appliance with lots of neat applications.

We're here at Wilkkinson Pioneer Park for 2 or 3 days. We really
have no idea how long we'll stay. It is nice, quiet and spacious with only one other camper.

Gene