Out of Hibernation - Almost

Had a good winter in the Clermont area with the family.  My shorter stay this winter turned into a longer - 7 week stay.

As mentioned before we got to see several of our RV buddies while there.  Went to the RV show in Tampa and saw Deena and Dennis, several RV Dreamers at the get together at the floating pavilion, Steve and Debbie http://stevendebstravels.blogspot.com/, and Rick and Elaine http://e-rstravels.blogspot.com/.

We were going to the Keys and stay and the Navy base there.  This time of year usually requires boondocking until you move up to a full hookup site where you can stay for only 14 days before you rotate back to boondocking.  I've had doubts about my batteries capabilities all year and this fall it just got worse.  End result, didn't think I could boondock without running the generator all the time.  That would be a no no.

Rick and Elaine asked us to come the The Glades in Moore Haven, FL.  So off we went to Moore Haven.  I didn't get out of town good until the generator started and basically had to run it all the way.  The Glades was a pretty nice campground on grass sites.  The sites were a decent size and had all kind of activities.  We extended a week and had to move from our primo site next to Elaine and the pool, but the site we selected was out in the country.  i.e. no one close.

We had lots of fun and also Valentines Day dance.  There was lots of fun, food, and dancing.

 

 

While at the Glades I saw on the news where up north they had a polar plunge.  I thought it would be neat if we had one.  I prepared a little flyer and set it up for the next night as it was going to be the coldest of the winter.  I was trying to get a huge turnout. :)

 



I didn't get any takers like I thought.  I thought it would be an annual event, but being a man true to my word, I didn't let it slow me down.

I did draw a crowd so I did have some supporters. Who knows, maybe next year.

I was doing real good until it slipped out on Elaine's blog that the pool was heated. I've been in a lot colder water duck hunting and would have again if it hadn't been for Kevin, thanks.

Headed from The Glades to Cedar Key to see the sunsets and eat some great seafood.  It was cold and windy most of our week, but it was still a good time.  While getting there we had to run the generator half the time so I pulled the plug and a guy that knew about solar and stuff.  I headed into Mayo, FL and got 6 new AGMs installed.  His place is a boondocking site, but within 1 mile was the Suwanee River Rendezvous RV Resort.  3 nights later with batteries installed we boondocked and being successful were on our way.  Most of the time the inverter reads full charge.  It didn't do that before.  Hopefully, I should be good to go for 6-8 years on batteries and not have to touch them. :)

We got to Birmingham in a long day pull.  We had an appointment or two and were leaving Friday Mar 22d.  The night of the 21st got the dreaded call that my dad had fallen and broken his hip and would have surgery Friday at 10.  We headed toward Guntersville.  Got checked in to the Hospital about 11 AM.  We finally had surgery at midnight, a long day to say the least.

We are back to a Rehab facility and will have to see how this progresses.  Luckily I was within 100 miles of home where I can lend assistance.  The west coast will have to wait awhile.

So here we sit engine idling and awaiting departure, kind of like being on the space shuttle.  Wonder what I could do with that. :)  More later.  There are just the high points. Got to get back to a more normal pattern of blogging, hopefully there will be something to talk about.

We consider ourselves luckier than most.

The Start of a New Year

We ended up the year busy, but quietly.  My shoulder scope went well and didn't hold us up much.  We pulled a "PDD" and drove straight to the Orlando area on the 16th, about 9 hours.  We arrived shortly after dark expecting a thundering crowd.  No one was around :(  We got situated in the driveway and were all set up when they arrived.  It is quiet here with everyone going about their daily activities. 

Christmas came along with a few birthdays and in general we both ate way to much.  This year for New Year's Eve there was a party with a lot of neighborhood friends.  It was the first year in many that we stayed up until the magic hour.  I'm glad I don't do that every day.

Shortly school will start up and we'll be on our own all day.  We hope to get to see some of our new RVing friends we've met on the road this month.  Several are close to us so we will see.  Hope to start out late this month on our quest to hit the west coast this year.  We had a great time this last year and have great expectations for this upcoming one.

There will be more posts when we start doing things. Hope to see you soon.  It's all good.

Appointments

We are back at the Hoover RV Park, Hoover, AL.  It is a nice place, not a destination park, but has full hook ups on a paved parking area adjacent to Regions Park sports facility.  Convenience is the key here to shopping, eating, interstate, and all of our Doctors and friends in the area.

We spent the first week having one to two appointments a day.  Had to have some old cavities replaced and went to my old Orthopedic Surgeon about my shoulder.  I had been putting it off for a couple of years.  Cleaning the MH and using my inflatable boat (paddleski) left me with a couple of days of a sore shoulder, hence the boat doesn't get used as much and the MH is not a clean as it could be :). 

His diagnosis was that a scope (which is what I had done in 03) could be done and get another 5 years or longer out of it.  I keep waiting until they perfect the growing of new limbs and things and then you just swap them out.  With all of this medical hub bub I'm afraid my wait may be a lot longer or never. :(  Oh well, we just deal with what we have and make the  best of it.  Only worry about the things that you can change and just suck it up on the rest. 

I'll be having the scope tomorrow, out patient.  I hope to be able to leave town the first of the following week.  Although it is warm in Florida still, I guess we will head in that direction and get ready for the holidays.  I just hope to beat Santa down there.  He missed our place last year, hopefully he'll be able to locate us this year.  I have the GPS on the phone turned on.  I'm sure that will help. :)

A Year of RVing and Thanksgiving

Well, the 16th saw us owning the motor home for a year. Once we owned it, we haven't spent the night anywhere else. There wasn't any bedding the first couple of days, but we survived with a throw. We have had a wonderful year.

I will say that the initial daily excitement of something new has kind of worn off, but the sense of total freedom still exist. As I get up each morning and sit in the observatory watching the news and sipping a hot cup of coffee, I relish in the enjoyment of this lifestyle. I have always loved to see daylight come and the motor home gives me the perfect opportunity to see the sights very comfortably. Before selling the house, I would grab my cup of coffee and head for the hot tub on the patio.

We have seen many wonderful sights this year and ended up back in our original neck of the woods to end the year. In our rush to get back to the Atlanta area in August, we came through some nice country we will get back out to.

It seems as if there is always some minor inconvenience coming up that needs attention. It is surprising that I can work through the problem and usually know what the problem might be and sometimes work around it.  This is a very complicated machine that just shakes and shimmy's down the highway.  Imagine driving your house down the highway and how that would end up. But even with all of those mishaps I wouldn't trade this for anything at this time.

I've also found out that with all my research of the lifestyle and RVing in general that I am able to help people out of situations or impart with some valuable knowledge.  I know that for some of you that may be hard to believe, but it is the truth.

Carolyn has really gotten used to the lifestyle and really enjoys it.  The motor home has all of the conveniences of the house and we have always used our on board shower and laundry facilities.  Note: we did have to take showers using hot water heated on the stove and poured over the head, but that was just for three days. :):)))))  Carolyn didn't think much of that idea. :)

We have spent the last couple of weeks at River Country RV in Gasden, AL.  Several people had stayed there and said it was nice and Amy (our daughter) said it was a nice place.  Upon leaving Red Bay we just ambled over to there.  We were only going to stay for two or three days, but upon arriving and seeing where they were going to put us we just took a week.  After four days we took another week.  The first week was very windy with hurricane Sandy and cool, but with our location we just stayed in looking at the view.  No sand, but plenty of fish and birds.

 

The second week warmed up and wasn't near as windy.  It allowed for a little getting out with some nice sunsets.  Oh and that is Carolyn...

 

 

Our friends Steve and Debbie had been in Red Bay when we left and decided to come by and see us here before heading on down to Destin.  We had a couple of good meals and enjoyed the park views.  Steve had worked on his sound system and had put all of his components being delivered to the TV's by HDMI which increased the picture quality and significantly enhanced the sound quality.  Before it was muffled and not clear.  We would have to turn the TV all the way up to understand what was being said for most shows. We worked on mine and now all is great.  All it took was an HDMI splitter and a couple of short cables.

 

We also worked on my coach radio and hooked my Zune to the axillary input.  Result is music of my choice while driving down the road instead of constantly searching for channels.  Crystal clear!  Wish I had done that before that 2400 mile, 4.5 days of driving last August. :)

 

Thanksgiving was very nice.  We had way more than we needed to cook and are still eating leftovers.  Got to see some of the family and Amy, Heath and the kids got by.  It was a great day.  We are very Thankful for the good Lord to have guided us to this point in our lives.  It is all about choices of life and what you do with the results.  We are at a good place right now and look forward to what is before us to see.  If it is anything like the last year we will be truly blessed indeed.

 

Come follow us this year and share our experiences.





Asheville and the Blue Ridge Parkway

Many, well maybe one or two, may be wondering if we are still traveling.  We ARE.  We are just doing it slower.

We went to the Asheville, NC area to see the leaves change.  We weren't going to drive straight there as it is a long drive from B'ham and we didn't leave until about 9:30.  An easy drive to Chattanooga rest area led me to call Miles RV Campground in the Asheville area to see if they had a sight.  They did and indicated that I was still over 5 hours away and probably would not get there before they closed.  Well, that was like a challenge and I put the pedal to the metal. I got there in about 4 hours like I thought and just missed the office by about 30 minutes. It is a decent park flat with paved roads and gravel and paved pads.  We got a pull through site and faced into the center of the park with a large football sized field in front of us.  For $25 a night, weekly rate, it was a very reasonable rate for the area.  There was a little noise, Interstate, highway, business next door and a train a couple times a night, but it was convenient to everything we wanted to do.  We could even walk to the Post Office and get something to eat.

I've been coming to this area for 30 years to see the leaves during this time of year.  We were a little earlier this time and arrived on the 14th for about the start of the change.  We were here for 12 days and each time out saw an unbelievable change in color. Here are a few pictures, but believe me, they do not begin to tell the story.

Several years ago we were driving on the Parkway and saw a Motor home sitting in a pull off early one morning.  We imagined they were there having breakfast and set our sites to one day do the same.  Here is the location of where the Motor home was parked.  Don't you think that would be a nice place to start the day?

 

Everybody likes to come to Asheville and see the Biltmore Estate and we have seen it to.  Once you have seen it there is an understanding of how the Vanderbilt's contributed heavily toward the establishment of the National Forest system and their contributions toward modern forestry methods.  We benefit from their involvement every time we go into a National Forest or Park.  I can only imagine what it would be like if there were no protections.  They lived here.

 

We had an electrical problem during our stay that when we called a technician and talked with Xantrex required a new Inverter.  We cut our stay short and headed toward Red  Bay to get this done.  We installed a Magnum MS2812 as recommended by several people.  We stayed over at the facility that night and had another occurrence of the problem.  A further check came out that a bad breaker in the panel wasn't making good connection and burnt the connection and required a new breaker.  Now things that were hit and miss about working have worked since that install. (knock on wood)  End result I have a good Xantrex RS3000 inverter, AGS, and panel.  If anyone needs one I have a good deal going on. :) 



We are currently in Gadsden, AL sitting on the river at River Country Campground.  We are 15' from the water facing it.  More next time.

Hope Somebody is Still Out There

It has been awhile and we have done a lot of nothing.  We spent two weeks in Guntersville, AL to be with the family. We saw everyone a couple of times and went through the motorhome to unload stuff we either hadn't used or realized that we didn't need.  It wasn't much, but every little bit helps.

We spent 10 days in Red Bay at the Tiffin Service Center.  They had replaced my rails (the radius that meets the roof to the side wall) in April and the DS rear had come loose and lifted up.  I had noticed this while in Hungry Horse, MT and was going back to Tiffin when we came back to this area. I also had several little things to do, i.e. DS day/night shade had come loose from the ceiling and the burner on the stove would not stay lite.  I also had a couple of questions about systems and my understanding of what they were doing.

Tiffin is quite busy, basically all the time.  They have about 100 sites and they are almost always full with several in the overflow dry camping locations, especially this time of year.  It doesn't take long to get into a full hook up site, it's just a process.

We arrived on a Tuesday about noon.  While coming through town I met two MHs with toads leaving.  I was optimistic about getting a full site and we just walked in to site 57.  It was looking up.  Got things rolling and got into the express bay on Monday of the next week.  It is just a process of waiting for your number to come up and then the process will begin.

Carolyn had a problem with a drawer slide and that was a quick fix - out of the track.  The shade was put back with an additional clip.  Things were looking up.  The stove problem (I thought was a thermocouple gone bad) was just the knob.  It has a little metal piece on the flat section of the knob and the plastic had split enough that allowed the metal piece to turn within the space and not make good contact.   Great.

Then came the Aqua-hot.  For a long time if not since we've had the MH we have not had hot water without the diesel burner being on.  Reading other peoples blogs and comments on the forums I thought the electric side of our Aqua-hot was bad.  The technician came out and we worked through the problem (two days).  I hate to say the problem was the breaker on the inside panel was flipped, again Great even though my problem. 

While working through this problem one morning the diesel side of the Aqua-hot did not fire.  Long story short, it was the control unit for that part within the Aqua-hot.  Note, not my fault. :)

While working through the diesel side problem we took cup showers for two mornings.  Now I didn't have a problem with this as I did this a lot while in the Army.  Carolyn had not had to do this, but with a little instruction she had no problems. :)

While worrying with the Aqua-hot, I was going to have the rails repaired.  They are now putting a rivet down both sides of the rail replacement, spaced about every 4".  This hopefully should prevent any further problems.

My fuel gauge had never worked properly.  No matter how much I put in it would never read much above 3/4 of a tank.  Now the question was; was I full, 150 gallons? or when registering empty did I have another 30-40 gallons left?  That is a question I did not want to test.  The fix was to cut the vent lines to the tank fill, which had a loop in them, and make them straight and then go and fill up.  I had filled up just out of town, but I was able to put about 15-20 gallons more.  Still registered the same.  The solution was to change out the fuel sending unit.  It required emptying the tank into two big drums and then change out the unit.  The old unit had fuel getting into the wires and the wire was just a hair different in angle.  Upon refill, we were full.  In fact after we left I was afraid it was stuck because it wouldn't move, but after 100 miles or so it did show a little drop.

The good part of the whole trip was that I got to use my newly purchased (Aug) extended warranty.  Now I no it was a decent purchase, everything got fixed, and I now know a little more about this complicated piece of machinery.  There is much more to learn, although I'd like to wait a little to learn it. :):)

We headed to Hoover RV Park, Hoover, AL and stayed a week having several appointments.  It was a laid back parking lot with a lot of good walking area.   It is at the Ball Stadium and is patrolled day and night.

We now sit just outside of Asheville, NC.  The leaves are turning and it just saw 60 today.  Great fall weather.  There will be more to come, I promise.

Life is good.

We Are Back Almost

This past Tuesday found us heading toward Guntersville, AL.  We are currently at Blue Herron RV Resort.

We have been in NE Atlanta assisting Carolyn's BIL's family with his illness and lending a hand where needed.  Jimmy passed on Aug 23d after a battle with Renal Cancer for over a year.  He faced it headon and fought the battle at every turn.  He didn't let it interfer with his work and kept giving wisdom and kind words to the end.  He will be missed.

While in the area we stayed initially at FT Yargo State Park.  We were going week to week due to the situation (they have a 14 day limit, but due to the circumstances allowed us to stay over that time).  With  our week to week extensions the Labor Day weekend was coming up and they were full so we checked out on Friday before.  It was a beautiful place and was only a 20 minute drive to the house. 

Not all the sites were this large, but there were larger.  As you can see satellite was a "no go".  Also, this site - 34, was the only site with sewer besides the 2 camphosts sites.  That is because it used to be a camphost site.  It was $28 per night with no discounts.

On the 31st we moved to Jones RV Park in Norcross, GA.  It was just 5 miles further, but going in the other direction, requiring us to get on I85 and heavy traffic.  It has 2/3ds of the park as long term (more than a month).  Some looked like they had been there years.  A mile away was a heavy ethnic neighborhood with store signs in foreign lanquages.  It was $30/night or $165 per week.  There is not a lot to choose from in the area and it filled a need.  Not the place that invited you to sit outside.  The sites were not very large either.  The second picture has a site between us and to the left is another site opening to our passenger side.

Blue Heron is a nice quiet owner owned lots, that for $143.10 a week (Good Sam Discount) you can not beat.  Being owner owned lots, several are for sale and are unoccupied, giving a large amount of space around you.  50 amp, FHU for the price isn't to bad.

We'll probably stay here a week or two and then head to Red Bay.

Life is pretty Good.