Tough Life !!!

Yup it sure is a tough life, but someone must do it.  Since we have gotten ourselves all set up we really haven’t done too much.  A bit of shopping here and there, reading, surfing (internet, not water!!). 

Last night there was a pot luck supper.  It’s amazing the dishes that people put together all in a RV kitchen.  It sure was great and lots of delicious dishes.  I made a huge Caesar salad and most of it disappeared.

We have been struggling here with their internet.  They have installed a new system and I suppose are working out the kinks.  Several people, no rhyme or reason to location, are having issues.  I am one of them.  I get a good strong signal but it continually drops me, up and down, up and down, like a public washroom toilet seat.  They are as perplexed as I am.  I have been coming up to their clubhouse to do anything that need to be done on the internet.  But finally got fed up with it so went out and bought Verizon’s mifi.  It works great, and I’m a happy camper again.  It’s not cheap but since I have suspended my internet at home while we’re away, it all works out, basically.

On Monday, the 11th, they are having their Christmas Party, just an hors d’oeuvre  is required.  And your beverage of choice.  Sounds like it should be fun.

We have have great weather, but last night the rain came, and today the wind.  It’s gray and gloomy and very windy.  Had to bring in the huge awning and one of the little side awnings.  The huge awning is a Weather Pro awning and is supposed to sense the wind, depending on what you’ve set it to, and come in automatically.  We have yet to have it retract by itself, except for the cold.  It does retract by itself if it gets around freezing, safety issue, can’t have water on it freeze.  But wind, nope, never. 

We put up a couple more Christmas decorations on our site.  I took a picture of some of the sites too.  It’s really pretty.

 

 

So until later…take care.

Home for the next 3 months

We had a good drive down on Thursday.   The weather was great, sunny, and clear.  Although we did wake up to a very cold morning.  Good thing I had disconnected the water.  The tap had frozen, but a minute with a BBQ lighter fixed that.  We were able to rehook up for our morning showers.  I really don’t like to put a lot of water in our holding tank.  I just feel it’s too heavy.  I only put in what we need for travelling, toilet etc.

The internet here is the worse I have ever experienced at a campground.  Last year it was great.  They are in the process of installing a whole new system.  It keeps dropping me, then starting, over and over again.  I took my laptop up to the main office and I was fine there.  They believe it is the tower relay that is right outside our rig.  Something wrong with it.  They are looking into it.  Hopefully they will get it fixed very soon.  If they don’t then I will go to Verizon and buy their mifi.  I cannot go 3 months with it like this !!!!

We were really busy after we arrived here.  The inside of the rig was absolutely disgusting.  More hair and mud than I care to even think about.  It took us a few hours to clean and set things up inside.  We got a really nice warm welcome when we arrived.  Several ‘welcome backs’.  Also a nice warm welcome temperature wise.

It was so very, very nice to wake up Friday morning and know we didn’t have to pack up and get on the road.  We spent the rest of the day cleaning the outside of the rig and setting things up outside.  She now shines and I can actually see out of the windows.

On the weekends they have breakfasts here.  So we went over and enjoyed someone making breakfast for us.  Then we went over to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of groceries. 

Jackson is having a great time running around in the dog park and meeting some new buddies.  Everyone here is so friendly and always stop to chat and talk.  His best buddy isn’t here yet, not until January.  But there are others that he enjoys playing with.

Today, Ken put up some Christmas lights around our site.  Lots of people here have really gone whole hog with decorating their sites for Christmas.  It looks really nice.  I’ll try and get some pictures at a later date of some of the sites.

The header picture was taken today after the lights were up and we were all settled in. 

This is a picture looking down the road from our site.  You can see the lights from some of the sites.  There are still lots of empty sites but I imagine they will fill up over the next month or so.

So until later…take  care.

Clanton, Alabama

This morning dawned cold and crunchy.  Crunchy when you walked outside on the frozen grass and mud puddles.  But no rain.  Can you believe it????  We were on the road by 8:30.  We changed our choice of campgrounds at the last minute this morning.  The other place I had picked out just sounded kind of ‘iffy’.  This one is a newly built KOA, totally different from any other KOA we’ve been at.  It has 50 FHU sites with several long pull throughs.  We can see and hear I65 just about 100 yards away.  But it was easy off and will be easy on.  Not much here but that’s just fine with us.  They seem to be in the process of just setting this campground up.   It’s a good spot for an over night stop. 

Today’s drive started out a little gray but very shortly the sun came out and we had sun all day.  What a difference that makes.  Tomorrow it’s 247 miles to Panama City Beach.  Will be nice to settle in

Until later…take care.

Onward to Goodlettsville, Tennessee

We had a 300 mile trip today.  Ran into a few very small showers, nothing serious, and the odd snowflake.  All in all it was a good drive.

It is colder here than our stop last night.  I put water into the tank and disconnected the hose.  I’ll connect in the morning when it’s shower time.  And now..guess what it’s doing???? raining of course.  But the forecast calls for it to quit very soon.  We’ll see.

Tomorrow we have 247 miles to our next destination. 

This appears to be a pretty good park.  Looks like a ex KOA to me.  Same type of office and cabins.  Full hookups, wifi, and cable, good for us.  There is a time change for us now.  One hour behind our normal time. 

Supper is done, Jackie’s been out AGAIN, in the mud.  Lovely.  Just chilling watching Jeopardy and listening to the rain on the roof.  Although to be honest I’ve heard enough rain on the roof for a good while.

Until later…take care.

And it’s still raining..

We are getting somewhat fed up with all this rain.  Yesterday when we arrived in Monroe, Michigan, we had to setup in the pouring rain.  Today, we started out with dry roads, gray, dismal, but no rain, but by the time we arrived here in Lebanon, Ohio, it had started to rain and we had to setup again in the pouring rain. 

Question????why do some RV campgrounds put their sewer so far away that you need like 30 feet of hose to reach it.  We had to connect up 3 hoses to reach it.  Poor Ken was drenched by the time he was finished.  The CG is a little dodgy for driving around in with a 38 foot rig with a toad.  Have to be very careful, but we have full hook-ups (no cable) and a level site. 

There were a couple comments left about putting Jackie in a crate while travelling.  Well, he’s really not bad, just can’t seem to settle down.  He lays down, then gets up to look around, this is what he does the whole trip.  I don’t think I could crate him.  He’s 90 pounds of dog, and I would need a pretty big crate for him.  There is absolutely no room to put a crate of that size in here when the slides are all closed.  And although when he was a puppy he was great in a crate he hasn’t been in one since he was 6 months old.  Not sure how he’d handle that.  I always worried about him if we had to stop suddenly so I bought a harness system.  It has a ‘rip line’ which is supposed to go in a car in the back seat at the top from the hand handle to the other one.  Then this special harness, with a heavily padded chest part, is put on him and hooked up to the rip line.  That way he can move around and yet be protected if you have to stop suddenly.  In the rig, each of the front seat, drivers, and passengers have a hook for a child’s car seat.  So I attached the rip line to these two hooks.  I feel allot better now that he’s safer.  And of course, Arthur is in his crate.

Well tomorrow we are head for Goodslettville, TN.  The weather forecast for there is truly miserable.  Cold, and wet, even colder than here.  We will be so glad when we get out of this crap.

We were all toasty warm last night.  Between the space heaters running and the furnace when necessary, it was fine.  Just damp, lots of moisture on the windows this morning, especially in the bedroom, guess all that hot breath at night, 2 people and 2 critters.

Well until later….take care.

On the Road Again…!

We left this morning at 8:30 AM.  By the time we drove over to the gas station, filled her up then hooked up the car it was exactly 9 AM when we hit the road.  We are here in Monroe, Michigan.  A long 7 hour drive.

It rained the whole way, which made for a miserable drive.  And it’s still pouring.  But given the time of year it could be worse, could have been snow.  This is what we looked at all day out the front window.

I always fine it a hassle to de-winterize.  As the weather forecast was saying it wasn’t going to freeze, I decided to hook up to water, that and a chat with the fellow at the desk.  He said it wasn’t going to freeze tonight.  Must have had some inside info, I guess.  They heat their taps here too.  We like this campground, easy off I75, nice long pull thrus, full hook-ups.  This is the 3rd time we’ve stayed here on our way south. 

It’s not so much cold as damp, we have our space heaters going and toss in the furnace every so often to really warm things up. 

Driving with Jackson is a real treat.  NOT!!!  It’s not that he’s a bad boy, but he just can’t seem to settle down.  He’s up, he’s down, he’s up, he’s down.  You get the picture.  He’s so nosey.  I think he’s afraid that he’ll miss something.  He’s terrible in a car, whines and whines.  Thankfully he doesn’t do that in here. 

Our stop tomorrow is Lebanon, Ohio.

So until later…take care.

Getting Ready to Roll!!!

First I’d like to welcome a new member.  Welcome Rick and Kathy Rousseau.

Well the rig has been in the driveway for 2 weeks now.  The first week, I took my time starting to load up, but this past week I put myself in 5th gear and really starting to move!!  Right now it is 99.8% loaded.  Just my last minute things, the dredges from the fridge, all our electronic gizmos’ i.e. GPS, laptops, cameras, e-readers, don’t like those things in there when it’s cold.

We had a couple really cold nights.  Our bedroom windows looks right down on the roof of the rig and I could see the frost on the roof a few times.  I did have an electric heater running in there on low, just to keep all the food stuffs from freezing.  I made the bed up with the electric blanket because I think we’ll need it for awhile in the beginning.  I have been checking the temperatures and so far it’s holding tough!!  But the weatherman does have a habit of changing things really quickly.  In this case I sure hope not.  We have a full propane tank because I’m sure the 2 furnaces will be put to good use.

About a month ago I was getting things together, like our passports.  Fortunately I opened them and realized that mine would expire in February while I was in the US!!  YIKES!!!!  Ran out got my new pictures taken and fortunately our government has finally come to their senses and if you’re renewing a passport you don’t have to jump through all the hoops anymore.  So it was a quick process and it arrived, via UPS, in 2 weeks.  Boy..that was a close one.

Tomorrow is my grandson’s 7th birthday party.  He was actually 7 on the 23rd, but his big party is tomorrow.  My daughter-in-law has a large family so they have quite a house full.  But I don’t have to make supper here and that’s really great as we head out the next morning.  We would have left earlier in the month but we wanted to be here for Riley’s birthday celebration. 

So first stop for us is just across the border in Michigan.  We have stayed at this CG before and we like it.  One of the nice things that we like is that they have heated pipes so that their water is always on.  If it’s not freezing cold, this is where I de-winterize our rig.  If it’s too cold, then it will be the next stop.  So far, it’s looking good.  But we carry jugs of water just in case anyway.

So…..once on the road, the blogging begins.  Until then…take care.

Oh BTW..do you realize that a month today is Christmas..?????