On our Way, but what’s with this snow???

We did manage to leave on Friday and got to Monroe, Michigan.  It was very cold and even though they have heated water taps, we opted not to fill our tank.  It snowed about 2 inches overnight and we had to clean off the toppers before we left.

The drive was good although messy.  With having the auxiliary tank in the back of the truck we wouldn’t have to stop at all, except maybe potty stops.  But we do have to stop for Jackie, he does need to stretch his legs and he needs potty breaks.  Arthur is just a little saint, not a peep out of him.  The minute we land he makes a beeline for his litter box.  Poor guy!!

We are in Mount Vernon, Kentucky and guess what???  That’s right, it’s snowing here too.  I did put water in the fresh water tank and as long as we run the furnace our water supply has heat.  Being without water is just nasty. 

Tonight is hot leftover Christmas turkey sandwiches with gravy.  I froze them and brought them with us.

Tomorrow’s destination is Cartersville, GA.

Until later…take care.

Postponed (at least 1 day)

The weather is not co-operating for us.  Tomorrow, which was to be our department day promises snow flurries and wind, strong winds.  Those 2 things can be a deadly combination when towing a 5er.  Right now Friday looks good, so we’re aiming for that.  

Things are not set in stone, so we go when the weather dictates.  It’s been pretty cold here and today was download COLD.  I have the furnace set at 50 degrees in the rig, so it’s workable in there.  We’ll make sure we fill the propane tank before we leave here.  There are 2 tanks but we’ll use a fair bit running the furnace once we land.

We had a lovely Christmas.  How can 16 people sound like 40?  LOL.  Dinner was great, even if I do say so myself.  Hardly had any leftovers, which under the circumstance (leaving) was a good thing, but I did have turkey and gravy, so guess what we’ll be having on the way down???

Well that’s all I have for now.  Take care…until later.

Merry Christmas

I just wanted to wish you out there in blog land a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, a very happy in whatever you celebrate this time of year.

Packing up the rig has been a very slow process this year.  First, it’s been cold and wet.  I didn’t really want the slides out because the toppers might get wet and freeze.  Besides it’s not pleasant working out there in the cold.  I have put a heater, one of those that looks like a mini radiator out there.  It does take the chill out of the air.  Yesterday I turned on the propane and turned on the furnace, but set it low.  Again just to take the chill off.  I had 3 of the 4 slides out but yesterday it was quite windy and I noticed that the toppers looked wet and slight frozen.  So brought all the slides in.  Today is still chilly but sunny, so I’m heading out there in a while to put the 3 slides back out. 

I also had my 8 year old grandson here as my son and daughter-in-law were basking in the warm sun in Jamaica.  He was here just over a week.  So needless to say that kept us busy.  He usually takes a school bus from his home to school but because his school is literally around the corner from us, we walked him back and forth.  I gave him a choice to continue taking his lunch or come home here for lunch.  Well of course he wanted to come home for lunch.  So that make 4 trips a day to get him.  He’s a good kid, but still when you’re not used to kids being around that length of time it does tire you out.  To say nothing of the mess!!!!! He went home last night.  I’m enjoying the quiet of the house.    LOL.

We still are planning on leaving on the 27th.  But it all depends on the weather of course.  Our first day takes us just over the border into Michigan. 

I’m also having everyone over for dinner Christmas Day, so that will be a very busy day for me.  There will be 15 of us in total.  Big turkey, lots of food, lots of laughs.

So again Merry, merry Christmas to everyone.  Hopefully next time I blog we’ll be on the road.

It’s home!!!

I know it’s been a long time since I blogged but to be honest there really wasn’t much going on.  But I still do read all your blogs each and every day.

We did bring the ‘beast’ home today.  Ken is getting pretty good at backing it up into the driveway.  So now the fun begins.  Loading her up.  By now I pretty much have a routine that I follow.  But right now it’s plugged into charging the batteries.  The guys at the RV place had to replace the dining room table and left the main battery switch in the ON position and all the living room lights on.  So of course you know what that meant!!!???

Today is super duper mild but tomorrow it’s dropping significantly, so a little later, I’m going to go out and put a heater in there. 

I do believe this will be the last year for awhile that we are going to stick around this later.  Next year, we should be down there by now.

Anyhow..not much, but things have started to wind up so until later…take care.

France

If any of you saw that movie, ‘If it’s Tuesday, then it must be Belgium’ then you know what I’m talking about.  We took a 2 week bus tour through France.  We saw about 17 towns in 12 days.  We took my 23 year old granddaughter with us and she seemed to enjoy herself.  First time in her life she’s been any further than about 150 miles from her home.  So this was a huge experience for her.
My favourite..a vineyard!
Chenonceau Chateaux

We did enjoy it although Ken and I both agreed that we loved Italy far more than France.  We will return to Italy but no so France.  One of the stops was Normandy.  That was very sad to see the rows and rows and rows of crosses.  We went to the American cemetery.  Would like to have visited the Canadian one but our guide said it was about 80 km away and was very small.  Apparently Canada shipped the majority of the bodies of the soldiers home to be buried and there is only about 2000 Canadian graves.  I can’t remember how many American graves there were but it just went on and on.   In it’s sadness it was also beautiful and peaceful.  And we saw Omaha beach where they came ashore and the German bunkers.
Normandy 
Honfleur
Mont St. Michel

That’s a long flight 7 hours to London, then another hour to France.  My rump was numb by the time we landed.  Most of the hotels we stayed at were average, but a couple of them, oh my.   Rustic is certainly an understatement.  And what’s with the twin beds in Europe?  Almost rolled right out of a couple of them.  So tired of living out of a suitcase.  Always so nice to come home.

We are discussing a river cruise in Europe.  Any of you taken one?  If so let me know what you thought of it please.

Our big 5er had the washer/dryer installed and all minor things repaired.  It’s winterized and sitting in the storage lot until we bring her home about 3 weeks before Christmas.  Then I start the loading for our sojourn south. 

Christmas is very quickly creeping up on us.  We’re hoping to get away the day after depending on the weather of course.

Until later…take care.

Safety Brake Cable Works !!!

Well we found out that the safety break away brake cable works.  The hard way.  As Ken was pulling out of our driveway he has to make a 90° turn out of the driveway and onto the street.  I guess we had the cable secured to the wrong spot because as he turned it pulled it out of the rig.  Instant stop!!!!!  Couldn’t figure our for a minute what the heck the problem was then it dawned on me about the cable.  Checked it and sure ‘nuff’ it had pulled it out as he made the turn.  Perhaps it caught on part of the hitch.  Anyway, he put the clip back in and away he went.  Nice to know though that it does work.

I closed up and secured everything inside the rig.  The RV dealer now has to correct a few small concerns we have and also install the washer/dryer combo.  They also noticed a gouge in the dining room table when it arrived so ordered another table.  As Jayco makes all their own cabinetry etc.  they had to make another table.  Supposedly, it has arrived and they will replace it with the damaged one. 

As I couldn’t winterize it because they are going to install the washer/dryer and will, of course, be needing to run water, I have asked them to do that for me this year.  We really do not feel like bringing it home again and parking it just to winterize.  We will do it in the future just as we did for the motorhome.  I do like having it parked in the driveway as I can run in and put stuff away as I come across things, but it really is just too big to keep it there all the time, and then we have to juggle between our car and the truck on the other side of the driveway.  No sooner have we deposited it back in the store yard when another pile of RV things starts to grow.  By the time we get it home again mid December the pile will be quite large. 

We were always very comfortable in our Class A but found that things just kind of ‘hung around’.   There wasn’t places to put the odds and sods that need to be used everyday so they just kind of sat here and there.  Now with this 5th wheel, we find that we have lots more storage and places to put things.  Jackie’s bowls, for instant, we now have a great spot out of the way to put them.  And Arthur’s litter box, once we park and the lounge chairs are pushed forward there is a whole ton of space behind them and that’s where I put his box, out of the way, visually and physically.  Great!   On our shakedown trip we found that we were very, very comfortable, much more than before.  So much more living room and kitchen space.  And I have always hated the bench kitchen table in the Class A and now we have table and chairs.  Who rah!!  Even in restaurants we always ask for no benches.  Funny everyone else seems to love them. 

So we are really looking forward to taking this monster south this year.  The truck is so much more powerful than our gas Class A, and hills don’t seem to bother it at all.  Where as the motorhome would literally slow to a crawl on any significant hill.  In hindsight if we had to do it all over again we would have bought a diesel Class A right from the start.  But we are loving this 5th wheel or 5er as we call it. 

So until later then…take care.   Be safe out there.

No, we haven’t fallen off the face of the earth

Click on any picture to supersize it...
We’re still here.  It’s been hectic to say the least.  I don’t know where summer has gone, seems like we were just opening the pool, planting flowers and now poof, it’s almost gone.
We took delivery of our new 5th wheel.  It’s beautiful or so we think anyhow.  It’s like a small 1 bedroom apartment.  There is so much more cupboard space in the kitchen.  Less so in the bedroom, but that’s ok much prefer to have more space in the kitchen.  Now learning how to park this monstrosity of rig is a whole ‘nother’ ballgame.  Not so much park as back it up.  Oh lots and lots of fun.  We had the fellow at the RV place who takes care of parking all the RV’s there on the lot to give Ken a lesson.  It was very helpful but nothing is going to be better than just experience.  It just fits in our driveway, just.  But we only park it there when parking it up for a trip.  Otherwise we store it at the RV security lot.
We had a shakedown trip planned for the 14th, 15th, 16th of August, but on the 11th I had to take Ken to the emergency at the hospital.  Turns out he had to have an emergency appendectomy.  Good grief, that was a surprise.  He was in there for 3 days.  The horrible part was that from the time he entered the emergency entrance to the time he was diagnosed was 8 hours!!!  8 freaking hours it took them to find out he had appendicitis.  They could have ruptured in the mean time.  Gee Whiz !!!!!  As soon as he was diagnosed he was whisked away to surgery where they found they were close to rupturing.  That put the kibosh on our shakedown trip.  So  I rescheduled it fro the 28th, 29th, 30th of August instead.  We just got back today.  It was grand, just grand.  So much room.  We’re getting better at hitching it up, takes time but we’re getting there.
Just a couple shots of inside…
  Excuse the mess
Jackson and one of his ‘babies’
Couple of lazy guys!!
and this is Jackson’s favourite spot..watching the world go by the door.
This year we are here for Christmas.  But leaving right after for Florida.  Sure hope the weather is as good as it was last year.  It’s always iffy at that time of year.  Could run into a snow storm.  YUK !!
Until later then..take care.