Friday, April 7, 2022

Temperature 70 Degrees, Abundant Sunshine, Gusting Winds

Taking Care of Business and Settling In

Just the though of no TV, no Hallmark channels, no Motor Trend, no Sirius Music and so much more was enough to cause us to quake in our boots. But what to do? After six hours on Thursday we had hit the so called brick wall.

Friday morning, real early, because once again I couldn’t sleep, I resolved to do battle with the DISH service once more. First step, turn it on. Wonder of wonders we now had one channel. Yesterday we had none. I was making progress. Now, what should I do next? The usual of course, reboot the system. After that was completed I still had only one channel. Onward. I pulled up our account on my computer to verify that the receive was actually on the account. Yup, it was there. Right next to it was a little button and the inscription that said If you want to wake up your receive push here. At this point I figured nothing ventured, nothing gained. Wonder of wonder, after five minutes I had all our channels!

But wait, now we kept getting the message complete signal loss. What? I picked this sight just because I knew there were no trees that would block the antenna. Out I went to discover what I had missed. I immediately saw the problem, a tree branch from a tree over our rig kept blowing in front of the antenna. But not for long. Oh no, up on the roof and me and my trusty saw quickly trimmed just enough of the branch back to resolve the issue. We now have our TV issue completely resolved. While we are here!

Other news.

Guess what we left home? Every last one of them. We put our mugs in the dishwasher the night before we left and forgot to take them out and bring them with us. So now we have two new ones for the trip.

Yup, we also forgot the vacuum cleaner. So I now have a new toy. A simple carpet sweeper for our rugs. Believe me, here especially you need one because you are surrounded by sand and dirt. And do what you might, it is constantly getting tracked into the rig.

We’ve also decided to try something new this trip. Rather than constantly buying gallons of spring water we purchased a Brita Water Filter. Yes, I have several filters on the outside but this we believe ensures crystal clear drinking water. Time will tell if it is the solution.

Slowly, ever so slowly as we move down The Road of Retirement we are getting used to living in a house on wheels again. It’s amazing, really, how quickly we are settling in. It’s almost like we never stopped full-timing. I’ve always said, its not a bad way to live at all.

Thanks again for stopping by today  It’s always great to be able to share our story with others. Comments? Feel free to share them with me. And always remember, cherish each day that God gives you and live it to the fullest.

Our continuing mission remains the same: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before

Thursday, April 7th

Temperature, 81 Degrees, Abundant Sunshie

Second Stop, We’ve Passed This Way Before

The Good News is other than a bit of rain we made it through last night without an issue. There were two tornadoes reported about 30 minutes north of us but nothing closer.

Anyway, by 9:30 pm we were both so tired we could not keep our eyes open. Thus, we decided to make it an early night. Only one problem, by 3:30 am I was wide awake! Thus, me and Proton roamed the rig, and tossed and turned until around 6:30 am when we finally realized getting any more sleep was a lost cause. It was obvious that this was going to be a full on caffeine beverage day.

So it was after a quick breakfast by 8:30 am we were back on the road again and headed west on Route 10. Route 10 is a really nice road. The pavement is great with no potholes. Traffic was light to moderate but with a fair amount of truck traffic. It was cruise control from start to finish. My kind of day when it is going to be a long run.

The only issue was we finally lost our dash A/C. We’ll go without it but if and when it really starts getting hot, we’ll run the generator and use the first rooftop A/C to keep us cool. I’ve discovered over time that I don’t really use that much more diesel doing this. Today, though, it was cool enough that we could just use the vents.

Some four hours after we left Tallahassee we arrived at our new home. We’re at an Escapees park that we’ve stayed at several times in the past. The sites are all back in with a dirt base. Our site is reasonably level and with ample space for Elvira and our car. We’ll be here for five nights during which time we’ll get ourselves organized and acclimated to living in the rig again.

Once here our first order of business was to put up the DISH antenna. Well, that’s when everything went south. Ms. Barbara spent close to six hours on the phone with DISH support and that got her a headache and nothing more. Suffice to say we still don’t have TV so we’ll be exploring our options tomorrow. Enough for today.

Regarding getting used to living in the rig. Tonight I decided to take a shower. Ah, back to Navy showers in a broom closet! No more huge shower with ample hot water. Not for the next six months. No matter, I still have a grin on my face. Life is good on the road.

Our Proton is having no trouble getting used to life in the rig. He is still a handful when we travel. But once we park, one chair is as good as the next for him.

That’s it for now on The Road of Retirement. Oh, other than the fact that we are now in the Central Time Zone and trying to adjust. Going back an hour has made it a long day so it is time to start getting ready to turn in. But, just not yet. I’m going to make it to at least 10 tonight – I hope!

Thanks again for stopping by today  It’s always great to be able to share our story with others. Comments? Feel free to share them with me. And always remember, cherish each day that God gives you and live it to the fullest.

Our continuing mission remains the same: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before

April 6, 2022

Temperature 75 Degrees, Overcast with Periods of Rain

Let The Adventure Begin

What can I say? Normally the night before we go on the road I toss and turn and don’t get much sleep. But for whatever reason last night I had the best sleep I’ve had in weeks. Go figure.

We set a goal to be on the road no later than 10 am this morning. We began to roll at 9:45 am which I believe for us is pretty darn good. Of course before we actually left we were running around the house grabbing things we thought of at the last minute. There has to be a better way. And for all that we still forgot several items.

We left under overcast skies with the threat of rain, severe thunderstorms, and tornadoes in the area to which we were headed. Unfortunately, we didn’t have to wait to get there to find the rain. All along Route 75 we were in and out of rain squalls. Nothing really bad which we were extremely grateful for.

Plus, I now have a secret weapon for dealing with the rain. A long time ago a good friend of mine, Carl, taught me the trick of coating your windshield with Rain-X. Squall after squall I never needed the wipers because the rain just ran off the windshield in sheets. Try it the next time you anticipate driving in the rain. Believe me it really works.

This is the first time I’ve driven Elvira for an extended period of time. No problem, after about thirty minutes it felt just like old times. The traffic was light all the way so I was basically able to set the cruise control and let her do her thing.

About fueling up, it truly feels like a gut punch as you watch the dollars add up. I paid, by my calculations, twice as much as what I did two years ago. Ah well, if you want to play you have to pay. But it hurts, especially when you just know there is no real excuse for the high prices.

Here is our overnight home. We have a pull thru at Tallahassee RV Park. This is a mid point stop on our way to Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale, Alabama. This is not a bad RV park by my standards. It’s about a half a mile off of Route 10. The driveway in is sort of weird. It winds around and goes uphill. I’m sure we’ll be dragging the tow bar as we leave. The sites are tight and you have to be careful when pulling in. The actual site we are in has a good base of gravel and is reasonably level. I have plenty of room for Elvira and Little Graybeard. All in all, a pretty decent stop for overnight.

Now about the tornadoes and thunderstorms and rain. Since we’ve been here warnings have been issued several times for tornadoes. Thankfully, they’ve all been north of us. We’ve not had one thunderstorm and just a little bit of rain. So far. Once again the good Lord continues to smile down on us.

So we are finally back on The Road of Retirement. Though it has been only one day it sure feels good. Hope this feeling continues to follow us throughout the trip.

Thanks again for stopping by today  It’s always great to be able to share our story with others. Comments? Feel free to share them with me. And always remember, cherish each day that God gives you and live it to the fullest.

Our continuing mission remains the same: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before

April 5, 2022

Temperature 82 Degrees

Houston, We Have A Go

We are ready to go. The refrigerator and freezer are packed to the gills. The cabinets are filled and bursting at the seams. We’ve packed our winter clothes knowing where we are going for the first month. We have rain jackets and it appears we are going to need them the next couple of days. Tools are onboard. The water tank has enough in it so that we don’t have to hook up to water tomorrow night. All the slides are in and locked- wew! The jacks are up and Elvira is aired up and ready to step on out.

The only unknown as we leave tomorrow is the weather. The forecast is not as bad as it was a day ago but it is not pretty. They’re calling for possible heavy rain and severe thunderstorms. Thankfully, there is no mention of hail or even tornadoes at this point in time. As my good friend Isaac always says just take it slow and steady and you’ll be fine.

That’s it for tonight. I have a few more items to pack and then it is off to bed. Oh, I’m so looking forward to this trip. I’m as excited as a kid who just got a new X Box. New adventures await and it is time to embrace them.

I’ll check in again tomorrow and let you know how we made out. Have a great evening and an even better tomorrow.