If you’re thinking I’m a day behind you are correct.  Don’t know where yesterday went.  It wasn’t a busy day by any means.  No reason I didn’t post a blog other than I got lazy.  Today is a different day and today there will be a blog.

This morning was a much warmer day.  The days ahead also promise to be back where they should be temperature wise.  I like that.  I will say, though, we had no problem keeping warm.  Between the heat pump and our small electric heater we were always warm and comfortable.  I do know this before we leave here I’m going to spend some time cleaning and servicing the AC/Heat Pump to hopefully prevent any future issues.

Breakfast was great as always.  I had one of my favorites which was cheese potatoes.  Barbara also added some sausage, juice and a couple of mugs of coffee.  Yummy and tummy filling.  I was now ready to sail forth into the day.  Perhaps a better way of putting it would be I was ready to just sort of glide into the day.

Over the last couple of days we received some medical bills from last year that absolutely floored us.  We had no idea why insurance had not paid them.  Nor why they had gone to collection.  Barbara spend the better part of the day trying to get some answers.  Bottom line, though we had updated our address with the company that had billed us they nevertheless kept sending the bills over the past 12 months to the wrong address.   Furthermore, we now discovered that the services billed for will never be paid by either Medicare nor our supplemental insurance.  They just don’t pay for home services which these bills were for.  They, therefore, are our responsibility.  Oh joy.

That was just the start of our medical woes.  Barbara had gone to the doctor several weeks ago because she needed a prescription refilled.  Well, the office staff failed to follow the doctor’s instructions and submitted the wrong prescription to be filled.  Barbara promptly called the doctor’s office and they stated it would be taken care of.  Guess what?  We found out today that they failed to follow through.  Barbara’s insurance runs out tomorrow.  Bottom line?  We will have to pay for the prescription which is not by any means inexpensive.  But it is what it is.

Back to my headache with that leaking window.  Realizing it may be some time before I can have the window pulled I tried something else.  I first dried the wall out using the electric heater over the last several days.  I ordered a replacement wooden plate for the one that had been damaged by the water.  Then all the old caulking around the window outside was dug out and a new bead of caulking applied all the way around.  I will continue to monitor the window and the wall carefully going forward.  The lesson I learned, check all the windows for leakage in the future.  I missed this one completely and I am so mad at myself for not being more careful.  The other lesson learned, it’s time to do the same for all the windows.  That will be a project that I will start immediately before my surgery.

I next turned my attention again to Tour America 2019.  I wanted to check the mileage between our various stops.  I usually don’t like to drive more than 3 to 4 hours from one stop to the next.  Checking the whole trip resulted in some adjustments since several legs were close to 5 hours and had to be shortened .  In other cases some stops were eliminated since the distance between them was just too short and the leg could be lengthened.  Once that was done I made several reservations at the various Escapee Parks we will be staying at.  Yes, parks are already beginning to fill up.  Go figure.  What is it that I read the other day?  They estimate that there are now close to 1 million individuals living the full-time RV life.  I’m beginning to believe the report.

That was our day on The Road of Retirement.  We had some rather unpleasant surprises to deal with.  Projects to attend to.  I also did some fun stuff such as continued planning for next year.  When you put it all together it was a rather nice day.  Made even better by the fact that we traveled the road side by side, hand in hand, singing our song.

I want to thank everyone who traveled with us.  We always enjoy your company, your comments and your suggestions.  I’m going to say goodnight now but before leaving you as always a thought for each of us to consider:

As always,  if you are coming to the end of your day with concerns and worries, let me suggest that you turn them over to God.  After all, He is going to be up all night so why not let him handle them for you.

Time now for our evening prayers and eventually some shut-eye.  Till tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s occupants, four paws and two humans.  Our continuing mission: 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

See you on down the road

 

Some will say just grin and bear it.  I hear you and I will but I don’t have to like it.  I’m talking about the weather.  We awoke this morning to a temperature of 39 degrees.  Now tonight here it is just 8 pm and we are already down to 49 degrees.  Once again freeze

warnings are in effect.  Burrrrrrrrrrrrr  is right and no I don’t like this at all.  Sure it is going to warm up again which is why I can’t wait for Friday.

I finally have a date for surgery and it is December 10th.  It is going to be a bit different this time around.  The day after surgery I will be discharged and sent home.  No lengthy hospital stay, no in-hospital rehab.  My doctor, Doctor Tim, believes you heal best at home.  He also firmly believes in out-patient rehab.  A whole new ball game this time.  Moreover, I’ll be good to go on December 22nd for our planned trip to Wellsboro, PA to spend Christmas with my family.

Came across this today and it was just too good not to share.  When is a space capsule not

a space capsule?  Along a lonely stretch of road in the US state of Oklahoma, lies what appears to be an abandoned space capsule. The lettering ‘NASA’ and ‘United States of America’ along with the flag is clearly visible on its side.  And then there are those thrusters (or are they) on the bottom.  So what do we have here?

What we have here is the back-end of a cement truck.  The landmark came into being by a happy accident when a concrete-filled cement mixer truck, which was on its way to help build a bridge rolled over here in 1959. By the time a tow truck arrived to haul the cement truck away, all of the cement had hardened inside the mixer. Unable to handle the extra weight, the crew decided to haul only the truck and come back for the detached mixer later, which never happened.

In September 2011, local artists Barry and Heather Thomas decided to turn it into a space capsule to celebrate the fifth anniversary of their wedding. The couple attached canning lids, garden hose, broken reflectors and other household items to the mixer to make the transformation look as real as possible.  Now how about that.

That was our day on The Road of Retirement.  It was a good one, albeit a cold one.  Really, I can’t remember the last time we needed the heater on in the car.  Today was that day.  So be it we will survive.  Thanks again for joining us our journey.  We always enjoy your company.  If like us you are experiencing a bit of cold weather, we feel your pain.  In time all of this frigid weather will just be another memory.   I’m off now to gather my blankets together and put on my winter PJ’s.  In closing a thought for each of us to ponder:

As always,  if you are coming to the end of your day with concerns and worries, let me suggest that you turn them over to God.  After all, He is going to be up all night so why not let him handle them for you.

Time now for our evening prayers and eventually some shut-eye.  Till tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s occupants, four paws and two humans.  Our continuing mission: 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

See you on down the road

I’m going to keep today’s blog short, sweet and to the point.  That’s because there is just not much new going on.  We really can’t do or go anywhere until I have a date for my knee surgery.  I was supposed to be given a date today, but today has come and gone and still no date.  I’ll press a bit harder tomorrow.

We found a leak in the front today.  Both front cockpit windows are leaking bad.  The only right way to fix them is to pull them and reseal them.  Easy enough until you realize that to pull the passenger side window you also have to pull the dash.   That is out of my

league.  Therefore in January we’ll make an appointment with SunCoast Designers to do the work.  I’ve given them a call already and they stated that they can do both in two days.   It’s going to cost a few bucks but if I neglect them much longer we’re going to have some serious issues real quick.

The other big news is the temperature.  We have freeze warnings in effect for the next two nights.  Ok, it’s only two nights so I believe we can handle this.  After all we survived

two months of winter last year in NJ when night-time temperatures were always in the low 30’s.  A couple of times we also had snow.  But I’ll say it again, this is Florida and we just don’t expect weather like this.

Update, we finally got Richard’s Dish antenna in the right location to see the satellites.  He’s more than happy to say the least.  I never realized myself until now how nice it is to have TV with the channels you like to watch whenever you want it.  Even in the pouring rain yesterday we didn’t have much of an issue.  A few times it would lose the signal for a moment or two but then it would come right back.   Bottom line, we are both happy campers with our Dish setup as of now.  It’s not all that we expected or were led to believe but it’s OK for our needs.

There you have it our short, sweet and simple day on The Road of Retirement.  Thanks again for joining us today.  We always appreciate your company.  I’m off now to find my winter hat, a couple of extra blankets, and set the thermostat on the heat pump so it doesn’t get too cold in here tonight.  Before I go as always a thought for each of us think upon:

As always,  if you are coming to the end of your day with concerns and worries, let me suggest that you turn them over to God.  After all, He is going to be up all night so why not let him handle them for you.

Time now for our evening prayers and eventually some shut-eye.  Till tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s occupants, four paws and two humans.  Our continuing mission: 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

See you on down the road

We awoke this morning to overcast skies, mild temperatures and winds a plenty.  Overall not a bad way to start the day.  Things, though, were going to go down hill real quick.  Yet, for the time being it was not a bad day.

Great breakfast this morning of cheese potatoes, fried spam, juice and a couple of mugs of coffee.  Yummy and tummy filling as always.  I never grow tired of such a breakfast.

Barbara decided it was time for us to get in the Christmas spirit.  Though we will not be home for the Christmas Holiday she decided it was time to put our tree up.  So here it is.

OK, maybe it isn’t really real, nor that big but hey no one else in the park has a tree!  We also added some new ornaments to our usual collection in front of our site.  Take a look.

We’re truly getting in the swing of the Christmas season.  A tree, new decorations, and Barbara has finished her Christmas shopping.  Yippe!

Early in the afternoon I spotted my new neighbor Richard trying to aim his satellite antenna – more about that later.  Richard is a really fascinating individual.  For over 20 years he owned and managed his own Christian Book Store.   He stated he would probably be doing it still today if his landlord had not forced him out of his store.  The result being that at the age of 61 he liquidated his store and retired and went on the road.  Today, he is waiting for his son and daughter in law to arrive in Florida with their TT.  They are currently stuck in Kentucky in the midst of such bad weather that they cannot travel.

About that satellite dish.  Unfortunately, his antenna will only work with the Dish Western Arc Satellites.  Those satellites are even harder to lock on here because of the trees in the park.  We tried, oh we tried.  We almost had them.  But then the heavens opened up and the rains came down – in buckets.  Forget getting any type of satellite reception unless you had already locked onto the satellite earlier.  We’ll try again tomorrow.

We spent the rest of the afternoon just sitting under the awning sharing war stories of life on the road.  I ended up with some great new places to put on our bucket list and we laughed like crazy at some of the goofy mistakes we had both made living on the road.  It was a great way to spend the afternoon.  Soon, however, the rain drove us inside.  Along with the rapidly falling temperatures.  The temperature is, indeed, taking a nose dive.  Point of fact it is not supposed to be above 40 degrees the next four nights.  Just crazy, after all this is supposed to be Florida.

So we come again to the end of our day on The Road of Retirement.  It consisted of a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  We’re digging out the extra blankets and plugging in our electric heater in preparation for the next four nights.  All in all we will be roasty, toasty warm even as we have been in the past when we’ve been stuck in cold weather.

Thanks again for joining us on our journey.  We always appreciate those who travel along with us.  Leave a comment if you wish.  Send us an email if you have a question or a suggestion to make.  Before I go as always let me leave all of us with something to think about:

As always,  if you are coming to the end of your day with concerns and worries, let me suggest that you turn them over to God.  After all, He is going to be up all night so why not let him handle them for you.

Time now for our evening prayers and eventually some shut-eye.  Till tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s occupants, four paws and two humans.  Our continuing mission: 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

See you on down the road