The Circle Is Complete

We left you still in Blue Ridge, and the rains did come, the dregs of Ian, so Jan made yet another awesome dinner, spicy chicken and peppers stir fry.

I know I have mentioned many times our frustration with the somewhat new phenomenon of lighting your rig up like a Walmart parking lot and then leaving those lights on all night long, this was a small example.  All I have to say is, why, why, why??

We moved as planned to our friends, John and Diane's lake house on Lake Oconee, actually their cul-de-sac, and spent 2 great nights there.  We had a nice visit, more great food along with super bourbon and cigars, and of course solved many of the problems of the world.

John and I doing some of that problem solving

And we really enjoyed a bourbon we had never had before, a gift from our son Jason, Peg Leg Porker.

And after that we continued on to Ocala to get the motorhome's oil service and chassis lube done and stayed in their parking lot the evening before, and we did make ourselves comfortable:-)

We were taken care of early the next morning and off we went headed south to our winter digs, when we received several texts from friends and family telling us there was an RV still in our site, and that we'd better call the office to see what was what.  Turned out we got quite a surprise, somehow the park where we stay screwed up the date for our arrival and thought we were coming on the 17th, not the 16th that we had reserved!  Luckily we were proactive about it rather than waiting until we arrived, especially since they did not have any available site to fit us for the night.  We were still a little above Tampa, so we immediately pulled over and started looking for a campground that had room, also luckily it is still November, and there are a few sites still available on short notice.  We picked a park in Riverview, Hidden River, which turned out to be very nice.  It was quiet, parklike, with large gravel sites with concrete patios with nice spacing between sites.

Even the turtles liked it there

That left us only a short drive to Royal Coachman the next day, so we got situated on our site and enjoyed a too short visit with Jan's sister Karen and her husband and our neighbor for the next 5 months, Tom, and our great friends' Debbie and Harold who joined us as well, that we'll be spending time with for the next 5 months.  It was nice welcome.

Karen and Tom

Harold and Debbie

Funny, looking at this group of pictures, you'd think we weren't having fun and enjoying ourselves, believe me, we were:-)

This actually is the earliest we have ever been in Florida, usually we don't arrive until well into December, so it will be a change of pace, and as usual the posts will slow down.  We'll show you some projects we will be doing, do a recap on our travels this year, and babble a bit about whatever we happen to have going.  We do have some big plans, and changes ahead of us, but more on that later.

Wow! Things Change

Our time in Blue Ridge is turning out a little different than we thought.  We initially had 3 dentist appointments, and actually ended up with 6, on 4 different days!  Mind you it is about 80 miles each way, so we are spending quite a bit of time in the truck, and not getting some other things done:-)  No complaints though, between Jan's surgeon and our wonderful dentist they have accommodated us magnificently.  They realize that we nomads can be a bit of a challenge and they have certainly taken care of us.  But there is good news in here as well, I had a bit of a problem and found out I needed to replace a very old filling which was accomplished, Jan was able to get her new implant and with the new technology, she will be able to get scanned for the crown by computer instead of with the yucky putty, immediately, and will be able to get her crown when we come through northbound in April.

We did have some pretty weather.

As for our projects, the step is fixed, finally.  It turned out to be a bit challenging, doesn't it always?  Jan, the diesel mechanic, spent most of the time underneath, and took a bunch of pictures to be sure of how the linkage was connected, but even so, it was not intuitive, so with a few false starts and stalls, and me along with her underneath we got it sorted out and it is working.  Of course like any of these projects time will ultimately tell.

Jan cleaning things up and getting set to dismantle

The new motor and linkage assembly

One of the bushings with bolt, washers, and nut.
The second one was not done this way which is what stymied us for a bit

Removed

The old one, pretty yucky, huh?

All in, beautiful!!

Our roof is fiberglass and over the years, especially being in the sun all day everyday, the gel coat surface has eroded a bit and become chalky.  There are several ways to address it with many differing opinions.  We decided we were going to paint it with a marine topside paint, but being outside the weather is a huge factor, and the roof had to be really cleaned to get ready for paint.  Since I had to make the unexpected trip to the dentist, Jan jumped up while I was gone and cleaned and prepped the roof.

Now that is clean!

Unfortunately, the remnants of Nicole are forecast to arrive with lots of rain and wind, so we didn't get to paint, but we will get it done soon.  Also with the additional days traveling back and forth, the installation of the new black tank sensor will have to wait until Florida, no big deal, as we have been living with it for awhile now.  As to the generator, we hadn't been using it much as it has been mostly cool, but the other day, I started it up for some AC and it only produced power on one leg instead of both.  The circuit breaker on the generator is a single throw, double pole, so I went down to reset it, and promptly broke the switch right off!  It was very reluctant to move, and was full of grit and dirt, so we ordered a new one, unfortunately it is a proprietary part from Onan and the nearest store was in Gainesville, 1 1/2 hours away.  At least I tied it into my trip to the dentist and cut one leg off instead of making a separate trip for just it.

You can see where the switch used to be:-)

And just like most things, if access was better, it would only be a 5 minute job, so 40 minutes later I got it in and it now works like a champ.

Also while we were here we wanted to check out a new campground in Ellijay, the next town south, and closer to Atlanta by 21 miles.  It is Talona Ridge, a very nice resort, all paved, all concrete sites, big place with amenities and killer views.  We have already made our reservation for the spring when we come through here again.

So a couple more trips to Atlanta, a very rainy day coming, and we'll be heading south again, will stop at friends on the way, get the coach's oil change and lube along the way in Ocala, then we'll be back in Florida for the winter.  Stay tuned.

Quick Update

We are now in Murphy, NC, and will leave later today to move down to Blue Ridge, GA, before we really roll on down to Florida.  I don't think I mentioned it previously, but the campground we liked so much outside of Franklin, NC, Deer Springs, had no cellular service at all, not even a glimmer, so the way the park handled it was with Starlink, the business version.  We were anxious to give it a try, and for the most part were very pleased.  We are seeing more and more "Dishy's" in our travels.  The Dishy is the current rectangular antenna that picks up Elon Musk's satellites and provides internet service.  We have been fighting internet service for years, and manage mostly with a Verizon hotspot, and tethering our phones, one on AT&T and one on Verizon.  It has met most of our needs, except we have been to many places out west particularly, but this year even here in the east that have been marginal at best, and streaming is always a challenge.  SL is now the new kid on the block and we are finding most folks are very pleased.  We were too for the most part as I said, but we had an entire morning when we couldn't get any service and another day with on and off service.  Now we have no idea if it is usual, or just an anomaly at the park or just on that one unit.  We have started doing some research to see if it might be a solution for us, with a large caveat, we would have to change our way of watching TV if we did it.  We use DirecTV and mostly it is okay, although the service is going downhill and the prices keep going up.  We pay about $180/month for Direct, and approximately $75/month for our hotspot.  SL is about $135/month, and to watch TV we'd need to use something like YouTube TV which is about $65/month, could we do it, would it be superior, all questions we are going to try and figure out.  BTW, any comments or suggestions on this subject would be welcome.

We have spent the last week here in Murphy at one of our favorite campgrounds, Peachtree Cove.  We love it, it is small, quiet, has large sites with a pretty little stream running through the middle of it.

It is close, 20 miles, to the Nantahala River, an excellent trout stream, so we ran up to see what was what, found the water very low, but Jan gave it a go, and got several bites, but no fish.  It was a gorgeous day, so it all was worth it:-)

We had another errand to run and that was to go back to have Cuban food in Blairsville, it was yummy, I had shrimp, and Jan had pork.

We had a couple rainy days, but for the most part the weather was wonderful, we were able to go walk along the river path in Murphy several times, sit out almost every evening to enjoy a fire, drinks, and cigars, but one of the most important things we had to do while here was drive down to the Atlanta area, 100 miles, so Jan could go to the oral surgeon to see if she would be able to get another implant while we were here in the area.  This for one reason or another has been plaguing her for over 3 years, part of the time issue is just the process, you have to give it time for the bone to heal and the implant to be firm enough for a crown, then there is the impression and the time it takes to get the permanent.  And in her case she went through all of that, but for some reason the implant loosened, so she had to have the implant removed, a bone graft, and the time then to make sure all was well for another implant.  Well we got that done and she got a passing grade!  So next week, this time from Blue Ridge, 20 miles closer, she has a 715am appt to have the implant put in.  Yipes, that's early for a 1 1/2 hour drive, but after all this time she is welcoming it.  So after that, she will have to wait again for the impression and crown and we are hopeful we can get all that done next year when we come back out of Florida.  We ran a couple other errands, picked up some Amazon packages, and finally got back at 7pm.

We went back up to the Nantahala yesterday and found the river even lower, in fact we talked to a local that fishes it more than 200 times a year, and has been for years, said he has never seen the river that low, oh well, maybe in the spring, we'll see.

So last night Jan outdid herself again, this Asian cooking is wonderful, prepared Spicy Korean Stir Fry with beef flankens, and OMG, was it good!

We'll be in Blue Ridge for about 10 days, and we have several projects, and a lot of things to do while there.  We intend to fix our entry step once and for all, install a new sensor for our black tank, paint the roof of the coach, more on that later, get Jan's hair cut, run to Gainesville, GA to get a new circuit breaker for the generator, more on that later also, make 2 trips down to Atlanta, one for dental cleanings and doctor appts, and obviously the one to get Jan's implant, so needless to say we'll be busy.