Glad to Report We're Safe Update

We left north Georgia on Monday the 23rd to do our little loop trip for about a month, and our first stop was Marion, NC, just west of Asheville, NC.  We had reservations there for 10 days.  

Jan and I are big believers that things happen for a reason, and our experience is another example of it.  On our trip over to Marion, I noticed that the boost on the engine was reading high sometimes, way higher than I had ever seen it in 200,000 miles, something not right.  Normally the max I see is about 41-42 pounds, but often I was reading 49!  We got into our site and did some research and the next morning Tuesday I called around and found a Detroit Diesel shop in Charlotte that sounded pretty good.  Although I thought it was the turbo$$$$ at first it is now my and the tech I spoke to's opinion that it is probably the waste gate, controller, or actuator.  We'll see and our fingers are crossed.  It drives fine, normal power although it does pour out some black smoke at higher boost pressures.  Later we went into Black Mountain for a great lunch, then took a ride down through Chimney Rock and Lake Lure on the way back, great day.  The next day Wednesday, we went into Asheville to have a wonderful lunch at one of our favorite places, a Vietnamese restaurant, Wild Ginger, then went over to Biltmore Village to a nice cigar shop we like, talked with the clerk about cigars, etc, picked up a couple sticks and came back.  Now of course we had been watching the progress of  Helene, but it was still south of Tampa, although the forecast in our area was for hard rain with a possibility of 8-10 inches, and even though it was raining pretty good there was no wind so we were able to go outside under our awning to have a drink and a cigar.

And though it was raining, we went to bed without another thought, until at 1am I woke up to pounding on our door.  Got myself gathered together enough to see what was happening and there were two emergency personnel telling us we would have to evacuate right now!  It was pouring hard, so Jan and I pulled ourselves together got everything loaded up, flag and weather station down, and then what?  Where were we going to go?  Luckily we had been in this area before and knew there was a large parking area about 3 miles away, we figured we'd get there, hope it wasn't flooded, and try to figure out what to do.  We parked there, the rain is pouring down, and we try to lie down and get a little sleep before the dawn.  That didn't work very well as we were worried the parking lot could flood.  We got a nap maybe, made some coffee and had breakfast, by now the sun had come up, still raining hard, so we looked and looked for somewhere to stay in the area that wasn't flooded, no luck.  At 9am, we jumped in the truck to go back over to the campground to see what was up.  Half of the sites were already under water.  We stopped in the office and amazingly were offered a full refund!  Great folks and customer service, especially since it was in no way their fault.  So now we felt we could easily move on down towards Charlotte to be closer for our appointment.  We weren't finding anything close in, so finally we found a park in Statesville, NC, about 35 miles north of Charlotte that had room.

Off we went, I tried really hard to keep the boost down, but it was difficult in the hilly conditions and pouring rain, and now we were really blowing black smoke with any boost over 30, but it was running fine.  We got into the campground and got settled in the rain.  The next day was very windy and still raining, and we wanted to go see where the service center was and, of course, find some lunch:-)

We were laughing at how we wouldn't be able to go back to the Vietnamese restaurant in Asheville the 2 or 3 times we were planning, so it was astounding that when I looked up restaurants in Charlotte on TripAdvisor, that of the 1600 places, the very first one was a Vietnamese restaurant Lang Van.  So off we went, we couldn't believe all the damage we saw even in Charlotte, downed trees across homes, downed power lines, flooded closed streets, etc!  We found the service center, won't be too bad getting there, and then the restaurant, oh wow, amazing!  Service and food wonderful, so we found a great replacement.

By Saturday the rain had stopped and by Saturday night the wind had stopped.  We are counting our blessings we moved out of the Asheville area.  I'm sure by now you've seen the reports and videos of that area, I mentioned Chimney Rock and Lake Lure, they are destroyed.  Biltmore Village where we bought the cigars and walked around under 4 feet of water.  All roads in western NC are closed to anything but emergency traffic, the interstates are closed, and in some cases wiped out, bridges are gone, whole towns are gone.  It is hard to imagine the destruction this storm brought to this area!

The next post will tell what we find with our engine, how much our plans will have changed, and what we plan to be doing in the next several weeks.  Hope all of you are safe.

One More Week Until Our Little Trip

We moved sites for the last time until we have to leave in a week.  The hot, hot weather has abated and has become wonderful.  

We actually broke things up a bit with a couple projects, one minor and one we really had to get done, especially before we start moving again.  But before I begin I just have to share a little recipe we found on line somewhere, I think it was in a Facebook reel.  Anyway Jan and I love prime rib, but we seldom have enough people to make it worthwhile, so when I saw a way to cook a small, like 2-2 1/2 inch thick piece perfectly I couldn't believe it.  So we gave it a try, and were amazed at how perfectly it turned out.  The recipe is as follows: Season however you like, we used salt, pepper, and some garlic powder, then weigh it.  Preheat the oven to 500 degrees, we used 450 as ours won't go any higher, then cook standing up, we used tin foil to hold it, for 5 minutes a pound, then turn the oven off and let it sit for 2 hours, DO NOT OPEN the door.  Pull it out slice in two and serve.  What do you think?

Amazing, right?  It was delicious.

John and Diane came up and met us for lunch, then we went into Blue Ridge, poked around a bit, then went to a great brewery, Grumpy Old Men for a quaff, then back for bourbon and cigars, dinner and a great visit.  Did I get any pictures, no.

Our other project was to repair one of our slide out awnings.  Some time ago we were in Oregon at a service center and since the awning fabric hadn't been lined up properly I had asked them to fix it.  We weren't there when they did it so unbeknownst to us they had taken a big vise grip and brutally slid the aluminum extrusion to center the fabric.  Well with time it failed, the ends cracked and came apart allowing the fabric to pull out.  A real mess.  I had taken care of the other end awhile back, but now the other side needed attention.  We would need two ladders to make this happen.  John had been letting us store our step ladder at his place, and because all the sites here are nice level concrete, and we were getting ready for our short trip, we felt the time had come.  Sure enough John had a ladder we could borrow so with ours and his we got it done.

The mangled mess.  The destroyed extrusion on the left,
and the end of the awning fabric on the right

Rather than replacing the entire extrusion, it is almost 15' long, so shipping was far, far more than the part, we opted to just attach a short piece riveted in place like we did at the other end.

First trick is to cut the broken piece out, easier said than done.

Then cut off a matching piece of extrusion.

Then rivet the connector on, slip it in, drill a new hole, do the final rivet, release the fabric, and done, and once again I was remiss and didn't get a picture of the final job.  I might have to be fired.

The connecting piece needs to be straightened,
the final hole needs to be drilled and the rivet set

We saw this guy while we were out and about, it was about 4' long.  We think it is a rat snake, supposedly harmless, do any of you know?

We stopped for some more great sushi on our way back to John and Diane's to return the ladders.

It turned into a great time, we stayed for first, bourbon and cigars, then friends' Ted and Patty came, we all had Chinese for dinner, all capped off with a fire!  We had a wonderful time, a superb visit, we hadn't seen Ted and Patty in ages, and the weather was perfect, we even spent the night.  Thanks guys!

Ted, John, and I on the men's side:-)

Diane and Patty, Jan's taking the picture on the girls side

Jan, Patty, Diane, John, and Ted

John, Ted, and Moi

Jan, Patty, and Diane

I have to add we did solve many of the world's problems and may have consumed a little booze while doing it:-)

Cheers!

Quick Update

It seems like the main thing we have been accomplishing is putting a ton of miles on the truck:-)  Each round trip to Dr's or other appts, is a minimum of a 75 mile round trip and several run into 125.  This is a very nice campground but with Atlanta's dearth of campgrounds it is really the closest decent place so it is what it is.  Does have pretty sunsets though.

I got my new hearing aid and wow, I can pretty much hear out of my left ear now, amazing.  On one of our trips south we had some awesome chicken soup at a favorite Mexican place.

We have been doing a lot of exploring around North Georgia and decided to go check out the "south side", near Newnan, Peachtree City, and Fayetteville, where we really hadn't been since we moved here in 1998.  We saw a lot of nice country and managed to find a great brewery for a mid afternoon beer, something we do very rarely, I'll blame the heat:-)  But it has been HOT, high 90's and into the 100's!  

Even managed to have lunch at a favorite, Ted's Montana Grill, a bison salad and a bison burger.  And, of course, their famous pickles, two dishes worth.

Jan got her lip treated and hopefully that will do it for a while.  My physical therapy for my shoulder has ended and I would say it is mostly a winner, at least 90%, so much better.  Then Murphy just had to raise his head.  I went into the oral surgeons to get my tooth extracted and when he hooked me up for the anesthesia he said you're in A-fib.  What?  That was what I supposedly had fixed when we went back to Florida. Well, he said nonetheless you are in it now.  Anyway, he popped my tooth out and since it was so tight to the crown behind it, he told me it had come off during the extraction and he temporarily glued it back on until I could get to my regular dentist.  So two days later another 120 mile round trip to get the crown aligned properly and permanently glued on.  Then I contacted my heart rhythm Doc, sent him a copy of the read out, and the result is I am now wearing a heart monitor for a week.  It's pretty small and pretty much a non-event.  Then after the week we'll see what is what.  It's funny because I have zero symptoms, so fingers crossed.

Back to food.  We found a new to us Asian place, Asian Cuisine, which was pretty good.

Hot and Sour soup

Calamari

Pad Thai

We also have found at least 3 seafood restaurants in the general area, amazing because there just isn't much around here.  We tried another recently, Salty Mule, quite good, in Canton.

Clam chowder

Ahi tuna wontons

Bang Bang shrimp

Very good conch fritters

So we tried to extend our stay here through October, since we already have a reservation for the month of November.  No such luck, turns out October is the highest season of the year, the leaf peepers combined with two weekends of apple festivals fills the park to overflowing, so we made some plans to travel around instead.  We are almost out of appointments, yay, still have several things to do, some more visits with friends before we leave in about 3 weeks.