The weather has been really cold, hard freeze cold, but thankfully only for a few days. It is supposed to warm back up starting today to the mid 60's. The 30's make walking not enjoyable at all!
Karen is kicking it! Walking up and down the driveway. Moving around the house. Doing hours and hours of exercise each day, including physical therapy. She will be running circles around all of us very soon.
Jason came and spent two days with us, also found a rental house in Newnan, GA. Stayed busy by getting all the logistic stuff like electric, water, gas, TV, internet, etc. arranged for, not to mention the moving itself. I'm going to fly (yuck) down to FL to help drive his car back up to Atlanta while he drives the moving truck. It will give us a chance to get some of his stuff out of our storage unit, and I'll be able to see Ray and April. If it wasn't for the flying it would be a fun road trip.
Karen has been plagued with an unusual problem on her motorhome that now and then her fresh water tank fills itself!?! Normally you use a valve, a positive acting ball valve, to allow city water to bypass the coach and go into the water tank. And since the problem was so intermittent, it was easy to just sort of ignore. Well, she must of jinxed us, because just the other day we go to leave our motorhome and notice water running out underneath out of our water tank overflow, so now our tank is filling itself as well! Figure it might be a fluke, so we use the water tank for our water, run it back down to about a third, and find out the next day it is doing it again! Well I track it all down, study the schematics, and the plumbing and find out the only way this can happen is if the water is passing through the water pump. It has an internal check valve, non repairable, of course, so we ordered a new pump. We would do the same for Karen, but her motorhome isn't here right now, it's in Texas about to get a new floor installed. So we will take care of replacing her pump later this year.
I have been wanting to try Pho, a Vietnamese noodle soup for a long time, but for one reason or another never had. Well we found a restaurant here in Louisville that had great ratings, so Jan, Jason, and I went. Vietnam Kitchen had at least 6-7 different Phos to pick from, so Jan had a grilled beef one and I had a beef and meatball version. Well, it was worth the wait! It was delicious! We will get back there several times in our time here, and Tom and Karen want to go as well. They have quite an extensive menu, and looking around we saw a lot of very interesting food we want to try. Wow, a new cuisine to explore.
On another note we got the dreaded note from our insurance company saying they would not be offering us health insurance in 2014, so we get to join the tons of folks in the same boat looking for health insurance for the new year. I think I found a solution and should find out in a week or so. More money no doubt, but we, read me, need it.
We have a couple more projects planned in the upcoming weeks to keep us busy, so in the meantime enjoy your fall!
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
She's home!
Karen's home. The doctor gave her his blessing and she got home around 1pm. She's in familiar surroundings and ready to get the recovery under way. Lots of therapy and healing and soon she'll be as good as new!
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| The patient. |
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Karen's doing well!
Her surgery was short and sweet, 2 hours for both knees! We wondered if the Doc forgot one:-) Up and moving on her own power the next day. Lots of physical therapy. Her real work now begins. Doctor hasn't said yet when she is coming home, looks like Thursday or Friday right now. She's in good spirits and doing what she's told, amazing, huh?
We finally managed to get the salt off the motorhome from our Hatteras visit. One of the downfalls of this lifestyle is getting your rig washed. Most campgrounds won't allow it, so lots of times it gets pretty dirty before you can finally get it clean. Also we are trying a new thing, putting Mop n Glow on the roof. There have been a lot of reports that it keeps the streaks that inevitably come down the sides to a minimum. We'll see, it only took about 15 minutes to apply so no big deal.
We just found out that Jason is coming up to visit for a couple days, he's been searching like a madman for a place to live in Atlanta and has put in a couple offers, so it's a wait and see game now, plus he is in such a whirlwind I'm sure he just wants to calm down for a bit. It'll be a short reprieve since he'll need to head right back down to Florida, pack up, move, unpack in a new place and start work, all in a week! Who knows, maybe while he's here I can get him to crawl under the motorhome and do a little project I have in mind??
We finally managed to get the salt off the motorhome from our Hatteras visit. One of the downfalls of this lifestyle is getting your rig washed. Most campgrounds won't allow it, so lots of times it gets pretty dirty before you can finally get it clean. Also we are trying a new thing, putting Mop n Glow on the roof. There have been a lot of reports that it keeps the streaks that inevitably come down the sides to a minimum. We'll see, it only took about 15 minutes to apply so no big deal.
We just found out that Jason is coming up to visit for a couple days, he's been searching like a madman for a place to live in Atlanta and has put in a couple offers, so it's a wait and see game now, plus he is in such a whirlwind I'm sure he just wants to calm down for a bit. It'll be a short reprieve since he'll need to head right back down to Florida, pack up, move, unpack in a new place and start work, all in a week! Who knows, maybe while he's here I can get him to crawl under the motorhome and do a little project I have in mind??
Sunday, October 20, 2013
The week flew by
Took a look at the blog and realized with a start it has been a week since I posted. We've been busy with stuff, but not sure we really accomplished much. I had a routine dentist appointment that turned into getting a crown that I wasn't expecting. That's okay because I don't want to go through that miserable experience I had In Alabama when an old crown fell off. We both saw our dermatologist so we both look hideous now:-) I don't know what they'd do without that liquid nitrogen! Jan had another doctor appointment, so we are all caught up. The only thing I have to do is go back to Atlanta to get my permanent crown in Mid-November. And that will be good as it will give us a chance to see our son, Jason, who is in the process of moving back there to take a new job that he just got this past week.
Now we are in Louisville and even got our oil change done on the way here at Speedco. It is a very convenient way to get our annual service taken care of at a reasonable price and in a short time without an appointment. Picture a Jiffy Lube for trucks and motorhomes. Just roll in and they take care of you, and they are all over the country so it's pretty convenient.
This will be an interesting next few weeks. Karen is getting both, yes I said both, her knees replaced on Monday. Quite a procedure, so we are hoping we will be able to help out for the next month or so. Wish her luck.
Now we are in Louisville and even got our oil change done on the way here at Speedco. It is a very convenient way to get our annual service taken care of at a reasonable price and in a short time without an appointment. Picture a Jiffy Lube for trucks and motorhomes. Just roll in and they take care of you, and they are all over the country so it's pretty convenient.
This will be an interesting next few weeks. Karen is getting both, yes I said both, her knees replaced on Monday. Quite a procedure, so we are hoping we will be able to help out for the next month or so. Wish her luck.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Shaking Hands
We have the dubious honor of having a campsite that has a view of the dump station. What's a dump station, you say? A dump station is where an RV can dump or empty their holding tanks, gray and black. Gray is the waste water from your sinks and shower and the black, well need I say more?
This campground on Allatoona Lake has only a few full hookup sites, most only have water and electric, that is typical of a campground right on a body of water, what with all the regulations for sewer near water. So this dump station gets a lot of traffic.
Now folks all treat this chore a little differently, some like my late Father-in Law, with complete impunity, all the way up to folks that practically put on hazmat suits to take care of business. Nowadays, most RV's sewer compartments operate pretty much the same way, hook up a 3" flexible hose, put the other end in the dump receptacle, open the black tank valve, let it drain, close the valve, open the gray tank valve to let the gray water wash out the hose, close the valve when empty, restow the hose and you're done. All in all, it is designed to make this easy and fairly clean. Some like our motorhome make it just a even easier with a macerator that uses a 1" hose that never needs to be attached or unhooked as it is permanently attached, so never any leaking or dripping. I digress.
Most folks deem to wear gloves, after all you are dealing with stuff you'd rather not deal with, right? Well, believe it or not, many people don't including my FIL. No big deal, right? Yuck. Jan and I fall into the middle on this, we sanitize the hose, sewer, even the electrical hookups with Clorox solution as we've seen some pretty nasty stuff over the years, and we always wear gloves.
The story this morning, an older couple pulls up to the dump station in a fairly new Class C, probably in their late 70's, both moving pretty slow, in fact she is a bit crippled up with a cane. But they are not new to this game so she is out to direct him where to stop to make this chore as easy as possible, and after only two adjustments she is satisfied. He gets out and makes his way back to the business area, opens a bay door and pulls out a plastic bag with the sewer hose in it. So far so good, but then he reaches in with his bare hands and pulls out the hose. He has to work to get down on his knees to get to the hose hookup on the motorhome, and when he goes to attach the hose, water, I will say water, pours out all over his hands, arms, and the hose he is trying to attach. But he perseveres and gets it hooked up. He then grabs a towel, wipes his hands off, always sanitary:-) He then grabs the other end of the hose, opens up the sewer receptacle, and sticks it in. Meanwhile she hasn't seen any of this because she took this time to throw away some trash in the dumpster nearby. She makes her way back to see him happily dumping, and wiping his hands on the towel. He finishes up, unhooks the hose getting more, remember I said I'll call it water all over his hands, she holds open the plastic bag, he stuffs the dripping hose in, hands her his towel so she can "clean" her hands as well. They restow the bag, close up the compartments, he gets in his side, and she gets in her side and off they go!
The moral of the story is be careful and very, very reluctant to shake anyone's hands in a campground.
This campground on Allatoona Lake has only a few full hookup sites, most only have water and electric, that is typical of a campground right on a body of water, what with all the regulations for sewer near water. So this dump station gets a lot of traffic.
Now folks all treat this chore a little differently, some like my late Father-in Law, with complete impunity, all the way up to folks that practically put on hazmat suits to take care of business. Nowadays, most RV's sewer compartments operate pretty much the same way, hook up a 3" flexible hose, put the other end in the dump receptacle, open the black tank valve, let it drain, close the valve, open the gray tank valve to let the gray water wash out the hose, close the valve when empty, restow the hose and you're done. All in all, it is designed to make this easy and fairly clean. Some like our motorhome make it just a even easier with a macerator that uses a 1" hose that never needs to be attached or unhooked as it is permanently attached, so never any leaking or dripping. I digress.
Most folks deem to wear gloves, after all you are dealing with stuff you'd rather not deal with, right? Well, believe it or not, many people don't including my FIL. No big deal, right? Yuck. Jan and I fall into the middle on this, we sanitize the hose, sewer, even the electrical hookups with Clorox solution as we've seen some pretty nasty stuff over the years, and we always wear gloves.
The story this morning, an older couple pulls up to the dump station in a fairly new Class C, probably in their late 70's, both moving pretty slow, in fact she is a bit crippled up with a cane. But they are not new to this game so she is out to direct him where to stop to make this chore as easy as possible, and after only two adjustments she is satisfied. He gets out and makes his way back to the business area, opens a bay door and pulls out a plastic bag with the sewer hose in it. So far so good, but then he reaches in with his bare hands and pulls out the hose. He has to work to get down on his knees to get to the hose hookup on the motorhome, and when he goes to attach the hose, water, I will say water, pours out all over his hands, arms, and the hose he is trying to attach. But he perseveres and gets it hooked up. He then grabs a towel, wipes his hands off, always sanitary:-) He then grabs the other end of the hose, opens up the sewer receptacle, and sticks it in. Meanwhile she hasn't seen any of this because she took this time to throw away some trash in the dumpster nearby. She makes her way back to see him happily dumping, and wiping his hands on the towel. He finishes up, unhooks the hose getting more, remember I said I'll call it water all over his hands, she holds open the plastic bag, he stuffs the dripping hose in, hands her his towel so she can "clean" her hands as well. They restow the bag, close up the compartments, he gets in his side, and she gets in her side and off they go!
The moral of the story is be careful and very, very reluctant to shake anyone's hands in a campground.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Atlanta
Back in Atlanta, a real love-hate relationship. We like being here, it feels comfortable, homey, good friends, but man the traffic! Your mind erases the bad stuff, thankfully, so when you get back and re-experience it, it is even worse than you remember. But we need to get some Doctors and Dentist appointments out of the way. Jan is flying out to Albuquerque to visit her mom, and Nancy and CT, and that is so much easier from ATL. On the good side, the campground is quiet and looks good, the weather has been fantastic, fall in ATL is usually the best! So with lots of visiting, and doctoring, we'll be here for another week then north to Louisville.
Friday, October 4, 2013
A very interesting campground!
We had to make a choice some time ago about how big a motorhome is best? Obviously bigger is better in some regards as to living room and storage, but too big also keeps you out of a lot of campgrounds and makes maneuvering a bit challenging sometimes. Well, as you know, we went with big, 45' long and almost 13' high. And we accepted the fact we were cutting ourselves out of a lot of places, i.e., we can't stay in Yellowstone at Fishing Bridge anymore due to our size. We also are in the habit of asking whenever we contact a campground if we can fit. We use the Trailer Life/Woodall directory to choose most of our campgrounds with huge emphasis on their rating system, particularly the last number. They rate using 3 numbers, such as 8/8/9. The first number is completeness of the facility, does it have a pool, mini golf, clubhouse, rec hall, etc, we don't really worry about this, in fact we like a lower number on this as it means a less hectic place. The middle number is how clean and nice are the rest rooms, showers, and laundry, we don't care about that either as we don't use the campground's facilities. It's the last number we look at and that is visual attractiveness. How beautiful are the grounds, how scenic is the area, is the landscaping nice, etc. The rating go as high as 10/10/10, and there aren't too many 10's out there.
Soooo, after our mad exodus from the OBX, we were looking for a campground somewhere in the Asheville area and saw Mama Gertie's, rated 8.5/10/10! And it was shown as big rig friendly. Now big rig friendly means that the sites are big enough, the roads are wide enough, the trees trimmed enough, the turns can be made all for a 40-45' motorhome or 5th wheel. We called ahead and made a reservation, they said no problem for our size, good to go.
So just east of Asheville we get off the exit, make a left and head UP a narrow two lane highway towards the campground. Okay. Then we see the entrance, nice and wide and well marked and notice how STEEP the road is, hmmmmm. In we go and stop at the office, and there is such a slope that I say to Jan with a smile that I will stay in the motorhome in case it slips down the hill. As I sit there I look around and although it is very wooded I notice other rigs parked way, way up the mountain in front of us. Thinking wow, they are up there, well they did tell us there was a gorgeous view. Jan comes out and says they will escort us up the hill to our site, and be SURE to drive exactly where the golf cart goes, hmmmmm. Well straight up we go, winding our way past all the rigs I saw from the parking lot, then on up and up past another group of RVs, on up and up twisting around and scraping pretty bad in a couple spots, finally up to the top, and see the U-turn in front of us knowing I can't make it with the Jeep still attached. Yeah, it is still hooked up, I had no idea what we were in store for and no one said to disconnect, and there was certainly nowhere on our ascent to unhook. So we unhook and make it around to an absolutely beautiful site with an amazing view, but with the over shadowing feeling of dread knowing we would have to go back DOWN the hill and around several very sharp turns!
We had a very nice stay, met some very nice people, enjoyed our million dollar views and then the next morning went down the hill. It wasn't pretty, very scary, front tires sliding along one time, hitting the rear end of our motorhome enough to mangle our rock guard, but we managed to get out and we have to say as nice as the campground was and as incredible the views were, we will never take our motorhome there again. Now if we were smaller, I would go back in a heart beat, it WAS that beautiful. Also the owners and managers could not have been nicer. They have put a lot of work into this place and are adding more sites to the top of the hill where we were, and were willing to help and alter things to make it better. We were the first 45'er to go all the way up, and they mentioned they have a Prevost coming next week, and they ride even lower than we do so.......we'll see. He is going to try to fix some of the areas where we dragged and we wish him luck because this place could be spectacular. But for us we get to chalk up another one of THOSE experiences to our repertoire.
Soooo, after our mad exodus from the OBX, we were looking for a campground somewhere in the Asheville area and saw Mama Gertie's, rated 8.5/10/10! And it was shown as big rig friendly. Now big rig friendly means that the sites are big enough, the roads are wide enough, the trees trimmed enough, the turns can be made all for a 40-45' motorhome or 5th wheel. We called ahead and made a reservation, they said no problem for our size, good to go.
So just east of Asheville we get off the exit, make a left and head UP a narrow two lane highway towards the campground. Okay. Then we see the entrance, nice and wide and well marked and notice how STEEP the road is, hmmmmm. In we go and stop at the office, and there is such a slope that I say to Jan with a smile that I will stay in the motorhome in case it slips down the hill. As I sit there I look around and although it is very wooded I notice other rigs parked way, way up the mountain in front of us. Thinking wow, they are up there, well they did tell us there was a gorgeous view. Jan comes out and says they will escort us up the hill to our site, and be SURE to drive exactly where the golf cart goes, hmmmmm. Well straight up we go, winding our way past all the rigs I saw from the parking lot, then on up and up past another group of RVs, on up and up twisting around and scraping pretty bad in a couple spots, finally up to the top, and see the U-turn in front of us knowing I can't make it with the Jeep still attached. Yeah, it is still hooked up, I had no idea what we were in store for and no one said to disconnect, and there was certainly nowhere on our ascent to unhook. So we unhook and make it around to an absolutely beautiful site with an amazing view, but with the over shadowing feeling of dread knowing we would have to go back DOWN the hill and around several very sharp turns!
We had a very nice stay, met some very nice people, enjoyed our million dollar views and then the next morning went down the hill. It wasn't pretty, very scary, front tires sliding along one time, hitting the rear end of our motorhome enough to mangle our rock guard, but we managed to get out and we have to say as nice as the campground was and as incredible the views were, we will never take our motorhome there again. Now if we were smaller, I would go back in a heart beat, it WAS that beautiful. Also the owners and managers could not have been nicer. They have put a lot of work into this place and are adding more sites to the top of the hill where we were, and were willing to help and alter things to make it better. We were the first 45'er to go all the way up, and they mentioned they have a Prevost coming next week, and they ride even lower than we do so.......we'll see. He is going to try to fix some of the areas where we dragged and we wish him luck because this place could be spectacular. But for us we get to chalk up another one of THOSE experiences to our repertoire.
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| Our site |
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| Looking out past our neighbor |
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| Our view |
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Outta here
A quick post. I guess Jan and I really aren't beach people :-) I knew I wasn't but even Jan has had enough. We've enjoyed our time here and are glad we came, but we've both had enough sand and wind for awhile. We are even leaving a day early. That coupled with a new neighbor that has set up loud wind chimes for their(??)enjoyment. With their windows closed I guess they have them set up for us?? And leaves their outside lights on all night, grrrr. We have to admit we don't experience this type of inconsiderate behavior very often. Most folks that do this realize that sometimes living quarters are tight and it's important to be considerate of your neighbors. That's why when it happens it makes a big impression.
So we are off for places unknown right now although we are basically headed for Atlanta. Moved up our doctors appointments and get a chance to visit with friends before going up to Louisville.
So we are off for places unknown right now although we are basically headed for Atlanta. Moved up our doctors appointments and get a chance to visit with friends before going up to Louisville.
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