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.