Another tough month

We started the month off with taking three pairs of shoes to the repair shop and were surprised the bill was only $46. We also stopped at Sam's for some items only they carry. Nov 4^th Larry started repairing the skylight that we discovered was damaged in the hail storm in July 2013, only to find the replacement we had ordered wasn't correct. What a nightmare as the correct one is no longer made so it took several tries and Larry finally just 'making do' to get the hole in the roof covered after two weeks being 'open'.

Larry cutting the plastic piece to replace the inside liner that is no longer made for our skylight

Larry putting the finishing touches on our new skylight over the shower

Larry's new i-Phone arrived November 6^th and boy, is it big! He is happy with it though so that is what matters. I did a pizza shop after church on November 9 ^th at a new location. It is so nice to have our meal paid for! We were supposed to go with Dawn and Vince to Olive Garden for Veteran's Day free vet meal but Vince was sick so we went to lunch at Chili's for a free meal. Larry had fajita's and I had quesadillas which were wonderful.

Larry's  new i-Phone beside his old one

On November 17^th we went with Vince and Dawn to Golden Corral for their free Monday Veteran's meal and had a wonderful meal. We went later that last year and had a much shorter wait time which was well worth it. November 17^th we were also informed Larry's mother was found dead so we went to Prescott on Tuesday to find the will and other important papers. We went back to Prescott on Friday to sign papers for her cremation at the mortuary, get his mother's rings from another mortuary and take the original will to the attorney. The death certificate was not signed until Friday so nothing could be done before. Her cremains will be buried with her husband in the VA National Cemetary in Phoenix and we will transport them to Phoenix when all the arrangements have been made.

God blessed us again when the air filter for the MH that we bought in 2005 and later discovered was the wrong one, after many years was replaced for free! A very long complicated story that involves three deaths but the final outcome was we now have the correct air filter and they even gave us kits to renew it and it will outlive us. God is good all the time!

November 22 the park had their annual free Thanksgiving dinner and had 66 folks present with 8 shut in dinners delivered. It was wonderful as usual and included all the usual food, turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing, cranberry, roll, corn and pumpkin pie.

November 24 we took the Smart to Mercedes Benz in Chandler and had several things done including changing the oil, new wiper blades, special side emblems replaced, and an 'idiot' light put out (why we made the appt. in the first place) and the bill was only $62 which we thought was great. They also washed the car. On the way home we stopped at Honey Baked Ham for our turkey breasts for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Day we all met at 4 PM at the clubhouse in our park, had a great meal, good conversation and didn't get home until after 10 PM. It was great seeing the family all together again after almost a year. Millie is walking and is a real cutie.

Our 'cold' buffet table for our Thanksgiving dinner

Cere't and Grandma at Thanksgiving

Feeding our faces

More Thanksgiving  talk

Millie with her Aunt Cere't

We ended the month with another shop after church at a Mexican place in Scottsdale. Always nice to have our Sunday meals paid for!

Back to our leased site

We started October off with a tour of the Newell factory in Miami, OK and Larry was really impressed and said he understood why they cost so much. He has been drooling over them since he drove one in Perry, GA in 2005 when they cost only $800,000. I don't have to worry about one in our future anytime soon as we are not millionaires.  But, we get million dollar views!

                                     

Awesome sunset in Grove, OK

The replacement alternator arrived and Larry was able to get it installed and everything working before we needed to leave Grove, OK which was good. Then it was on to Lake Texoma for three days where we went into 'town' to get our mail. We camped in an area just inside the gate where no one else was camped and had the whole place to ourselves, very quiet and nice.     

Lake Texoma TTN where we had the entire loop to ourselves

       

The tall faucet Larry purchased at Colaw's RV & Salvage in Joplin, MO installed.  He is a happy camper now.

At Lake Whitney TTN we camped in the pull thru area where there were very few campers. We had planned to visit Skillet's for catfish while in the area because we had really enjoyed going there several times in 2005 but it has closed and is now a pizza place. We did get to Cleburne to see friends from seminary days and met other friends in Whitney for lunch at Tres Hermanos for chimachungas.
                             

Friends Larry and Eldonna with us at Great Buffet in Cleburne,TX

           

Monday, October 20 we over nighted in Fort Stockton at a PA park we have stayed at before and Tues it was a short trip to Big Bend National Park but it rained the entire way there and most of the day. We stopped at the Visitor's Center and watched a wonderful film about the park and enjoyed looking at the relief map of the park. Since the weather was so dismal we left and spent the night at a campground in Terlingua, TX just three miles from the west park entrance. Wednesday the 22 was a beautiful day and we enjoyed Alpine, TX as it was well laid out and then spent the night at WalMart in Las Cruces, NM. There was a fellow there who wanted to polish our wheels and when he offered to do all six for $15 we agreed and went to K Bob's Steakhouse for dinner while he did our wheels. He did a great job and we asked if he would do the trailer wheels too for another $15 which he did. At least the rig didn't look nearly as dirty with the wheels shining!

The west entrance to Big Bend National Park, TX

             

A view of Big Bend National Park.  Didn't get many 'views' since it rained most of the day.  

The 23^rd we stopped at the Voyager in Tucson for a week since we could stay under TTN for $3 a night. It is a big place with 1556 sites and every imaginable kind of craft, game, etc anyone would ever want to do. Since it was still October there were a lot of empty sites. If we were into that sort of thing, it would be a nice place to stay longer but since all that isn't what we are looking for, we could not justify the additional cost over our Phoenix site.

We arrived at our leased site around 1 PM on Thursday Oct 30 and are reasonably set up. Larry still has to decide just what he wants to do to level the trailer since one side is on concrete and the other side in gravel. He is thinking of removing the tires on the high side (which is the side the door is on) so he won't have to climb so high as his knees have been giving him fits or put the riser he made last year under the tires on the gravel side. We went to Chompie's for supper with Dawn and Vince and had a wonderful meal, staying until they closed.  McGraw Detailing came out Friday and washed both the trailer and the coach and they look like new again. We decided to have them come out again before we leave in May and wash and wax the coach to help keep it looking like new. We had a Fed-Ex delivery yesterday and the Fed-Ex fellow was really confused as he said the lot was empty when he came by the day before which was entirely right. That's why we have a 'home on wheels'!                      

All set up at our leased site in Phoenix where we will be for the winter

Heading West

On Tuesday Sept 2 we had a family service at the cemetery for my stepmother. It was nice I was able to be part of that service since we missed the celebration service at the church on Aug 15.  

The family at the grave side service

We then turned our focus to the upcoming wedding and helped decorate the reception area. I had nice visits with my niece's and families and it was a lovely wedding. Cousins came from IL and MO so I was able to catch up on many family activities.  

Karen the beautiful bride and her mother, Dee

Where the wedding reception was held, all decorated

Tuesday the 9^th we traveled to Richmond to see Larry's brother and sister-in law. Their daughter, Cyndi stopped by in the afternoon with three grandkids so we were able to see his side of the family also.   

Ellen and Nancy at Golden Corral in Richmond

    

Amanda and Cyndi in Richmond

With all the rain, we decided we needed new windshield wipers for the MH since the old ones are many years old and not doing a very good job. We found them on line and Larry finally put them on when we were in MO.

While we were still in IN we visited the Earnie Pyle Museum in Dana, IN with several veterans who visited the campground in their WW II vehicles. It was a very interesting tour and I learned much about the war I did not know before. We also took a day for me to see covered bridges. We visited seven bridges in about 30 miles. We stopped at the Rock Run cafe which was an old gas station that has been turned into a really unique restaurant.

One of the many scenes from the Earnie Pyle Museum

   

One of the seven covered bridges we saw while in IN

We were still having issues with the inside duals and stopped two more times at truck stops and now I think they are finally fixed.

We are currently in Grove, OK and last weekend we went to the HarBer Village Museum since they had a special free admission day. The village consists on 102 buildings, many actual log cabins that have been moved and re-built on the property. It was very interesting and well done. It was founded in 1968 by Harvey (Har) and Bernice (Ber) Jones. They had a summer lake house on Grand Lake and that's where the village is located. They never had children so focused their attention on collecting old things.  

      

The music display at HarBer Village Museum, Grove, OK

Sept 29 we went to Colaw's RV Salvage and parts store in Carthage, MO. They have tons of salvage parts and a huge building of new parts. Larry found a tall faucet for his sink that he has been wanting for a long time so he can wash his arms when he comes in. That will be a future project.

On the way here, (Grove,OK) all the 12 volt electric went out on the coach which meant no gauges, no lights, no water, and no toilet. We stopped at a rest stop so Larry could try to figure out what happened. He finally decided the alternator died and when it did it sent a jolt to the inverters and they promptly shut down. After re-setting them we still didn't have 12 volt electric but a call to the Monaco tech line fixed that with a toggle to the battery cut off switch by the front door. We are currently waiting for the new alternator to arrive so we can continue on our trip west.

 

We have tires!!

August was a tough month but we finally have our tires and we are in Indiana now.

FMCA notified us they are quitting the mail forwarding business Sept 30 so that gave us a good excuse to get an OR address. We went to the DMV and are now considered “continuous travelers” and have an Oregon mailing address.

I did a Carl's Jr shop and really like the new Texas BBQ Thickburger, so much so we went back a few days later for more.

Since my stepmother had a stroke July 26 and we wanted to get to IN ASAP to see her before anything else happened, Larry did some investigation and was able to contact an executive at Michelin and Praise God! the exec. responded to Larry's e-mail! Unfortunately she passed away Monday Aug 11 and the Michelin executive told us on Tuesday Aug 12 he was successful in finding tires for us. We went to Klamath Falls Wed night and had our tires Thursday morning Aug 14. While in K Falls we saw our friends, Margaret and David, who have a place there. On Friday Aug 15 we made it to the FMCA Redmond Rally. That night Larry discovered our two new drive tires were very low on air pressure, one side at 60 lbs and the other side at 74 lbs when they should have been 120 lbs! He was pretty upset and spent the next hour airing them back up. Saturday morning he called Klamath Falls and then we talked to the tire exhibitor at the Rally to see if we had ruined the tires. Both dealers said they didn't think so since the most we could have driven on them was 150 miles. We took the MH to the local Redmond tire dealer (about 2 miles away) and had the tires 'tanked' to see where they were leaking. When they took the tires off they noticed a line on the back of the inside duals and further investigation showed they were hitting a bolt head! Larry ground half of the bolt head off so the tires would clear. PTL! If we had not lost so much air pressure we would have never known about the bolt head hitting the tires and that could have been disastrous! We had ordered a larger tire size and Larry had checked to be sure the tires would fit but missed the bolt head at the top but God didn't. The air loss was caused by a bad valve stem on one side and a bad tire monitor sensor on the other side. We left Redmond after the tires were tanked and aired and the bolt heads ground down and spent the night near Dayville, OR by a babbling brook. We stopped at the weigh station near Prineville, OR and Larry adjusted the trailer tongue so we are now level and balanced front to back at nearly perfect.  

The bolt that was hitting the inside duals that Larry ground off

The 'babbling brook' we overnighted by in Dayville,OR

Indians preforming at Rushmore Shadows RV in Rapid City, SD

At Sturgis, SD with an Amsoil sign greeting everyone as they entered the town

We spent a week at Rushmore Shadows in Rapid City, SD. We took out just the bike and went to Mount Rushmore only we didn't go in since they are charging $11 just to park so we went to Custer State Park instead and enjoyed seeing “the boys” thru several tunnels, a really cool sight. We also took a ride to Sturgis, SD and ended up purchasing T shirts that say '2014 Sturgis Rally'. The campground we had reservations for in IN called us on Sunday Aug 24 to tell us they could not accommodate us because of all the rain and flooding they were experiencing so I had to do some scrambling since Labor Day weekend was upcoming. All the campgrounds were full so we ended up staying with my old classmate like we have before since he has pavement and a generous heart.

Mount Rushmore seen from a tunnel on the road to Custer State Park, SD

Where we are staying in IN at my former classmates' place.  The trees are on the south side give us some protection from the winds and also 'hide' us from the house

Where I grew up only the trees were much smaller then

The house I grew up in from the east

The wait continues!

The first came and went and I missed it!  I worked and totally forgot about the date.

We were notified by Basin Tire that we will not be getting our tires as promised.  Now we have to decide what to do.  They offered another brand for about the same price but Larry checked and there is no warranty as they are really truck tires.

New surge tank we purchased in Coburg, finally installed

Larry spent three days working on the "bolt on" replacement surge tank and had to retrofit many items on the coach.  He found several potential problems and fixed them, including finding the battery cable with a hole rubbed in the hydraulic line.  He re-routed the line and cable as well as fixed the hole in the line.  PTL he is so diligent with the coach!

I am working in the restaurant here at the RV park so we can stay without moving.  I work Thurs afternoon, Friday and Sat mornings.  It is hard work but a nice perk is I get tips.  I have also done a mystery shop in Bend.

Grandson, Colby, married his girlfriend, Krista, July 12 and will have a reception in Feb or Mar when the weather is nicer.  He said the temperature was “just a few degrees shy of the surface of the sun”.

We continue to make weekly runs to Bend and now our time is getting short, I have a list of everything we ‘need’ to purchase before we leave OR.  Seems the summer has really slipped away.

I bought a new Vita-MIx since I did something to the old one and fixing it would cost around $140 since it is out of warranty and I could get $100 trade-in on it so decided that was what I needed to do.  The new one is red to add accent to my kitchen area.  The stove cover is red as is my kitchen towel and hot pads.

Awesome Oregon sunset

I found a fun Tweety toilet lid cover on E-Bay so now I will have to look for my blue bath rug when we return to Phoenix in Nov.

New Tweety lid cover

At least the wait is cooler!

Larry has been thinking about going to see his Mom and his brother called to say her social worker thinks she wants closure and would like a visit from him so we went June 9, fourteen months after we last left on not so good terms.  She seemed glad to see us and we spent most of the day with her.  She surprised Larry with a birthday present, a blanket he said he liked the last time we saw her. 

The blanket Larry's Mom gave to him for his birthday, put to good use

It was obvious she needs help or should go to assisted living as her dishes were stacked on the kitchen floor with mold growing on them.  I washed five dishpans full and there were still about that many more to wash.  The refrigerator stunk so badly we gagged whenever we opened the door.  Larry threw out about $100 worth of food that was green and moldy  and cleaned it up the best he could and went to the bank for her to deposit checks from as far back as Nov. 2013!  We called the social worker to report what we found but she didn’t go check on her until Friday (five days later) and by that time she had found someone to come in and remove the dishes and clean up so she is still in her own place.

Larry’s June project was re-doing the cover on the trailer tongue.  Water had gotten in and the board swelled so he had to fix it.  He painted it then put non-skid tape down.

The finished product

We left AZ on June 16 and went to Las Vegas to see our friends, Forrest and Rosie.  We stayed at Duck Creek RV.  It was really windy and when we took the BMW to the dealer in Las Vegas for some repair work, Larry was almost blown over!  We left it on Monday evening and returned Tuesday evening to pick it up.  It was windy both days but we took a different way back on Tues that was easier, with less lights.  We even stopped at Costco which was just three miles from the campground.  We enjoyed two meals with our friends and had some lively discussions.  We all went to the Carroll Shelby Museum but basically only Larry enjoyed it as the ‘tour’ really seemed to be a sales pitch for buying Carroll Shelby packages.  There were some nice cars but it was not what we were expecting.

We left Las Vegas on Wed. June 18 and overnighted west of Gerlach, NV when we discovered the parking lot we had planned on spending the night in, had been re-paved that day and was all blocked off.  We also discovered the Bank of America is Fallon, NV is no longer.  It was sold to Washington Federal along with several other B of A branches in NV and NM.  Bummer!  We met a trucker in Bend who was looking for the Bank of America branch who also used to stop at the B of A branch in Fallon.  Small world!

Where we overnighted on our way to La Pine

We arrived at Cascade Meadows on Thurs June 19 and the first night the temperature dropped to 26º!  Talk about the body going into shock, from 100º in Las Vegas to 24º in La Pine in two days!  The temperature has been better since then, making for nice walking weather.

Still no tires in Klamath Falls for the motorhome but we have new tires on the BMW and we are currently in Coburg, OR sans trailer getting everything ready on the coach for our trip east in another month and a half.

The Wait Continues

Phoenix had its first 100º day on May 3 and May 4 we had our family get-together to celebrate Todd’s birthday, Vince’s birthday and our leaving for the summer.  We had a pizza party along with angel cake and pistachio ice cream.  Two grandsons were unable to attend.  Shane is in Lubbock, TX working and Alex, while he doesn’t have a regular job, had an opportunity to work and making a little cash is something a 19 year old male does not turn down.

Todd, Vince Larry , Cere´t, and Krista at our get together

Checking out the birthday gifts

Getting ready to enjoy birthday cake

Dawn and Vince's family had a family pix taken on May 4 

On Tues May 6 we pulled out ready to head to Cottonwood when we had red lights and alarms going off in the motorhome.  We stopped and checked everything and started out again only to have a red light on the dash.  We stopped again about half a mile away and again Larry checked everything out.  A good Samaritan stopped to see if we needed any help which was nice.  We figured we were delayed 5-10 minutes and when we started again everything checked out OK.  I thanked the Lord for the delay for whatever reason He had.  We had a good trip with a tailwind for most of the way and I had forgotten about our delay until we were about a mile away from the campground entrance when we came upon a terrible crash that had happened about 5-10 minutes before as the ambulance was just arriving behind us and had come from Camp Verde about 10 miles away.  PTL, He delayed us so we were not in the middle of that mess!!

Friends, Ed and Lana were in the park and saw us come in so he stopped to say “hi” while Lana was taking a line dance class in the pool clubhouse.  We last saw them in Capitan, NM last summer while we were volunteering at Bonita Park.  They have a place near there, much like our Merrill place, where they ‘visit’ to exchange items they did and didn’t use the last year while out.

May 16 was the annual Sheep Crossing of the Verde River just below the TTN campground.  I almost missed it as when I went down around noon and the sheep were bedded down one of the herders said they would cross at 3 PM.  I arrived at 2:45 PM and they were just about across the river.  There were 1500 sheep this year.  They will summer in the high country below Flagstaff.  Supposedly the drive helps them ‘lamb’ better.

The sheep bedded down at noon.  They started from Corder Junction,AZ

Our tires that I ordered in February still are not in Klamath Falls.  We are using the FMCA Advantage Program with Michelin and are saving $1000 over Goodyear tires.  When we do finally get them they should be really “fresh”!  Since the tires are delayed we are hanging out in AZ for another three weeks in the hopes the tires will arrive before we go through Klamath Falls.  If not, we will backtrack from La Pine to K Falls to get them.  Saving $1000 makes spending $100+ on fuel  less significant.  As a result of all the changes, I keep making changes to our reservations.  Everyone has been very understanding though.  Over the years I have learned there is a reason for the delay so I am anxious to see just what God has planned instead. 

The nice pull thru site we have at Camp Verde RV in Camp Verde, AZ

While at Verde Valley we met some new full timers from Klamath Falls and seemed to ‘click’ with them.  He does metal work and had two different “Tweety’s” so we decided we had to have them.  Larry has an idea for them which he will work on when we finally get to La Pine.  Our Mexican Tweety which was damaged in our crash in 2008 is again coming apart due to moisture getting into the plaster of paris so he will need to be replaced soon.  

More next month.

Countdown to leaving

I started April out with a new retail shop in Scottsdale and also went to Apple for another personal training class in i-photo.
We had a great community dinner of chicken breasts, real mashed potatoes and gravy, corn garlic bread and chocolate cake on April 5th.  Usually they have the breakfast the first week and dinner the third week but because of Easter, they had dinner the first weekend and breakfast the third weekend.  Todd had business in Scottsdale so he came to see us on April 10.  We had a nice visit.

 Todd visiting us


The community yard sale was April 12 and the weather was really nice.  Although we didn't have a lot of visitors we sold around $100 worth of 'stuff' that we don't have to take with us or store.  The folks I talked to in the community said they had a good sale too.

Dawn, Vince and Bethany joined us for  a Seder Dinner April 13 at the same local church we went to last year.  They had a new Rabbi and he was funny and very interesting.  I always learn something new each time we attend a Seder.  The food was good too.  We had lamb and chicken. (That's lamb on the plate.)

Dawn at the Seder

   Vince at the Seder

Bethany at the Seder with her new hair do

           Us at the Seder with the new Rabbi.  He ran over to get in the picture.


April 17 we had electrical problems with the electric going off, then coming on and going off again.  It did that most of the day and I called APS twice.  Just as we were going to bed around 1 AM the electric was out again so I went outside and the APS repair man was outside at the neighbors.  He came right over and spent nearly an hour checking everything out (transformer, electric box and Larry's junction box so we can run both the MH and the trailer from one 50 amp plug) and finally found the breaker was going bad, getting hot and then shorting out.  I reported it Friday morning to the office and it was fixed by noon.  Hallelujah!

I ended the month with a last shop at a Mexican Restaurant and we came away stuffed and happy.  I don't know if I will be able to do any more shops when we move or not as both Cottonwood and LaPine are small towns and shops are usually in big cities.  It is fun to do shops and get paid to eat or buy something I can use.

Larry has finished re-working the trailer and winch for our departure May 6 and is now busy making sure everything is ready on the coach.  We are looking forward to cooler weather and a return to Oregon.  We did not go to OR last year and missed seeing it.