Hitting the Big One!!

I turned 50 this last Saturday. Throughout the week I have been teased about going to be half a century old and it got me thinking about my life until now. I have to say that I have never been happier and more at ease with myself and the world since we started RVing. Turning 50 is really not a big deal and I can easily say bring it on, because I'm having a blast.

Doug and my girlfriends here at Retama organized a very nice potluck on Saturday to celebrate my birthday, a neighbor of Bonnie and Gail's birthday (same day as mine) and a kind of going away party for Dale and Mark, who left for the summer yesterday.


We had a very relaxing happy hour with all our friends and started grilling about 5 pm. We all brought a dish to share and there was plenty of food for everybody.

And then came the BIG surprise for me!. We have an ongoing debate about a "German Chocolate Cake" sold over here in the US. German Chocolate Cake here has a coconut flake frosting and as I keep telling everybody, there is no such thing in Germany. Well, for my birthday I got my German chocolate cake, which did not have coconut flakes on it and they actually spelled my name correctly. That is not something I take for granted here. :-)

All in all we had a great day and now it is back to getting ready for leaving here in about two weeks to start our workcamping adventure this summer.

Moving right along!

I can't believe that it has been two weeks since I last posted. Between working with Doug's shoulder and getting slowly ready to leave here, it has been busy. The doctor's visits have been going good and we finally got the approval to start physical therapy last Wednesday. The scar has been healing up nicely and now starts the mobility therapy. It sure is different than the therapy for the right shoulder. He is now scheduled to have mobility training for four weeks and then four weeks of strength training. However, we are supposed to leave here in four weeks. We will see what happens. I still take it day by day. He had his first physical therapy session on Friday and let me tell you, they really gave him a good workout. Unfortunately, there is some stiffness in the shoulder, which means he is missing some range in motion, but they feel that it can be worked out in time. I am not allowed to work with him this weekend, since they aggravated the shoulder enough on Friday, but hopefully that will change next week.

In the meantime, Doug has worked on the inside of the truck to get it comfortable for him whenever we do leave here. Today we decided to work a little bit on the outside. Can you tell what is missing in these two pictures??

It is the rust that used to be on the two main rails. I got out there with a grinder this morning, getting all the rust and pitted paint off and Doug did a really nice job painting it. It is actually so shiny that the red from the cab reflected in the rails. I am very happy with the way it turned out.

Last Thursday we decided to work on the tire pressure for the rig and truck tires. This is a standard procedure before you get rolling in the spring. I'm glad we are doing it early this year, since on the last tire the tire stem broke off when I tried to attach the air hose. OOPS!!!!. Come to find out it really is not such a big deal if it happens when you are standing still. I moved the kitchen slide in, Doug raised the trailer up, Grant (our sweet neighbor) loosened the bolts for me, I took of the tire and off to a tire store we went to get a new stem installed. It took all but 10 minutes for them to have the tire fixed, we put it back on the rig, filled it to the correct air pressure, re-leveled the rig, opened the slide back up and were done. I rather have a tire go down while we are sitting still than on the road.

Last Wednesday was St. Patrick's Day and I decided to participate in the "parade". It is a fairly small parade around the block, but it was still a lot of fun.

Donna and Grant hosted a delicious St. Patrick's Day dinner with corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots and onions and everybody had a great time. We had a great turnout with 94 people showing up. I had no idea that there was that many of us left.

So as you can see we are keeping busy and there are still a lot of things on our to-do list until we can leave. Till next time ....

Time flies when you are busy

I can't believe it has been two weeks since I last posted on our blog. First of all, Doug is doing much better by now. He needs very little pain medication by now, mostly after we have been exercising. The staples came out last week and he has been put on a more rigorous exercise schedule until he can start physical therapy in two weeks. The sling will come of permanently on Monday (he has had it off a few time already) and he is able to get himself dressed in jeans and shirts by now. Say goodbye to the sweatpants!!! Now we just need to get the arm moving a lot so that it does not stiffen up.

Since his surgery I have been pretty busy myself, being a chauffeur, going grocery shopping (which I hate with a passion), emptying the septic tank and pretty much doing everything that needs to be done with your hands. A big thank you to Skip and the propane guy who helped me put the big propane tank back in its holder. The tank apparently weighs about 80 lbs when full and that is to much weight for me to lift.

The other day I was working again in the big red truck. All the cupboard doors in the sleeper area open and close as they should now and I got the cup holder tray on the dashboard mounted again. It was a little bit difficult, since it is a tight fit, but I did not realize that I was actually being photographed while laying under the dashboard.

Thank you so much Linda, at least I have prove that I am working!!

When we bought the red truck we knew that we had to come up with a solution for storing all our tools in the truck. The nice big toolboxes that they sell for the back of the truck are just not in our budget right now and so we came up with a different solution. Since we have a very big basement and really have not utilized it very well, we decided to get an eight drawer Craftsman toolbox to store the smaller tools in it.

For the bigger tools and other stuff we got two 36"x24"x24" toolboxes installed on each side of the truck behind the rear tires.

Once the truck has been at the Volvo dealer to get the computer worked on we will fill up these compartments and I should be able to get my coach house back. We will be leaving shortly of course, but it will be ready for me when we get back after the summer.

Well, if everything goes well the F550 will be sold tomorrow. So we gave the truck one more bath today and hope that everything goes well tomorrow. Till next time ....