D & J's Adventures - RV there yet?

SNOW!!! OH NO !!!

2012-01-18T18:07:00.004-06:00

This entry is brought to you courtesy of the Seattle snow storm.They started talking about this over the weekend and we really did not pay that much attention to it. We had a dusting before and found out that Seattle really does not know how to remove snow, since they only own 28 plows, but we were able to get around.

Well Doug took a couple of pictures Monday while I was at work.

Can you see the icicle that formed on the downspout on the rig. There were also some beautiful ones coming of the front of the rig. Luckily we have an electric heater and the furnace to keep us warm inside.

I still went to work yesterday, but decided to leave at 11 am, since the snow was starting to stick on the road and I have 22 miles to go to get back to the rig. It took me over an hour and the roads were getting really bad with slush and snow. My car did just fine, but some people just don't know how to drive on ice and sleet up or down a hill and there is a lot of hills around here.

I got up at 5 am this morning, saw the snow that had come down last night and decided to stay home today. These are pictures I took about 11 am.

We lost power for about 1 1/2 hours today, but at least right now we have power and therefore water again. The county road in front of our place is packed with snow and slush and if it does freeze tonight, it will be a mess again tomorrow. At least this storm is supposed to turn into rain by tomorrow and it should wash the slush away soon. I will decide tomorrow morning if I will go in late or have to take another day off from work. At least they are were understanding about me having to take time off due to the weather at work so I don't have to worry about loosing my job.

... and I thought we would only have to worry about rain here!!!

Happy New Year Everybody!!!

2012-01-02T14:07:00.003-06:00

This was our dessert for New Year's Eve and it was soooooo delicious. Actually, it was so rich that I could not finish mine and enjoyed it again on New Year's Day. Between the pecan pie and the butter cookies for Christmas and this delicious dessert we definitely need to go back to our diet.

It has been a while since I have last posted and lots of things have happened since then. The biggest one right now is that I have found a job as an inventory analyst. I am working since Thanksgiving week through an employment agency a 90 day contract, but the company has already said that they will take me over after the contract expires. I have a very nice boss and really like my job, which is an added bonus for finding employment again. Doug has not been as lucky yet, but I am sure something will come along for him also.

In regard to the weather we really can't complain to much. It has been a very dry December for Seattle standards and we only had frozen windshields a couple of times. It just seems to wrong to own a windshield scraper again. The winds have been so strong that our temporary roof over the bedroom has come down, but since the tree has lost all its leaves, we won't put it up again right now. It is amazing how strong the gusts get around here and you have to be careful about trees and debris on the road. We actually lost power for about two hours due to the strong winds the other night.

We are also working on another big project, but I am not ready to talk about it. It is in the beginning stages and I want to wait until it firms up a little bit more before sharing it will all of you.

We wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-25T19:36:00.003-06:00

We want to wish all our family and friends a very Happy Thanksgiving! It has been the first time in four years that it was just us, but Doug picked up a very tasty honey baked ham, sweet potato souffle and green bean casserole and we had a very peaceful and delicious Thanksgiving.

It has been a long time since I have blogged, but nothing noteworthy had happened until last week. Doug has been sending out lots of applications, had some interviews, but nothing has panned out yet. Since I was laid off at Lavera, I had been finding pretty steady work as a warehouse associate for a temp agency. Let me tell you, I have found muscles in my back that I did not know that they were there. Standing on your feet for 8 hours, lifting boxes, emptying them, putting tickets on the items and repacking everything again is really not that easy and my body was letting me know that. I must be getting old!!

About two weeks I applied for a Data Entry/Inventory Analysis position in Bothel and to make a long story short, I got the job. I am working for an employment agency for the next four months and if the company likes me, they will take me over at that time. It is a longer commute than the warehouse job was, but it does pay better, which makes up for sitting in traffic on the way home. I started last Monday and have to say that so far things are going pretty good. It is a totally different inventory system then what I am used to, put I am picking it up pretty fast and my inventory control manager is pleased with my progress. This week we only worked three days due to it being Thanksgiving week. Somebody came around on Wednesday to hand out envelopes to all the employees, which I found out are holiday bonuses. About five minutes later my boss came to my desk with an envelope and said that they could not give me a check, but they wanted me to have something. Turns out, I got a $50 Amazon gift certificate. I can't believe that after working there for three days they would be that nice to me :-).

On the weather front I can report that we have had a lot of rain the last week. Up until now it has not been that bad, except that we had two days already where I had to use the ice scraper on my car, which is so wrong in so many ways, but we got the rig pretty well insulated by now and I am sure we will survive the winter just fine.

Update

2011-09-10T17:08:00.004-05:00

It has been a while since I have last posted, but in my defense, I am working now and it seems the weekends go by way to fast and over the week I am tired when I get home from work.

We have been busy checking out the area on the weekends and by the time I am done cleaning and doing laundry, there is not much time left. We have been having issues with noise when it is raining, since the bedroom slide is underneath a tree and the rain drops from the tree are driving us crazy. So we have been discussing what we could do to dampen the noise and this is what we came up with

Of course, it has not rained since we build our "roof", so we don't know yet if it will help at all. If it does, we just have to add some weight to the plastic sheet to make sure the wind, which is supposed to get here in the fall, will not blow away our "roof". I will keep you guys posted on how it works, whenever the rain starts again. However, this will not be for at least another week. It has been just gorgeous here for the last couple of weeks.

We went to a state fair over Labor Day weekend and checked out a "super" mall in Auburn last weekend. I have to say, the Mall of America has nothing to worry about.

On the work front, I have been trying to get settled in my job. It has been a little bit hard, since there is no really direction and of course our shipper has decided to find another job, which means I now work half a day in the warehouse and half a day in the office trying to straighten out the inventory. It was Paul's last day on Friday and I shall see how everything will work out on Monday. At least we will be able to have major medical insurance in about six weeks and that keeps me hanging in there. Doug has had another interview in the area and the guy really liked him, but was worried that Doug is overqualified and might not stick around. The employment agency has convinced the company that this would not be the case and he has a second interview with the company set up for the beginning of October. The plant manager works here as well as in Denmark, so he is not here a lot. It is a bit frustrating to have to wait another three weeks for the interview, but Doug has been applying for other jobs in the meantime.

I am sure something will come along, we just have to be patient. Unfortunately, we will not be able to look for a house until Doug has a job, so we are still in our trailer for a while. Once he has found work it will be easier to know which area to look for a house in. I guess things will fall into place in time, but people that know me know patience is not my strong suit. Well, time to get back to cleaning house. I will post again soon, but it is a little bit like being in Mission, don't have that much to say, since not that much is going on here.

Welcome our new Addition!

2011-08-09T22:43:00.003-05:00

With me having a job now, I have to take the car to work with me, since it is to far for Doug to drive me every morning and pick me up in the afternoon. We still have the truck, but you can't take the truck on an interview. So Doug started to search the Internet so see what kind of dealerships are around here and what is available. We spent the first weekend after I started working looking and test driving cars. Amazingly car dealers here are open on Sunday, not at all like New Jersey. We were looking for a used all wheel drive car, but could not find anything we liked or could afford.

So Doug drove me to work on Monday and continued the search for a small commuter car for me. On Tuesday he picked me up from work and we went to the Ford dealer in Kirkland. I am now the proud owner of a new Ford Focus.

Isn't it cute!!! It will take me a while to figure out how Ford Sync works and of course my phone is not compatible, but at least Doug's phone is able to link up to it. I will have to wait until October to upgrade my phone for free and than I will be able to link up.

In the meantime, Doug is now able to go to interviews and job fairs without having to worry about picking me up from work. Things are starting to fall into place and I am sure Doug will find a job soon. He has been looking so hard, something has to turn up soon.

Our luck is changing!!

2011-07-31T21:38:00.006-05:00

It has been a challenging time since we arrived at the west coast in the middle of May. First we stayed north of Vancouver and started our job search. As you guys all know, the campground was far from ideal with the train horns blowing all hours of the night and the logging trucks over the bridge all day long. The job search itself did not go good either, since we were not even able to get an interview with any companies.

Doug had an interview on the east side of Seattle and we decided to find a place up there and start looking for work. Of course, that was not an easy task either, since all the campgrounds that are actually big enough for us don't do monthly rates over the summer and we just can't afford to pay $40 per day for campground fees. We got lucky when we found an ad on craigslist from a private residence that is renting out part of their property to RVers. We drove up on a Friday in the beginning of June to make sure the place was big enough and moved up to the Redmond area the following Monday.

So now we are sitting in Redmond and the first two weeks it rained almost every day. It surely did not help our spirits, but again we started applying for jobs in the area. As of today, the company that Doug applied for originally has still not filled the job as far as we know, but we have given up waiting for them to come through. We posted our resumes on job sites and I even met with an employment agency, which I have heard from twice in one month. I really should not be surprised, since I had the same experience with an employment agency in New Jersey. Next we went to a job fair at the Seattle football stadium and besides it costing us $11 to park there, it was a total waste of time. The ad on the internet said that you would be able to speak with potential employers, which was totally not so. There was maybe 25 booths with people handing out leaflets and telling you to apply for their job openings on line and I was so hoping to be able to talk to a potential employer and be able to explain my four year gap in employment.

And then last Monday I saw an employment ad on craigsllist that actually was looking for an administrative assistant with the German word "Sekretaerin". It sure caught my attention and I sent my resume. Within ten minutes I had a response asking if I could come in for an interview the following afternoon. Of course I said yes and to make a long story short, I got the job and started last Wednesday. I might have not asked for enough money, but at this point I am just glad to have a job and we will have major medical insurance available to us after 90 days. Check out the website of Lavera, which is the company that I am working for. The company is located in Kirkland, which is only 10 miles from here and I am the inventory control/purchasing manager. It is a small company and they are definitely in need of somebody to get a handle on their inventory. It will be a challenge, but that has never stopped me before.

Now we just need to find a car for Doug, since he really can't take the truck on a job interview. Life sure is looking up for us and I am convinced that Doug will find a job soon too. And on the weather front I can happily report that the sun finally has found its way to our area and from what I hear, it should stick around for at least a couple of months before the rain comes back.

Exploring Seattle

2011-06-27T18:14:00.005-05:00

We have been here about two weeks now and have been exploring the area whenever it is not raining. I have to say it does rain here a lot, but it is not all day, just ever so often. So we make sure that we are outside whenever there is a sunny day.

There was a car show in north Seattle on Saturday, it was a gorgeous day and we decided to go. We got really lucky finding a parking spot at a church, and they did not even want any money or donation for us to park there. The car show was 28 blocks long and we saw some awesome cars.

I could not believe how many people attended the car show. Look at all these people all the way up the hill.

It took us over three hours to walk the whole show, but had a good day out.

Moving on ...

2011-06-19T18:35:00.004-05:00

We were in Vancouver for five weeks and nothing was happening in regards to finding a job. It is amazing just how much the job market has changed. There are no more jobs in the newspaper, everything is done through the Internet and you just don't get any responses. I can take a "no thank you" response, it is still better than not hearing anything at all.

So we had been discussing on a daily basis for the last two weeks were to go next. Doug had interviewed for an engineering job east of Seattle and we were starting to see if we could find a campground in the area to stay for a while. I just can't believe how difficult it is here to find a campground with sites big enough to accommodate us, and then Doug mentioned something about ads on craigslist for private RV parking options. We got lucky and found a new place where we can hang for a very reasonable price (actually cheaper than Vancouver) a week ago.

We moved last Monday and are now surrounded by trees, but still very close to Seattle. Doug did a fantastic job backing in the rig from the blind side. I am so proud of him. Our new landlord was totally impressed and thought Doug was a professional driver. So now instead of being awakened by train horns throughout the night, the birds wake me around 5 am. I have to say I prefer the birds.

It also seems that there are more jobs available here and one of us will hopefully find something soon.

Vancouver, WA

2011-05-28T13:20:00.004-05:00

We arrived here almost four weeks ago and I really did not feel like blogging lately. Thank you to all our friends that have been sending e-mails of concern, since I have not been keeping anybody updated. We are okay, even though it has rained here almost every day since we arrived.

It has been a challenge since we got here. First we pull into the campground and I saw that the sewer gate dragged a little bit as we are trying to pull into the campground. I just don't understand why you would have a big old dip in your entrance way. The gate broke, but at least the sewer pipe itself is okay. The sites are not as long as we had been told. Doug thought we can fit and we started checking in. The rig and car fit just fine, however, the truck did not fit in the spot. It is parked right now in a site that they use to store their landscape gravel. We are close to I-5, but you really can't hear the highway at all. What you can hear is the logging trucks driving over the bridge and using their jake brake to slow down for the traffic light. They are so heavy that it actually makes the rig vibrate a little bit while they drive over the bridge. At least they seem to stop around 6 pm so the evenings are peaceful, if you are able to ignore the train whistles throughout the night.

We got here on a Thursday and got the local newspapers on Sunday to see about job opening. Well, apparently they don't use newspapers much anymore for job postings. Everything seems to be on the Internet and of course not all in one place. We went to Washington Worksource to register for work and got some tips from them on how to go about finding a job in the area. So we have been filling out applications on the Internet for the past three weeks and so far I have not had any hits. It is somewhat troublesome when 1500 people look at one job posting. We knew it was not going to be easy, but I did not think it was going to be this bad.

So in order to not go crazy, we have also done some sightseeing. We went to the shore for a day and went back to Mount St. Helen for the 30th anniversary of the eruption of the volcano.

As you can see, there is still snow in these mountains here! It was cold, but still a beautiful sight.

Doug had an interview the other day in Boardman and we decided to take the scenic route back to Woodland. The Columbia river has some beautiful views and than we came across a whole group of wind surfers.

It sure looked like a lot of fun. The dam was pretty interesting also.

It sure is a beautiful area here, it is just very difficult to find a job with a 12% unemployment rate in the county.

So now you are all caught up and I will blog again when I have news again.

Bryce Canyon

2011-04-29T14:15:00.006-05:00

We wanted to go to Bryce on Tuesday, but the weather forecast said snow for Bryce, so we decided to wait another day. I had seen enough snow on Sunday and I do now understand why people wait until May to visit this area.

So Wednesday we packed a lunch and made our way to Bryce National Park. On our way there we saw these beautiful fields of purple flowers.

I took over 90 pictures at Bryce and it is hard to pick just a few to show in the blog. So you guys will have to wait until Doug puts the rest of them on Webshots. We decided to drive the 18 mile stretch with the car to the most southern end and then start our way back up. I have to say that I was getting a little bit disappointed as we were driving along, since from the road you really can't see any Hoodoos or canyons, or really anything other than a whole bunch of trees. We changed our mind really quickly when we arrived at the first lookout point.

By the time we were back at the beginning of Bryce, we were exhausted. It was a great day and Doug wanted to drive Route 14 one more time, since they say that it is a scenic drive and we really did not see anything while driving on it during the snow storm. It was a beautiful sunny day and not a cloud in the sky. I have to admit that it was a very nice drive, the road was clear and the snow on the summit was actually blinding. It truly was a great day.

We decided to leave Cedar City yesterday and move further north, since there was a high wind warning for Friday. We are now at the Nevada/Utah border, the wind has certainly caught up with us and we will move again on Sunday. There are only 750 miles left to go until we get to our destination.

Zion National Park

2011-04-29T13:33:00.007-05:00

Zion National Park is just stunning. I really like the free shuttle system they have, since it allows Doug to also look around without having to watch were he is going.

I was so fascinated with all the different colors of the cliffs. It was so beautiful.

As you can see in the last picture, the sky was getting a little bit dark, but we were not worried yet. We decided to take Route 9 towards Route 89 and see some more of Zion, which is not viewable with the shuttle bus.

It was well worth the drive. The colors of the rocks are just so amazing.

So far so good, the weather seemed to stay to our east on Route 89 and we were going to go west on Route 14.

I saw the sign that said that the top was at 10,000 feet, but I don't think it really registered with me what was about to happen. First we just saw snow on the side of the road, the road itself was still dry.

Then, it started snowing a little bit and it started to stick on the road.

Yet, we are still climbing and I am getting worried. Our car does not have four wheel or all wheel drive, but Doug kept telling me that it would be okay. By the time we got to the summit the road was completely covered with snow, I am to nervous to take anymore pictures and Doug decided to put the car into manual drive, since the engine will act as a brake. We actually had to pass two cars, since they were going way to slow on the downhill. By the time we got to the bottom of the mountain the defrost was running on high, there was ice on the windshield and our license plate was covered with snow.

It sure was an adventures day and I was glad when we got back to the rig.

Kolob Canyon

2011-04-29T13:09:00.007-05:00

We decided last Sunday on starting to check out the area around Cedar City, UT. The nearest park was Kolob Canyon. When we arrived to pay the entrance fee, we were advised that the fee was waived for the week, which saved us the $25 we would have to pay for Kolob Canyon as well as Zion National Park. I thought that was pretty cool.

Kolob Canyon is a beautiful 6 mile drive.

Since it was the last day for the free pass, we decided to go on to Zion National Park, since it is smaller than Bryce and it was early afternoon already.

Viva Las Vegas!

2011-04-23T14:53:00.005-05:00

Before I tell you about Las Vegas, I have to show you guys the Joshua Tree. I never heard of it, but we saw a whole bunch of them on our way to Las Vegas.

Our trip to Las Vegas was fairly uneventful, until we got onto IH 515. You are supposed to exit right to IH 15 North, but of course I ended up in the lane to IH 15 South towards Los Angeles. Luckily the truck behind me realized what I did and let me back in the correct lane. Once we arrived at the campground Doug just grinned and asked me if I had different plans (very funny, NOT).

We got settled in and started exploring the town. It is amazing how much it has changed since we had been here 10 years ago and there was a ton of people. We went to the Belagio, since Doug wanted to see their water display. The place is just amazing and the water show with music was pretty awesome.

We got to see two different performances and they were very worthwhile watching.

The next day we went to the Pinball Hall of Fame. We both grew up on playing pinball and I can not believe just how many different kind of pinball machines from very old ones to the newest ones they have. We actually played for 2 1/2 hours and had a blast

The El Dorado pinball machine is special to Doug, since his brother actually owns one of them. Here are a couple of more pictures from Las Vegas.

We left Las Vegas yesterday and moved north to see Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park next. It sure is a lot colder up here. The temperature this morning was 45 degrees, which made me put the flannel sheets back on the bed. I am sure looking forward to seeing Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park next week.

North Ranch

2011-04-18T19:34:00.005-05:00

This place is beautiful!! For you guys that have not been here yet, you have to put it on your list of parks to visit. It is so peaceful and relaxing here, it was just what I needed.

We arrived here on Saturday with a truck that was overheating and spitting a little bit of oil. Luckily Mike and Pat's RV lot is totally easy to back into and we all started looking for the oil leak. Luckily it was just the cap that had come loose and the truck cooled down again. It is so good to see Mike and Pat again. We got our hugs and then they left us alone to set up. We met up again with them and Tom and Sally for happy hour and had a great time catching up. Pat invited us for dinner and we had hamburgers, Pat's famous cauliflower casserole, Sally made fried potatoes and brought a green salad. Dinner was sooo good and I sure was glad that I did not have to cook that night. We got back to the rig about 8 pm and I was in bed within the next 30 minutes.

We had been traveling for a few days now and I am having problems with the all the time changes we are going through. So be the time we got here I was pretty burned out. I have to say after three days here I am refreshed and ready to go again. Here are some pictures of the beautiful cactus on Mike and Pat's lot.

We spend the last couple of days doing laundry, stocking up the fridge again, having happy hours and just plain relaxing. Now I am ready to tackle the next 1350 miles that we have left to go to get to Vancouver.

Mike and Pat, thank you so much for all you guys did for us!!!

On the road again ... YEAH!!

2011-04-12T18:02:00.003-05:00

Last week sure held its challenges. We left Mission on Monday and by the time we got to Brauning Lake near San Antonio, we knew that we had a problem with the truck. Doug had an error message on the dash and changed the fuel filters accordingly. We got up Tuesday and continued our trip. We got as far as Boerne and decided that the truck had to go in the shop before we continue on IH-10. This highway gets were desolate after San Antonio and I really did not want us to break down in the middle of nowhere.

So the truck went into the Volvo shop on Tuesday and we were told that they would be able to work on it on Friday. This is not the way I wanted to start our trip to Vancouver. We stayed in a nice campground and decided on Wednesday to go check out the town of Boerne. We had driven through about four years ago and it looked quaint. We spend a good three hours going to various stores (my favorite thing to do) and stopped for lunch. I took a picture of a very interesting building.

Thursday we went to the movies and on Friday Doug called the shop to find out how the truck was doing. We were told that they would not be able to get it in the shop until Monday. My blood pressure rose drastically, but there was nothing we could do. We got a call from Doug's dad on Saturday that they had returned from California. Since we might not see them for a long time, we met up for a very nice lunch on Sunday at our favorite German restaurant in New Braunfels. So there was something good about being delayed.

We went to the truck shop on Monday to see what was going on. The truck was not in the shop and again my blood pressure was rising. We got to talk to the shop foreman and promised that the truck would go in right after lunch. We decided to find a mall and wait for a while. I did not realize how close we were to downtown San Antonio and we actually ended up at the Riverwalk. We had a nice lunch, did some walking and returned to the truck shop around 1:30 pm. Now our truck was actually in the shop and we decided to wait around a while to see what they would find. They found a faulty sensor, which they had to get from a local dealer and then the truck would be ready to go hopefully. We decided to go back to Boerne, since there was nothing we could do in the meantime. We got a call a couple of hours later and were informed that the truck was ready to go. Of course by now it is rush hour in San Antonio and we decided to wait just a little bit before going back through San Antonio. The trip to the Volvo dealer was interesting, since traffic really backed up on the two loops, but by the time we had the truck picked up traffic was gone and we made it through the middle of San Antonio just fine. I have never been so happy to see our big red truck!!!

So this morning we went on our way again and this time everything is going smooth (knock on wood). We should be able to visit with Mike and Pat by the end of the week.

On the road again ... NOT!!

2011-04-05T20:17:00.004-05:00

The whole last week was somewhat crazy with getting the coach house ready for our renters and packing up all our stuff into the RV again, but we managed. It has been getting pretty hot in the valley and we could really only work in the mornings before it was getting to hot. We had a really nice "Good-Bye" dinner with all our friends last Wednesday and started our trip towards Vancouver, WA yesterday morning.

Everything went well until we came to our first rest stop and the truck displayed a fuel filter error code. The truck was started to run rough on start, but as soon as we got up to highway speed everything was fine and the error code went away. By the time we reached George West the winds started up, but we knew that we were driving into a cold front. There was an accident on Route 281 and we got rerouted to Route 59 and made it to IH 37 okay. The wind was now getting really strong and even I had to drive with both hands on the steering wheel. By the time we were at the Brauning Lake area we decided to pull into a campground and call it a day. Doug went to a place to get the fuel filters changed and they did put in some fluid in the fuel filter and the fuel tank, since they thought it might be that one or two of the fuel injectors might be clogged.

We decided to drive on this morning and see if the "cleaning fluid" would help. We got through San Antonio without any problems, but by the time we got to Boerne Doug decided that we can not go on like this. So now we are in another campground and took the truck to a Volvo place to have it looked at. Of course, they are swamped and it will be at least two days before they can look at it to find out what is wrong with it. It feels like the truck is just not getting enough fuel, but we have no idea what exactly is wrong with the truck at this point. So now we sit and wait and maybe do some sightseeing before we head on. At least we were in a bigger town and not in the middle of nowhere when this happened and we have no deadline to meet.

A new adventure is about to begin!

2011-03-27T13:38:00.004-05:00

It is hard to believe that we left New Jersey in September of 2007 and have been traveling ever since. At the time we had enough money saved up to travel for two to three years and then settle down on the west coast, so that eventually we would be closer if Doug’s mom needed us. Unfortunately Doug’s mom passed away before we could leave New Jersey, but it did not stop us from starting our adventure.

We have seen so much traveling through this beautiful country and I can honestly say that we had a lot more good times than bad. After about two years we talked about maybe trying to give full-timing a chance and decided to take a summer job at Adventureland to see if we could make enough money to support us for the summer months. So last fall we came back to our lot in Retama and started running the numbers. To make a long story short, we can’t make enough money in a summer job to support us so we have to go back to work (besides it would be nice to have real health insurance again).

You might have noticed a few weeks ago that I added an advertisement on the left side of the blog that our lot in Retama is for rent/sale. I had hoped that we would be lucky enough to sell the lot fast, but there are so many lots for sale here that it will not be that easy. However, we were fortunate enough to find a renter for part of next season.

We will leave here in about another week or so and start heading west. I always wanted to see Bryce Canyon and Zion, so on our way west we will visit these first and then move on to the Vancouver, WA area to start looking for work. We surely will miss all our friends that we met along the way, but as I keep saying, this is not good bye, since you guys can always come visit us on the west coast.

St. Patrick's Day Parade

2011-03-22T18:25:00.004-05:00

As usual, I am a little bit late posting, but better late than never! Last Thursday we had our traditional St. Patrick's Day parade at Retama Village. This time I was asked to be the official photographer and I had fun doing that. I took 85 pictures all together, but I will spare you and just show you a few of them.

The parade was a lot of fun and the dinner afterwards was delightful. Donna and Grant sure know how to put on a great St. Patrick's Day feast.

You might remember that we had a really hard winter this year with temperatures way below freezing. The sun eventually came back, but my roses sure did not look so good. So about two weeks ago it really started getting warm, well actually almost hot, again and it seems my roses have defrosted finally.

Unfortunately, my pansies are not doing so well any more with the sun beating on them all day, but since we are leaving here pretty soon, I am not upset over it. I will have to pull them before we leave anyway, since they will die in the summer heat and then they will look just ugly. So much for now and I will post at least one more time before we leave here beginning of next month.

Work, Work, Work

2011-03-13T09:14:00.003-05:00

Well, we are coming to the end of our season down here in Texas and that means, we start making sure that the rig and truck is all road worthy. Last week Doug went underneath the rig to check out the suspension and replace some bolts with wet bolts. Well, that was the plan until he got under there to see that nothing has rusted yet and the Mor-Ryde system is different than what he had thought and we don't have the tools to replace the bolts. In my opinion we will just leave things that are not broke or not in need of repair alone and keep monitoring them.

The truck did get a new exhaust stack. I should have taken a picture of the one they took of, but of course I forgot the camera. The stack is held on by three metal straps and there were rusted holes on every one of these three straps. I am amazed the stack held on as long as it did.

So Friday I went up on the roof, since we had decided to install a Maxxvent cover over the toilet room fan. We did not like the way it sat on there, tried it on the bathroom fan to realize that you can't open the fan all the way anymore if you have this cover on. The function of the cover is to prevent rain from coming in and you can leave the fan open while driving down the road and get some air circulating throughout the rig. We did not like the way it was going to work and decided again install the cover.

But, while I was up there I took a look a the tape that covers the seams along both sides of the rig. Now I have to say that ever since our friends Donna and Grant had to replace part of their slide walls and the roof of the slide because of water damage that they had not know of, I have become a little bit worried and have looked very closely at areas that could have water coming in. The seals are still in pretty good shape, but I saw the tape lift up a couple of millimeters in a couple of spots. So Doug went out and got me sealant in a tube and I laid a nice bead of sealant along the edge of the tape.

Yesterday we washed the truck so that it is pretty much ready to go. Next will be the rig and then we just need to pack up our stuff again. I have to admit that with climbing up and down the roof a few times and washing the truck yesterday, which has to be done partially by ladder, my poor body is somewhat achy and sore, so it will be a day for relaxing for me.

What's New??

2011-03-06T21:16:00.004-06:00

I can't believe that it has been almost three weeks since I last posted, but as you all know, not to many things happen when we are down here. We went to South Padre Island Friday a week ago and had a great time. It was a beautiful day and I wanted to go kite flying. We went to a big flee market in the convention center first and checked out the progress of the nature walk. There is always interesting wild life to watch.

The crocodile seemed to still to be alive, but I was assured that it is real.

Next we drove further down the island to the sand beach, so I could go fly my kite. I knew that there was not that much wind and I sure was taught a different way to fly a kite than Doug was, however, I don't give up that easy. After about 5 minuted Doug went back to the car as I kept running up and down the dunes trying to get my kite to fly. To my poor husband's disbelieve I was out there for about 45 minutes before I gave up and I have to say I had a great time feeling the sand between my toes and just enjoyed being at the beach. We ended the afternoon with a great lunch at "Dirty Al's" and went back home.

Saturday was the Chili Cookout at the clubhouse and there sure was some really good chili. We enjoyed spending time with our friends.

Last Thursday we got invited by Sue and Dave to dinner and check out there beautiful new grill. We had a blast. The Cornish hen (which I never had before) was delicious, so was the spinach salad and potatoes. As much as I like our group getting together six times a week, it sure is nice to visit with just one couple and spend an evening with good food and great conversation. Time sure is going by very fast this season and we should be leaving here in about 5 weeks.

HDT Luncheon

2011-02-16T12:37:00.005-06:00

Yesterday we had the HDT (Heavy Duty Truck) luncheon here at our clubhouse at Retama Village. We attended a gathering two years ago, before we had a big truck and it is always fun to get together with your friends for lunch. You did not need to look at the clock to know that the gathering had begun. These big trucks sure make a lot of noise when starting up, since the guys had to drive their trucks over to the club house to show them of. Unfortunately our truck is in the shop right now getting a new smoke stack, so you won't see our truck in these pictures.

We all brought a dish to pass, which means a salad or desert and the club provided the hot dogs, burgers, and sausages.

A good time was had by all as you can tell by the pictures.

We sure are going to miss our friends when we leave here this year, but I'll explain that some other time.

Village Yard Sale

2011-02-16T12:18:00.004-06:00

This is the second year that I participated in the Retama Village Yard Sale. We have so much stuff in the coach house that we have not used in the last three years that I decided that I surely would not miss it now. Even though we are having the yard sale in February this year, it was sooooo cold. As usual, a whole group of us set up "shop" at Larry and Linda's lot.

We all had very interesting stuff to sell and just like last year, we had a nice crowd. It sure helps being the first stop as soon as you enter Retama.

And even though we had fun at the yard sale, trying to stay warm as the sun picked out every so often from behind the clouds, I was glad when it was over. I am just not good at haggling and apparently that is a big part of shopping at a yard sale.

Winter has arrived in Mission!!

2011-02-04T10:04:00.006-06:00

I know that winter arrived down here every year, however, in the four years that we have been down here, it has never been this cold. The news said that is has not been this cold in the valley in the last 20 years. Look at the before and after pictures of my poor pansies.

As you can tell, the bed sheet was not long enough to cover them all. We will see if they will come back. Right now they are covered with ice.

The whole mess started on Wednesday when the weather report was calling for a hard freeze warning, which means it will be below freezing for an extended time over night. The lowest we measured was 28 degrees. We decided to to fill up the fresh water tank in the rig and unhook the water hose, just in case. Next came an email from the developer asking us to cover any exposed pipes, so that they will not burst. At that time I decided to cover up my panties as best I could.

By last night the weather report called for freezing rain and maybe some snow. They actually closed two highways around here, since the roads were icing up. This is what we woke up to this morning.

As you can see the sun is out and the ice should be melting fairly quickly. We have one more night of temperatures below freezing and then we will be able to hook up the water again, so I can do laundry, which is starting to pile up. This is our third day of sitting in the rig and I can't wait for the weather to get just a little bit warmer, so we can go outside again.

Another Big Job Done!!!!

2011-02-02T13:24:00.004-06:00

You might remember that we replaced the gasket on the dining room side last summer while we were in Iowa. Unfortunately we realized to late that the gasket on top of the slide is a different type then the gasket for the sides. Since we had no choice at the time, we installed the same gasket all the way around the slide.

Since we are now sitting still in South Texas, we ordered the correct gasket and decided on Monday to install it. The cold is coming and we figured that we can recuperate from this big job for the next few days. Taking the wrong gasket off was fairly easy and was done in about 15 minutes. Then started the hard part. The flap on the new gasket is a lot longer and it is harder to slide the material between the slide and the top wall of the rig to clip in the gasket.

It took as a good three hours to install the 16 feet of gasket, but I am happy to say it is done. Now I can tend to my "wounds".

Since the slot to install the gasket is very narrow, my knuckles as well as my elbows gave some skin for the cause. As Larry said with a grin on his face "Your hide gets thinner when you get older and it comes of easier". I guess I am getting older!!

Another project done!!

2011-01-22T11:21:00.004-06:00

I can't believe that it has been almost a month since I last posted. Thanks to my Dad reminding me last weekend, I decided I better get my butt in gear. Somehow time just seems to be moving very fast this year and we really have not gotten much done yet.

Well, to continue from where I left of last time.... We spend Christmas Day dinner with friends at the Clubhouse and had a very nice time.

As always there was plenty of good food and we ate way to much!! We spend New Years Eve at home with a nice bottle of wine, a good meat and shrimp fondue and actually managed to stay up till midnight after watching all the different firework shows on TV. It is amazing how much fireworks they shoot off down here. It started at around 10 pm and lasted well after midnight.

So the New Year began well and then the weather turned bad. It has been cold, cloudy and wet for most of the month. It seems we get about two warm days and then the next low comes in and it is cold, cloudy and drizzly for the next 5 days and than the whole thing starts all over again.

Ever since we came back to the valley Doug has been talking about getting a camera/monitor system installed on the truck so it would be easier to see the hitch when hooking up as well as eliminating a lot of his "blind right side" when making a left hand turn. Sounds complicated, but you will see what I mean in a minute. It took a while to install the two cameras as well as hide all the cable inside the cab of the truck, due to the lousy weather, but it is finally done. This is the "hitch" camera and the view Doug has when sitting in the truck.

The hitch camera is mounted on the back of the cab and we will paint a white strip on the hitch and the kingpin, so that Doug can line up the two lines and make hitching up a lot easier.
The second camera is the one that I thought is most important.

This camera is mounted in the side panel behind the passenger door and gives a wide angle view on what is coming on the passenger side of the truck. We took the truck for a test drive after the installation and it was amazing to see just how much more you can see. It sure should make things a lot easier for Doug when turning left at an intersection o on an exit ramp of the highway.

Christmas Eve - Eggs in a Bag

2010-12-24T13:38:00.005-06:00

Today was the Christmas get together for the HDT group and we decided to have a brunch. It is a slightly gray day, since the cold front is supposed to come through tonight, but it was pleasant enough to sit out on the patio.

On the menu for brunch was egg in a bag and since I had no idea what that is, and therefore was not able to explain it to my dad during our video conference this morning, here are the instructions.

1) Get a ziploc bag and write your name on it. Make sure it is a ziploc brand bag, since cheaper bags apparently can break in the hot water and you loose your omelet.

2) Fill the back with two or three eggs (without the shells of course) and everything you might want in your omelet, like cheese, sausage, bacon, onions, etc. Close the bag and mix all ingredients as well as you can. Let the air out of the bag and put it on a tray with everybody else's bag.

3) Next, all the bags go into a big pot of boiling water and are being carefully watched by our two great cooks Larry and Linda.

4) While the bags were boiling in the water for 13 minutes, we started on the delicious coffee cake, banana bread, blueberry cake and cookies. :-)

5) Remove the bags after 13 minutes and guess what!!! It really kind of looks like an omelet and it tastes just great!!!

What else can you wish for at Christmas - great friends, great food - it does not get much better!! And now it is time for a nap!!

Mystery Night at Retama

2010-12-12T17:52:00.007-06:00

Last weekend we had our annual mystery theater night at the Retama clubhouse. The theme was the "Murder at the Trailer Trash RV Park" and Doug had decided to take part in the play. It was a nice and warm evening for the group to put on this play. The characters in the play sure dressed their parts.

The play consisted of three acts with dinner being served during the intermissions. At the end we all got to guess who done it. This play sure was different, since the person that was supposed to be dead ended up still being alive in the end and I sure did not see that coming.

We all had a good time and by the time we were done, the cold front had arrived and we all headed back to our homes.

The weather has been somewhat strange this season. We warm up to about 80 degrees for a couple of days, than the cold front comes and we go down 20 degrees. Two days later we are back up to 80 degrees and then the next cold front shows up. We had three cold fronts in the last week and are expecting another one tonight.

This of course makes it a little bit difficult to work on the outside of the rig, but we have managed to get the axles on one side greased and the stems in two tires changed. Hopefully the weather will warm up again sometime next week and we can get the other side done.

Life does not get much better!!

2010-11-28T18:17:00.005-06:00

We left Mission on Thursday morning at 7:45 am to start our 5 hour drive to Austin. The drive was pretty uneventful, the highways fairly empty and we got to Doug's dad house around 11:30 am. It is nice to spend holidays with family and between Doug's stepbrother, his dad, his wife Vee and her two sons with their wives and children, we had a pretty full house.

Dinner was served around 2 pm and everything was delicious. I love having big dinners with family. We left about 4 pm to start back on our 5 hour drive to Mission. A cold front was coming through, the temperature had dropped already 20 degrees when we left Austin, but we managed to get home around 9:30 pm before the cold front. By the time we woke up the next morning, it was in the mid 40's.

Friday we were invited to the Thanksgiving leftover dinner with our friends. Dave and Sue were gracious enough to lend us their huge living room in their new house, since it was to cold to sit outside. There was nothing leftover about this dinner and Dale was so sweet to make another pecan, chocolate chip and Southern Comfort pie. It was to die for and there was no piece left at the end of the dinner.

So now it is Sunday we just got back from Turkey soup dinner again at Dave and Sue's house. We had a humongous pot of turkey soup, bread, squash/raisin bread and brownies. The ladies cut up everything yesterday and made a most delicious soup for today.

Now you tell me. Can live get any better? :-)

Time flies when you are having fun!

2010-11-19T13:06:00.005-06:00

I can't believe that we have been back for almost three weeks now. We have been busy, but it feels like time is just passing by to fast.

The Friday after we got back to Mission we went back up to New Braunfels, since Doug wanted to go to Wurstfest. Normally I am not that impressed with these celebrations, but it was not bad at all.

The food was good and it amazed me just how many of these old German drinking songs I remember, since I never used to like "Oktoberfest" in Germany. And just like last year the line for the potato pancake was so long and moving so slow that I gave up after 1/2 hour of waiting. We were told that people were in line for 1 1/2 hours for three potato pancakes. No pancake can taste that great for me to wait that long.

On the way back to Mission on Saturday, we decided to go see the USS Lexington before going home. We were up in Corpus Christi two years ago and had to leave after checking out the Aquarium early because of a bad storm coming in.

This ship is amazing. It took as four hours to check it all out. I had no idea that it is basically like a small city with a hospital, dentist, barber shop, post office and of course a big mess hall. The machine shop was pretty impressive too, never mind the huge area underneath the deck where they park the planes.

Don't I look great in the driver's seat?? Unfortunately they would not give me the keys to start the big boat, so I could not take it for a spin.

If anybody reading this blog has served in the Navy, please excuse my probably incorrect terminology, since somebody already told me I can't call this floating city a "boat". We had a blast and arrived back in Mission in the evening.

We have also been busy pressure washing out lot, washed the truck and the car, and I got my planting done for the season, unless we get frost again. Temperatures dropped down to 43 degrees last night.

We still have a very big "To Do List", so I am sure we will not get bored for yet a while.

Back Home in Mission!

2010-10-27T11:09:00.001-05:00

We arrived back in Mission on Monday afternoon. It was hot, Doug fought head winds all the way down from Sattler, but I am glad we made it and are sitting still for a while now. The last three weeks have been crazy, so let me fill you in on what has happened.

First we were at the HDT rally in Hutchinson. It turned out to be a great rally with a pretty good turn out. I actually enjoyed the ladies outing that Thursday and as always the lunch was really good.

At one of the seminars, and there was a lot of them, one of the vendors brought this cool looking truck. Isn't it a beauty!!!

Friday came around and I was really excited, since we would finally get into the main picture without having to wait. I actually drove the truck to the meeting spot and parked it.

I think it is a pretty impressive picture to see all these big trucks come together for a week of fun and seminars. Here are some more pictures of some of our friends that were at the rally.

We left Hutchinson on Sunday and went 340 miles to Thackerville, OK. I love my new car so much!! Got into Thackerville without even feeling tired and went for a two day gambling session, since this is our last time gambling until we leave Texas in the spring.

Our next stop was Poolville, TX to go see 2L Custom Trucks for a quote on getting the truck repainted. It is not like it really needs it, but by now the front passenger fender has changed color and it is really annoying me. We actually got quoted a price that did not give me a heart attack.

We moved on the next day to go see Doug's dad and family in Austin, TX. I don't know what it is, but every time we go to Austin, we can't find room at a campground near by. So we decided to go down Route 281 to Johnson City and stay at a campground there. It was a straight shot from there to Austin. We will never (ever) do that again. I thought Route 281 was a four lane highway pretty much all the way down and I was sooooo wrong. Between it being a 2 lane highway most of the time and the steep hills up and down, our fuel mileage was lousy and Doug was not a happy trooper anymore. I thought it might be a pretty drive through the hill country, but I was wrong. We will not make this mistake again, but at least we had a nice dinner with Doug's dad, Vee and Jonathan.

Friday we moved on to our favorite campground in Sattler and rested up for next three days and went to our favorite German restaurant in New Braunfels, TX. I am glad to report that the food is still as good as we remembered. We wanted to go to Wurstfest, but unfortunately it is still a week away and we did not feel like staying at the campground for a week, when our lot in Mission is only 265 miles away. So on Monday we packed up for hopefully the last time this year and went back to Mission.

Kansas Underground Salt Museum

2010-10-10T13:07:00.006-05:00

Hutchinson is known for its huge salt mine, which actually runs under the city. We did not have time two years ago to check it out, so we decided to do it Friday, before a lot of our friends were pulling in on Saturday.

When we arrived we saw this beautiful locomotive, which always remains me of my dad, who worked for the train company in Germany pretty much all of his life.

We went into the building to realize that the museum and the whole tour is actually 650' underground in the salt mine itself. We got our hardhat and a rebreather in case something would happen. In their whole history of being open since the 1920s, there had not been an accident, so we were pretty much at ease. However, the dark elevator going down 650' to the mine itself was not to my liking.

Arriving down there was pretty amazing. It is a comfortable 68 degrees all the time and a steady humidity.
The walking tour was pretty interesting. Since the shaft is so narrow, some of the equipment and cars that they use to get around in this vast tunnel system are just left behind, since it is to difficult to bring them back up to the surface.

Look at this awesome looking rock formations.

Saturday rolled around and right before lunch time the rigs started rolling in. I just love watching them come in, there is a lot of hugging the people we have not seen for the last six months and everybody just has a really good time, helping each other parking the rigs. We belong to a pretty neat group here!!!! And this year our big truck will be in the main picture!! I am so excited about this. We are expecting 40 rigs and here are pictures of a few of those.

Can you spot us in any of these pictures?

We are in Hutchinson!!

2010-10-07T11:24:00.005-05:00

Actually,we got here on Monday and have been busy getting set up and ready for the HDT rally. It is nice to watch other people pull in and everybody gathers for hugs and greetings. We had our first happy hour two days ago and of course I forgot to take a picture, so I took a couple last night.

The weather has been beautiful and we are looking forward to getting together with a lot of our friends by the end of the week. Doug took the truck to a truck wash yesterday, since we will be line up with all the other big trucks this year for the picture and we wanted to have the truck look really good. :-)

As you must have noticed, it has been a while since I last posted, but between getting sick about two weeks before we stopped working and starting to move again, I just have not felt up to it. So let me get you caught up on what has been happening.

Our last working day was Sunday, September 26th, and we had planned on leaving Tuesday morning to go to a campground north of Topeka. Monday afternoon came around and I was still not feeling so good and we decided to stay another day, especially since we don't have to pay any campground fees until October 1st in Altoona. Next to the campground is a casino and Doug wanted to play in their Tuesday poker tournament since we got here in April. So far it was not possible, since his physical therapy had been on Tuesday mornings, but since he is done now and it also was his birthday, he decided to give it a shot. He left about 9:30 am and made it all the way to the last round, which started at 1 pm. Out of 120 people he came in 6th place, won $100 and I was pretty impressed with him. We went back to the casino in the afternoon to cash in our points and Doug hit a quarter machine for $375. It was a great birthday present from the casino, he cashed out and we decided that it was time to leave Iowa.

We left the campground Wednesday morning to drive 280 miles to our next stop. We have set all summer and I was a little bit apprehensive about driving that far the first day on the road again. I have to say, it was a breeze. We pretty much drove the whole way on the interstate and my new car is sooooo comfortable. I got out in the afternoon and neither my hip or back was hurting. What a nice surprise!! We set up camp that afternoon and decided to take it easy the next day. We had some amazing sushi in Topeka two years ago so we went back to the same place for dinner on Thursday.

It was not as good as I remembered, but for some strange reason it never is, is it? It was still pretty tasty and I am glad we came back.

Friday came around and we decided to go to Kansas speedway, since Nascar was there for the weekend. It sure was a long walk from the parking lot to the speedway.

There were vendors for all the different drivers and Doug got himself a Mark Martin hat, Unfortunately, Mark Martin had engine problems and we never saw him practice.

We still managed to have a great day and got home safe Friday evening. The weekend sure ended up being much colder and we watched the race on Sunday in the comfort of our home.

So now I am all caught up (I think) and will try to post more often again.

Another big job done!

2010-09-15T11:55:00.000-05:00

...well, kind of! When we arrived in Altoona we realized that the rubber seal on the dining room slide was also rusted out and had to be replaced. Ever since we changed the rubber seal on the kitchen side, we wondered how come the dining room slide rubber was in three pieces, since it sure looked like the same kind of seal.

Well, when we removed the rubber seal on Monday, we realized why. The seal on the top of the slide is different and has a longer lip to lay on top of the slide. And of course we had only ordered one kind of seal for the whole slide. The seal we bought will work to make a seal to the rig, however, it does not touch the top of the slide. So until we can get the right seal, we will need to clean the slide of from any leaves or debris, before pulling the slide in. It really is not such a big deal and we did not attach the glue strip from the new seal to the rig so that it will be easier to replace that seal again when we get to Mission. At this point it keeps the bugs out and provides enough of a seal to get us back home.

It took us seven straight hours to get the old seal off, clean up the rubber left on the metal after taking off the seal and clipping on the new seal. There was no time for a lunch break, since we knew the rain was supposed to come that night. Well, the rain decided to show up about 15 minutes after we were done. By Tuesday morning our bodies were aching and our hands were swollen, but at least it was done and we can move on to the next project as soon as our bodies recuperate.

Fun, Fun, Fun

2010-09-10T20:41:00.004-05:00

I can not believe how busy we have been since we have gone back to working on weekends only. Last Friday we went to a Iowa Cubs baseball game, which had been organized by Adventureland. Here is a picture of Doug and our neighbors pigging out before the game.

All the employees got to sit in the same section and we actually got welcomed by the announcer.

And of course every good baseball game ends with fireworks!

We ran a bunch of errands on Tuesday. Wednesday we dropped the truck of at the shop to get the air ride system fixed and modified. Doug also wanted to get some stuff changed in the computer and of course the dealer in Dallas had given us the wrong password. However, the guy at the Volvo shop was kind enough to call a buddy of his at US Express and got the correct password and now everything is working the way Doug wants it. Wednesday afternoon we attended the retail department's end of the year potluck dinner. It was held at the "Sandbar", which is a fully stocked bar, at the water park and our bosses were our bartenders.

Can you believe how young my bosses are? I have a feeling this will happen more and more as we are looking for jobs. They sure made some stiff drinks and the food supplied by all was not bad either.

The potluck ended with a drawing for some pretty cool prizes and of course I had to take a picture of the young ones that worked in our department.

Look at them very closely since they are tomorrows leaders and it sure scares me!! I wonder if I was like that a long time ago when I was young. :-)

We spend yesterday waxing the kitchen side of the rig, since it was a cloudy day and did the nose and back today. Tomorrow it is back to work. In a way I am actually looking forward to it, since it is less work than what we did in the last two days. Next week we will tackle installing the rubber seal on the dining room slide and finish waxing the rig. Stay tuned ....

Friday Night Lights!

2010-09-02T15:01:00.004-05:00

Every blue blooded American knows what "Friday Night Lights" means and last Friday I got to experience it. Since we are only working weekends now, Doug took me to my first ever Friday night high school football game. I was amazed how many people showed up at SE Polk High School and that you also had to pay $6.00 entrance fee, but I guess the money goes towards school expenses.

The bleachers for the home team were pretty much full, so we decided to sit on the other side and cheer for the visiting team.

The cheerleaders were doing their thing to get the crowd into the game. One big difference to football on TV, they do not have commercial breaks and there are no replays on the big screen. By the way, there is no big screen, which means you really have to pay attention to what is going on on the field and in the beginning I was way to busy to look around and check everything out. Here is a picture of the band, which in the beginning only played a little bit when the home team scored, which actually was a lot.

Right before half time we decided to go to the other side, since the band is only turned towards the hometown crowd when they play at halftime.

It was pretty impressive to see them march all over the field and play at the same time. It sure brought back a lot of memories for Doug, since he was in band in high school. We left the game in the third quarter, since the home team was beaten the visitors so bad that there was no chance for them to come back. It was a very interesting experience and we might just to this again.

Yesterday I decided to wash the whole rig from top to bottom, since it needed it after six months of just sitting here. It was quite a job, but I got it done. Today I was going to start waxing, however, it has been raining on and off and tomorrow we are going to a professional baseball game. I guess it will have to wait until next week, since we are working Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Till next time ....

We Did It!!!!!!!!

2010-08-27T15:24:00.004-05:00

Last Monday was our last full time work day at Adventureland. YAY!!!!!! There were times this summer when I thought we would not make it and my joints sure ache, but we actually did it. From now on we only work on weekends with the exception of Labor Day of course. We ran a bunch of errands on Tuesday and found all of our neighbors sitting outside enjoying a glass of wine and of course we had to join them. We still could not really believe that it was over, since Tuesday is our normal day off anyway.

Wednesday morning we went to a company sponsored miniature golf tournament and that's went it started dawning on me. I was smiling all day!!! And of course, we had to celebrate again Wednesday evening until the mosquitoes finally got to bad.

Thursday afternoon we went with two of our neighbors to check out a farmer's market on the west side of Des Moines called Valley Junction.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. Not only was there some really fresh produce, the surrounding stores were actually pretty interesting too. I really liked the big planters.

We sampled the local wines and of course the kettle corn and browsed the stores for a good two hours.

And while strolling up and down the street, we actually got serenaded by various local musicians.

We ended the day by enjoying a nice Mexican dinner with our friends before turning in of the night. Tomorrow it is back to work for the weekend. Knowing that it is only two days of working before we can relax again and start getting ready for leaving here makes it easier to go to work. :-)

Iowa State Fair

2010-08-20T20:03:00.007-05:00

The Iowa State Fair is a big deal out here, so we decided to get tickets for it a while ago. Tuesday came around and it started raining about 4 am. We decided that it would not stop us from going to the fair, since Tuesday is our only day off. So we got there about 12:30 pm and just made sure we had our umbrellas with us.

This fair is huge. There is a lot going on in all the different building on the fairgrounds and all that delicious fair food!!! We decided to skip the diet for a day and just have fun. First thing we checked out was a model train exhibit, which unfortunately was still under construction.

Onward to the next exhibit we saw some really cute miniature horse babies and this horse carriage caught my interest.

Next was our first dose of junk food and onward to the next exhibit, which was about the biggest animals. Have you ever seen a bull that weighs 1300 lbs and a really fat big.

Isn't this sheep cute?

And then I got my lesson of the day. I went to pet a calf, which had some really soft fur and next to it was this, what looked to me like, a very malnourished cow.

There was a guy standing next to the cow and I asked him what happened. He actually is the owner of the cow and she is a milk cow. All the food she eats goes towards her milk production and these cows do not fatten up. This cow is #6 in milk production in the whole USA and he was very proud of it. I think I will have a conversation with Larry Moore again when we get back to Mission, since he has been pretty good in explaining this farm stuff to me city kid. :-)

After some more junk food it was on to the agriculture building, which was promised a display of a cow made out of butter.

There was a line of at least 50 people waiting to walk in front of the exhibit and we did not feel like waiting that long, so no close ups. There was so many more things we saw and ate. We had a great time and the rain actually stopped by 4 pm.

Balloons!!

2010-08-08T10:59:00.008-05:00

Tuesday is our day off and normally that means Doug goes to physical therapy and I do laundry and clean the house. In the afternoon Doug wanted to go to the park to go on some more rides, since we don't get free access anymore after the middle of the month. So with everything taken care of, we decided to check out a balloon festival in Indianola, which is about 10 miles south of here.

It goes on for a week and we really did not expect much, since it is a small town and it is not really widely advertised. Well, we were in for a big surprise. We arrived around 5:30 pm, rented a couple of chairs and found a good viewing spot. There was a nice line of junk food vendors and a two man band was keeping us entertained. It was like a little "Woodstock".

They had a play area for the kids with a little "tractor pull" and there was a nice line of vehicles with balloon baskets lined up at the top of the hill.

On the hill across from us they were marking the ground with an "X", which I thought was a starting spot for the balloons, but I was completely wrong.

About 6:30 pm the balloons were given the green light to start and to my big disappointment some of them just drove away again. We decided to just pay attention to the balloons that were starting and enjoyed the show.

The way the wind was blowing most balloons were passing right above us. We had some awesome views.

So we were watching for about a hour, figured that it was pretty much over and were about ready to leave when we realized that there was a whole bunch of balloons on the horizon coming towards us.

The "X" is actually for a competition for the balloons landing. Every balloon operator has a yellow ribbon with a weight mounted on it and they toss it over the "X" trying to land in the spot.

This is a picture of a balloon trying to land on the "X". Unfortunately I had shot so many pictures of the balloons leaving and coming back that the batteries in the camera died and I don't have more pictures of balloons trying to land by the "X". It really was a spectacular site and I am glad we came out.

Not Again!!!

2010-07-22T09:38:00.003-05:00

It was 2:58 am last Sunday morning when the sirens went of in the campground. We had seen on the news the night before that there were storms with a threat of Tornadoes north of us and moving towards us. They were supposed to be here by 6 am. Somebody forgot to give the weather gods a good watch, since they were here three hours early and this is just an ungodly hour to be up. We turned on the TV to see if we are under Tornado watch or "just" high winds up to 70 mph as we watched people getting in their cars and getting to the shelter stations. The storm was about 5 minutes out.

The weather channel said that it was just a severe thunderstorm and we decided to stay in bed. Thunder and lightning started and the rain was pouring down hard. Normally we have our workamping friends Dave and Julia rig as a buffer when the winds come out of the north, but unfortunately, they are on vacation for three weeks. Next thing I know the rig really shook hard. Hard enough for Doug to look at me and say "it is time to get dressed". TV got turned off and we just watched the storm out the bedroom windows, laying in bed fully dressed. Trees were bending, it looked like the flag pole from our neighbor across the street was going to break. It lasted about another 30 minutes before the wind slowed down and we decided to try to go back to sleep.

We got up around 7:30 am and I started making breakfast. There was a knock at the door and as I am opening the door I'm wondering how come my feet are wet. Well, turns out that the wind and rain beat so hard against the rig that water came through underneath the door. Luckily it only wet the floor mat and not the carpet, seams on the dining room slide, which have to be replaced since they are also rusted, were holding and we had no water there. Doug went outside to lend our telescope ladder to a fellow RVer, whose slide would not go in. Strangely enough he did not come back in so I went outside to see were he was.

As I am stepping out of the rig I noticed that our outside doormat is gone and there are a couple of soda cans on the front lawn. So I walked around the rig looking for the doormat to notice that we are not the only people missing stuff and people are wandering around trying to collect their stuff again.

This picture is taking from our couch, which is on the kitchen side and opposite of the entrance door. If you zoom in on the picture you will see a road in the background and luckily there is a chain link fence in front of the road. That is were Doug finally found our doormat. If it would have not been for the fence it would have been gone forever. Our neighbor with the flag pole lost one of his flags in the storm. This has been the worst storm yet and we are being told that the season is not over yet. The only thing we did loose was a shower cap, which was keeping my bicycle seat dry and god only knows where that ended up.

We had a couple of days of heat in the high 90s and with the humidity it said "feels like 117". When we decided to take the job here I looked around to see what there was to do over the summer so we would not get bored. It never dawned on my to check out the weather, since we normally just move if we hit bad weather. Another lesson has been learned.

Work has been interesting too. As the heat increases, more and more people are quitting, some not even given a notice, which makes it difficult for our department to fill the various jobs. I have worked 96.5 hours in the last two weeks and it does not look like my hours are going to be less any time soon. On the other side Doug's ride is broke down this week and he is only working about 4 hours a day giving breaks to people that are working. It seems that about 25% of the rides are down on a daily basis, which means he might not pick up to many hours any more. Stay tuned, the adventure is not over yet!

Still In Iowa!

2010-07-11T11:41:00.002-05:00

The month of June brought a us 13.43" of rain. We were short 0.02" for breaking the record from 2008. I think it really did not make much difference. The Des Moines River is getting very close to the top of the bridge in downtown Des Moines and when you drive by Route 65, you can see the flooded fields, electric poles under water, no streets visible and the water is about 2 feet away from the highway. We will need to get a small camera that I can keep in my purse so that we can take pictures. It is an amazing sight to see. Same goes for these amazing tall white clouds that look like big mountain ranges in the sky right before they turn dark gray and turn into rain. It sure was an interesting month of rain. I have started to draw plans for our arc on my computer.

We spend 4th of July working in the park. It rained most of the day just lightly, but they were able to get the fireworks in the park going around 9:45 pm. They are a little bit hard to see when you are working in a store. We got to see the fireworks from the casino next door the night before. They just started as we got out from work at 10:00 pm and they put on an amazing show. It was pretty cool to watch, just a little bit difficult to get back to the campground, since people parked on the side of the road, in the grass in front of the Adventureland Inn and we had to pass to security stations to get back to the campground. I have a new found respect for all the people that work on these holidays, while we used to relax, party and expect the stores to be open for our convenience. Very interesting view from the other side of the coin.

We had a big bright spot in our day last month. I had asked Jack to check out a Safeway in Colorado to look for a pancake mix we love and is allowed on our diet. He did not respond, however, Dale Bruss saw my post and checked out her local Safeway. She found four boxes and even was kind enough to send us one by mail right away. It is the same mix we had found in Oregon and our Sunday morning breakfasts are a pure delight again!!!! Thank you so much Dale and I am sure hoping you can find four more boxes on your travels before we met in Kansas this year. I will be forever grateful!

The month of July has arrived and at least in the retail department we are having our first round of people quieting. We all knew that it is not that easy of a job to stand on your feet for at least 5 hours day, but I don't understand how people can just call in and say they will not come in again. At least give a week notice so that the park has a chance to look for a replacement. Thanks to the quitters, we are now going to double shifts, which means you start at 9:40 am and work at least till 7 pm or as late as 10 pm a day. It sure makes for some long days. I did a double from 9:40 am to 9 pm last week and my poor feet were hurting at the end of the day. Next week I am scheduled for two doubles. I am certainly not complaining about not getting enough hours anymore. Doug's schedule has changed also, but not as drastically than mine. On the positive side, we are making enough money to pretty much cover our monthly bills and that was the reason why we started this job anyway. I have heard a lot of people say that they will look for work in campgrounds again next year. Maybe be will give that a shot next year. All I know right now it that the winter will bring a well deserved rest period for us.

Well, so much for today, I promise to look for small camera on our day off and start having some pictures in our blog again soon.

We had Visitors!!!!

2010-06-25T15:49:00.002-05:00

Remember last time I said that we are growing mushrooms in the front yard, Well, here is the proof.

I promised you also pictures from Adventureland the other day and here are a couple. I just could not get in the mood to take a lot of pictures and then I started thinking. Have you ever seen people take a lot of pictures of the place they work? It is a big difference to visit an amusement park to have fun or to work in one. It was an interesting lesson to be learned. :-)

In the meantime we had our first visitors from Retama Village. Donna and Grant send us an email a couple of weeks ago and said that they were coming through Des Moines and if we could meet up. "Sure" I said, happy to get to see a familiar face. Unfortunately they had problems with a blown tire again and instead of getting in a Tuesday and staying a few days, they came in Friday evening, after they also had to pull over on I35 due to a Tornado warning. They had to move on on Saturday and we were working Friday night. Not to fear, we are creative. I did not have to work until 11:20 am Saturday morning and Donna and Grant were kind enough to drive to the casino, which is right next to us, and we met for a 2 hour breakfast. It was so good to get a big hug and a smile. Other than meeting Ute last year on the coast of Oregon, we have never seen our friends on the road other than at the rallies. So everybody, you know where we are, our day off normally is Tuesday and we are always available for breakfasts, since we do work in the afternoon and evening. We sure look forward to anybody who wants to visit us. :-)

As you can tell I am blogging on a Friday afternoon, which means I have two days off this week again. Doug went to work at 2:40 pm and will not be home until after 9 pm. Starting next week the park will be open till 9 pm on weekdays and 10 pm on weekends. We will have to work some long hours, but at least it is starting to pay some bills and that was our goal. Since I am off today I decided to work on some little projects. The cloth on our small awning had come out of the metal rail, so I got our new 6 foot aluminum ladder down from the truck and started investigating. Luckily the material had not ripped and we had just lost a piece of plastic rod that was holding the awning in its groove. I took out the screw that holds the awning in place, called the technician from the place where we bought the rig, confirmed with him that I was correct about the small rod holding the awning in place and just used a bigger metal nail (didn't have anything else thin enough), attached the awning back in its groove and put the screw back on. Next project was a rattle in the light fixture in the kitchen that we have since last summer. Took the cover off, stuck some small felt pieces on the metal plate that was rattling ever time the washer is in the spin cycle and then of course had to do a load of laundry to make sure my fix worked. Come to find out I am actually pretty handy! :-)

It finally stopped raining 1 1/2 days ago and due to us having so many bad thunderstorms, Doug has ordered us a 50 amp surge protector so we don't have to worry about loosing every electrical appliance in the rig in the next storm. By the way, the tornado sirens actually did go of the other day, however, we found out later that in Altoona the sirens will also go of when we have winds in excess of 70 mph (as if that is much better). We took the passports out of the safe and decided to go check out a new grocery store. I just did not feel like staying in the bathrooms with everybody else waiting for the weather to pass. Our neighbors told us later that we did have small hail in the campground. Well, we are not supposed to have a storm again until Saturday evening, so our "lake" might actually disappear for a few hours. Otherwise, we are doing find and Doug's arm has approved a lot by now. I am really proud of him and his dedication to doing his exercises most of the time.

Another beautiful day in Iowa!

2010-06-15T11:38:00.003-05:00

NOT!!!! I can't remember the last day that is has not rained. We are talking slow drizzling rain to severe thunderstorms at any time in the day or of course at night when we are trying to sleep. At least the last two days the rain has waited until 8 am and allowed us to sleep through the night. Here are some pictures of our "lake", which is supposed to be a road and the hookup of our neighbor two hours after another thunderstorm.

The ground has been so saturated that at this point the puddles just keep getting bigger and we are growing mushrooms in our front yard. Normal rainfall for this part of the country in June is supposed to be 2"; at this point we are up to almost 6". On the bright side it seems that our lot is slanted enough that the water only passes through to the lot across the street with the Class A and he gets flooded. By now he has invested in a sump pump to get the water out from under his rig. Mike if you need some water, we will be happy to pump some over!!

This seems to be a year of firsts here at Adventureland. When we signed on with Gary from Human Resource he said that the park never closed doesn't matter how bad the weather gets. It is even in their park brochures. Well guess what, the park closed early for 5 days in a row because the weather looked bad for the evening when they made the decision in the morning. Apparently the owners look at the weather report at 8 am and then post early closings on the website and the big welcome sign up front. Well since people are not used to this, nobody looked at the website and there was some rather upset customers for a few days. Last Thursday I got a call from my department and was asked not to come in, since the park was closing early. Two hours later I get a call and was asked to work a double shift on Friday, which I happily agreed to. Guess what, we closed early on Friday too and I worked eight hours instead of the anticipated 11 hours. By now we check the website first in the morning to see how long we work at any given day.

On the bright side again, Adventureland has activities for its employees and last night was movie night. They basically take over a local movie theater and we get to see a movie for free and get a discount coupon for the popcorn and soda. To see a movie and have a large popcorn and soda for $5 is not a bad deal. Since Doug was working till 8 pm we went to the late showing at 9:45 pm and got home sometime after midnight. At least we are off today and were able to sleep in a little bit. There is also an "alphabet game" going on, so we will go to the park later on and I will take some pictures so that you guys finally get to see where we work. Stay tuned!

Tornado Watch

2010-06-03T11:23:00.003-05:00

People that live in the mid-west are very familiar with the tornado watches that occur pretty much throughout the summer. Well, it was my first one and I really did not know what to do. Should we pack up some stuff to be ready to head for the shelter, or just stay put? Doug just gave me "the look" and told me that he was watching the local channel on TV to make sure we would not miss any announcement for us to find a shelter. Actually there are a few shelters in the campground and they will sound a siren should we need to leave the rig. In the end we just had a very severe thunderstorm with heavy rain, which was a lot better than the hail they had south of us, and there was a tornado touchdown about 100 miles south of us. I guess I will have to get used to the weather up here and just be watchful.

Doug and I have been working full time now for almost two weeks and I have to say that he made the better choice with working in rides. He has a clear schedule of which ride he is on for the whole week and is advised of it in advance. I get my schedule in advance with my starting times for the following week, however, I never know where I work until I report to work in the retail office that day, which also means I don't know how long I work that day. I assumed that you always work until the park closes, however, the water rides in the park close one to two hours before the rest of the park and the retail stores that are associated with these rides close at the same time then the ride and you get send home. It makes it a little bit difficult to carpool with Doug, when I don't know how long I work on a daily basis. Once Doug's arm is better and he will ride his bike to the park it will not matter anymore, but right now it is somewhat annoying. Interestingly enough I am not the only one in our group that is unhappy about the way things are run in retail. Unfortunately, I don't think that there is much I can do about this and I am sure this will pass. If we do come back next year, I definitely will not work in retail again.

Other than that, we are doing fine. :-)

Work, Work, Work

2010-05-26T09:29:00.003-05:00

Well, we started working full time last Friday. Doug has been scheduled to work the PM shift for the whole season, which means starting any time between 1:40 pm to 3:40 pm depending when the park closes. On the weekends in June and July the park stays open until 10 pm, which will be a long day. The retail department was kind enough so far to change my schedule to PM shift also to accommodate Doug's schedule. Hopefully this will continue throughout the remaining season. The only difference is that I always start the PM shift at 2:40 pm doesn't matter how long the park is open. It will be some very long hours for me on the weekend, as long as the park is busy.

We are lucky to have some very nice neighbors next and across from us. Last Friday was Julie's birthday (neighbor to the right of us) and we had a little party at Dave and Jody's across from us.

See the nice small fireplace. It is actually fueled with propane so you have the heat, but not the smoke from a wood log. There is one couple in the park that burns wood logs in their big fire pit a lot and I'm sure glad we are not next to them, since the wood sure smokes a lot.

Working has not been so bad so far except on Sunday. It was 94 degrees in the park and I had the swing shift. Swing starts at 11:20 and you give lunch and afternoon breaks as well as restock the stores that are assigned to you. I managed to get the two stores that are on opposite ends of the park. It took me longer to walk to the store at Gulch then give the actual 15 minute break in the afternoon and my next stop was the candy store at the beginning of the park. It was so hot that the retail department actually was giving away water to their workers to make sure that we don't pass out (normally you have to pay 50 cent for a bottle of water). Makes you wonder what it will be like in July!!!

Yesterday was our first day off together and we went to see Shrek in 3D. It was pretty good and we also checked out a couple of stores to check on prices for new glasses for us. It has been three years, which means, as old as we are getting, we need new glasses for these tired old eyes. LOL

Well, that's it for today, we are both scheduled to work the PM shift through Sunday and hopefully the weather will stay in the mid 80's, which is not so bad.

Surprise!!

2010-05-20T13:11:00.003-05:00

We bought a new car!! Many of you might wonder why we did this, but there actually there was a good reason. All the time we had the VW, we really never drove more than 200 miles a day. Well, coming up here meant driving 300 mile days and I realized just how uncomfortable the seat in the Rabbit really is. Doug would step out of the truck still refreshed and ready to go another 200 miles, while my back, neck and hip really were aching. So once we got up here we started talking about maybe looking for a more comfortable car.

So without me knowing, Doug went to check out what is available in cars just a little bit bigger than mine, so he would also have some more leg room. So about three weeks ago he came back with this brochure for a Chevy Malibu. I was skeptic, but said okay to just taking a look and maybe doing a test drive. Well, to make a long story short, after getting the car below invoice and getting $2000 more for the Rabbit than Kelly Bluebook suggested, we ended up buying a new car. Here it is!!

Isn't it beautiful! It actually has heated seats and since it has been cold up here, it was really nice to have a warm butt while driving. I did not say any thing earlier, since we just got the car back from having a clear plastic film attached to the hood and sides to prevent rock chips like I had on the Rabbit and now the car is the way we want it.

Otherwise, not much has been going on. We had a 5 day rain streak and I just about went crazy in the rig. We decided to go to a mall just to get out and of course found the one mall that had about 2/3rd of its stores closed. It was just not our day. It was nice last weekend, but the park was really slow so some of the people that were supposed to work Sunday afternoon got told not to come in. I was supposed to do a double shift and was send home at 3 pm, which is just a normal AM shift. Doug has his training day in rides today and of course it just started raining about 30 minutes ago. At least the weather is supposed to be nice and warm for the weekend. We both are scheduled to work the whole weekend.

Yesterday we got our tour through the whole park and had a chicken dinner sponsored by the park. It was a lot of fun and I should have brought the camera, but I did not know that we were allowed to, so unfortunately, I don't have any pictures. By May 31st we are allowed to visit the park on our days off and then I will take pictures of our new work place.

Pella Tulip Festival

2010-05-07T19:46:00.006-05:00

I can't believe that we have been here for three weeks now. The weather has not been very kind to us. We are running the heat pump almost on a daily basis and it is 48 degrees right now outside and the wind is blowing so hard, it is shaking the rig ever so often. It has been so rainy and cold the last few weeks that we were happy when the weather was decent yesterday and we decided to check out a tulip festival that we saw advertised on TV.

Each year they have a tulip festival in a small town about 40 miles from here called Pella. They have a huge window and door factory on the outskirts of the town, which reminded me that we actually had a Pella door front door installed in our house in New Jersey. We found a place to park the car and started walking towards in the center of town to see what was going on.

There were tulips planted all along the main street and pretty much in front of every house. I was not aware how much of a Dutch influence this town has, but we were soon to find out. Walking towards the town square we heard some music and went to check it out.

The little kids were so cute. We continued on to find a huge windmill, which is actually a museum. We will visit it some other time, since there was a lot of people around waiting on the afternoon parade.

We checked out some really nice victim shops and found this beautiful tile work on the side of a building.

Well, it took us about an hour to finally make it to the town square.

The tulips were so beautiful and all over the place. There was also a small oldies car show and I just had to take a picture of this car. Apparently Doug's dad used to own one when Doug was a child and him and his brother used to ride in the back. Would not be able to do this today.

Well, I have to work again tomorrow and Sunday. Sure hope it gets a little bit warmer, or I will be freezing my buns off.

We are working!

2010-04-27T11:38:00.003-05:00

Yes, after 2 1/2 years of traveling and enjoying this beautiful country, we are working again. But first a couple of pictures of our new "home" for the next few months. The car is not in the picture, since Doug is at physical therapy for his shoulder, but it fits behind the rig just fine.

See the water puddle in the front. It had rained here since last Thursday with some heavy thunderstorms and even though the rain stopped yesterday afternoon, the ground is so saturated that the water just has nowhere to go. Our spot is on the opposite site of the amusement park, which means that you really can't hear the kids screaming on the rides at our site. If you enlarge the picture you should be able to see the Ferris wheel in the background.

Before we started working last weekend and the weather turned bad, we decided to work a little bit on the truck to replace the sub woofer. It turned out to be more of a project than I had thought, so right now everything is taken apart and we should be installing the new sub woofer some time this week.

See the new driver seat!! When we were in Kansas City, Doug had to go to the spare parts department of MCH (it is a guy thing) and found this beautiful Elite chair for about $300 less than he had seen it on the Internet. Since we were there already, we decided to have them install the chair, which was a good thing, since the base plate had to be changed to fit the seat.

Now let me tell you how our first weekend of work went. Doug is not supposed to work until May 21st, but told his supervisor that he was willing and able to work should they need him sooner. He got a call the next day and worked last Saturday from 8 am to 3 pm setting up stages for competing school music groups from the area. It was a good workout for his shoulder. I got the swing shift on Saturday, which means giving lunch and afternoon breaks to four different store as well working in their inventory room. It started raining in the afternoon, but it was not bad enough to close the park. I was supposed to work the afternoon shift on Sunday, but due to it being only 50 degrees outside and rain in the forecast, the park closed at noon and I did not have to work.

I have to say that my back was hurting at the end of day on Saturday, but I did have fun. There was this little girl that bought some pretty rocks, which are sold in a bag for a certain amount. After putting all of them in the bag, the bag was not full yet and I told her that she could get some more rocks. She looked in the bag and told me very politely that she had all the rocks she wanted. These moments are just priceless and I am looking forward to moments like that when working. I have my schedule already for next weekend and hopefully the weather will cooperate better.

We made it!!

2010-04-16T13:59:00.003-05:00

We arrived at Adventureland on Wednesday afternoon, but unfortunately our trip since my last post did not go as smooth as we had hoped for.

We left Thackerville, OK on Monday morning and everything seemed fine. I saw a pick-up truck slowing down a little bit and looking at the rig when he passed us, but I thought he was just admiring it. Well, I was wrong. We stopped about 50 miles up the road for me to get gas to find out that the truck had decided to spit up. The whole front of the rig, the back of the truck cab as well as anything sticking out a little on the side was covered with an oily fluid.

We first thought it was engine oil, checked the oil level and it was okay. We could see a few drops of fluid under the truck, but nothing was leaking badly. We wiped of a spot on the front of the rig to see if we would keep leaking and continued on. Our next stop was a Flying J in Oklahoma City where we got weight and again, we only saw a couple of drops of fluid under the truck and the spot that we had cleaned off was not covered again. We bought a gallon of engine oil and continued on. For the rest of the day we kept stopping about every 50 miles and got to Oasis RV Park around 4 pm. The rig looked just awful.

We decided the next morning to go on to Kansas City and have the truck looked at there. Kansas City has a very big truck shop presents and we knew Volvo was there. Before going to the campground we decided to go to a truck wash and get the truck and rig professionally cleaned. If I would have had to clean the rig it would have taken forever. Doug decided to also get an underbelly wash for the truck and once he got to campground you could see that it looked like a hose to the transmission was leaking. Doug took the truck right away to the Volvo dealer. We have dealt with this shop once before and were not very impressed. Well, they said that they could not get us in until the next morning and Doug came back to the campground. After discussing our situation for about an hour we decided to drive the car down to MCH and talk to them about our problem. They said that they could get us in within the hour and just bring the truck by. Luckily we were only 3 miles away from the campground and had the truck at their shop in no time. MCH found two leaking transmission hoses, replaced the transmission oil and we were able to pick the truck up the next morning and go on to Adventureland.

We arrived in the early afternoon and started check in. When I saw that they had put us into a site that has 30/50 amp I was getting a little bit nervous and we decided to drive to the site with the car first. I am glad we did, since there was no way we would have fit the rig and car never mind the truck there. So back to the check in office we went and the girl was nice enough to call Joe, who was the guy I had talked to about two months ago. So Joe drives up and you can see that as he passes the rig takes a good look and then took another good look. It seems to happen a lot to us since we have the big truck. At first he said he was not sure if he had a spot big enough for us, but then Doug and Joe where able to find a nice pull through spot that fits all of us. I was very relieved, since I did not know where we would have gone if they did not have room for us.

So now we are pretty much settled in, laundry is done, and we met with the human resource department yesterday. I have a meeting with the retail department tomorrow morning at 8:30 am and we will fill out all our paperwork next Wednesday. The only thing really left to do is wash the roof, since the truck wash did not do that. But, since it is only 56 degrees right now and pretty windy, it will have to wait until the weekend when it hopefully is less windy.

On the road again!!

2010-04-11T11:42:00.005-05:00

We had originally planned to leave Retama Village on Saturday to start our journey to Iowa. Well, we woke up on Friday morning, realized that we had done everything that needed to be done before we leave and decided to go ahead and hit the road. Linda was kind enough to take some pictures, since we were busy getting packed up and saying goodbye to our friends.

It was going to be a new experience for Doug, since he has not towed the rig with our big Volvo, so we decided not to make a reservation anywhere, since we did not know how far we would actually get. I have to say Doug did a fantastic job. We drove 320 miles, getting through San Antonio right before rush hour and stayed at a campground in Sattler, which is a little bit west of New Braunfels. We have stayed there a few time and it is really nice and quite. Unhooking that night was no problem, we went out for German food in New Braunfels and left Sattler the next morning around 9:30 am. Driving on I35 can be a bit challenging and after what happened we have decided not to travel through a big town again on the weekend. We were driving nicely along towards Austin when a dump truck came onto the highway. Doug gave him plenty of room to pull in, however, I guess the guy did not think so and dead stopped. Doug was able to get over into the middle lane while cars were moving quickly to avoid him. I unfortunately had to come to a full stop. Luckily the car behind me was paying attention and did not hit me and we got moving again.

We made it through Austin, Waco and Fort Worth just fine and then we met another idiot. We were merging from I35W onto I35N when a little Prius decided that he could not do the merge and decided to stop on the on ramp. The car behind him veered to the right and also stopped. There was nowhere for Doug to go, so he hit the breaks hard and luckily came to a stop before hitting anybody. Luckily I had kept some distance behind him and was able to veer to the right as the car behind me veered to the left avoiding me. If we would have been in the F550, Doug probably would have not been able to stop with the weight of the rig behind him. I am so proud of him handling this bad situation and was so glad when we finally arrived in Thackerville after driving 300 miles around 4 pm. Amazingly enough the content in the rig survived all this pretty well. No drawers or cupboards opened up and nothing came flying towards me. It seems that our new air hitch really does a nice job keeping things in the trailer in place.

We decided that it was time to take a break and are staying here until tomorrow morning before we continue. From here we will divide the remaining 700 miles into three 230 mile day trips and should be at the campground at Adventureland on Wednesday. Hopefully, nothing else this drastic is going to happen from here on out.

Hitting the Big One!!

2010-03-30T10:35:00.004-05:00

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!

2010-03-21T15:34:00.004-05:00

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

2010-03-07T12:15:00.004-06:00

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 ....

Status Update

2010-02-23T10:51:00.003-06:00

Doug had his rotator cuff surgery Monday a week ago. We got to the hospital at 6 am and were able to leave at 1 pm. He was in pretty good spirits while the nerve block was working. Unfortunately it stopped working about 5:30 pm and he had a really rough night Monday night. Since then the pain has slowly but surely lessened and we are going back to the doctor tomorrow to have this huge "bandage" (his whole shoulder is taped up right now) taken off. The next step should be physical therapy twice a week and hopefully he will feel a lot better by the time we need to leave beginning of April. At this point I am taking it one day at a time.

The weather in the meantime has been rainy and cold, but we had a lucky break last Saturday and Sunday. Mike Rhodes, the builder and owner of Retama Village, gave a "welcome back" party on Saturday night. It was catered by Rudy's Barbecue and we picked out on pulled pork, sausage and pork loin with all their traditional trimmings. Doug felt well enough to attend for about an hour, but then the chair got to uncomfortable and we made our way back home. A band played until 9:30 pm and we were told that everybody had a very good time.

Due to the bad weather this season, we really have not had many "Happy Hours" with our group. Who wants to go to the clubhouse when it is cold and rainy? Well, Sunday was a gorgeous day and Linda came up with the idea of having Happy Hour and Church's chicken that afternoon. What a great idea and we had the whole group (except the ones that have left Retama Village already) for dinner. It was nice to sit outside and catch up with what everybody has been doing since our last Happy Hour.

Well, this is pretty much all that has happened since the last blog. Hopefully we will get warmer weather soon, but it will not be this week. Tomorrow's low is 37 degrees with a high of low 60s. This is way to cold for us!! I want my 75 degrees back!!

What a beautiful sight!!

2010-02-14T14:20:00.003-06:00

Have you ever had a day where you wake up, have your day planned, and then your better half has totally different plans? Luckily by now I have learned to go with the flow and what he wanted to do made sense.

Since he is going to have rotator cuff surgery tomorrow he wanted to hook up the truck to the rig for the first time and move the rig backwards a couple of feet, since it is sitting a little bit to the front right now and the big truck does not fit in front of it.

I am so proud of us. I have to learn a couple of things, since you really need to be lined up exactly with the kingpin to the hitch and adjustment in high can also now be done through airbags on the hitch, which we did not have in the F550. It really did not take us long at all to get hitched up and get the rig moved a few feet back. Jack actually did not come over until we were all done, since he did not hear any expensive noises as we hooked up (LOL). The red truck can now stay exactly where you see it in the picture.

...and I got my little entertainment area back. When somebody now comes to visit, if the weather ever gets nice enough, we can entertain outside again.

Life is good today and hopefully everything will go well tomorrow morning and I will have him back home by lunch time.

What a week!!

2010-02-12T20:35:00.002-06:00

Actually it really did not start so bad. We were walking around on Monday at 4 pm to see where "Happy Hour" would be for the day to find out that it was Larry's birthday that day and Mark's the next. So of course since Kathy is still here, there was plenty of cake and ice cream. These are the days where we skip the diet and just enjoy being with our friends. It was nice to sit out on the patio at the clubhouse on a warm and sunny afternoon. There have not been that many this season.

Tuesday was more exciting for us. People that follow our blog frequently know that we were looking for a place to settle down again last summer on the west coast and due to the current state of our economy, that is not going to happen right now. So we decided to give "workcamping" a shot. We have been subscribing to an online workamper magazine that provides us with daily listings of campgrounds looking for people. Doug had also heard about a place called Adventureland through one of the many forums he follows. Adventureland is an amusement park in Altoona, IA (near Des Moines) and is one of the biggest employer of workcampers in the country. We knew that their human resource manager was coming to the valley to hold interviews, so Doug gave him a call one day and we had an appointment on Tuesday at 10:15 am. The gentlemen we met with was very nice and was able to answer all the questions we had as well as explain to us what would be expected of us. I never thought that we would actually get an answer if we would be hired or not that day, but by the end of the interview we both had a job for the summer. I will be working in retail and can start on April 24th and Doug will be working in rides with a starting date of May 21st. So you will be probably be hearing a lot about Adventureland and our adventures there this summer.

As our friends know, Doug has been in pain with his left shoulder for some time and finally agreed to go to an orthopedic specialist to find out what is going on. Well, he has a rotator cuff injury and we tried to relief some of the pain by him getting a steroid shot last week. For a lot of people, like our neighbor Donna, who got a shot in her knee, this works and the pain goes away. Unfortunately for Doug the pain stayed. So we have made the decision for him to have surgery this coming Monday, so that he will have enough time for rehab before we have to leave here for our jobs in the beginning of April. Wish us luck and say a little prayer for him please.

A Week for Firsts!!

2010-01-31T19:52:00.005-06:00

Between all the work we have been doing on the rig and the truck, we still find time to have fun. Wednesday night we went to a hockey game. I have seen the NJ Devils play on TV lots of times, but never been to an actual game. Well, the home team here are the Killer Bees and they were playing the Odessa Jackalopes. The Retama Village entertainment committee ordered the tickets so that the everybody from Retama Village could sit in the same section.

We sat to the left of the goal, protected by a large net. It always amazes me how the game field looks so much bigger on TV than it is in reality. The same thing happened when we went to a football game in the Meadowlands in NJ. The home team mascot was the coolest!

This guy had way to much energy, but was getting the crowd going for the two 1/2 hour game. Unfortunately, in the end our team lost, but it was a high scoring game and we had a good time. We actually got to see ourselves on the big screen thanks to the lady next to me that kept jumping up and down every time a camera looked her way.

Saturday we had our annual Retama Village yard sale. This year was the first year I participated, since we brought our stuff down from Sioux Falls and found out that we saved some things that we really do not ever use.

It was 43 degrees at 8 am when we started the yard sale and we were all bundled up as much as possible. Thank you to one of our neighbors who brought a pot of hot coffee and some delicious muffins to keep our spirits up. I actually sold almost everything that I had put out and by 10 pm the sun had come out and it was not that bitter cold anymore. For that it was my first yard sale I have to say we had a good time standing around talking and waiting for people to come by and buy our junk. One man's junk is an other's treasure!!

I have to say a goodbye and travel safe to our friends Mike and Pat McFall. They left Saturday morning has we were setting up for the yard sale.

I love Happy Hour!!

2010-01-22T12:53:00.003-06:00

Do to the lousy weather that we have had here in the last few months, there really have not been to many Happy Hours with the whole group. So it was nice to get an e-mail from Pat McFall inviting us to a Happy Hour/Potluck on Thursday. We had a blast! There was so much good food and great company!!

As usual, all the women folk gathered in the kitchen as the men wondered throughout the club house.

I think this is the first women and men group picture we have of all of us. We sure will miss you guys in the summer, when we are hopefully working.

The Big Job!!!

2010-01-22T12:20:00.003-06:00

When we came back to Texas in September, we noticed that the rubber seal on the kitchen slide did not make a good seal when the slide was all the way out. After closer inspection we realized that the metal clip inside the gasket had rusted through and nothing was holding the rubber seal in place. We ordered the replacement seal and then it got cold, so we had to wait for good weather to tackle this job.

These are a picture of the metal clip and what the rubber gasket looks like.

It is a little bit difficult to take a picture close up while holding the material, but I think you can see the V-shaped metal clip on the inside, which gets clipped to the rig in order to create a seal between the rig and the slide. I don't have anymore pictures of us doing this job, since I was busy doing this job!!

Well, last Monday was that day and we figured it would take us about four hours total to get this done. How hard can it be to take the old seal off, clean the area and clip the new seal on?? Well, let me tell you. A huge THANK YOU goes out to Larry Moore for helping us and hanging in there all the way. I really would have not blamed him if he would have bailed after the first hour. Taking off the old seal went pretty fast, except that it apparently had been attached to the rig with an adhesive strip and the rubber and glue in that area did not come off. This was a big bummer, since we are talking 40 feet of about 1/4 inch width rubber and glue stuck to the rig all the way around the opening for the slide.

I went to Home Depot to get some Goop Off and Larry, Doug and I started to get the stuff of the rig at 11 am. By 3 pm Larry had to leave and we still had about 3 feet left to do. We managed to get all the stuff off, wiped the whole opening inside and outside down with Windex and Doug started to attach the new seal. The plan was to start in the middle of the slide and then two people could attach the seal working their way to the outside. Well, plans are a nice thing, however, that does not mean they work. There was not enough of a gap between the slide and the rig to insert the rubber gasket and push it into place. So Doug started on a corner, but that meant that only one person could to the job. It was already getting dark and we decided to call it quits for the night after he had the top half way done.

Larry and Doug finished installing the rubber seal the next day and I used plenty of caulking at all possible point where water could enter the seal, since we don't want the metal rusting again. I sure hope that we don't have to do this again, but at least we got one of the big jobs done. The other one is working on the hydraulic system for the slides, since it is not functioning correctly. That will definitely be a job for the boys and I will stay out of it.

Good to be back home!

2010-01-09T09:56:00.003-06:00

We got back home last Tuesday night thanks to Donna and Grant picking us up at the airport. It was the flight from hell, but you will hear about that in a separate blog. We get in the rig and Doug discovered that we accidentally had left the propane heater on for the last two weeks and both propane tanks were empty. It was in the mid 50's in the rig and the heat pumps just don't do a good job heating up the rig fast, since hot air rises and the heat pumps are in the ceiling. So it is 11 pm, we have been up for about 23 hours and Doug got the good idea of try using the small propane tank from the grill and hooking it up to the rig. So he took the empty big propane tanks out of their compartment while I got the small tank out from underneath the grill. We got everything hooked with only minor complications and in no time we had a nice toasty rig. Very exhausted we had no problem falling asleep and sleeping the whole night through. Our bodies did not care about the 7 hour time difference anymore.

Wednesday was a gorgeous day and I used it to take down all the outside Christmas light on the rig and the big truck and actually got three loads of laundry done. Our friends kept telling us that a cold front was coming in so I wanted to use the warmth to do some things outside. We had a nice "Happy Hour" at Linda and Larry's lot with a whole bunch of people and decided to bring the sweets we had brought from Germany and share them. They were very well received, which made me happy, since not everybody likes marzipan.

The cold came during the afternoon on Thursday and we watched the temperatures dropping in amazement. You have to understand that we are at the most southern corner of Texas, just two miles north of the Mexican border, and even though temperatures are supposed to go down into the 40's at night, they are not supposed to get below freezing. Well, yesterday's high was 40 degrees on the nose. We did get some errands run and quickly went back home. For the first time that I can remember Doug filled the white tank all the way with fresh water and by 9 pm last night he turned off the outside water since we were just above freezing. They told us in the news this morning that it got down to 27 degrees for several hours, which means the outside water lines would have frozen, if we would have left the water on. The last thing we need is water hoses and plumbing freezing up and bursting. So at this point water is being supplied via a pump from our freshwater tank until the temperatures get back above freezing. So I am using this time now to update the blog, sitting on the couch bundled up in my blanket waiting for it to get warm. Keep scrolling down, since there will be at least three more entries by the time I'm actually caught up with everything we did since the last entry.

The trip from Hell!!!

2010-01-06T14:24:00.002-06:00

We got up on Tuesday morning and checked the departure of our flight on the Internet. It had a 3 1/2 hour delay, since the flight from Houston to Frankfurt had been late leaving. I called Continental in Frankfurt and even though everybody knew that the flight was late, they insisted that we had to be there for normal check in two hours ahead of normal flight departure or we could loose our seats. We had a connecting flight in Houston to go to McAllen, which at this point we would miss. So I asked the lady on the phone about a hotel voucher, since it was the last flight to McAllen that night and was told I had to talk to somebody at the airport about that.

So we arrived at the airport at around 11 am and checked in. At this point the plane is supposed to leave around 5:30 pm. I spoke to the lady at the counter about our dilemma of most likely missing our connecting plane in Houston and were told that Continental was definitely not giving out hotel vouchers. My blood pressure was rising, but the people in Frankfurt are actually from Star Alliance and not Continental, so I figured I would take that fight up with Continental in Houston. However, we were given a 20 Euro food voucher each and a pass to the Lufthansa lounge, which also serves some food and beverages. Security checks really were not so bad, specially after what had just happened in Detroit and we managed to pass the time until boarding. What a mess that was!! We could have actually left at 5 pm, if the ground crew would have started their security check for the transit passengers a little bit earlier and then it took forever for them to figure out who from standby could actually get on the plane. But eventually, we actually left Frankfurt and were on our way.

The 10 hour flight was pretty much uneventful and we actually made up some time. We were supposed to land at 8:40 pm CST time and our connecting flight was at 9:24 pm. We bolted out of the plane, practically ran to immigration, which seemed to be in the last corner of the airport and got through there fairly fast. Next stop was picking up the luggage and going through customs. At the baggage area was a temporary Continental counter and to our surprise they had already booked us on the first flight out of Houston the next morning, had a hotel voucher for us as well as two $12 food voucher. They totally took the steam out of my sail, but at that point that might not have been a bad thing. We had been up for a about 21 hours, with maybe 2 hours of sleep in the plane. We got our luggage pretty quick and went on to customs with 20 minutes left to our next flight. The lady wanted to chat a bit, but once we explained our dilemma she let us go without checking our luggage. On we went to the Continental transfer counter and dropped our luggage back of.

We were told that we had to go through security again, which means taking of shoes, jackets, taking computers out of the bag and no liquids in the backpack. I of course forgot to take the two bottles of soda out of the backpack, but the lady was nice enough just to take them out and throw them away. I still have to put my shoes back on and we have about 8 minutes left to make it to the gate. Doug started running ahead and I followed as fast as I could. We saw that there was still an attendant at the gate and started waving to make sure that they don't close the door. We made it with one minute to spare until I realized that I lost my purse somewhere after the last security check and I can't get on the plane now. I told Doug to stay put and I started running back the way we just came. By now I am utterly exhausted and about to breakdown and cry. However, adrenaline is flowing and I found by purse fairly fast, ran back, waving my purse above my head to let them know I found it as I am running out of air.

We made the flight, arrived in McAllen one hour later to find out that our luggage had not made it. I am so glad that Donna and Grant picked us up, since by now we have been up for about 23 hours and I would not want to drive anymore. I don't ever want to have to go through a trip like this again!!!!

Koblenz

2010-01-04T12:30:00.009-06:00

My dad has worked for the train company all his life, so for him taking a train is just no big deal. A few years ago we all took a train tip from from Bacharach to Mainz, however, it was only a local commuter train and not a very nice one at that.

So Doug and I decided to take a train ride before we go back home. This is what the weather looked like when we got up on Sunday morning.

It looked really pretty, but it also meant it was below freezing. It was really cold, but that would not stop us. So of to the train station we were.

The train went so fast that it did not make sense taking any pictures. The ICE can go up to 190 m/h, however, driving on the windy tracks along the river it "only" managed to go about 100 m/h. The picture below can attest to that.

We saw some beautiful winter scenery along the Rhein, which is one of Germany's main waterways. The trip took about 50 minutes and off we were exploring Koblenz. It was below freezing, which makes it a little bit hard to enjoy the old part of town. We wanted to see an old castle in town to find out that it was closed to the public. So we went on to a beautiful old church and the main attraction in Koblenz, which is the "German Corner". Here two of Germany's major rivers actually meet.

To the right you see the Rhein and to the left is the Mosel. It was bitter cold, but here are some more pictures of the area. As you can see, the Rhein right now is also running a little bit high.

We wondered around the old part of town some more and found a nice place to have lunch and defrost our hands and feet.

Another train ride, this time in the dark, which was pretty neat too, and we were back in Mainz.

Kupferberg - Sekt Producers

2010-01-03T11:53:00.003-06:00

Mainz is know for its sparkling wine maker Kupferberg so mom booked us on a tour to check it out. At first I was not convinced that it would be interesting, but I was wrong. The storage cellars go seven levels down, which makes Kuperberg the only winery in the world with that many levels of cellars.

They don't let you go down all the levels, but it sure was an interesting tour below ground.

There were so many tunnels, it would have been very easy to get lost. At the end of the tour was a sparkling wine tasting of three different sparkling wines. You can't call them champagne, since Sekt is not made from grape out of the Champagne region in France. I was glad that mom was the designated driver, since we were all feeling just fine after the tasting :-)

New Year's Day Parade

2010-01-02T10:43:00.005-06:00

It is very old tradition in Mainz (my home town) to have a New Year's Day parade, which starts at 11:11 am. This is all part of the pre Mardi Gras festivities, which start every year on November 11th at 11:11 am and last until Ashwednesday the next year. The different marching bands and guards are private clubs who all have their own colors, banners and costumes and participate in all kind of different events leading up to the Monday before Ashwednesday, when the Mardi Gras celebration goes to the street as a really big parade.

It was so cold that we had to keep switching the battery in the camera, since it would die on me within taking a few pictures. I would take pictures while Doug was warming up the other battery to get the charge back.

This is a picture of Doug, my dad and me. Here are some of the guards.

There must have been over 20 different guards. It was a very impressive display. By the time it was over we were all slightly frozen and went for Chinese food for lunch, since this is a new year's day tradition for my parents.

Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum

2009-12-31T03:57:00.009-06:00

It has been very cold and rainy here for the last week, but that does not stop us from checking out things. Doug on a previous visit to Germany had seen a Concorde displayed high above a building and was curious to check out this museum.

So on Tuesday we got into the car, drove about 150 kilometers in the rain and arrived at the Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum. The museum is really two huge airplane hangers and you will be able to find just about anything that has a motor in it there. I thought we were going to see an airplane museum, but that is what I get for thinking. We started with some American oldie cars,

followed by a huge assortment of first and second World War memorabilia from Germany, Russia and USA.

There were planes above us and tractors on the ground.

There were trains and motorcycles.

At last we climbed into the Concorde (while it was still raining) and its Russian counterpart.

I never knew that the Russians had built a supersonic plane. It apparently had a lot of problems in the first two years of service and the project was scratched. I took over 50 pictures and will upload them to webshots when we get back to the States. It was an incredible day with way to much stuff to see and we drove back to Mainz in the rain and fog very tired. We will need a week of rest to recuperate from this trip when we get back!!

Harley Davidson Store

2009-12-28T05:56:00.003-06:00

A few friends of ours at Retama Village are true Harley Davidson motorcycle riders. One day at Happy Hour Doug had his Harley shirt from Germany on (even though we don't own a Harley) and Gail was totally impressed and was wondering if we could get him one while we are over here.

Well, the store that we got them from was a ways away from here and I never really paid attention to motorcycles while I was living in Germany. Thank goodness for the internet. We found the closed store only about 20 minutes from my parents house. So we asked my dad to take us to the Harley store today.

I actually got to meet a biker there who had done a bike tour with a rented Harley from LA to Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Francisco and back to LA and had a blast. It was a pretty cool store and since we bought seven T-shirt, I actually was able to talk the guy into giving us a quantity discount. It never hurts to ask!!

Going for a Sunday stroll!!

2009-12-28T04:50:00.005-06:00

It is good to be home for the holidays. We spend three days eating four times a day, since you have to have coffee and cake in the afternoon. My sister came to visit on the 25th for the day and the next day my aunt and her two kids came. I had not seen her son since he was 2 year old. He now is 35 and I know I would have never recognized him on the street.

So on Sunday we decided to get out of the house a little bit and enjoy the freezing cold. It was so cold that we never got above the freezing point. My nose was frozen stiff, I could not feel my feet anymore, but it was good to go for a walk after sitting in the house for four days. First we visited a protestant church, which had these beautiful glass windows.

Next mom had planned to take us on a tour of labyrinth below the city of Oppenheim. It was actually a lot more interesting than I first had thought. The people in the 12th century build these basement to store their goods and also trash and anything they had not room for. Eventually the managed to meet their neighbor underground and this is how this whole labyrinth got started. There was absolutely no planning involved and therefore we walked through a lot of winding passages with very low clearances. They actually made us where helmets, so we would not get hurt. We looked to funny!!!

The tour lasted for about 1 1/2 hours and at least in the cellars we did not freeze our butts off, since the temperature is a steady 60 degrees. It felt downright comfortable down there. We had done enough exercising and headed home for more coffee and cake. It is good to be home!!!

.. and a merry Christmas to all!!

2009-12-25T02:58:00.005-06:00

It could not be a better Christmas for me to be at home with my husband and my parents. In Germany Christmas is celebrated in the evening of the 24th of December. The tree was always decorated by my father behind closed doors in the living room and at 6 pm a little bell would ring, my sister and I would play a Christmas song on our retainers, the door would open and you looked at this beautiful live tree with real candles. I have always missed the real candles on the tree in the States. This year I got the honor of lighting the candles on the tree.

To me there is nothing more beautiful and serene than the lit candles on a Christmas tree and some good Christmas music on the radio. Unfortunately it is hard to see the candles lit when the flash goes of.

And here are my dad, my mom and of course my dear hubby. Live it very good to me right now!!!

Christmas Market in Mainz

2009-12-24T02:34:00.001-06:00

I could hardly wait to see the Christmas Market again and the 23rd of December was actually the last day it was open. The entrance is marked by this giant Christmas carousel and there are all these booths with Christmas decorations, candies nuts, hot spiced wine and lots of pork roast and Bratwurst sandwiches to eat. Across from the entrance is a beautiful Christmas tree in front of the city theater. It is so nice that some things will never change, does not matter how long a have been gone.

The Christmas market is on a big square, which is normally uses for the farmers market three times a week, in the middle of the town next to our beautiful catholic cathedral. It is one of the biggest three churches in Germany.

As it was getting darker it sure looked very festive with all the lights and the nativity scene in front of the church.

One last look back as we were leaving to go out for dinner to a local wine cellar in the old part of town. It is good to be home!!

Home for the Holidays!!!!!

2009-12-23T04:03:00.004-06:00

As we were packing a couple of days ago I realized that it had been 17 years since I have been home for Christmas. We had visited a few times over the years and my parents have been to the US several times, but never for Christmas. So this visit was way overdue.

I had been soooo excited for the last few days that by the time we got to the airport in McAllen thanks to Larry driving us, I was tired already. The flight from McAllen was 20 minutes late leaving, but that is really nothing unusual. Flight to Houston was okay and luckily the wait for our next flight was not to long. The flight out of Houston left on time and we were of to our Christmas adventure. The flight turned out more of an adventure than I had hoped for since we hit a lot of turbulence and I was only able to sleep for 2 hours. For people that have never flown oversee, we left McAllen at 3:45 pm on Monday afternoon and arrived in Frankfurt at 12:30 pm Tuesday afternoon. The flight from Houston to Frankfurt ended up being closed to 11 hours.

So we landed in Frankfurt, plane landed just find and then we drove, and drove on the landing strip until I was wondering if the pilot had missed the gate since we kept on going. We were almost at the end of the airport until he finally turned left towards the gates. However, we never made it to the gates. They actually had us board buses to take us to the terminal. This has not happened to me since the 1980's. Come to find out, the had gotten so much snow the night before that the airport had shut down from 11 pm to 3 am so that the cleaning crews were able to clean the runways and so a lot of planes had not left the gates and the whole thing was a mess. To make a long story short, we got our luggage fairly fast and were able to find my parents happily waiting for us outside of customs.

Here are my two most favorite guys in the whole wide world, my dad and my husband, both working on their computers after breakfast this morning.

As you can see we will have a white Christmas unless the sun decides to come out. It is cloudy right now and somewhere right around freezing. Want to see a real traditional German Christmas tree??

Is it not beautiful!!! I still love the more elegant not so overdecorated trees that I grew up with.

Well today we will go to the Christmas market and out for dinner. Tomorrow will be a quiet Christmas eve with my parents and the following two days my sister and more of my relatives will come to visit. So stay tuned and I will try to post a lot as we get to see more over here.

When Poinsettia met the Frost

2009-12-11T10:19:00.004-06:00

For all our friends in the east, yes I know that you normally don't plant any plants outside in October or November. However, this is the most southern part of Texas and even though it is supposed to get down into the low 50's and high 40's, it is not supposed to FREEZE down here. Well, to make a long story short, it actually got below freezing for one night and my poor flowers did not appreciate that one bit.

I had hope for my second poinsettia, but it gave up a couple of days later.

A lot of the small flowery shrubs have died throughout the community and it will be interesting to see what the landscape company is going to do. Since we never had such hard frost down here, I don't know if this plants can recuperate or need to be replaced.

Well, inside the rig all shades have been down for days to keep the heat in, the flannel sheets are on the bed and the thick winter blanket is back on the bed. I had replaced it once with our thinner one since the last blog entry, because it was in the 80's again in the daytime and only low 60's at night. So we defrosted for about three days and now we are back to high 40's and low 50's for overnight temperatures and high 50's in the daytime. They are predicting 80's again for next week. At least we have not gotten sick with all these temperature swings.

I am, however, getting very excited about going back to Germany for the holidays. It is only 10 days away and if I would have my way, we would be all packed already. Since that would drive Doug absolutely nuts, I will wait till Sunday in a week to get all the clothes for Germany together. If it stays this cold, at least we will not have a temperature shock when we get back to my home town. I have decided to take the camera with us and will try to blog from Germany. Since we are there for two weeks, I should find the time to keep you guys updated on our "adventure". Stay warm everybody and we will try to do the same!

Winter has arrived!!

2009-12-04T17:45:00.004-06:00

We chose southern Texas for our winter spot, because it is not supposed to get this cold down here. Somebody forgot to tell the weather gods about this!!!. Not only have we had a lot of rain, which is slightly unusual, the temperatures for the next few days will not get out of the 40s. We actually have a frost warning for tonight!!!. I am so glad that we brought our stuff back from Sioux Falls, since I now have flannel sheets, a thick king size comforter for the bed and winter clothes. Who would have thought we would ever need them down here. Last year we were complaining about the heat at our Thanksgiving Dinner, this year we can't get enough heat.

Well, at least we were able to get the Christmas decorations up between the rain and the cold. I really like the lights in our big red truck.

The inside does not look so bad either, if I say so myself. I had to take the picture with the TV up, since my fake snow is in the way of the TV retracting. Oh well, we normally don't put it down at night anyway.

Last Wednesday we had a potluck dinner at the clubhouse, since Larry and Geri had arrived from South Dakota and Gina and Rollie were leaving the next day heading back to Louisiana. It was the first time that we actually had no leftovers, which was nice. We all had a great time and wished Gina and Rollie safe travels for the next day. Other than that, we really have not had much of a daily happy hour, since everybody is staying in their rigs with this cold weather.

So for right now we are huddled in blankets on the couch and are waiting for warmer weather. I just can't believe that it is colder here than in NJ!!! Something is totally wrong with that picture!!!!

Unwelcomed Guest!!!

2009-11-29T20:25:00.004-06:00

Throughout our travels we have encountered all kinds of animals and you will find all kinds of critters in campgrounds. However, if I don't see one of these ever again, I will be happy!

It was Saturday night, the dishes were done and I was taking out the trash to the trashcan behind the coach house. As I worked towards the trashcan I saw something dark out of the corner of my eye down on the ground. As I walked back to the door I realized that it was a HUGE spider. Now I have seen spiders before, even killed a couple of small ones when I had to, but this things was HUGE.

I know it does not look that big in the picture, but there was no way I was getting any closer to the monster. Doug trapped it for the night, since we were not sure what it was. Well, come to find out, it is a tarantula.

The tarantula was the talk of the town for about an hour and then Doug took it out into an empty field and let it go. There sure is never a dull moment around here. The lesson to be learned was that next time the trash can definitely wait until morning, since I will not go out at dark again any time soon.

Giving Thanks for Good Friends!!!

2009-11-29T17:51:00.005-06:00

You know how things sometimes just don't work out the way you plan. Well, that happened to us on Thanksgiving Day. We had planned on going up to Austin to spend the day with Doug's dad and his family. Doug was not feeling so good the night before, but I figured it would just pass hopefully during the night. We got up the next morning at 5 am, since this is a 300 mile drive and we were supposed to be there at 12 pm. We left at 6 am and headed north. Within about an hour I realized that Doug was still quietly holding his guts and asked him if he was still in pain. After a confirming yes, I turned the car around and headed the 60 miles back to our home. We arrived at 8 am and Doug went straight to bed.

By around 10 am Donna knocked at the door and I explained what happened. There was a Thanksgiving dinner at the clubhouse that afternoon, but Doug certainly was not up to going and I was not going to leave him alone in the rig. Linda stopped by around 11 am and brought over some turkey soup that Donna had made the day before in case Doug would get hungry. He had some soup around 2 pm and started feeling a little bit better.

And then there was a knock on the door at 4:30 pm and Grant had two big trays with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, a buttered roll, another plate with two cold salads and a fourth plate with deserts. Trust me, you can't asked for better friends!!!! Thank you all you put all that food on the plates!! It was delicious!!

Friday was leftover day and Doug was well enough to participate. We were at Gina and Rollie's, who made a fresh deep fried turkey that was just to die for.

There was so much food, nobody went home hungry again and I was glad that I was able to participate and bring my Deviled Eggs to this feast.

So there is our Thanksgiving Day story this year and thanks to all our friends, it turned out pretty good.

Who killed Ramsey Gordon??

2009-11-22T09:59:00.005-06:00

You might wonder who Ramsey Gordon is and I have to tell you that I don't know either!. We attended a "Murder Mystery Party" at Retama Village last night. It was a blast!! I have always wondered what these parties are all about, since friends of ours from NJ have attended them and loved it. We were sitting with our friends at a table for eight and had to discuss among ourselves who out of the six suspects was the killer. While debating, interviewing the suspects and reading our clues, we managed to drink two bottles of wine and have a nice dinner served to us. It was a three hour event and it did actually get a little bit cold on the patio around 7 pm, but we all had a great time and I would surely attend another one of these parties, even though our table did not guess the correct killer.

In the meantime, the ABS controller arrived, was installed by Doug and there are no more error messages from the ABS computer and the brakes function just fine. Next is the hunt for the brake controller. Doug has a bid in on E-Bay and we will see if we can get it for a good price also.

When I washed the roof a couple of weeks ago I noticed that the seal on the kitchen slide was not out correctly. For another reason we had to move the slide a little bit in yesterday and we took a closer look at that seal. Come to find out, there is a metal retainer in the rubber seal and it has rusted through and broke in some places, which means the rubber seal does not stay in place anymore and that might be a reason why we have mosquitoes in the rig sometimes. Just another job on the BIG to do list.

Well, at least my project of scanning all our pictures and negatives onto a hard drive has been finished and we now have 2500 pictures (2.5GB) of memories on two different hard drives as well as a DVD to make sure we never loose them.

Time flies when you are having fun ....

2009-11-14T10:59:00.007-06:00

..... or a really BIG to-do list. I did not realize how long it has been since the last post until my girlfriend from NJ asked me what we were up to!! So much has happened, I don't even know where to start anymore. We got the truck back about a week after it was dropped off and the hitch was installed and the truck was shortened about 12 inches.

Does it not look nice!!. The hitch has three airbags and since the truck also has its own airbags, it should make the ride for Doug a lot more comfortable. The next step was to line up the rig with the truck, since you want to be pretty level when you are driving down the road. The tape measure came out, the guys started debating the subject (there is always help on hand, which is really nice!!) and we knew that the kingpin had to be extended. I always thought that I was fairly strong, but to loosen those bolts took two guys. Here are some pictures of the process and what it will look like when we are hooked up.

We did not hookup all the way, since we don't have the brake controller yet that will activate the brakes on the rig, but I think it is going to look very nice. The next step for Doug was working on the ABS system and it has turned out to be a really challenge. After trying out things for about two days he decided that we do need a new ABS controller, since we don't have six wheels anymore and the computer is looking for them. The Volvo dealer wanted $1000 for it and Doug found it on E-bay for $400. I just love my husband!!!

Now I have been pretty busy also, starting with finally getting the rig washed from top to bottom. That alone is a three day job and all I got left to do is the windows (which I hate doing). Some things just never change and sometimes I think we have more windows in the rig than we had in the house. There is actually 14 windows in the rig!!!! Well, next step was shampooing the carpets, which really needed it. Since I have my steam vacuum here from the storage unit, it really was not bad at all. It is amazing how much dirt and sand a carpet can hold.

It took a while this year, but the butterflies have finally returned to Retama Village.

I just love watching butterflies.

I am proud to report that all the boxes (except the one with the Christmas Stuff) have been emptied and stored away. It took a while to make a walking path through the coach house, but I even managed to get that done by now. All the pictures have been hung up and all our memento's, that we used to have in our entertainment unit in NJ, are out again. It really starts feeling like home.

So as you can see, we have been pretty productive and the to-do list is still going on. But at least I found time to plant a couple of flowers in the holiday spirit.

Busy, busy, busy ....

2009-10-26T16:19:00.004-05:00

You might think that being down in Mission is all "Happy Hours" and relaxing, but you would be totally wrong. Well, we do have our happy hours most days and the weather is beautiful most days, but we do get work done.

I started unpacking our boxes about 1 1/2 weeks ago and thanks to our neighbor Linda, my nick-nack case and a lot of our pictures are hanging up. It will take a while until I take pictures of the coach house, since there is still a lot of work to be done. We decided to scan all our pictures from the albums on to a hard drive and that project is a "little" bit bigger than I thought.

Doug has been working on the truck, since we got the fenders last Monday. For a day or so it was just him and our neighbor Larry working on the first fender, but once they had things figured out I just had to get involved too.

Don't they look just beautiful!!!

This morning we brought the truck back to the shop to have the hitch installed and the truck bed shortened. So as you can see, we are actually very busy down here.

Castles in the Sand

2009-10-19T18:19:00.003-05:00

Just because we are back in Mission does not mean that we are not doing things anymore. We needed a break from working on the truck and the coach house, so we went with Larry and Linda to South Padre Island to check out a sand castle building competition. The contest went from Thursday to Saturday and since the weather forecast was talking about rain Friday night, we decided to go on Friday, just in case all the sand castle were going to be washed away.

It was actually pretty cool to see the making of these statues.

The artwork was pretty impressive, even though it was not finished yet. I am glad we did not go on Saturday, since 250,000 people showed up to check this event out. I just don't like big crowds and having to hunt for a parking spot.

Instead we went for a nice lunch with Larry and Linda on Friday and arrived home before the thunderstorm started.

... and then came the call!!!

2009-10-10T20:30:00.003-05:00

We had been back in Mission for a week when we got the call Thursday a week ago. Tru-Trac called at 12:35 pm to let us know that the truck was ready to be picked up. I was of course in the middle of making lunch, so we ate really quick, packed an overnight bag and got on the road. The trip was pretty uneventful other than the swarm of small butterflies by Alice and the thunderstorm north of Waco as we had 35 miles left to go. We arrived at Alvarado around 9 pm and turned in fairly soon, since we had to go another 500 miles the next day and on the way back we both had a vehicle to drive.

We picked up the truck on Friday morning and headed back down to Mission. We made good time through Austin and San Antonio and I actually got to drive the truck once we put in some fuel in Alice. It took a little bit of getting used to, but I actually drove 80 miles and even made it through a small town without any problems. It sure is a different view point sitting so high up in the truck. We got into Mission around 7 pm and now our lot is filled up with vehicles.

Here are some pictures from the inside of the truck.

Now I can start relaxing and get settled back in at our winter home. Doug has started working on the truck and next week we will have a new hitch installed so that we can put the Ford on the market. Once he is done with all his stuff, I will work on making the inside look all shiny. There is always a project to be done down here, so we surely will not get bored this winter.

Back in Mission !!

2009-09-30T12:22:00.004-05:00

We arrived at Retama Village last Wednesday. It was a rainy and gray day and it took us a while to park in the rain, but we got it done and now we are starting to relax. We have never been that early at Retama and we were actually the first ones to arrive on our side of the street.

We unloaded the rig on Thursday and now starts the daunting task of emptying all the boxes and suitcases and find a place to put everything. Actually we emptied three suitcases today and it was not that bad. At least we found most of our winter clothes, which helps, since we are going to Germany for Christmas.

Larry and Linda arrived here on Sunday and now we are having our daily "Happy Hour" again. It is good to be home, even though it is really got and humid, which we are not used to. At least we got to cool off in the pool a little bit yesterday afternoon. Our truck should be done today and we should be leaving here tomorrow to pick it up. I will keep you guys posted next week in our blog.

Our New Addition!!

2009-09-21T17:40:00.002-05:00

We picked up our new truck today!! It only took three more hours than expected, but we were finally on the road to the shop by 3 pm. Luckily, we got to the shop just before they closed and we handed off the truck to get a quote done on the work we want done.

But, first we pulled over in a rest area on I-35W and I got to take some pictures. Here they are!!

Isn't she a beauty!!! Pictures of the inside have to wait until we get the truck to Mission and at this point, I am not sure when that will be. We will leave here tomorrow and head down to San Antonio. Stay tuned everybody!!

The BIG Red Truck!!!

2009-09-19T14:42:00.004-05:00

Yes, we bought a big red truck!! No, I have not taken any pictures of it yet, since last week was a little bit crazy. So the picture is of a truck like ours still on the lot at Arrow Truck Sales (stole it from their website).

I am so glad that our search is finally over!!! The truck is a 2005 VNL780, is fully automatic (which makes it easier for me to drive), has the workstation bottom and a bunk on top. As I said, pictures will follow next week.

We went to the dealer last Monday and both of us did a test drive. Next stop was the VIS test, which we went to MCH for. I will be happy to never darken their door step again!!. We were grateful that they were able to get the VIS done without having an appointment. We had to wait a couple of hours for them to find a tech that could do the test, but that was okay. The part that really ticked me off was that we waited for over one hour for them to produce a bill to pay after the test was done. Doug actually got into the truck and if it would have aired up faster would have left, but at least it got the guy going on our bill.

We went back to the dealer and discussed what needed to be done and gave him our offer on the truck. He had to check with his boss and get the repair estimate from the shop (nothing major - Doug can explain it better) and by Tuesday afternoon we got the call that our offer was accepted. We went back on Wednesday to sign the paperwork and thought we would leave for Mission on Thursday to drop off the rig and come back to pick up the truck.

As you might have noticed by now, our plans seem to chance a lot and fast. Doug found a place south of Fort Worth that does wheel balancing (since we need that) and can also do the singling of the truck. He gave the guy a call on Wednesday and really liked what he had to say and that he knew and understood what we want to do. So we decided to check him out on Thursday and leave Denton on Friday, as originally planned.

The shop looks okay and we got to speak to the guy that would be doing the work. So yesterday we moved the rig to a campground south of Fort Worth and we will pick up the truck from the dealer on Monday and bring it over to the shop down here. We are planning on leaving here Tuesday to head south, but can stay longer if it takes longer to get plans done on what to do with the truck. I will take pictures on Monday and post again as soon as we get back to Mission, which should be sometime by middle or end of next week.

Rain, Rain, Rain!!!!

2009-09-14T20:14:00.002-05:00

We left Kansas City last Wednesday after the Dyno test went very strange on Tuesday. It took forever to get the test done and I believe that they altered the test, since the first printout did not include the blowby number and after 1/2 hour of debating suddenly a number appeared on the printout. We were disappointed, but it was time to move on, since there was also some strange noises between 4th and 5th gear. We spend a night in Thackerville to get our last gambling fix in and got to Denton, TX on Friday. It started raining around 5 pm and really did not stop until late this afternoon.

Friday we went to Arrow Trucks to check out another truck and found one that really is nice. It is a Volvo 780 without a clutch pedal, which makes it easier for me to drive. We went for a test drive today and had a VIS test done. There is some stuff in the front that needs to be fixed and we still have to talk them down on price, but other than that it drives really nice. Stay tuned, maybe we will be buying a truck this week!!

If it does not happen I hope Mike is right and the right truck will find us, or we will find it. Time will tell.

Looking at big trucks!

2009-09-07T11:06:00.002-05:00

What a week it has been!! From Sioux Falls we went south on I-29, checked out a truck in Sioux City and moved on to Nebraska City for the night. One more state that I can check off on my list!! Next day we moved on to Peculiar, MO, since there was a couple of trucks in Kansas City that Doug wanted to take a look at. We got settled in on Tuesday and found a place to do the Dyno and VIS tests, should we find a truck in the area.

It is strange how sometimes things happen very unexpectedly. We arrived at the dealer and looked at the two trucks Doug had seen on the Internet and were not that impressed. However, the dealer had an older Volvo 660 on the lot that was looking very nice on the inside and was even white. We went to another place to check out another truck and started talking on the way back to the campground. The white truck was very interesting, but there was still a place about 200 miles south in Arkansas that had some trucks for sale that we needed to check out first. So on Wednesday evening we decided to take the car to Arkansas and check the other trucks out on Thursday. We left Peculiar at 7:30 pm, staying in Joplin that night and went on to Springdale the next morning. We climbed in nine of these trucks and they were beat up. There was nothing there for us and we went back to Peculiar on Thursday.

Friday it rained in Kansas City, but that did not stop us to go back to the dealer and check out this older Volvo. It started right up and Doug took it for a test drive. The engine sounded find and the handling was so much better than the Volvo we drove in Casper, WY. On Saturday we went back to the dealer and I actually got to drive the truck in their huge parking lot and I did NOT stall it!! The Dyno is now scheduled for tomorrow and if it checks out, we will do the VIS test next. If it all checks out, we might have a big truck by middle of next week. The good thing is that the dealer can keep the truck there for as long we need to get back to Texas to drop of the rig and vehicles and Doug can fly back to Kansas City to pick up the truck later. It looks like we will have an exciting week ahead of us. I did not take any pictures of the truck yet, since I don't want to get excited and then things might not work out. So stay tuned and we might have some more news to report end of next week.!!