Feb 27th - Sunny

Wednesday PM
More rain all afternoon. We did get out for lunch yesterday, and a trip to the Piggly Wiggly for a few groceries. While out we stopped at Mama Lou's for lunch. It was a very causal buffet. The food was good. If we run out of new places we would go back.

Thursday
Last nights low was 33 degrees. We had bright sunshine and a high of 55 today.

After breakfast I walked 3 "laps" around the campground's outer roadways, 4.1 miles, for some exercise. Kathy did more cleaning while I was gone.

Around noon we headed out for some sightseeing in Foley, AL. Foley is a small town a few miles from us. We hit the visitors center and then spent some time at a "medical museum". The medical museum had been the Doctor's office, and a small hospital, many years ago. Because there was no other convenient hospital, you had to cross the river, sometimes in a boat, to get to the hospital in Mobile. The local Doctor expanded his office to include rooms for use as a hospital.

We had lunch at the Fish Shack, another casual dining establishment. We had a feast. Kathy had oysters and shrimp and I had catfish, for our main courses. The meal started with a small cup of "swamp gumbo". It was good but, me not being much of a seafood person, it was not something I would order. Sides with the meal were French fries, fried okra, cole slaw and great hush puppies. As we finished the waitress brought us small pieces of chocolate cake, with white frosting, Kathy's favorite cake.

The old phone booth and superman suit at the front of the restaurant was an interesting touch.

After lunch we went to an outlet mall (whoopee). While Kathy shopped I sat on a comfortable bench in a pleasant "square", and enjoyed the great sunshine. We were only there for less than an hour. It was a large place, I bet our granddaughter could have spent two days there, perhaps longer <grin>.

Back home at the campground we sat in the sun a little more and then a nap seemed a great idea. While I napped Kathy did a couple of loads of laundry, a woman's work is never done.

The campground is great. The campsites are huge. The only thing that I've noted that could make it better would be if the pool was heated and if they had a hot tub. I could care less about either, but Kathy would use them if they were available. (None of the campgrounds I checked on, prior to making reservations, had a heated pool.)

Tonight's low supposed to be 32, but it is supposed to be a sunny 62 tomorrow. Exploring Mobile is on the agenda for tomorrow.

May God bless you and yours.

Feb 26th - AM

Tuesday
I went over to the office in the morning and got us checked in and then did a 3 mile walk on the camp roads. There were quite a few “old farts” out walking or riding bicycles, and all were friendly, as were the ladies at the office when I checked in. Back at the motorhome I hooked up the water and sewer so we are not fully connected. (Actually not full connected, I forgot to ask the ladies at the office about getting access to the WiFi, so I am still connecting over my phone.) Kathy did the breakfast dishes and some cleaning while I was on my walk-about and making connections.

Then it was sight-seeing. We knew this was going to be one of the warmest days while we were here so it was the day to go to the beach. We drove around looking the area over, and checking out restaurants. We finally settled on one of the MANY “oyster houses” that are all over the area. The décor was nice and our table was next to large windows that overlooked a small waterway. I had some type of blackened fish that I’ve never heard of, with a sauce that I can’t pronounce or spell. It was interesting, good but not great. Kathy had a bowl of gumbo and a plate full of oysters all seasoned with different spices. We managed to wolf down almost everything. Then on to the beach.

The beach is beautiful. By the time we arrived the temperature was in the mid 70's. It was a weekday and cool yet there were still quite a few people out tanning or just walking along the beach.

 

Heading down to the water.

Wading.

 

After the beach we drove around some more, just looking over the area. I was a little surprised at how much agricultural, and undeveloped, land there is around here. The other surprising thing was the number of help wanted signs/ads at the hotels and restaurants.

Back at the park we lounged awhile and then went for a walk. Kathy wanted to see the activity center. Several nights a week they have meals at the center. I will probably sign up for pancakes and sausage Saturday morning ($3.50) but we did not sign up for the enchilada's they had last night. Kathy went in and looked the place over, she said the enchilada's smelled pretty spicy.

Wednesday - AM
It started raining early last night and has rained continuously since then. Not hard, but the kind of rain we sure could use back in MO, an all night soaker. It is supposed to rain most, if not all, of the day today. We saw lots of "shops" that need visiting so I think we will do some of that today. It is in the high 50's now, which is probably the high for the day. It is supposed to drop down to near freezing the next two nights.

Wish those of you in the cold, snowy north were down here with us. May God bless you and yours.

Feb 24th - We Have Arrived!

We are parked at the campground in Summerdale, Alabama. We arrived here about 5:45PM. The roads today were much easier driving than what we drove yesterday afternoon. Yesterday it was uphill then downhill and always curves. We encountered several 7-8% grades, thankfully the steep ones were fairly short.

The rest area where we stayed last night was quite an interesting place. I really screwed up by not taking a couple of photos this morning before we left. We think it was probably something built by the WPA guys.

It got cool last night. I think the low was 26. I ran the generator for about 2.5 hours in the evening and again for maybe 3.5 hours in the early morning. I wanted to be able to run the “heat pads” on the water and sewer tanks and couldn’t do that while only on batteries. I also turned on the block heater in the morning and let it warm up the engine before starting it.

Today a lot of the roads were 4 lane divided highways, just not limited access Interstates. Traffic was light both yesterday and today, except for Mobile, Alabama. Going through Mobile during rush hour proved to be very interesting. In order to get from one section of Interstate to another you are routed down onto city streets for several, very crowded blocks, with at least 4 lanes of bumper to bumper one way traffic. When you get back on I10 west you have to do one of the 20 mph loops and then merge into HEAVY traffic that is running 50-55 mph. The merge ramp isn’t all that long and when approaching it, it looks even shorter than it is. Cars trying to get out into the traffic stream were backed up about 20 deep. I told Kathy that we might have to set there overnight before we got a large enough gap to get into traffic. She asked if she could do anything to help. I said she could pray. She said she was already doing that. Then Praise the Lord, a gap opened up just as we hit the start of the merge ramp. We were able to get into traffic with no problem.

 

All in all the roadway surfaces were in pretty good condition, not to rough. If I were going to do it again I might drive the extra 50 miles to drive on Interstates rather than Hwy 63 in Missouri and part of Arkansas. We bought fuel at 4 different places (while making pit stops). The most we paid was $3.799/gallon but we saw places that were charging over $3.90.

It was almost dark when we arrived so we have really had a chance to look the place over much. We did just walk over to the office so that we knew when it opened in the morning. It was closed when we arrived. When Kathy called them to see if a spot was available if we arrived today (the plan was to arrive tomorrow) they told up which spot to park in and to come by in the morning and sign in. We opened up all the windows while setting up. At 6:30PM it was 64. Tonight's low is supposed to be 59. I think tomorrow's high is supposed to be 69. It might not be "lounging around the pool" weather but it is far better than what we left, and far, far better than what family members in Indy & Coldwater are experiencing.

Good night to all. May God bless you and yours.

Feb 23 - Black Rock, Arkansas

We are spending the night at a rest area along US63, near Black Rock, Arkansas.(no worries Mom, we are well armed and have a lot of ammo<grin>).
We are about 250 miles from home. Overnight low here is forecast to be 23 degrees, but I did n't expect it to get that cold.
Will update blog tomorrow evening if there is a good cell signal. Doing this update on my phone.
May God bless you and yours.

Feb 22nd - Ready To Go

We are all packed, except for a few last minute items. We plan on leaving for the Alabama Gulf Coast after church tomorrow. The route we chose contains very little time on Interstates. It is about 770 miles the way we are going. We could make it in two days if we wanted but Sunday night it is supposed to get down to 20 degrees, instead of "only" 26 degrees tonight. We might as well be a couple of hundred miles south of here Sunday night, where the low will only be somewhere between 25 & 30 degrees.

The weather was nice again today, although the low last night was colder than forecast. The forecast low was 34, but the actual low was 26. The warmer temps that past few days have sure helped out with our wood supply.

Lydia "helped" Kathy do a lot of the packing. She was outside with us a lot today. During one of our walks Kathy mentioned that we were going to really need to keep a close eye on Lydia this summer. I've said it before, but she just doesn't have any fear. She just wanders out into the woods and then turns around to see if we are following her. If we aren't close enough she will holler at us to get closer. I think she might continue into the woods even if we didn't follow.

Yesterday we got Skype set up on our laptops/phones so that we can "video message" with Lydia, and Kelsey & Andy, while we are gone. I'm not sure who is going to miss who the most. I know Lydia is going to miss us but I'm  also sure that we are going to miss her.

May God bless you and yours.

Feb 20 - WARM!

We are enjoying quite a "heat wave", well maybe not quite a heat wave but it has been warmer than normal. At 9:20AM it is 62, the overnight low was 54. Highs are forecast to be in the 50's both Friday and Saturday, before the temps go back down to normal. By late next week highs are forecast as being in the low 20's. By then we hope to be in Alabama where the high temps are forecast to be in the high 50's.

We picked up our motorhome yesterday. Everything appears to be good, except my wallet <grin>. I praise God that He has made it possible for us to have the resources to have a good standard of living and to be able to handle financial surprises.

Troy, at Camping World, did a final "walk-thru" inspection yesterday morning, to make sure that everything was done right. He found an item that still needed some "tweaking" so I had to wait on it for maybe half an hour. Not a huge inconvenience as I could walk around the store and look at all the many RV accessories that area available.

Kathy, Lydia & I had driven up to get it. Kathy and Lydia came back home while I waited on it. When I got home I drove it out behind the shed and Kathy came out to drive it, while I directed, to turn it around and get it headed out the drive. This was probably the first time I was glad for all our rock just below the surface. The soil on top of the rock was still muddy from all the snow melt and twice we spun the tires in the mud before getting it turned around.

Kathy had Lydia strapped into the passenger seat while she turned it around and Lydia had a ball. As soon as Kathy shut it off , got out of the drivers seat and unbelted Lydia, Lydia jumped down, climbed onto the drivers seat and announced "I drive, I drive". She is READY to go camping. We are hoping that it works our for her to stay in TN with us for at least a few days after Merv's birthday party.

Kelsey and Lydia came up this morning and Lydia and I ate breakfast together. We shared some oatmeal and a grapefruit (I try to eat a healthy breakfast at least a couple of times a week <grin>). I am going to miss her while we are gone.

I hope you have/had a great day. May God bless you and yours.

Time for me to get ready for a trip to the fitness center.

Feb 18th - Beautiful Day

The high temp was 65 today. I made it to the YMCA today. Lydia was napping when I got home. Kathy had her outside during a lot of the morning. She LOVES to be outside.

After she woke up we walked up to the road and brought back our trash can. It is quite a hike for her short legs. Heck, it is a hikc for her fat old grandpa.  After that we had two session of swinging, we finished off the outdoor time with a Popsicle.

OUR MOTORHOME IS FINALLY READY! We are supposed to pick it up around noon tomorrow. I made reservations for a weeks stay at the Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale, AL We plan to leave either after church Sunday or Monday morning, probably Monday morning. I need to "de-winterize" the motorhome before we leave. Low temp is forecast 27 Saturday night and 24 Sunday night, so as long as we leave the furnace run we should not have to worry about freezing anything in the motorhome.

I thought about having Camping World, where the repairs were made, top off the propane tank before we picked it up. Propane is $5.13/gallon at Camping World. We should have at least half a tank, so I think I will wait until we get to the "sunny south" to buy propane.

May God bless you and yours.

Feb 17th - Warm Today

We are having some warm temps. Overnight low was 32 and the high was 50. It is supposed to stay fairly warm until next Monday, the day we are supposed to leave for the Gulf.

Last Friday evening we attended our church's Valentines Day dinner at Tammy's, the local restaurant. 39 people attended, which was a good sized group from our small church. Food was adequate, fellowship was great.

After eating there was entertainment back at the church. A former Pastor, who sings and does some comedy. came and "performed". Over 70 people attended. He was good.

Some outlets and one of the kitchen lights quit working in the lower level. I spent a hour trying to find the problem and then gave up. This morning I called an electrician, a guy who was recommended by a Contractor I know from church. I left a message. After the call I headed for Jefferson City and the YMCA. I just turned on the street where the Y is located when I received a call from George, the electrician. I turned around and headed home. I made it back to our house less than 5 minutes before he arrived. He spent  about 90 minutes tracking the problem back to a burned wire in the electrical panel. While checking things he found a fixed another couple of minor issues. I think he would have found the problem quicker if I had not given him some bad information. The outlets had quite working once before and I thought they were on the same circuit as some other outlets. As it turned out I was wrong, they were not on the circuit I thought.

We have a 3 way switch on the wall of the upstairs kitchen, and another on a downstairs wall, that are supposed to operate a downstairs ceiling light. They have never worked correctly while we have lived here. I spent an hour "playing" with them once and finally gave up. George spent almost 2 hours trying to figure out why the switches did not work correctly. He finally gave up and said he would have to bring more equipment to solve the problem. I told him I would give him a call when we get back home in late March.

George is not an amateur. He bought his Dad's electrical business in 1972, after working there for many years. He recently sold the business to his son when he retired. He still does small jobs, like ours, and also helps his son if his son gets to busy.

He was here for at over 3 hours. I think he was embarrassed that he could not figure out why the switches didn't work. He told me I owed him $60, I paid him $80 and figure I got a good deal.

I cut up a couple of cedar logs that have been laying out in the woods since we moved here. Cedar is crappy firewood but it does burn. I probably cut enough to last several days of the warmer temperatures.

Kathy spent the day cleaning the house. The next three days we have Lydia.

I hope you all had a good day. May God bless you and yours.

Feb 13th - Happy Valentines Day

Hope you all have a Happy Valentines Day, which won't be until tomorrow for me.

Not a lot exciting happening here. Today the high was 45, the warmest it has been in a long time. We still have some snow on the ground but it is melting fast. It will be good to have some warm days. We sure have burned a lot of wood this year. I know I keep saying that, but I am shocked to she how little wood I have left in the shed. Enough to finish out this heating season but sure not much for next season.

Andy & Kelsey are looking at a house outside of Russellville. It is on 40 acres and out in the country. The original house looks to be in good condition. There is a large unfinished addition that will take a LOT of work to finish. With the addition there would probably be at least 3,000 sqft of living space, which does not include an attached 2 car garage. It is at least a 25 minute drive from our house. I don't know if they will make an offer on it. Their house still hasn't sold.

I've been going to the YMCA 3 times a week, trying to get in a little better shape. So far I can't tell a lot of difference, other than it sure makes me tired.

The maintenance/repairs on our motorhome are supposed to be completed next week. We are tentatively planning on heading to the Gulf coast on Monday the 24th. The plan, but our plans always change, are to go from the coast up to Crossville for Merv's birthday party in late March.

Kathy read about a kids program that was being held today at the Runge Nature Center in Jefferson City. We had taken Lydia there once before and she had a good time. Today's "program" was about woodchucks (ground hogs). There were several activities to keep the kids interested plus a "lecture" about how woodchucks lived. We all went outside to look for our shadows, to see if we were going to have 6 more weeks of winter.

The white area at the bottom left of the photo is a tube that the kids can crawl through. The white covering simulates snow. It is supposed to show the kids that woodchucks go down "tunnels" to get to their homes. Kathy and Lydia are at the ones at the left of the photo. The people in the photo represent only about half of those who were there.

We are having some electrical issues with the downstairs wiring. Hopefully it is a bad breaker in the electrical panel. That will be my "fix-it" job for tomorrow.

May God bless you and yours.

Feb 8th - Early Morning

Got up early this morning so I'm catching up on a few odds and ends so I won't have to feel guilty when I take an afternoon nap <grin>.

It is still cold here, at least cold for central MO. Yesterday's forecast said we would get above freezing today but I just checked and the high is now forecast at 30. Starting next Wednesday we are supposed to have a string of days with highs above freezing. I just checked our heating degree days, 3675 so far. Last year it took us until March 4th to have as many as we have had this year. If I thought this was going to be the normal from now on I would seriously investigate a newer, much higher efficiency, outdoor boiler. I think the new ones would give us the same amount of heat while burning no more that 60-65% of the wood that we currently burn. (Realistically I would never buy one. I think the cost of one installed, if I installed it, would be approx. $8,000. Even if I was buying wood, and burned 5 cords less a year, it would take forever to get a "payback" on the investment."

Other than looking at the snow not a lot has been happening. I made my 8th trip to the YMCA yesterday, to exercise. There are 3 YMCA facilities in Jefferson City. I had been going to the larger one (the Knowles facility) that is about a 30 minute drive from our house, it has an indoor pool, which I don't use. Yesterday I tried the one (the West facility) that doesn't have a pool but is 15-20 minutes from our house. The West facility is somewhat larger, in terms of exercise equipment, than Knowles. It was a lot busier than what I've seen at Knowles.

Based on my one visit it appears that the West facility caters to a younger, more fit crowd. I walked 3.68 miles in 65 minutes, most of it at a 2-2.5% grade. Two young gals (late 20s?) on climbed on to treadmills to the left of mine about 10 minutes after I started. The one next to me was walking about the same speed I was but she had the treadmill inclined like she was climbing a mountain. They were still going, and still chatting away with one another, when I left.

No big plans for the next few days. I'd still like to head south for several weeks, if they every get the awning replaced on our motorhome.

Have a great day. May God bless you and yours.

 

Feb 2nd - Where is that Global Warming?

Weather here hasn't been great, but a lot better than many parts of the Midwest. We had some ice a couple of days ago and even walking in the grass was a challenge. Roads weren't bad, once we made it out of our driveway. We could only get out with the 4WD/AWD vehicles, in fact that is still the case.

Yesterday we got maybe a half inch of snow on the ice. It actually made it less slippery to walk around.

I had been confident that I have been cutting wood for next winter. I'm no longer sure that is the case. We have already had as many heating degree days as we had through Feb 24th last year. January is typically the coldest month of the year here so maybe things will ease up. The 10 day forecast says we won't have another day above freezing until the 11th. Considering that the "normal" high/low temps for this time of year are 41/21, it will be significantly colder than "normal".

Church was cancelled today. I think most people could have gotten to church but my guess is that it was cancelled because we don't have anyone salt the parking lot and walks. With the ice those areas would have been SLIPPERY.

We still don't have our motorhome back from Camping World. It is taking forever to get the new awning from Dometic. Actually there is no rush now because I've have a Doctor's appointment scheduled for Feb 7th. I would have re-scheduled it had we been able to leave a week ago but now we might as well wait until after the appointment. With the upcoming temps I wouldn't want to "de-winterize" it until the 10th. We could leave with no water on board but it would be easier if everything was ready for use when we left.

Kathy seems to be almost over her cold. Lydia is still really stuffed up, but part of it might be because she is getting more teeth. I'm claiming my congestion is just typical sinus problems. As long as I keep taking Sudafed (half doses) I'm OK, although I still have to blow my nose a lot.

The snow/cold have brought a lot of birds up to the feeders. It is fun to watch them and listen to them. Yesterday Kathy saw some turkeys on the hill up to the road.

I've managed 5 trips to the YMCA over the past 2 weeks. I hope to manage 3 trips this week. Each trip I spend about 45 minutes on weight machines and another 30-45 minutes walking on a treadmill. I can't tell much difference so far, but hopefully will start noticing some change in another week or so.

May God bless you and yours.