Marty and Peg, Still On The Road!

Gosh….August 15th was the last entry, and so much has happened since.  Yes, we are back in Starke, FL, at least that is where the coach is parked.  Before I get into specifics, I need to talk a little bit about how how things are going.  As I write this, we are sitting in our daughters house in Jacksonville, FL, waiting for the baby (14 month old Fiona) to wake from her nap.  Heather, Javi and the boys are out for the afternoon running a few errands.  It is so good to see Heather back to getting around.  Heather had her surgery as planned on the 24th of August, which started out at 5:30am when her and Javi left for the hospital, and Peg and I at the house with the children.  Surgery started around 8:45am where the tumor was removed (via robotics) along with her ovaries.  It was along day, 10 hours “under”,  but she was finally out of recovery and back in a room by 9:30pm.  She was fitted for an ileostomy bag while she heals, which will be reversed sometime in the next 6-8 weeks.  Apparently things went very well, because her 10 day stay in the hospital turned out to be not quite 4, as she was released on Saturday.  The first few days went fine, she is pretty weak and cannot lift anything for at least two weeks….which makes it difficult with a 14 month old baby girl!  Hence the need for constant care, which is where we come in.  I have pretty much been here since the day before the surgery and have made the living room my bedroom at night.  Peg is still contracting, so she is here on the weekends and sometimes one day in the middle of the week.  Heather is doing much better, and was even up to doing some homeschool tasks with the two older boys this week.  She has been out twice now running errands with Javi and the boys, so things are getting better.  She sees the surgeon next week and will get a better view on her recovery is going.  The next six weeks will be interesting, but things are moving along.

OK, now eveyone knows where we are.  We pulled into the KOA in Starke, FL on August 22nd after a quick three day trip from NY.  It was a pretty uneventful trip, not any time for sight seeing as we needed to get back to Florida quickly.  Once Heather called with the news on her surgical date it all became a blur.  We did get to see alot of folks when we were up north, but a few friends we did not get to see.  I’m not sure, but Peg thinks it is because some folks “just don’t know what to say” when they find out your daughter has cancer.  Either way it was good seeing folks again, if only for three and a half weeks.

We did get to go on one more bike ride with Don and Cathy where we met up with friends of theirs and rode to Weedsport, NY.  We had a quick snack and talked for abit, then headed back.  On the way back I noticed my right directional signal came on for no reason.  I could cancel it by hitting the left signal, but another mile down the roade it came back on.  Then I could not get it go go on at all.  I also noticed the switch felt funny.  Anyway, once we got home I also realized that I could not turn on the hazard lights (4-way flashers) which is also the same way I engage the transit mode which I need to transport the bike in the truck.  I figured I would just call the dealer in the morning to see what was up.  I also wanted to talk to them about one of my key fobs not working with the security system.  I went out the next morning (Thursday) and everything seemed to work OK….go figure.  So, I got on the phone and talked with the guys at Baer HD, and they thought it might have gotten wet, but other than that they were not sure.  Getting the bike to them would be difficult (they are 180 miles away from where we were parked), so we figured that it was not worth  the trip for the ky fob as long as everything else was now OK.  Another option was to ride the bike to a local HD shop called Performance HD to get the key fob reprogrammed.  OK, the next day, Friday, Don and Cathry were starting their three-day garage sale which i planned to help with.  Performance HD was willing to reprogram the key fob early, so at 9am I was heading out the door for the quick 30 mile ride to get that taken care of.  As luck goes, the light does not work again.  Even worse, the bike will not start.  All this on the day before we leave for Florida.  Another quick call to Baer HD in Honesdale, PA where I spoke with the service guys again.  They felt it was unlikely the new BCM they just replaced in the recall, and it was most likely the switch assembly itself.  If I could get it to them, they would get me back running again, so, 15 minutes later the bike was loaded in the truck (that Rampage lift is sweet) and I was motoring down I81 south to PA.  I put the one working security key fob in the saddlebag so the alarm would not go off (remember, I could not put it in transport mode) and within three hours I pulled into Baers lot.  Two guys came right out, and after the 5 minute unloading process, they pushed the bike into the shop and started working on it right away.  By 3:30pm they were done, it was not the BCM but switch assembly as they thought.  Good thing, because they did not have another BCM and the old one they pulled for the recall was already sent back to Harley.  For the switch, they pulled one off of a new 2011 they had on the floor.  Of course it started to rain, so once that settle down I loaded the bike and hit the rode, getting back to West Monroe, NY a little after 7pm.  Long day, and Peg ended up getting most things put away for the trip.  Don and Cathy wanted to go out, but I was just too tired.  I stowed all the outside stuff (sat dish, hoses, etc.) just before dark.

We pulled out of West Monroe just after 9am, saying our goodbyes to Don and Cathy and a handful of garage-sale folks that stood by to watch us leave the scene.  It was a short summer for us, but this is where we need and want to be.  For those of you that we got to see, thanks for the support.  For those that we did not get a chance to see, we have not forgotten about you and we shall see you soon.  With any luck, we may be back in NY sometime in October for a week or so; not sure yet.  Pegs contracting ends on the 17th of September, unless she gets another extension.

Until then;

And here it is one month later.  We did pull out of Falling Waters without a hitch and we made it to West Monroe before dinner time.  It was Wednesday, July 27^th.  The original plan, and when I say “original” I mean subject to change, was to stay here until we hear from Heather.  We expected to be here until the 1^st week of September.

Good news prevails, and Heather called on the evening of 8/3 with the results of her PET scan.  Her scan showed great improvement and her blood work came back fine.  Her surgery is now scheduled for the 24^th of August which has us now leaving on the 20^th.  So, that’s the new plan, but what have we done since we arrived?

We will do our best to cram three months of visiting into less than four weeks, but here is where we stand to date.  As I said, we pulled in here on the 27^th of July.  The first few days were pretty quiet.  We did drive up to meet Bill and Rainy and Rainy for dinner at Franks place, but Rainy could not make it.  We saw Rainy the following day.  On Sunday we went for a beautiful bike ride with seven other couples to Letchworth State Park.  We all met at a Denny’s Restaurant in Liverpool, and the day got off to a great start.  I immediately lost a screw from my sunglasses so I had to tape them.  I did not bring my regular pair, so this repair had to work.  Later on in the ride we had stopped for a quick snack and I found a
baggie tie in the parking lot.  I stripped off the paper coating and used the wire to do a more substantial repair…at least I no longer had black tape on them.  It turned out to be a great ride, doing almost three hundred miles all together.  The only other glitch I had was it got dark, and all I had was my sunglasses, so for us the trip going back was a little slower than most for the last 50 miles or so.

Over the past few weeks I did get to see my friend Ralph and hit the casino one time.  Peg got to go to dinner with some of her old friends (Kathie, Suzanne and Michele).  We also got to see Phyllis and Lee, who made a wonderful dinner for us on Sunday the 7^th.  The real treat that night was she also invited a few other friends who I have not seen in years.  That was great…thanks Phyl!  We also met up with Charlotte and Walt and
Janie and Larry, friends I had grown up with one night.  Our friend Bob Hopper even stopped by one night on his recently completed project bike, which turned out awesome I might add.  We had dinner one night with Don and Cathy at Outback, and another dinner with Don’s sister Debbie and her husband Andy.

On August 6^th we attended Dave and Kristen’s wedding.  They have been friends of ours for years and we were happy that we could make the wedding.  It was different, but then again we expected “different” from Dave and Kristen.  It was a good “different”.  The whole affair was held at a place called Justin’s Restaurant.  We knew it would be fun when the wedding party arrived to the Muppets tune “Somebody’s getting married”.  It was a fun affair and they even had an after-wedding party at a place called Trappers, which is place to caters to volleyball teams.  So, while most of us sat under the outside patio area, the wedding party played volleyball.

I have managed to be able to do a few projects for friends while I am here and even managed to be able to cut grass with my friend Don.  I did an electrical install for a hot tub for Don’s son which went remarkably well considering it is an 80 year old house.  I also helped one of the neighbors here with his newly acquired hot tub fix his heating problem.

Last weekend we took a trip down to Jeffersonville to see Pegs side of the family.  We also took the bike (it rode in the back of the truck) as I had a service appointment at Baer H/D in Honesdale, which is about 35 miles from Jeff and the place where I bought the bike.  This was actually a fun
weekend.  We stayed with one of Peg’s aunts.  The first night we took both twins (Helen and Hazel, they are 92 years old) out for pizza and met Pegs brother Bill, SIL Debbie and nephew Steven.  1st taste of NY pizza in a year…it was wonderful.  The next day I took the bike to Honesdale and Peg took the twins to Waymart, PA to see her aunt Marion who is in a nursing facility there.  While at Baer H/D, I called a friend of ours
we know from the park in FL who lives in Hawley, PA.  Jimmy came by the dealership and picked me up for breakfast, after which we drove out to his house where I visited with him and his wife Eileen.  He took me back to the dealership where I paid my bill, hit McDonalds for lunch and rode back to Jeff.  Just in time too, as it started to rain just after I pulled into Aunt Hazels garage.  Pegs trip was not as happy.  The trip was fine, but her aunt Marion is not doing well at all.  We need to keep her in our prayers.

So, on Sunday, after church we had lunch once again with the twins and cousins Kathy and Dick.  I loaded the bike before they got there, and after that visit we said goodbye and drove over to see her brothers and SIL before we headed back north.  They brothers (Bill and Bob) we building a
deck on the back of Bills house so we did not stay long.  We took the scenic way back (about 4 hours) and got back to West Monroe just after 6pm.

This week will be spent getting ready for the trip back south, seeing my sisters and maybe getting one more bike ride in.

Last night was another stormy night.  We woke up this morning, looking at very grey skies, and thinking….should we hold out for one more day?  At 8am I was thinking just that; neither one of us if crazy about driving in a storm.  Peg was up earlier, and after a quick shower I went outside to see how things looked.  Well, the sky was grey, but no wind and it even looked a little blue at I peered north.

That’s it….decision made…we hit the road by 10am.  And we did, at 9:58 we were rolling onto the entrance ramp getting on I95 north.  I’m glad we did it, because 10 miles into the trip the sky turned blue as blue can be, with not one cloud as far as we could see.  And at 6pm, here in Falling Waters, WV, it is still as clear as it was back at 10:30am.

It really was a pretty un-eventful day driving.  We did about 260 miles, but as long as we have to do it in two days, why push it the first day.  We only have about 360 miles to go, or about 7 hours.  The only glitch today was when we pulled into a FlyingJ truck stop for fuel.  Diesel is cheaper here ($3.79) so we wanted to top off before we get into NY.  OK, so we pull up to the special RV-only islands, put in the card, then my FlyingJ card and start pumping.  Then pump gets to about $74.50 and starts to slow way down; stopping at $75.00.  Great; this gave me 19.74 gallons.  So, started the process over.  Stopped again at $75.00, another 19.74 gallons.  Start the process again, great balls of fire, it clicks off at $66.72, another 17.7 gallons and we are full.  This is a rough way to fill up a coach!

The park where we are staying tonight (Falling Waters Campsite) in Falling Waters, WV is really just an overnight spot.  We only hooked up to power, so leaving in the morning should be a snap.  We have been here before, as a matter of fact, the last time was last summer.  This is the park we stayed in when we went to the theater just over the Maryland border, got stuck in a power outage just as the show started (we went to see the A-Team) and got four free movie tickets.  The park is laid out funny.  We are in a pull thru site, but we have another 5^th wheel directly behind us.  If we choose not to leave before he does, there is a grassy area where he can pull thru to get out.  It is tight, though, because he is pretty large and our tailgate is down on the truck.  Also, there is another motor-home directly to our left side and about 10 feet forward.  For me to pull out before he leaves forces me to pull over to the side and slide past him.

Tomorrow is going to be interesting, but tonight it is
Chicken Caesar Salad for dinner.

Until then….

We were right…..yesterday was a MUCH better day for travelling.  But first, I need to add a few things about our quick stay in Santee, SC.

When I posted the other day I forgot to mention this little tidbit.  Coming back from dinner (northbound I95, about an 1/8 mile from our exit (#102) the traffic started to slow up fast, and everybody quickly wanted the right lane; even a tractor trailer pulled over  onto the edge of the
road.  I thought they might have been an accident up ahead, but I was getting off anyway, so I was fine in the right hand lane.  All of a sudden we get passed by a small white car, driven by what looked like an older white hair gentleman and going very fast.  How do I know he had white hair?  Because my driver side window and his driver side window were one lane apart.  You got it, he was heading SOUTH in the NORTH bound lane!  And he was moving!  He must have just gotten on because there was one car backed up to the guardrail just at the exit ramp with occupants in it that looked like they had just seen a ghost.  There were also several cars and a truck way over to the left on the grass median.  Fun on the road……

And we picked up ants……

OK, yesterday promised a great day for driving, and Peg and I pretty much equally shared the driving.  We stayed on I95, and once we got to Rocky Mount, NC we knew we had to decide what then next few travel days will be like.  This is our logic, and pretty much how we decide our travel schedule.  Our rule is pretty much set at 300-350 miles per day.  As Peg is still doing her contracting, that means when we roll during
the week, I do the driving and she works at the kitchen table.  That said we knew that once we hit the VA line (about 50 miles north of Rocky Mount) we will still have about 600 miles to go, or two days travel for us.  We always like to stay two nights someplace on the road so I started looking (Peg is driving) for a place to stay.  The first number I called for was for a place called the RV Resort at Carolina Crossroads.  The rate was fine, and I was assured I could use my dome satellite dish, so we made a quick decision that we would head there.  And when I say quick; I mean quick.  We were just approaching exit 171 and the exit for the park was 171 and I was still on the phone.  I gestured to Peg who pulled off the exit and told the girl on the phone we would be there shortly.  When we rolled into the park we knew this place would work out fine.  It was
certainly a thousand times better than the park in Santee.  Yes, it is open, but that’s fine for us, we need an open sky for the satellite.  The girl at the desk was super friendly and helpful.  Long and wide pull-thru sites, 50amp full hookups and free Wi-Fi.  Once Peg determined that the Verizon card worked we signed up for two nights.  For every few sites, they even provide a gazebo with tables and seats.  No escort to the site, but they certainly invested in signage.  Turns are very wide and very well marked.  The pool is only one year old (they even have a Jacuzzi) and the park itself is only three years old.

Once we got settled we headed out for dinner.  We were heading for an Applebee’s when we came to light where we needed to turn right.
Looking left I caught sight of a sign for the Mayflower Restaurant which is a name we both recognized.  It is a seafood chain that we would go to when we did Habitat for Humanity projects in Rocky Mount, NC.  It is a chain with most of them being in NC, but apparently there is another one in SC as well.  Great fried seafood and lots of it for an extremely reasonable price.  That was dinner.  After we left the restaurant it
was starting look like a storm was blowing in, so we bagged our planned trip to the grocery store and headed back to the coach.

We will be here thru Tuesday morning when we will continue on our trek up north.

Well, it has been awhile. I’m not sure where to start, but the last few months have been a difficult time.  It was not only hard for us it was harder for our daughter and her family.  For those that know us, the past May, June and July are well known.  You see, our daughter was diagnosed with colon cancer last May, and that is why we only took a short trip from Starke.  If I remember correctly, I wrote about doing our annual coach maintenance in Gaffney, SC, then off to the Tiffin factory in Red Bay, AL. for some minor coach repairs.  We had two options; the first involved taking the coach to NY, leaving it on our friend’s property and then driving the truck  to our daughter’s home in FL.  This was a
good plan if we were sure we were looking at what Heather needed in weeks.  No one was sure, so we decided to take the  coach back to Starke, FL where we knew we could leave the coach safely if we had to.  This proved to be the best choice we could have made.  John and Deb made us feel so much at home that it was actually a joy being there…..not due to the best of circumstances, but we are so glad we did it this way.  So, for the last few months, Peg still did her contracting job (she was extended again thru August), and most days I would go in to Jacksonville to watch the kids while Heather went in for her daily radiation treatments.  Early on she was fitted for a chemo pump, so that was a 24hr/7day a week process.  On Mondays she would have the pump exchanged and her “port” cleaned.  The true blessing with all this is we are even closer now as a family.  We had the boys out on several weekends and the whole family out for multiple weekend dinners and cookouts.  Thank God, last Monday she had her final radiation appointment and had her chemo pump taken off.  It is a six week wait for surgery, which brings us to where we are now.

After Heathers last treatment, we wanted to take a wait-and-see approach to see exactly how she felt.  She did remarkably well during this grueling treatment schedule and always said she felt fine.  Some days you could look at her and never know she was sick.  Anyway, two days
after her last treatment and she started feeling even that much better.  She told us at dinner last Friday that she never realized how tired she really felt until the treatments stopped.  So, for the next few weeks (6 at the most) we are again travelers of the open road.  We left Starke, FL today, which is Saturday the 23^rd.  The agreement is that the family has promised to call us if they need us back sooner, but for now we are heading to central NY.

So, where are we now?  Right now we are in a campground called Santee Lakes.  You can certainly add this place to your list of campgrounds to skip.  This place is one step up from a dump.  First off, it touts pull thru sites, but we are over 60 feet long so we end up hanging out in the road.  We were told not to worry about it.  You can’t get to a site unless you pull thru another site so you can line up…no way I could make these turns.  And to leave…you guessed it…pull thru the site in front of us first.  Next, they are 30amp service, which means we can only run one A/C unit.  It is 98 degrees here and one 15K BTU unit in our coach will struggle to cool it down.  Next, there are two bags of garbage next to
the tree where we are parked, and the guy that brought me down in a golf cart to show me the site just ignored it.  He did remark about the broken picnic table on the site in back of us (the one we needed to cut thru to get here), but he never did come back for it.  Oh, and the site is littered with old fishing bobbers and cigarette butts.  All this for $33 plus tax…charming.  And they don’t even take Discover!

Well, were here and once we got the coach setup and the front A/C going we decided to drop the truck and head back down I95 for a place to
eat.  We ended up at a place called Coasters which actually looked like a decent place.  The adjoining building was a “gentlemen’s club” that gave Peg pause, but we went in anyway.  Hey, the sign out front said they take Discover.  This is a bar/restaurant which is frequented by the locals for sure.  It was clean, and the menu was decent.  I chose the Flounder platter and Peg had the Jambalaya.  Peg really liked here.  Mine came out with cold fries and no slaw.  The waitress brought me some new fries and my slaw.  It was OK, but for $17 I expected much more.  We got the check, and to make matters worse, the really don’t take Discover.  Oh well, back to the park where we found the coach down to a somewhat comfortable 87 degrees.  We have been back for about an hour and it is now down to 86 degrees.  Oh, no OTA TV signal and being in pine trees we can’t use the satellite.

Tomorrow will be better, I’m sure.

Well, we left Red Bay, AL last Tuesday with two new windows, a new valance over the dinette, a step cover that no longer shoots out like a rocket and house batteries that now get charged while were underway.  Life is good.  So, after spending a week there, we decided to just find a nice quiet park for a few days before we continue on with our southern trek back to FL.  We ended up about 100 miles south east from Red Bay, still in Alabama, in an area called Cullman County.  We found a pretty quiet campground called Cullman Campground just of SR157, just north of the I65 interchange.  Anyway, we signed up for two nights and were put on a very long (90’) site.  Satellite worked the first time, 50amp service and we should be all set.  Peg was still plunking away with her stuff when we pulled in just after noon, so I got us to the site and set things up.  Peg finished her day and we headed out into town (Cullman) to see what we could find for dinner.

Apparently this is all over the state, but Cullman apparently was also hit with the massive storm cell a few weeks ago.  We were not in any residential area, but you could certainly see where lots of businesses had damage.  Some structures were much worse than others, but still nothing like I saw last week in the towns of Phil Campbell or Hackelburg.  We had some dinner, then headed back to the coach.  Peg decided to log on to check the weather when she noticed she could not connect to our Verizon MiFi.  I tried mine and I could get on, but it was very slow.  That’s when I noticed the signal strength on our phones were 1 bar, sometimes none.  Great; Peg needs that connection for her job, and we were surprised that she was on all afternoon after we arrived.  Good things, though, they have a WiFi system here and it works pretty well here in the coach.  She made sure she could connect to her stuff, and she could so I think we dodged a bullet.  After the first night and trouble free day with Pegs internet connection (sans Verizon MiFi) we decided to just go ahead and stay two more days, which now has us leaving on Saturday.  We don’t know where to yet, but we are only 500 miles from Starke, FL and we will pull in there on the 25^th of May.

Well, checking the weather Wednesday night it looked like Thursday was going to be a beautiful day, and I thought it would be a nice day for a bike ride.  Get out of Pegs hair and all.  Anyway, as we were watching Criminal Minds on a local Cullman station and we saw a crawl at the bottom of the screen asking for donations for the tornado victims.  What caught Peg and I’s attention was the request for baby things…something that always gets our attention.

So, bagging the bike ride on Thursday, Peg sent me off to the local WalMart with a list of baby items and directions to a place called the Day Star church.  I got to the church and met a kindly gentleman named Ira.  He had me go into the church (and this is a CHURCH….actually it’s 80% theatre, 20% church, but a really beautiful operation) and check in with Christy, which I did.  I told her our little story about how we found this place, then went back outside to meet with Ira to give him our small donation.  He was standing next to a 53’ tractor-trailer, loaded with pallets of donations and I asked him if he needed any help.  The one other guy, Adam, who is a outreach minister (I think) was in the truck and he just said “sure, climb on up”.  So for the next three hours Ira and I unloaded two full 53’ trailers.  Adam went over to the other end of the parking lot to start removing tarps from the skids and skids of donations other trucks had brought.  Ira explained to me that they were getting ready for the Saturday distribution (this will be their 4^th major distribution since the storm), and are expecting over 1000 people. While I was there we had three vehicles pull up to get some things, and for these folks that lost everything, I can only imagine how much they need.

After we unloaded the trailers, Ira invited me into the church complex for a tour and some cold water.  I can’t explain how large this place is. He told me they had just over 2500 members, and a very large youth presence.  From what he showed me, they put a lot of time, effort and money into the youth.  They also do GED training and offer job placement assistance.  They also have two food stores and two clothing stores.  This is a very large church!  Other than the TV crawl, Here is how I found them: Day Star Church

I remember, a long time ago, I was talking to a family member that had lost everything in a house fire.  They had no insurance, and were pretty much relying on the family for everything.  Bob told me something that I will never forget.  He said “Marty, you have no idea how alone and destitute a man can feel until you wake up one morning and realize that you don’t even own a toothbrush”.  I image these folks feel the same way.

So, tomorrow (Friday) I am off again to the Day Star Church to help with some deliveries to folks that cannot come out on Saturday.  I think I even get to drive a truck!

God Bless.

It was only going to be a simple motorcycle ride.  We are still here in Red Bay, AL at the TiffinMotor Coach Repair Facility waiting for our time in the service bay.  I thought it would be a good day to go for a ride.

I left around 2:30pm, a very warm (90 degree) day, but very, very blue skies.  A nice ride thru the back roads of Alabama was my ticket to solitude. I pulled out of the park, took SR24 east thru the small town of Red Bay, then picked up CR19 south.  It was just rolling hills, no traffic at all, and the wonderful countryside.  I was heading in the direction of the small town of Vina, which, if you believe this, is even smaller than Red Bay.  Somewhere along the line I picked up a county road called 172, which had me rolling thru the curves into an even smaller town called Hodges.  I pulled into what seemed to be the only business in town, a small gas station.  When was the last time you pulled up for gas where they had “full service” pumps?  No credit cards, just flip the lever and pump away; go into the store and pay.  The very friendly woman behind the desk, who was chatting with a few of the locals, just asked me how much.  I told her it was the bike at pump 2, but she just wanted to know the amount.  I responded with $14.32; she wrote the number down, took my $20 and gave me change.  “Ya’ll have a great day now….now that sure is purty sikle!” was what I heard as I left the store.  Country life is alive and well here.

Not sure exactly where I was, I pulled out my trusty map and saw that if I continued on 172, that should take me thru the small town of Hodges, then into Hackleburg where I could pick up SR17 to Russelville, then SR24 back to Red Bay.  This is where my simple bike ride turned into a truly memorable experience.  As I rolled along the twisty two lane road, I came into the small town of Hackleburg.  At first I thought there seemed to be more litter on the road.  But litter is not thrown into trees, and that, my friend, was a mattress…in a tree….a very tall tree.  Right around the bend I saw the first house, or what was a house at one time.  The porch was there, as was half the roof.  The other side was a blue tarp.  On the lawn, where you would expect to see maybe car or two in the drive, were piles of rubbish.  Not just rubbish, but things that you would normally see inside the home, not in piles outside the front door.  Now, on the other side of the street were two more houses….these still had hanging plants on the porch, and looked as though they had not been touched.  I was still rolling, and as I came across the bend I could see where some monster storm had created what looked to be a fire-break up the side of the mountain.  It was as if someone had cleared out a 50’ path up the side of the hill.  I had no idea it was going to get worse…much worse.

As I went thru this small town, I could see signs everywhere that a tornado had touched down.  Peg and I had talked about the storms before we even headed this way, but I never expected this amount of damage.  Just after I hit SR17 north, I saw another sign for the small town of Phil Campbell.  This name is one I remembered from the news.  Something made me turn down this small road, but I was not prepared for what I was to see in the next 5miles.

I remember seeing the wildfires in Florida several years back, with all the trees down.  Even after hurricane Floyd I remember seeing some of the coastal damage.  I’ve seen it on the news…..this was nothing like that.  Trees were just no longer there.  Oh, there were parts of trees all
over.  And as I crested the small hill as I came into the outskirts of this small town, you could just count the slabs where houses had apparently once stood.  Sometimes you would see a small sign that someone had put up to maybe signal to their insurance company that this is where their house used to stand.  Right next to that yet another sign that boldly promised to “shoot any and all looters”.  Where houses stood now were just piles of the things that once made a home.  Whole sections of the hillside where there was just nothing, and I mean nothing left.  Along the road that runs into the town proper were power poles.  At first glance I wondered how those could have survived.  Then I noticed
that these were new poles; the old ones and the tangled mess of wires were strewn just below them.  This was a sea of piles and piles of damaged furniture and belongings, bulldozers feverishly working away to clean up the mess.  Homes that still barely stood, just no longer with a roof; cars thrown around like matchbox toys.  And the signs…..looters will be shot!

I think the most poignant scene was the small Methodist church in town with a large sign proclaiming “free hot showers”.  Next to the church was a red cross van, and the church….it had no roof.  Or possibly the small girl holding her mother’s hand as she crossed the road….going into
the firehouse with the sign “temporary shelter”.

Phil Campbell, Alabama

Why did I take the pictures?  Because I want to remember that no matter how bad things can seem to get, it is NEVER that bad.  Please, take
some time each day to count your blessings…..I know I will.

God Bless;

Day#2 in Red Bay, Alabama

We are sitting at the Tiffin repair facility just next to the factory where I beloved home became reality.  We pulled in last night around 5:45pm (CST), driving the entire 480 miles.  For those that know how we travel, know that this is an extremely long day for us.  We always get fooled because of the time change…..forgetting that our bodies are still one hour ahead of us.  And because Peg is still “contracting”, that meant I did all the driving, with Christine the cat as my co-pilot.  Peg (and Hannah) spent pretty much the whole trip sitting at the dinette table with her PC and the Verizon MiFi card.  This was actually a pretty good test; we both wanted to see if Peg could still work while I drove.  We both can say this though; there will be no more 480 mile trips in our future with only one driver….way to taxing!

Alas, we are here.  When we did pull in to register, we needed to fill out our service request paperwork, and then go to our assigned site. When we called them last week, we were told that by this time of year, the park was starting to thin out, but not from what we can see…it is full.  As a matter of fact, they told us we were in the last full-hook-up site.  The service writer (Norris, a kindly soul) stopped by this morning to go over our work requests and to get us in line.  We are in what is called the “express line” because it should not take much more than 3-4 hours to do pretty much everything, so we may be out of here by this weekend.

They will be replacing both the pilot side front window, and front dining-room slide window.  All our windows are dual-pane, and these have lost their seal, so they are all clouded.  The pilot side window is the worst.  Next they will be checking the house battery charging solenoid, which is a little device that connects the house battery bank so they get charged when the engine is running.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  Normally it is not an issue for us, but when we use the inverter (gives us 110V power off the batteries) we need to keep those batteries charged, otherwise they will shut down after about 6-7 hours of use.  This is the first time we pushed that envelope, as Peg’s laptop and MiFi card were plugged in for the entire trip.  It was fine when we left Gaffney, SC, (around 9am) but we stopped about 20 miles down the road to get some fuel.  Apparently it did not work once I restarted the engine, and when we stopped for lunch (around 2pm) I noticed the voltage was down to 110V and the batteries were in the red, sitting at about 12.2V.  normally the inverter is putting out 119-121V and the batteries should be sitting at 13.1V (charged).  After lunch when I restarted it was fine again, so we will have the folks here check it out and replace the solenoid if needed.  The third thing we are having done is have the guys check out our step cover adjustment.  Once we are mobile, there is a pneumatic driven step cover that covers the step well near the door.  Last year I replaced the air-step solenoid, and ever since then when we activate the step cover it shoots out like a cannon.  My attempts to adjust it have been to no avail.  So now, we let the experts handle it.  We are also having them recover one of valances over the dinette window.  It was in pretty sad shape, so I pulled that off today and took it right up to the fabric shop so they could get a head start on it.

OK, the new windows. This is pretty amazing, and it is a testament to quality customer service.  We are very impressed.  Our coach is a 2005, making it 6 years old.  The initial warranty is 1 year, but the windows are actually warranted for 4 years. That takes us 2 years past the normal period.  Ever since we noticed the pilot side window starting to cloud up, and then watching it get worse over the winter, I could not help but think this should not happen. Tiffin had already replaced two windows for us, the pilot side (once before) and one in the back bedroom. When I called Tiffin they did tell me that they were warranted for the four years, and I felt that was fair so I was willing to do it at my expense.  I figured I would push the issue once we got here.  Anyway, as I was driving yesterday (we were about 30 miles east of Atlanta on I85), and Peg was happily doing her thing at the table, I decided to call Bob Tiffin (the owner) and ask him if he could have someone look at them while we were here and tell me why they are failing.  I was not expecting anything but that.  I did get his voice mail, left him the message about the pilot window (I neglected to mention the dinette window at the time) and then continued down the road.  To my surprise, my phone rings not 5 minutes after I left the message.  It was Bob Tiffin, agreed that it should not happen, and no problem, just come in and they would take care of it.  He told me to tell the folks at registration that I was to go into the express lane, then talk with a woman named Jena once we got our paperwork filled out as she would be expecting us.When we did arrive, and filled out the service paperwork, I noted that Bob had approved the pilot window, but I did not get a chance to mention the dinette window.  When Norris came by this morning to see what we had, and he said they would just order the two windows (if they did not have any in stock) and he would make note of it for the actual service folks.  Anyway, this morning after I took down the valance, I needed to drop it off to the service office with a woman named Rita.  When I went to the office to see her, I noticed her office mate writing my name on two pink slips.  That’s when I noticed her name plate on the desk…..it was Jena.  I said “hey, that’s me” and she then told me that she was ordering two windows for us.  She also mentioned that when she talked with Bob yesterday he had only mentioned the one, so I explained to her about how my conversation was so quick with Bob that I totally forgot to mention the other one.  She said she would check it out and let me know.  I went out to the truck to get the valance for Rita, and when I left, I thanked Jena for her help.  She then told me that it was all cleared up; they would be replacing the two windows at no charge.  Now that’s customer service!

We are still not sure if we will be taking the coach up north first and then drive the truck back to FL, or if we will just take the coach back to Starke for the month.  If we get out of Red Bay by this weekend, then we need to make a decision soon.

Later……

Well, this will be quick and dirty.  Right now we are in Gaffney, SC for our annual coach maintenance.  We pulled out of Starke, FL Saturday morning just about 9:30am.  I think we pulled into Gaffney just before 6:00pm.  It is about a 440 mile trip, which for us is a pretty long day.

We are only one of three coaches here, but I’m sure that it will fill up quickly by this evening.  We like to get here early to insure a spot, which are limited to about 20 coaches.  Oh, this is the Freightliner Motor-home repair facility.  Just down the road is the Freightliner chassis factory where our coach first got its start almost 6 years ago!

Next we are heading to Red Bay, AL to visit the Tiffin factory…..where the coach was built.   Here we will get two windows replaced, along with some fabric work done on a few of the valances that cover the widows.

Now, after that are plans are going to change.  We are heading back to FL to help our Heather and the family while Heather has surgery.
I won’t get into any details, but she may be in the hospital anywhere between 2 and 14 days.  Her surgery is scheduled for the 27^th of May.
We are not sure how we are going to do this yet, but we have two options.  The first is we will finish up in Red Bay, then take the coach directly to NY and leave it  (and the cats) on our friends Don & Cathy’s property.  We would then drive the truck back down to FL and just stay with the family.  The other option is to finish up in Red Bay, then just head back to our winter home at the KOA in Starke.  Just not sure yet.

Anyway, hope everyone is behaving up north, and we shall see you soon.

Later……

I am going to do better…I am going to do better. I figure if I keep telling myself this I will make it happen. So, to start off on the right foot, let’s keep this going.

It’s tax season. Yes, I finally got our taxes filed and sent Uncle Sam his check. That was a major load off our mind. I have never in my entire life procrastinated to the extent that I did this year. But, it’s done now, so we can move on.

So, here we sit at the Cummins/Onan repair facility in Jacksonville, FL. Hopefully we can get this generator issue I spoke of last time behind us by tomorrow. This is a pretty big unit, and is built into a slide-out tray on the front of the coach. It is an Onan 7.5KW diesel that for almost 6 years has never failed us. Now, when we start it runs for about 60-90 seconds and shuts down. But that is old news. The updated news is I went to replace the coolant temperature sensor, but when I pulled it out, part of it is stuck in the section just above the water pump. We now know that was most likely the problem, we just need the Onan folks to get it out and replace the sensor. Our appointment is sometime Monday, so we pulled in today (Sunday) as they actually have full hookups onsite. Just like being at home, only we have I295 as a backdrop.

We also replaced the living area vent fan with a newer model. This one has a 14 speed fan motor, a rain sensor that will automatically close the cover when it rains and a remote. You can basically set it on “auto” with a set temperature and forget it. The new cook-top is here as well. I’m not sure when I will get that installed, but it will have to be within the next week or so, as our time is getting short.

So, if you are looking for us, we are sitting just off Picketville road in Jacksonville, FL. It could be MUCH worse; our neighbors here have been here for 10 days trying to get a check engine light resolved.

Later……