August 13, 2010,
Waco in August! Not our first choice of locations at this time of year, but not all bad either! No rain, swimming pool is the right temp, the a/c gets a work out, the advantages go on and on. Needless to say, there is not much to write about in terms of "sightseeing." So, I write about what we have been doing: maintenance!
Russell has changed 4 different filters; generator oil and fuel, diesel oil and coolant. He has drained and filled 18 quarts of oil in the diesel and 3 quarts in the generator. We inadvertently changed the coolant fluids in response to 5 gallons that drained when changing the coolant filter. He greased about 20 certs -insertion points...our vocabulary is expanding! We are almost ready to get on the road and listen to her purr! Even considering the cost of 2 shirts that became trash after all of this industry, Russell's handiwork saved us several hundred dollars in labor costs.
But the engines are not the only items to receive attention! The front drapery liners were badly stained with sun and water from condensation on the massive front window. Russell found a fabric that is suppose to weather more gracefully and I found a lady willing to do the work. So I ripped out the pleats and the old liner then took the drapes to Nel, who did a beautiful job fitting the new fabric. I have to tell you, that as I ripped out seam of drapes and skin of fingers, I had my doubts about the worthiness of this labor. The impact is drastic! Nel's finishing is better than the original and the drapes look new, both from inside and out. This was a job well worth doing!
Add to this a flurry of cleaning, trips to storage and goodwill, and a general organization shift, and we are feeling better. An RV wash and wax is in the near future as well.
The owners have also gotten a dose of maintenance. Both of us have started exercising, yet again. And I have been to the eye doctor and can now see much better and far more comfortably. All-in-all, Waco in August is a pretty good thing!
Friday, August 13, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Waco Notes
August 1, 2010
We spent the morning with Betty, Russell's 87 year old mom. She is sleeping more often than not, and other signs that do not bode well. It is good that we are here.
But we have discovered other reasons it is good for us to be here:
We spent the morning with Betty, Russell's 87 year old mom. She is sleeping more often than not, and other signs that do not bode well. It is good that we are here.
But we have discovered other reasons it is good for us to be here:
- We have a lot of work to do! I'll detail all of the maintenance Russell has in store at another time, it is extensive! He has had some work done previously, but is into DIY for learning and savings purposes.
- We need to reorganize, yet again. And our storage room is here.
- It is good to be not moving for the foreseeable future, or at least not navigating new territory. There is a lot to be said for knowing how to get from point A to B, less stressful. Well, usually it is.
- We are close to family and friends. Nice.
We spent some time in the pool yesterday and one of the men there told us about Pandoraradio.com. I'm currently grooving to a Maroon 5 mix. I highly recommend this site. Of course most of you are more hip than I am and you are already there!
Anyway, we are semi-stationary for the near future, so blogs will be less frequent and less touristy, if that is possible.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
WV, KY, and back to TN
July 28, 2010
Russell is currently racking up the total of states covered in our trip so far, 23. He has just colored in the most recent one on our Good Sam's map that is posted in the cabinet. Tonight we are just north of Nashville and will get to Waco in two or three days.
About Wal-Mart boondocking: maybe better in cooler weather! It was hot! In our Civil War frame of mind, Russell recalled an anecdote about Stonewall Jackson. It seems he would sleep under a wet sheet when in hot weather. Sounded like a good idea, but really messy if you aren't sleeping on the ground. Another thing: shopping carts. The Barboursville, WV Wal-mart had the neatest parking lot of the year last night. Russell corraled carts to insure that none of them were going to come crashing into us. The one that crashed into the RV interrupted one of the few sleeping moments of the night. Poor guy was back out to the parking lot. I think Russell was just taking advantage of the cooler breezes outside. So tonight we are plugged in with a/c at a campground. NICE!
A couple of notes from earlier posts:
Russell is currently racking up the total of states covered in our trip so far, 23. He has just colored in the most recent one on our Good Sam's map that is posted in the cabinet. Tonight we are just north of Nashville and will get to Waco in two or three days.
About Wal-Mart boondocking: maybe better in cooler weather! It was hot! In our Civil War frame of mind, Russell recalled an anecdote about Stonewall Jackson. It seems he would sleep under a wet sheet when in hot weather. Sounded like a good idea, but really messy if you aren't sleeping on the ground. Another thing: shopping carts. The Barboursville, WV Wal-mart had the neatest parking lot of the year last night. Russell corraled carts to insure that none of them were going to come crashing into us. The one that crashed into the RV interrupted one of the few sleeping moments of the night. Poor guy was back out to the parking lot. I think Russell was just taking advantage of the cooler breezes outside. So tonight we are plugged in with a/c at a campground. NICE!
A couple of notes from earlier posts:
- In southwestern Virginia, I wrote about these really old log structures, not barns, not houses. We just couldn't figure out what they were. Paul Urie told us that these are drying houses for tobacco and they are as old as they appear to be.
- On the WV freeway, Russell commented on mowers on the road shoulders. I didn't get it until seeing another such rig later. The men drive the shoulder in CAT machinery with a shredder attached to arms that go over the railing to mow the down slope. The road drops off so steeply that this is the only way to get the job done. Amazing!
Amazing. Beautiful. Spectacular. Superlatives that I'm using over and over again to describe this wonderful (there's another one) country.
We are MOST FORTUNATE!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
PA, MD, WV
We've sort of been busy! News from Waco is confusing enough to prompt an about-face and head for Texas. So a number of nice folks in Pennsylvania allowed us to renege and we are on our way, spending tonight just west of Charleston, WV courtesy of Wal-Mart, a first for us. I asked the nice greeter if wifi was available anywhere in the store, response: "I've been wondering what exactly that is!" I took that as a NO, but did fill her in before moving on.
The west side of Appalachian Mts is decidedly rougher than the east, or at least from our viewpoints of the 2. The farms of Pennsylvania and Maryland are wonderful, with rotated crops spanning the hillsides. If you can't farm going up, you are out of place here. There are no observable farms in West Virgina! This is way more rugged and forested. The trees are massive. The entire drive was delightful.
We did get to Gettysburg Battlefield on Saturday, I should have written about it earlier. The auto tour circles the city, those people were under siege for 3 days. So much has been written about the event, I certainly can't add any insights here, but I can offer advise. We had read the novel Killer Angels prior to the trip and visited and read about other battlegrounds. We often refer to a wonderful history book given to us by the Scoggins'. Then we watched a couple of movies on the topic. We got so much more out of the experience by immersing as opposed to just dropping in and visiting the site. Talking to local experts was icing on the cake!
The west side of Appalachian Mts is decidedly rougher than the east, or at least from our viewpoints of the 2. The farms of Pennsylvania and Maryland are wonderful, with rotated crops spanning the hillsides. If you can't farm going up, you are out of place here. There are no observable farms in West Virgina! This is way more rugged and forested. The trees are massive. The entire drive was delightful.
We did get to Gettysburg Battlefield on Saturday, I should have written about it earlier. The auto tour circles the city, those people were under siege for 3 days. So much has been written about the event, I certainly can't add any insights here, but I can offer advise. We had read the novel Killer Angels prior to the trip and visited and read about other battlegrounds. We often refer to a wonderful history book given to us by the Scoggins'. Then we watched a couple of movies on the topic. We got so much more out of the experience by immersing as opposed to just dropping in and visiting the site. Talking to local experts was icing on the cake!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Shenandoah Valley
July 23, 2010
Our campground at Verona held a lot of promise...that largely went unfufilled. All that beauty was overshadowed by events and attitude. So most of the week was spent in-house working, or driving futility trying to find things. But then came Friday.
After getting our work out of the way, we drove south to Lexington, VA. This is a gem! The town is just lovely and would be a good day trip if that were all there was. However, it holds so much history, that is the reason for visiting. We drove through VMI - huge! We missed the museum, but learned that it was burned to the ground, along with most of Lexington, by Sherman; seems he lit more than Atlanta. We walked through a small portion of Washington and Lee University to visit the Lee Chapel. He was buried below the chapel in the cript built for his family, with Traveller just outside in the garden. The room above the cript and just behind the altar contains a lifesized statue of Lee in repose that is really beautiful. Lee was president of the university for the last 5 years of his life and completely innovated their curriculum during that time. His son was an instructor at VMI, and later became president at Washington Lee. We also visited the home of Stonewall Jackson, also an instructor at VMI for the 2 years he lived there. We really enjoyed the afternoon there.
We got back to camp to find a whole new rowdy place. It seems the weekend party starts early, a fact we missed since our arrival was on Monday morning. On Friday we were glad to be leaving before the place filled up and more partying got started. We must be getting very old!
Leaving, we turned left.
Now all week we had turned right on US 11, taking care of business. I wonder how different our stay would have been if we had just turned left earlier. The most amazing homes and hillsides were just waiting there to be discovered. Green upon green, rolling, gentle, graceful, amazing. While riding along, I was trying to compose this paragraph and knew for sure that my vocabulary was too limited, or maybe the language is not beautiful enough to explain what we saw. But the whole day was like that. We traveled north on I-81 through West Virgina, then Maryland, taking a left in southern Pennsylvania.
Today we are heading over to Gettysburg, prepared to be awed.
Our campground at Verona held a lot of promise...that largely went unfufilled. All that beauty was overshadowed by events and attitude. So most of the week was spent in-house working, or driving futility trying to find things. But then came Friday.
After getting our work out of the way, we drove south to Lexington, VA. This is a gem! The town is just lovely and would be a good day trip if that were all there was. However, it holds so much history, that is the reason for visiting. We drove through VMI - huge! We missed the museum, but learned that it was burned to the ground, along with most of Lexington, by Sherman; seems he lit more than Atlanta. We walked through a small portion of Washington and Lee University to visit the Lee Chapel. He was buried below the chapel in the cript built for his family, with Traveller just outside in the garden. The room above the cript and just behind the altar contains a lifesized statue of Lee in repose that is really beautiful. Lee was president of the university for the last 5 years of his life and completely innovated their curriculum during that time. His son was an instructor at VMI, and later became president at Washington Lee. We also visited the home of Stonewall Jackson, also an instructor at VMI for the 2 years he lived there. We really enjoyed the afternoon there.
We got back to camp to find a whole new rowdy place. It seems the weekend party starts early, a fact we missed since our arrival was on Monday morning. On Friday we were glad to be leaving before the place filled up and more partying got started. We must be getting very old!
Leaving, we turned left.
Now all week we had turned right on US 11, taking care of business. I wonder how different our stay would have been if we had just turned left earlier. The most amazing homes and hillsides were just waiting there to be discovered. Green upon green, rolling, gentle, graceful, amazing. While riding along, I was trying to compose this paragraph and knew for sure that my vocabulary was too limited, or maybe the language is not beautiful enough to explain what we saw. But the whole day was like that. We traveled north on I-81 through West Virgina, then Maryland, taking a left in southern Pennsylvania.
Today we are heading over to Gettysburg, prepared to be awed.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Blue Ridge Mts., VA
July 20, 2010
We are settled at the next campground, with a few events of note in the getting here.
The evening prior to leaving Rocky Mount, we decided to take a short, no big-deal walk down the country road. Russell kept saying, "Is that a cat in the road?" We got close enough to see that the approaching red-furred animal was actually a fox! HOW COOL! That's when the rain started. The fox headed for near-by shelter, more from us than rain, I'm sure. We turned and headed for home, much further away. But nobody melted, and we were in for the evening. Of course, the rain ended just after we got dry. That's just the way things go.
We enjoyed the short drive up I-81 to Verona, VA and the Shenandoah Valley Campground. We were early, the designated space for our stay was still occupied. So took the staff advice and just left the RV and car in the drive, and hung around inside the office/store/restaurant. We were standing at the window, admiring the park, when a boy on a bike came into view headed right for our rig! Certainly he would look up and see it sitting there! Everyone in the store heard the THUD as he hit, bike then boy, headlong into our grill. We both saw it and were dumbfounded, but recovered to be the first to the scene.
And what a scene it became. One of the camp owners took control of the 12 year old, holding his head still, I was checking his eyes, the manager came running with THE BAG, the parents were informed, so they came running, and eventually EMS arrived. Brandon never saw the 13-ft tall by 8-ft wide motor coach parked in his path. Did I mention that he's 12? He had an exciting ride in an ambulance, a quick check with a doctor, pronounced fine, and his family finished the day with a tour of a museum and pizza. We were very relieved at the outcome. And the RV grill is fine too.
Well, our stay continues with an all-too-quiet fishing trip this morning at the on-site pond. Before leaving we hope to tube down the river and enjoy the waterfalls that are also on-property. It is a beautiful, friendly park and due to Brandon, we are marginally famous!
We are settled at the next campground, with a few events of note in the getting here.
The evening prior to leaving Rocky Mount, we decided to take a short, no big-deal walk down the country road. Russell kept saying, "Is that a cat in the road?" We got close enough to see that the approaching red-furred animal was actually a fox! HOW COOL! That's when the rain started. The fox headed for near-by shelter, more from us than rain, I'm sure. We turned and headed for home, much further away. But nobody melted, and we were in for the evening. Of course, the rain ended just after we got dry. That's just the way things go.
We enjoyed the short drive up I-81 to Verona, VA and the Shenandoah Valley Campground. We were early, the designated space for our stay was still occupied. So took the staff advice and just left the RV and car in the drive, and hung around inside the office/store/restaurant. We were standing at the window, admiring the park, when a boy on a bike came into view headed right for our rig! Certainly he would look up and see it sitting there! Everyone in the store heard the THUD as he hit, bike then boy, headlong into our grill. We both saw it and were dumbfounded, but recovered to be the first to the scene.
And what a scene it became. One of the camp owners took control of the 12 year old, holding his head still, I was checking his eyes, the manager came running with THE BAG, the parents were informed, so they came running, and eventually EMS arrived. Brandon never saw the 13-ft tall by 8-ft wide motor coach parked in his path. Did I mention that he's 12? He had an exciting ride in an ambulance, a quick check with a doctor, pronounced fine, and his family finished the day with a tour of a museum and pizza. We were very relieved at the outcome. And the RV grill is fine too.
Well, our stay continues with an all-too-quiet fishing trip this morning at the on-site pond. Before leaving we hope to tube down the river and enjoy the waterfalls that are also on-property. It is a beautiful, friendly park and due to Brandon, we are marginally famous!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Rocky Mount, VA
July 18, 2010
"Brocolli Mountains." That's the term applied to these lovely rolling mountains covered in trees by our friend Muff Urie. She and husband Paul moved here 9 years ago, and we hadn't seen them since. But the Urie-drought is over! We have had a wonderful weekend with gracious hosts/tour guides. They arranged for rain to cool the temps enough for an evening dinner on the deck, ribs, YUM! They were talking about how beautiful the hillsides are in the fall, but, they are also very nice in the summer.
Tomorrow we head north for Verona, VA in the Shenandoah Valley. I'll always think of that old Jimmy Stewart movie, probably ought to rent it while there.
"Brocolli Mountains." That's the term applied to these lovely rolling mountains covered in trees by our friend Muff Urie. She and husband Paul moved here 9 years ago, and we hadn't seen them since. But the Urie-drought is over! We have had a wonderful weekend with gracious hosts/tour guides. They arranged for rain to cool the temps enough for an evening dinner on the deck, ribs, YUM! They were talking about how beautiful the hillsides are in the fall, but, they are also very nice in the summer.
Tomorrow we head north for Verona, VA in the Shenandoah Valley. I'll always think of that old Jimmy Stewart movie, probably ought to rent it while there.
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