We are Homeless???

Before I tell you how two people that own a house in Midlothian, VA and an RV can be homeless, I want to talk about our recent trip without the RV.  It was wonderful.  The time with Diana's family is always fun and the stop in Amelia Island, then in Port Orange and then the cruise were all great.  The visit with my family over Christmas was very special and will be a great memory for a life time.  The visit to Brandermill church and with our neighbors and friends while in Midlothian was amazing.  And finally our trip back to the RV allowed us to see some former neighbors.  An amazing 5 weeks away from the RV.

But we are ready to get back to the RV and return to some routine.  But wait...the RV which was supossed to have all the worked completed so we could pick it up on 12/30 may not be ready until January 2 or maybe later.  What!? How can this be?  The dealer has had the RV for 5 weeks!  We want to get home!!!

You may recall from a previous post that we were getting a new wind shield due to a disagreement with a rock.  Wind shields for RVs are not like those for cars in that glass places do not stock them in their inventory.  So it is special ordered.  Ours had been ordered by December 10, maybe sooner, and so I expected no issues.  Well I called the dealer the other day and the wind shield had not arrived yet.  I called yesterday and it had arrived and they were going to try to install it in the afternoon. Time for a little side bar here; Due to the holidays, and a death of a family member of our service writer, the normal work schedule has been compromised.  Also, the person who is trying to help us is wearing several other hats as well.  The dealership has been very helpful and provided me with all the info they can.  They have even had to track things down and have called me back several times.  End side bar.

So we are in Charlotte, NC with no where to go until at least the 2nd.  And that is how we are homeless!  Fortunately we are in a nice hotel that we have extended our stay until Monday.  But after that we are not sure where we will be or for sure when we will be able to pick up our home.  We'll keep you posted.

Brandermill Church

What a blessing it was to go to our "home church" yesterday.  The Christmas pageant was wonderful, the worship was meaningful and the evening cantata was amazing.  It was great to reconnect with so many friends and to see how things have changed and stayed the same.  We hope to see many of you again over the next week or so.

We did not realize how many of you follow this blog!  We will continue our posts when it seems appropriate.  It is great to feel loved!

Cruisin'

The drive from Hammond, LA to Amelia Island, FL was uneventful and boring.  I-10 across the Florida panhandle is flat, straight and without much scenery.  But since we were in the Jeep and not the RV it was cool to be able to drive at 70 miles and hour!

The short visit with Dale and Christy (Diana's brother and sister-in-law) was great.  The trip to Port Orange to see Diana's sister, Marge and brother-in-law David was short and we had a nice time there.  Dale and Christy came down for Thanksgiving and we all ate too much....the American way.

Friday we were off on a cruise with Marge and David.  The Emerald Princess was the ship and we had 10 days and several islands in the south eastern Caribbean.  The weather was great and the excursions were wonderful.  We watched the sun rise and set from our balcony and had great scenery the entire voyage.  We had been on 2 other cruises but had not had as great a time.  Partly due to poor weather but what made this cruise so great was being with Marge and David.  I don't know about them but we had a great time.

Sadly, the cruise ended and we had to leave Port Orange.  We drove to Midlothian, VA, our old home.  As of this post Diana has been to the church for the Prayer Shawl Ministry (better known as Knit Wits) and we stopped at Bob's brother's house to visit with Don, Janice, Alex, Heather, Flannery, Kathy, Bray plus we got to meet Lilly the dog.  A fun night.

The next few days look great with a cookie decorating in our old neighborhood and lots of "getting together" with friends and relatives.  Looks like we will have a full social schedule for our two weeks here.

Vacation

OK, don't start!  I know most of you, and by most I mean all, think we are on a full time vacation.  I can't argue with that but we are taking a vacation from the RV.  Saturday the 23rd we will drop the RV off at an RV dealer and Camping World in Hammond, LA.  We have a list of warranty work, maintenance work and a few upgrades they will work on while we are gone.  We 'll be back on December 30th to pick up the RV.

First we go to Amelia Island, FL where Di's brother Dale and his wife Christy are staying at a condo.  Two days there then south to visit Di's sister Marge and her husband David for a few days then Dale and Christy will join us for Thanksgiving.  Friday Marge, David, Diana and I leave for a 10 day cruise in the Caribbean.  When we get back from that Diana and I will drive to Midlothian and visit with friends and spend Christmas with my brother and his family.  Then drive back to Hammond, LA to get the RV and resume that life style.

The inside of the RV looks like a storm came through since we have piles of clothes for each stop along the way.  We are pretty sure it will all fit in the Jeep...maybe!

Great River Road Complete!!!

On November 16, 2013 we completed our journey down the Great River Road.  This took roughly 3 months, but we took a side trip to Wisconsin for 2+ weeks and spent 3 weeks near the Twin Cities.  Several places along the GRR we saw signs indicating that one drop of water entering the the river at the beginning would take about 90 days to make it to the Gulf of Mexico.  We were not too far off of that timing.  Our approach was to follow the official GRR as much as possible unless we found roads closer to the river, then we followed as closely as we could.  Below is a summary in pictures and words of the trip.  Many places along the GRR we could not see the river at all, other places we were within a few feet.

It all starts at Lake Itasca in Minnesota.

We think Wisconsin has the most scenic drive on the river. 

 Tennessee was the only state with brown signs.

We did about half the road in the RV and the other half we parked the RV in a campground and drove the Jeep.  We drove in all 10 states that touch the river.

The river does not have an official end!  This is because south of New Orleans it begins to branch off and split around dozens of islands.  Technically it does not end until it is out in the Gulf a way.  We followed the road as far as you can by car.   This is as close to the end as we could get.

It was a fun adventure with some beautiful scenery and some just plain ugly industry.  What a blessing to have been able to do this.  Now we celebrate!!

The back up

When we left Baton Rouge our holding tanks were about 1/2 full.  We knew we were staying at Bayou Segnette State Park in Westwego near New Orleans and that we would not have a sewer hook up for a week.  So when we pulled into the camping area of the park our first stop was the dump station.  We hooked up and pulled the black water valve and all seemed well.  Once the tank was empty we filled it with fresh water to rinse it clean.  We pulled the valve again and water started coming up out of the hole that the soil line was in.  We closed the valve but still had 15 feet of liquid in the pipe so it continued to over flow the line for awhile.

We called the Park office and they sent 2 guys to help.  The help turned out to be them opening the large receiving tank about 15 yards away and telling me to finish the dump into it directly.  So Diana drove the RV to the tank while I walked along side holding the drain line up in the air.  It took about 10 minutes but we finally got both black and gray tanks drained.  Then we went and set up for the week.

Supposedly the park has had a plumber out twice to fix the problem.  They said they would get him back.  I hope so because we will need to drain again before we leave.

10K

Some where on the Natchez Trace between Vicksburg, MS and Baton Rouge, LA we passed the 10,000 mile mark in the RV.