Polar Vortex

These are two words that I have come to hate recently. Last night was my first night back in my room since last Wednesday. I have been house sitting for my boss since last Thursday night and this bitter cold (wind chills in the –15 to –25 range) are really tough on older homes. I awoke Tuesday morning to no water in the whole house even though I had been letting the water drip to try and prevent a freeze-up. I got to spend time with Thea too, walking her and feeding her. She is a very sweet and obedient dog and about the same age as Boomer. Since I haven’t seen Boomer in three months, she was a nice stand-in for a few days to give her some lovin’.
The cold and ice is tough on the alpacas and they don’t like to come out of their shelters when it’s bitter cold or snowy. I had alpaca duty Monday morning and as I was opening the gate so Cindy could pull the Kubota into pasture 2, I slipped on a patch of ice and fell hard on my back, whacking my head a little on the ground. Cindy poked her head out of the Kubota and asked if I was ok and after getting up and moving various body parts, determined that nothing was broken. I had a headache for the rest of the day and my low back and hips were achy but it seems that the many layers of clothing that I had on, absorbed the shock to my body. As Cindy said, “ You fell really even.”
Mariah’s physical therapy is progressing and yesterday she stood for about 20 minutes on her own. The sling and pulley are working great to take the stress off of our bodies to pick her up. She will need to get to the point of being able to get up on her own to have any quality of life, as an alpaca, so that remains to be seen if she can regain enough muscle strength to do that.
Finished more mug rugs and a scarf. I love the colors in the scarf, purples and pinks (although I’m not a pink person). It’s made from alpaca yarn so it will be super warm and soft.
We have a bunch of workshops coming up in the weeks leading up to my departure. Today is our spinning workshop. Friday we have a alpaca showing workshop where we learn how to prepare your alpaca for the show ring, what the judges are looking for and ring etiquette. Next weekend is the nuno felting workshop, which I’m looking forward to. It was part of the three day workshop last weekend but the whole event was cancelled due to low enrollment. Lots of fun, educational events coming up.
Linda dropped our rig off at an RV repair place, near her, to get some items taken care of before we hit the road again. When I was home for a few days end of October, I had put some Stabil in the gas tank to get it through the months of sitting. As soon as I did that, there were really strong smells of gas in the rig; so much so that it was setting off the carbon monoxide detector. I chalked it up that maybe I had gotten some fuel on my clothes but I had been really careful and it’s not a sloppy job to take a little container and pour it into your fuel tank. Turns out a mouse had chewed a hole in our fuel line, right near the manifold,in the engine compartment. The guy at the garage said that Linda was extremely lucky that it didn’t catch fire on her way driving to their shop. I will thank the cold weather and short drive for that miracle and Linda having an angel on her shoulder. The reason that our furnace hasn’t been firing is that the computer board is shot so that’s another $295. I hated to answer my phone cause every time the guy called from the garage it was ka ching – ka ching. I guess that the final bill will be close to $1000 but our home will be safe and ready to hit the road.
The car, with its’ new engine, is acting up and is in another repair shop in Chambersburg. It’s getting 10 miles to the gallon and skipping and bucking so that needs to be checked out. We are really hoping that it’s a little tweak and not a big repair. Keeping our fingers crossed. Say a prayer to the god of all things mechanical for us, if you would please.
For more positive news…Today it will be in the 20’s, which will feel immensely warmer than it has felt in the last two weeks. Hope everyone is staying warm and safe. Enjoy the rest of your week, wherever it may find you.

Monday

First thing this morning we drove down to the local RV repair place to see if they can order the part for our coach steps. Over the weekend, I had Linda open the door from the inside (while I stood outside) so I could put the awning out. I wanted to let it air out since we’ve had so much rain over the last few days. When Linda opened the door the steps acted really weird and didn’t open up correctly. I got under the rig and discovered a big bolt laying under the steps….sheared off. We need to talk to the local repair place and see if they can get them fixed before we leave Sunday to go back to Dallas. If not, gonna look kind of weird to have them bungied to the underside of the rig so they’re not swinging to and fro in the breeze. It’s always something….
Spent the day with our friends Cindy and Wendy, down in Houston. We drove from Livingston, down to Houston, to hang out with them for the day. Taught them how to play Mexican Train and being the quick learners that they are, Cindy whupped us. It’s been so long since we’ve played that we’d forgotten the rules and called the ladies who taught us to get a refresher on the rules.
On the way home, from Wendy and Cindy’s place, we stopped at Church’s chicken to get some chicken strips for supper. At the drive through, I asked over the little speaker if they had plain chicken strips, without a combo deal. We had a distinct communication problem when I couldn’t understand anything she was asking me. We mudded our way through the ordering process….enlisting Linda’s help periodically to translate what I thought this woman on the other end of the intercom (which I think was located in Mexico somewhere) was asking me. We get up to the window, she opens her window and says the total and I hand her our Discover card, since it’s 5% cash back this month on restaurant purchases. She takes it and turns around to process it, turns back around and hands it to me, saying “pizza and mustard”. Now I know that I have two strikes against me since my bad ear is on the left, closest to this woman but I’m thinking that “pizza and mustard” might be the dipping sauces to choose from. I’m thinking perhaps I had heard her incorrectly until I turn to look at Linda and Linda says “pizza and mustard” ? We’re thinking that the mustard part makes sense but pizza as a new flavor of dipping sauce seems a little bizarre. We both lean towards the window and look at the woman who says it again…pizza and mustard. We must have looked like deer in headlights because when we looked at her again she annunciated very slowly…Visa and MasterCard. We both started laughing and Linda says, “We’re so sorry but you have a bit of an accent”. DUH ! Ya think ! I hand her my other credit card…the mustard one, I believe and she runs it while Linda is busting a gut. Oh my, it was funny. When she truly did ask what dipping sauce I wanted, I asked her for honey mustard and got it. Apparently she understands English better than I understand Spanish. Hmmmm…..

Hot Day in Winston Salem

Holy smokes, it was hot today. At one point, the online weather site said that it was 91 here but it felt like 97. And talk about humid ?!?!? We slept in till around 9 this morning...both of us were exhausted from not sleeping well the last couple of nights. We didn't even have any phone calls come in this morning to wake us up...that was nice. Around 11 we went out to get some breakfast. We went to Billy Bob's Silver Diner, just a couple miles away.

I love the look of stainless steel diners....all shiny and sleek and a reminder of the type of diners that many of us grew up with. The inside was likewise as nice. Red vinyl booths with lots of pink neon around the perimeter of the room. Loads of memorabilia on the walls...above our table, on the wall, was a gold plated record of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap's "Young Girl". I loved listening to that song as a kid growing up.

For breakfast, Linda and I had the cinnamon swirl french toast which included a dish of fresh fruit (cut up melon, pineapple, etc). The french toast was ok...we prefer ours to be more moist, soaked in more batter, and not the dry type of french toast. It was a fun place to eat and perhaps we'll go back at another time to try some other dishes.

We did some other errands, which took us to the Hanes Mall, only about two miles from us. Since we had frozen food in the car (and it was so beastly hot out) we just ran in and got what we wanted and didn't linger but it looks like a really neat mall to go back and investigate. It's two levels and you go in on the upper floor. It's a good place to go window shopping on a hot and humid day :)

Tonight we went out to the rig, in the parking lot out back, and we turned the rig around so we can get out with it in the morning. I called the RV garage, about 22 miles from here, and made an appointment to get our problem areas worked on. This garage is accustomed to working with service contracts so hopefully a couple of things might be covered under our contract. They said the air conditioner might still be under warranty. We'll see how it all works out. It will be nice to get everything fixed so we can go camping. Once we drop the rig off, we really don't have anything else scheduled for tomorrow so who knows what mischief we'll get into.