Virginia Beach

This is our last night in the Virginia Beach area, visiting Linda’s kids and grand-kids. She is out trick or treating with them tonight. Watching the evening news, there is quite a mess in the northeast due to the Nor-Easter that hit there. Lots of power outages and massive snowfall amounts in some areas. So glad we got out of there when we did. Saturday we went to the Aquarium and yesterday it was “Zoo Boo” day so the grand-kids went in their costumes. I about froze to death, with the wind and cool temps. People were there in short sleeves and I was bundled up, trying to keep from freezing. My blood must be super thin….thank goodness we’re Florida bound. At least I think we are….no word yet from our boss. We picked our car up in Hampton at Hibbard’s Iron Works and they had put the Blue Ox base plate on and did the light harness but did not install the Roadmaster Invisibrake. I called the Camping World location in Statesville, NC and lucked out due to some folks having a cancellation. We have an appointment for Wednesday at 8 a.m. to get the braking system put on. Not sure where we’ll go from there….perhaps we’ll mosey on to Pigeon Forge to see friends there. Leaving in the morning for the six hour drive down to North Carolina.

Linda with her sister-in-law, Susie	Spent a night in Williamsburg, VA visiting Mike & Cindy
Boomer with his buddy, Teagan…watching cartoons.	Grammy with ila…
Linda’s daughter, Laurie & hubby Matt	Linda’s son, Todd with Teagan
Left to right:ila, Stephanie, Teagan, Jessica and Laurie

On Tour….

The last few weeks I’ve felt like a rock star (minus the seven figure income) with the “tour” schedule we’ve had visiting family and friends. No roadies but driving Ozzie (what we’ve named the Outlaw) sure does feel like driving a bus. We left Chambersburg this morning after having spent several days at Barry and Carol’s place. Barry has a great house on a cul-de-sac, which was perfect for parking the rig. We stopped by Carol’s workplace so Linda could get a final hug from her sister on our way out of town. As most of you probably know, Chambersburg is in the heart of Amish country. I thought I knew quite a bit about Amish dishes (being that I’m part Pennsylvania Dutch and part German) but I heard about two dishes this weekend that weren’t familiar at all. Hog Maw was the special at one place we stopped at the other night. Can’t even describe what comes to mind when that phrase rolls off my tongue. It’s pig stomach stuffed with potatoes, sausage and cabbage. Sounds yummy, eh ? Not so much ! Or how about slippery pot pie ? Apparently all the pot pie I’ve ever had was the sticky kind and not the “slippery” one cause it has a whole separate category here in Chambersburg. The slippery variety has noodles in it….THAT I might have been brave enough to try if I needed to.

Our rock star tour continues…we arrived in Vienna, VA around 11 and parked our rig at a Wal-Mart that just opened two weeks ago. Easy to  get into and out of….asked for permission to leave it overnight and after going through several employees, got the A-ok to leave it there overnight. Linda’s sister-in-law picked us up and brought us back to their house. We’re having a great visit and are enjoying the birds at the feeder off of the deck.

Leaving C-Burg…

 

 

 

 

 

We leave Chambersburg tomorrow morning, headed for Vienna, VA. It’s a bittersweet time for Linda as she has had a great time hanging out with her family but it will be this time next year before  she sees them again. A long time to go without seeing them when you enjoy being around your family and being a part of their family’s lives (children’s athletic games, family outings, etc.). We spent a good part of the day at Linda’s sister Kay’s house. Coby (the picture on the right) is a senior in high school. Karlee, on the left of Linda, is the last child in school. We went pumpkin picking today so Karlee could get her pumpkin ready for Halloween. Found a great selection at an old time roadside stand, where the honor system ( a box mounted on the wall) is the method of paying. Lots of squash (winter, crook neck, hubbard), along with tomatoes, onions, green beans, honey and maple syrup. Loaded up with pumpkins, perfect for making a Halloween masterpiece, we headed back to Kay’s house. The masterpiece didn’t get finished because Karlee had soccer practice. Busy household ! Everyone is running in a different direction to work, school function or task to be done. So great to spend time with Kay and her family.  We also got to borrow her dehydrator to make some squash chips. Like potato chips but much healthier for you…made with the crook neck squash and sprinkled with sea salt/garlic salt and dehydrated. Last time I made them, I did them in the oven and it took me all afternoon. Took longer to make them than it did to eat them ! Will be much quicker with a machine.

 

 

 

 

 

Still no word on where in Florida we are heading for our assignments. Were supposed to hear on Monday from our boss but no call. Not sweating it….still a few more stops to make to see the rest of Linda’s kids and grandkids.

 

We did learn what happened when we plugged the little space heater in and lost power in some of our receptacles. Turns out the inverter tripped. Matt, from the dealership called today and told me how to access the inverter and to hit the reset button. Sure enough, that did the trick. We didn’t have an inverter in our old rig (turns 12 v. power into 110 v.power) so you can run items for a limited time off the inverter without having to turn the generator on. The circuit that tripped ran all the indoor TV’s (4 of them) so it was important that we get it figured out. Now we know how to correct this problem if it arises again.

Leaving the Sweely clan tomorrow

We’ve been visiting my mom and brothers/sister since Tuesday and will be leaving tomorrow morning. We had an excellent parking spot next to Jim’s sugar shack and this morning discovered that he has a 50 amp receptacle (uses it for his reverse osmosis machine) so are able to be “plugged in” for the last day that we’ll be here. Next year we’ll know and can be plugged in the whole visit. We have a beautiful view, down the valley, from where we are parked. The other night we could see the red glow in the sky of a gas well that they are burning off in the distance. You could see the flames rise and fall from the well on the distant horizon. We’re hanging out at Jim and Edie’s house this afternoon (hence the use of their wi-fi). Jim is firing up the grill to cook lunch soon. This is Jim and I sitting on the couch. We’ve had such a good time with my family. It’s been a long time since we’ve had this much time to have a leisurely visit and not have to rush off like we’ have to do after a holiday meal, etc. Linda

got a tour off the sugar shack and heard about the maple process and also of the beekeeping that Jim does. It’s really interesting and a pretty sophisticated process.

Jim works for a company that builds post and beam houses and is located about a mile from his house. It’s very convenient for him and he’s worked there for 25 years. My sister Phyllis is retired and seems to be busier now than she was when she had her florist shop. She runs the food bank and that keep her pretty busy and is very rewarding to serve the community that way.

Tomorrow morning we’ll leave here and head towards Chambersburg, making a stop in Lemoyne to see some friends. We’ll stay in Chambersburg until Wednesday morning. Should hear first of the week where we’re heading in Florida. No word yet from our boss with any details but he promised to call on Monday. 

Rig & Family

In previous posts we’ve mentioned how awesome Al, our salesman at Whitehorse RV, has been with keeping an eye on our rig before we came to pick it up. When we arrived to make the move into the new rig, he handed us this box and said to make sure we took it with us before we left. Here is what was in it….four delectable bakery items. One was a super rich carrot cake, lemon sponge cake, chocolate mousse tart with chocolate covered strawberry on top and the last item was a strawberry sponge cake with fresh blueberries and a cherry on top. As we were moving into the evening and needed an energy boost, we’d take a few bites of these yummy things.

A huge hurdle that we hit with purchasing the rig has been the financing. The first bank that gave us preliminary “approval”…Bank of the West..backed out when they found out we are full time RV’ers. The finance lady submitted our info to two other banks and they also said no. Fulltimers are frowned upon by financial institutions. Guess they don’t like the gypsy nature of our lives. Another bank, Alliant Credit Union, had been into the RV dealership recently and pitched them that they have a speedy process, will finance for full-timers, yada yada. We started the process with them last Thursday and every day they wanted more and more documentation. Now, keep in mind that we’re on the move…driving a rig we haven’t paid for and the dealership is being really great sports about the whole thing. We are also not fully settled so I’m trying to scan documents (after trying to FIND them in the rig), fire up the generator so the scanner will work, balance the laptop on one knee…quite the acrobatic act to do all this and be out and about with family and friends. Yesterday, we’d had enough with Alliant. After our boss submitted our wages, on letterhead, they then wanted all of our bank statements showing all of our commissions having been deposited into our checking account. ENOUGH ! We’ve been dealing with them since last Thursday and still no answer from them. We told them we’d had it…they had received statements of all of our assets (retirement and non-retirement) and could see that we had enough money to support our loan. We decided to pay cash for it and be done with it.  Our investments, in the stock market, have taken a hit anyways so we’ll save the interest money and own our rig outright. I had heard, from RV dealers that I work with across the country, that financing has been an issue for qualified buyers and now we’ve seen it firsthand. Even with excellent credit, banks are being very tight fisted. So we’re in the process of moving money to pay for our home. In the meantime, Whitehorse is being very patient….bless them !

Visiting with mom and my brothers and sister. We’re going with mom and my sister/BIL to the casino tomorrow. Hey, maybe we’ll hit the jackpot and it’ll pay for our rig. Wonder if I can find a lucky rabbit’s foot to take with me. We’ll see….

So Busy…Just a Mention..

We have been crazy busy with picking up the rig last Monday, working a couple days at getting things organized/downsizing, etc and visiting family and friends in between all of that. Will post more later on the whole experience but suffice it to say that it took us about 15 hours (two days) to even get the stuff out of the old rig and into the new rig. Couldn’t put the trike in the garage cause it was full of “stuff”. Had to drive to Linda’s brother’s house to borrow their minivan for the couple of days that my kids would be in town (aka: airport shuttle) and then go to a campground outside Philly Thursday afternoon to get ready for my daughter’s flight to arrive. Her flight was an hour late departing, from Boston, so consequently she didn’t arrive till around 11 p.m. Had a great time with Becky, Nick (her boyfriend) and my son Jay.

It’s now Tuesday…we arrived at mom’s around mid-day. Yesterday we left NJ, dropped some items off at Linda’s sister’s house and made our way to Williamsport. I stopped by Penn College to see my former colleagues and tour some of the new facilities….so great to see everyone ! We are parked at my brother’s house…it’s a perfect spot. Although he sits up on a hill, his road is in much better shape than I remembered. Linda got too nervous when we started up the steep driveway….she ran to the back of the rig and covered her eyes. When we got up to his driveway, it was so easy to back up into the driveway next to the sugar shack (where he processes maple syrup). A perfect spot with a great view. We’ve found our place to stay when we come home.

Here’s a picture that I took of Linda with her brother, Roy and his wife Kathie. We had a great time spending time with them and are so thankful that we could borrow their mini van to use to pick the kids up at the airport and haul them around all weekend.

Lots to do in the days ahead. Using my brothers wireless internet (thank goodness since there’s no call service here) so will be able to post as I get time. Stay tuned…

Git ‘Er Out While the Gittin’s Good….

Busy weekend here with family and friends stopping by. As you recall from the last post, our rig was stuck…due to all the rain that had fallen and the rig sinking in the ground. The gentleman, here at the campground, said he would hook the tractor up to us and pull us out tomorrow morning when we’re ready to go but he stopped by tonight and said it wouldn’t be till 9:00 or so tomorrow, due to wife’s doctor appt. We had already been thinking that since things are nice and dry tonight (after a warm weekend that dried things out quite a bit) that we should hook up and turn around tonight. He was reading our minds. He suggested we do just that since he couldn’t promise to be around first thing in the morning so that’s what we did. We were hustling to beat the heavy dew that falls and knew as wet as it’s been mornings, we might not get out without a pull. Had no problem whatsoever getting out so Linda just backed up the entry road and we’re sitting on the road that leads out of the campground. Just moved our electric hookup to a closer pole and we’re all set. Just need to stop and dump our tanks on the way out and we’ll be all set.

Will take us about 4.5 hours to get to New Jersey to Whitehorse RV to pick up our rig tomorrow. Have our inspection list ready and are anxious (Linda’s probably more nauseous than excited) to do the move but we’ll get through it. Will post more about the weekend’s events and our visit with family & friends in a few days. Need to get to sleep…long day ahead ! Until then will leave you with a picture of Grammy Linda with her grandkids.

Iron Skillet – I-75/Exit 167

At the next exit up from where we were staying, in Ohio, there was a Petro fuel plaza with an Iron Skillet restaurant inside. We’ve eaten at an Iron Skillet before and I didn’t remember it being very good. The park owner, where we were working, said that no one could beat their prices for the buffet dinners they have so we decided to eat there on our last night in the park so we didn’t have to mess with dishes and such. We’d been breaking down the job and the Fed Ex drop box is at the Petro plaza so it seemed like a real time saver to have dinner while we were there.

They were having a steak buffet for $12.99, with fried shrimp, steak and lots of other food items. Way more food than we could eat. One of the other specials they have every day is choice of ham, pork loin, fish and some other type of meat with 1 side and soup and salad bar for $6.99. We chose that…The salad bar was great with home-made dressings. We both decided to have some soup….something we don’t usually get but were in the mood for. Wow, it was full of vegetables and a thick, hearty flavor. It was excellent ! We were very surprised when the meal came and the fish was a lightly breaded fresh fillet of fish (we had expected a fish square) and the mashed potatoes were real and still had the skins in them. This meal far exceeded our expectations, especially for $6.99 each. Certainly a place we will frequent next year when we are working this job. Passing through Ohio, on I-75 ?…Stop at exit 167 for some good eats.

P.S. Craziest thing happened with fuel prices just as we were leaving Ohio. Gas prices had dropped to $3.04 and stayed there for about two days and then on Wednesday, shot up .25/gallon to $3.29. What’s with that ! I thought maybe someone had blown up an oil refinery or something….crazy huge jump in price. Luckily, something similar didn’t happen to diesel prices…we got it for $3.63 with Pilot card.

Last Camping Trip in Old Rig

It’s been a whirlwind couple of days with finishing up our last assignment in Van Buren, Oh and getting back on the road to see family/friends AND go pick up our new rig. Holy cow ! On Wednesday, we had lunch with Linda’s first cousin, who she has never met. Eric (next to Linda) invited his brother David to join us so he drove down from Bowling Green. Eric’s wife, Julie was also able to join us so we had a wonderful time talking with them and getting to know them.

Thursday, around 8:30 we hit the road. We didn’t really expect to make it to Chambersburg, PA at the end of the day but kept pushing and did make it here around 7:00 p.m. 450 miles, lots of highway construction, a detour because our exit was closed and Linda missing her first turn-off causing an extra 20 miles on the trip made for a really long and tiring day. When we arrived, we found out from the worker, here at Twin Bridge Campground that there is only one way into the campground due to construction on the “twin bridges” so access to half of the campground is cut off.  In addition to that minor set back (and not being able to camp where we wanted to), the campground had been flooded by the recent storm AND they’ve had 15-16” of rain over the last month, making for very soggy ground. He wasn’t sure where the “firmest” ground was for us to park, since we weigh 30,000#. He said he’d direct Linda into an area so off he went in his golf cart, with her following. I think his intention was to have her pull into the big open area and swing around to back up to the hookups but they made is as far as the pulling in part of the process. Her truck tires started spinning and that was all she wrote. He said he’d pull us out when we’re ready to leave. Consequently, all of our hook-ups were on the opposite side of the rig so it took an extra power cord and water hose to reach our hook-ups. We did get the truck unhooked and pulled away from the trailer. This is the campground where Linda’s family has camped for 30+ years and they have alot of great memories here. Linda’s grandkids, from Williamsport, are coming down to spend the weekend with Grammy and Linda’s sisters and brother are coming by to visit. Disappointing that it’s so muddy and crappy around the site to try and have lots of people hang out. We had called the campground several times to check on conditions but no one ever returned our call. If we’d known of the conditions here, we could have picked a different place to camp. We’re “stuck” here….but we’ll make the most of it. We’ll make some great final memories in our old rig !

Old and New Friends

I keep forgetting to mention that when we were in the Lincoln, NE area, not only did we get to see our friend Paula but we also got to see  Shelly, who I’ve known for 11-12 years. She is so hard to pin down as she works all the time (up to 80 hours a week). We did manage to find an afternoon where she could get away and she came to the campground and hung out with us for a couple hours. It was great to see her while we were in the area.

While here in the Findlay/Van Buren area, we met some new friends that we’ve been chatting with for a few months. Suzanne and Vickie found our names in the RVing Women directory, as South Dakota residents. They called us and we were in Wyoming at the time. They are on the road, in their Class A motorhome. They called us when we arrived here, as they are visiting family in Fremont, OH…a town north of us. We met for lunch, at Bob Evans and had a great time getting to know each other. At the end of lunch, they asked if we played Mexican Train and we said that we’ve always wanted to learn but haven’t yet. That’s all it took. We made a date for dinner & dominoes ! They came to the rig and although we originally were going to grill out, the gale force winds and drizzly rain put a damper on that. Instead, we ordered a “jumbo” veggie pizza from A.J's Heavenly Pizza, who deliver right to the campground. It was an amazing pizza (loved the crust) but holy cow, it was sheet tray size ! We gave it our best effort and managed to eat 1/2 of it. It also came with a free 10” – 1 topping pizza….geez ! Had a super fun time with the girls, playing Mexican Train and chatting ! They are headed to the National Rving Women Convention in Indiana so told them to look up our friends Cindy & Wendy. Linda and I went out the next day and bought the game and have been playing all weekend. We definitely hope our paths cross with Suzanne and Vickie down the road….great new friends to spend time with.