Days Off...

This area of NJ is still recuperating from the big storm over the weekend. According to the local news, many people are still without power and from our travels in this area, many trees came down. We took Boomer back to the dog park today and we were astounded by the number of trees that were toppled in the wind. There were a lot of lucky people too as most of the trees we saw fell away from their houses. A tenant, that stopped in Sunday to move out of her unit, said that travel was horrible....so many detours due to power lines and trees down. We can believe it after seeing the aftermath today.

Today we went to get our RV tire replaced...the one where all the tread came off. We were nearing the one month anniversary of when it happened and I had to get the road hazard claim turned in within 30 days for it to be valid. We didn't have to wait very long at all for them to put it on the rim. We will go back and get the other three on the rig replaced once it is time for us to leave here. It was too tough getting our rig in here that we won't take it out of here until we have to. The Goodyear shop will hold the tires for us (once they get them in) until we're ready for them. I got all the paperwork sent off to the extended warranty folks and Goodyear....The road hazard folks have approved us for a reimbursement of $346...not quite the full amount that we had to pay but it sure helps. I was sure to check the production date on the tire....4409. For those of you not familiar with RV'ing, it is really crucial that the tires you buy for your rig are "fresh". All tires are stamped with a DOT code. In the instance of ours...4409 means that they were made in the 44th week of 2009 so this tire is 5 months old. That is good....I had told him that I didn't want one older than 6 months old. If it had come in older than that, he would have sent it back and requested another one. Our current tires are the original ones, that came on the rig, so they are around 4 years old. RV tires are different from car tires in that they need to be replaced when they get to a certain age, regardless of the amount of wear on the tire. What age that is, is a source of much discussion on the forums....it can be anywhere from 4 years - 6 years. It's all in your perspective I guess or as Dirty Harry says, "Do ya feel lucky ?" When a tire blows it can do thousands of dollars in damage. We were lucky with our tire.....since we had to replace that one, we'll get them all replaced to keep the tread wear even on all of them.

Over the weekend, one of those shopper magazines was delivered here at work and Linda found a nice coupon in there for a local dentist that we went today and checked out. The deal is you get x-rays, a cleaning and an exam for $75. Says that bill of goods usually runs $200+ and since it's been a couple of years since either of us have been to the dentist, we thought it a good deal. (Not as good as our friends experience when they go to Mexico for dental work but good by U.S. standards.) I must say that the lack of dental coverage is one of the things I wish we had at this job (or any job for that matter). I had it when I worked at the college and I think it's one of those things you take for granted until you don't have it and have to pay the whole shot yourself. Nothing that you get done at the dentist is cheap ! Well, we have appointments for next Monday and since Linda is the wienie when it comes to "going to the dentist", we've already decided that she'll go first. I might have to bribe her with some Chunky Monkey ice cream to be a good girl and not fuss or squirm for the doc. LOL

The Rain Stopped (Sort of)...

It stops and then it starts again....that's been the scenario all day. First thing this morning Linda and I went out and cleaned up the downed tree. The base of the tree was too heavy to carry too far so we lifted it out of the road and left it till I can get my chainsaw out and cut it up. (I knew that chainsaw would come in handy on the road...LOL) With that done, we then moved on to the task of figuring out if we could fix the entrance gate. It's amazing how much you can get done when you're not being whipped by torrential winds and pelted by heavy rain. I figured out that the set screw in the shaft had made the moving arm slip and that is why the gate would not operate correctly. With tools in hand and Linda to help me, we got the arm realigned and I tightened the screw...Voila'...it worked !! 

Was feeling pretty good that we had accomplished several things and then the exit gate decided to act up. A guy typed in his code to exit...the gate opened and then it wouldn't close. I studied it all day and can't figure out what is wrong with it. There are several different gate systems that our company uses and this is one we've never worked with before (Falcon). I don't know any of the tips or tricks with this system to get it to work. Maybe the assistant managers will know something about it when they come in to work in the morning.

As soon as we got our outdoor tasks done, then the rain started again. Actually a thunderstorm ! Boomer was in the rig and ya know his fondness for thunderstorms. Well, I turned on the TV (to try and drown out the clap of thunder)...let him listen to Wayne Newton's life story, gave him a treat and left hoping he wouldn't wig out.

You can see that the water level is receding.....the ducks are losing their gathering place.

One of the ways that we advertise our move-in specials is to use an A-frame sign that holds a 2' x 3' sign on each side of it. This A-frame sign is normally located out front, by the road, but Linda had to bring it in yesterday when the wind played havoc with it and we had lost the sign from the one side. I went out to the pond to clear the spillway of leaves and such and guess what I found.

The wind had picked the sign up, wayyyyy up...over the office and fence and apparently it landed in the pond out back.....then it flowed to the spillway and got caught there...Too funny !! It was intact too...I thought when I pulled it out of there that it would have been broken up but it wasn't. I couldn't believe it !

The day went quickly..our short day. We closed at 3 and now have the next two days off. Whew ! The rain is scheduled to quit just in time for our return to work on Wednesday. Yep...figures.

Batten Down the Hatches.....

Wow, it has been a stormy day here at work. The wind and rain is horrendous. About 4 p.m. Linda and I got in the car to drive around the property to check on the buildings and property and discovered our flag pole out front had come down. As we came down the side of one of our buildings, this tree toppled over right in front of our car. It was so surreal.....like in slow motion. Saw it snap off and then topple over in front of us. It was like watching a movie....didn't really seem like it was happening to us. Little scary too.....if we had been a few seconds quicker coming down that row, it would have come over right on our car. Yikes !!!

This is a retention pond that funnels two culverts of water out through a spillway that is in that right rear corner. This morning it was pretty much dry. I had gone over to the spillway late yesterday and checked to make sure it wasn't clogged up with leaves and twigs. This picture is from around 4 p.m.....two ducks have found their "happy place" and the water is almost over the whole spillway. It just can't take the water out quick enough.

The wind is just howling....sustained winds are 25-35 m.p.h. and the gusts are 65 m.p.h. When you look at the surface of the pond, it looks like one of those time lapse cameras with the wind pushing the rain across the water's surface. Really weird....The doors on the ends of the two buildings, with inside units, keep blowing open. We heard a loud bang and when I looked out, from the office, I saw that the concrete stepping stone I had placed in front of one of these doors had been thrown about 6 feet away.....flung when the door came flying open. I grabbed another patio stone and hopefully two stones will keep the door shut. We had to keep the front door locked today and only unlock it as a customer got to the door due to the wind. As soon as the front door would open, the wind would open the back door and blow everything off the counter (and pictures off the wall). A lady came in to pay her bill and before I could get her in the front door and it locked behind her it had snatched her umbrella out of her hand and blew it out the back door. I found it in the back yard....one spine busted. Another time when two people came in to purchase boxes, when the door opened, the wind must have went above the ceiling cause two of the covers on the ceiling fluorescent light fixtures came open. One crashed on the floor and the other was swinging from the ceiling. Whew !! Wild, wild, wet day........I was soaked to the skin most of the day ! More rain tomorrow...hopefully the winds will die down.

More cleaning...

So Linda worked 3-11 last night and then had to work 6 - 6 today, which means getting up at 4:30 (since it takes an hour to get there). Instead of getting that last 30 minutes of precious sleep (seeing as she didn't get to bed till 1:30), her agency called at 4 a.m. to give her a "reminder" that she was working today. How sweet of them....So running on fumes for sleep, she worked all day and is now trying to keep her eyes open to watch the NASCAR race with me. Is a tall order I know....

Today I figured I might as well defrost the freezer and complete the cleaning trifecta of projects for the week. Got that done....walked the pooches...then noticed as we were walking back into the park that it looked like a tree had come down in the rear of the park. Went to investigate. Yep, sure enough a tall tree came down across 3 RV sites...Luckily 2 of the sites were vacant. One guy told me the guy who had the RV closest to where the tree came down JUST pulled out very recently. Talk about good timing for him! That tree would have done some wicked damage to his rig cause it came right across where his rig sat. Took them most of the day to get the tree cut up and the area cleaned up. The tree fell across a bunch of wires and they are still hanging pretty low but not sure if they are power lines or TV cable lines. I know we have a TV cable line hanging real low behind our rig that I have to climb over as I go up the roof ladder so hoping it's the same thing that is down up there. The storm last night didn't seem that bad but many of the trees seem to be pretty beaten up from the hurricane that went through here. Many are twisted like pretzels so you know they are already really stressed from a structural stand point. Wouldn't take much to bring them the rest of the way down. Getting more rain and thunderstorms tonight but nothing bad so far.

Linda has off tomorrow so we'll go out and get some errands done.