DUH or A-ha ?

Since we've been staying in Chambersburg, we usually go to Linda's brothers house on Sunday so we can watch the race and do our laundry. There is a 70's style den set up in the basement, where we can watch TV and not disturb him upstairs. The laundry room is in the next room so it's handy for us as we can hear when the washer has stopped or the dryer beeps at the end of its' cycle. Yesterday Linda was comfy on the couch so I took my turn to go and retrieve the clothes from the dryer and start a load in the washer. A couple of weeks ago we had bought some Gain at Sams Club as we were running low on liquid laundry detergent. I thought it looked awful "milky" as I poured it into the washer and looked at the bottle....Turns out that Gain also makes fabric softener and not just detergent. For the last two weeks we've been "washing" our clothes in fabric softener....Just think how clean they might get if we actually used detergent ? They sure do smell nice though....

Still waiting to hear about the job we interviewed for last Tuesday. We know they are working on our background checks and references. I'm hoping we'll hear more by end of week. Once we know for sure we have it, I'll give more details about it...Don't want to jinx ourselves by spilling the beans now. Linda was off yesterday and although she got called this morning to go to a different facility, than she's ever been to, she declined so she could spend time with her niece. We were watching Linda's 7 yr old niece, Karlee (the hula hoop twirler from our pictures) this morning while Karlee's mom worked. We had a good time talking to her and running errands to Lowes and Wal-Mart.

Talked to my mom Saturday and she's been busy making jams and jellies lately...getting ready for the craft show circuit. She made 66 jars this week...Wow !! She made some blackberry jams and jellies, some sweet cherry and some strawberry rhubarb. Yum !! Every time I talk to her and she tells me about making jelly I think of her going out in the blackberry patches, climbing a ladder to get wild grapes or bending over picking strawberries. She doesn't do that as much any more as she used to (especially the climbing part)but she is still an awesome cook. She bought a trunkload of rhubarb from a local lady and she got 15# of rhubarb out of that and has been making all sorts of stuff. I love strawberry rhubarb pie and am happy to be a guinea pig for anyone who wants to make one. Yesterday Linda's sister gave us pieces of strawberry pie, that a neighbor lady made, and it was outstanding. Summer time is a great time for strawberry shortcake, pies and all that yummy stuff. My last trip home, mom stocked me up on sweet relish. She makes a zucchini relish and tomato relish that is to die for on a burger. In fact we had a smattering of it on our veggie burgers last night...on top of the melted cheese, sauteed onions and mushrooms.

Well June 12 came and went and our TV still works. Yeehaa ! I was worried but thought we'd take a "wait and see" approach to it before buying a converter box. Although our rig and TV are from 2007, when I looked up the model number on the govt. website, it said that it wasn't a digital one and we would need the box. We don't have a satellite....just count on "local flavor" wherever we are. If we are in a metropolitan area, sometimes the selections are quite good. Here in Chambersburg, we get NBC, PBS and the ION station. Summertime usually isn't a great time for shows but we can usually find something to watch or we just play cards. Many of the parks where we have worked or stayed have cable TV included in the site cost so we get plenty to choose from during those stays.

Hard to believe that we are almost half way through June....wow, the summer is just flying by. Most people are probably planning their summer vacations....I've been on one for six months now...I just want to get back to work !

It Just Hit Me.....

Some friends of ours are trying to sell their house. I think it's been on the market for about 3 months now with no success. As I was thinking about their dilemna, it dawned on me to ask them whether they had the statue of the saint buried to help them with the sale. Seeing how it's been on the market for 3 months, it seemed pretty obvious to me that they had forgotten this essential step.

Take it from me...I had heard about the St. Joseph statue but had kind of scoffed at the whole thing. That is until my house had gone through three realtors, over an 18 month period and no offers. I thought what harm could it do...Bought St. Joseph...followed the step by step instructions and one week later I had an offer on the house and was on to the RV'ing lifestyle that we now know. I would have lent my statue to our friends but I forgot to dig him up out of the flower bed over the septic system. He's still working his magic, I'm almost sure, at growing the most beautiful flowers that neighborhood has ever seen. Good thing I'm not Catholic. I'm pretty sure that faux pas would have cost me a whole bunch of Hail Mary's or some other penance.

A short while ago some other friends of ours were getting their house ready to sell and we told them not to forget about St. Joseph. We didn't think they'd have any trouble selling their house at all as it was amazing but in light of the recent real estate market, a little extra "insurance" couldn't hurt. But they wanted an "experienced" St Joseph..... Friends of theirs had sold their house quickly and offered to loan them their statue. Only thing was that in their haste to remove their statue from the ground, after the quick sale of their home, they inadvertently decapitated St. Joseph....Yikes ! Apparently the glue they used gave him "super" powers cause when our friends buried him they sold their house the first day it was listed !! Holy Smokes ! I'm sure they gingerly retrieved him from his burial spot and returned him to their friends until his next assignment.

I wonder if his powers extend to other things like cars or RV's...I mean it's just a house on wheels...could be another niche market for St. Joseph. In fact, Linda's niece is trying to sell her car. Maybe I could test it by "burying" him in her glove box or trunk. Hmmm....Hold on GM....Help is on the way !

The scoop...

Linda has been picking up shifts everyday this week. Last night she worked an overnight shift in Harrisburg and then got a call to work 3-11 here in Chambersburg today so she took it. She works the same shift tomorrow night in Harrisburg again and that is all she has taken so far. They have asked her to work beyond that but until we know if we're leaving next week, the week after or a later date, it is hard to know what to tell them so she'll take it day by day. Nurses seem to call off pretty regularly so it has worked out well so far.

Yesterday before work we took a quick trip down to Winchester,VA to Camping World to look at some items. We knew that Linda was going into work later that night and considered going today instead but thought, what the heck, we'd go on Thursday. Turns out that was a good thing as there was a really bad accident on 81 south this morning that shut the highway down for 10 hours. A car collided with a tractor trailer and the truck, loaded with fuel, burst into flames and even spilled alot of the fuel on the highway. Area residents were evacuated and the driver of the car that caused the accident left the scene of the accident.

Not much else going on here. Had a clear, sunny day so I mowed the lawn where we have the rig parked. Watched a city worker out front of our rig this morning open up the manhole cover that I mow around so was curious what he was doing. Turns out it's a sewer clean out point and the top half of the sewer line has been cut away so he can put a high pressure water hose inside the line to flush it out. All of the waste water can be seen as it runs down the exposed pipe. When he turned the water hose on, wow, was it forceful....I stepped back as it sprayed up a bit out of the manhole. He can extend that line up to 500 ft up the street inside the sewer line and it cleans out all sorts of things. He said he's found sheets, towels and even watches come out of the line when he flushes it. I was surprised that it wasn't messy or smelly at all in there but I suppose it helps that he does this on a monthly basis to keep it clean. It was interesting to see and good to know. You never know when you might need access to a sewer line... :)

Caledonia Park

Today we decided to take the boys to run and then go to Caledonia State Park to hang out for a while. We got a table close enough to the water so Boomer could swim but still be tied up. Schroeder was perfectly content over near the picnic table with us. Linda and I played cards and developed some follow up questions for yesterday's interview that we can ask the next time we hear from them. After we'd been at the park for a little while, Linda's phone rang and it was the nursing agency she just signed on with in Mechanicsburg. They asked her to work tonight and she told them that it would take her till 4 to get there and they said that was fine. So we gathered up the cards (I think I was almost ready to win anyway) and headed home so she could get changed for work. She just called a little before 4 and said that she was almost there and had run into a heavy downpour that had everyone going really slow. They have been calling for thunderstorms to pop up in the area this afternoon.

Yesterday we had the last of our interviews. It went very well and they said that they would begin the background checks and references. We are excited about this position as it will accomplish several key things for us. First, it allows us to travel and see the country. Second, we get to work together at a job that will utilize skills that we each possess and last, but not least...it's pays enough to pay our bills. That is the problem we've found with workamping jobs is that they don't pay enough to quite cover everything. The couple that interviewed us said that we would hear something within the next 10 days so we'll be anxiously awaiting that phone call. The other two jobs we interviewed for on Monday also went very well but not ideal jobs for us. We could and would do them (if offered) if we don't get this other job so we'll see what happens. Until something changes, Linda will keep working assignments from the nursing agency...they pay very well and it has been nice for her to be near her family here in Chambersburg.

Words To Live By....

Each time we hit the road we usually gather up some of our little stuff, around the rig, and put it away so it doesn't fall or break. Something I came across this last time, that we had stored for that very reason, was a little plaque that is very special to Linda and I. It now holds a prominent place on the ledge over my chair. It reads...

Every Day Brings....

more books to read,
more songs to sing,
more friends to hug,
more trips to plan,
more faces to kiss,
more reason to trust,
more people to love,
more life to discover.

This was a going away gift to us from our friend Karen, who we met in Baltimore. We don't get to see Karen much but this gift expresses to us our feelings about our new life on the road and the bounties of this life....more of everything ! We find that the longer we sit somewhere, the more our thoughts wonder to getting back on the road in search of our next adventure. Woven in their somewhere is also the thought of...how can we intersect with our friends to see them for a bit (that's the "more friends to hug" part of the poem or perhaps the "more faces to kiss" part depending on how good a friend they are)...LOL
This is one of those times. We had some interviews today and another one tomorrow. We hope that very soon the "more trips to plan" part of this poem will be necessary and we'll be back on the road again..with "more life to discover".
It sounds like an Rv'ers credo and words that everyone might want to live by....Here's hoping that each of you have all the bounties that this poem speaks of, in your own life.

Hoops, Scoops and Shoots....

The weather has been gorgeous this weekend...bright and sunny with warm temps. The chance of rain is supposed to return tomorrow so we got our outdoor tasks done this morning. I got the oil changed in the generator and checked the water level in the batteries. Linda checked the fuses for our cigarette lighter in the Xterra as our power converter won't work in the one socket. Fuses are fine but socket still won't work, even though the other one does.

Yesterday we went to Twin Bridge campground and hung out with Linda's sister and her nephews. There was a Civil War re-enactment going on there this weekend. The two base camps were set up and around 1:30 the "battle" began. Seemed a little odd to see Union soldiers marching past campers but to get to the battlefield that's what they had to do. Some soldiers were on horseback and they even had cannons. As you can imagine all of the gunfire and cannon blasts made Boomer really nervous. Not sure who won as we didn't see any soldiers "die" so I'm not sure how they keep score of who wins. Maybe they take turns each time they have a re-enactment.

Later on in the day we went to Greencastle to the Car Hop.

Here is our handsome waiter,Coby, who took our order.....

They had a DJ there spinning classic tunes...Some of the kids taking orders had roller skates on as they zipped from car to car taking orders and then taking the orders to the kitchen to get the food. Here Karlee is showing Linda the two arm technique for hoola hoops....

It's a family affair...Jayden on the left..Carol on the right(Linda's sister)
Jake is patroling the parking lot...

They had a hoola hoop contest that went on for a long time. Two young ladies had this thing down pat...song after song kept ending and another starting and they were still going with their hoola hoop. Not me, man....I'm as bad at hoola hooping as I am at jumping rope..I think they fall in the same classification of coordination...none of which I possess. It would be called hoola oops if I did it cause it would be around my ankle right off the bat. They had a great menu of burgers, hotdogs, floats, french fries, shakes and sodas. Linda's sister, Kay was helping in the kitchen getting the food orders put together on each tray except she kept forgetting to put the hamburger patty on the bun. All the fixins were there...lettuce, tomato, mayo, etc. but when the kids would bring it back and say "Where's the Beef"...she'd see that she had forgotten the burger patty...minor detail...low cal version. It was a fun time and great for the youth working the event.

Today we're hanging out at Linda's brothers house, watching the NASCAR race at Pocono. Tomorrow we have an interview in Camp Hill and one in Gettysburg. On Tuesday we head to Maryland for an interview with a nationwide company that we want to work for. We're looking forward to getting these interviews in so that we're a little closer to knowing where we're headed next.

Just Lock Me in The House...

Waiting to take Jake into vet's office..

I told Linda the other day that it seems every time we wander out of the house and go to Wal-Mart or elsewhere, we end up spending at least $40 or $50. We had scheduled Bertha for a front end alignment today since she is pulling to the right. Two hundred bucks later the front end is aligned but they said the drag link is bad on the front end. They located one at a truck center in Hagerstown...just down the road...so we picked that up on our way back from taking Jake (Linda's sister's dog) to the vet. $165 for the part and now we need to go back to the garage to get it installed for another blow of $50 or so dollars. Holy Mackerel ! And to make matters worse, I thought for sure that the part we needed would certainly be under warranty but of course it isn't...So after what will be a $400 dollar repair on the truck, just lock me in the house !!

Cold and Rainy....

It's been really chilly today....after wearing multiple layers of clothes I finally gave in and turned on the furnace...just once...but I felt like such a weenie. Living in the tropics of Baton Rouge, where it's 80 degrees in springtime and then having a cold and dreary day in the 60's was bone chilling to me. Just have one more day of cold and rain to get through and then the sunshine and warm temps will be back. Calling for 80 degrees (the Pennsylvania style of 80, not Baton Rouge....drastic difference)and sunshine on Saturday. Yeehaa !!

Tired of looking at dreariness, Linda and I went to the mall to get some walking in. Seemed good to see the colorful store displays and see what was going on in the mall. Took three laps around and here's some of what we saw. Lap 1...mall is really SLOW but Auntie Anne's display case is loaded with product. They expecting a bus to get dropped off from the area senior center ? A few empty store fronts...Sears has taken the empty windows near them to display their products...I catch a glimpse of tools and gadgets on first go round...

Lap 2....A cute little girl is in the chair at the piercing place...Hmmm..Yep, that's an air compressor in the Sears window...$45 for child's sneakers..Are you nuts ?....Boy those leather couches look comfy over there....No, sir we're not interested in a chance at a $25,000 home makeover.....getting hot...time to take off sweat shirt and wear only t-shirt..Whew !

Lap 3...."Piercing" scream from the little girl in the chair who got new ear rings. Clerk is trying to console her by holding up mirror and telling her how cute she looks. Oh boy....her life of vanity begins.....Do a lap "through" tool dept in Sears to look at air compressor...yep, it's a beauty !....feel so old...all the movies sound like they were made for kids....Boy, my leg muscles burn...Time to quit....

Back at home I'm writing an article for the next issue of RVing Women magazine and Linda is outside puttering around. I notice that Schroeder is rocking back and forth. I check him and it appears he is having a seizure...it really scares me. I go to the door and holler for Linda but no answer. I call her on cell phone and she is next door and says she'll be right over...I go to Schroeder and hold him till it passes. The only other time I've seen him have a seizure was back when we were still living at the house and I think it was from something he had gotten into (chemicals I had put on lawn). Not sure about this time but it makes me so nervous when it happens.

Rest of day has been spent playing Skippo with Linda or watching TV that isn't really worth watching. Tomorrow Linda has an interview at nearby nursing home and we have to take Jake (Linda's sister's dog) to vet in Hagerstown. I also need to get some salads prepped for our picnic on Saturday and the lawn mowed. Lots to do...hope the weather cooperates for the outside stuff.

On Tap....

Today was pretty uneventful. We had our black water tank pumped out this morning. We didn't think $20 was bad to get this done, although we've never had to have it done before. I wasn't real keen on how he did it but hopefully before we need to have it done again, we'll be on our way.
We took the dogs to a friends house to run in her fenced-in yard for a bit after that. It was just starting to rain when we got there so we didn't stay long. Linda's sister lives nearby so we went over there and visited for a bit before resuming our task of running errands. Found out about a Car Hop that the kids will be running this Saturday night as a fund raiser. The guys will have their hair slicked back...50's style and be going to the cars on roller skates to take the food and drink orders. The adults will be cooking up the food inside and giving it to the kids to deliver to the cars. Sounds like a fun time and something we might go to. We are having a cookout for some friends Saturday night so we might go to the Car Hop for "dessert". They will be serving up floats and milkshakes...sounds like a yummy dessert to me and a nice ending to burgers, pasta salad, deviled eggs and potato salad.

Stopped off at Lowes and Wal-Mart to pick up some other things we needed. Returned home and settled in for the afternoon. We got some calls and e-mails today to coordinate days and times for some interviews, which we are thrilled about. We haven't heard yet from the employer that we'd most like the job with. Should hear from them anytime.

Weather has been yucky today....temps are still nice. In the 70's but rain off and on. Last night we got a rousing thunderstorm which sent Boomer into "berserk" mode...and up into the bedroom he came. He is steadily getting worse with loud sounds. Tonight I'm watching a suspenseful movie, complete with Linda's shriek at one tense moment and that added to his agitation. We now have him tied to the pot and pan drawer so he isn't literally climbing the walls or trying to climb into my lap. Oh brother.....Movies with gunshots, glass breaking, screaming (on TV or that of Linda)makes him a basket case. Guess I'll have to switch from watching Assassin to watching Obama and Bo in the white house special on NBC. That will be more his speed....

Ice Cream Makes Everything Better.....

Well....a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chunkey Monkey and 1200 calories later, I don't know that I concur with that theory. Our friend is still dead and we're still very sad.

We got a call this morning, from a friend of ours in Williamsburg,VA that the man we came to know as "Mac", who we lived next door to last summer, was missing. A return call this evening told us that they had found him but he is dead.....our guess is that it was suicide. I don't think that it would make it any easier to comprehend if there had been some other means by which he had died.

Mac lived in a Pioneer travel trailer right behind us when we lived in Williamsburg last summer. He was new to RV'ing and he would come over and ask me questions about our rig or his. We had a fire ring and we'd make a fire at his place and go over and sit and talk with him. You learn alot about a person when you sit around a fire for hours, make smores and partake of "adult" beverages. We learned a lot about Mac, got to meet his daughter and his parents and the pooch that he adored...Rocky. Mac was a colonel in the Army and although we didn't know anything about his work (top secret stuff at the Pentagon), we knew that he was our friend and we were his. On the trip back from Connecticut on Friday, Linda texted him and told him about our wedding and he extended his "congrats" to us. He often told us that he missed our company and that he was thinking of us, as we would with him. We gave our fire ring to him, when we left, and he continued to enjoy having a fire at his site with his little pooch by his side.

My emotions are running the gamut right now....pissed off, deep sadness, remembrance, confusion and disbelief. For someone who was so "together", I can't fathom how it came to this. He was a "rock" and although he was going through some personal stuff, we were never concerned that he wouldn't come through the other side A-OK. That is why we are so blown away by this...it's senseless and a shame for his kids and those of us who cared about him. Was there something that anyone could have done to have averted this outcome ? I guess no one will know.

As I state repeatedly on here, the best part of this RV'ing lifestyle are the friendships that you make on the road. This is one friendship that will be sorely missed !