It’s June Already Where’s the Heat

This posting is not just about the weather but maybe it deserves a comment – wow, since we got back, maybe we’ve had a few days of warmth. I guess it was all used up in February and March when it was so warm here.

We started the month off with a trip to Terri and Mark’s ‘cabin’ in New York. They use it for their skiing ventures in the winter. Anyway, it rained and was cool on the way down and we got held up by a 2 car wreck with the slippery conditions. We stopped off at the local watering hole The Gin Mill in Ellicottville for dinner.

Saturday was a little bit lazy – we went shopping in Olean – OMG there is Joann’s there and you know we had to stop and see if there was an opportunity to increase Barbie’s quilting stash. Around Home Depot too and we pick up a bunch of stuff for  some electrical projects at the cabin. Barb & I spied an outdoor rug that we just couldn’t do without – after all, we have a new deck sitting area to furnish! Back to the cabin in time to find the beer cold and inviting.

Mark and I smoke into an outdoor light moving project and what seemed like a simple task was more than that.  Anyway, besides dodging rain showers, we wired in a new outdoor outlet and installed a new light. Ok, all tied down and neat now lets test it! Bang! Holy sparks and sizzle batman, turn off the power! We have a problem Huston – we remove the wire clip and find that we had screwed right between the hot and neutral wires – what kinda luck was that! So, out with the old and in with a new piece and we did that without marking the siding! This time, no clips below the outlet and all is good. Time for a cool one and maybe a whir in the hot tub – you have to stop sometime to enjoy what’s around you.

Sunday brings a painting project for Barb & Terri and Mark & I tackle another electrical project. We were sent on an errand to buy more paint supplies but you know the story – men sent to buy and come back with less than what was asked for! The girls made do and finished the kitchen cabinets and Mark & I bungled along trying to put a motion sensor on their new light post. Finally done and the light works on test but we’ll have to wait until next time they arrive in the dark for proof that the whole idea works.

Barb started the week off not feeling 100% but pushed through anyway to work on a quilting project with 5 other quilt buds from the Plantation. They each build a row and then pass it along to the next person on their list. It sounds like they are all having fun and the work they are doing is pretty special. Everything I have seen has been beautiful. On Friday, we – yes I said we went to a local quilt show here in Ancaster. Lots of beautiful quilts were on display. Barb has a small problem with her machine so we also got a lead on a good shop for parts or repair if it’s not DIY. So Saturday, we had a ‘road trip’! Off to Hamilton for a sewing machine part or at least set up a repair time then off to my favorite electronics shop to get all the right parts to finally get our HD TV satellite working – I thought we had all the goods when we went south but could not get a good signal. I suspected the dish was the culprit and decided to wait until we arrived back to get help from these guys – they helped me on another issue and I trust them. So, first the sewing machine doctor – holy thread bare! I think I drove Barb to fabric heaven.  We ended up in what looks like Spadina St. in Toronto, the textile area of Hamilton, a fabric stop in every other store and sewing accessories in the other stores! As soon as we realized where we were, Barb’s eyes glassed over and she yelled – ‘let me at’em’! I’m kidding of course but Barb & her quilt buds would be in every store here until the sun set.

We had some strange activity here in the park this week. There has been a mass exodus of trailers from another park to here last fall and they all brought their decks with them. This was deck moving week. They would have the front end loader carry their decks to the new sites – check out the picture – it was a little funny to see them using a truck to move a shed!

I tried to fire up the HD TV dish and LNBFs but the switch (needed to spilt the signals) did not ‘see’ the LNBFs. Hummm, defective switch or bad wiring – after checking each of the 4 coax, all seemed good so it has to be the switch, now what?

We took Nate out for dinner and and to shop for a birthday gift. He is turning 7 and we did this ‘treat’ with our other grandsons. He knew what he wanted and where we needed to go to buy his ‘surprise’. Unfortunately, the store did not have exactly what he wanted so we switched to plan ‘B’ and he decided on a transformer car. It looks like a car or with a push on the rear air foil, it became a robot with weapons! Once back in the truck, we open the packaging and have a test run. There must be something wrong with the toy, neither one of us or even a 7 year old couldn’t get the weapons retracted back into the car! Uturn and back to the store but alas, that was the last one in stock so onto plan ‘C’. All shopped out and he has a new Battleship game so onto the restaurant. On our way in, I give the wait staff a heads up that we were celebrating his birthday so they could do the cake and sing thing they do. After dinner, they came out with a giant brownie and ice cream and were singing to him – the look on his face was priceless. He was smiling from ear to ear all the time he devoured his birthday dessert!

We are expecting RV friends to meet us here so stay tuned for more fun. Hope all is well where you are….

Getting it in Shape

Well, now that we are on our site for the summer, we can ‘make it our own’. The laundry facilities here are not real good so we have ‘cooked’ a deal with our daughter to do our laundry at her place in exchange for a little gardening around her house. She jumped at the offer so about every 10 days or so, we’ll drive into the ‘big smoke’ of TO, do our laundry and Barb will get her gardening fix (she loves to weed etc). So, our first time, we offer to thin out some of Terri’s perennials ;) and dispose of the cuttings (grin) – can you say giant Hosta worth a few bucks?

Now we have some plants to design a little better outdoor living area here. A short stop off at Walmart and a few bags of this and a few bags of that and we’re set. Luckily (?) the terrain here is part of the Niagara Escarpment and we have ‘easy’ access to lots of rock to build garden edges etc. So, once back with our bags of landscape stuff, we’re off to pick up some rocks and build a garden! We don’t have to go far – about 50 feet for an abundance of stone. This would be so much easier if we were 20 years younger. In fact, when we  owned stix and brix, we would round up our 3 girls and find a farmer that had a rock pile that he wanted to be rid of and we would pick the pile clean to build many, many rock walled gardens around the yard. That was easy back then – we were young and we had 3 girls that just loved to pick and lift rocks with us – it was one of those memorable family outings!

Anyway, all is good here except Barb & I are a little sore from the lifting and then arranging them critters into something that looks nice. Then comes the planting and mulching. Now we have to design our ‘deck’ area – the owner will supply the landscape fabric and the crushed lime stone to put on top of the fabric but we have to get his ok to our design. Timing is everything – apparently we were lucky that he allowed us to use the rocks for our garden edging, he refused others and some didn’t get to design their deck area so I am hovering so to approach him at the right time.

Wow, he okayed our plan and since we offered to do all the work (hoping that we can get it done earlier than he would have) he will drop off the fabric and we will shovel and rake the stone into place. We wait for his schedule again. In the meantime, life goes on – Barb is in her glory with her sewing centre set up. She is busy working on different projects that are haunting her and she is looking to join a quilt guild nearby. I am finishing little tasks to upgrade the  look of the rig on the outside. Back at Chanute, we decided to modernize the exterior by use the vinyl screw covers that the factory uses today to cover the screws on the outside. Not a big job, just finicky and I am also changing out the incandescent running lights with LED types.

 

Barb & I took a couple of days off to visit with our other  daughters and grandkids. Nate and Dean had just gotten back home from a little fishing trip up to Rice Lake with a generous feed of Walleye. Apparently, Nate (7) was the real fisherman and caught all the fish. We had a great lunch and visit on their side deck under beautiful skies. As we were leaving, Dean gave us the fish Nate caught – thanks Nate they were delicious!

 

 

The next day, we wandered down the road to Wellington to visit with Dawn and her family and the 4 grandkids. It was a nice relaxing day catching up under the market umbrella on the back deck. We had dinner and Tiana had to rush out to go to her soccer game. She has a passion for soccer and wants to be in a more competitive league. Unfortunately, we were unable to go watch with a 3 hour drive ahead of us but hopefully next time.  We could not believe how much Jessica and Lilly have grown.  It is amazing the changes over the winter months.

 

 

 

 

The owner dropped off the fabric AND put it down, soon after, he delivered the lime stone for us to spread. It wasn’t much but when we were finished, Barb & I were reminded of some of the muscles we haven’t used in awhile! So, now we have a deck/sitting area and imagining the site with grass in the other areas. There is no promises of when the sod will be delivered but we wait. During one of our walks around the park, Barb noticed a wild rose growing in an area that would soon be leveled and with sod and we thought to save the fragrant wild flower – spoke with the owner and said sure so with shovel in hand, we start digging. It wasn’t without some excitement – I had uncovered a large ant hill under some of the rock. The scene was similar to the one from Indiana Jones – large red and black ants everywhere wanting to carry us off to there nest! But we survived and now have a new wild rose bush to plant.

Until next time….

Back to Normal or Are we in Withdrawal?

We have been keeping a keen eye on the progress the park has made on our site. Some limestone screenings have been added, top soil goes down but still waiting for fuses for electricity. It seems so slow to get the ‘little’ bit done that was supposed to have been completed before we arrived. We’ve looked at the site up close a few times and don’t remember a few things that are here now; like a group of 6 electric meters 20 feet away, how small the site is and there are fewer tress than we remember. But the ‘good news’ is the jacks are down on a temporary site and we can settle for a bit. We can get back to some normal - Barb is chomping to get her sewing centre set back up and I have a few rig maintenance chores to get to. We need to visit Home Depot to pick up some wood to finish Barb’s new quilt frame to be able to convert it to a quilting table etc.

We like the area that we are in; shopping etc is near by although, we haven’t yet found a convenient fabric shop or quilt guild but there must be one close by, Christi Lake Conservation Area is close for boating, biking etc and of course being big gamblers, Flamboro Downs is just a stones throw away! There are several golf clubs nearby too if the urge erupts us to go.

So now we are on the site with the jacks down. We situate the rig on  the front end of the site so we are not looking straight out our windows at the electric meters! But now the scrub trees are so close to the rig that we can’t put our awning out. We’ll need to do some trimming. We also have designed our ‘patio’ area so the campground owner can lay down the landscape fabric and cover with limestone screenings.

It’s the May two four weekend in Ontario and the campground is really busy. We do an errand over to Home Depot to pick up some stuff and it took us forever to pass through the ‘campers’ as they visit and wander aimlessly along the roads. It’s a good thing we were not in a hurry as Home Depot was no picnic either- that’ll teach us for going out in the world on a long weekend!

We have all the materials now to get Barb’s quilt table finished and set up.  We need to make an adjustment to the legs so Barb has it exactly as she wants but that will 

have to wait for a proper saw so I don’t screw up the cuts. Barb applies the melamine tape to the edges of the table with her iron and I do the trimming – scary letting me use anything sharp. Now to screw the quilt clips onto the table and she will be ready to sew! That’s done now and I didn’t even drill through the table. Barb has done a few ‘test’ cuts and she is all excited to get the legs adjusted so it is more perfect.

Our blog entries will be fewer with less info and fun as we slow down for the summer. We hope you return to read of our summer adventures.

Ahhhh, Back on Canadian Soil

Kilometers per hour, how many liters does the tank hold again and Loonies instead of dollar bills; we have to reacquaint ourselves with the nuances of being Canadian. Coming home, we paid on average, $3.90/gallon for diesel but our price was $1.20/liter on Sunday so how much is that anyway? Well, the fuel prices are getting closer, the US must have caught on how to tax their residents without telling them! The 1.20/liter works out to be $4.54/gallon(US). So, if your interested, the fuel costs coming home was just under $650USD. And we were wondering why the campgrounds in Ontario are filling with seasonal units….

Our entry across the border was relatively easy compared to some of the past. We choose a guard booth that was not busy and unfortunately, it was a trainee so she dotted all the i’s and crossed her t’s. But soon, we were on our way, heading to visit with our cousin at their campground near Goderich. The drive up was easy with little traffic. We pull into the campground and the owner gave us a big wave as he recognized us from last year. We got our usual site where we know we can get both satellites, we walked over to Larry & Judy’s for a quick visit before dinner. With lots of chatter and cajoling, we stayed longer than anticipated but had fun. But, where’s the heat? We slept in 70F degrees Friday night in Effingham, Il and now we have to dig out the blankets again.

Our first trip to the grocery store was a bit of a culture shock; a little more than we have been used to. We took a tour around Goderich to view the rebuilding that has gone on after the tornado last summer. Lots of new homes, commercial property but it is hard to replace the large old trees that were prominent throughout the town and defined the town square. After a couple of nice days and evenings with Judy, Larry and their neighbor Art, we’re back on the road heading to Terri & Mark’s driveway for Mother’s Day weekend.

The weather was great when we left but about half way heavy  rains and winds. We arrive early afternoon and get ourselves set up – in the rain.

Thursday, we tripped out to see my brother Larry. We were gonna park there for a few days but no time left so we make it a day trip. He is doing good and we were able to sit on his back deck and enjoy the beautiful sunshine (hard to believe after what we drove through yesterday) while we chat and catch up on all his doin’s! While we were there, we helped him dismantle his temporary  garage for his boat that he doesn’t have any more. After, we went out for dinner and said farewell and headed to Corrie’s.

They are doing great and the kids have grown taller. Mack is over 6 feet now and Nathanial is growing like a weed. We had fun watching them play table hockey and kibitz.

Terri has a surprise plans with Barb to celebrate Mother’s Day on Saturday. I hang out washing truck & trailer while they take off for lunch and the theatre. On Sunday, they both get  breakfast in bed and a leisurely day of gardening! Later we had a walk around ‘the block’ and found this huge group of Trilliums in the woods not far from Terri’s. Can you imagine seeing this in the heart of Toronto? There was some confusion about where we were and Dawn – one of our daughters – sent a bouquet of flowers to the campground. I called and they informed us that they were in a bucket with water waiting for us on  Monday when we get there.

Due to distance and illness, we do not get to see our other daughters before we are on the road again to our summer site at Olympia Village. We stayed here last fall and picked a new site for this summer. At the time, it was just a layout – no water, sewer or electricity so we’re a little anxious.

The office is empty and we call the posted number. The manager answers and says - “Oh, we were just talking about you, were your ears burning”? That does not give me a warm feeling. He arrives and informs us that our site is not ready – we’ve been communicating with them for 3 weeks about our arrival date and if they had told us they needed more time, we could have stayed at Terri’s a little longer! Anyway, my blood pressure is rising so they have to put us on another site for a ‘few days’ until ours is ready. The owner is under the gun as they have taken reservations for the long weekend here and the sites are not quite ready! Oh well, it’s only 5 months.

After we set up on a spare site, we take a closer look at our site and it does not seem like it did when we were here in November last year. Less tress and shrubs, less room and why did he put the power meters there? So like I said, it’s only 5 months and may be incentive to look again for something next year. We’ll see what this year brings us since we wanted to be closer to our family.

Well, until next time and maybe we’ll be on our site…..

Head’n Home – Again

We were released from the service bay after lunch on Thursday afternoon. We decided that we would stay at the city park in Chanute until Friday AM before hitting the road for home. We did not unhook but just dropped the front jacks for a quick take off in the AM. We needed supplies so a short hike over to WalMart  for a few items to get us to the border. Whew, a few items turned into a couple of bags and it sure gave us a work out! When we got back, Barb was busy replacing all the ‘stuff’ from under the bed that we had to remove for service and I stowed the parts and stuff we bought from the NuWa parts store.

Friday AM, we headed north along 169 to I35 to Kansas City then onto St Louis. The weather was perfect with a slight southerly breeze to help us along and the traffic light until we got to St Louis MO where is became much more busy. Barb has James (the GPS) programmed for our first nights stay at the Walmart in Effingham Illinois. We’ve stayed at the Walmart in Vandalia Illinois before and knew it would be noisy with lots of semi trucks. We roll into our over night by 5PM, check in at Customer Service and we settle in for a relaxed night. Oppss…. wrongo, it was also a noisy night with lots of semi’s all around us!

Saturday AM, we were up and at’em early and cleared Indianapolis easily and soon heading north to Michigan. We planned to stop and see Dick & Marcia in Michigan as we passed through and they advised to use the Walmart at Coldwater and they will meet us there. This is one of the great benefits of this lifestyle, to be able to meet up with friends along the way!

We arrived around 4PM and called Dick & Marcia after we checked in the Customer Service and they arrived soon after. we went over the street to Appleby’s and had a wonderful time chatting and laughing over beverages and hor’ duvers! All to soon, they were on their way and Barb & I settled again for a quiet night – and it was wonderful. This is a good one for the fall coming down.

It is Saturday night and knowing there is nothing on TV, we didn’t put the dish up. Instead, we rented a movie for the Redbox at Walmart and then off to bed. We both had a good sleep and nights rest. Back on the road and looking forward to the border crossing – not. There has been a lot of construction at the bridge at Port Huron but we managed to get to the Duty Free! We lunched just east of Sarnia and headed north to Lake Huron Resort for our annual visit with Larry & Judy. We will have the jacks down and the slides out for 3 nights! We can’t wait! It’s been a long drive home; we left the Plantation Apr 24th and arrived back in Canada May 6th and about 3,500 Kms later. Whew, we are tired and looking forward to putting the jacks down!

We hope all is well out there and you are gearing up to enjoy your summer.

In the Service Bay

Taking the rig back to NuWa, the manufacturer has always been somewhat enjoyable in the understanding that the job will be done by someone that knows the unit. We knew we had some problems with the floor of the bedroom slide and had established some expectations. We did some research with 2 other service providers before we decided on our trip to Chanute. Both the others only wanted to remove the ‘bad’ areas and ‘patch’ in new stuff and all this without removing the slideand for the same price that was quoted by NuWa. So, it was not a difficult decision to bring it back to NuWa.

7:00 AM Monday, we are in the queue to drive into the service bay with our home. We were directed to a drive through slot and unhook and the ‘boss’ will be right with us. On our way here, Barb & I came up with a few other ‘issues’ that we need them to look at while it is in the bay. After a short discussion and some poking, we have a list of items to be looked at. Jay is assigned our job and he starts to dismantle the slide hardware to ready it to be removed. Barb & I leave them to it with a plan to return later to watch the slide extraction. Our first task is to check into a motel for a few nights and then get some supplies for the room.

When we got back to the rig, they were almost ready to take out the slide. The pictures tell a better story but it was interesting none the less. Once they had the outer wrap removed, we can see how bad the floor was – we’re lucky the bed didn’t drop out on the ground! Ok, it wasn’t quite that bad but bad enough to possibly explain our breathing problems lately. We huddled with Daryl (the ‘boss’) and he told us they have seen worse and they will see if any other timber needs to be replaced in the walls. We head back to the motel and are  mortified and very depressed over the depth of water damage. As you know, we work diligently on upkeep and the caulking in hopes to prevent this sort of thing. Back to room to sulk and determine how much to invest.

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, I am back on site while Barb stayed back at the room to learn another quilting skill. They only had to replace a little timber in the sides and Jay was already replacing the inside walls. Barb & I decide on a flooring change and have NuWa use vinyl flooring instead of carpet. Jay is cutting the new floor – I didn’t know plywood came in 20ft sheets – and glues the new vinyl before it is reinstalled onto the new floor. The new rubber roof is installed and the weather seal under the floor and the slide is ready to go. With 2 guys inside and 2 guys outside, they wiggle it in off the fork lift. It doesn’t fit easily and the have to push one end into our bedroom closet until the back end clears the opening a little jockeying back and forth and soon the power drivers are whirring to fasten the slide rack down and the slide screwed to it. Once safe and secure, I hit the road back to the motel to enjoy happy hour with Barbie.

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We tried another restaurant called the BenchWarmer and it was not too bad. The evening was nice enough that we could sit out on the patio. After dinner, we retired to the room for another boring uncomfortable night.

Things seem to be moving slowly on our repairs but I guess when it’s all done, we’ll be more than happy with the result. Barb & I went over this morning to view the progress and like I said, seems to be moving s l o w l y! We left there and ventured to the parts store. I bought some LED running lights to replace the incandescent ones. On our way out, we tempted ourselves by walking through the new units NuWa had on the showroom floor. They were all beautiful and even one we liked but still not any nicer than ours so we kept the cheque book out of site! The modern stuff like lighting and counters and sinks are nice but….

One of the great things about getting service done, you meet some nice people along the way. We had lunch today at a Mexican Restaraunt with a couple from California who have been full timing since 2004 and love it as much as we do. We had a great time chatting and laughing at ourselves.  They were in for two slide outs and black tank repairs.  Guess we are lucky.

When I returned to the shop, Daryl thinks we’ll be out of there soon after lunch tomorrow so that means we will be back in our own bed tomorrow night and on the road home Friday morning. YAHOO!

45 Years and More to Come

Here we are once again celebrating our anniversary on the road and it’s kinda a special one – 45 years of bliss. We’re in Chanute, KS where there’s not a lot to see or do that we haven’t already seen and done. We take a walk around the campground, watch a kickball tournament and walk around the ponds and enjoy the good ole outdoors. We met some other  Canadians that also stopped in for the night. We received well wishes from friends and family throughout the day.

When it comes to dinner time, we asked the folks at NuWa and the Mexican place behind WalMart was first on his list! We have not such good memories of having Mexican during another anniversary celebration when in Hondo, Tx one year so that didn’t make our short list. I referred to the NuWa owners forum since many NuWa owners come back here for their service too and the restaurant at the Country Club was given a high recommendation. So, that’s where we’ll go and we haven’t been there so it will be new to us too.

I tried calling ahead for reservations – you probably all know by now my thoughts about any reservations – anyway I call ahead for reservations and dress code. What, dress code in Chanute! It’s about 4PM and the call goes to a recording stating that their hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 5-9PM so I’ll call back. At 5 after, I get the same recording so maybe they are busy setting up etc so I’ll call back in a few minutes. At 5:30PM, I get the same message; it’s not far away lets wing it and just go.

After a few turn arounds and oppsss, back up, we find the road and drive into the country club. The course looks decent and there are a few cars in the parking lot so confidence is brewing. There were a few people at the windows but it looked like a golf tournament. I go in to check things out and it was true, there is a tournament and no room for us. I wander down the front of the building and find the restaurant tucked back at the end. The paper sign on the door didn’t match the recording I heard so I’ll check it out anyway. A waitress/receptionist greeted me and informed me that the restaurant is only open Wednesday (I think she said Wednesdays as at this point my eyes glazed over and I didn’t really hear what she said about the hours) and Friday and only for buffet fried chicken! Wow! When I came to, I asked her recommendations for somewhere other than McDonalds. Apparently, Chanutons do not eat out in Chanute. She gave me a road house type, Italian (in the basement of the Merchantile) or the steak place in the Tioga Hotel but caution, it does not serve alcohol. I asked “are there only 3?” Well, we are also in need of a place to stay while the rig is in the shop so we’ll forgo the beer and wine and try the steak place in the hotel and we can check out the accommodations while we’re at it.

As we approach the downtown and the hotel, Barbie says we’re not staying here. The outside didn’t look to be in good shape so the Super 8 moves to the top of our list. We walk into the restaurant and find no table for 2 available and were guided to a table for 8! Soon our waiter was hovering around to take our orders but I can’t make up my mind. Finally I decide, it’s Saturday and they have prime rib special every Saturday so why not. The waiter says it is a 14oz piece so we decide to split it and Barb ordered an extra potato. The waiter returns to tell us that they are all out of the prime rib – at this point if there had been another choice of restaurants, we would have left. I ordered a steak – btw, out here they are called KC strips, not NY strips. The waiter returns with our salads and informs us that our brushetta will be out shortly; but we didn’t order brushetta and he said it is complimentary and comes with all meals. That’s funny, I didn’t see anyone else get this brushetta. So, what do we get? Yes, your correct, 1 piece of brushetta each! If your gonna apologize for running out of food, then make it worthwhile. Well the steak arrives and it’s ‘ok’; not to the standard of a ‘steak house’ should be but hell, when we left, we paid about the same as if we would have had we chosen to eat at Sonics!

We still had a happy anniversary because we were together.