April 06

April 30 Sunday morning, dawning so pretty, the birds singing, what a beautiful day to end our stay in the North Carolina Mountains. We ate an early breakfast of our usual (oatmeal for the uninitiated) and then I worked diligently on the web page while Linda cleaned the coach. Church this morning was at Carson Chapel, but wasn't the usual service. Whenever there are 5 Sundays in a month, the 5th Sunday is a special music service. This morning the music was going to be provided by Tom & Jo of the famous Tom & Jo show.

We've been to this church several times over the past few months and have enjoyed it very much. Today, I had to wonder what was going through the ministers mind as he sat there. There were about half again as many people in the congregation this morning as usual. If you had a weekly activity that you led, but whenever someone other than you led the activity, many more people than usual came, just how would you react? Would you be envious or maybe chagrined, would you be jealous or possibly fear for the loss of your job? Or would you be thankful for the rest, how about relieved you didn't have to come up with something new and different again this week? Could you be as happy as the minister of this tiny country church was? Special people found in ordinary places, it's what makes our travels so wonderful.

After church there was a pot luck dinner. Remember how just last night, I had been urged to consume enormous quantities of unhealthy food during our "last chance for a while" pot luck at Mountain Stream. So what are doing today at noon preparing to gorge ourselves for a second time in less than 18 hours? Seems like sometime during the Tom & Jo Show and several times afterwards it was mentioned that there was also a pot luck today at the church. Never one to turn down an opportunity to sample someone else home cooking, Linda proceeded to bake a pan of brownies this morning for the pot luck. Of course it must be mentioned that Linda and I weren't the only ones at both pot lucks. Both Roscoe & Carole and Ray & Nancy were also enjoying the feast. My first time through the line I noticed a small pan of greens, kinda off to the side. Knowing how often treasure is found in the least likely places, I took a good sized spoonful. Talk about a surprise. In the years when we had lived in the South, I'd had a lot of greens, but never, never anything to compare with these. Jam packed with flavor and topped with just the perfect amount of spicy heat, these were the crowning glory of our sojourn in North Carolina. It didn't take long for this gourmand to seek out a second helping in order to confirm that this was truly a gastronome's delight, lol. I wanted to know more about the recipe for this epicurean colossus, but who to ask. Finally I spied three ladies sitting together and resolved to find the answer to the mystery of the indescribably delicious greens.

I walked over across to where the ladies were sitting and sat down directly across from them. Not about to beat about the bush on so momentous a quest, I spoke directly to the lady sitting in the middle of the group, telling her that while I might be from California and not familiar with greens on a daily basis, nonetheless, I knew haute' cuisine when I tasted it. Seeing the blank look in her eyes, I shifted my attention to the lady with the huge smile sitting to her right and simply said, those greens were the not only the best greens, they were the best food of any type I had eaten in ages. Understand that as I uttered this sentence, my back was to Linda and she was at least 10 feet away, besides I was desperate to learn more about these greens, so a slight offense to she who I have to live with was understandable, or at least I hoped it was, smile

Imagine my surprise when the lady replied, "I'm glad you liked my greens." What are the odds of asking the one person who was the actual person who fixed this dish out of a room full of strangers, smile. We talked for while as she told me about how she uses home canned greens and adds a little pepper sauce, "to taste", as she put it. All the while as she was talking in her soft Carolinian accent, I was doing my best imitation of a bobble head doll, smile. Remember my problem with understanding the North Carolina mountain dialect and accent, lol. This was not a dish that could be easily duplicated, but it sure could be eaten, so I helped myself to a third helping and headed back to the table where Linda, Carole and Roscoe were setting. Doing my best to describe what she had told me, a prolonged chuckle got our attention. It was the minister and he laughingly related how he had been after her for years to get the recipe for her greens and here she had gone and told some "fellar from Calie'fornya" her recipe. By now everyone at our table was laughing. Then he seemed to slip out of his country church preacher clothes and don the garb of the grand inquisitor, smile. Deep, penetrating questions as to the type and granulation of the salt used, the heat and cooking time, flowed of his tongue like lava from a volcano. I was starting to think that maybe there really was a forbidden fruit cloaked in the clothing of those greens. During this time there were smiles on everyone's face. Then I noticed the wink from the lady who told me the recipe. Now I got it, so I strung the preacher along for a while, then joined everyone in a good round of laughter.To experience the connection of being human. The joy of life. The spirit of individuality. The adventure goes on and on.

Later in the afternoon we journeyed down to Marion with Roscoe and Carole. We were going to the movies. Not to see just any movie, but to see Robin Williams in RV which opened this weekend. This was a two screen theater and at least 90% of the people were going to see RV. I don't have a clue as to what the other movie was, but whatever it was, it sure wasn't selling in Marion, lol. As we waited for the show to start, more and more people kept arriving. It was so funny to look at the lines at the snack bar. Almost the entire lobby was full of people trying to buy something on the RV side, while the other side had only one or two people (and they couldn't get the attention of the clerks, who were swamped by the RV people, lol).

The movie was a blast, we laughed and laughed. It was also neat listening to the tales being told by other people as we exited the theater. Seemed like there was something in the movie everyone could relate to who had ever had an RV. During the retun trip to the campground, we discovered Roscoe would have been a gold mine of RV miss cues for the writer of the movie to use. If they ever remake "The Long, Long Trailer" there a good chance Roscoe may be credited with something like "Based on an original idea by Desi Arnez, additional material contributed by Roscoe", lol, lol. We won't tell on him, but you might want to ask him about the time he borrowed a travel trailer and ended up replacing all the carpet in it before returning it. Or the campground entrance that required the two family high center push. Mere tidbits in a life of adventure Carole and Roscoe have enjoyed, smile.

I had to take a couple of pictures of the picture so to speak, lol. That first dump, who can ever forget it. Ours was out of necessity because, having no idea how much the gray water tank held and not thinking to look at the tank gauge, we found out we needed to dump when the shower started filling up with water, lol. That was years ago, and we have never done it again, knock on wood, smile.

How could you ever forget your first dump, lol

That first time we dumped, my biggest fear was someone would be there. In hindsite, that would have been the best thing to happen. I could have asked them how you hooked up and dumped, lol. But who can not relate to the people in the lawn chairs out watching the first time you dumped, lol.

Just what everyone needs, an audience when you dump

Everytime we head done a road we don't know, it is always in the back of my mind that it could turn out to be like this. While never taking a road this bad, we have been on some roads that weren't. Weren't roads that is. We always have managed to survive even if somethings in the RV didn't, lol.

This was one hilarious scene from start to finish

Returning to the park, we said our last goodbyes to Tom & Jo Anne and also to Larry & Melinda, two couples who helped make our stay at Mountain Stream, special. Later we walked down to the office to check on something special. You see, yesterday we had stopped in at Lowe's and bought two large, deep red Geraniums. Then last night, after dark, we carried the two pots down and placed them on the stands that flank the office door. Ron and Becky are such neat people, they will have no idea who could have put them there, as it could be anyone of many different people. We leave them as our little addition to "the prettiest little RV Park this side of heaven."

click image for the current post

April 29 Would you believe, we had another new bird at Zach's feeder again At least I know it isn't a duck,lol this morning. After spending far more time looking at the bird book than I planned, my best guess would be that it was a Chipping Sparrow. It has the body, bill shape and markings of this sparrow, the rust colored cap, gray underparts, white wing bars and the distinctive bold white line from the bill through the eye. This is one small pleasure I will be trading in for another when we leave Mountain Stream RV Park. Rather than be sad at loosing the gratification it provides, I will eagerly anticipate the next source of great satisfaction that will one day come into our lives, just as this one has.

Seeing Carole and Roscoe walk past the coach, we finished up our morning chores, tuned out the lights and for the last time headed down to the office to see what our jobs would be for the day.

For the girls it would be a light cleaning of the bath house and raking the area under the pavilion. For Roscoe and I, it was once again the equipment shed. Today we will work at bringing this long gray monstrosity into the 21st century. The Mountain Stream Branch of the Marion Section of the McDowell County Division of the Rural Electric Administration after nearly 70 years of existence will finally bring that new fangled invention, the electric receptacle to the equipment shed. You know that little box on the wall you can plug a cord with two prongs on the end into, then listen to the radio or some other useless time wasting device that will be the ruin of the youth of our country.

Idleness and sloth do not enter into the lives of the dynamic duo of Can't you just imagine Ron thinking, " Lord help me, I've got another month tof this crazy Texan. Bob & Roscoe, not for a minute, because when there is work to do, they do it. Ron had his drawing out explaining to Roscoe exactly how he wanted everything installed. From the look on Ron's face there may have been somewhat of a communication gap between his soft Narrth Carrowlina accent and Roscoe's Texas twang. I looked studiously the other way, letting the two southerners figure it out.

Suddenly Roscoe held up is hand and loudly announced, "I've got something to tell you." Figuring there was a strong difference of opinion about to be aired, I looked for a safe haven. With a wiry smile. Roscoe said, "I finally got the satellite to work on the rear TV." To which Carole, her face beaming with a beautiful smile, immediately added, "He did and it is great." Just the day before I had been talking to Roscoe about matters electronic, specifically how Linda and I finally figured out how to play the radio and TV were the sound came from the home theater system instead of through the tiny tinny sounding speakers in the TV.

Now it was Roscoe's turn to show the world that no California couple could top a Texas twosome, smile. As was related by Carole, there were cables and splitters running everywhere in the Texans trailer. At last the sound of triumph announced they had satellite reception at the bedroom TV. However, while it was one thing to have TV reception, it was another to be able to live in this tangle of cables, connectors and splitters. Carole laughed as she told how she wasn't going to let Roscoe disconnect this mighty mangled morass because she figured if he started pulling things apart, nothing would ever work again. Besides, Roscoe's solution was to start drilling holes in the 5th wheel. Carole mentioned something about over a lifeless body before that happened, unfortunately I didn't catch whether the body was her's or Roscoe's, lol. Turned out, Carole was able to return the TV to its former nonworking order while Roscoe figured out a bloodless way of making the connection permanent. Now, if he can only do it without having to make more than two trips down to Marion for parts, smile.

Soon we four work campers, well, two work campers and two almost ex-work campers, smile, were off to the equipment shed. We would soon know how well Ron's planning, drawing and purchasing equated to the interpretation of instructions, locating and boring of holes and pulling of wire on the part of the crazy quartet of work campers he was saddled with, lol. Note the way I wove the reference to southern gospel music (quartet), Texans (saddled) and Californians (crazy) into that sentence. Have I honed my writing skills or what. I know what you're thinking, some minds work in mysterious ways while others barely work, lol.

There was a time in my life when I could have done todays job in my sleep. The son of an electrician, I had helped pull a few wires in my day. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the point of view, those days were decades in the past. That work camping is a challenge, is a given, that it is work is also part of the job, but then so is having fun and enjoying what you do. Being short timers, today was going to be fun, no matter what. We still had a few holes to bore before we could pull the wire on the side of the shed closest to the office. Roscoe and Carole attacked this, while Linda and I started to pull wire. Since there were so many plugs and the runs were so short, this was not that hard. At least it wasn't once we figured out how to do it the easy way rather than the hard way.

The sound of the drill bit chewing through wood soon filled the air, a whine that was occasionally accompanied by the grunts and Dear, I think you should drill just a little more to the right groans emanating from the wire puller. Roscoe, next time how about you make those holes just a tad bigger, seemed to be the thought floating around in the dark corners of my brain. We got to think like electricians and bore a hole that takes up about 90% of the 2x4, not those piddly little 3/4" and 1" holes that make life difficult, lol. Besides that, someone, Ron?, had only put about half a million screws into the siding to fasten it to the wall studs. Heck it's almost a metal building. Roscoe would start drilling, the sound of the drill, a nice gentle whir, only to be suddenly replaced by the staccato rat-tat-tat of another siding screw. Becky was probably going to have a major problem with mice this winter, what with parts of the shed looking like swiss cheese. lol

The point of view that a boring person takes is quite different from the view of a stringy person. Roscoe, who is never boring was boring, smile. His sole objective in life today was to find a way to get us to stay another month. Wasn't going to happen, but Texans are stubborn, if nothin' else. The man couldn't drill two holes in a straight line if his life depended on it. (No wonder Carole doesn't want him working on the TV Where in the Sam Houston is the hole for the wire? cable in their 5th wheel, lol). I, on the other hand was stringing electric cable through the holes he was boring. An easy job if the holes line up. A not so easy a job when they don't. It didn't take me long to figure out there was a method to his madness. If the posts were a substantial distance apart, he seemed to drill the holes in a fairly straight line. But put the posts close together and the offset of the holes increase accordingly. Put the posts 6 inches apart and the offset was 6 inches, put the posts 2 feet apart and the holes lined up almost perfectly. No wonder he said he "used to work" in construction, with an eye like that, nobody would last for long, lol. We struggled along and actually manged to get the wire pulled, despite Roscoe's efforts to the contrary. At quiting time we were out of wire with only a couple of short runs left to finish. So much for all of Ron's planning, lol.

Please take very careful note of the blue electrical box near Roscoe's elbow.
Note that there is no hole for the wire the wire to be pulled through.
There is a hole but where could it be?
That crazy Texan bored the hole right where the box is, would you believe it, smile.
No wonder we're laughing, as neither one of could imagine somebody that dumb, lol, lol, lol.

Who. us worry!!!!

Now it was time to turn the tables. When the clock hit 2 o'clock the burden shifted from Bob to Roscoe. Now it was his baby. He claimed to be knowledgeable about carpentry and ignorant about matters electrical. If what he knew about carpentry was considered knowledgeable, then when it came to electric he probably didn't even know what a wire was, lol. Sensing the possibility of hyperventilation, I passed the Rosetta Stone of wiring electrical outlets on to the man. The screws on electrical outlets are either silver (light) or brass. Further more, there is usually a little tag or something near the the brass screw that says "hot wire". As I left, I told him what my dad had drummed into my head, low those many years ago. If it's properly connected at the fuse box (this was a long time ago, smile), the plug is wired white to bright and black to brass. I showed him what I was talking about on one of the outlets which Linda had placed beside every box. The man positively beamed. You'd have thought I'd just given him a million dollars. Just goes to prove it actually doesn't take a lot to make a Texan happy, you just have to know what it is, lol. (I'm really, really going to miss working with Roscoe. If you ever get the opportunity to work a NOMAD project with Roscoe and Carole, you'll be a better person for having been with them.)

An indentured servant is a laborer under contract (an indenture--explained below) to work (for a specified amount of time) for another person or a company/corporation, often without any monetary pay, but in exchange for accommodation, food, other essentials, training, or passage to a new country. They were often referred to as coolies. After working for the term of the contract (traditionally seven years, but sometimes as brief as two months) the servant was then free to farm or take up a trade of his own. The term comes from the medieval English "indenture of retainer" — a contract written in duplicate on the same sheet, with the copies separated by cutting along a jagged (toothed, hence the term "indenture") line so that the teeth of the two parts could later be refitted to confirm authenticity. They were also used to make the labor-intensive cash crop tobacco in the 17th century and work in campgrounds in the 21st century, lol. (With apologies to Wikipedia)

Done with our commitment of indentured servitude, we began to kick back and relax. There was a potluck dinner scheduled tonight, followed by an evening of the Tom & Jo Show. When you attain your freedom strange thoughts pummel your mind. For some reason I was stuck on the following:

Oh, what a night.
Late December back in '63.
What a very special time for me,
'Cause I remember what a night.

Not that anything noteworthy happened to either one of us at that time, it's just that the lyrics and tune conveyed the happiness we were feeling at this moment. Therefore the new words are:

Oh, what a day.
Late April back in '06.
What a very special time for us,
'Cause we remember what a day.

Suddenly we realized we celebrated too early, the pavilion had not been raked, nor had the stage been swept. Carole and Linda, realizing the tremendous pressure Roscoe and I had been laboring under all day, had the job done literally in a matter of moments. Every great engine has a name. Casey Jones had locomotive 638 while Bob and Linda had TS&TF

Every great engine has a name. Casey Jones had locomotive 638 while Bob and Linda had TS&TF

There was one other thing to do, and that was to officially name name TS&TF, The Sound and the Fury. Linda had designed a special sign which she proudly mounted on the front of that unruly beast. As we walked back to the coach it felt good to realize we had been such an integral part of bringing Mountain Stream RV Park back to life for the 2006 season. Those long months ago when we first talked with Ron about work camping seemed like a dream, a dream come true. So often we had read the horror stories of work camping gone bad. That was not the case with us. Sure, we worked hard, but we wanted to. Sure, some of the jobs were difficult, but they were always fun, because we made them so. I think we both realized it is the attitude of of the work camper that has a major impact on the way you feel about your experience. And that's the way it should be.

The pot luck dinner was going to be our last chance at decadent home cooked food for a while, so we pigged out. I fact, I was so busy shoveling food into my face, I totally forgot about taking any pictures. It takes a lot of time and effort to make three trips down the main course serving line so I think I can be excused for not getting any pictures. The coup-de-grace, however was the desserts. Egged on by Roscoe, I ended up with the entire bowl of Becky's legendary cherry cheesecake sitting directly in front of me. Though I tried mightily and will suffer greatly on the morrow, I could not down it all. This was perhaps, my only failing during our entire tenure at Mountain Stream. The old fat Bob would never have had even a hint of a problem downing all the desserts that were left over. If you don't believe me, just ask some of the people I used to work with. Bob is a man whose culinary consumptive ability was the thing legends were made from, lol.

To end the day, we listened to the Tom & Jo Show. Talk about cracking up. If you ever stay at Mountain Stream, make sure your stay As usual, the only one who knows what's going on is Ray

As usual, the only one who knows what's going on is Ray

extends over Saturday night. The singing is awesome, the stories are marvelous and the jokes, well the jokes simply have to be heard to be believed. And even then you might not believe them. If you have any trouble believing, understanding, comprehending or just getting them, check with the real big guy with the white hair. The big guy with the white hair is Tom, the fellow who tells them. He may or may not be able to explain them to you as he has this occasional memory problem with the punch line, lol. The great big guy with the white hair is Ron. He who runs the campground for his wife Becky, or at least it appears to be that way, smile. Ron knows Tom's jokes far better than Tom does, so any questions, just ask Ron, lol. The third member of the band, Ray, cranked up the volume tonight and really put some beat into the performance with his bass playing. As always, it was a great show and we were truly honored when Tom gave us a tape of the show as a memento and going away present. We're going to miss you all so much, but adventure calls.

This was one of those rare nights, in fact it just may be the first night of our adventure when I simply had no room for any dessert. In hindsight I should have crammed something in since we had all day tomorrow to recuperate. Maybe next time, smile.

click image for the current post

April 28 It seems like nearly every day has seen a new kind of bird to the feeder our grandson made for us. Today was no Where there's a will there's a way exception, plus we're getting better at identifying the different birds. For example, we've learned to eliminate certain birds based on their size or shape. Hence we know for certain today's bird could not have been either hummingbird or a pelican. With those birds eliminated, our task is somewhat easier, smile. I keep telling you we are not bird people, lol. Our best guess was it was a grackle. It looked like the grackles we saw down in Port Aransas, Texas, only smaller. It's got a long tail, it's black with an iridescent sheen and it's got an abbreviated song (if you can call that noise it makes a song) like parts of the noise those Texas grackles made, just not as much beginning or end. It spent a long time in the tree the feeders hang from, going from branch to branch. When it finally flew to a feeder it wasn't the new big one, it was the small one. It looked almost ludicrous, precariously clutching the tiny landing area, bent around in a near semi-circle, tail thrust under the feeder, trying to get its head turned right so its bill could get seeds from the small opening. On second thought, maybe it wasn't a grackle. After all, those down it Texas would just land on the ground around you and make that awful racket of theirs until you threw them something to eat, smile.

Some mornings get off to a better start than others. When I heard Linda saying the oatmeal was "just right", I knew I'd better There's bad hair days and there's BAD HAIR days stop working on the daily journal and get it while it was hot. If you dish it out when it is still warm and use the serving spoon to clean the pot, then, and only then, can you enjoy the small, but infinitely delicious pleasure of licking the spoon. I don't know what it is about that little bit that you can scrape from the bottom of the pan that makes it so good, but good it is. To experience the connection of being human. The joy of life. The spirit of individuality. The adventure goes on and on. Speaking of the way the morning starts off, Linda came out into the living area this morning and just started laughing. Perceiving there was something humorous in the nearby vicinity, I inquired as to the source of hilarity she was displaying. Mentioning something between giggles about a bad hair day she took this photo which says it all, lol.

Even though we only have two more days to work, we have not had any attacks of short timers disease. We talk about uprooting our life and moving on, but not with regret or excitement, more matter-of-factly than anything. I wonder how we will feel on Monday morning when we pull out, or a week from today when we are in northern Indiana for the Maintenance Session. But for now there is no time to ponder such thoughts because he of the white hair calls his minions to their daily tasks, lol.

In short order we find that we will be dealing with division and death today. Division of the equipment shed into two areas by way of the partition we will be building and death to many of the weeds around the campground through a dose of lethal spray. As the girls go Got any weeds you want killed riding off to a cloud of dust in The Sound and the Fury, Roscoe and I begin planning the building of the Great Wall of Mountain Stream. Though not in any way a rival to its namesake in China in terms of size and grandeur, in terms of difficulty of the actual construction, we sense there may be strong similarities before this project is completed, smile.

The architect and construction manager, Ron, had some fairly definite ideas on the method of construction. It would be a tilt up wall, prefabricated to fit the irregular space it would occupy. Establishing a straight line to begin construction when neither the floor slab nor the building is square can present a challenge. We were up to it however, actually several times, since there were several false as well as actual starts to the construction process. Finally the time came to start constructing the wall. Roscoe measured the base plate and cut it. We determined the length of the studs and I cut those. Next Roscoe nailed the base plate to the studs, then did the same with the top plate. Now we were ready for the moment of truth. The time had come to raise it into place. Three guesses as to what happened. I will concede it did raise up into position. A position about two feet off the floor where it jammed. We removed a few screws and nails that protruded from the walls and it raised a few more feet. Ron arrived and surveyed the scene. He gripped the wall and lifted, with a sudden movement his end raised to within several inches of its proper place in life. My end however was about a foot below where it needed to be. Now Ron is one big, powerfully built man. I have no doubt whatsoever that he could lift Roscoe with one hand and me with the other. The look he gave me was one of those face encompassing grins of his that is completely disarming. Compelled to say something, I pointed out the wall was somewhat twisted. He commented that that was because his end was up and mine was not. Time to back up I thought, since I'm the 98 pound weakling in this scenario I decided to act like it, lol. Without admitting to being unable to lift the wall (I'll tell you it was heeeavy, man) I quickly pointed out it appeared the wall was to wide to fit into the space. Roscoe concurred and we lowered the wall then cut it down by about a half inch. Raised into position (this time I made sure my end went up first, smile) it fit almost perfectly. Adhesive was applied to the concrete floor and the wall was nailed into place. Thus ended our next to last work day day as work campers.

I measured it, of course it wil fit See, I told you it would fit

Back at the coach it was time to install the battery maintainer Linda had researched, bought and struggled to have delivered. It is called a Trik-L-Start and allows for a 5 amp charge from the house batteries to the engine batteries, but not visa-versa. Here is their website. The installation seemed pretty straight forward and easy, it was. I connected it to the posts of the battery isolator solenoid which was in the battery compartment. The hardest part was reaching to the back wall of the compartment to make the connections. It was while making these connections that I discovered the solenoid was loose in the bracket that held it, allowing it to slide down to the point both battery leads made contact with it. I don't know if that was the source of our discharged batteries or not, but I mounted the solenoid so the leads no longer contacted the bracket. Next we cleaned the batteries and added water as needed. Reconnecting the batteries and turning the cutoff switches back on, we found everything work exactly as it should. The day had started off good and it ended even better. Actually the end of the day was downright fabulous. Dinner was Linda's white bean chili while dessert was chocolate chip cookies and ice cream.

The solution to our dead battery problems, we hope Now, if i only had longer arms Where it attaches, note how the cables touch the mounting brackets Completed installation

click image for the current post

April 27 Just another day in paradise. Just another beautiful day. The sun is out, the sky is clear, birds are at the feeder, the oatmeal is bubbling in the pot. What more could we ask for. Time and again throughout each day, I will stop for a moment and say, either to myself or to Linda, "I don't believe it, I just don't believe it.". Each and everyday that I learn more about life on the road, I realize we could have done this years before, we just didn't have any idea that people lived this way. I truly and sincerely hope everyone does something each day to expand their horizon. How can you get to that special place if you don't even know it is there.

These lines from a song by The Lovin Spoonful have alway spoken volumes to me:

Tomorrow at breakfast you may pick up your ears
Or you may be daydreaming for a thousand years

Every once in a while I would pick up my ears and hear what the world was telling me. I'm endeavoring to get back in that mode as we prepare to hit the road once again. Will the next month be full of daydreams or will my ears hear things that lead to new adventures in our life? However it turns out, it's going to be an interesting next 30 days.

Our workday began with Linda and Carole cleaning the bath house while Roscoe and I shoveled gravel. Ron had gotten a load of rock dumped in the stockpile area, so we loaded up the trailer and hauled a load up to the trench we had sacrificed a portion of our lives excavating, smile. Unfortunately we were still not done with the trench from you know where. We still had to clean up the sand bags we did not use . It didn't take long to move them down to the stockpile area. However, there was still one more task remaining from that blankity-blank trench. The tarps we had used to keep the dirt we had dug from that (word deleted) trench separated from the gravel, were filthy dirty. Guess what, with the ladies busy cleaning the bath house, it fell upon the shoulders of Roscoe and I to clean them. Seeking to put the %$#@& memories of that &%$#@ trench behind us as quickly as possible we attacked the tarps with hose and broom. After an hour of arduous labor they were clean and drying in the sun. May RV'ers enjoy sites 17 and 18 for years to come, smile.

It's a dirty job, but somebodies got to do it

Our next job was the one we would have done yesterday had the weather co-operated, mowing the grass. It has been over 40 years since I last used a riding mower, though in the 8 years before that, I had used one enough to last a lifetime (and it almost did, lol). Either riding a Bolens or walking behind a Gravely was how I spent everyday of my teenage summers. To this day I remember exactly where all the levers were and what they did on those tractors, No wonder I spend so much time discovering useless facts today, I was too busy working when I was a youth to do it then, smile. I never regretted all that work because the money I earned help pay my way through college which led to my being where I am today. To experience the connection of being human. The joy of life. The spirit of individuality. And the adventure goes on and on.

Both How do you stop this thing Linda and I spent enough time on the mower to get our pictures taken, Then I finished mowing the large center grassy area while Linda and Carole used the hand mowers between the sites and Roscoe wrestled with the new weed whacker Ron The chance to be a kid again had bought Becky. After I had finished mowing the center area, I used Linda's mower on the bank by the stream. Between the steepness of the bank, the wet ground and the small front drive wheels it was a real workout to get the bank mowed. Later I used the weed whacker to get the areas the mower couldn't, plus I finished trimming the roadside sites. We were not the only ones busy. Becky was hard at work planting popular starts along the stream bank. They grow fast and in a few years when we return to Mountain Stream, they should be small trees. Also, it was amazing to see the difference between the thick stand of grass on the area of the bank we had reseeded a few weeks ago versus the nearly bare bank from Ron's work of early March. The only difference was the temperatures have now warmed up quite a bit and we heavily watered the seedbed this time.

The grass sure is a wierd color here in North Carolina Now if it only had a reverse

The grass mowed, it was time for our turkey wraps. We were in for a real taste treat today. Last Sunday Linda had bought some sun dried tomato turkey breast. I'm not sure how they make it, but does it ever taste good. We're going to have to get some more. Oh yes, we got it at the deli department at WalMart of all places. Next we decided to put our HRRVC numbers on the coach. They are decals similar to what Austin had put on the back of the coach the other day. I just did it the same way he did and they went on with no problem whatsoever, plus they look great to boot. If you see 112552 coming at you, it's us, lol.

But Austin made this job look so easy the other day

All this time we were not the only ones doing something around the house. Next door, those crazy Texans were busy putting on the dog so to speak. Since Heidi didn't seem to be complaining, Roscoe must have been doing a good job. Kind of gives new meaning to the term, "leading a dogs life" don't you think, smile. Must have been a good job of trimming because we later saw Heidi out in public, lol.

Who says a dogs life is bad life. Look how well I've got Roscoe and Carole trained

This last photo speaks volumes about our life. The boots signify the work were have been doing. The tomato plant, our connection to the life we used to lead. The birds, the freedom we now enjoy with the ability to "fly" to a new location whenever we choose. The tree trunk, the solid foundation on which we built our life. The firebox, the fire of adventure that burns within us. The grass, that the whole country is now our now our front yard. And lastly, the road leading off into the distance, signifying the never ending journey we are on.

Life, it's what we make it

click image for the current post

April 26 Today is a good hair day for Linda. She has an 8 o'clock appointment with Howard at Cutting Edge in Marion. One of her concerns about our adventure was getting her hair done, or rather, done in a manner that was acceptable to her. She was really fortunate when she found Howard shortly after arriving at Mountain Stream. Having noticed a lady at the Wednesday night church dinner with a hair style quite similar to hers, Linda asked the lady who did her hair and that was how she found Howard. Rumor has it that several other ladies at the campground either go to Howard or are going to go because of Linda's excellent experience. If you are A beautiful bluebird thanks to our grandson traveling in the area and need your hair done, Linda certainly recommends him, but be advised, 1. he's a busy man and 2. he's apt to talk your leg off, smile.

While Linda was gone we had another new visitor at the bird feeder our grandson made for us. No need to guess what kind of bird this one was. The brilliant blue of the Indigo Bunting made it easy to identify. It definitely looks like the bigger birds are attracted to the larger feeder. Yet it's not just a bird feeder, it is a gift, given with love by a young child, that in turn brightens our hearts and gives us a glimpse of something new and beautiful. That is truly something priceless. Thank you so much, Zach. Grandma and grandpa just love the bird feeder you made for us.

There was a light rain falling and no Linda in sight when the 9:30 work bell rang. Time to go check in with Ron and see what he wanted us to do today. Normally we would mow the grass on Wednesday, but the rain made that impossible. I have to laugh at this situation, because here it is, almost two months since we started and I still don't have a clue what he's going to ask us to do on days like this, lol. Turns out the shop needs to be inventoried, starting with the electrical equipment. Sounds good to me, after all he's the boss and the job is inside out of the rain. Got the shed unlocked just as Roscoe and Carole walked up (this is the first time in weeks I've gotten started before they did, hope it doesn't become a habit, lol). While Carole went into the office to get the sheets Ron wanted the inventory recorded on, Roscoe and I pulled out the boxes we had previously put all the electrical "stuff" in. Carole returned with a small yellow pad and a pencil and we talked about how we should proceed. With electrical "stuff" in both the equipment shed and the small shed, we figured we should bring everything down to the equipment shed. Up through the rain we go to get the boxes and bring them down. The one good thing about this project is that we had put all the electrical "stuff" into boxes several weeks ago on one of those rainy days when Ron asked us to sort the "stuff" in the sheds. You'll have to excuse my overuse of the word "stuff", but that's the only word to describe what seems to have accumulated around here, smile. As we were carrying the boxes down to the equipment shed Linda returned, her hair looking great. Howard the Stylist, alive and living in small town America, you gotta love it, what it is and what it means.

There was no real categorization to in the boxes. We had simply collected like things and piled them together in whatever containers were handy when we did it several weeks ago. First we needed to find out what we had, so in short order the floor was a mass of parts, pieces and things electrical, both new and used.

Here's got to be some more of these somewhwere, this man saves everything This got to be a joke, nobody would save all this stuff on purpose, would they?

When it comes to keeping "stuff" there are the two extremes and the great middle ground. It was immediately apparent which of these three groups Ron belonged to. I'll give you a hint: What was the best name of the best selling novel in the United States in 1900. Okay, okay, I know that's not the kind of hint that comes readily to most people, but there are a few us who obviously have to much time on our hands, besides, remember that different drum I march to, lol. The title of the novel in question is: To Have and to Hold. We are talking about a man who saves spare parts to equipment he no longer owns. Someone to whom the thought of discarding something brings on night sweats and fits of shaking. Replace something around the campground, don't throw away the thing you took out, who knows what you could use it for, but, someday it might come in handy. We learned early on not to ask Ron if he wanted to keep something. Instead just ask where he'd like it put. I'd even bet if we worked here for a couple of years we might eventually hear him say to throw something in the trash, but other than the garbage I don't have a clue what it might be, lol, lol.

Not as an aside, but as a very interesting tidbit you would only learn if you read our daily journal, the author of To Have and to Hold, Mary Johnston has the same last name as Ron. Add to that the fact she was a southerner with white hair and maybe we're talking distant relatives here. Enough of this trivia, what happened next was the rain started coming down in sheets as we sorted and stacked. We were having a great time trying to guess why anyone would ever save this or that unknown part when our two leaders came in out of the rain, or at least through the rain. Ron watched for a while and commented that we were doing a far more detailed inventory than we needed to. He just wanted us to put all the electrical things together. We just looked at him, mouths momentarily agape, then returned to what we were doing. It was fun to watch the two of them pick things up and commenting about how they'd been looking for this, or identifying some strange looking thing-a-ma-bob that was for an RV they used to own. The rain continued to fall and items continued to be added to the inventory sheets. Ron an Becky returned several more times, always finding something of interest, smile.

Roscoe, it's important to have a complete inventory, so, yes, we want you to count each and every one of them

Almost before we knew it, it was time to quit. Of course with the rain still falling, the Californians used their umbrella. The Texans on the other hand. Think I'll just let the photo's show how Texans avoid getting wet in the rain, lol.

Who are those wierd people and what are they doing? They actually do things this way in Texas, you got to be kidding me, lol.

The rest of the day was consumed with computer time, (I can always work on the daily journal), washing clothes, baking cookies and watching TV. Before long, 5:30 had arrived and we headed down the mountain for our last Wednesday night meal at Pleasant Gardens Baptist Church. During our time at Mountain Stream, these Wednesday night dinners and the following study have been a joy. Tonights meal of baked pork tenderloin, oven roasted potatoes, baked apples, seven layer salad and sugar free apple pie with sugar free, reduced fat ice cream was as good as it gets (and we've discovered it gets pretty darn good here). Knowing this was our last week, we were amazed at the number of people who came up to thank us for coming and participating these last two months, then wished us well in our travels with the hope that we would return again some day (we most certainly will, we just don't know when). Of course after we came home, we just had to eat some of those newly baked chocolate chip cookies. Instead of ice cream, tonight we each had a glass of warm non-fat milk with one teaspoon each of sugar free Torani raspberry and trench vanilla syrup. Hey, with the changes we have coming up in the next week, a little change in dessert helps get us primed for the adventures to come, lol.

click image for the current post

April 25 A Tuesday morning, so it's back to work. The day began with a pair of new occurrences. A new feathered friend visited Whatever kind of bird it is, we hadn't seen it before our new bird feeder. The reason for this was because our grandson has so enjoyed seeing the photo's of the different birds which we post as part of our daily journals, that he made a bird feeder for us. Yesterday we mounted the feeder in the tree by the coach. We were pleasantly surprised this morning when it's first guest was a bird that had never visited our feeders before. From what we could determine by looking at our bird book, it's a cowbird. But then Linda calls every big bird that lazily floats in circles high in the sky, a buzzard, smile. We think the larger size of the feeder was what attracted it. We'll see what happens over the next few days to test the validity of this theory. Thank you Zach, for bringing this new bird to grandma and grandpa's home.

After a breakfast of thick rolled oats, wheat bran, strawberries, chopped walnuts and cinnamon, we headed to our respective computers to do some web page work. There are days when the thoughts just pour out of my mind and others when my mind is as barren as the Antarctic landscape. Today the words poured out like a blizzard for a while and then suddenly dried up. This happened just as the clock was nearing the 9:30 work hour. We both knew what that meant. A trench was waiting to be finished. However we weren't the only ones ready to get Ron's wrenched trench finished, for, as we exited our house, Roscoe and Carole exited theirs. Though I don't recall the exact words, we all vowed that this mother of all trenches would most definitely get finished today, even if we had to bring in a "Daisy-Cutter", lol. It was fun listening to Roscoe and Carole tell how Ron suggested he could help them finish the trench last week when we were gone. Fortunately it rained, so Ron's health stayed intact, and Roscoe and Carole were able to get a few days of rest. The fact Carole has an appointment with a Chiropractor on Wednesday is mute testimony to the fact that digging this trench is more than just hard work, it is back breaking work, lol.

As we have done so many times, that bodacious beast of a golf cart, The Sound and the Fury, was once again hitched to the trailer, You have no idea of how hard it was to get to this point loaded with tools and driven up to the partially completed trench between sites 17 and 18. TS&TF seemed almost reluctant, displaying a singular lack of speed. We both noticed this unusual behavior and Roscoe made the comment, "Maybe it's as tried of digging this %@#& ditch as we are.", smile. Whatever the reason, we very slowly made our way up the park road, dark rain clouds gathering in the distance. Arriving at the trench, we noticed the heavy storms of the past weekend had resulted in several cave-ins. These would have to be cleaned up before we began work on those last few feet of uncompleted trench. We unloaded the tools and and the ladies drove off to clean the fire pits, which itself would not be an easy job today. The rains had soaked any ashes there might be, no doubt making for a heavy trash can. Later we found out this was the case, but being the smart young lasses they are, those ladies used small plastic buckets to carry the ashes from the fire pit to the metal cans, which remained in the trailer. Brains and beauty, are we ever lucky or what, lol.

Back at the mini grand canyon of mountain stream, the landslides were quickly cleared and work on the remaining few feet of trench was commenced. The weather was threatening rain, the sky look ominous, though not as ominous as what remained to be excavated from the trench. Consequently we made an executive decision that this was time to show some real progress on the trench, even if the weather threatened another delay in its completion. We would fill the section of trench we had previously dug before finishing the excavation of the remaining few feet. Using the sand Ron had so thoughtfully provided, Roscoe opened the first bag and attempted to spread a layer in the bottom of the trench. The rains having drenched the sand in the bag, the result was the sand did not want to easily come out of the bag. Now it wasn't that it just didn't want to easily come out, it didn't want to come out at all. Is there anything about this project that is easy?, lol.

We finally solved the case of the wayward sand (sounds like a Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew mystery, lol) by hacking out the entire bottom out of the bag. Even then, it took Roscoe holding the bag and my shaking it to get the sand spread in a reasonable manner in the bottom of the trench. Didn't take us two long to figure out the dump in a big pile and spread later technique was much easier on our backs than the shake and spread technique. The bottom layer of sand spread, I stood in the trench using my feet to hold the wire down and helped (in a small way, smile) Roscoe dump and spread the top layer of sand. Backs aching, but knowing the large man with the white hair would be happy (and healthy), lol, we started backfilling the trench.

The first shovel full going back in the bottomless pit

The distaff half of the Mountain Stream upper management team had asked us to take the rocks we had so efficiently extracted from the trench during the digging process and spread them along the stream bank behind site 4. Since this is the epitome of a, "nothing is easy", project, we had not foreseen this coming and so did not separate the rocks from the dirt when we had dug the trench. Heck, it was all we could do to just get the dirt and rocks out of the hole, who had the energy to sort them, lol. Once again the fact both Roscoe and I had spent time (no doubt more than we would have liked, lol) in our previous lives digging ditches saw us through once again. Using the hoe to pull the dirt into the trench, while Roscoe shoveled and pulled rocks, started backfilling the trench. To compact the soil I walked back and forth as I worked in the trench. Slowly, layer by layer the trench filled. Soon we had it backfilled to the level of the gravel. Now it was time to return to the other end of the trench and finish this thing.

First you dig it out, then you fill it in, sounds like the army There is work for everbody

Quickly we established that we only had to remove 3 large rocks to complete the Mountain Stream version of the Panama Canal. I could only imagine what Ron might come up with if we were able to stay on for several more months. Most likely he's got plans in that drawer of his to excavate about 50 feet off the mountain on the other side of the stream, lol. Do you think that just maybe during all that time he spent jumping out of airplanes during the many years he was in the military, just maybe, just once, he might have landed on his head, lol, lol. Following that thought further, maybe he did land on that huge mound of white hair with the surgeons having to put a plate in his head and now one of the screws holding it in has come loose, no pun intended, lol. As we tried to pry the first rock from its spot to the trench it began to barely sprinkle. We worked on. As we finished freeing one end of the rock a light rain began to fall. We worked on. The rock came out and we started on the second one. As we broke it free it began to rain harder. We worked on. At last we attacked the last rock with a vengeance. A very heavy rain began to fall. We worked on. The sky opened up, it poured buckets. We got out of the trench and stood under the trees along the stream. As we stood there and looked at each other, the flash bulbs in our brains began going off.

The last rock

If we're this close, why let a little rain spoil the party. Back into the trench we went, I'm sure that Jack, the fellow in the RV parked on the next site figured we both had to be Texans in order to be be crazy enough to work in these conditions. Almost before you say, "Charlie Tolar is my second most favorite running back of all time behind only Jimmy Brown, plus who couldn't love a man who fought oil well fires in the off season", we had that rock out. At just about the same moment the rain began to ease up some. Maybe our resolve to get this job done had been tested and we passed, smile. Before long we had the wire hooked up, the trench filled and some landscape fabric installed over the dirt. It will keep the rock and dirt separated and result in a maintenance free installation. That fabric is great stuff and Linda and I have used it for years, both at work and home, just make sure to get a heavier grade if your going to use it separate rock. Most of that lightweight gray stuff they sell as landscape fabric is pretty much useless for heavy duty uses (been there, done that), smile. We finished by raking the gravel over the fabric, then hauled a couple of loads of the rocks we had sorted out of the dirt down to site No. 4 and dumped them on the stream bank. Thus ended this, the final episode of trench warfare, Mountain Stream style. Not all things in life are easy, sometimes it is the adventure itself that makes life worth living, smile.

Do the Watusi, lol Maybe I'll be safe from those crazy Texans up here

We ended the workday with this great meal. After all this work, the turkey wraps Linda fixed for lunch, served with grapes and fat free cottage cheese were just the thing to give us our energy back.

The best lunch in the whole world

The evening meal was a show stopper. Looking through the freezer last night we had decided the sirloin steak that has taken up space for almost four months would be just the ticket tonight. I came up with a beef stroganoff recipe off the internet, that when modified to fit our peculiar dietary habits was all it could be and more. Since I made the changes to the recipe on the fly, I will have to fix it at least one more time to make sure I wrote it down right. Of course Linda got right to the heart of the recipe with her, "Well, you used a lot of spicy mustard, non fat sour cream and white wine." Maybe someday in the future, if it proves itself during our adventure, it will go up on the recipe page. Note also when you look at the photo of the beef stroganoff, the computer in the photo is showing Ms Tioga and George's adventure for the day. One of our customs is to read George every night as we eat our dinner. When do you get your daily George fix?, lol. Before we end the day, I would be remiss without mentioning that dessert was the last of Linda's cheesecake, but not the last of the chocolate, peanut butter, caramel ice cream. How can something taste so good and be healthy at the same time, lol.

Yeah, it tastes good, what's George up to today.

click image for the current post

April 24 During our recent visit to Greensboro we drove around our old neighborhood. It was amazing how much had changed in 27 years, One thing we did find, and within walking distance of our old house at that, was a store called "Earth Fare" which goes by the nickname, The Healthy Supermarket. The moment we walked in it reminded us of a scaled down Whole Foods Market. Needless to say we bought a few things that we had either run out of, or were getting low on, plus one special treat. I have always been a lover of cheeses, two of my great grandfathers had their on cheese companies with their respective family names on the building and one of my occasional before dinner treats is a piece of Taleggio cheese. Earth Fare had it, though I had to search their cheese display three times to find it, smile. Like a loaf of real country style Italian bread, it has a dichotomy of taste and texture with its orangish, gritty rind and smooth buttery interior, that is exquisite. Was it ever good!!!!!!! Here I am straying from the subject at hand again, but some things must be shared, smile. In their bulk food section we found wheat bran and thick rolled oats, both of which we have been doing without for some time. Now, once again, we will be having a taste treat for breakfast. Not only do thick rolled oats taste good, they get you off to the right start in the morning.

Oatmeal

Dry slide of Bob's Red Mill
Extra Thick Rolled Oats
off the scoop —

tiny dustcloud
settling like ash
from stirred coals.

Waking together,
happy, not
our first try.

This is from poetry daily, part of the poetry. com website. Here is the link to this poem by Peggy Shumaker. No more gooey glop for breakfast (thick rolled oats don't make no wallpaper paste, lol).

Energized and ready for the day we ventured forth. Due to my spending the previous weekend getting caught up on the daily journal, Linda had designated today as "Honey At least it's a closet Do" day. The wheels haven't fallen off yet, but somehow she thinks our home on wheels needs some attention, smile. The first task was to make our closet more usable. One of the clues that we are talking about an RV is the use of the word closet. Note, not only the singular form of the word, but also the lack of qualifying adjectives, such as, the hall closet, your closet, etc. Our home only has one closet and it's been partially emasculated to boot. Occupying the very back of the coach and foreshortened on the curb side by the washer/dryer and TV, the poor thing suffered a further amputation of space when the DC fuse panel, AC circuit breakers and a small set of drawers were carved out of its road side. What began life as enough space to accommodate a reasonably small closest had become a tiny dungeon, 44" wide x 14" deep x 76" high. Add to this, the fact the floor is not flat, but rather consists of two "steps", four inches wide that run the width of the closet and what you have is the personification of the term "utilizing all available space". Linda, who grew up in a house that was built around 1810, before there were closets, let me know in no uncertain terms that she may have spent her childhood without a usable closet, but she sure as (deleted word) wasn't going to put up with it now, lack of space or not, smile.

The solution was found at Lowe's during our last trip to Marion. It was a wire shelf, 12" wide and 48" long which we could use in an unconventional way to provide us more room in the closet. What we did was cut the shelf off to fit the 44" space, then turn it upside down so the "lip" was turned up, providing a "stop" at the front. We secured the back of the shelf with a screw and fender washer near the front edge of the 'top step'. To provide extra support for the front of the shelf we used the left over PVC pipe from the flag project. Securing it to the shelf by cutting a notch in the top of the pipe that the shelf would lock into. The weight on the shelf will hold it in place. It took a little seat of the pants engineering when one of the pieces of pipe was to short (we used a piece of scrap wood trim to extend it) but the finished shelf works great.

Is this better or what. It, like doublwed the floor spacee Closeup of the PVC pipe support

Our next project involved fixing the closet doors. We've had a problem with them from day one. They have come out of the track several times, the roadside latch broke twice and the slide travel stop had come out. With the new shelf installed it was time to see if we could find a cure for the difficult doors. The back door had always worked as it should, it was the to the front one that had been the problem. I had removed it to work on the Photo of Linda's in house RV tech fixing the closet shelf and now examined it more closely. One of the problems appeared to be that the 'stops' that prevent the rollers from coming out of the track were never tightened. Another problem was, the frame was twisted where one of the rollers was attached. Next I discovered the slide travel stop had literally been ripped out of the aluminum frame and lastly the wood trim facing plate that covered the top of the doors, effectively hiding the hardware, was loose. We could have gone back down to Tom Johnson RV and had them fix all this under warranty or we could do it ourselves. We tackled them one at a time. First we removed the roller, straightened the frame and reinstalled the roller. Temporarily rehung, it worked better than it ever had before. Since the stop had ripped out we determined that moving it over 2" would allow us to have better access the closet when it was open, yet still stop the door short of the circuit breakers, which they would overwise hit. Why the technicians at Tom Johnson hadn't figured out there was a problem with this when they replaced the latch, I'll never know. I guess they were too busy treating the symptom to find and fix the cause. Kind of like the medical profession, smile. Once again the actual fix was easy and now the door worked as it was designed. With the door hung on the rollers and operating smoothly and safely, we adjusted and tightened the stops which served to prevent it from jumping its tracks. Finally we re secured the trim plate. The result was our closet now looks and works better than it did when new.

Next we were pleasantly surprised when Austin with the Graphic Warehouse drove up with our decal, the one we have been trying to have installed for over a month. He showed us the decal which is sandwiched between a release sheet and a backing sheet. And we showed him where we wanted it placed. He made several measurements, then using a grease pencil, made several dots along what would be the bottom edge of the letters. The decal was held up several times to check for position and level. He then partially peeled off the release sheet above the letters and stuck the top of the top of the backing to coach, aligning the bottom of the letters to the dots he had made. We were asked to confirm the positioning, then he cut the decal into three sections. He said this is a common mistake people who install their own decals make. Either they don't cut a long decal into manageable pieces at all or they cut it into pieces before positioning it. Either way it is very likely the letters will not be perfectly straight. Linda commented she sure was glad we hadn't tried to install it ourselves, smile. Using a small plastic scraper he smoothed and squeegeed the air from under each letter in the first section, then peeled the paper off. We could instantly see it was going to look really nice. Soon the entire decal was revealed and to broad smiles and hearty thank you's, Austin departed.

Getting the decal aligned in the right spot Tacking the decal inplace Final positioning on the line It is installed section by section The finished decal. Is it sharp or what.

Housekeeping duties came next, at least for Linda. As we had been working on the closet this morning, she had washed several loads of clothes. Since we have and use the sani-con to expel our waste (an apt description in more ways than one, lol), we are not permanently hooked up to the sewer with the usual sewer hose. Whenever we need to dump, our sanitary engineer goes out and attaches the outlet to the sewer connection and turns the pump on. Job completed, she puts the hose back in the service compartment. It's so easy she actually seems to enjoy doing it, smile.

The Because-We-Can staff sanitary engineer

The last job on the list for today was to begin the installation I know there's a wire under here some place of the toad light system, no, not the hopping kind of toad, smile. We use the the SMI Stay-in-Play, SilentPartner system which has no connecting wires between the coach and Explorer. It uses radio transmitters and receivers to send its signals. When the coach brakes are applied, it applies the Explorer brakes and brake lights. However, to do this I've adjusted the sensitivity on the system higher than I'd like. Additionally, with no electrical connection between the vehicles, the Explorers tail lights do not come on with the coach lights. Since we have only driven after dark one or twice when towing, this has not been a problem. On those times I just turned the Explorer's tail and marker lights on via its headlight switch. Now, however, the time has come to do it right, so to speak. Both before we got the coach, and during our travels, I had bought bits and pieces of what I thought was what I needed to install the correct system.

Suffice it to say I either didn't have a clue about what I was doing or I sure wasn't paying any attention to what I was doing (it was a little bit of both, smile). The last time we were at Tom Johnson's I thought I had finally (ignorance is bliss) gotten everything I "Dirtdrops" keep falling on my head, lol needed. My plan was to install a separate socket and bulb in the tail light assemblies of the Explorer. The first part of the job was to run the four wire flat wiring harness from the front of the Explorer to the the back. The instructions say to run the harness through the firewall, under the driver's side door sill plate, under the back seat and to the tail lights. The alternative is to run the harness through engine compartment and beside frame rail to the back of vehicle. With no pre-made hole in the firewall (I used the last one for the brake system install) I opted for the under the car route, smile. We started off under the hood by running the harness down the back of the fender liner. Next it was yours truly crawling under the vehicle and then threading of the harness beside some existing wires along the frame rail. One smart thing I did was use our grass patio mat as a pad to lay on. Linda would feed the wire down the back of the fender liner and I would pull it along the rail. I fed the wire through the existing hold downs, which held it in place and eventually reached the bend where the rails go over the rear axle. This proved a little challenging to thread the wire through, but with persistence, and no small amount of dirt and dust falling on my face, was finally accomplished. Next we finished threading the front, going over top the fender liner, behind the windshield washer fluid reservoir, through the side of the grill and out the front. We now had a four foot pigtail of wiring harness extending from both the front and rear of the Explorer.

Next was the installation of the bulb and socket into the plastic tail light can. To have done this at our house before we left on our Now I know why they charge so much to install it for you, lol adventure would have been easy. We knew where the stores were, we had all the tools we needed, we had the oddball "stuff" that is needed when things don't go as planned. Here it was a little more difficult, but in the end we were still successful and had everything we needed, just not exactly how we needed it, smile. First I used my hole saw to drill the 1" opening for the socket assembly, bent the clips slightly for a tighter fit and applied silicone caulk to secure it into place. Then I fastened the additional pieces of wire supplied in the kit to the the wires from the socket. We had to get a short piece of white wire from my stock to be able to attach the ground wire to the frame. When we tried to reinstall the tail light can we found out why you only remove the one you are working on. Somehow I had switched the two tail light cans and they only fit on the side they are designed for. So, I cut the wires I had just fastened, got the other can, drilled the hole in it, installed the socket, connected the wires (it is amazing how fast this goes when you're doing it for the second time in just a few minutes, smile) and installed the passenger side tail light can. Hooray, the job is half done (twice, lol). The other side goes even quicker and only the front remains to be done. Of course I've managed to buy all the wrong wires, connectors and outlets, so the job is put on hold for a few days until we can get down to the auto parts store, lol. This was mostly a case of thinking anything would work when only the exact thing would work. As I so often say, Life is an adventure, smile.

After working under such great stress all day, we needed something special for dinner. To the rescue rode our freezer list. There, standing out boldly was a beef tenderloin, aka, fillet mignon. Patted dry, very lightly rubbed with olive oil, a grind of course sea salt and three of coarse pepper. Pat the salt and pepper into the surface, flip and repeat. Five minutes to a side on a hot grill to sear and three to a side on low to finish. To our taste, absolute perfection, a little pink on the inside and crusty on the outside. Serve with grilled sweet potatoes, slow boiled shelly green beans and a tossed salad which had more peppers, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, pine nuts and strawberries than romaine lettuce. That was a good as it gets, to borrow a line from Jack Nicholson. Heck, not only did I appropriate his line, I even got the better deal in women, lol. Later there was cheesecake and ice cream for dessert. May your life also have days of success, adventure and pleasure like we enjoyed today. To experience the connection of being human. The joy of life. The spirit of individuality. And the adventure goes on and on.

click image for the current post

April 23 Our mini vacation over, we are back to the routine of our life. Of course that routine means we have the next two days off. I know, it's a tough life, but someone's got to live it, lol. Our plan is to go over the mountain to the west, down through the South Toe River Valley, ending up in the little town of Burnsville. Today I get to indulge in my lifelong love of history, history in all its forms, history in every time period and history in any location. As we drive over the mountain and through the valley, the beauty of the land we pass through is almost beyond words. The dogwoods, the cherries, the flowers all combine for a picture of unbelievable beauty. There is a Civil War re-enactment taking place as well as tours of the towns historical museum. Small town history heaven so to speak. Arriving in town we could not find the site of the re-enactment. When we finally found some troops assembled at the museum we learned the sad news that one of the re-enactors had suffered a fatal heart attack at their encampment during the night. They were assembling to hold a brief memorial service. We took part in it, singing hymns and listening to one of the members of his regiment speak of the horrors of war and a soldiers love of peace. At different times during the service, I closed my eyes and was magically transported back in time to some unknown Sunday morning between April 1861 and April 1865. How many times during that horrific war had groups of soldiers gathered together to mourn the loss of their comrades in arms. Listening to the soft southern drawl that rose from the assembled men, I realized, maybe for the first time, it wasn't just my great great grandparents in Pekin, Ohio who were mourning the loss of their son on that fall day in 1864, there was also a mother and father in some small town in the south who were grieving just as deeply. History, it has so much it can teach us.

A scene repeated over and over Everywhere we went it was like this A tribute to a departed soldier

The service over, the troops retired to their encampment and Linda and I began a personal tour of the history museum given by the museum manager, Colette. Just as we were starting, who should walk up, but Roscoe and Carole. Colette's family had lived in this county before it had been a county. This twenty something year old gave the four of us the best tour like this I have ever been on. She was as pure and honest a western North Carolina mountain girl as you will ever meet. She not only knew what she talked about, she had lived it. One could spend a week in Burnsville and only touch the surface on the history of this fascinating place. The museum itself speaks volumes of the times it witnessed. From the finely finished front section of the house, to the unfinished rear kitchen that doubled as the slaves quarter, every board and detail spoke of the history that had played out within its walls. From the 2 foot plus wide boards with bark still attached that the roof was nailed to, to the intricate detail of the window muntins or the newspapers stuffed in the space between the wall studs to serve to block the wind and provided insulation, something that was begun by the slaves and picked up later by the white folks. Besides the architecture of the house, the museum also displays the artifacts of the time. We were particularly intrigued by a $1,000.00 life insurance policy issued to one Joseph Meyers on the life of a slave named George. The policy was for a period of 5 years and cost $19.40, which included a $2.00 policy fee. Slavery was real. Another artifact that caught our eye was a moonshine whiskey still that had been confiscated in the county in 1952. It brings to mind the stories of how the early Nascar drivers were all moonshine runners. No wonder North Carolina is the heart of Nascar country.

An almost 3' wide board You needed to insure your property Nascar fuel Colette, a wealth of information

Following our tour we walked over to the encampment and enjoyed talking with the troops and civilian re-enactors prior to the battle. These mountains were the site of much more than first meets the eye during the civil war. Many of the people were of fiercely independent Scottish ancestry and loyal to the Union. It is only about 100 miles to the west where Charles Frazier found inspiration for his novel "Cold Mountain". Confederate troops, Confederate Home Guards, Union troops, Union irregulars, plus, raiders, bushwhackers, scoundrels and deserters from both sides made life hell for the women, children and old people left behind when the men went off to fight the war. The cause of the "Battle" of Burnsville was the women and children on the farms in the area were starving while the Confederate Home Guards had a huge warehouse full of food. The women broke into the storehouse and stole all the food. It was this act which resulted in the battle which was being commemorated today. The reenactment took place directly across the road from where the actual battle was fought. The reason it can not be reenacted on the actual site of the battle is because a BiLo Supermarket had been erected on the site (I will never again patronize a BiLo store). The battle was fierce, but the badly out manned and out gunned Union forces finally were annihilated leaving the Confederate forces victorious. What happened to the poor women who had broken into the storehouse was never depicted.

Before the battle The attack commences Death came on many forms during the war A field of death and dying is all that remains

After the battle we spent more time talking with the reenactors. The members of this unit have both Union and Confederate uniforms so the can play whatever part is needed. One fellow we talked to had just recently enlisted in the unit. Originally from Michigan, he chuckled as he told us about explaining to his young daughter that now they were living in the south, the Confederates would win the battles. She didn't think this was right since in the battles she had seen in Michigan, the soldiers in blue always won, smile.The tents were coming down and things were being packed away as we slowly made our way back up the hill and into town. How many people zoom by Burnsville, North Carolina on Hwy 19-E and never have a clue about the history of this little town. We realized we could literally spend a week here and still not know everything about its past, either distant or recent. There are a number of links on the internet about the history of the area. Some are fact, some are based on fact and some are wishful thinking. Here are several links in no particular order. Letters from soliers are always interesting, this link is to one of the collections, from Confederate soldiers This one is about Montraville Ray from the point of view of an ancestor. Here's a book review that goes into details about an accurate account of mountain life during the poor man’s fight as the reviewer so aptly puts it. All to soon we were driving on East Main Street heading out of town. Of course we remembered the story Colette told us of the tombstone holding up the front porch, but that is a tale for you find out about when you visit Burnsville, North Carolina and take a tour led by Colette, smile.

The actors assemble to pose for a photo What it looks like in color

At our next stop, the city park in Spruce Pine on the banks of the Toe River we enjoyed our turkey wraps and grapes. Before we left Spruce Pine for the last time we took one last look at the Feldspar mine on the road north of town, then drove down to the SuperCenter for some groceries. Next it was a leisurely drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway back to Hwy 80 and the road down to the park. Upon our return we found that pestilence had infected Linda's tomato plant. There was an aphid on it, lol. Dinner was a repeat of the turkey salad from last week and dessert was warm cheesecake just out of the oven with a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream. A great end to a great day.

Aphids today, tomato worms tomorrow???

click image for the current post

April 22 Morning dawned bright and clear, the sounds of birds in the wilderness area behind the house beckoning us to sing our own song of happiness about the life we live. After a breakfast of sourdough waffles that had an absolutely mindblowingly wonderful taste (a recipe Steve got from his Dad and one I hope Linda gets from Steve) there were more hours of visiting until at last we needed to begin our return trip to the mountains. It was both a sad and joyous goodbye that saw us off, heading west, this time on I-40. As we traveled home, intermittent heavy rain marked our passage across the Piedmont we had called home those many years ago. North Carolina plants wildflowers in the grassy areas of many of the interchanges and as we would come upon each interchange we would guess which flowers and colors would emblazon the roadside in a few moments. The four hour drive passed quickly and we found ourselves once again, driving up Rt-80 to Mountain Stream RV Park. Tired from the long drive through the rain at 65 to 70 mph, we hit the sack early for a change, but not before we had some mint chocolate chip ice cream and brownies for dessert. Guess you could say our life was back to normal.

Good friends make for great times and leave wonderful memories Linda says, you try to take a good pictures out the car window at 70 mph in the rain

click image for the current post

April 21 This weekend will be totally different for us compared to what we are used to. Every night of our adventure we have spent in our coach, today we are leaving it behind to travel east to spend some time with some old and dear friends. But first we stopped in Greensboro to look at a house we had built in 1977 when we were temporary Tar Heels for a couple of years. We were surprised at how similar the house looked to what it did when we had moved away in 1979. One of the great things about this life is that you never know what's going to happen next. Imagine our surprise when, by chance we got to meet the current owners of the house and it turned out to be the same couple who had bought it from us, low those many years ago! We had a great visit, but all to soon it was time to move on.

Along, long time ago, in a place far, far away

Our next stop was a park where Linda used to take our kids to feed the geese. We had brought along a lunch and wanted to relive some more pleasant memories we had of this wonderful town, a town that we hardly recognized, it had grown so much. Linda communed with the geese and we had our little moment in time.

Reliving old memories

We decided not to drive over to the Raleigh area where Clayton is via I-40. Instead we would take Rt-64, 55 and 42. North Carolina has a special small town atmosphere and this route would take us through several neat little towns including Pittsboro and its Courthouse in the circle. We had a slow relaxing drive and arrive at Steve and Corrine's home at the appointed time. It is amazing, 10 years since we had last seen them and they had hardly changed at all. Steve was, and is a great chef and wine connoisseur, while Corrine is the perfect hostess. What followed was an evening filled with the constant murmur of conversation, often punctuated with the sound of laughter. Great friends, great food, great memories, great times.

A great chef immerses himself in his work Now THAT"S a glass of wine It doesn't get better than this

click image for the current post

April 20 The rain has stopped, the air smells fresh, just sitting at the window watching the world go by, all I can think about is what a beautiful morning this is.

Oh, what a beautiful mornin',
Oh, what a beautiful day.
I got a beautiful feelin'
Ev'rything's goin' "our" way.

Now if wishes were money, wouldn't we all be rich, smile. What do you want to bet the odds are everything will go our way today? Actually the start wasn't to bad. Remember how only yesterday we were bemoaning the fact we had to eat frozen peaches under our oatmeal. Not today. Yesterday afternoon there was a knock on our door. It was Dan from across the way and in his hand he held a bag of bright red, ripe strawberries direct from South Carolina via a roadside stand near Charlotte. This morning it was show time in the old RV. As soon as we saw these berries weren't those jumbo giant berries you find in all the grocery stores, we knew we were in for a treat. The caps were fresh, not a bit of wilt to be seen. The berries had that slightly gnarly look of the homegrown berries of my childhood. I got a beautiful feelin' ev'rything's goin' our way. Were those berries ever good, firm but ripe and juicy, we didn't even need to add any Stevia they were so sweet. Thanks, Dan!!

All to soon it was time to return to the place of pain, the arc of agony, the trench of terror, you know, that darned ditch. With mattock, with hoe, shovel and bar the attack took place, the battle raged on. Diggers dug, pry'ers pryed, shovel'ers shoveled, and Slowly the trench and the aches proceed hoe'rs hoed. Slowly but surely the trenched inched forward and millimetered downward. Progress, maybe nearly imperceptible, but progress none the less. We quickly learned the difficulties we had faced two days ago were not because we were tired, it was because the digging was so hard. Recalling how Rome wasn't built in a day, we started digging out one small rock at a time. It's funny how once you stop looking at how big the overall job is and focus instead at the immediate task at hand , how much you seem to get done.

There were a number of large rocks in the line of the trench. We started by slowly removing a few small rocks around one of the big rocks, scratching out the dirt, then using the mattock or shovel to pry on the big rock All together now, lift to the point it would move slightly. Then we would just keep working until it was loose enough to tip up on edge. Working together, Roscoe and I would lift the rock out of the trench and place it to the side. As we moved forward by fits and starts, the girls worked at the other end of the trench. Every time we stopped and looked, they had dug a little lower. It was tiring work, not exhausting, just hard, difficult work.

After working for nearly an hour and a half we decided to rest for a moment, sitting in Tom and JoAnne's settee until Linda got some Havarti dill cheese and Granny Smith apples from the house, whence we took a real break, using Tom and JoAnne's deck to relax on. What a great time we had just talking and relaxing. There is something about this lifestyle that just doesn't compare to the way we used to exist. We had just worked as hard as was possible for an hour and a half and here we were sitting and laughing about it. The amazing thing was we didn't even tell any Ron jokes, lol. In fact, he hadn't even been by this morning, maybe he was thinking we'd toss a rock the wrong way if he showed up, lol, lol, lol.

After we work, we rest, lol Break time

Soon we were back to the Mountain Stream RV Park version of trench warfare. The rest did us good, and refreshed we tackled the remaining rocks. One was so large we had to break it into pieces with the bar and sledge hammer, but we got it out. Here it was, the largest rock by far and all we had were small pieces to show for what we had done. About that time Ron showed up and as we described what we had done, he smiled, looked and said nothing. It was at that moment I realized the the self satisfaction we had gotten removing those small pieces was much greater than having the rock out for display. What we were doing was for ourselves, the pride that can only come from doing a hard job and doing it well. It won't lessen the aches and pains I will have tonight, but that was not the point. Back to work, it was easy to tell when Roscoe would lift a particularly heavy rock out of the trench. His head would turn red, something that definitely happened more than once, lol. We had one rock that due to how it was oriented, just wouldn't come out. I finally got it loose by bracing my shoulder against the lip of the trench, head and arms down in it and by using the increased leverage managed to break it free to the point we could both get our hands under it enough to hoist it out. Let me tell you it is not always the size of the rock that determines how heavy it is, lol.

Just look at all those rocks

When quitting time rolled around we had not completed the trench, though we were within spitting distance of the end of the line, so to speak. Gathering up all the tools we headed off to the equipment shed. It was at the very second the lock clicked shut that I first felt how tired I was. As Roscoe and I walked back up to our houses, I wondered if he was hurting as much as I was. The only conclusion I could come to was, yes, smile. I made it to the door mat and off came my boots and then I climbed up the few steps to the mud room, aka, the coaches stairwell. Here I did what any reasonable man would do. Understanding the pain Linda would inflict upon me if I tracked dirt into her house, I simply stripped, dropping my clothes onto the steps and headed directly to the shower, accompanied by Linda's giggles. Later after eating my turkey wrap which Linda so gracefully fixed, I went to get up out of my chair. when the pain hit. The deep dull pain of tired muscles. Funny thing though, I sat in the Euro Lounger and the pain seemed to go away. Maybe I should have just stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, smile. What I did do during the afternoon was work on the daily journal and watch some TV. Linda spent some time getting ready for our weekend trip to Greensboro, Clayton and Burnsville. It will include seeing the house we had built when we lived in Greenboro almost 30 years ago, then visiting some old friends and ending up at a Civil War re-enactment. Should be a fun weekend, almost like a mini vacation.

Dinner was a variation on our grilled pounded pork sandwiches made by substituting a chicken breast for the pork. It's the marinade with the secret amber colored ingredient that comes from Lynchburg, Tennessee, that we think makes it taste so good, smile. Served with southwestern beans and a salad it was a great meal, easy to fix, easy to cleanup and healthy for you, even if the dried garlic container may have poured just a little to heavy. After all, isn't garlic supposed to be good for you?

Pounded chicken sandwich with southwestern beans and salad

Later it was a CBS Thursday night, Survivor, CSI and Without A Trace. Of course with the DirecTV national feed, we then get to see the latest fire and murders from New York City, followed by the Letterman Show. Please be advised that in amongst all the TV shows we did take a walk and saw the famous Moutain Stream RV Park "Pink Snow". We have been waiting to see this for some time now and we were not disappointed. When the huge flowering cherry tree by the bath house begins dropping its petals, the ground litterally turns pink. Here are a couple of pictures we took tonight. Plus don't forget the mint chocolate chip ice cream and brownies also, smile. Some how I don't think I will be hearing any rain or hail if it happens during the night, lol.

Pink snow everywhere

click image for the current post

April 19 We awoke this morning to the patter of the following rain. It was a slow steady rain which followed the heavier rain, thunder and lightning we had during the night. (We heard about the sounds in the night from others, as for us, we had slept the sleep of ditch diggers, smile). There is no early morning activity in the campground today, no dogs being walked, no kids riding their bikes, no RV's being packed up prior to leaving, nothing but the steady rhythm on the falling rain. Breakfast was also different. Linda had decided, during her shopping trip on Monday, that the fresh strawberries available at the grocery store were not up to our standards. Instead she had bought one bag each of frozen strawberries and peaches. Picking the lesser of two evils, we had the peaches under our oatmeal this morning, even Linda, the fruit always goes on the top girl. They were not 'that' bad, but certainly not as good as fresh ones.

Rain, rain don't go away, we want to dig the trench some other day

Because of the rain we could not do our scheduled job for the day, mowing the grass. But then again, we could not do our unscheduled job either, the digging of the trench for the electrical wire between site 17 and site 18. We ended up working in the equipment shed. It was a good thing to as the rain would stop for a while, lulling us into thinking it was over, only to suddenly start falling even heavier than it had before. In the middle of one the heavier periods of rain, Roscoe remembered their awning was still up, so off they went, blue tarp held over their heads the end billowing out after them. Unfortunately their speed was such that I was unable to get the camera out before the flash of blue tarp had disappeared around the corner. Fortunately they were able to dump little "Lake Houston" before it reached damaging proportions, lol. We finished sorting the painting supplies, then started consolidating the other piles we had not gotten to the other day. Next we put up a number of shelves by fastening short pieces of 2x4's between the wall studs. I did the measuring and cutting while Roscoe did the fitting and fastening. We were able to put all the plastic containers on these shelves. Order is appearing in the equipment shed, hope Ron and Becky can find things, lol. We finished up by moving some of the lawn equipment so we can walk from the back of the shed to the front without having to go outside, smile. Just as we were starting to put our tools away, a very loud, sharp crack followed by a flash of lightning and an immediate clap of thunder made us jump. It sounded like it hit right across the road from the RV Park. The lights never even blinked in the park so it was apparently more bark than bite.

Sometimes rain can be so pretty with the clouds descending the mountain Of course this was when we went out to repair the loose siding, lol

The plants loved the rain even if we didn't. Linda's tomato has something that looks like tiny buds. They're to small to show up on a picture, it's called a Tiny Tim for goodness sakes, but hopefully we can get a picture in a couple of days. Up at the end of the park a veritable horticultural park and a tropical one at that, has emerged. When you live in Florida, then take a new job in North Carolina , how do you move all your houseplants? Setting up on site No. 28 is the answer.You move them in your 5th wheel and if that 5th wheel is a toy hauler so much the better, because then you have room to move lots and lots of plants, lol. There are palm trees, lilies and many more I have no idea what they, are lined up around the trailer. Makes us seem like pikers, what with us only having two house plants, however, the baskets they set in do lend a certain amount of sophistication to them. smile.

Everyone who moves takes a little bit of where they've been with them There may only be two of them, but are they ever loved

In the afternoon the rain stopped and it wasn't long before we heard the roar of the riding mower. Soon we saw Ron passing back and forth in front of the house, mowing the large center grass area. I think that means we will be digging a trench tomorrow instead of Looks pretty stately, doesn't he mowing, on the other hand, once the trench is done there are no more really hard jobs and in fact not even any hard jobs to be done around the park. It's only routine maintenance from now on out. See, if you want to come and spend a month or more in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina work camping, just think how easy it will be. And all courtesy of us, lol. Speaking of work camping here at Mountain Stream RV Park, if it wasn't for the functions we have to attend in the Midwest next month, we would stay on here until at least the end of June. The work is really easy (except for the trench, lol), the people who stay here are so friendly, Roscoe and Carole are totally awesome to work with, plus Ron and Becky are two of the nicest people you will ever know. On the hand, if when you camp, work is something you leave behind, this is an excellent place for a base camp to take day trips and explore the Blue Ridge Parkway and the surrounding area. Either way, remember, life is an adventure and the more venturing you do, the more great times that add up.

Dinner was grilled salmon and sweet potatoes accompanied by a salad. Every time I use our Weber Baby Q grill I marvel at how good a job it does. Plus, having it set in the end of the Joey Bed makes it so easy. I just pull it out, connect up the propane tank we store in the bay beside it and we're ready to cook. The more I have used the grill, the better I get, sound familiar, lol. Not only does it do a super job of cooking, it leaves great looking grill marks on the food plus cleanup is virtually none existent.

That's my grill and I'm proud of it.

Later we visited with Dan and Becky who were parked directly across from us. They were up for the work weekend last month and Dan was, "Dan the steel drivin' man", he who pounded all the nails in the landscape timbers we installed around site No. 14. So guess which site they were staying in? Here's a hint, it's between sites 13 and 15, lol. They actually prefer site No. 13, but since it was occupied (it's the most popular site in the park), site No. 14 worked just fine. We had a great time visiting and talking about our adventures. They follow our adventures by reading our daily journal, so had lots of great questions about the how's and why's of things we do. You didn't think I put all the details of everything we do into the journal, did you, lol. Ya, I know, some days it seems like I do, but then how else are you going to find out what our life is really like, smile.

Relaxing and enjoying life, what could be better

All too soon it was time for our mint chocolate chip ice cream and brownies after which we slept the sleep of someone who had spent the previous day digging a trench. (But Bob it was good exercise, lol).

click image for the current post

April 18 (aka, trench digging 101, lol,lol) It's back to work today. We met Roscoe and Carole at 9:30 and started cleaning the ashes from the fire pits. It had been a busy weekend at the park, so we filled two trash cans full of ashes before we were done. With four people working, it does not take long at all. Our next job developed in response to a problem that arose over the Easter weekend. The power went out in site No. 17. Not out, as in a tripped or bad breaker, out as in, there is a break in the electric line between the distribution panel and the box at the site. The original builders of the park were two brothers who were, and still are, local electrical contractors. They built the park for their wives who were looking for something to do besides housework. Yesterday, Ron had one of the brothers check out the problem. The proposed solution is to run a wire from the box at site 18 over to the box at site 17. Sounds like something pretty simple. All we have to do is dig a trench, lay the wire in it, connect one end to the box at 17 and the other to the box at 18, fill in the trench and we're done. Doesn't sound like it should take a long time to do, maybe four hours or so, just to be on the safe side. How wrong we were, smile.

To begin with, the sites have a gravel surface which covers the area between the two boxes. Not just a thin gravel surface, but about 4" of gravel mixed with the red clay fill which underlies that end of the park. A good adjective to use to describe this material would be, cementitious. Below this top gravel layer is a second layer composed of red clay mixed with rocks of all sizes. Some of the rocks are so large they can not the dug out. However, each of these rocks, no matter what size, is an obstacle. The length of the trench is about 25'. And, since it is for an electrical wire, the trench will have to be 2' deep. A sand bedding layer will be formed on the bottom of the trench, then the wire will be placed, followed by a second sand layer to act as a cover. Finally the trench will be backfilled with the clay material and topped with gravel.

Of course that descrition also leaves out a lot of the work we had, and for that matter, still have to do, smile. First the surface. The Starting down the road to a Tylenol moment. Note the stand-in for Linda who is taking the photo.smile loose top layer of gravel needs to be raked off, exposing the soil/gravel mix. The girls work on one end while Roscoe and I work at the other end. The first 1/2" of the loose gravel cover layer was easily raked off. Below that the gravel mixes with fine rock and rock dust, forming a mass that bears a strong resemblance to soft concrete, lol. To remove this material the girls developed the techique of using the hoe to loosen and scrape the gravel mixture, then shoveling it out. This mix is very hard to dig through and so the work proceed very slowly with quite a few rest breaks.

Prior to digging into the red clay soil we placed a tarp on the gravel along the side of the trench so the soil we will be removing does not contaminate the gravel and make a mess. With spading shovel and matock, Roscoe and I start to dig downward. Nothing is easy, or perhaps more accurately I should say the converse, everything is hard, lol. The backfill around the post the box is attached to proves to be a mix of large gravel and dirt. Not just at the surface, butdown the full depth we have to dig. A conduit the runs from the box down the post, stopping about 20" below the surface. This means we have to dig carefully so we don't accidently cut a wire where the conduit ends. Towards the bottom a lot of hand work is necessary, but finally the open end of the conduit is exposed. After more than several attempts, smile, we get the new wire pulled from the box down through the conduit. Now that we can see just how difficult it is going to be to dig this trench, we decide to do a test installation with the new wire. We want to make sure it will work before we earn our keep, so to speak, digging the trench. Even this part of the project proved to to be much harder than expected. The new wire was a heavier gauge than the one originally installed. Two wires fit under the connector in the box with no problem, provided they were both the older, smaller wires. However, one smaller, old wire and one larger, new wire did not seem to want to fit. After many, many attempts Ron finally managed to get both wires connected. When the breaker was thrown, everything worked. Now all we had to do was dig the trench.

Note the inspector checking the work

One of the first obstacles we encountered as we started to dig the trench were tree roots. Small roots, medium roots and large roots. Clippers, loopers and bow saws made an appearance and saw action as the trench went downward and forward at a rate that even a snail would have found to be ludicrously slow, lol. Besides the roots and rocks, some of which were so large we could barely carry then, we uncoved a buried fire pit base. The latter we are going around, smile. After a discussion on whether the trench was the requisite 2' in depth or not, Roscoe got a tape measure to hopefully prove it was deep enough. It actually was 2' deep, unfortunately that was from the bottom of the trench to top of the dirt pile, smile. There will be a lot more digging in our future before this job is done, sigh. By the time 1:30 rolled around all 4 of us were more than ready to quit for the day. This was not just hard work, this was really hard work, lol. Understand, this was also not the type of work we normally do. I am looking at it as exercise which is good for me. As we put the equipment away we were joking about sleeping well tonight and more than one comment was made about the probability of also sleeping well this afternoon, lol.

Linda the farm girl was the olny one who had any energy left

Later, after a lunch of turkey wraps, grapes and sugar free peach Jello, Linda got some much needed rest as she read a book, while I worked on the previous day's journal update. It was then that I began to feel some aches in my body, though after a while they seemed to go away. What's that old adage, no pain no gain. Heck, maybe I'll wake up tomorrow looking like Charles Atlas, smile.

For supper Linda fixed something we'd never had before. A turkey salad made by cutting the cooked, left over turkey into very small bite sized chunks and mixing it with sliced green onions, cucumbers and grapes. Piled between two pieces of whole grain bread, it was a great meal. Light but nutritious, it was exactly what we needed after our day of hard labor. Of course. later, we had brownies and mint chocolate chip ice cream and then and only then did we call it a day. I knew Linda was tired when she went back just as Letterman was coming on. As for me, I didn't make it all the way through his interview with Jane Fonda before nodding off. A real bummer because I did so much want to hear all about her vacation to Argentina with her ex-husband Ted Turner and his current girlfriend, darn.

click image for the current post

April 17 Up early today 'cause we're goin' down the mountain. We have our third trip down to Tom Johnson's RV center scheduled today. They will be changing the transmission oil, replacing the broken closet door latch and hopefully finding the cause of the dead There is always beauty somewhere around us engine battery. Instead of having our, gotta' get on the road breakfast of multi grain cereal and milk , we eat the leftover breakfast egg casserole. Maybe the change will mean things will work out better today, smile. Of course things are just the same as the engine battery was dead again, no lights, no nothing, but at least it started right up with the battery boost switch. Let the engine run for about a half hour while we put everything away, or so we thought, then shut it off so we could pull in the slides. But on startup the air horn gave a short blast. It so startled me that I involuntarily turned the engine off. Here we are, 7:30AM, RV's around us and my horn just blasted away. The only thing I can think of at this moment is the story Ron & Becky tell about the time a certain RV's horn had the same thing happen one morning in the campground. Except it jammed in the on position and blew until it ran out of air. Rather than state who the unfortunate RV'er was, I'll just say I'm sure that Larry remembers it well, smile. So there I sat, hand on the key, thoughts of jammed air horns blasting in my head. Having no choice, I turned the key again. Another short blast of the air horn, but this time I leave the key turned to the on position. All is well, whew.

After unhooking the water and power cord and making sure Say what you want about their service, they have a pretty sign the bay doors are closed tight, we are ready for departure. How much easier this was when we were moving every few days, a state we will be returning to in a less than two weeks. The trip down the mountain was uneventful except that just as happened on our last trip, in the midst of the worst curve on the road, I meet not one, but two cement trucks heading up the mountain. By now I've learned to slow down real slow when this happens, so other than some things shifting in the coach, it was no problem. Guess you could say that while I've learned to slow way down, I haven't quite got the "smoothly" part figured part out yet, smile. Arriving at Tom Johnson's we were met with the same good news, bad news situation we faced the last time we were here. The good news is several of the people called us by name as we walked from the lot to the service area. The bad news is we've been here for problems enough times that they know us by name, lol. We went over the work request, then headed out to do some shopping.

Our first stop was at Lowe's. Carole and Roscoe have a flag pole and Linda decided we we would have one like it. So she got a copy of their design, put together a materials list and thus armed we began our search for the needed parts. Of course she had a few modifications in mind which were not written down (otherwise they wouldn't be in mind, smile). Suffice it to say there were multiple trips between the hardware and plumbing departments before she decided we had everything we needed. Take the plastic pipe for example. There is not just one grade of PVC pipe, there are multiple grades. We finally picked the grade we needed by how stiff it was. We just bought the stiffest pipe they had in the size we wanted. The second problem was, none of the fittings seemed to be in the correct bins. Oh, if you wanted a tee or a 45, there was no problem, but want a 1" to 1/2" threaded bushing, good luck. By the time we were done we probably could have found the Lost Dutchman Mine, if we were in Arizona, lol. The question I have is, do any of the Lowe's employees ever look at these bins and if they do, do they care what's in them? I think they talk service, but don't deliver. By glancing at the bin it appears it is stocked. By checking it you would know it wasn't. We finally found what we wanted, by removing the boxes in the front and opening the unopened ones behind, something the Lowe's workers should have done. Reminds me of the old saying, "all show and no go", smile.

Next stop was Wal-Mart for a flag and some envelopes. The flag had to be 100% nylon and 3'x 5' in size. She asked one of the ladies in blue where the flags were. The answer was the stationary department. To which Linda commented to me something about wondering if the lady knew what she was talking about. Of course as we headed that way my mouth said the wrong thing. Do I say something like, "Wow, the stationary department, makes it easy since we're also getting envelopes." or "Maybe she read your mind and knew you were thinking about envelopes." Not Bob. What comes out of my mouth is, "Are you sure sure you asked her about the flag, maybe you asked about the envelopes and just thought you asked about the flags." It's one of those things that as soon as you say it you wished you hadn't. I will spare you all the gory details, however, I was definitely on my best behavior for the rest of the

April's Journal (A post for each day,latest post on top)