busy as usual

I should have prefaced the last entry by explaining it was Tuesday morning. We arrived here Monday afternoon and left again the next morning. Tuesday, Wed and Thursday were in Kissimmee or on the road. It is now Friday the 16th.

Checked phone ok, dsl not on, checked, later today. Very Muggy, 88 degrees until evening when serious rain and cold front started."Herman", our friend from the local gas company stopped by. He was in the neighborhood and saw our work order for gas restoration on Monday. He said, with the cold front coming we might like our furnace to operate. With temps in the 80's we pooh-poohed him but at least we would have hot water for showers etc. He lit all the gas appliances and checked out the a/c which is part of our gas pac unit. He said the unit is running but is low on refrigerant. He used to be able to do that, but now we have to call someone else.

It turned out that Herman was prophetic, in that we were using the furnace by Monday morning.

Hooked the dish receiver, which was a little different, and easier, now that some equipment had been removed by our invaders. called dish to switch to local channels.

During the day, we finally unloaded most of the stuff that we brought down in the motorhome.

Now we go to Saturday. We have a standing rule that we do not work on weekends, unless absolutely necessary. not necessary.

So we went to Deland to partake in some large community yard sales, then to Daytona to see some motorcycles, sinc it was Bike OCTOBERFEST weekend. There were quite a few bikes, but most of them were concentrated at Destination Daytona, where Bruce Rossmeyer built a huge motorcycle facility including the largest Harley dealership in the world. This location is on highway 1, right at the exit from 95 in Ormond Beach. There is regular traffic trying to get on and off I-95, combined with regular traffic trying to go straight thru on one, combined with thousands of motorcycles coming and going from Destination Daytona plus the setup across the road requiring lot of police officers to stop traffic to allow the throngs of bikers to cross the street and prevent total gridlock. I am sure the city fathers of Ormand Beach would like a second chance to approve/disapprove this project. It took about 30 minutes to pass through this area, which was no problem for us, since we knew about the situation.

Anyway, Bruce was killed this summer on a ride in Montana where he was passing a truck making a left turn. He owned several of the largest Harley dealerships, including Daytona, West Palm, Ft Lauderdale, along with several car dealerships.

Any, we picked up a new 27" tv, bought supples from Aldies, etc and returned home. Still no locals on dish. The temperature range was 59-74.

Sunday morning was 51 degrees, with a high of 54, quite a difference. We went to the local flea market, and then violated the above referenced rule, since it was nice cool working weather. I started to uncover the boat, dumped the motorhome holding tanks, and finally got Dish to change my local channels. It took 3 or 4 calls, one to Denver, one to W. Virginia, and one to India. The girl in India got it done within minutes.

Since we still have cable that was shut off years ago, we got to watch most of the Bills game against the jets, which had a surprise ending.

Now we go to Monday morning. We went to the pool for our aoerbics, but due to heater problems, it was too cold, so aborted. Upon leaving, we had a flat tire, so went to Walmart to leave the old tire and have a new one mounted. Then went to appointment with Dr Dew.
He did not like the way I was walking. He called it a "bent knee gait", because apparently I do not straighten the (previously repaired) knee enough. x-rays were good of the newly repaired knee and he gave me a cortisone shot to help loosen the joint. Back in a month.

At &T syas my internet will be ton sometime Wednesday. So Jim, next door, gave the password to his system , so I sat in the car outside his place, using our laptop to make our first report, since leaving Tennessee. Played cards with Bill and Sherry Levy, who arrived just hours after we did.

Tuesday, had an early appointment with Dr Ashouri, who wants me to have another PSA test. so will do that next week., then completed dis-assembling the boat cover frame and started preparations for boat to go in water. battery installed, lower unit filled, started motor.

Laura called AT & T. They promised to expedite so it would be on by 6:00 PM. sure!

Wednesday, we went to the flea market at Deland. Bought new plugs for the boat, came home and finished the boat and plopped it in the water. only had time for a short ride, but it is in.
I tried the dsl and it was not on. called again, and talked to a technical person, entered some info and after a short while, we were back in the computer age again.


Thursday was a working day, don't remember what we did, other than trying to get our printer system going. it seems we have a different printer at home and could not find the driver for the one here. So got on the internet and finally downloaded the correct driver so now we can print things.

Friday we went to St Augustine to do some garage sales, but primarily to visit the large RV facility to learn what we could about our problem with the motorhome propane system. They had some familiarity with the situation. but needed some info about the tank involved.
On the way back we stopped at the St Johns county Fair to watch the Robinson Family perform.

Saturday, we went back to St Augustine to deliver the info, have to wait until Monday to learn anything. More garage sales.

Now to finally catch up. We went to a flea market in Ocala. found some things we cannot live without. Discovered a new store called Humdingers, which is a lot like the old Don Gage operation. all kinds of stuff, at low prices. We have to go back to fully check it out, as we had to move on to Silver Springs. We renewed our passes at Silver springs and rode the 3 boat rides, and looked at some of the halloween stuff have set up. We pass by the Ocala National Forest and there are signs indicating bear crossings. For 21 years, we have never seen a bear. But Today was different. LAURA SAW TWO (2) GOOD SIZE BEAR(S) by the side of the road. They were alive and moving. I turned around as quickly as I could, but when we got back to them, I only saw the rear end of one of them going over the bank. Still we both saw a real live bear in the wild, if you will.

The other good thing about today is that, fot the first time in a long time I was walking quite well today. At the flea market I did very well. At silver springs. I was obviously getting sore, but walked the whole thing with no problem. Right now, at 11:26 PM my knees are sore, but I am excited that maybe the worst is finally over and I can walk normally again.

So now, after what seems an eternity, we have all our systems up and running, Lester and Sue are due in on Tuesday, and we should be able to visit Jane and Norma, and Janice and Don.

riding the roller coaster

After a nice air conditioned night, we called AT & T, to have the phone and dsl turned on. no problem, would be done the next day. On the way to Orlando, stopped at Crescent City Gas to discuss the lackof gas. "oh no, you are not on the list of shutoffs, wait, we did shut it off for non payment in June". "whats that, you have been making minimum monthly payments for gas that was not available, sorry". $58.12 later and they will turn it on whenever we can be home. A strong letter will be sent to the highest ranking officer of the company we can find, complaining of this process. Next year we will just shut it off and pay the $50 to turn it back on, 6 months @$8=$48 and on bills to pay against $50. same difference. We went to Kissimmee to join up with Bob and Laverne at their time share condo. Mystic Landing Golf Resort was the location. $145 to play around of golf. The temp was only about 95. The condo was like two huge apartments. Ours was the smaller one, and we had two tvs, a full kitchen, a hot tub in the bedroom. it was rough!.

We went to visit Old Town to walk around. Found a charger/battery for my camcorder so we could take pictures at Busch Gardens, the next day. Problems with my right side hearing aid started. These Italian versions sem to not like the hot, humid weather.

We leaned that the new charger was ok, but the battery was the wrong size, so will have to go back to Old Town in a week or so to exchange batteries

Wednesday, we went to Busch Gardens in Tampa. This was about a 65 mile one trip. We arrived about 10 am and left about 4:30. Temp was about 93. We rode the Rhino Rally, train ride, overhead cable car, and the raft ride. it felt good to get wet . Dennys on the way home and cards at the condo.

Thursday, we went to Seaworld, about 13 miles away. Went to Blue Horizon, Clyde and Seamore, Pets Ahoy, and Shamu. Left about 3PM when rain started. Bob was willing to ride in one of the wheelchairs, but I walked both parks with no major problems.

We left Bob and Laverne about 4:30pm and drove through heavy traffic in Orlando, arriving home about 8:30PM The temp was a mere 85-88 degrees.The phone is on but no dsl yet.

we are slowly catching up ,but more to come. Hang in there.
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Back on Line

It only took AT &T 8 days, but we are back on the Internet. Time to catch up a little. Sunday the 11th, we had enough music and decided to head down the road. We left about 2:00 and traveled about 300 miles down the road to Jackson , Ga. Spent the night in a Flying J truck stop.

Monday morning, we got going and arrived in Satsuma about 3:00 PM. It was about 88degrees and very humid. We started unloading, when we discovered the house had been entered and some things were missing.The screen in my office window was on the floor and the jalousie windows had been forced open enough that a child or small person could get through.

They took our 25" tv, a crummy sound system, a vcr-dvd combo player, a computer monitor, an old dvd player/recorder, some pocket change and do not know what else, if anything. We have no idea when it happened or who did it. Charlene thinks it was a scuzz family that is renting nearby. We called the sherriff and reported it. They left the musical instruments, amplifiers, several 19" tvs, several 13" tvs.

The water was on but the gas had been turned off in June. The nice gas company was letting us make minimum payments for gas we could not use.

I quickly put the room a/c unit in the bedroom so we could sleep ok. Since we had run out of propane and could not refill due to a faulty reset button, our freezer/rerfigerator had warmed up some but the food that was in was still frozen cold enough to be ok. Some food in the cooler was spoiled and had to be thrown out.

The house refrigerator started ok, as did the freezer in the shed. The car started right up and ran well. continued unloading in the heat. Will catch up tomorrow.

wheels are spinning

our last post was the 11th, when we still had internet service at the campround. to summarize, we made it successfully to Florida, with no major problems, but some minor ones. We went to Orlando for a few days and then back to Satsuma on Friday the 16th. We finally started get some unloading and other things done. Since we still do have our internet service, we are using our neighbors. Wednesday, we are supposed to get our service back and then we will backtrack and fill you in on all the events of the last 10-12 days. What has been amazing is the temperature differential. We have ranged from 97 degrees to 49 degrees in the 9 days we have been here. much more later, after internet service comes back.

the odessey continues

I t has been great here in Tennessee.The weather is now cool, but we had serious rain only on Friday afternoon, and it was for a short time. We did have tornado warnings but they evaporated, without harm. Themusic here has been phenomenal. Over 90 different musical groups of all types, mostly bluegrass, some country. One harmonica player is unbelievable, he is so good.

Realistically, there is almost too much music. There are 5 different stages, and sometimes, they only play for 15 minutes at a time. Since most of the groups are unknown to us, we have to go to the different stages to check them out and then decide who who you like and who you don't, and decide where to from there. There are four days of the festival, running from 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM. There is a fifth day, which we attended for a while, which is geared to children. There are activities and programs and music directed to the children.

There are old buildings, museums, old time crafts and vendors and all kinds of food at reasonable prices. This happens to be the 30th annual event. They must agree with the "too much" thought as next year it is going to be 3 days.s

The campground is called Volunteer Park and it is technically located in North Knoxville. They have a nice facility, including what they call an opry building. During this period of the "Homecoming", they have "jam" sessions every night in this building. There are an amazing number of very good amateur musicians here in the park. Usually these sessions run from about 7 to 9. This week, they have been running until 11, but last night, they went to almost midnight. I finally decided to join in and did "Grandfathers clock" on the Banjo and "Believe me if all those endearing young charms" on the fiddle. Happily both came out well. There is a woman, that sketches the performers, and did mine and it is going to join the others on the wall along with Don Tober, from Buffalo who was here in Oct 2007.

We learned that some of the people know Chuck Hardwick from Satsuma very well. Their names are Don Norris and Jan, and Jim Koffman.

The cat has not enjoyed all aspects of the trip, but is getting antsys.She figures something is up. We plan to leave the festival about 3-4, and head for Florida. Maybe 200 miles toay, and the rest Monday, getting into Satsuma by daylight Monday. Will report in then, after we get our dsl back on.

on the road to Florida

so much has taken place lately, it is all a blur. We presently are in a campground in Knoxville North, which is about 15 miles North of Knoxville. The trip down was about 600 miles, almost exactly half of the trip to Florida, when going on I-75. The weather was great until late in the day when light rain began to fall.

The motorhome ran great, the cat was good, and now we get a chance to slow down. We have four days of music, and old time crafts, etc. Also here with us is Jerry and Shirley Burkley and Roger and Claudine Vaillancourt of the fiddle club.

Prior to leaving we completed the closing of Lakeside, the Vikings, and Tuesday morning, Ripley. We worked all day Monday, took time off in the evening to visit the casino in Erie, with Lester and Sue then spent all morning Tuesday until we were ready to leave about 11:00 AM, so we did.

On Saturday, Janice and Don went with us to Dereks' house to celebrate our annual early Christmas. Greg and Judy showed up, which was great, as some of us were not sure he really existed(refer to earlier blog). Jerry and Alison and Shawn and Cheyenne were there as were Derek, Liza, Charlotte, Grace and Eli(Duh!) everybody seemed to have good time.

Sunday was the day we completed the Viking Shutdown, then attended the Viking Trailer Association fund raiser. Lester and Sue, and Sues' mother, Ray and Luella and Betty Jean Rideout Johnson. Janice won $50, and Derek won $100, otherwise the rest of us were "losers". Following the fundraiser everyone except Ray and Luella came to Ripley where we were fed by , who else? Laura. It was great to see Janice and Don up north. They flew up to assist Norma in her trip down to Florida. They left Monday morning and arrived in Raleigh on Tuesday afternoon. you will to go to Normas blog for detail

The rest of the time was a blur, as we had to bring in the tractor, golfcart, and Windstar batteries to keep from freezing, check tire pressures on the motorhome, load the wheelchair on top, load the motorhome with all the stuff and food going to florida, secure all the doors, shut down the upstairs furnace, set the downstairs furnace, disconnect all the electrical devices, remove all three computers and the dish receiver, and numerous other details. Is it all worth doing. After arriving in Florida, it sure is!