We are still at Wilderness Lakes, until tomorrow, and it is an incredibly beautiful day!!! It is a bit on the cool side, but the sky couldn't be any bluer, with a scattering of puffy white clouds above. God does such amazing artwork!
This is our RV in site 12, which is in the area we really like to be in. It has 50 amp service, and behind us is the nice park where we like to walk the dogs. The weather has been mild since we got here, but the evenings have been too chilly to sit outside. Our dear friends Almita & Rueben were here when we arrived, and we spent three wonderful afternoons with them. First they came over on Friday to visit, and we sat outside. Another day we went to their home and sat outside to play Mexican Trail, which Rueben won! Then this week they came over and we played RummyKube. Almita wont twice and I won once. It is always great fun when we get together.
We have enjoyed seeing the baby ducks and baby geese that have hatched and are growing up here in the park.
Sometimes when we are driving in or out of the park, we have to wait for them to move out of the streets here in the park, but it is still fun to watch them line up and follow mom across the street, with dad behind making sure not to lose any little ones! Today, Jim got out of the car to "herd" them along. I'm glad the protective pappa didn't decide to chase him away.
I am always happy to share reports of the excellent service we have gotten from many companies we have had the opportunity to do business with, but today my report is NOT favorable. First I will share a reminder that we DID know about, but one can forget things when one is having such a good time......and that's not good. Motorhomes need to be given periodic maintenance, just like any other home. That includes servicing the water heater at LEAST once a year, and many say every six months is better. We have a Suburban water heater, so we don't know the specifics for the Atwood water heater, if any of you have them. Ours has an anode rod, which the Atwood does not have. It collects the calcium and debris that you don't want to have accumulate inside the unit. Someone told me that Atwood requires draining and flushing every six months. Ours requires draining, flushing, and replacing the rod. Since we had not done that in, gee, I don't know how long, the water heater was becoming temper-mental and often would not light, or would light and then shut off with a very loud BANG! We called Brad Miller, who had done work for us before......with rave reviews from us, but he was backed up with work and would not have been able to get to us until next week, when we would not be here. That left us looking for another service person. We called Solutions RV, on Tuesday afternoon, and he said he could come out mid-afternoon on Wednesday. We waited, and waited and finally at 5 pm WE called him to ask when he would be getting here. He said that he had gotten behind, and wasn't going to be able to get here that day.....it would have been nice if HE had called to let us know that! He said he would come here "first thing Thursday morning." We said OK, and got up and ready early that morning......and we waited, and waited. Finally, at 11 am I called and got his voice mail. I was not happy but left him a message asking just when we could expect him to get here....since "first thing in the morning" had already come and gone. He called back at 11:15 am saying he was on his way and would be here within the hour. We waited, and waited, and at 2:15 pm we called yet again. He said he was almost here, and would be here within a few minutes. He FINALLY arrived a little before 3 pm. We had things we needed to do, and errands to run, so we were not happy at all! He did the service, but he didn't bring any kind of bucket to drain the mess from the water heater into.......we had expected he would have. Jim had a pail he used, but he still got a bunch of mess on our outside carpet. We are going to post it on our calendar to do it ourselves in the future. We will check the rod at 6 months, and drain and flush even if it doesn't need the rod replaced yet. Also, whenever we need any service, on it or anything else, we will wait for Brad Miller to be available to do the service we need!!!!
Last Saturday I saw, what I believed might be the Roadtrek RV of our friends Judy and Frank, so I sent her a text message, and sure enough, it was them. I called to invite them over for a dinner of my yummy 5 cheese mac and cheese that night. They said they'd love to come over, but that Frank's doctor had put him on a no dairy and gluten free diet, and Judy is a vegetarian too (so Frank rarely eats any meat). I said we'd figure out what I could feed them, and they came over. I served nice big baked potatoes with vegetarian chili (for them) and regular chili (for us). I bought some packets of veggie cheese for them to put on top and we had American cheese on ours. They were delighted and really enjoyed it. In fact, Judy said she had been wanting a baked potato for quite a while, but had not gotten around to having one. Since he couldn't have any kind of cake or ice cream for dessert, I made peach jello with chopped peaches in it, which they both enjoyed. They have been parking the RV in here, and staying for the weekend, then they have to drive to LA from Monday through Thursday for his cardiac rehab....which he finished on Thursday! YAY!!! So we planned on dinner together on Friday. I made them an all veggie spaghetti sauce (ours of course had meatballs and sausage) and served theirs over spaghetti squash. We had tried that a few years ago, when I was hoping we could eat a little healthier......but we didn't like that at all, so we had real pasta. I made lime jello with chopped pears and pineapple for dessert, and it was a hit! We were glad we had been able to get together with them this trip, and look forward to seeing them again when we get back here next week. I'm planning to make a salad dinner for three of us, and Jim will probably have a hamburger! Maybe I'll make French fried using our T-Fal Acti-fry that does not require using any oil (for frozen fries) or only 1 TBSP of oil for fresh potatoes.
Last week we set up and sold our magnetic jewelry here, and did fairly well, but yesterday we didn't have any sales. One man ordered a custom made quad bracelet (4 strands). I usually require payment in advance on the quads, but he said he'd have to go back to his motorhome to get the money, so I came back to ours to make it. When he came back, he asked to get it for a lower price, which I could not accept. The he asked if I would swap an anklet and necklace for one of his "autographed books" that he writes. I said no I couldn't do that either. He left saying he'd go get his money and be back, but we have not seen him yet. We know what site he is in, and plan to stop by this afternoon to see if he still wants his bracelet, but he's not getting it without paying the full price.
After the sales were over yesterday, we went inside the family center for lunch and candy bar bingo. We had an excellent day at that. Since our anniversary is this week (33 years together and still happy as ever!!!) we each got a candy for that, and we each won 3 bars, so we came home with a record (I think) of EIGHT candy bars in one day! That should last us until we get back here next week. LOL. It should, but knowing Jim, it won't.
We were going to go to Mountain Lakes today for a four day stay, and then down to the Garden Grove Elks lodge for four days, but we changed our minds. Instead, we are extending one day here, and will go directly to the Elks tomorrow for a seven day stay. That will save us gas, and will give us more time to see friends. It usually seems like we can't fit everyone in while we are there for just a few days.
We haven't figured out just when we will make a reservation to go to Mountain Lakes, but we will do it later in the year. When we go there, we'll stay at least one week, maybe two. That is always nicer than going some place and setting up, the after a couple days we have to begin packing up to leave again. It is a beautiful park and when we go there, I'll post lots of pictures of it.
Norm continues to recover at the hospital in Buffalo. Donna's youngest daughter got married in a small, private ceremony of the 15th of May to her long time beau and all are very happy about that. Tony is going to have cataract surgery on one eye this coming Tuesday. We are all well, and still waiting to get Jim in to see a VA doctor, hopefully when we come back next week, so he can get referred to an ophthalmologist to see about cataract surgery for him too.
I think that's all for today, so I will close, and as always, I will encourage all of you to enjoy life, it's short but sweet, because of all the glorious gifts from our Heavenly Father. If you get the chance to travel, see America, it's a wonderful place with much to see and enjoy. Keep the rubber side down and stay safe and well.
No comments:
Post a Comment