Snow in St. Joe, MO!

     After exiting the highway on our way to the RV park in Hannibal Friday afternoon I noticed a potentially good spot to take on diesel fuel on our way out of town Sunday morning. I usually fill up at truck stops where I can take advantage of my EFS fuel card discount. TA travel centers, in particular offer the best deal. However, we're no longer travelling the Interstate and the big truck stops are few and far between. There was a Love's further back on route 36 but I passed it up in hopes of finding a TA before reaching Hannibal. This small gas station had a single free-standing diesel pump and there appeared to be plenty of room for me to maneuver the coach in and out with the car in tow. To get to the diesel pump I would have to pull through the two islands of gasoline pumps so there was the possibility that I might have to idle in the street (or with the coach's back end and the car hanging part-way into the street) if there were cars at the pumps blocking my path. When I arrived at the station Sunday morning there was just one car at the pumps. He had finished fueling and was getting into his car. I left him plenty of space to exit around me but he very considerately backed away from the pump allowing me to pull forward and off the street after only a brief stop. Just one a-hole blew his horn during the 30 seconds my rear end was hanging out into the street. 

   Unlike the high-velocity truck stop pumps, this pump was  s l o w. I mean  s -  l -  o -  w ... and my 150 gallon fuel tank was reading 3/4 empty. It took a good twenty minutes to fill up... but at $1.89 a gallon, it was worth the wait! I love having a full tank of diesel fuel. 

   The 190 miles to St. Joseph, MO were uneventful and we arrived at Beacon RV Park around 12:30pm.    

   Umm... not The Ritz. 

   Every once in a while you end up at a park that just doesn't quite live up to your expectations... or the pictures on their website. This is just such a park. 

   But hey, the price is right and we have a full hookup. It could be worse.

   Actually, the entire city of St. Joseph is a little thread worn. Because of the towns historical roll in the creation of the Pony Express, I'm reminded of the old adage, "Ridden hard and put away wet". That pretty accurately describes downtown St. Joseph.  

   But there's a cool little museum here...

The Pony Express National Museum

   ... and Suzanne and I spent a couple of hours there learning all about the origin and operation of the Pony Express. One thing that struck me was that the oldest surviving P.E. rider lived to the ripe old age of 105, dying in 1955! That's just a year before I was born! A reminder that our country's history doesn't go back all that far.

   In other news...

   Yeah, it snowed overnight. Only about an inch... but snow nonetheless. 

   In anticipation of overnight temps in the upper 20s I disconnected from the water bibb and retracted the hose before calling it a night. We have a 90 gallon fresh water tank onboard so disconnecting from a parks water supply isn't an issue. 

   While we were in Hannibal I took care of a couple minor problems I've been having with the coach.       There are three control pods on the steering wheel...

 

   The one in the center allows for remote operation of the entertainment system (radio) and has been giving me problems for about a year. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I push the desired button a dozen times before it finally works. I took a half-baked whack at repairing it several months ago.. to no avail. This time I completely disassembled it, cleaned up some questionable looking areas on the circuit board and re-soldered a couple wires. It now works like a charm! I no longer have to reach over to the radio to adjust the volume, change stations etc. Ain't nobody got time for that!

   Also, my in-dash navigation has been barking directions at me for about a year which requires my entering the NAV menu on the radio and selecting like 3 options in order to shut him up. I have to repeat the procedure every time I shut the engine down and restart. Again, I've taken a couple half-assed swipes at fixing it over the past several months but nothing took. I finally reset the thing to the factory settings... and I haven't heard a peep since. I should mention that we purchased a Garmin Trucker GPS device a couple years ago that far out-performs the in-dash NAV ... and raised my comfort level significantly.

   Next "project"...

   So tomorrow we continue west on US36 to the small town of Belleville, Kansas (about 160 miles from here) where I'm hoping to spend the night at their first-come-first-served town park where they provide 50 amp electrical service and a water connection for 20 bucks a night. 

Fingers crossed.

   

   

Heading West...Again!

    

We returned from our last cross-country journey on June 1st, staying home just long enough to check a few items off our to-do list. On July 1st I underwent a cardiac ablation procedure to remedy an issue I've had much of my adult life with PVCs. It was an experience. 3 hours and 40 minutes in length, lots of impressive, futuristic looking equipment and a crew of around 8 medical professionals. General anesthesia tends to silence PVCs so they want you to remain conscious during the procedure. Needless to say I would have preferred to have been asleep and unaware of what was going on... but I got through it just fine and though I'm not completely PVC free, I'm feeling way better than I was prior to the ablation.

******

   The HVAC system in our townhouse finally gave up the ghost. Its replacement, an unexpected addition to the to-do list - but given its age, not completely unanticipated. 

   Both the coach and the SUV we tow behind it were overdue for their Virginia safety inspections so we took care of that. Although it passed inspection the tires on the SUV were about to 'age out' so I replaced them with four new Firestones. Suzanne had a doctors appointment and we both had dentist appointments. The dogs visited the vet and had their yearly vaccines. 

******

   In August we took the coach for a three week trip to Newport, Rhode Island by way of Phillipston, Massachusetts, where we paused just long enough to pick up a passenger, my mother. We had a great time in Newport made even more so with the arrival of Andy, Allie & Henry. They rented an apartment in  Newport for a week. 

   We hadn't seen my mom since she came to visit during Thanksgiving last year. We all had a wonderful time in Newport... and the weather couldn't have been better.

******

   Spending time with our kids, kids-in-law and grandkid was #1 on our to-do list and we were able to do plenty of that. In fact, after checking off all the to-do list items we loaded the coach for long-term departure and spent three weeks boondocking on a sizeable chunk of land my daughter and son-in-law purchased earlier this year. During our stay we were paid visits by family and friends on several occasions and had a great time enjoying 'the good life' at our own private RV resort! 

A Day of College Football

(Andy attended WVU)

   The property Andy & Allie own used to be a golf course. We parked the coach next to the old club house and were able to plug into a new 50 amp service installed a few days prior to our arrival (thanks to the best son-in-law in the world!) and connect to an outside water bibb. There was a 4" pvc septic tank cleanout 70' away - a distance far exceeding the length of my sewer hose. In addition, the pipe opening was at an elevation approximately 3' higher than the coach's waste tank outlet. Even if I had 70' of hose, gravity being what it is... it wouldn't have worked.

   For a while I've considered purchasing an RV waste water macerating pump for just such a scenario. The time had finally come to take the plunge... so to speak. The pump connects to the coach's waste outlet and propels the tanks contents, via an ordinary garden hose, to a point as far away as necessary provided that point is no more than 15' higher than the RV waste tank connection. 

Order placed...

... problem solved.

******

    "The Farm" as it is now referred to was a great place to spend a few weeks while making final departure preparations. And because it is in such close proximity to Allie & Andy's home, we were able to spend a lot of quality time with them and our grandson, Henry. However, with cold weather fast approaching it was time to point the coach toward the Southwest. So on Saturday 10/17 we retracted the  landing gear, rolled out of Frederick, Maryland and out onto I-15 north to the I-70 interchange where we made a hard left-hand turn... thus beginning our five week journey to Napa, California where we will spend Thanksgiving with Suzanne's sister and her family. From there, we'll continue south to Indio, California where we will wile away a good portion of the winter before returning home in March. My daughter is expecting grandchild #2 on April 15... so we'll be home in plenty of time for HIS (yep, it's a boy!) arrival.

   We spent our first night on the road at the Madison/Pittsburg SE KOA , a pleasant little RV park about 180 miles west of where we began our day. In fact, we spent the next day (Sunday) there as well so Suzanne could watch football. She loves her NFL.

    Two hundred miles further west on I-70 is the town of Galloway, Ohio - home of Alton RV Park - a very nice, well maintained little park not far off the Interstate and where we spent our third night on the road.

   Day 4 saw us another 170 miles further west and arriving at another KOA in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Not a bad park... but not a great one. Things were a little muddy from a couple days of heavy rain and two fellows on riding lawn mowers busied themselves for what seemed like hours "mowing" fallen leaves into smaller leaf bits. And then smaller bits. And smaller. Over and over the same ground they rode. Mowing & mulching. Mowing & mulching. You get the idea.

   There was a very cool local attraction in Crawfordsville however and we made sure to allow enough time to pay it a visit before the 1:00pm KOA checkout time. 

   The Rotary Jail Museum!

   The rotary jail seemed like a great idea when they started building them in the 1880s. However when sleeping inmates started losing appendages left casually dangling through cell bars as guards cranked the 2 story behemoth around to welcome or release a resident... they began having second thoughts.

   Regardless, they remained (18 in total) in operation well into the 20th century and this one in Crawfordsville made its final revolution in 1973. Pretty cool. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a rotary jail until a few days ago!

******

   Wednesday and Thursday nights were spent at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield, Illinois. Their 'campground' really more resembled a parking lot - but we had a full hookup - and at $20 a night hey, what the heck. 2.5 miles away was the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum. The museum was incredible and Thursday morning Suzanne and I spend a couple of hours taking it all in. There were a couple of holographic presentations that were amazing. If you're ever in the area, check it out. I highly recommend it!

    After exiting the museum we did the .6 mile walk to the Lincoln Home and restored neighborhood followed by an al fresco lunch at Obed & Isaacs, a lovely local restaurant. 

   It is now Saturday evening and we're in Hannibal, Missouri (of Mark Twain fame). We were here many years ago on a cross country trip with our kids when we moved from Napa, Ca to Summit, NJ. Suzanne tells me we stayed at this very same campground... I have no recollection. We arrived yesterday and this morning, after enjoying breakfast in the coach, drove into town and walked up and down Main Street, making a couple small purchases along the way. One store, the name of which escapes me, had quite an interesting selection of funky flavored sodas.

   And at a farm supply store where we stopped to buy dog food...

   Stay tuned for more...

 

  

 

On The Move!

     By the first of April most of the Canadians had left Indian Wells RV Resort for home and there were only about 35 residents remaining. The pools had been closed along with the fitness center, library and club house and people within the park were practicing social distancing. Despite the aforementioned closures, rising temps and the inability to cool off in one of the parks three swimming pools, it seemed as good a place as any to hunker down for a while longer and see what the next several weeks had in store vis-a-vis the Wuhan scourge.
     I ordered a couple of toys with which to amuse myself and others during lock-down, one of which was a drone... the other a video projector and screen.
     The drone was a lot of fun. I took a few in-flight videos and photos, none of which are worthy of posting here. When I get a little better behind the flight controls I'll definitely share some of my aerial photos and videos.
     The drone is a Holy Stone HS-720. It has a 4K UHD camera with image stabilization and two batteries, each of which provide about 26 minutes of flight time. It's really a lot of fun... and was surprisingly inexpensive.
    The video projector was an inspired purchase! We originally thought we might watch one or two movies a week.... but it ended up being more like four or five! Suzanne, our friend Tim and I had a lot of fun watching movies projected onto the 120" screen I attached to the side of the coach via ultra strong suction cups.
    Ah... the suction cups.

                                                                                ******
    After our first movie I considered removing the suction cups but figured it would be much easier to leave them on and simply take the screen down at the end of the night. The screen has grommets at 12 locations around it's perimeter that I attached to the suction cups with metal key clips. The problem was that that side of the coach was exposed to the sun for much of the day - and temperatures were reaching the 105 degree range.  A couple weeks later I decided to dust off the exterior of the coach and upon suction cup removal saw this...

      I first tried rubbing one of the rings out by hand with rubbing compound... to no avail. Then I tried buffing with rubbing compound and my buffer (yes, I carry an electric buffer in the coach). No good. There had obviously been some sort of heat activated chemical reaction between the suction cup rubber and the clear coat. The resulting rings were set deep into the clear coat. I ended up wet sanding very carefully with 1000 grit, then 1500 and 2000 grit sand paper then buffing with rubbing compound and polishing compound. I still have a bit more work to do but I'm happy with the results. The more I did, the more comfortable I got and the more aggressive I was with sanding and buffing. Lesson learned.

   I'm not sure if it was due to the hours of sanding and buffing, but the next morning I woke up with a severely pulled muscle and spasms in my upper back and ended up spending the next 5 nights sleeping in the recliner in the coach's living room. I was miserable.  About a week in Tim hooked me up with his friend Vince at Avid Physical Therapy in Indio and with Vince's skillful manipulation and advice, I'm happy to say I'm feeling good as new. 

                             

                                                                               ******

     On May 16th and with heavy hearts, Suzanne and I bid farewell to Tim and his friend Kim and headed for the Interstate to begin making our way back to Virginia. We don't have to be home until June 20th when our daughter Allie and her husband Andy will be taking a three day vacation and Suzanne and I will be babysitting our grandson, Henry.  We're really looking forward to seeing Allie, Andy and Henry AND our son Aaron and his wife Molly. We've been away from home since early January and miss them all very much!

                                                                                ******

       Since leaving Indio we've spent time in Camp Verde, AZ, Sedona, AZ, a brief stop on Winslow, AZ and Durango, CO. We are now in Colorado City, CO and will be continuing on to Cheyenne, WY tomorrow morning. 

Sedona

Lunch Near Sedona

A Certain Corner...

Chillin' In Durango

Suzanne & Winnie Chillin' In Durango

Hiking In Durango

Clipping Coupons

Pinkerton's Hot Springs

(I passed this on my morning bike rides)

Yesterday Afternoon At Pueblo Colorado's Riverwalk

Bishop's Castle

(Click HERE to read about it!)

 Thanks for checking out the blog!

Pandemics Suck!

     I really need to make an effort to do this on a more regular basis. It's time consuming as hell composing a blog recounting events over the past several weeks - and just a little taxing on my memory. Maybe that's a good thing.
     I won't even attempt to assign dates to the following photos - but I should be able to arrange them in chronological order.

     Let's get started...


     Suzanne and I spent an afternoon in Palm Springs (a few weeks ago). The beard I've been cultivating since November was in serious need of professional maintenance and Gentlemen's Barbershop seemed like it might be just the ticket.

     After my trim we strolled along Palm Canyon Drive in search of a place to have lunch - finally settling on Bongo Johnny's. It was a beautiful, warm desert afternoon and we were given our choice of tables on their second floor veranda. Ten minutes in we realized our table choice was ill advised and we required a bit more shade. Luckily there were several vacant tables, one of which had just the right combination of sun and shade.

     It was a great day for a walk so after lunch Suzanne and I did some window shopping along Palm Canyon Drive - stopping in at a few of the more interesting establishments to peruse the merchandise.
   
     Find Your Feet, a purveyor of socks (and nothing but socks) was one such institution.

     We bought three pair. Great gifts!

                                                                            ******

     A few days later, Suzanne and I had breakfast at Acqua California Bistro in Rancho Mirage - a nice break from the usual Raisin Bran, Honey Nut Cheerios, oatmeal and granola menu items routinely served up in the coach.

******

     We visit a lot of interesting locales in our travels and have a couple magnetic boards mounted to the wall in the coach where we display our collection of magnets. They're a fun reminder of places we've been.  

     But I digress...

     

                                                                             ******

     Our daughter, Allie, her husband, Andy and their baby, Henry flew out to La Quinta...

 ...and rented a house at PGA West. Andy had business in California and rather than spend the week alone back home in rural Maryland, Allie and the baby came along. It was wonderful seeing them and Henry was able to meet his great-grandma and aunts, uncles and cousins he hadn't yet met. 

     And Suzanne and I got to babysit a couple times...

     It was sad to see them go at weeks end but we were so thankful for the opportunity to spend time with them, especially Henry. We hadn't seen them since leaving home in early January.

******

     In other news...

                           Fajitas...

                           Friday morning Tamale Guy...

                          And this...

******

             There have been hikes...

                 

                  Lots of bike riding...

                

                     And social distancing...

     We are scheduled to leave here April 8th but are considering staying on until May... or longer, depending on how all this coronavirus stuff shakes out.

     Pandemics suck!

Thanks for checking out the blog!