VACATION - Roof Leak - Two Days of Travel - then HOME!!!!

First, I would like to mention our son, Mike, would have been 30 years old today.

We miss you Mike...  and think of you every day. 

We wish there was another wedding, 

another daughterinlaw, 

another pile of grandtots to love. 

(we are home safe and sound as I type this --- trying to catch up the blog) 

My last blog left off on Tuesday with our good-byes to the folks --- and heading out of Florida about noon.  As we drove up near Lake City, we pulled into the Camping World to pick up some Dicor caulk for a leak that had developed around the antenna mount on our roof.  Many RVers' experience shows that Dicor is the best stuff out there for RV roofs, it stays pliable but doesn't break down under UV conditions.

As we pulled into the Camping World lot, we could not drive all of the way around the building to the RV customer parking area because there was a big truck unloading freight. We were directed wayyyy over to their far sales lot to park out of the way.  Oh well.  But a worker scooted up to us in his golf cart, and offered us a ride to the store!  Wheeeeeee talk about Customer Service!

Probably they give any customer who pulls up in a 16 year old motorhome the Royal Treatment in hopes they buy a new one?  LOL

Anyhow, we looked around at stuff in the store, grabbed our Dicor tube, and then asked at the service dept. to borrow a caulk gun so Steve could do the repair right in the lot.  "Of course" they said!  (hoping he's disgusted with our 16 year old rig and buys another?)   LOL again.

Steve has our collapsible ladder on board all of the time, so click click click he was set up and on the roof in 2 seconds flat to do the job.  Easy Peasy.  There was rain in the forecast that night, so we wanted to get the leak taken care of right away. This is an older pic, just so you can see the ladder from Ace Hardware called Xtend & Climb.

We brought back the caulk gun to the service department on our way out of the Camping World lot, and said our goodbyes with a thankful wave, but we kept our pennies in our wallet and didn't buy another motorhome.  Haha.

We drove on up Hwy I 75 to get going again, and saw this poor fellow having a rough day.  There was another truck stopped nearby and two guys sitting inside, so we assume one of them was from this truck.  An orange cone was set on gravel behind it, but cars and trucks kept whizzing by, some not even slowing down to gawk.  Not a firetruck or policeman yet on the scene.  I would have been scared to drive right next to it in case of explosion!

It was in the southbound lane and we were wayyyy over in the northbound lane across the median strip.  I had to zoom way in to get this pic, and cropped out all the surrounding stuff.  Even then, I felt funny about going past it, but nobody in the southbound lane was even slowing down or considering a blow up or flinging metal through the air?

We drove north out of Florida while munching on oranges from the fruit market, watching our Streeets and Trips computer GPS tick away the miles as we entered Georgia.

 Goodbye, Florida! 

Thank you for sharing your sunshine and warmth with us for a month! 

We drove on up near Perry GA and got fueled up.  Diesel fuel in Georgia is cheaper than anywhere else on our route home, so we topped off our tank and headed towards Atlanta.

We reached Atlanta about 8 pm, and took the route right through town. Semi trucks are all required to go around the town on the bypasses, but cars and RV's can go through the middle (shortest route).... 

We have done this before, and knew we could do it, but whizzing past us at night with cars in every lane, sometimes 8 lanes wide, and I swear those lanes are narrower and tighter!  Our motorhome is a "wide body" design of 102 inches, plus the mirrors, and we sure felt every inch as we squeezed on through that town! 

We found a comfy,  out-of-the-way spot at a Walmart near Cartersville, we were tired and gratefully pulled into a good spot.  We met a nice couple in a fifth wheel from Ontario as we headed into the store to ask permission.  (we always ask permission and thank the store for their accommodations) 

401 miles driven Tuesday

We woke up Wednesday about 7 am, refreshed and ready to hit the road.  We didn't have too far to travel today, just 175 miles up to Heiskell, TN, a small town 30 miles north of Knoxville. 

It was rainy and wind gusting as promised, and getting worse as the day went on.  We heard later that wind gusts had caused power outages among thousands around the Knoxville area, but that must have been after we were through.   We had a nice tail wind that was giving us 9.2 to 9.5 mpg readings on our Silverleaf diagnostic computer on the Safari.  Kinda neat technology for a rig that is 16 years old to have one.  It reads all the output levels and temps and pressures, plus tracks your average usages on fuel and instantaneous consumption use while driving. 

So at the end of the day, our readings were:

53.7 average mph   

314 miles driven since last fuel up  

33.7 gal used   

9.3 mpg average

61627 total miles on our motorhome

(plus all the current readouts on pressures, temps, and speed)

We got settled into the Escapees Park at Racoon Valley, just off I-75 north of Knoxville.  We unhooked the tracker and headed over 3 miles to my good friend Linda Baldwin's house. I saw these wonderful signs of SPRING in her yard and had to take a pic of them! 

There are two other miraculous signs of SPRING in Linda's little farm yard.... two new baby goats!!!  They are sooooo sweet!   And Linda scooped one up to let me hold it... awwwwwwww

(he was telling me secrets) 

These two sweet babies were born during the last few weeks since our visit on the way down to Florida. I am so glad we were able to stop by and see the result of that big huge mommy goat's belly!

Here is proud Farmer Linda with her offspring.  Both already have homes waiting for them when they are weaned off of momma at 8 weeks.  They are crosses of Nigerian Dwarf and Angora and will produce lovely fiber to spin on our spinning wheels.  Linda and I are both weavers, spinners and knitters.  Very Fibery Folks!

Just look at that sweet face!!!

The silvery white on this little boy is wonderfully marked ... the stripes along both sides of the head,, then fringey silver feathery wisps with black centers on the legs.  The little dots on the ears match the tiny dots across the top of the nose!

Here is Linda's Just Kidding Farm... ain't it sweet? 

Linda has been a friend of mine for a very long time. 

We met on the Internet! GASP!  

(It was on a weaving list and we have been sharing and creating together ever since)

Max, her Great Pyrenees dog who guards the goats from coyotes, wolves 

and nasty neighbor boys who try to torment the goats!

Two years ago, Linda bought a Newcomb Studio rug loom from me.  Now she would like to sell it back to me to make some room in her studio for another loom she just bought.  Sooooo we hauled out the tools and Steveio helped us disassemble the loom.

Ahhh this is where I belong, under the loom, tearing it apart piece by piece, carefully saving the threading so I can assemble it again fully warped and ready to weave.

The loom was quickly loaded up into the Tracker, and the other looms re-arranged to take up it's space in the studio. I will do a separate blog post on Linda's weaving studio at a later date. I took a bunch of pics of her special place and will share them later. 

We went out for a nice dinner and enjoyed an evening of laughter and good stories.  Soon it was nearing 8 pm and we were taking up valuable space in the restaurant.  Time to head out, we were very tired and said our goodbyes.  We drove back to the RV park and hit the sack, totally worn out, but locking our Tracker with my valuable loom safely inside. Ahhhh

We got up early, dumped our tanks, and headed out of the park.  It was time to put on some MILES....  we looked at the weather and Thursday was good to travel north from Tennessee, but Friday was going to be windier and some gusts of 30-35 miles per hour!  Moving a 40 foot long rectangle down the road in wind is not a fun task....   So Steve decided we should put on some miles and see how far we can get.  Home is 700 miles away, but we didn't want to drive that far... or so we thought! 

Through Kentucky.... zoom zoom.... Through Indiana ... zoom zoom .... into Illinois.... zoom zoom....

We hit Chicago during rush hour about 5 pm.  Oh well, let's wing it. If we get slowed up in traffic, I could get up and fix supper while we wait.  NOT!  We breezed right through!  Only in one part did we slow up a bit to 45 before a toll booth, but then it smoothed out again.  After $15.85 in toll fees spread among the five stops, we just blew on through Illinois. By 6:26 we were entering Wisconsin!  

By golly we were going to make it home from Tennessee to Wisconsin in one day! 

We did take one more break in a parking lot at Port Washington, to make up a quick supper on board.  We fired up the generator to use the microwave and warm up some shredded chicken we had in the freezer.  I took out some of those fresh Florida tomatoes and made up a batch of delicious tacos for our last supper on the road.

We let the dogs out to do their thing and oh my... it was a huge snowbank surrounding the entire parking lot!  No more sandy Florida ground, no more grass, no more springtime.

 "Where are we supposed to pee????"

Tossed the dogs back into the rig, and went the last 70 miles home in the dark.  We sure do not like travelling after dark.  The headlights are dimmer in the Safari than they should be, due to a problem in the original design.  We don't often drive at night, so we never considered re-working them.  Steve is now researching the "fix" that many Safari owners have done to increase the voltage drop and rerouting new wires through some relays to make them work at their normal capacity.  Just replacing the headlights with brighter LED bulbs don't make any difference, we have to do the rewiring to fix the problem.

We cruised in the last few miles, with relief and thankfullness... knowing our rig drove us flawlessly for 2,613 miles.  We pulled into our waiting yard, with very little snow on the ground.  We had called the neighbors ahead of time to see if we needed to alert the plow guy to come and clear a path for us. The new parking pad in the back was still frozen solid, so we didn't have to worry about sinking into the gravel.  The rig was parked, and we unloaded a few freezable things into the house as the dogs rushed into their little fenced in potty yard to do their thing! Ahhhh home!  Steve put a small heater in the water compartment bay to keep things from freezing up, as the temps were hovering at 32 degrees.

We carried up the two doggie bed pads into our bedroom, 

and both doggers gratefully went to bed...

at HOME! 

TRIP STATS 

Average speed 52.9 mph

Average mileage 8.9 mpg

293 gallons of diesel used

2613 total miles traveled 

$1,137.00 cost of fuel for our trip

MEMORIES----- PRICELESS!!!

VACATION- 3 States In A Day

Woke up this morning about 4 a.m.  We knew the temps dropped below zero overnight in Indiana where we had holed up for the night.  We had frost around the inside metal frames of all the windows and the door.  So Steve decided to get up at 4:15 and fire up the generator to plug in the electric heater too.  Brrrrrr

So now that he was wide awake, why let ME sleep??  Soon the dogs were wanting to go out, and all was cold and frosty outside.  And INSIDE???? well, due to the condensation inside all the moisture of the propane heater, and after perking coffee on the stove, plus boiling a tea kettle to have wash water for our faces.... the front windows all frosted up on the INSIDE!

Seriously...  it was frosted thick on the INSIDE.....  (we have had this happen other years before on the first night on the road in February, so it wasn't a surprise)    Steve couldn't sleep and saw the traffic moving well on the interstate, so wanted to head out early.  He fired up the engine and turned on the defrost blower on HIGH.  We have two rotating fans to help spread the warm air, and we have two large fans called O2 Cool fans that we set on each corner to also help move the air around.  Soon we were on our way.

We drove till about 6:30 a.m. and pulled over at a nice wayside to make up some breakfast.  The roads had been clear, but now were having a layer of a mist or humidity on them.  The skies were clear blue and no clouds, but the moisture was possibly making slick driving surfaces and we saw more cars in the ditches.  Not sure if they were new ones just crashed in or leftover cars from last night.  By the time we were done with breakfast, the sun was up and shining bright, and the pavement was clear and dry! 

We drove on towards Columbus, Indiana and pulled off the interstate into a parking lot of a big commercial factory that was closed for the day.  Steve found a nice spot in the sunshine for parking the rig, and we unhooked the Tracker.  It was my turn for a little Fiber Adventure!   I drove 10 miles of backroads, twisting and turning along till I reached my friend Chris Gustin's studio....  http://homesteadweaver.com/   I delivered some hugs to her from other weaving friends, and was introduced to her kind and friendly husband, Bob.  We chatted for a while and discussed various projects she was working on. 

She has a beautiful shop that has been featured in magazines and news stories.

She is also part of  the Brown County Artist Tour each year. 

We looked and ooh and ahhed together

 and every where I looked was something that I found fascinating 

or creative or just completely wonderful! 

The pic on the left below of her rugs wouldn't focus right on my camera, because of the texture of these great rugs, the camera didn't know what to focus on!   She also makes these beautiful mobius shawls in such pretty colors.

Besides selling wonderful items, Chris has three different areas set up with looms to take lessons on or enjoy watching her weave on them.  This loom of lovely cherry wood is sure a sweetie!

This is part of the new addition she added since last time I had been at her studio.  She has larger looms here and can weave wider rugs in this area.   The walls are lined with cones of every color of the rainbow! (artfully arranged of course)

Too soon, it was time for me to leave... .we hugged our goodbyes as Chris's husband Bob was loading my bags of goodies into the Tracker.  Shhhh do you think Steve won't see all that new yarn and stuff hidden in the back of the Tracker?  heh heh.

I wound my way back to a patiently waiting Steveio and doggers Finney and Duke.  They had taken a nap while I was gone and were now ready to get back on the road.  We hooked up the Tracker, double checked the connections and headed on south down the road again.  We were hoping to find places withOUT any snow... wonder how far south we have to drive to get away from it?

We drove into Kentucky....  nope, still snow.  Dangnabbit!  

As we crossed over the bridge into Kentucky,  I just leaned over with the cell phone and snapped this pic of a barge going up the river.  It came out pretty good at 50 mph taken on a whim between the posts of the bridge supports!

We drove on, and still was that danged snow snow and more snow on the ground.   Of course we had to snap some pics of this tunnel, I think I have pics of this same tunnel every time we go this way!

 It's not a long tunnel, but just kinda fun to say we went through one 

and saw the light at the end of the tunnel! LOL

We found these frozen waterfalls in the sections of cut through parts of the mountains very pretty... just flash frozen in mid stream.  How cool is that?

From there, we wound out way through narrow valleys and up on top of high hills.  After Jellico Mountain, we cruised our way down down down in the darkness until we entered Tennessee  (too dark for a pic of the sign, sorry!)

We knew where we were going...  just three miles from our friends Linda and Mark Baldwin's home is a nice little RV park run by the Escapees.  It's called Raccoon Valley RV Park   We had called ahead and they said pull in any time to any empty site and we can pay up in the morning.  How nice is that?


First off, we had to get the dogs out on their leashes to do their thing...  oh my were they ever surprised to see GRASS!!!!    It was not SNOW!   They were both so confused---  the last time they were out the door in Kentucky it was all snow, and now .. strangely.. it was grass???

How could this be?  Our magic motorhome brought us to some grass?

It was after dark as we got settled into our campsite, but we knew where to go and got leveled out and set up.  Once Steve plugged us in, I was able to make up some supper. It was now after 7 p.m. and we hate setting up in the dark.  Steve hooked up our water lines so we could take showers. but the temps are going to drop so we had to unhook the hose to stow away to prevent freezing.  Dang, our water pump is not priming and has some air in the lines from the big fresh water tank.  ACK!   He messed with it for a while, but gave up.  He can look at it more in the daylight and figure it out.

I just went to let the dogs out for one last time before bed... guess what??? 

IT'S SNOWING!!!!!!

409 miles traveled today

704 miles total