Thousand Trails RV Park - Lebanon PA

We arrived last afternoon Thursday, a bit on the exhausted side. Driving much over 200-250 miles a day is guaranteed to wipe us out, toss in rain and cold and you get a double whammy. It surprised us how warm it was while we set up so once done, showers were the order of the day. We came here for two reasons, first it wasn't out of our way and we had not used out Thousand Trails membership and second, to see our friends, Nick & Terry Russell and Greg & Jan White.

The drive from Indiana through Ohio and Pennsylvania was pretty, we were both surprised how many trees where changing. I snapped a few photos while following behind Stu and at one rest area (when it was actually sunny for a bit).

The only ones I snapped so far here at TT was coming in and grabbing a shot of all the Canadian Geese. LOL!

Friday was supposed to rain all day so all three couples pretty much hunkered down and did inside things. That meant Nick and I wrote, Terry worked on fabric/yarn or other creative things while Jan, Stu and Greg all watched TV and 'resticated'. LOL!

Yesterday was Greg and Jan's 45th wedding anniversary so we let them pick the restaurant. Fuddrucker's it was, followed by ice cream at Mazzoli Ice Cream Shop. As always, we had a great time, telling tales and laughing.

We've decided to stay an extra day. Stu's making a Sam's Club run and I'm working on my mystery novel. Life is good!

Moving on down the road....

[little leaf - fall is here]

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we got our repairs at Mor-Ryde done by 2pm on Monday. Managed to catch our mail forwarding before it got sent to Elkhart and sent it on its way to Delaware. That meant, no reason to stay in Elkhart...so, we hit the road.

We didn't go far the first night, spent the night Wallydocking. We made it about 180 miles on Tuesday and stayed at a Flying J. We stopped early, eating a late lunch/early dinner, the weather was nasty and there was plenty of room at the back of the lot.

Indiana - old vs new

We got on the road by 10:30 today, I know, not an early start for most of you but it works for us. LOL! It rained all night and most of the day which made the 250 miles even more tiring for us. We stopped to Wallydock in Clarion, PA.

Tomorrow we'll check into Thousand Trails in Hershey area for two nights. Our good friends Nick & Terry Russell and Greg & Jan White are there for a while. It wasn't out of our way and we've never used our TT membership. Seemed like the thing to do!

Sadie found the sun

Saturday morning we'll move onward to Delaware where we'll be family-docking in Stu's oldest daughter's yard, at least for a couple of weeks. We have a lot going on while we're there. Stu's youngest daughter is getting married - a Halloween themed wedding.

Plus we have a ton of medical, dental, hearing and vision appointments to get done. That means blogging will be slow...but I'll try to post weekly. Honest!

The story of a cat - MISTER cat

I know I said I'd tell you about the cat named MISTER, so here's the story.

My parents decided to take me out to meet the neighbors. Some of them had met me before, like Mr. Nick and Miss Terry. But not every one. I knew they'd love me. I didn't know there would be a CAT there.

Yeah, you heard right. A CAT. Not just any cat, a cat named MISTER.

I was SO good...I sat there and just listened and watched to all the grown-ups.

 Then I heard a sound...and I smelled something in the air.

You guessed it, MISTER was on the table across from me.

I wanted to go visit but I got told to stay. So I did, not happy though.

MISTER got to go rub all over the grown-ups.

That's not fair! But mommy and daddy said that sometimes life isn't fair.

THAT SUCKS!

---

Sniffing and lickingly yours,
Sadie

Cloudy, wet and cold!

It was Wednesday before I felt like doing much, hate being sick. But we did get out to the RV Hall of Fame for our first visit. They were having a huge event on the premises, something for dealers, but the museum wasn't busy. I took a few photos and rather than clutter this post you can see them in our SmugMug album.

We stopped at Firehouse Grill and Lounge for a late lunch. It was pretty good and we liked the ambiance and decorations.

With all the storms coming and going, there have been some pretty sunsets, I manged to catch the tail end of this one. Should have gone outside earlier. LOL!

Stu has stayed busy with indoor chores (and a few outside when the weather cooperated). One thing was replacing the reading lights over our bed. He reads with his Kindle Fire that has a backlight, I read with my Kindle Touch that doesn't so a light is needed. Initially he replaced the bulb in mine, still wouldn't work. So he pulled it out and cleaned up the contacts and when he saw how bad they were he pulled out his, too. Both were beyond cleaning so being in the RV Capital of the US, he picked up a couple of new fixtures and installed them.

Right now it's cloudy, wet and COLD! We went down to 38 degrees last night with the same or colder forecast for tonight with a high of 55 degrees. Brrrrr.....

Sadie never saw her little pug friend again, suspect the weather had something to do with that. That's not to say that she hasn't had her outdoor time, even if she did have to wear her favorite sweatshirt to stay warm.

We have been staying in touch with our online friends,  Dick & Melissa Secor . Initially both Melissa and I were sick, then the weather was too bad for a nice outside visit so we made plans to meet at Bob Evans for lunch. They had never been and we've always loved it. We hadn't been inside for ten minutes yesterday when the deluge started and quickly turned to hail. (We had more hail later in the day but nothing damaging.)

We love meeting RVers in person that we've followed in blogs. We spent over two hours chatting, stopping only for a bite or two of food. They've lived in some interesting places and just returned from a two week trip to England. We really enjoyed hearing about it all and before we left we made plans to hopefully touch base this winter in Florida.

Stu has spent this morning getting all the outside chores done so we can make a quick move in the morning. It takes me maybe 15 minutes to do the inside stuff which I start as soon as I get out of the bed. LOL! We'll splurge with breakfast out once we get registered at Mor-Ryde for our repairs. Keeping our fingers crossed that 1) they can fix the issue and 2) that it will be covered by their or our extended warranty.

Once we're done there, we will come back to Elkhart Campground for a night or two to pick up our mail and get ready for the trek eastward to Maryland for the month of October.

One last note for those of you interested in my attempt at writing my first novel. You can read an excerpt on my writing blog HERE. I'm about 10-12k from finishing the first draft, then starts the real work - editing!

First week in Elkhart

Wow, where has the week gone? The only major things accomplished are getting the first 8 loads of laundry done, doing another 6 today. Okay, so they are small loads. LOL!

Thursday was my 65th birthday and I got a not so nice present when I woke at 5:30am - a bladder infection. Sigh. Welcome to Medicare and old age. LOL! I emailed our primary care doctor back in Maryland and by 1:00 was on medication. Friday I rested and Saturday thought I felt good enough for my birthday movie date. We went to see ParaNorman (cute movie) and Resident Evil: Retribution (great continuation of the series, left us hanging and waiting for another sequel). We stopped at Bob Evans for dinner and I couldn't eat all mine.

Arrived home with a sore throat and felt really tired. By 9:30 we had headed to bed and by 11pm we were both asleep. I had a restless night, lots of aching, tossing, turning, weird dreams - didn't get up till noon. Really exhausted today so guess I overdid it yesterday.

My book is still unfinished (another 10-15k needs to be written0, maybe I can do a little writing this afternoon while Stu runs errands.

Sadie had a visitor this morning, a year old pug slipped his collar and came over to play. He's 29# to her 40# and he took no guff off her. They had a blast! The owner plans to bring him back for another play date. I'll try to snap a photo or two.

My good online friends Dick & Melissa Secor are here at the campground, parked not far from us. He is a painter (I am proud to own one of his small paintings of sand dunes) and she is a children's book writer (and the one who introduced me to the April A-Z Challenge that I did last year). They are here for repairs, too. We had hoped to meet this weekend but guess it will wait a couple more days. Sigh...

Elkhart Indiana for a bit...

"Where did Daddy go?"

On Monday we finally pulled out of the Mercer County Fairgrounds in Celina, OH after a great breakfast with Nick & Terry Russell and Jan & Greg White. We really enjoyed our time there and if we are ever close to the area on our travels, we'd stay there again. Great Passport America/Good Sam rates.

We didn't get on the road till almost one in the afternoon and had a three hour drive without stops. Of course, you know we had to stop, pee, coffee and a last minute door closing on Freddie. We pulled into the Super Wal-Mart and did a night of Wallydocking (yes we shopped - yes we bought stuff - LOL).

Tuesday around ten we rolled into the drive of the company that manufactures our replacement electrical switch. When our solar was installed they used one from Iota that has since been recalled and has caused some major issues. Ours melted and the replacement switch had different wiring.

The two techs spent ninety minutes, determined to figure out what was needed to make the installation work. They knew nothing about solar but finally found one spot that needed rewiring and showed Stu how to permanently fix the last item needed. We are finally working correctly again....maybe our solar panel won't be so wonky. LOL!

From there we headed to Elkhart Campground and checked into a nice, long, level pull-through spot. We're set for the next two weeks. Stu got the trike unloaded, set up chairs and the back awning with sunscreen. Life is good.

Then today arrived....early for me. I just don't think you should wake up on your 65th birthday with a bladder infection, but that's the way it was. Sigh....emailed my doctor in Maryland and he called in a prescription for me. Rested all day while Stu ran errands and babied me. Hoping to feel good enough on Saturday to go to the movies, maybe even a double header!

We'll be here till the morning of the 24th when we move over to the Mor-Ryde facility here in Elkhart to get that system looked at and hopefully repaired.

BRAT Take Two

I thought I had posted about our new BRAT but looking through the archives, I don't see anything. The original BRAT was getting refurbished by our son-in-law when we came across a deal that was too good to pass up. Thanks to several friends, the new trailer was taken from TX to LA where we picked it up in June of 2010.

Here are some photos from that day (using Stu's 2009 Tri-Glide, now replaced with a 2012 Tri-Glide).

Recently Stu took the spare tire and mounted it underneath. Previously we carried it inside the compartment, not an optimal spot. He said it mounted very easily and it looks great!

We put all our camping stuff together and it takes up maybe half the compartment, leaving us plenty of room for our luggage (clothing, etc).

We still plan to take Sep-Oct 2013 for our trip so as that time gets closer, we'll post here with further preparations.

Ride safe,
Stu and Donna

We Come and We Go

Now that Fire Lily Base Camp is all set up for us, we will come and go twice a year - spring and fall will be our seasons there until we decide to stop full-timing. All the utilities are in, including a landline so we could get DSL. That is the only utility that we have put on vacation mode, saves us quite a bit of money. The others have hefty fees so we just locked up the access points. I haven't updated our cost spreadsheet but hope to soon and will post the results for those interested.

I have uploaded a lot of photos to our SmugMug Albums, feel free to browse around. Here are a few I took as we left...compared to our setup photo.

We will be back on the property in November, staying till some time in December. We loved staying there and look forward to visiting again. 

Still rolling,
Stu and Donna