Sweet Home Alabama

   Sweet Home Alabama. Well it’s not exactly home but it’s where we are living right now while the rest of the country is in a deep freeze.

   Our time spent in Asheville was quite nice spending time with friends and family over the holidays but with freezing temperatures most of the time that we were there, it wasn’t a lot of fun dealing with things like frozen pipes. These RV’s aren’t really made for cold weather living, but we survived the 7 weeks that we were there.

   When we left Asheville, we made a three day stop in Nashville, TN and spent New Years with some friends and then headed south to the gulf coast to get out of all things frozen.

   Since I do all of the driving, I wanted to stop and rest for a while. I  figured that south Alabama would be a good place to do that. Our home for he next several months is the Magnolia Springs Golf and RV Resort just north of Gulf Shores Alabama. We’ve already been here two weeks and I’m finally sitting down to blog for the first time in months.
   In the time that we have been here, the weather has bounced around quite a bit. It got down to 26 and 27 two consecutive nights but was in the mid forties during the day. Today was really nice, Deb and I took Molly down to the beach and walked for about an hour. I was hot and sweaty by the time we got back to the truck. I guess 65 degrees and bright sunshine will do that to a person. It’s pretty weird walking on the beach here, everybody is from Wisconsin.

   The first weekend that we got here I went out knocking on doors to gain permission to hunt. I talked to nine landowners and got permission from seven of them. It seems that there are a lot of wild pigs in this area and they are causing a lot of property damage. I was told that they are very difficult to hunt and if you put a little pressure on them, they simply leave the area and take up residence elsewhere.

   After about 4 hours of hunting, I had already seen about 30 and killed two. Yes, they are difficult to hunt because they live in the thickest nastiest brush that you ever want to see and just because you see them doesn’t mean that you will have an opportunity for a shot because the brush is thick and they don’t stop moving for more than a second or two.

   After killing two pigs, I thought that I would donate the meat to a local charity but I found out that there are no local donation programs available for pork. They will take all the venison you can give them but no pork. Since the area has a pig problem, you would think that they could solve two problems at the same time by making it easy to donate pork to the needy.

Not only could I not find a donation program, I then spent several hours figuring out that there weren’t any pork processors here either. I found out that the State of Alabama quit allowing people who cut up deer to do pigs anymore. I’m sure that they had a reason but it sure seems counterproductive to me. I had to drive 50 miles to a processor in Florida to have my pigs cut up. I’m sending the meat home so it’s waiting for us when we get there.

The next little piggy is going on a big smoker for a pig roast here at the RV park.

A Very Merry Christmas Indeed

For all of you who have logged on here this holiday season, welcome and a very merry Christmas to you all!

If this is your first time here you may want to do some catching up, feel free to read the preceding entries as it will fill you in on our travels for the last 6 months. Wow, we have been living in an RV for 6 months!!

We arrived back home right before Thanksgiving and have been running here and there ever since. I don't mind saying, there really is no place like home. We have spent alot of time with Pat and Robin  and Mathew. Robin is aprox. 4 months and 1 week into her pregnancy. She has just a little baby bump and has only gained 5 pounds. She'll probably be one of these women who just gains baby weight and then as soon as she  is born Robin will look like she did before. They are finding out the sex of the baby in a few days, of course either sex will be totally ok, but I am rooting for a girl until we know for sure. To be able to buy girlie baby things would be so much fun!!  Patrick of course has been super busy with his Tree business. Thank God in this economy his business is on fire, he must be doing something very right.

Mathew has  been making lifechanging decisions and  has been  setting in motion a new course for his life. I don't want to talk about it prematurely and jinx it. Hopefully I can let the cat out of the bag  sometime in early 2011. We support his new direction whole heartedly.

We haven't seen Jim and Eliott  since we have been home, Jim's business is keeping him extremely busy and it is thriving. We are so happy for him!  We will be spending plenty of time with them in the weeks to come. We sure do miss our little guy, Eliott.

What the heck is going on with this weather?!!  We are in a deep freeze, lows in the teens at night. This is not good when you live in a camper. Currently our cold water is frozen , and we can't dump any of our tanks as they are frozen shut. This week end may be back up in the 40's so we hope to thaw out.

Some of you may be wondering about our future plans. We have the next 6 months figured out. From here we are going to Foley, Alabama in the last week of December. This is located near the Gulf Shores area. We'll be there aprox. 6 weeks then on to St. Augustine, Florida for another 6 weeks then up to a favorite spot in Tennessee for two weeks. Then we are coming back to North Carolina in April to be here for the birth of newest grandchild, we will stay here awhile but do not know exactly what that means at this time.

Life on the road has been interesting to say the least, at times it has been difficult. Probably because we aren't around the day to day lives of our kids and of course we miss our close friends.   I guess you could also say that the silver lining is we have given our kids the space from us that they need to make their own ways in the world. We sure have met some very special people out there and seen so many great, beautiful places that this continent has to offer. We have barely scratched the surface, so I guess we will be doing it for the remainder of 2011.  We have seen  a lot of beautiful campgrounds and thought that would make a great business to get into, so who knows, maybe thats something we will settle into next. 

One thing is for sure and that is, our lives are ever changing. Some change we control, some we do not. For us, we just try to to make  every day count. For you never know what tommorrow will bring. So on that note, Rob and I sincerely wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas. May each and every day bring you all the blessings you deserve.

With all the negative news that we are inundated with  on a daily basis it's easy to feel like we are living in a bad bad world.  I am here to tell you, we are not. We have been working at the Salvation Army Angel Tree almost daily since we got home.This is the most needy season we have had  in many many years with over 2000 kids we are trying to help. In all the years I have been doing this I have never seen so many people step up to help, all 2000 kids are currently taken care of  and the people keep coming wanting to do more. When times are tough people show their true nature, maybe  that's why we have to have the tough times.
If goodness is what is missing from your life, then be the goodness.

Learning as we go

On our trip from Memphis to Branson, we relied on our GPS to provide the route. That would have probably been O.K. if we were driving a car and would certainly been ideal if we had been riding a motorcycle, but hauling a 40' trailer is not something that you want to do on a road with a hundred 35mph curves. The drive was memorable enough that we never left camp while we were there and never actually got into Branson. We did enjoy our time on Table Rock Lake.
Two days and 700 miles later we set up in Mitchell, SD and found a host of very friendly people. The Corn Palace Rodeo was well worth the trip and the time that we spent there was some of the best on our journey up to this point.
Having learned about GPS navigation by driving around in circles on a couple of occasions, we used mapquest and a good old fashioned highway map for our trip from Mitchell to Osakis, MN. At one point, the GPS told us to take a different Interstate so I looked at the map and saw that the route was just a little shorter with what looked like comparable state roads and followed the GPS.
35 minutes later, we found ourselves on State Hwy 34 just west of the MN state line in eastern SD driving on a dirt road. The road started out rather rough with plenty of patched potholes but the total distance that we needed to travel on this road was only about 20 miles so I kept driving. It was about 8 miles later having driven half that distance kicking mud up on the front of our 5th wheel that the sign said "Road Closed" with no signs directing us where to go from there. Again I sougfht Garmin's help and was directed about a mile to the next easterly dirt road. The difference being that Hwy 34 was under construction. This new road was dirt from the beginning as evidenced by the strip of grass growing down the middle of it.
I stopped the rig right in the middle of the road, pulled out the good old road map and found another route which only took us about 6 miles out of the way. No harm done, lesson learned.
We hit Hwy 23 east and after a short 30 minutes started looking for a place to eat lunch. A familiar sign greated us at the next two towns that we came to. "Road Closed" and after being diverted past all of the places to eat, we finally pulled over on the side of the road and Deb made peanut butter sandwiches while I let the dogs run.
We are now set up at Linwood Resort on Lake Osakis and I'm looking forward to getting out on the lake to catch some Walleyes. In about 3 days Deb's whole family will be here so we are both looking forward to making some great memories.

12 days on the road

After 12 days on the road, I figured that it was about time that I had a little input on this blog.
From the first time that I took the 40' 5th wheel accross our little country bridge, I was a little concerned about getting it back out because of a hill straight across the road and railings on the bridge that I thought the rear of the trailer would swing out and hit because of having to turn so sharply. All my fears were eliminated and it came out easily (with two spotters watching). I then drove about 5 miles to our local Walmart where I planned to meet Deb after her hair appointment.
As soon as I arrived in the Walmart parking lot, I started searching for anything that I could get rid of due to the fact that we were overloaded. When you move from a 3,000+ sq ft house into a 40' trailer and are used to having everything that you could ever possibly need at your finger tips, you have a tendancy to take more stuff than is neccessary. Once Deb arrived, we loaded the back of Robin's SUV with some of the extra stuff I had decided to leave behind and we hit the road.
I'm pulling this rig with a Chevy 2500HD with a 6.6L diesel engine and a six speed Allison transmision. I got it up to 60 and set the cruise control and wound our way thru the Pigeon River Gorge on I-40 thru the Smokey Mountains. The truck performed admirably (although I could use a little more brake since we are still overloaded) but we passed slower traffic as we climbed up hills. Once we hit the slightly flatter country of east TN, the cruise was set at 65 and we never looked back. At our first fuel stop, I found that we got slightly more than 10 mpg which made me very happy since I'm sure that we are in excess of 12-1/2 tons.
Our first stop was Edgar Evins State Park on Center Hill Lake about 40 miles east of Nashville. We had called every other campground around the lake to see if there were any openings but since 4th of July weekend was just 3 days away, we expected that we would not find any open spots where reservations were taken. Such was the case so we headed to Edgar Evins which is strictly first come, first serve. I had called about a week earlier to discuss their sites with someone on the phone because the web site makes it very clear that all of the sites are platforms (decks) built off the side of the hill and that each was just 33' long. When I asked about the 33' length and expressed my desire to put a "little bigger" rig in the park, the person on the phone assured me that someone could fit a 35-36' rig into a few of the slightly larger spots. I figured 35-36', that's about 40', NO PROBLEM!
We made it thru the weekend of the 4th but we did not really like the park so we drove another 40 miles or so to Nashville and spent two nights in a great park on J. Piercy Priest Lake. The next time that we are in the Nashville area we will plan to spend a couple weeks at that park.
200 more miles down the road put us in West Memphis on the Mississippi River. HOT, HOT, HOT is the only way that I can describe our stay. Those of you in the northeast this week have experienced the same kind of weather but we were expecting it.
Our RV only has one air conditioner on top and it has been running constantly. I went to the Walmart yesterday and bought an indoor/outdoor thermometer. I placed the outdoor unit in the bedroom and the indoor one in the living area. It was 74 in the living room and 86 in the bedroom. We could definitely use a second A/C unit if we were going to spend any amount of time in a climate like this but we are turning the compass to the north tomorrow so we'll live with it for one more day. Thankfully, it cools down enough at night that the bedroom is the same temp as the living room when we go to bed.
While here, we took in The Pink Palace Museum, Graceland, Beale Street and saw the ghost of Elvis down on Union Avenue. We ate crawfish and ribs and had an overall great time. We only went out one night, so I never had the opportunity to try the catfish which I've heard, the people in the Memphis area know how to cook.
This morning, my fishing equipment started calling so I pulled out an ultra-light rod and got set up. 10 minutes later, I was in a good fight with a perfect sized catfish, the size that you get when they are farm raised. Shortly after, the sun broke thru the overcast and it got too damn hot to fish any longer.
Tonight we are having southern surf and turf. Venison steaks and catfish. Tomorrow we pack up and head for Branson, MO.