Friday, September 29, 2023. Hello from Virginia. State Motto: The land of the eternally damp bath towel. Yes, that means it be humid here. Late Update: The two new DVD players are installed and working just fine. The old HUGE DVD player and the 16-button switch box are removed and stored for any later audio genius rig owner to reinstall if they wish. Laundry was done, hair was cut. A tad bit shorter than I wanted but it looks good (to me) and it will soon grow back to the longer, shaggier style Ms. Shawn prefers. Shawn Med Update: She’s fine. No remedial actions required. Happy news. I’m still at the Hobo Palace with brother Kim. Shawn is still up in Burke, VA with her brother. The plan is for us to meet tomorrow in Occcquaaneinnn, VA at the Open House Party at the marina owned by a close friend of my brothers. By my familial linkage to them I was able to wrangle an invite. Then...
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Tuesday, September 26, 2023. Plans for the week. Ms. Shawn returned yesterday. Flew from Bah-stun to Dulles Airplane Patch and was picked up by her brother, Sam, who lives only 25 miles from the patch. She is now staying at his house, and he will shuttle her back and forth, to and from, over and out, two doctor appointments at John Hopkins Med Center in Bal-Mere, Maryland over the next two days. The reasons for the above are three-fold. On one-fold, the total miles to be driven for the above if I do it from the Hobo Palace here in Colonial Beach, is close to 600, while if Sam gets saddled with it the miles are just shy of 300. That’s a lot of miles around here because east coast miles are twice as long as Arizona miles, and 3000% more crowded. On two-fold, Sam knows exactly where the doctor’s office is and the secret procedure for finding one of the few available parking spaces in the whole town of Bal-Mere. City Motto: “We wish you...
Saturday, September Twenty-threeth, 2020-threeth. There is a storm marching up the east coast. Rained here all night. Kim said it was quite heavy, but I slept thru it and didn’t notice. The tide is in and about two feet higher than normal. Kim’s lower deck is under water, but the upper half is still dry. He thinks the water will rise more and I ‘spect he’s right but as a dyed-in the -wool desert rat I have no idea. The rig is on a rise another two feet higher than Kim’s upper deck, so I do not expect any water/rig socializing. I’m using this rainy-time to explore converting from PC’s and MS-Windows to an Apple computer. I’ve just about exhausted all my patience with MS-Outlook, Mail, Outlook, One-Drive, and the Cloud. I bought MS Office-360 and Outlook with this computer and now I have Outlook that lets me send emails but not receive them, and “Mail” which lets me receive emails but not send them. So, I’m using Ou...
Friday, September twenty-tooth, 2020-threeth. It’s Bike Week here in Colonial Beach. It is also 7AM and the first “I’m up so you’re up” Harley of the day just went by. Loud pipes, first gear, and definitely not doing the 5-mph camp speed limit by about +30 mph. Bless him. Those pipes do sing! I’m sure all the folks here who were still party’ing last night when I slipped away about 10 are just as grateful for his rooster-crow early morning of the day greeting as I am. Especially those who were singing and playing grab-ass around my rig at 2 AM. Bless them. Kim’s daughter, Christen, is here. Love that girl! She flew in yesterday. An interesting story is when she was younger, she wanted to do something different, so she joined the Army. And they wanted her skills (legal something) so badly she went into the military with more stripes on her sleeve than I had when I got out of the Air Force. My, my, tale...
Thursday September 21, 2023 – Love them Virginia drivers. Boy howdy and a great big whoopee! I do love them Virginia drivers! Yesterday we got a late start taking Ms. Shawn to Dulles airplane patch and I ended up driving 90 miles back to Kim’s RV Camp in the dark. About 8 PM. Kim had lent me his little car so I didn’t have to drive the big rig to and from the airport. It’s a big lot of smaller than the rig! Ya’ know, one of them low built cars you gotta step down to get into. Well anyway on the way back, in the dark, I met some of the nicest, kindest, and most helpful drivers I’ve ever known. I mean, they just went way out of their way to be helpful. Like the first guy, where I had to turn right onto an exit from the freeway and and even tho I had my turny-flashy signal on, he pulled up alongside of me and tried to show me where I was supposed to turn by staying right next to me, even when I speeded up or slowed down, all the way...
Tuesday, September19. Relocating to Kim’s. We are pulling up stakes and relocating to my brother Kim’s park location on Munroe Bay, Virginia. I will stay there while Ms. Shawn flies to Bah-Ston MA to visit her niece. Kim is lending me one of his cars and I’m gonna go see brother Scottie’s new house in Maryland and then also to go see my sister Natalie who lives nearby. Also, while I’m at Kim’s I really want to go see my Aunt & Uncle, Gloria and Paul who I haven’t seen in ages. They MAY come to breakfast at my cousin’s Chris’ house when I’m there and if not I shall gird up my loins, put my big boy pants on, and venture down into the labyrinth of Washington DC to their home all the while trying desperately to stay out of the clutches of any legislators I may run across. BTW: The generator has been running continuously, as in non-stop since I started it the morning after I arrived here at Sam’s. That was the morning of the 1...
Sunday, September 17, 2023 The *&^%$# generator ran just fine today. Started this morning. Still going. No problems. We are "boon-docking" at Shawn's brother's house and have water, and the now the genny, and are quite comfortable. We will be here for (insert number) days and then Shawn is going to fly to Boston to visit her niece and I will stay in the local area (VA, MD, DC?) and do day visits to bro's and sister, and maybe even my aunt & uncle who I haven't seen in years. The new carb for the generator arrived. It's beautiful. I will install it when I receive the new fuel pump. I took the TPMS receiver/display apart and used an X-ACTO knife to carve out the little hole over the light sensor in order to let in more daylight. It seemed to make the unit stay on "full bright" better. I still had tires drop out and in, so today I installed new batteries in all the tire sensors. They all seem to be on-line ok, but the real test ...
Saturday, 16-09-2023 - An interesting day. First and foremost, we had a ball at Luray Caverns. Shawn was in 7th heaven. She really liked it. It is the happiest I've seen her in all the time we've been together. And that's saying a lot because our interests are pretty much diametrically opposed. She likes anything woodsy and outdoorsy; I like anything mechanical or big, huge and made of metal. Somehow the caverns sort of met in a midway point. Weird but fun Second and foremost, we arrived at her brother's house just in time to go to a big church dinner celebrating the return visit of some of their previous ministers, members, and choir members. GOOD FOOD! Good Folks! Lotta fun. Shawn got singled out as having come from the farthest away as it's kinda hard to top Alaska. I got second place. Neither of us mentioned we just happened to be visiting. Third and foremost, the generator started just fine this mo...
Friday, September 15, 2023 - Luray, VA Here we are in Lurey, VA, and yes, we are going to go to the world-famous Luray Caverns tomorrow. We have tickets for the 9 AM tour which means we have to leave this RV Camp (Luray RV Park, which although it shares the same name is 20 miles away on the road described below) at about 8. The Cummins Dealer worked on the generator this morning. They started about 9 and we got the rig back at Noon and pointed the headlights North. Thirty miles up the road the genny failed again. Just stopped running. No error codes that make any sense. Shawn got on-line and ordered a new carburetor for the thing and is having it shipped to her brother's house. It looks like a simple easy-swap deal. Ya' know, "a five-minute job." (Kevin) If that don't do the trick the "circuit board" is next. Dunno where it's located, Dunno what it costs, Don't care. It's next. I'm totally stressed. Shawn dro...
Thursday, September 14, 2023 - And it started right up . . . . Here we are. In Roanoke, Virginia. Camped in the parking lot of the Cummins Dealer. All hooked up and now blogging. Gee, ain't life grand! Well, only sorta. We pulled in about noon-ish and checked in a confirmed our appointment for tomorrow. Then the service manager asked to hear the "banging" noise the generator was making when it was trying to start. No noise. The genny started right up. And ran just fine for the last 4 hours or so. So we are now connected to "shore" power, a term stolen from the boating industry, and we will stay overnight and have the Cummins tech check the genny tomorrow and try to find ANY reason for it refusing to run while we are driving, and/or why it was refusing to start after stopping, and/or what caused the loud banging noise when it was failing to start after stopping. Oh yeah, to and also install four good bolts in the exhaust manifold to r...
Wednesday, September 13th, 2023 - Second Post Today. Tirade 1: Ms. Shawn arrived this morning, crashed for a couple of hours, and then we launched the rig and headed North/West up towards Roanoke, VA. We hadn't planned to actually make it to Roanoke, and we didn't. Not because we couldn't, it was more because of the Google BIB. If you know "BIB" laugh, if you don't, don't ask. We were an hour out from the big "R" when she tried to send us down a cow trail road which I refused to accept and turned around and now we are back down on a nice highway (Rt 58) at a Mom & Pop RV Camp, and the owner told me there is a much easier, more major road (Rt 220) to big "R" just seven miles away. Moral: Never trust the BIB and be willing to refuse her directions if they just don't feel right. So tomorrow we will make it to big "R", locate the Cummins Dealer, check in, and confirm our 15th appointment, and decide where to stay th...
Wednesday, September 13, 2023 So howcum they spells "wensday" w-e-d-n-e-s-d-a-y? Who stuck the "d" in there? And just when did "disrespected" become a verb? Hmmmm? Dontcha just hate it when they verbalize nouns? (Humor) And I'm still curious about poor old Clementine's fate. And, oh never mind, and anyway, Sheeeee's heeeere! Ms. Shawn arrived early and got here about 7AM. Apparently she couldn't sleep on a plane as it wandered around in the dark, so she is crashed out trying to nap while two dogs make it their primary mission in life to make sure she doesn't. I have, sitting next to me, a big blue duffle bag that weighs sooooo much I'm amazed the plane she flew on could handle it. The coach is now listing to the left, and that's with the leveling legs fully deployed. Anyway, she flew from Anchorage to Seattle (probably had to go thru Customs) and from there to here all in the dark! I wonder how do they do that? Must us...
Tuesday, September 12, 2023. Ten forward, nine back . . . My momma (that's Southern for Mother) used to say, "Sometimes you take ten steps forward and then nine steps back." It do (Southern for does) make progress slow! I left Greg's about 9:30 this morn'n (Southern for morning) and about 10:30 realized the generator had taken another crap. (Southern for failed.) Him no go. Him no start. Him piece of %^$#%&^%!! . (Southern and Yankee for %^$#%&^%!! .) I called Greg and he panicked as he assumed I was dead or something, but I told him, "No, the genny just died again." And this was after he and I had put the new fuel pump in and had the genny running for about six hours at his house! So, he suggested I call the Cummins Dealer in Greensboro as that was on my way to Raleigh and so I did, and I spoke with an incredibly helpful fellow who really went over and above all definitions of help and he actually had an appointment o...
Monday, September 11, 2023 - It's winding down. Hello to my hundreds of followers, OK, to my dozens of followers, OK to those few of you who don't have anything better to do, "Hi!, I'm sorta back." Everyone but brother Kim left Saturday, and Kim left yesterday, and that just leaves me here by myself and I'm gonna leave tomorrow morning whereupon silence, peace, and tranquility will once again descend upon the mountain top here in old NC. Greg and Sue are much too kind to admit it but I'm reasonably sure they are very much looking forward to seeing the ass-end of this coach as it leaves their driveway. Tomorrow AM I will dump tanks, unhook the sewer hose, electric cord, water hose, pull in the slides, retract the landing gear, and strike out for Raleigh, NC, which is 175 miles away from Sparta making it a reasonably easy day unless the coach decides otherwise. Time will tell. I have an overnight spot reserved at a RV park 8 miles from the Raleigh-Durham...
Saturday, September 9, 2023. It's Raining! The new photo editor is installed and registered. I did a few more photos and I'm starting to hate it less. I will include some shots taken on our ride yesterday to conquer "The Snake", which is 33 miles of turn your heart inside out, pucker factor 10, twisties, 270 degree turns, decreasing radius curves, and blind corners. And that's on the easy parts. We all knew the forecast was for rain at 4 pm, and we all knew that the ride to and from the snake was 5 hours, and we all knew we were getting a late start at 12 noon when we left, but we went anyway . Because hey, we're on vacation! So, eight of use went forth dry and smiling, and returned soaked to the skin with boots full of water. And we were prepared! We all had rain gear! but it doesn't do any good when the road is so narrow with severe drop off edges and no place to stop to put on said gear. By the time we sloshed into a ...
Note: This blog entry was written on Sunday, September 3. And just as I was getting to post it my computer blew up, hung up, crashed, went bye-bye. No amount of cajoling, threatening, or auto-repairing would bring it back. So, I went to Amazon and bought this new laptop. I will try to write a catch-up blog tomorrow. Right now, I have to enter all the contacts back into Outlook. I have them on paper but not in a file. So, hand typing it is. Frank Sunday, September 3, 2023. I ride the Beemer! Today I rode the Beemer to a really cool restaurant for lunch. But I digress. First, Greg helped me (meaning he did it) install the Sena 50S bike to bike intercom I had purchased and had delivered to his house on my helmet. The installation went smoothly (because he did it) and the intercom worked perfectly. Clear as a bell, no wind noise, clarity, clarity, clarity. I really like it. But I digress...
Saturday, September 2th, 2023, Foggy NC Morning. Here I are, on September the tooth, looking across the street at not seeing Greg's house as the world has gone gray and I'm hoping it's outside and not in my eyeballs. I will be moving the rig over to Greg's lot today after the "cement crew" returns and pulls up the edging forms from the new walkways they poured yesterday. It was fun watching them pour, spread, smooth, and edge, and the finished walks are beautiful. Serious craftsmen they were! Once the rig is in place, and the sun burns off the morning fog, and the cementers are done, I will take some photos of the house, and the walkways, and the really cool bunk-house Greg has built for all the visiting guys and post them. I never did relate of all the scenic fun and pleasure of driving the rig thru the "Great Smokey, "No Trucks in the Left Lane, Caution Trucks May Stop on the Shoulder to Cool Brakes", Mountains. T'wert any fun, or ple...