Lake Conroe

This is a really nice place this time of the year. Today is the first cool day (upper 50's) we've had since arriving here two weeks ago. Most of the time the temperatures have been in the upper 70's during the day and lower 40's at night.

It's interesting how areas develop here in Texas. The commerce always grows along the large highways with residential development nearby about a mile or two away from the major roadways. Most major roadways (Interstate or State Hwy) have access roads beside them. The access roads are built first with a large right of way between them. When an area builds up and highways are needed, the highways are built in the right of way between the access roads with no disruption of traffic.

We've gotten out a bit since getting here. We went to College Station, TX one day. College Station is home to Texas A & M University and

The George H. W. Bush Presidential Library. The library was an interesting visit. We spent most of the day there. It was well done and there wasn't nearly as much evident effort to skew the history of the Bush presidency as we saw in the last Presidential library we visited in Little Rock, AR.

We've also visited the Sam Houston Memorial Museum in Huntsville, TX.

To understand the role of Sam Houston in Texas history is to understand Texas History. He was a bigger than life character that was instrumental in leading Texas to the status of a free Republic and then to statehood.

Galveston Island

We were curious about Galveston following hurricane Ike. We all know how things were portrayed on TV but we wanted to see for ourselves. On average, things looked better than expected. There was very little middle ground. Things either looked pretty good though there was evidence of damahe like the blue tarps on roofs, etc. or things looked really bad like total devistation.




The South Western end of the island (San Louis Pass) was devistated. The beach road was washed out and we traveled ten or more miles on the beach to get to the southern end of the Island

Texas

Here we are in Texas, Conroe to be exact. Lake Conroe is about 40 miles north of Houston on I45.

First, lets back up to the last post. Shamu started fine the morning after and we proceeded onward. Wednesday we spent the night at a beautiful Louisiana state park called Fountainebleu located on Lake Pontchartrain.

You could see the New Orleans skyline across the lake. Louisiana has the nicest state parks of any of the states. This was the fourth one we've visited in the past few years and they've all been top notch. Thursday we proceeded on to Lake Charles, LA where we stayed at Sam Houston Jones State Park, another beautiful one. Friday we drove on to Conroe TX. We're staying at Lake Conroe Thousand Trails. It's real nice here. Daughter Lara and here family live about 50 miles from here so we're close enough to see them on the weekends and far enough away not to be a nuisance during the week. Lara and Jeff both work and the kids are in school so their life is pretty busy during the week.

We had a nice visit today and got to see the grand kids for the first time in about six months.
This all new to us. All the family has always been fairly close by till now. The grand kids have both grown a lot and Matt who's 14 now has a deep voice where is squeaked and cracked a mere six months ago.

S T R E S S

The title for this post will probably be more obvious by the time I get to the end.

First, the good stuff. Service work at Freightliner was finished by early afternoon so we headed toward warmer weather confident that the coach is in good shape. In fact the alignment was off a bit and there is an improvement in handling albeit a slight one. We managed to make pretty good time but decided to stop north of Atlanta at Carolina Landing Thousand Trails. It's located on Lake Hartwell which is on the SC / GA line. Traffic was heavy and we thought that mid morning would be a better time to tackle I285 traffic around the west side of Atlanta. Everything went as planned and though traffic was heavy, it wasn't too bad. It was windy and for those who don't drive motor homes, this translates into stressful driving. By the time we got to Montgomery AL I was feeling a bit tired and decided to stop for a rest in the parking lot of Sam's Club. At the top of the exit ramp there was a traffic light and naturally it was red. Here's where the fun begins. I was sitting at the light when the engine stopped. It wouldn't start. This is a busy road and there's lots of traffic. I'm blocking one of the two right turn lanes. It wasn't long before the police arrived to inform me that I had to move it or they would. After a little conversation (negotiation) he agreed that he'd put out cones to divert the traffic for a while. I called Freightliner for help. They have excellent telephone help 24/7 and told me that the symptoms I described sounded like the engine's Electronic Control Module wasn't getting power. With their help, I found the in line fuse they suspected was the problem buried in a bundle of wires the size of your wrist. Not only was the fuse bad, the fuse holder was melted. The cop drove me to Auto Zone where I bought a new in line fuse holder . Back at the MH I cut out the old fuse holder, spliced in the new one and it still wouldn't start. After pondering the situation for about ten minutes with Carolyn and the Cop breathing down my neck, I decided to get out the multimeter and verify the circuit. Would you believe the new fuse that I put in was bad. Replaced the fuse and voila! The engine starts. Drove across the street to the Sam's Parking lot for a much needed rest. Like I told Carolyn, "it's 5 o'clock somewhere". During all of this, there were calls to road side assistance, the shop of the mobile mechanic they recommended and numerous interruptions by the cop saying his boss was insisting that we get Shamu off the roadway. Needless to say, stress levels were high.

By now it was late afternoon and Montgomery's rush hour was beginning. We decided to spend the night and try for a fresh start on Wednesday hoping for a better day.

It's time to go

January 2009 is here and it's time to go. Christmas activities with family and friends are done and it's time to head South. It's been cold the past few days and snow was in the air as we pulled out of the drive.

First stop, Forest lake Thousand Trails, Mocksville NC for a day of R and R and a visit with some of Carolyn's family in Statesville. Her Uncle Charles is now in a nursing home so we spent some time there on Saturday.

Second stop, Freightliner factory in Gaffney SC for some routine maintenance. We got new tires last January and still haven't gotten an alignment. The factory has all the best equipment so this is the ideal time to get the alignment checked and fixed if necessary. This is cheap insurance to protect the investment in new tires. The last set lasted about 60,000 miles. Our hope is that the new ones will do better. Freightliner has put in electric hookups in the back of the shop so we can arrive early and leave late if we wish to. Service on motor homes is a problem so it's great to have access to a factory facility where the help is competent and well trained.

Our appointment is for Monday Jan 5 so we'll arrive on Sunday and spend the night. That way we'll be ready for a 7:45 appointment.

Time flies when you're having fun

Since Thanksgiving we've been stressed by a number of projects all of which needed to come across the finish line before Christmas in order for us to leave for our winter trip as planned.

First, our motor home Shamu:

The passenger side windshield got smashed a while back so she had to go to the hospital for a repair. Everything went as planned and she now has a new windshield.

Second, our house:
We've had construction going on for more than a month now but the final result is wonderful.



It now looks like a brand new house only much better than it was 20 some years ago when it was new. It's now maintenance free with new, bright white siding, new windows, new railings on the porch and new gutters with gutter guards (these stop all leaves etc. from entering the gutters thus no more gutter cleaning).


Third: Shamu just came home from nearly a month in the paint shop.





She's now a beautiful shiny white that's the result of multiple coats of paint and multiple coats of clear coat, a total of ten gallons. She's gained almost a hundred pounds but is beautiful none the less.

Fourth,our Jeep (Elvis) has plastic fender flairs and bumper covers which over the past year have changed from a beautiful bright white to a not so beautiful light tannish hue. Needless to say, we weren't too happy about the change of color feeling that this wasn't part of the deal when the car was purchased. Following some negotiations with the local dealer and factory rep, Chrysler Corporation generously volunteered with a dying breath to make a warranty repair. The local Chrysler dealer did a high quality repair and Elvis is once again a beautiful solid white.

Thinking about all of this, there seems to be a common thread woven through the past month. WHITE!

Christmas Rally

This weekend we attended the annual Christmas rally of our Dogwood FMCA chapter in Williamsburg, VA along with about 60 of our closest motor homing buddies. As usual, there was a bit too much eating to feel good when it's over. Activities started on Friday evening with a delicious BBQ dinner. Saturday started with a group breakfast. Afterward, most of the women spent the day shopping.




The evening activities included wine tasting, dinner and a Yankee gift swap. There was lots of fun for all.

Urbanna Oyster Festival

Once again we wrap up a great four day weekend having eaten entirely too much. So, how did this happen? One of our FMCA Dogwood chapter members, Ed and Anke Fisher lives in Urbanna, VA. They have a property just a couple of miles from down town Urbanna which has a large commercial style building and enough parking for about a dozen motorhomes. The Urbanna Oyster festival provided the only excuse necessary for a gathering. Nine coaches and their owners arrived Wednesday and Thursday and the feasting began. Seafood dinner out on Thursday night, steamed oysters, oyster stew and oysters on the half shell (two bushels worth) Friday and Saturday nights along with beef tenderloin and too many other specialties to mention. The men are always in charge of breakfast. Cheese eggs, bacon,
sausage, toast, baking powder biscuit's, pan cakes etc. etc. were the order of the day for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. When we weren't eating, there was game playing, shopping for the women and fire house bluegrass music at night. We even made time for a few hours of geocaching with expert geocaching friends Wilt and Barb Greenwood.

This is all so exhausting that we have to come home to get some rest! Speaking of which, the leaves are falling now so there's no rest for the weary.

Baseball

Today started with a baseball game in Ashland VA. Translated, this means we got up early to get to the game on time. Scott (our son-in-law) coaches the boys team and apparently has earned a good level of success. They won today 17 - 0. Most of the recent games have had similar results. There's probably some prejudice here but check the form of this batter. Note the eye on the ball and follow through on the swing.

This is Grandson Dustin.

No show of step brother Bryan who's also on the team but here's his picture too. He too is an accomplished batter.


The weather is beautiful for this time of the year. So nice in fact that the afternoon was spent washing the Motor Home and cars. Boy, this sounds like fun doesn't it. It was a great workout for the new power washer

Time Away From Home....F I N A L L Y

After a long summer close to home, we finally got away for a week. On Sunday 10/5 we traveled to Kerr Lake on the NC / VA state line and spent a few days at North Bend, a COE park just west of Kerr dam on the Vrginia side of the lake. North Bend is the point to the right of this picture.

While there isn't much to do in the area, the weather was perfect and it was a good opportunity to relax. It's a beautiful place to just set back and enjoy life.

We had planned to attend a rally with the FMCA Dogwood chapter that we belong to in Smithfield, NC on the weekend of 10/11 and 12. This group is made up of about a hundred of our closest motor homing friends. Since some of these friends always show up early, we decided to do the same and traveled to Smithfield on Thursday. We guessed right and enjoyed a Mexican dinner Thursdy night with 3 other couples. Friday and Saturday were occupied with our usual social activities, and a Bar-B-Q
dinner Saturday night at a local restaurant followed by a delightful show "American Musical Jubilee" at the Rudy Theater in nearby Selma, NC.

Mann was elected President of the Chapter for a two year term that starts in January. We had 32 members present this weekend.

Carolyn was elected to our News letter Editor position so we'll have at least one more thing to keep us busy for a while.

We'll be at home for a couple of weeks then we're off to Urbanna, VA for the Urbanna Oyster Festival. It's an annual affair and one we look forward to. More later....

Printer Excitement

This is an interesting one! Installed a new HP 3310 all in one printer recently. It really is an amazing device. Not only does it print (paper, photos, you name it) , it scans (not only paper documents, film and slides too), it faxes (in and out if you have a land line which we don't), and that's not all. It has a built in 802.11 wireless card and is connected to our home network. It does it all without wires and everyone connected to the network can use it.

Back to the story, the only problem is that when you're not present when printing, all the pages come out crumpled and torn. If you're by the printer everything seems to work as expected.

After several days of frustration, we set up a camera to see if it would disclose anything that would help us to diagnose the problem. It wasn't exactly what we expected but the problem has been identified.

Grand Kids

Eleven days of fun ( 8/14 through 8/24) and games with Grand Kids. Does this sound like fun, or W H A T ????? We got to enjoy Shawn, Bryan and Dustin from Thursday through Sunday. Then, it was time for Bryan and Shawn to return to their Mom. We then had just Dustin until the following Sunday. Lots of time for cooking out, big Waffle breakfasts, pool time, putt putt multiple times every day, bike riding and did I mention putt putt. Lots of fun for all. Here are a few pictures:












Did I mention that we played Putt Putt. Katie and Tonya came for a Friday night camp out and joined us for a round of putt putt. Dustin Prevailed. What is it they say about practice?

Fun Fun and more Fun

A month has passed since the last post here. It's been a month filled with fun things like painting the bath room, replacing all of the bath plumbing and fixtures, a severely bruised knee that's the result of falling in to the ditch in front of the house one dark night ( this may be where the term falling down drunk comes from), a trip to the dermatologist for removal of things we hope are pre-cancerous etc. After all this fun, we're now loading the bus for some real fun. Ten days with grand kids. More on this later after the fun gets started.

Spanky News

My mom is back to her old tricks. You may recall a post a few months back where she was trying to make me walk on a leash. Will she never learn?

My Daddy said he was getting harangued cuz the blog hasn't been updated recently. Since he's not feeling too good, he asked me to do it.

Rally's Over

GEAR is finished and we're back at home for a couple of weeks. Saturday was filled with a geocaching seminar, down time in the afternoon to stay out of the oppressive heat, dinner with friends and evening entertainment.

We didn't really learn anything from the geocaching seminar but that's not really why we were there. Following the seminar, we took a " want to be" geocacher out to learn the in's and outs of geocaching. It's a fun activity but it's definitely too hot. Temperatures are around a hundred.

After a couple of hours of down time in the air conditioning, it's time for dinner. La Casita , as usual, was good. Dos Equis , chips and salsa seemed to make the heat more bearable. Following a good Mexican meal, it's rush back to our rally for the final entertainment event of the rally, an Elvis impersonator.

He's billed as the best and lived up to the billing.

Carolyn seemed to be particularly infatuated.

Greater Eastern Area Rally (GEAR)

What a week! We're at the GEAR rally this week which is being held at the Richmond International Raceway complex. So, we're not far from home distance wise but we are a long way away in terms of environment. Our week started with volunteer work, albeit not very difficult work, greeting new arrivals for the couple of days prior to the start of scheduled activities.

Days start with doughnuts and coffee, then seminars on a variety of subjects throughout the day followed by happy hour, meals out or a pot luck with chapter friends, evening entertainment and finally sleep, much needed sleep. Interspersed between these activities is some time for viewing the latest motor homes displayed by numerous vendors and browsing the vendor booths that sell solutions to problems that I never knew I had. Some people must have these problems though since vendors seem to be selling their wares. Oh well, it's fun anyway.

Exciting day on the home front

Tree trimming and tree removal was the order of the day. This all made Carolyn so nervous that she decided it would be a good day to go to visit her parents in Portsmouth. So, I imagine we can guess who was left behind to deal with the horrors of having huge 100 foot tall oak trees that tower over the house removed one limb and one section at a time. Click on the photo below to enlarge it. The guy in the tree with the chain saw is about 60 feet above the ground. Since all was completed without incident, it doesn't seem so bad now. What a difference the removal of 8 big oak trees has made. We now have sunlight in the back yard.

Sunday, June 1, we leave for a week of motor homing fun. We'll be at the FMCA Great Eastern Area Rally (GEAR). We volunteered to do a little work to help with activities during the week but other than that, it should be a a week dedicated to having a good time with friends. More on this later.

Spanky Duff

It's hard to believe a year has passed. It was one year ago today that we adopted Spanky and brought him home. He was a cute little fella and began his quest to dominate the household right from the beginning. It's taken him a year. He now manages every aspect of life in and around the Duff household with the self confidence that only a cat can have. Those with cat's will understand. He lets us write this blog but insists on editing before publication.

Grand Children !

Daughter Lara and family are moving to Houston, TX. Jeff ( Lara's husband ) has already started his new job at Rice University. Translation, Lara is in Richmond with two children in school and working a job with hours that don't always mesh with school hours and other activities. Lucky for us, this provides a little extra time for fun with grandchildren. The local Chevrolet dealer had a Corvette car show today so Mann and Matt got to check out Corvettes from 1956 to date. The only ones for sale were 2008 models. We can only guess where this may lead.


As much fun as the Corvette show was, it couldn't compare to the fun of happening across a local church with a sign outside that, as unimaginable as this is, mentions the name of a friend who's currently in AZ. This illustrates clearly the expected long distance benefits of prayer.

You may recall previous mention of Larry and Gerry Clark on this Blog. While we can't speak to or otherwise validate, or for that matter, invalidate information contained on the sign, we have noticed that our Larry seems a bit irritable of late.

Mothers Day

Today is Mothers Day and it's off to a great start. Nice weather, everyone is in a good mood. Did I mention that we're spending the weekend with Carolyn's parents.
Our plan: go to Outback for lunch to celebrate mothers Day and then go out for a ride to survey the damage from last weeks tornado's in Driver and Suffolk (about 15 - 20 miles from here). National news provided good coverage but a first hand survey is better.

The meal was rated A+ by all of us and the service was excellent. All of this after just a short wait made for a really nice occasion. The wait for a table was made even easier by the unexpected arrival of friends Kathy and Tom Crew along with Kathy's parents and her brother and his family.

Driver, VA was the first stop. Damage in this area is fairly localized but significant. This house is directly across the street from the Hogs Breath Saloon. There was no damage to the saloon.

Then, on to Suffolk. The path of the tornado is pretty well defined. Many areas are blocked off by police, presumably to avoid looting. Across the street from this home is a foundation with no house on top.



Photo below is of remains of a small Suffolk, VA shopping center. Like many things, photo's can't convey the extent of the destructive force of a Tornado.



What we didn't expect were today's late afternoon storms and tornado warnings in the area where Carolyn's parents live. Local TV is dedicated to the weather and surrounding weather patterns showing the circular movement of wind indicating that tornado's may be near. We're in VA, not OK or KS!

Weather warnings have passed and all is well now. We're thankful for small favors.