Week One 2018

One week into our 2018 adventure

*A number bed mattress that does not work and is stuck on 100 can be a challenge but guess it is better than 0. We have it on our list to fix after all we have a new motor we ordered before we left. 
*Why do wasps always build their nest in the electrical box at parks. We stayed at the Corps of Engineer park in North Little Rock,Arkansas and yep a wasp was a building nest. I swatted it away and popped off the nest, a very small one, the wasp then dived at me but I expected that so dodged the dive. Then I hear a voice say “I have spray to kill them, do you want it?” The lady across from us was watching and offered her spray, I declined as I thought the wasp should live, after all I was the one who interrupted the home building. She was insistent with “Kill it, it will just build a nest somewhere else”. I declined again and she gave up.
*Don’t you just love how a farmer in a large tractor moves over to let a large Motorcoach pass on a two lane road.
*There are churches and then there is the over the top larger than life church mansion First Pentecostal Little Rock, wow quite a site.
 *Arkansas grows A LOT of rice. Who knew?
*Hoosier comfort food — pork tenderloin fried sandwich — is perfection.
*Sitting on a veranda with a family friend grieving the loss of his wife of over 50 yrs;  sipping wine and throwing the frisbee for the dog while the cool breeze blows helps ease grieve if only for a while
*Spending time with youngest son in Columbus hearing him play a couple of nights with a couple of bands makes the trip super nice.
*When leaving the RV Park in Columbus and a terrible noise coming from TJ(Tow Jeep) going to hook up with RV is a bit unnerving. But gee it was only the cone that had been next to The Rectangle I ran over being drug under the car. Quick jump out, a few tugs and all is good but the thought crossed my mind that someone saw it all and was laughing a lot.
*While at an RV park in Pennsylvania about 6am a very loud siren begins to screech….for about 3 minutes this goes on. Never did find out why…it was very unnerving had been raining all night and the river behind us was swollen
*We read the Star Telegram newspaper on line each morning and the article on using genetic genealogy to solve cold cases brought a word neither of us had encountered before :”He was whipsawed by the speed with which genetic genealogy led to an arrest.”  Whipsawed?
So, I am whipsawed by how fast time has already led us into our 2018 adventure.
AND 70 degree weather is really great!!

Columbus Ohio Jazz and BarBQue Festival

Our youngest son Matthew doing what he loves on percussion

A great German deli in Columbus

Saturday worship at the 150 yr old church Trinity Evangelical "German" Lutheran (ELCA) Coumbus, Ohio 

always special

7 Days Till We Roll

Living in a Rectangle countdown continues
7 Days till 2018 Trip


*Make an appointment to take The Rectangle in to have the front end alignment checked (wear on tires not even?) and cruise control not working (a long trip without cruise control is not good), and propane shut off for refrigerator reset or whatever it needs (safety first).

As always, they get in The Rectangle and the cruise control works just fine
As always, they totally try to get refrigerator to duplicate the shut off issue and everything works just fine.
I love how with many mechanical things they play with us. I imaging a laughing universe saying “got another one”.


*Check all those tires to make sure they will make the next big trip in good shape.

  Tires have a way to tell those who know where to look the year the tire was made (who knew?) So when the tire guy doing the front end alignment tells us they are 2013 tires on our 2015 Newmar it set off a hunt for the question of why or what that does to the longevity of the tire. With RVs tires are very important and there is some guy rule or thing rule that tires at between 5 and 7 years they need to be replaced. Our question then is if we got the tires already two years old on our new RV does that mean we will only get 3 more years till the 5 year mark? or how does that work? Newmar says it is a Ford issue as they get of course the chassis from them, and Ford says well we only give a one year warranty on that so it is now not their issue. So Ford builds a chassis and calls the tire people and they send tires and that is that. BUT then, another look at the tires and well really they are 2014…ok so we picked up a year. Bottom line, the tires are the tires and we are in alignment.  Whew, too much information re tires, sometimes I rather not know.


The time spent on the phone on this issue was a lot and the number of people who passed us on with the that is not my expertise was fun. Hearing Hmmmm after your questions always makes you know you are about to be passed along.

The true story about any vehicle is only time and travel will tell the rest of the story.