Thursday, 2/15/07
Well, it's one step forward and 1/2 step back. We're in Pensacola, Florida. We stopped at the RV place in Baton Rouge this morning, and the idiot who told us to bring it in Thursday didn't know what he was talking about. When we got there, they said they were 3 days backed up. I begged and one of the guys came out and checked the windshield wiper motor. Turns out it wasn't getting a good ground, so he ran a new ground wire. Scott's juryrigged 2nd arm on the wiper broke though. But if it rains I can go out and fix the wiper with a Bic lighter and some tape.
We stopped at another RV place in Pensacola, and asked if they could tell me how to fix the drain so we could hook up to water. The girl came out & looked at it, then went in and got one of the mechanics, and he showed me how to do it. The girl, though, when she knelt down, ripped her pants seam. They weren't going to charge me anything for it, so I made the girl take $20.
So now we're stopped at a KOA east of Pensacola. I hooked up the water and a few minutes later, water came pouring out of the tire well of the RV. Went in and there was water spraying out from the back of our brand new toilet. The idiots at Shorewood didn't do something right. So now we're back to using jugs of water to flush the toilet, and no hot water until we get this fixed. I'm going to try calling the RV place in Pensacola and see if they can get us in in the morning.
Things have to start getting better eventually, don't they?
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
More of 2/13/07
2/13/07
Meanderings, now that I've settled down. SW Arkansas: 90% of the houses are about the size of a small trailer house, and half of them look like they're abandoned, and the other half look like they should be abandoned. The ones that are abandoned don't have lots of trash in the front yard. Very poor part of the country, but not as poor as Mississippi. Lots of people in Arkansas raise cattle.
There must be a lot of political power playing in their transportation department. The road we were driving on would be potholed and narrow for a few miles, then it would widen up with nice new tar and wide shoulder for a few miles, then back to old and narrow, etc. That went on from Mena to the Texas border.
There is a lot, LOT, lot of uninhabited land in Louisiana. From Shreveport to Alexandria to Baton Rouge, once you got out of town, there was maybe one truck stop/casino. Then it was miles on miles of pine forests, no houses, ranches, small towns, just forests.
Meanderings, now that I've settled down. SW Arkansas: 90% of the houses are about the size of a small trailer house, and half of them look like they're abandoned, and the other half look like they should be abandoned. The ones that are abandoned don't have lots of trash in the front yard. Very poor part of the country, but not as poor as Mississippi. Lots of people in Arkansas raise cattle.
There must be a lot of political power playing in their transportation department. The road we were driving on would be potholed and narrow for a few miles, then it would widen up with nice new tar and wide shoulder for a few miles, then back to old and narrow, etc. That went on from Mena to the Texas border.
There is a lot, LOT, lot of uninhabited land in Louisiana. From Shreveport to Alexandria to Baton Rouge, once you got out of town, there was maybe one truck stop/casino. Then it was miles on miles of pine forests, no houses, ranches, small towns, just forests.
2/13/07
Tuesday, 2/13/07
This has been the trip to hell. Well, maybe not that bad, but today when I hooked up the water, and water came pouring out underneath the RV, I came in & sat down and cried.
The generator started acting up in Arkansas, and then quit altogether in Texas. I think it's just a circuit breaker or fuse, but I can't tell. And without the generator, Lukas can't play his games while we're driving. Then we got lost in Texarkana trying to find the road to Shreveport. We eventually got to Shreveport, but it was raining so hard we couldn't find a campground, so we just got on the freeway to get to the next one. Then the driver's side windshield wiper quit working. We pulled into a truck stop/casino & tried to figure out what was wrong with it, but couldn't get it figured out. So we spend the night there. We finally got down to Baton Rouge and into a KOA. That's when I sat & cried. I hooked up the utilities, turned on the water, and water came pouring out the drain under the RV. I called Shorewood RV where we had it winterized and they said that when they winterize they leave the drain plugs open, but the idiot couldn't tell me how to get them closed. So we called around to some different place to try to get everything fixed. Camping World said they could do the drain plug thing Friday, but couldn't do the generator or the wipers. Another place couldn't do the generator until the 22nd. Called another place & they can look at it Thursday. Oh, and I got to unplug the toilet today, too. How fun! I really miss Lukas' toilet seat with the wash feature. This summer I'm going to see if Scott can get that hooked up in here.
And in the meantime, I'm looking at these $200,000 rigs parked next to us, and have major RV envy.
Oh, well, it was 80° here today, and I'm barefoot and in a sleeveless shirt. It could be worse.
Sunday, 2/11/09
It's hard to believe that just yesterday when I woke up it was -19°, and here we are in southern Arkansas, 49° and having spent several hours driving through mountains!
I love mountains! I LOVE MOUNTAINS! Did you hear me, I Love Mountains! There is something about them that just brings a smile to my face and makes my heart sing. Especially when I didn't expect them. I did not realize that this area of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas has mountains. They're dry mountains, but even so, they're tall and blue, and when you come around a corner through the trees and see those tall blue images, your first reaction is "Are those mountains!?!"
I'm glad I didn't know they were here; David would never have wanted to come this way, and I had resigned myself to not seeing any until next year. So for me, what a wonderful day.
We've put in 2 long days of driving. I finally saw a coyote, in Iowa of all places, in a corn field by the freeway. Last night we stopped at a rest stop in Iowa (I really like Iowa rest stops; they all have free wireless), but the problem with stopping at rest stops is that truckers do to, and they leave their trucks running, and every so often the truck releases air pressure or something like that; not very conducive to sleeping. So we started out this morning at 5:30. It's 8:40 now & I'm very tired and I'm going to go to bed. Lukas and David are going to stay up a bit longer, since Lukas slept until 10 this morning.
Love you all,
Betsy
This has been the trip to hell. Well, maybe not that bad, but today when I hooked up the water, and water came pouring out underneath the RV, I came in & sat down and cried.
The generator started acting up in Arkansas, and then quit altogether in Texas. I think it's just a circuit breaker or fuse, but I can't tell. And without the generator, Lukas can't play his games while we're driving. Then we got lost in Texarkana trying to find the road to Shreveport. We eventually got to Shreveport, but it was raining so hard we couldn't find a campground, so we just got on the freeway to get to the next one. Then the driver's side windshield wiper quit working. We pulled into a truck stop/casino & tried to figure out what was wrong with it, but couldn't get it figured out. So we spend the night there. We finally got down to Baton Rouge and into a KOA. That's when I sat & cried. I hooked up the utilities, turned on the water, and water came pouring out the drain under the RV. I called Shorewood RV where we had it winterized and they said that when they winterize they leave the drain plugs open, but the idiot couldn't tell me how to get them closed. So we called around to some different place to try to get everything fixed. Camping World said they could do the drain plug thing Friday, but couldn't do the generator or the wipers. Another place couldn't do the generator until the 22nd. Called another place & they can look at it Thursday. Oh, and I got to unplug the toilet today, too. How fun! I really miss Lukas' toilet seat with the wash feature. This summer I'm going to see if Scott can get that hooked up in here.
And in the meantime, I'm looking at these $200,000 rigs parked next to us, and have major RV envy.
Oh, well, it was 80° here today, and I'm barefoot and in a sleeveless shirt. It could be worse.
Sunday, 2/11/09
It's hard to believe that just yesterday when I woke up it was -19°, and here we are in southern Arkansas, 49° and having spent several hours driving through mountains!
I love mountains! I LOVE MOUNTAINS! Did you hear me, I Love Mountains! There is something about them that just brings a smile to my face and makes my heart sing. Especially when I didn't expect them. I did not realize that this area of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas has mountains. They're dry mountains, but even so, they're tall and blue, and when you come around a corner through the trees and see those tall blue images, your first reaction is "Are those mountains!?!"
I'm glad I didn't know they were here; David would never have wanted to come this way, and I had resigned myself to not seeing any until next year. So for me, what a wonderful day.
We've put in 2 long days of driving. I finally saw a coyote, in Iowa of all places, in a corn field by the freeway. Last night we stopped at a rest stop in Iowa (I really like Iowa rest stops; they all have free wireless), but the problem with stopping at rest stops is that truckers do to, and they leave their trucks running, and every so often the truck releases air pressure or something like that; not very conducive to sleeping. So we started out this morning at 5:30. It's 8:40 now & I'm very tired and I'm going to go to bed. Lukas and David are going to stay up a bit longer, since Lukas slept until 10 this morning.
Love you all,
Betsy
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