Leaving for West Texas and The Snow!

 

I did not roll out of bed until 7:10 this morning!! I know...that is sleeping way too long. Sherri was still sleeping when I stepped into the shower and before I finished washing off she was up. We both put in a good night sleep. As I stated last post we both have been battling colds so the extra rest is well needed.

We will be leaving today and heading west for work. I was listening to Sherri as she read off the forecast from her computer and there will be snow where we are going! The temps here will start dropping Tuesday and dip down in the 20's while we are gone. I guess I will have to leave the furnace going so I wont have any water damage when I return. Leaving it on 50 will probably be good enough.

Well I guess I better get to packing so we can leave. If we have any snow I will have to build another snowman...

Somewhere in Time

 

RV Show in Longview Texas

 

 

 

Sherri was the first one up this morning. We have both been nursing a cold and I on top of that pulled a muscle in my chest when I coughed last week...and it has been hurting ever since. It only hurts when I cough...well with the cold...I have coughed a lot.

Sherri fixed the coffee this morning while I made the bed. I try to split up some of the house keeping chores with here since she works as long and as hard as I do all week. There are some chores that I am not allowed to  do because I don't do them right. I am still a husband in training and will be for some time.

We sat around most of the morning Sherri playing WEB games and me scanning some of the stuff that we have to turn in to get paid. This is the Most Important thing we do and we don't want to get behind.

 

When I completed that I went out to work on the electric awning. It had been hanging up when we would extend it so I had to do some maintenance on that. Then it was time to pull one of the propane tanks and get it filled. They have a propane station here at the park. I loaded up my bottle and drove down there. It was only $25.00 for on 40 lb bottle which I find to be cheap in these parts. I returned back home and loaded the bottle in the closet.

When I went back in the boss had a list of items she needed from the store. The store...Brookshire's...is located just down the street so it was not too long of a trip. Got the needed items and bought us our lottery ticket while there. I sure would like this to pay off one day. They say if you don't play you don't win.

Sherri has some stew perking in the crock pot. I took some of the dried onion soup that I had purchased from the store and added it to the mix. It sure smells good...come on 1:30...that is when it will be ready for me to eat.

It has been a  great day here. The temps have  been in the 70's today so I took advantage of that and cleaned out the truck and the Jeep. I don't like to drive around in a dirty vehicle.

The sun is starting to set in the West and we both are ready for showers and recliners. That is exactly what we did...

Somewhere in Time

Not long here and had to move on

 

We got parked and like I mentioned in my last report that we were going to relax some and enjoy the park. This did not happen. We had to head over to some friends of ours house and watch the playoff games. This is very important so we cut the relax time down somewhat.

Sherri made some coleslaw and beans to take with us. Becky and Rick were making ribs so we would have plenty to eat. We got all our stuff done and packed the Jeep up. We were off in no time and being that we were about 15 minutes from their house we were there before we knew it.

The first playoff game was poor to say the least. I was really wanting the Bears to win that one but as fate would have it they lost. It was not the Bear team I had been watching this year. I think they found a new team out in the parking lot and let them play for a while...or just long enough to lose.

Now the next game came out the way I wanted it to. GO STEELER! This will be Number 7. Ask me where I will  be Super Bowl Sunday!

We did not leave for Louisiana until almost 9:30 and did not arrive at our destination until 11:30. This was not good for getting up the next morning for work...but then that is another story...

Somewhere in Time

Moving East to a dry paved RV site with Sewer

 

We did some laundry yesterday and packed up our traveling clothes. We had to get ready for our travel day Sunday. Until then we will be taking our house East to a new spot to live at. This is what we like about our lifestyle we can live anywhere we want to as long as it is within our budget. Our house is mobile and so are we.

We move from town to town...hotel to hotel and then our house moves around too. Sometimes we have a hard time distinguishing where we are when we first open our eyes in the morning. When we are "Heading Home" as we say we have to stop and think where did we park "It"...Home that is. What a life...not many people understand this life style and few would like it but to those of you out there that read this you know what I mean and can associate with what I am writing.

Yes we are headed to a park that is 95% concrete. The 5% that is not are the areas between RV's that is grass. This time  of the year you need concrete to stay dry and clean. Nothing worse than having to wade in and out of your house in the mud. Things never get clean and once it dries up you have to scrub everything to get back to normal.

We were in no hurry to leave out so we just kicked back and enjoyed the morning coffee and made some plans for the upcoming visit with our friends in Whitehouse Texas. We will only be 12 miles from their house so we can commute back and forth and still be home at night in our own bed.

We arrived at the park and were assigned a pull through spot for the month. We have metered electric so we have to be saving. With cold weather and the fact we have electric heaters and a furnace our bill may get high. OH well that is better than being cold.

The Park has all kinds of amenities and we like it very much. I will have to do a good review on  http://www.rvparkreviews.com/

I like this web site for it's reviews of the parks. I like knowing if I can get in without too much trouble... If they have good WIFI...level spots...propane...picnic tables...laundry (Cost)...close to stores and places to eat. I really don't put much credence in reviews about how the staff treated them...or that the highway noise was noticeable. If I like the location and all the above is ample then I can live past all the other facts that are given.

When I do a review I will let my fellow travelers know if the direction to the park are correct and what to expect in the park as far as getting into your spot. Everyone has their own idea what a Park should have for comfort but we all have the same problems finding the parks and parking in them once we are there. WIFI and TV reception are things we need to know about but might not keep us from staying there for just one night. I can do without TV and Internet for one night but I hate getting lost trying to find a park when I am pulling an RV down the road! When you get there you sure don't want to have to back in a small spot in the dark after you have driven for a long time. These are the things I will tell you in my reviews and I hope they are helpful.

OK we are all settled in now and plan on watching some TV and trying out the Internet here. You will get the full update tomorrow before we leave here and head...

Somewhere in Time

     

At the Lake and is it cold

 

Sherri and I left Monroe Louisiana around 1:30 and headed down the highway to our lake lot. We had parked the RV there last weekend in the mud after a ton of rain. I was hoping that it had dried up somewhat. I just hate to live in a mud hole in the winter.

When we arrived at the lot I did not have to worry about it being muddy. The temps were in the 30's and the ground was frozen. We have gravel on our parking pad but when you drive on it and walk on it after a heavy rain it will get squishy.

While getting unloaded the wind picked up and the temps began to drop...way down. By the time we got everything inside and got settled down for the night it was in the 20's! We will be trying out our arctic package for sure tonight. I cranked the heater up to 70 and soon it was nice and toasty inside. We have the fireplace and a space heater going at the same time.

Sherri got busy in the kitchen making us some chili and I went outside to fill up the fresh water tank. I filled it to the top which is 120 gallons of water...this should last a couple of days.

We turned in after the Mentalist...the bed was ice cold! Soon it warmed up  too and we were sound asleep.

Sherri was up early...I could hear her in the kitchen making coffee. I waited for her to get that done and then I pulled myself out of the bed and joined her in the living room next to the fireplace. Once again I turned the heat up to 73 and it ran for a short time and then cut off leaving us warm.

We sat there and discussed leaving here and heading East. We want to get closer to Louisiana where we will be working for the next two weeks. This will save us a lot of time traveling back and forth and will also put us closer to Rick and  Becky...who we will be spending some time with during the Super Bowl. We have all kinds of plans on cooking out and watching the game on Rick's big screen TV.

We found us a RV park and I called for reservations. They said they had plenty of room...DUH...who would be staying in East Texas this time of year except us? This will put us closer in and we wont have such a long drive home at the end of the week.  

Today is laundry day so we will be getting caught up on cleaning our dirty clothes. When that is all done we will go to the kids house to visit. Jennifer and Frank are going out for the evening but we will stay and visit with the kids. We leave tomorrow so it may be a month before we see them again...

Somewhere in Time

Rainy wet weather here

It has been raining here and damp for the last two days. We are ready for some dry warmer weather. This morning seems to be more of the same but they say it might clear some and we might see some sunshine!

We are doing a full store set this week and will be in the same hotel. I like it when we don't have to move all the time. I get to relax after I get off work and watch a little TV before going out to eat. I am still trying to cut back on the eating so I can lose some of this poundage I have gathered up over the past year.

This brings me to the subject of my working one year this month! It does not seem like I have been working that long. We are still working until Sherri can retire and then I will be writing about much better things. We are planning on not working as much this year so I should have some good journeys to write about.

OK time to head out...

Somewhere in Time

Made it to the lake...House Fixed

 

We woke up in Seagoville Texas this morning. It was 5:30 when the alarm went off and I reluctantly climbed out of the sack. I felt my way to the bath room and found the light switch. Let there be light and there was and I could see. My eyes were just two pee holes in the snow this am and I did not chance on opening them too wide for fear I would go blind...I did not and got ready for work.

Today after work we have to go to Denton Texas to pick up our house...You might be Red Neck if you take your house in to get it fixed. We worked until 11:30 and then went down the street from the store to eat lunch. Italian today and I had the Fettuccini Alfredo ....was it good! A little salad to go along with it and I was full. Back to work finished up around and 3:30 and then we packed up and left for Denton.

When we arrived Johnny our Tech said that they had a problem closing the slide due to the window stool in the back being wider than the original. We have the couch across the back and the stool being wider caused the couch to stick out too far and the therefore the slide hit the couch. Oh what a dilemma....So now the couch is back in the Arizona room slide and all is well. Oh well we can live with that until we replace to couch with some better chairs.

We got past all that and loaded the house up on the truck and we were off to Hickory Creek COE park for the weekend. We stopped and dumped before we got parked. I just wanted to be sure that our black water tank was empty as it could be. We have no sewer in COE parks so we have to be completely empty.

Sherri got me backed in without any problem and the slides came out. I got the electric hooked up and when I tried to hook up the water the faucet blew off the stand pipe and in about 5 seconds I was soaking wet....In about 15 seconds I was standing in a foot of water and soon after that I was changing clothes. Things are not looking to good now...

I had to go to the Camp Host two sites down and report the break. They said they would have to call someone that handles that and I left and went out to eat. When we got back the water was still running like a Las Vegas fountain. I could not help but think that the tax payers were paying for all that water and no one seemed to have a since of urgency to stop the flow.

They did come during the night and fixed the gusher. The next day I just filled up my fresh water tank...not that I did not trust the fix but I wanted to be sure I had water all day without incident.

We will be leaving here Sunday back to our lake lot. There we will leave the house while we go back to work...

Somewhere in Time 

Moving day...on the ice?

 

This morning I heard Sherri up in the kitchen making coffee. I raised my head up so I could see the clock across the room. It was 6:30...time to rise and shine. Noticed that the sun was not shinning this am and that the snow was still on the ground. The furnace was running and it was nice and warm so I slid from under the covers and ventured down to the kitchen to secure me a cup of coffee.

Sherri was in her recliner now and I got into mine and pulled the throw up over me. We had the blinds up and I could see the reflection of lights across the lake twinkling in the water. Not hardly a ripple on the surface of the lake which told me that we had little or no wind this morning...Good! With temps as low as they are any wind would be cutting through us like a sharp knife.

We have to move today. We hate to give up our site here at Hickory Creek. We are right on the lake's edge and have a view of the water out of every window. I will definitely make this our site from now on. I will have to secure it a head of time...being it is one of the most popular in the park.

All good things must come to an end, however and we will be moving East. The house will be staying in Denton at the dealership to get some work done on it. We have a window stool in the back that had some water damage due to a leak we had develop last summer after a hail storm. Yes we are just now getting around to having it fixed. We have to do things slowly being that we live in our RV we can't just leave it at the dealership all the time.

We plan on leaving around 2:00 pm. We have to dump of course and then drive up the road about 5 miles on roads that we are not sure of. With the snow and ice that we had here yesterday we are not sure how bad they will be. That is why we are waiting until 2:00 pm to make the trip.

In the mean time we have several things to do inside so we will get all them done before we pack it in here. We have to drive East to Lake Tawakoni to exchange the truck for the car. Pack our clothes and then head out. We hope that the roads are in good shape by that time. The East half of North Texas had more snow than here so we are going to be cautious.

 

We did make it to the dealership without any problem. The roads were clear and the traffic was light. After dropping the RV off we headed on East to our property by the lake and picked up the Jeep. The snow there was deeper but the roads were still in good shape. The rest of the trip went without any problems also and we were in the hotel before we knew it. A quick meal at the Jalapeño Tree and we were tucked in for the night.

We were safe and thankful for a day without incident...

Somewhere in Time     

Cold Day at the Lake

 

Woke up this morning to the sound of rain hitting the roof....or maybe it is giant snow flakes?? No I bet it is just rain. We had the roof air blowing last night when we went to bed...just the air not AC. When we woke up there was a chill in the air and I was elected to get up and turn on the furnace. While I was up I fixed the coffee and took my shower. Sherri waited until the temp was bearable for her to come out from under the covers. She joined me in the living room for coffee and we watched the weather to see if there had been any changes to the forecast.

No changes so far...just the usual one station saying there would be so many inches and the other giving their estimation of how deep the coverage would be. You could tell they were so excited about this weather pattern that they were about to wet themselves. "We will be giving school closing on Monday morning"...they said... "So tune in to find out if your school will be open"...For heavens sake we have not seen the first snow flake and they have the schools closing? When I lived up north it was more along the line of...."Oh Crap more snow on the way".

Our two little ones had no boots so their stay outside was short

Anyway I told the kids to send pictures of the snow man when they finished building it. They usually send me one but then I wanted to be sure they don't forget. Snow to the kids is almost as exciting as Christmas! School lets out and they have snowball fights...build snow men and go sledding. To us old folks it is all about losing control of the car and running into the ditch with a extremely high tow bill. Oh well maybe we should do less driving and more sledding.

 

Here is my snowman...now this is art!

We have to go back to the store to exchange the rug from yesterday and return our movies. Maybe a trip to the Verizon store before the butt load of snow falls on us.

Well that never did happen. The snow came before we finished our last movie so we just stayed inside. We will have to get out and take them back...maybe the streets will be clear by then.

We got to Albertson's without too much trouble. I returned the movies and then we went back to Wally World to return the rug. While there we picked us up a pizza from the Deli and a few other items then it was time to head back to the house.

By the time we got home the temps had dropped considerably. I decided to fill the fresh water tank up so we would not be without water if it should get down below freezing...which it probably will. 

Sure nuff it did...we stayed nice and cozy with our -0 insulation package. Our furnace only came on twice and the electric heater and fireplace did the rest. Not bad...but we need to think about getting out of the cold weather in the winter. That is in the forecast...

Somewhere in Time

Moved to Lake Lewisville

 

View from our window at the Lake...Sorry about the focus!

We woke up Saturday morning and sat in the living room to enjoy our coffee. We turned the TV on to see what was happening in the world around us when the weather came on. The forecast was for snow!!! SNOW! It has been in the 60's for the last month or so...how could we be having snow?

OK so if it is going to snow this weekend we need to make a change in plans. We wont be able to drive into Denton Sunday if it is snowing. We decided to go ahead and go to Lewisville Lake a day earlier so as to beat the snow fall.

Sherri got the house cleaned and I cleaned the Jeep inside. We got the laundry done and readied the house for shipment to the lake. I hitched up and we were ready to pull out by 1:30. We went to the State Park...which is located about 2 miles from our lake lot. We dumped and dropped off our trash and then hit the road toward Lake Lewisville. The trip there is about an hour and forty five minutes. We did not have reservations for Saturday so we just took a chance that the site we had reservations for Sunday would be open today. Sure nuff it was open and we paid for the one night and parked.

What a gorgeous site it is too. We are right on the lake and have a great view out of every window in the house. We could not ask for more than this...well we could ask for more time off to enjoy it. I think I will make this my new "Most Favorite Site" to stay at. I could spend some serious time living here without any regrets.

OK we settled in and then it was time to go and rent some movies for the S N O W day coming up. We went to Albertson's and found the Red Box. Four movies later we were on our way to Wally World to look at a rug Sherri wanted. We found it in short order and were on our way home before I knew it. Now that is a record for us

When we got home we found out that the rug was not the right color so we will have to take it back. OH well such is life...one more trip to Wally World will only cost us another $100. HE HE...

We decided to put that off until tomorrow and just watch our movies tonight. About 9:30 we both decided that we needed to go to bed. We just can't stay up late like we use to. No amount of Popcorn or ice cream can keep those eyes open past 10:00 pm.

So off to bed we scurried with one movie left to view tomorrow...

Somewhere in Time

Here we are Relaxing

 

Our work week ended Thursday so we have three days to enjoy. The only thing on the radar is taking our home in for it's last appointment under our 2 year warranty. We will be moving into our 5 year warranty this year and will have to see how well that works out.

We arrived home on Thursday evening and spent most of the day unpacking and relaxing in our recliners. We have a long weekend to rest and we want to make the most of it. Sherri had planned on doing some wash but we just sat in the living room and did nothing. It is so nice to get home and do nothing for a while so that is just what we did for the remainder of the day.

We woke up Friday morning early...out of habit...and I fixed us a pot of coffee. We had to head into Mesquite Texas so Sherri could get her teeth cleaned. It takes us about an hour to get to the dentist office so we hurried up and got our showers and dressed. The trip was uneventful except for the usual traffic. Upon arrival I let Sherri out at the side door of the mall...were the dentist office is located. I proceeded to park and walk in to wait with her. Once inside the mall I noticed that there was no escalators working so I had no way to go down stairs to where the dentist office was. I found out from some others there in the mall that I had to use the elevator and was directed to it's location.

Finally I reached the waiting room which was empty. Sherri had already been called in for her appointment so I settled in to read People Magazine. It wasn't too long and she was through and it was time to head to Terrell Texas where we had to get our oil changed in the Jeep.

This was about a half hour drive and a hour and a half wait to have the service done. While at the dealership we got our new license plates and had them installed. To kill some time while waiting for all this to get done we headed over to Big Lots to look around. I bought me some insulated gloves and a $3.00 movie.

We went back to the dealership picked up the Jeep and drove to our daughters house...in Wills Point...to visit. We were not there long when we decided to go out to eat Mexican food. We loaded everyone up and went to Canton Texas to Ochoa's. We had a good lunch and then went to...where else...Wally World for some grocery items. Back to the kids house and then home.

What a great day we had...not much relaxing but a lot of fun...

Somewhere in Time