Monday, April 16, 2012

We awoke this morning with plenty to do before we hit the road tomorrow.  This was definitely going to be a “get ready to go” day today.

We had our last hurrah at Golden Corral this morning for Breakfast and stopped at K-Mart on the way over.

By the time we got back it was time to get busy.  Sharon decided to wash the windows on the coach and I was outside dumping the holding tanks and putting away our water hose.  We’ll run off the water tank for the next few days.

After dumping, I got busy on cleaning the windshield for the trip.  I had gotten most of the bugs off the other day, but today my plan was to clean up the mess I left the other day by just “getting the bugs off.”

By mid-afternoon we were both caught up on what we had planned to do today and retreated to the confines of the motorhome where the air conditioner was running.   It was going to be another scorcher today.

By Suppertime Sharon heated up the leftover KFC that we had in the refrigerator from Saturday night’s Chicken Bucket.  It was still very good.

We settled in front of the Telly tonight and I surfed around and Sharon did Cross Stitch.  It was an amicable night for the both of us.

We headed off to slumberland at 10 tonight knowing we’d be up early and off to the races in the AM.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

It was “moving day” today and we had the perfect plan to get it going.  I would take off for the gas station and Sharon would dump our garbage and go to Subway and pick up a couple of Steak, Egg and Cheese Flatbread Sandwiches and then meet me so we could hook up and go on our way.  If she didn’t make it in time to meet me at the gas station I would drive down Jimmie Kerr Boulevard and stop where I found room.

I got off just as planned, but I didn’t see Sharon leave the campground as I got held up by the stoplight on the corner.  I made it to the station and started filling the coach with gas.  No Sharon.  I kept on filling having to re-enter the credit card 3 times to pump 65 gallons of gas.  No Sharon.  I thought that I could call her when I noticed both phones on the passenger seat.  The station was crowded and busy and I had to get out of there.  I made one last look as I pulled out of the station and, no Sharon.  I turned toward the campground figuring there was some problem.  As soon as I got on the road

I spotted the Escape coming toward me so I found an abandoned parking lot and pulled over to wait.  Needless to say I wasn’t satisfied with the “non-explanation” of the delay but I also didn’t realize, until then, that she had farther to drive than I did.The sandwiches she got from Subway were loaded and bulging at the seams, however, and the both of them only cost $4.38.  I was happy again.

After getting back on the road I commented to Sharon that since the road construction in Tucson it was a very easy drive to get through there now.  We had no more incidents for the rest of the trip to Deming, NM.  We settled into our campground by 3 Pm having gone through a time change at the New Mexico Border.  We got the dish up and running ( It’s still working, Phil) and then took off for an early Dinner at the Si Senor Restaurant.

We had a lovely Dinner of Mexican food having found this place a couple of years ago.  They bring you a pair of sopapillas at the conclusion of your meal.  A very nice finish to a very good meal.

We decided that we were only going to stay 1 night here and then take off for Amarillo tomorrow morning.

After Dinner we came back to the coach and settled in for the night watching the repeats tat were being offered.  Actually NCIS was new but everything else was reruns.  We stayed up until about 10:30 before we called it a day and headed off to bed.  We’re going to have a long driving day tomorrow.  This leg of the trip is always a long one.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

We got off to an early start this morning hoping to make Amarillo by nightfall.  Our plan was to go through Guadalupe Mountains National Park but not to stop there.  There was a little part of a road through New Mexico that we had never been on before and we wanted to catch that on this trip.

Our first stop was in Anthony, Texas to gas up and we found the price to be 4 cents more than we could have gotten it in New Mexico.  Damn!  It was only a part-fill so it wasn’t all that earthshaking.

We headed up into the mountains and one part was a long steep climb.  Probably at least 7% for at least 6-7 miles.  The ride down the other side was worth it, however.  And the old girl had no trouble making the climb.

After our short stint in New Mexico we were back in Texas again headed toward Lubbock, where I had the surgery for my broken leg a few years ago.  As we were cruising down the highway a car pulled up alongside and motioned and shouted that our car was smoking.  We immediately pulled over figuring it was something minor.  It wasn’t.  We had smoke pouring out from under the hood and not looking good.  We drove to a gas station about a half mile up the road and called Ford Roadside Assistance.  They immediately offered to send out a tow to get it to the nearest dealer.  We waited for the tow truck and it turned out to be a flat bed truck that he just pulled the car up onto.

We followed the to truck to the dealer and found a place to park on the dealer’s lot.  We even found a power pole to plug into for the night. But the spot that we were on was right in front of a tree that spoiled our TV reception.  It didn’t really matter because it was late enough by this time, that we weren’t even interested in TV.

There was a McD’s across the street from the dealer’s that Sharon walked over to pick up something to eat for us. I didn’t feel like the pizza we had in the freezer.

Almost immediately after we finished eating we went to bed for the night.  It was nice and quiet here and we fell asleep without too much trouble.  Of course our full stomachs kept us rolling and tumbling all night.  Neither of us got a good night’s sleep, and it had really been a long day.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

We awoke this morning with a forecast that would approach 90 degrees today.  We knew this parking lot with minimum power would not run our air conditioner if we needed it.  And we were certain that we would need it.

I went in to the service department at 7 to give them my information since they were closed last night when we arrived.  We were hoping for them to take a quick look at the car and give us a report on its condition.  We waited to hear anything all morning with no report and finally called them back at 1:30 when we heard the bad news.

We had a leaky rear wheel seal that drained all the transmission fluid and allowed the transmission to fry itself.  The NEW transmission that we would need was already ordered, and coming from Memphis, TN.  It would take a few days to get here and beyond that we just needed to wait for it to get here and be installed on the car.

We made arrangements from the dealership to get a rental car and left to find a campground.  Sharon had found one that was quite close and just down the road from the dealership.  We had no trouble finding it and we were settled in by 3 PM even though our dish was acting up again.  One transponder in the receiver goes up to 90+ and then drops to zero for no apparent reason, while the second transponder holds steady at 90+.  It was blamed on trees while we were in Desert Hot Springs but there’s no trees here in the way.  In any event we finally got it working after I unplugged it, and replugged it in again.  Hopefully we can limp by until we get home.

We got by the rest of the night without further incident except that the wind was blowing most of he night and interrupting our signal from the satellite.  It didn’t subside until around 8 when I recorded all our shows that we hadn’t seen earlier.  We’ll have to watch them tomorrow cause we sure aren’t staying up tonight.

Friday, April 20, 2012

We got up with a forecast of rain today but it sure didn’t look like it when the sun came up.  It did, however, get overcast and looking like rain but we never got the raindrops.  But apparently the rest of Texas wasn’t so lucky as there were serious thunderstorms all over the state.

Sharon gave me a haircut as soon as she got up this morning, and as soon as she got showered and dressed, went for a walk and stopped at the office for tourist brochures.  She had found Joe’s Crab Shack in the GPS so we knew that would be on our agenda over the next couple of days for sure.

By the time she got back we had both eaten our Breakfast but had already planned to go to Joe’s Crab Shack for lunch today.  It would be a late lunch but we wanted to miss the crowd anyway.

About 1 o’clock we took off for Joe’s and used the GPS to find it even though it wasn’t that far away.  We took the GPS because we wanted to stop at Wal-Mart on the way back home.  We were surprised to see the number of little kids in the place with their “parents.”  I say it this way because the pseudo-parental units were doing nothing to keep their screaming kids quiet.  I was upset because we were going to try to enjoy a $70 Lunch with all that noise.  But when we dug into the Crab we didn’t hear a single kid screaming in the place and some of them even left.  It was a fabulous lunch and it had been a year since we had it last time.

After lunch we headed out to Wal-Mart to do some grocery shopping.  I couldn’t find a handicap cart so I sat in the front of the store and waited for Sharon to finish the shopping. We were pretty much “snack” shopping but we still needed a few things for next week.

By the time we got home the sky was overcast and looking like we were actually going to get some rain but we didn’t.  We settled in front of the TV for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.  We didn’t need to have Supper having eaten a late lunch so we would be snacking later on.

We entertained ourselves in front of the TV for the rest of the night catching up on taped shows from last night.  We had enough to watch even though some of it was reruns.  By the time the bewitching hour rolled around we were ready for the rack.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

We were up and got a leisurely start today because we wanted to go to the Silent Wings Museum just north of Lubbock, at Lubbock International Airport.  Silent Wings is the museum that exhibits the World War II gliders which flew on several missions during the war.  Sharon found the museum when she was leafing through stuff to do in Lubbock.  We have a particular interest in the gliders because thousands of them were built in our hometown.

After lunch we headed off for the museum and found it very easily with the help of the GPS.  I was driving the Ford Focus that we got from the dealership and what a piece of crap it is.  It’s small inside, the driver’s seat is uncomfortable, you can’t see the gas gauge while driving, it had no cruise that I could find, and generally I just whined about it all the way to the museum.  It was an Enterprise Rent-a-car and I certainly would never rent this car again.

The museum was a relatively new building with more than enough exhibits to tell the story they wanted to convey.  We were there for about an hour and a half and watched a couple of short movies that were part of the exhibit.  Generally it was a very informative afternoon we spent there.  We even saw Iron Mountain mentioned as the place they did the Research and Development on the gliders.  We didn’t see anything about the gliders being built there, but we know better.

The GPS showed that the museum was about 13 miles from our campground so it didn’t really take us long to get back home again.

We spent the rest of the afternoon until Supper watching the Telly and catching up on shows that were taped.  Sharon reheated the remainder of the Stuffed Cabbage Rolls that she had made a few weeks ago for Supper tonight.  We also had a small salad and a side order of Peas to go along with it.  It was still quite good if I must say.

We camped out in front of the Tube for the rest of the night even though there wasn’t much to watch tonight.  We still had taped stuff that took up the slack and we were both ready for the sack when 10 o’clock rolled around.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

We awoke this morning to a bright sunshiny day and Sharon was immediately off to church while I sat and watched my Sunday morning political shows.  When she got back she had a brilliant idea.  We would be having a big Breakfast of Apple Pancakes and Bacon.  Sharon doesn’t usually like pancakes of any kind but ever since we had the Apple Pancakes she’s softened her stance some.  In any event the Breakfast was a fine one.

After Breakfast she took off with the laundry and was gone to the campground laundry for a couple of hours.  By the time she got back she was frustrated as all get out.  The laundry room was full of moths and she had been battling them for the last two hours.

Today must be a really bad day for the moths cause they’re starting to get into the motorhome today.  We’ve been here for a couple of days but really haven’t noticed them to be a bother until today.  We must have had at least a dozen and a half find their way in.  We were chasing them all afternoon and into tonight.  They don’t land so you have to kill them on the fly.  And even when they do land they’re hard to find.

We’re hoping that today and tomorrow will be our last uncertain days for staying in Lubbock.  Hopefully we’ll find out tomorrow how soon we can get the car back and get back on the highway north.  We’ve already changed our minds about stopping in Branson on the way home.  We just don’t have enough time left before the 1st of May.

We settled in front of the TV for the rest of the afternoon until Suppertime, when  Sharon fried up Chicken Strips and French Fries and she also made us a small salad for Dinner tonight.  It was all very good and one of our favorites.  Sharon even picked up some Sweet and Sour sauce to dip it in.  Yum, yum.

We watched mostly tapes tonight because Sundays don’t usually have much to offer in the way of TV programming.  Our tapes took us all the way to 11 however, before we cancelled the “battle with the moths” for the night.