Monday, April 21, 2014

We were off this morning for our last hurrah at Waffle House.  We sat next to a couple of locals who were very talkative.  He told me as he sat down next to me that booths are not made for people his size.  I re-iterated that I knew they weren’t made for fat guys.  We sat and talked all through Breakfast and the two of them were very interesting.  They had lived all over the US until they settled in Alabama.  They also liked coming to the Waffle House on occasion.  They were telling us about a couple of other good restaurants before we told them this was our last day here.

Sharon took off with the laundry as soon as she got back home.  I went outside and cleaned up our tables, chairs and the grill.  It didn’t take me long and I was intending to dump our tanks today also, but I was going to wait until after Supper before I tackled that job.

By the time Sharon got back I was working on the glitch in the Newsletter that refused to allow it to print out as a PDF.  I worked on it for a couple of hours before I finally found it.  I got it all ready to go so I can send it out any day.  I finished it about a week early so I’ll hold it for awhile.

Sharon made Tator Tot Casserole for Supper tonight.  We also had the leftover potatoes and peppers from our Cornish Game Hens.  Surprisingly the combination, along with a salad, went together very well.

After Supper I went out and dumped the holding tanks and filled up our fresh water.  That’ll probably be the last time I’ll have to do that until we get home unless I find a dump station on the way.

We prepared ourselves for another night in front of the tube.  It looks like there’ll be a couple of original shows on tonight along with the re-runs.  We stayed up until 10:30 tonight seeing we’ll be getting up early to head out tomorrow

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

We were off this morning but only as far as the maintenance garage to pick up LP gas before we left the park.  After the LP we had to deal with a low fuel lamp on the motorhome to the next gas station.  Fortunately it was just outside the campground and we made it without a problem.  We were actually on the road and on our way by 9 AM

We didn’t get a full tank from that station so I knew at that time we’d have to stop at least once to top off our tank.  Unfortunately I didn’t remember it at the right time.  As we drove up through a desolate portion of Mississippi our low fuel light came on again.  We had better find a station in the next 30 miles cause that’s all the further we’ve ever driven with the light on.  With lady luck on our side we came upon a station in the next 15 miles.  I think we were pretty much running on fumes as we are now towing a heavier car.

We had no other incidents as we continued on our path toward home.

We stopped at Barnes Crossing Campground in Tupelo, MS at about 5 PM and quickly settled in for the night.  We only planned on connecting electrical so it wasn’t much to get set up.  We lined up the dish and we were set for the night.

We sat down to leftover Tator Tot Casserole for Supper.  Our lunch was Pickle and Bologna sandwiches that Sharon had made up yesterday for sandwiches over the next few days.  She also made Sloppy Joe mix that we would put in sandwiches also.

We were grateful to just sit down tonight and watch TV.  We actually watched the 2 hour premiere of Deadliest Catch.  We were both tired and a warm bed was a welcome site tonight.  We didn’t make it in there til about 10:45, however.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

We were on the road by 9 this morning and our only stops today were for fuel and lunch and not necessarily in that order even though they were.  Our gas stop was in Selmer, Tennessee after which we were right back on the pavement.  The motorhome seems to be running better and better since we left Gulf Shores which may be attributed to the injector cleaner I’ve added at each fuel stop.  It was very sluggish when we left and jerky and hesitating for the first day.  We didn’t add the cleaner until the second stop in Scooba Junction, Mississippi but kept adding it after that.

We stopped for lunch in a mall parking lot in Jackson, Tennessee which didn’t take long to accomplish that and then we were back on the road after about 20 minutes.  We didn’t have any other stops after lunch except to change drivers.  Sharon offered to drive for awhile and I relinquished the wheel for about an hour or so.  We managed to find an exit ramp for us to change back again.  It was a nice respite from driving and we traded again when she got tired.

We rolled into our campground at Mt. Vernon, Illinois about 4 with plenty of time to catch Jeopardy for the night.  It was not to be, however.  We got a site that blocked the satellite and the cable TV from the park wasn’t working.  We also found out their Wi-Fi wasn’t working.  I don’t know what they’re so proud of here.  We had a hard time finding the place cause they changed their name, and now nothing works.

I had taped about 4 shows last night that we hadn’t seen and were still on the DVR so we watched them for the night.  It certainly beat having nothing to watch.  When we ran out of series TV to watch we watched half of The Outlaw Josey Wales for the rest of the night.

We shuffled off to Buffalo about 10:30 and it was a welcome sight indeed.  It had been a somewhat long day but it ends NOW.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

We were up early this morning but got a leisurely start to our day.  Sharon woke up in excruciating pain in her back.  Somehow she must have twisted the wrong way while she was sleeping.  We went outside to get our car ready to go and she informed me that she couldn’t get into the car.

We got on the road after a little delay and I offered her a couple of Vicodins. It’s in my reserve for kidney stones.  After about an hour she was feeling a little better.   We made two gas stops today and got some bad news.  On one of our stops we realized that we were only getting 370 miles out of a tank of gas.  We usually get about 550 miles.  We’ve been driving with the “Service Engine Soon” light on since Gulf Shores.  I changed the air filter and it went out for a few miles but then came back on again.  We’ve been driving with it on ever since.  One of the fixes for getting it to go out after getting bad gas was to run it through a couple of fills.  We definitely had a load of bad gas on our trip from Florida, by the way it was running, when we first started out on Tuesday.

We stopped at a McDonald’s for lunch today not wanting to stop and fix something for lunch.  We had our usual Quarter-Pounders and Fries and it was very good.  And it was a quick stop and we got right back on the road.

We were only planning on going a short distance today, find a campground, and spend the night.  The plan went haywire when we couldn’t find a campground where we were looking.

We’d been having trouble getting the generator to run since the bad gas we took on in Florida.  We knew we could stop in a parking lot (Wal-Mart) for the night but we’d have to have the generator working.  I tried it about 6 times today before it finally got running and kept running.  We knew now that we’d be able to stop anywhere and we found a spot around Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.  It was about 60 miles from my sister’s in Racine.  We’ll spend tomorrow night there.

We settled in quickly after having a hard day on both of us.  We fired up the generator after about an hour of TV watching  and it worked just fine all night.  Sharon was actually in bed most of the night and when I went at 10:30 she was still there.

Friday, April 25, 2014

We got a leisurely start this morning as we only had to drive about 45 minutes to get to my sister’s in Mt. Pleasant, WI, near Racine.  We stopped just before we got there to have lunch since we knew lunch wouldn’t be waiting for us.  We never arrive before lunch cause it’s too much of an imposition, and besides, I don’t think Marge does any cooking anymore.

When we arrived we found Marge and her daughter Jeannie at home.  The kids always provide someone to stay with Marge pretty much all the time now.  We sat around talking for the rest of the afternoon until the rest of the kids showed up.  LouAnn and Pat, Rhonda and Tom and us, sat down for Dinner tonight.

We had Chicken Salad Sandwiches and Pizza.  The Chicken salad was very good and the pizza was a pizza.

We sat around talking for the rest of the night til around 9 When Sharon and I left to go back out to the motorhome and everyone left for the night.

We came back out to the coach but couldn’t get TV reception because of the trees so we just watched a movie instead.  We were up until about 10:30 when we watched the final curtain come down on the day.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

We were up but not early today.  We got a leisurely start since we would only be going as far as West Bend, WI and my Son Sean’s house for the night.  It would be an hour and a half trip and we would get there in the early afternoon.

We sat around most of the afternoon just catching up on the winter happenings.  Katelin was gone horseback riding with the Girl Scouts for the afternoon.

My daughter Stephanie and her family would be out of town this weekend so we won’t see her on this trip.  The girls have volleyball tournaments out of state and they’ll be gone all weekend.

In the late afternoon we decided to go to the Texas Roadhouse early to beat the crowd.  We were too late cause the place was packed by the time we got there.  We only had to wait for about 15 minutes before we got a table, however.  We had ribs and steaks and they were very good.  We came back to Sean’s for dessert.  He had made Chocolate Lasagna this afternoon which was filled with Oreos, Cool Whip, Cream Cheese and Chocolate Pudding.  It was very good.

We came back out to the motorhome about 8 and watched a little tube before we headed for the feathers.  We both got tired about 10 and made it a night at that time.

Sunday, April 27, 2014

We were invited into Sean’s this morning for his “world famous” pancakes and we accepted.  It was a little nippy out this morning but I got the motorhome ready to travel before I went into the house.  I knew I wouldn’t feel like doing much when I came out after Breakfast, even though I only had extension cords to pick up, and jacks to retract.

Sharon’s back seemed a little better today but she was still drugged up with Vicodin.

The Breakfast of Pancakes and Sausage was very good and we enjoyed the visit with Sean, Julie and Katelin.

We were on the road for a couple of hours before we stopped for gas in Green Bay, and then stopped again just outside of Green Bay for lunch.  We had a favorite McDonald’s that we generally stop at when we’re hungry.

After our lunch stop, we got back on the road and continued until we got home.  We arrived about 2 PM and got about visiting our kids as soon as we got parked.  Sharon’s back was feeling pretty good now that she was home.

The End