Monday, December 1, 2014

We had another cold morning today.  Sharon said it was 22 degrees but with the wind it seemed a lot colder, closer to zero.

This is my normal publishing day for the Journal but since we’ve only been on the road for two days I’ll wait until next week.

Sharon went next door and picked up Breakfast at Burger King for us this morning.  It was a quick way to get us back on the road.  Little did we know at the time that our engine battery on the motorhome was dead as a doornail.  By the time we disconnected the car and jump started the motorhome we were looking at another half hour delay.  And the weather was bitter cold for all this monkeying around.

We finally got everything going and rolling and headed in the right direction down the road.

We had to make a gas stop this morning and we actually found it for $2.59 a gallon.  That’s about as cheap as we’ll find it unless it actually goes down per barrel some more.

We made it as far as Bourbon, Missouri for the night.  We pulled into Blue Springs Ranch which is about 50 miles from St. Louis.  I wouldn’t recommend this place again because of it’s distance from the Interstate on narrow roads.  It seems to be a very nice campground, but a lot of trouble to get to.

We had pasties from home for Supper tonight.  Sharon had made a batch just before we left, and we ate half of them, and froze the rest for later.

We settled in for the night in front of the tube and watched that until we headed for the hay about 11.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

We were off this morning in good spirits and headed toward south Missouri and Branson.  The weather was a little warmer today and the roads were dry but the forecast was for rain later in the afternoon.  The rain never did show up which was just fine with us.

As we drove today we noticed a noise coming from the brakes that was getting louder and the exhaust noise we had from home was doing the same.  We decided to find a repair facility somewhere along our route and see if we could get them taken care of.  Sharon got to Googling and we found one in Springfield, MO which was just ahead of us on the road.  They said they could take it in today so we put the location into the GPS and an hour later we pulled into the shop.

We took off for Lambert’s Café in Ozark which was 10 miles down the road.  We got our usual Chicken Wings and a take-home box while we ate the pass-arounds until we were full.

After lunch we got on the road looking for a Motel after having been notified the shop would have to keep the coach overnight.  That can’t be good at all for our pocketbook.

We managed to find a very nice motel for the night for a very reasonable price.  We settled in and camped in front of the tube for the night.

The Motel we found was very comfortable for the price even though it was an off-brand for $54.  It was quiet for the most part and at least we weren’t searching for very long to find it.

We managed to find most of our shows on the telly and even some we weren’t looking for.  We headed off to the rack early tonight to rest up for the bad news tomorrow.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

We had the Continental Breakfast at the motel this morning which wasn’t much.  It was a hot Breakfast, but if you wanted it hot you had to make toast.  The muffins were  and along with it came good however.

We spent most of today just killing time and waiting for a phone call from the repair shop. 

We went to McD’s for lunch today and then just drove around checking out the sites.  No sightseeing, just looking around.

At about 3:30 while heading over to the shop we got the phone call, and it wasn’t good news.  He was having a problem with the manifold.  I had suspected as much but was hoping that it was only an exhaust pipe.  Apparently it was warped and he couldn’t get it to seal correctly.  So its going to take another day, at least, to get it machined and reinstalled.

We were back off to the Motel to register for another night.

We went out to a place called Buckingham’s Smokehouse & Bar in Springfield for Dinner tonight.  They had an item on the menu called a Burnt Ends Dinner.  I’ve heard of it and I wanted to try it.  It was delicious, and along with it I got onion rings and a salad.  Sharon had Smoked Chicken, Beef Brisket, Smoked Baked Beans and Potato Salad.  We both enjoyed it very much.

We headed back to the motel for the night and camped out in front of the TV.  We picked up a couple of 2-Liter bottles of Coke and a couple of snacks to hold us over through the night.  We had some coke but never touched the snacks.  We were off to nite, nite early tonight.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

We anxiously awaited a phone call this morning from the shop that had the motorhome.  It didn’t come.

We checked out of the motel.............again and went out for Breakfast to a place called Ziggie’s Café.  We got a very nice Breakfast for a very reasonable price and it was only a half block down the road.

We drove around again today just trying to kill time.  By 1 PM we called the shop and they hadn’t received the manifold back from the machinist’s yet.

We decided that it was better to check back into the motel rather than sit in the car and check in at 5 PM again.

We went back to the motel and checked in and at 5PM the shop called telling us the coach was done and ready to go.  The only thing we need now is all the bad news on the price.

We left the motel to pick up our supper at McDonald’s.  Neither of us felt like another sit-down Dinner tonight.

We spent the rest of the night back in front of the TV watching re-runs.  We went to bed right at 10 tonight.  We had had another long day doing nothing.

Friday, December 5, 2014

We went for the Continental Breakfast this morning before we headed out to find our coach at All J’s Automotive and Fleet.  We missed our turn again and had to turn around to get back to the shop and then drove right by it and had to turn around again.  It must have been some kind of omen because when we got there the bill was only $1747.00.  We both expected it to go over 4 thousand with the work they had to do.  Needless to say we were pleasantly surprised.

They opened the doors of the garage and allowed us to hook up the car inside.  There really wasn’t enough room between the building and the curb to get it done.  So that was a nice gesture along with the bill.

We hit the road almost immediately and headed toward Branson where we’ll camp-out for a couple of days before we move on to Dallas and the Bush Library.

We arrived at Treasure Lake Resort in Branson, after having found gas for $2.34 a gallon in Ozark, MO.

We settled into our campsite before we found out our satellite receiver was on the fritz.  I was on the phone for 3 hours this afternoon trying to get a replacement at a DirecTV Dealer to no avail.  The best that Direct could do was to send me a new one Fed-EX.  The problem is whether we’ll be here after it arrives.  We’re thinking about spending an extra day here to allow it to get here.  We’ll figure that out on Sunday.

We got to finally eat our leftover Chicken Wings from Lambert’s Café tonight.

Sharon put them in the oven along with Fried Potatoes.  We also had some Apples and peaches and Cottage Cheese, also from Lambert’s.  It was just as good as it was 4 days ago before our repair stop.

With no TV, we watched some pre-recorded tapes tonight.  We had a couple of old movies that we’ve been carrying around for years.  It wasn’t good but it was entertainment for the night.

We headed south for the flannel sheets about 10 and I had no nightmares tonight.  It was a good night all things considered.

Saturday, December 6, 2014

We were both up late again today and I don’t know what’s happening to us.  Maybe it’s just the stress from the last 4 days has caught up to us. 

Sharon had some shopping to do and took off and got that taken care of.

We had tracked the new receiver online and it reported it would be here around 1:30 so I stuck pretty close to the homestead this morning.  By the time Sharon got back the office called and reported that the box was there. She quickly went up and picked it up, but we found after examination that it didn’t have the right connections on the back.  Back on the phone with DirecTV.  We found out we needed an RF Modulator and a set of RCA plugs. $38.00 later and a trip to Best Buy and we were ready to hook it up.  The only trouble was IT was not ready to be hooked up.

We decided it was time to eat and we would be taking in a trip to Olive Garden for a late lunch.  We had the Soup, salad and Breadsticks.  It was quite good and really was a treat in the middle of our troubles.

After getting back, I was on the phone for another 2 hours speaking with everyone at DirecTV trying to get it working.  This call was to cancel my service. Why pay for something you’re not getting.  The best they could offer was a technician that would come on Tuesday in the afternoon.  We finally agreed even though it would set us back about 4 days on our schedule. The schedule wasn’t that rigid anyway so a day here, or a day there, really doesn’t make much difference.  And we certainly didn’t object to staying in Branson.

We were snacking tonight with popcorn which is our usual stunt when we have a late lunch.  We watched another couple of movies for the night.  “The Crush” and “Excessive Force” were our entertainment for this evening.  They lasted until about 11 and so did we, before we folded up our tent and headed to slumberland.

Sunday, December 7, 2014HAPPY ANNIVERSARY (40) 

I was up early this morning cause I wanted to see an interview with Rush Limbaugh on Foxnews Sunday.  I went up to the Clubhouse but I couldn’t find a TV in there anywhere.  There was a 60 incher that they only used for activities and not available for news casts.  So I came back home and tried to set up our digital box which we’ve been carrying around for the last 5 years at least.  We got it working only to find 2 religious stations that we could receive.  It didn’t really matter cause Sharon found the interview online and I got to watch it anyway.

Sharon was off to do laundry this morning and was gone for a couple of hours.  While she was gone I formulated the first week of the Journal for the website.  It seems like every year they have to make things more difficult for us users.  I don’t understand how this years changes are making it easier.  It took me two hours to figure out how to enlarge the font even with directions.  Oh well.

We left early after noon to head out to Michael’s craft store and finally to Joe’s Crab Shack for a late lunch. An unfortunate “mistake” at Joe’s resulted in an extra order of King Crab.  They brought us one order of Antarctic King Crab which is smaller legs, so they replaced it with the regular.  It was unfortunate for Joe’s but not for us.  This was actually the second time this has happened.  The first time was the wrong seasoning, a couple of years ago,  which also turned out to be delicious.

On the way home we checked the Lodge to see if there was a TV for the Packer game tomorrow night.  We found a TV and now we just have to check to see if we can use it.

We came back home and relaxed while we digested all that crab.  Our entertainment for the night was a movie called “The dogfight.”  It was quite good but a little weird.  It however, kept us entertained for the night.  We headed off to the padded room about 11 tonight