J01W1

The Journal of 2018-19

DAY ONE AGAIN

Saturday, November 24, 2018

39○ with a “realfeel” of 42

Day one was a ripper for sure this year. It was cold and snowy right until the Friday before we left, and then on Friday it started to rain and it warmed up to 40 degrees. We had a perfect day to pack the motorhome before we actually left town the next day. We loaded up the “truck” and we’re raring’ to go. We made a last minute stop at Tom and Barb Gauthier’s house on Friday night.

This morning we were off in the rain. We got going without a hitch except that we would be headed into a threatening blizzard in Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois. Several people had warned us about it but we thought we could just scoot by and not have to drive through it.

We arrived at my Son Sean’s house about 3:30 in the afternoon in West Bend, Wisconsin and quickly got connected to house power. Their house.

We had an excellent visit with Sean and Julie and Stephanie and Mark along with Alexis came by later. We hadn’t seen them in awhile and we enjoyed the visit with them also. We ordered our “usual” KFC for Dinner and Sean and I went to pick it up. After having a nice meal, since our KFC at home was now closed, we sat and talked for a few hours before retiring to the motorhome for the night.

We couldn’t get a signal from Directv so we went to bed early.

Sunday, November 25, 2018

We were off this morning at a leisurely pace headed to Burlington, Wisconsin to see my sister at her assisted living residence there. We stayed for about 45 minutes before we decided to see if we could get on the road and beat the storm.

We gassed up in Milwaukee and headed for the Illinois border. We were on the road for awhile before the rain started. Quickly following that, was the snow that was predicted. It was just flurries for a while and we thought we may have made it to the edge of the storm. We lost our cruise control in a panic stop just outside of Chicago and had to drive the rest of the day without it. The flurries continued for awhile until it warmed up a couple of degrees and then there were huge flakes falling. I had never seen flakes so large in my life. Occasional ones were at least 2 inches across. They looked like small pillowcases falling from the sky. We drove through that for the last half hour before reaching our regular stopping place in Wenona, Illinois. And then the worst was yet to come.

By about 5pm, after we got to our stop, the strong winds began to blow.

Some gusts were registering up to 57 miles per hour and the snow was now going sideways. That continued for most of the night. We watched the Packers lose on digital tv tonight since we still hadn’t gotten a signal from DirecTV.

Monday, November 26, 2018

In the morning, the power was off and on until the main TV quit working. Everything had a coat of frozen water on it and our jacks were frozen to the ground. It looks like we’ll be staying put this morning for at least a while, maybe the whole day. In any event our TV is out for the time being.

By noon it actually looked like we might be able to get on the road and do a few miles anyway. A cop just happened to drive by our site here and Sharon was talking to him for a few minutes. She found out that the road is mostly clear except for a few icy spots. So we waited until about 11 o’clock and then decided to get on the road and see how far we could go. We had a pleasant surprise when the cruise control started working again.

Our day was uneventful after we got on the road. We kept at it until late afternoon and then pulled into a Wal-Mart in Litchfield, Illinois for the night. We got another pleasant surprise when the TV started working also.

We ran the furnace and Sharon’s CPAP all night and started hearing the Inverter warning at ten to 6 in the morning.

We both got up at that time and we were on the road again by 7:30.

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

An early start to what was going to be a pure driving day today. Leaving Litchfield we knew we could make it to Branson by the afternoon. We had planned to get as far as Sullivan, Missouri before we needed gas and that would be a late Breakfast, early lunch stop along the way.

After we left Sullivan and lunch, Sharon decided to take her first stint at the wheel. She lasted for about 2 hours and over a hundred miles which was a nice break for me for the day.

We finally rolled into our campground, Treasure Lake Resort, about 3 and got quickly settled in.

Our satellite receiver wasn’t even going to download information today so we switched over to the digital antenna right away. I don’t know what we’re going to do about TV but we’ll have to do something very soon. With most of the networks running reruns I don’t see an immediate problem except that we’re paying for programming.

Filling our water tank before we left home may very well have been a mistake because of the very cold weather we’ve been having.

We watched TV and caught up on our incidental stuff until 10:30 and then we headed off to bed for the night.

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

We were up and off this morning for Breakfast to the Grand Country Buffet which is located up on the strip. We’ve been there before each time we come to Branson and the food is delicious as well as different. I absolutely love their Ozark Omelettes which are scrambled eggs with onion, red and green pepper and baked in a muffin tin. Their mini-waffles taste like donut dough baked in a waffle maker. And then there’s the Country Hash Browns which are potatoes floating in a cheese sauce. It’s all quite good indeed, and so much food you can only taste “some” of it.

After the Country Buffet we made a stop at Walgreen to pickup some supplements which I had forgotten at home. Aspirin, B-12 and pro-biotic just to name a few. They had a heck of a sale on bottled water. 24 bottles for $2.99. (12 cents a bottle) They always have the good sales on stuff we don’t use.

Leaving Walgreen we headed back home only to find out the furnace seemed to be acting a little goofy. We played with it for awhile, and it seemed like the thermocouple went to hell since it wasn’t cycling.

Sharon decided she wanted to go to the craft mart that’s just outside our campground and I decided to go with her. It was where I bought my Fire Department jacket, two years ago, and I wanted to have some additional embroidery put on it. As it turned out the embroidery place was closed. But while Sharon was still shopping I found a car wash that we could go to. Our car was filthy from riding behind the motorhome during the rain and snow.

After we got back home it was time to decide what to have for Supper. We finally decided on a frozen pizza.

After Supper tonight we sat and watched digital TV since our Directv is still not fixed. We hung in there until about 10:15 before we headed for the rack.

Thursday, November 29, 2018

We planned on having a leisurely day today and our biggest decision would be whether to go to Lambert’s Café or Joe’s Crab Shack. We finally decided on Lambert’s since we have a gift card for Red Lobster and we’ll use that for our seafood experience. Besides this is our only chance to visit Lambert’s, so this was almost a no-brainer.

Lambert’s is about 25 miles from Branson in Ozark, MO. We left for there about 12:30 not wanting to get there at lunchtime when it would have been extremely busy. As soon as we entered the Café and sat down, I raised my hand, and a “Throwed Roll” came flying into it. We had arrived. We ordered our usual Chicken Wings and waited for the pass-arounds. We usually order the Wings because there’s enough for two meals, even three if you fill up on the pass-arounds. The pass-arounds include Macaroni and Tomatoes, Fried Okra, Black-eyed Peas and Fried Potatoes. We always leave here with nothing left to want. And today was no different than all of our previous visits.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home. We had to pick up a few things for the road, when we leave tomorrow.

The rest of the day was spent watching our newly acquired TV programming from DirecTV. I took an early leave and headed for bed at 10.

Friday, November 30, 2018

We were off at leisurely pace this morning knowing that we had planned to get to Seminole, Oklahoma by tonight. One of our only two stops today was in Huntsville, Arkansas to have Breakfast at McDonald’s today. It was really the fastest way we could have Breakfast and get back on the road quickly. Besides the restaurant was right on the side of the road. We did have a problem finagling a place to park. We finally ended up parking in front of a “no parking” sign with a no trucks sign next to it.

Our second stop was in Okemah, Oklahoma for fuel. We saw a sign for gas at $1.77 but by the time we got our 89 octane it was $1.92. We’ve seen these “come-ons” before and it’s always a lower octane gas. But we knew that going in, that the octane would be around 86 or lower. We were happy to get it for $1.92.

We pulled into Seminole and our campground, the Bar H Bar, about 3 o’clock and got quickly settled in. There’s a restaurant, the Roadhouse Diner, that’s just outside the campground, that we had already decided to get a fish fry from for Supper tonight. It would be Catfish , of course. And as it turned out, very good indeed.

We spent the rest of the night watching the tube and a couple of our favorite shows. Hawaii 50 and Blue Bloods were on tonight.

We stayed up until 10:30 when I headed off to bed. Sharon followed shortly after a little book reading.

Saturday, December 1, 2018

We left Seminole this morning headed for Amarillo, Texas with only one obvious problem. The wind was blowing up a storm and it was coming right at us and would be for most of the day. Our gas mileage would suffer today but we’ll also be another 300 miles down the road.

We stopped at the Cherokee Trading Post on the way and I picked up a T-shirt and Sharon was looking for “Rattlesnake Eggs” for Max. We found both and even decided to eat lunch in their restaurant. The food was good but nothing exceptional. Besides we both had a burger so you can’t do much with that. We had been stopped at the Trading Post for about an hour and when we got back out the wind had not subsided much.

Sharon offered to drive, when we took off again, and I thought driving in the wind would be good for her experience. So she was behind the wheel for the next couple of hour and at least a hundred miles. I took a short nap in the passenger chair while she was piloting the coach but it was quite rough with the wind blowing so hard.

We even had a spot of rain today even though the sky was mostly clear all day. The Sun was still out when the rain was falling, and Sharon was squeezing out a nap and never knew it rained.

We arrived at Oasis RV on the west side of Amarillo about 5 and quickly got settled in. The satellite downloaded but we’re still having problems with the message on the screen that says it’s searching for the signal.

We had a ton of programs recorded on the DVR from before we had the programming shut down in May, and I got to deleting a bunch of them. We still had shows that I wanted to keep so I skipped over them.

We settled in front of the TV tonight with our Chicken Wings from Lambert’s Café and managed to see everything we wanted to see tonight.

We braved the repeats and Christmas award shows by not watching any of them tonight. We quit watching the award shows when they got too political. To watch a roomful of “Know-Nothings” spout their political agenda is not my cup of tea.

Sunday, December 2, 2018

We didn’t have anyplace to go or anyplace to be today. Sharon was off to church at 9 and I stayed home and worked on my Newsletter. It’s not due until the end of December but I like to get an early start on it when it’s the first one.

When Sharon got back from church she headed out with the laundry for the week.

We had agreed on one plan for the day today. We were going to Dyer’s B-B-Q for Dinner tonight. We’ve been going there every year for the last 20 years and the food is just as good as it was the first time we went.

Just before we left for the restaurant I went out and dumped our holding tanks and filled our water. It was snowing all the time I was out there. But I managed to tough it out for 20 Minutes. By the time I finished it was time to go to Dinner.

Before we left there was a large Integra Motorhome that pulled in next to us. The graphics were gorgeous and Sharon checked it out on the Internet. It was priced about $500,000.00

When we got to Dyer’s it was the same old place. Very rustic and smelling like woodsmoke. Sharon had the Brisket and Ribs and I had the Ribs and Sausage. Both Dinners came with Potato Salad, Cole Slaw and 3 large onion Rings along with a little container of Apricot Sauce and two slices of toasted Texas Toast. The food was very good, as usual, and we came right home afterward.

We finished out the night in front of the TV