A Short Visit With Rachel On Return Home

After finishing up in Red Bay, we headed for home via Little Rock to see Deanne, Mike and Rachel one more time.  Since we had work scheduled on our house, we wanted to be home by Monday, so we planned on just staying on Saturday. 

When we got to their home on Saturday, Mike and Deanne were assembling an outdoor rocker/swing unit to put into a landscaped area near their front door.  Since they were busy, it was decided that we would take Rachel to a movie and lunch.  She chose Wendy's and the movie, "Sherlock Gnomes"!  Between lunch and the 2:20pm movie start, we took her shopping at Walmart, including candy for the movie!!

I took a few pictures............

 

The movie was in 3D, so we had the appropriate glasses, which she thought were neat!  The theater also had nice reclining chairs, and she thought she was at a 'high class place'!  No pictures because we left our cell phones in the car.

Riding in the car showing off her new 'glasses'..........

 and at home on the new lawn rocker......

 

After we said our goodbyes, and were backing out the driveway, she took her jacked off to show us that a "Tiffin" T-shirt that we had bought for here a few years ago, now fit!

It was about 5:30pm when we picked up the Bus, hooked up the car and got on the road.  We drove until about9:00pm and arrived in Atlanta, TX where we over-nighted at the local Walmart.  When we woke up on Sunday morning, we had an expensive motor home and trailer parked next to us........

We will be home for a couple of weeks until we travel to Rayne, LA for a week-long "Cajun RV Rally".

Heading to Red Bay For Repairs

We had an appointment at Deaton's Paint Shop for Wednesday, 21Mar2018, to get repairs made to the rear of the coach from a "boo boo" made at a rally in Houston last December.  We chose to leave Little Rock on Monday morning for the 350 mile drive.

However, a passing storm that had passed over Little Rock on the night before, was ahead of us, and heading toward Alabama.  We chose to drive slower, and waste a little time along the way to Red Bay to miss catching up with it.  We were also contacted on Sunday night by Terry and Susan Toye, (friends and members of the Lone Star Allegro Club in Houston) who had read the last blog posting, and found out that we were heading to Red Bay.  They had already been there for a couple of weeks getting several repairs made, and advised us of the storm, and warned us of the lack of RV spaces currently available in town.

Along the way, I was watching weather reports on TV and checking with Terry.  We found out that the Red Bay area was subject to 'tennis ball' size hail and tornadoes.  The hail and a tornado was actually reported in Belmont, MS.........about 8 miles west of Red Bay.  That was about 4:30pm and we were in Fulton, MS which was about 30 miles south of Red Bay!!  We turned south out of Fulton, and put another 25 miles between us and the storm.  About 30 minutes, later, we heard on TV (thanks to DISH and an in-motion satellite dish) that the storm front had passed the area.  We drove back to Fulton, and spent the night at the local Walmart.

We heard from Terry that the guy next to him was leaving Red Bay about 9:00am on Tuesday morning, and he had secured the site for us.  There was nothing else open in town!  At 8:00am, we left Fulton and got to the RV park in Red Bay about 8:30am, and found the guy dumping his tanks, and getting ready to leave.  He had already had to tell two people who asked if he was leaving, that the site was already paid for!!!

After we got parked and set up, Patsy and I went to the Tiffin Service Center to register to get a second problem fixed.  We had a leveler that was not allowing the system to level the coach.  I filled out the paper work to get in line for the work, and then went to the supervisor of the area to let him know what was going up.  I told him that I would be leaving on Friday afternoon, and would like for his crew to fix it.  He said he would try!!

Next we went to Deaton's shop, and let them know that we were in town, and flexible about time!!  They said that at best, they could get us in sometime during the day of our appointment......... the whole RV business in town was busy due to the fact that all the snowbirds were leaving Florida and other winter points, and heading back to homes in the north!  Good news, they called us to show up at 10:00am on our appointment day, and they did stay on it!  Good service as always!

Later in the day, I contacted the local RV a/c guy, who is an independent RV HAVC guy.  On the way to Red Bay, we had tried to use the MH dash air, and it did not cool!  As it happens, the outside temperature in Red Bay this day was below 30 degrees, and not a good day to work on an a/c unit!!   Bruce Deaton has a good working relationship with other service providers in town, and he let the a/c guy work on the dash air in his paint booth while the paint was drying.  It wasn't warm enough until Friday morning after the final clear coat had been applied.  Turned out to be a relay on the a/c compressor, and the guy was not even going to charge me anything, not even for the new relay.  I paid him anyway because I want him to be there the next time I need him!

Here are pictures of the damage to the DS back corner of the Bus......

 

And here are the "being repaired' photos..........

 

 

 

 

 The above pictures show the Bus in the body shop and then being moved to the paint booth.  The last one shows Bruce Deaton blowing the sanding dust off the roof to keep it out of the paint booth!  The first body shop pictures show more work than just the corner because the body guy saw work in the area that should have been fixed from the hurricane damage late last year!!

As normal, the Bus looked like new when we left........ I just did not get any pictures!!  Friday morning was busy, but all good news.  Bruce told me we would be out right after lunch, The a/c guy  showed up right after Bruce told me they were about to put the Bus back together, and diagnosed the problem, and the Tiffin Service Center called and asked if we could show up for the leveler right after lunch.  They a/c guy finished the diagnosis, and told me he had to go get the new relay, so I settled with him and Patsy and I went to get some lunch.

When we got back, the Bus was ready to go, and we found the old relay on the door step.  We settled with Bruce, and headed to Tiffin.  Tiffin decided that we had a bad motor on the leveler, but did not have one in stock.  So, I had them put the old motor and leveler back on, and we left town about 3:00pm.  We drove about 75 miles into Arkansas and over-nighted at an Arkansas rest area, leaving about 100 miles to drive on Saturday morning.

Our plan was to spend Saturday with Rachel and her parents, and then begin back to Texas on Saturday night.

More about our visit in Little Rock on the next blog!!

A Weekend with Rachel

As previously noted, we arrived in Little Rock about noon on Friday, and our daughter brought Rachel to the North Little Rock Riverside RV Park, where we were staying at about 8:00pm.  She had been at a 5:00pm friends birthday party at a local Chuck E. Cheese restaurant.

Rachel stayed in the Bus with us for the entire weekend, until we met up with her parents for dinner on Sunday evening at 6:00pm.  During their weekend off, they did yard-work around the house.

We all slept in on Saturday morning, and at about 10:00am, we went to the Heifer International building here in Little Rock, next to the Clinton Library but with no association with it.  Heifer was sponsoring an event for children, so we took Rachel.  They had activities for the kids, and we saw some of their farm animals.

While at Heifer, Rachel got to pet some goats.....

 Make a 'carrot' out of beads......

 Final product, but Rachel had sun in her eyes for the picture..........

 Posing by one of the 'food trailers'..........

 Observing and petting more small animals.......

 Coloring a wooden Tulip............

 Looking at alpacas at the center.........

And watching volunteers turning Alpaca fur into yarn on spinners..........

After spending a couple of hours at the Heifer event, we went to a "Green Store" as Rachel has always called the "Dollar Tree" stores.  We give her several dollars to spend, and she has a good time.  She likes small stuffed animals, and one of the things she found was an Easter rabbit that smelled like 'chocolate'.

We then went to lunch at a Wendy's, and then to a local "Outlet" mall where Richard got some new Lee jeans at a Vf Outlet store.  Then we headed to a Walmart on the way back to the Bus for some supplies,  and then spent the rest of the day and evening at the Bus. 

I worked on emails and other computer stuff, while Patsy and Rachel wandered around the RV park.  There is a pedestrian bridge from the RV park that crosses the river to the Clinton Library.  They took a walk across and back.  

Here's a picture of the pedestrian bridge that is in a photo of a "retro" travel trailer that is parked in the RV park.  The second picture is a better shot of the trailer, and they did a good job of fixing it up!!

 

 Rachel posed for a picture on the bridge with the Bus in the background, plus, she is holding her "chocolate-smelling" Easter bunny!!

 A shot of the Bus in the RV Park.......

 

 A little Saturday night ice cream snack.........

After a late Saturday night of movie-watching, I woke up at 9:30am on Sunday with the noise of Rachel making up her sleeping area!!  She has learned this expectation from her older cousins, who have traveled with her during summer road trips!

 

 After I helped her convert her bed back into a couch, I asked her to pose for some serious pictures (she likes to clown around with pictures)..........

 

 

 And finally, with her mother at the Greek restaurant where we "gave her back" until next weekend....

Tomorrow morning, Patsy and I will depart Little Rock for Red Bay.  We did get some good news, Terry and Susan Toye, members of our Lone Star Allegro Club, read about this trip in the previous post, and sent me a text telling us that they have been in Red Bay for the past couple of weeks, and will still be there next week. 

We will see them tomorrow.  I wonder who else we'll find there??!!!

Catching up on Early 2018

Patsy and I are currently in the North Little Rock RV Park waiting on our granddaughter, Rachel and her parents to come meet us later this evening.  Having left Victoria yesterday morning, we pulled in here about noon.

I have been needing to get the blog up to date, so I can go back to blogging current travels.  I haven't posted since last Fall.

Here are a couple of Christmas 2017 pictures to show the growth of our three grand kids.  The first is Aubrey and Rachel......

and, the picture that Matthew would pick is one standing next to me to show his height being only 13 years old.............

Our current road trip is to visit Rachel for her 7th birthday, next week on March 22.  Since we are close to the Tiffin Factory in Red Bay AL, we also have an appointment on March 21 to get a little bit of body work done on the Bus....... a result of me backing into an electrical service box in a Houston RV park, back in December!!!  My intent is to cover this an future trips on a "as done" basis, and not get behind again.

I really blew it on our first trip of 2018........ our annual Winter Road Trip!  We left on January 6, with the intent of doing the following events,,,,,,,, their spread-out schedule requiring the trip to be almost 2 months long:

• Attend the January rally for the Texas Bluebonnet Allegro Club in Marble Falls TX
• Visit Las Cruces NM where we visited Ole Mesilla and met up with RV friends for travel to Q
• Visit Quartzsite AZ for the annual 10-day RV Show
• Visit Yuma AZ, and cross into Mexico at Los Algodones for fun
• Attend a week-long Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) rally in Tucson AZ
• Attend a week-long Tiffin Motorhome owners Rally in Tucson AZ 

The trip turned out to be a lot of fun, and we traveled with various RV friends on different parts of it.  However, I got behind on blog posting, and with so much going on, I never got started on catching up.   When we got home on Feb 28, we had so much yard work, RV trip repairs and mods, cleanup, and more, I never had a chance.

NOW I AM ON THE SECOND DAY OF A NEW TRIP, AND I AM CATCHING UP!!!!!    😅😫
  
In Las Cruces, a group of us went to a Mexican Restaurant to celebrate a fellow traveler's birthday.  Shirley Buckert, of Victoria and also member of our Allegro Club, wanted to celebrate her birthday, the 42nd, I believe, so we had a party!   This party is best told by pictures............

 

 

Most of the group had plans to visit the Air Force Graveyard of airplanes in Casa Grande, but Patsy and I went directly to Quartzsite where the whole group had reservations at the Rice Ranch Campground which is directly across the street from the main tent.  We passed a lot of Saguaro Cactus on the way.....

 

We have found that when the sun is shining just right on the 'needles' of the cactus, it looks like a lighted outline on the plant.....

We were all parked closed together at the Rice Ranch campground, and on the last night, we had a potluck dinner on the area at the side of our Bus, and had a drone take some aerial photographs.  Here is the best one showing the party.........

That night, after the sun went down, we set off some "candle-powered bag" balloons.  We had a lot of fun!!

Between the Quartzsite show, and the FMCA rally, Patsy and I spent a week in Yuma.  We found out the Mike and Charlene Miller were also there, so we spent a day in Los Algodones, Mexico together.  Charlene was looking for a purple outfit for her granddaughter....

We also had lunch........ and a lot of fun just walking around!

While in Yuma, Patsy and I went to some of the large Flea Markets (and bought two portable rocking lawn chairs), and toured the city.   We also took a day and drove the car over to "Slab City" in California..... what a site!!!

 

 

 

We also found ourselves in the same Yuma RV Resort as Gerri and Art Ball, a couple that we first met at the Tiffin Red Bay Service Center campground where they were working as the camp hosts.  We had recently ran into them again when we visited Red Bay last Fall to have the Bus' Hurricane Harvey damage repaired!!  Art and Gerri were also coming to the Tiffin Rally in Tucson in a couple of weeks.  Here is Gerri and Patsy hanging out at the pool area......

After Yuma, Patsy and I moved on to Tucson for the FMCA and Tiffin Rallies.  There were RV supply vendors at both shows, nightly entertainment (some was really good), and the Tiffin Techs did some FREE minor repairs.  I got the Bus windshield wipers replaced, some carpet framing around Patsy's front Bus chair replaced, and they caulked a replacement entry door light (with motion sensor) that I bought from a vendor and installed in the camping area.............. with a lot of supervision from the folks we were traveling with!!!

Both of the rallies were fun, and they had several RV-related information seminars that we attended.

All in all, this was a great trip, especially with a traveling 10--12 RV group that kept meeting up and splitting up again in Arizona.  With the rallies over, Patsy and I left alone, and headed back home!!

I'm going to end this post with misc scenery of the trip in Arizona.....
 

 

 

 

 

Before I end, one more bit of information.  Valentine's Day was a sad one this year because it was my 70th birthday!!!   I guess I'm lucky to make it, but it sounds like such an old age......... maybe 5 years from now, it will look a little better!

 Now.............. Ready to post our current trip(s) posts!!!!!!!