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Part 2 of 2–Blog Start Up, Again!!

This is the second of two postings to bring the blog somewhat up to date after not posting for about 14 months when I lost the ability to use the Live-Writer program to update Blogger.

Ever since we had Grandkids, we have taken them on RV trips as often as we could.  When the oldest two, that live in the Victoria area near us, began public school, we had to limit the Bus trips to Summer Vacations and holidays.

When the third one came along, we attempted to visit her whenever our travels took us anywhere near Little Rock…….. that basically means all trips toward the East, including Red Bay trips.  That is one of the reasons that we visit Red Bay (home of the Tiffin Allegro factory) at the drop of a hat!!  We have routinely tried to get the two Victoria grandkids with the one from Little Rock together as often as possible…………. meaning that for the past 5 years (Rachel is 5 years old), we have gotten them together for a summer trip.

We had previously visited Little Rock and went to the local water park, and other area attractions.  In the Summer of 2016, we decided to do something different, and went to the Gulf Shores area of Georgia and Florida for some beach time.  Rachel’s parents, Deanne and Mike, decided to join us and they drove down and met us there.  The Victoria grandkids traveled with us in the Bus.

We left on June 21, and returned on July 4………. Aubrey had a special cheerleader training and practice to attend!!  We spent the first night on the road at the home of Ronnie and Kathy Woods in Vidor, TX.  We  two nights, so the kids had a chance to enjoy the pool and playing with the Woods’ grandson.  Ronnie likes old cars, and he has two restored ones in an air conditioned garage (!), and Aubrey posed with them.

I did better……….. scored a “taxi’ ride!!

We traveled I-10 East to Mississippi, and then took the beach highway to Florida.  The following photos will give you an idea of the trip:

Mississippi Beach and Campground on the way to Florida

Florida Beaches, Shopping and Eating

As you can see, Cheerleading practice has taught Aubrey to pose!!!!

Matthew using humor to con me into buying him a necklace………. it worked!!  Eyes won’t uncross if I don’t get this necklace, Pappaw!!

Aubrey using Matthew’s boogie board to ride a small wave….

Kids in Bus showing off what they conned us to buy them in a picture to text to Mom & Dad!!

Matthew showing what he wanted at Lambert’s “Home of the Thrown Rolls” in Foley, AL.

Aubrey with the “throwed roll” that she caught threw the air…..

Kid’s trying to con Grammy into something!!

Grammy with all three grandkids at a Souvenir store.  Note how tall the two older kids are compared to Patsy…….. This was in June, and they turned 11 and 10 in September!!!

We did make it home by July 4 to get Aubrey back for her practice.

On Saturday October 1, Patsy and I attended the 50th High School Reunion!!  Seeing people from high school 50 years later can be a shock….. Nuff Said!!

On the following Sunday, We headed out for a two week trip to San Antonio and Leakey in the Garner State Park area.  The first part of the trip was to Iron Horse RV Repair to have the Attwood leveler control board replaced and the high speed dash a/c fan switch repaired on the Bus.  The repairs went OK, but the Technician damaged the Bus while returning it to the camping area.

 

He made a right turn too tight, and the PS rear dual wheels went off the culvert and into the ditch, damaging the last two basement doors on the PS.  The owner offered to make repairs, but I told him that I wanted it done at Red Bay……… another chance to visit Rachel in Little Rock!!!  We have an appointment at my preferred body shop for November 15.

We also had a Spartan Chassis recall on the Cummins Engine completed at the B. D. Holt facility in San Antonio.  They had to replace the main part of the exhaust piping.  I did not expect to fail this recall, so we had planned to attend a festival in Waco put on by some HGTV home fixer-upper folks for Patsy’s birthday on October 6.  They have a show that Patsy really enjoys!  That will have to happen on another trip.

We were also in San Antonio to attend a 50th Wedding anniversary for one of Patsy’s friends on Friday and Saturday.  Sounds like a long time, buy we have been married for over 47 years, and dated for 5 years before that!

We left San Antonio on Tuesday, October 11 and traveled to Concan, TX to attend a Texas Bluebonnet Allegro Club rally at an RV park directly across the Frio River from Garner State Park.  The rally was attended by 11 coaches, and we had a lot of fun………… including poker games for three nights!

The downside was that the park is in an area without ANY cell service for Verizon.  No phone or internet from Tuesday until Sunday when we returned home.  The park did have pretty good Tengonet internet, and a friend had an AT&T cell phone that worked just fine, so we were able to borrow it.

On Thursday, November 10, we leave for another trip.  The Bluebonnet Allegro Club has a rally in San Antonio that include a Mexican dinner on a couple of barges on the Riverwalk.  The rally actually begins on Wednesday, but we have committed to take care of our grandkids while our Son and Daughter-In-Law are attending a concert in Houston.  After we drop them off for school on Thursday morning….. we are out of here. 

As a part of this trip, we will head out either Saturday night or Sunday morning and drive to Red Bay, AL for our appointment to get the Bus damage repaired at the body shop.  We plan to stopover in Little Rock for Thanksgiving with Rachel and her parents.

This catches the blog up for now.  More during the next travels, I guess!!

We Are Up and Posting Again!!

I gave up and quit posting when the program, Live Writer, that I was using for writing my blogs and uploading suddenly quit working. 

I couldn’t remember how to do it without the program, although I just found out that it is not that hard!!  I also just uploaded an upgrade, and will see how long it will last, and if it does not last, I will use the Blogger system.

I will use this post to bring everyone up to date, in short form, to review our life in the last 14 months.

For the rest of 2015, we mostly attended weekend rallies with the two local Tiffin “Allegro RV Clubs that we are members……….. The Lone Star Allegro Club and the Allegro Bluebonnet Allegro Club.  The first club still consists of several RV owners that still ‘work’ and mostly gather from Friday to Sunday.  The other club has many more ‘retired’ owners, and they normally meet from Wednesday until Sunday………. with some of us arriving on Monday or Tuesday.  They also normally have poker games each night which is a big attraction for me!!

We also did a major project on our home in October – December in 2015.  We remodeled our Master Bath……. a real strain on a marriage.

Here are some photos:

BEFORE

 

DURING

Daughter-In-Law, Laura, and Granddaughter, Aubrey sitting on the new bathtub faucet ledge.

 

AFTER

Hopefully, the pictures will show the remodel!   Glad when it was over!!

From Jan 06 until Feb 14, we made our annual winter trip to Quartzsite, AZ.  This year, we traveled with RV friends Ronnie and Kathy Woods, and Larry and Chris Golden.  It was a fun trip which included tours of Old Tombstone, Tucson, Phoenix, Lake Havasu City, Yuma and Las Cruces, NM. 

Patsy and I took a longer time to come back to Texas and went through Flagstaff, AZ and Albuquerque, NM and then to Odessa, TX to visit here cousin and her husband, Carol and Ron Key.  We also took our time visiting some Central Texas State Parks, while we killed time waiting for a scheduled Bluebonnet rally in Marble Falls, TX.

We then left Victoria on March 7 to attend another Bluebonnet rally in Boerne, TX from which we traveled back to Red Bay, AL to have some body work done on the Bus.  In December, I bottomed out on a side road intersection in Gonzales, TX, and cracked the fiberglass on the front cap on the Bus. We had planned to be out of town for a while, did not intend to get back to Victoria until April 18!!

After Red Bay, we wanted to go through Little Rock to see Deanne and family…….. especially granddaughter, Rachel!  I had also gotten somewhat stupid last April and suggest that our Bluebonnet club sponsor a National Tiffin Owners rally in Canton TX.  I had 7 couples to volunteer to help to put on the rally.   It was scheduled to occur April 11-15. 

Since March 22 was Rachel’s 5th birthday, we managed to stay in Little Rock for a week for the birthday party and a bit of Easter Weekend.

Here are some pictures of Rachel at her birthday party at a farm, the Clinton Library (ugh!), and around Little Rock.  When we are in town, she usually spends most of the nights in the Bus with us.  No labels on the photos, you will just have to figure it out!!!!

On her bed in the Bus with her new ‘singing bird in a cage’

Next, we headed to Canton, TX to get the Texas RV Rally going!  This story is going to be told in all photos:

The rally was sold out with 99 rigs and a little over 200 people.

Since it is late, and this blog is getting long, I am going to post it, and finish up with the last two events (our summer ‘16 vacation with grandkids to Florida and our trip to San Antonio just two weeks ago) tomorrow.