Pipestem West Virginia

West Virginia has some very upscale state parks that they call Resort Parks.  Pipestem State Resort Park is about 15 miles east of Beckley and can be reached via state road 20. 

The highways, other than Interstate, are the usual narrow, tight turns up/down/all-around roads one finds in the eastern mountains of NC, GA, VA, WV, TN, etc… you get the picture.  WV roads at this time, might be in worse shape, maintenance wise, than some of these other states.

The RV sites in this campground are pretty nice with paved streets and drives but gravel patios. They are also small. Site 24 is the only one that we could get into, comfortably. There were a few others that we could have gotten into with a struggle and then park the truck elsewhere but most of them, including 24, were not very level.

I think the same crew did these sites that do the WV roads and don’t believe in level as being important. High water pressure >100 psi, makes a pressure regulator advisable and they have a sign in the office to that effect.

WE came here in heavy to light rains all day and that was day before yesterday. It is still “misting” with an occasional downpour.

A real disadvantage to traveling up these small WV state roads in this kind of weather is the ongoing problem of falling rocks. Yesterday, we drove into Hinton in the Smart which is only about 10 miles east but there were plenty of places that rocks of various sizes were on or on the edge of the road and plenty of rock pieces still scattered on the roadway.

Of all of the advantages of the Smart Car that we tout, ground clearance is not one of them. With a full tank and 2 people, 3” of clearance in the middle is only a dream so always go around stuff on the road, never just span it and expect it to not hit because it probably will hit something underneath.

Luckily, no damage but could have been bad.

We are planning to stay here until next Monday before heading back towards Raleigh for some appointments. WV parks have a NO REFUND policy so be sure you are going to stay for what you pay cause you won’t get any of it back no matter what.

Of the several WV State Resort parks, Pipestem was the only one that even had much RV camping available. These parks tend to cater to semi-camping in lodges or tenting up to pop-ups but I figure that the roads will probably deter most folks with anything bigger, from coming here.  Guess that says too much about me.

For all the hype about the wonderful views in WV, that is old print. Everywhere we have been, the views from the roads are obscured by trees. Maybe in the dead of winter one can see fairly well but then, what would there be to see.  So far, not that impressed with WV.

On, BTW, the toll road (I-77) charged us $9.50 per toll station going North to Charleston. That was $28.50 total. Coming back down it, we found at the last toll booth that Recreational vehicles are charged a flat $3.50.  Of course, there were no signs posted anywhere other than for the $2 per car rate. The rest was assumed to be per axle and I have 6 by their count.  Another WV “gotcha”. Not a happy camper in WV.

ttfn

Going nowhere… yet.

We were due to leave Rippling Waters CG today but.. we just decided that we would rather not… so we didn’t.

 

Weather has been quite comfortable and a hint of moisture in the air… and on everything else but no actual rain which is fine by me.

We will likely leave tomorrow and head for PipeStem State Resort park.. but not if we are not going to be able to get the Dancing With The Stars Results show, there, tomorrow night.

I managed to do a little fishing (catch and release, of course).  First time I have actually gotten a line wet in a few years even though I always have my rig with me… I guess I am even more relaxed, here, than I have been in a very long time, so that’s a good thing.

We will see where tomorrow takes us.

ttfn

A day for relaxing…. aren’t they all?

Today was just an easy day from the get-go. I was up, as usual, about 6:15am, did some PC work then went back to bed and zonked out (technical term) really well for about 3 hours.  Now, that’s the kind of rest I need to get every night.

We had planned to have an afternoon cookout with Donna B and her Mom and some of her relatives, so brunch was light.

About a 20 minute drive to Pinch, WV at 1:30pm and we met up with most of the whole family, about 15 of us in total.

The meal did not disappoint and neither did the company. As usual, her Mom overfed us and dessert had to be spaced out by an hour or so but it was worth the wait, too.

While we were there, one of her father’s old friends that lives only a couple of miles from the Pipestem State Resort Park near Beckley, WV, gave me some pointers on how to get there without getting on the Toll road.  It may take a little bit longer but he said the roads are very good that way…. we will see on Monday…

ttfn

Can I get there from here?

Google has Google accounts and then there are Google Apps accounts and they are neither the same thing nor interchangeable.

Why this is important is that in the bigger scheme of things as I try to cut costs, improve the time it takes to keep up with things and share whatever with whomever, I need to streamline some of the existing mechanisms and connectivity.

The email address I have used since signing up with Google GMail became the anchor point for everything I did and necessary to my use of Google facilities….. until Google Apps came along.

On the other hand, my Webdoms existence has been there several decades and I have a considerable investment in it and did not want to just drop it. I did need to cut the costs in money and time to sustain it and decided that I could transpose it all, fairly intact, into Google Apps…. or so I thought.

The short of it is that I created a free Google Apps account, assigned it to Webdoms, set my email and other Webdoms connected stuff to port or be forwarded to the GApps platform I created and began dismantling it on the old 1and1.com servers.

The hitch in this get-along is that Google cannot just merge two accounts and particularly not a Google account and a Google Apps account.

Complicating this is this blog, created under my original Google account and my Cell phone (Android) id which was initially also setup under my original Google Account.

To switch the phone, I had to basically clear it and reinitiate it from scratch on my webdoms id setup on GApps. This meant reinstalling all my phone apps, too, which was no small task in itself.

A bigger problem was, and still is, that those things that were tied to my old id on my phone, cannot be connected to by my new id on the same phone.

An example is Google latitude which shows where I am via the built in GPSA  hardware.  Once my Phone became a part of my Webdoms identity, it could not update the places that had previously been tied to it.

Simply put, the “Where Am I?” gadget could only show my old phone id location in this blog and I could not get my Webdoms phone location into the blog gadget in this blog.

I discovered, today, that I could move a blog between accounts with a little Penn and Teller slight of hand and now, it is administrated by my GApps Webdoms id instead of my old Gmail id.

It has taken weeks to do the following:

• Shift all my email to my GApps Webdoms identity ( over 800 mbytes)
• Shift all my RVing content to GApps docs, calendar, contacts, etc.
• Graduate my profile information, blogging following, stats, etc. to the webdoms. GApps id
• Make my phone a part of my Webdoms GApps identity instead of my old Gmail id.
• Configure Outlook 2010 to interface IMAP to my new GApps mail, calendar and contacts and completely rebuild my Webdoms folders and rules in it to match. It was all previously running on a MS Exchange server on 1and1.com.
• Engage the Sprint/Google Voice integration option so that all my voicemail, calling, ringing, etc. is handled through Google Voice instead of Sprint.

This has taken weeks of preparation and planning to be sure I could do everything I wanted before I stated actually changing things.  I really could not afford to find myself with one foot on the boat and one on the dock and then see the boat was gonna sink.

At this point, there are just a few loose ends but everything is now on the Google Apps platform under my Webdoms identity and I am very happy with the results.

It cut about $50/month of ongoing expense and was worth the struggle it took to make it happen. I have 6 gigabytes more of free email space plus all the GApps docs space I will probably ever need, for free.

More about some of these details at a later time. I am also working towards dramatically changing the way this blog works, too, and hopefully, it will make it much easier for followers with only limited interests in some of the topics I post, like PC stuff, RVing trip planning, health tips, etc. … I don’t have all the separate topics locked in just yet and suggestions are certainly welcome.

The idea will be to have the blog’s starting page be the root for about 6 individual blogs on the various topical areas of interest.

Meanwhile, it’s getting late so….

ttfn

Ahhhhhhh………!!!!!!!!

Rippling Waters CG – Romance, WV

We left Raleigh, NC at 10:00 am on Monday, May 9th, 2011 and headed for this lovely place 368 miles away…. over some really crappy WV highways (mostly the toll roads, what a $30 rip off) …..and really unenjoyable mountain roads in WV.

It was worth it when we finally arrived here about 7:30pm the same day.

Lots of choices, lots of things to do, and a few glitches but all told, it was a good trip. Weather was great, and the temperatures were comfortable enough to travel with the windows open the whole way.

The things to do included:

1. Fill with Fuel
2. Weigh the whole rig with Smart on board and with Full Water and propane, empty grey/black and full fuel tanks.
3. Weigh just the truck with full tanks and us in it.

Fuel was $3.93/gallon at FlyingJ Haw River, NC Exit 150 I-85/I-40 with my FlyingJ Frequent Fueler card ($.03/gallon discount – cash or credit) I was sure glad that I saw that post in the Escapees forums about their new discount policies.

The whole rig weighs 44,440 lbs. The truck is 24,500 with the Smart car loaded on it.

Some interesting facts about the setup:

CAT Scales	5/10/2011
	Combined	Truckonly	Difference
Steer	10,880	11,980	(1,100)
Drive	18,080	12,520	5,560
Trailer	15,480	0	15,480
Gross	44,440	24,500	19,940
Pin Weight			4,460
Trailer			19,940
Tires	Rating	Combined	Margin
6	3,042	18,252	2,772
Notes:
Smart Loaded only 2 gals
Truck Fuel tanks full
Trailer Water tank full
Trailer black/ Grey tanks empty
Refrigerator Full
Propane tanks Full
All other items are typical for our Full Time life.

All of that cost us an hour of travel time.

I have had a few hints that my marginal throttle Position Sensor (TPS) is getting worse, again and at the beginning of this trip, it was definitely causing some problems. I almost stopped at Central Carolina Trucks in Kernersville, NC to pick up a replacement but we just did not have the time and I was pretty sure that it would be ok the more it got used…. and it did get better.

Also, the fuel temperature sensor that was giving me intermittent error codes for the past several years seems to have been a poor electrical connection to it. When I had Clifford in to Speedco, in Kenly, NC last week for a standard PM, I had the mechanic unplug/plug it in a few times to clean the contacts before I replaced the sensor. That seems to have fixed it.

Since this was going to be the longest single day’s drive we have ever done with the full rig, I had made optional plans to stop either in Mayberry Campground in Mt Airy, NC or Camp Creek State CG in WV, if it was looking like we were getting too tired or it would be dark before we made it to Rippling Waters. From what I had read, the road going in was only about 4 miles long but it was very narrow, crooked and hilly.

It turns out that this is true. It is almost a sidewalk with a double yellow line down the middle. It is clear that no dirt was shaved or filled in the process of making this road and it is necessary to spend most of the drive somewhere in the middle or on the wrong side of the road in order to keep all tires on the pavement around the sharp turns.

Staying on the pavement is also necessary as there is no shoulder and the edge of the blacktop rolls off into the ditches on both sides. Like I said, a sidewalk with a double yellow line. This is a place where having a pilot car to lead is definitely a desirable thing.

They have a number of long pull throughs but only 2 with FHU and I wanted a very long, hot shower. It turns out that two were available for 2 nights but we would have to move for one night (tonight) and then could move back the next day for the rest of our stay.

As you can see from some of the pictures, this site is excellent! Full view of the lake, fountains, chapel, Swans, ducks, manicured grounds, etc. through our living room windows.

Maybe it does not completely have the RV-Dreams “IT” factor but it certainly hits our “G-Spot” at $23/night.

We will spend the week and figure out where to go from here. We will have to go back to Raleigh for a bit before heading out west but it does not have to be right away so we are thinking maybe Tennessee COEs on an around-about trip back to RDU.

I am going to have to think about all this for awhile…. after a nap or two….

ttfn

Inspirations

We had the great pleasure of having dinner with Dee and Jim (Tumbleweed blog) and it replenished our

enthusiasm about Full-time RVing.

They make it seem so easy, even with the little glitches and gotchas. We discussed a lot of things about traveling, places they have liked staying and, of course, HDT tow vehicles and Smart cars.

Jim has been concerned about tire loads and is upgrading his wheels to 17.5 inch with an H load rating from the E rating on his current set of RV tires.  I am following this with great interest. I have long wanted a bigger margin between my tires and my max RV load.  Although I have a 21,000 GVWR on DaKotR spread across 3 – 7,000 lb. axles, the tires are the same as Jim’s with an E load rating of 3042 lbs. max/tire.

In my case, my pin weight accommodates about 4300lbs of the 21,000 lbs., leaving the axles, wheels and tires to handle 16,700 lbs., if I was fully loaded. The axles are clearly capable (21,000 lbs. total GAWR) and the 8k brake sets can handle 24,000 lbs. total, but the wheels/tires max out at 18,252 lbs. technically leaving me only a 1550 lb. margin at best.

The concerns I have  are more about “typical” in use loads rather than the “technical” specs.  Pulling a large 5th wheel means some curbs, road-edge runoffs, potholes and other things that will affect only 1 or two tires at a time. That makes it very easy to overload a tire or bruise a sidewall, weakening the tire’s actual safety.

I have lost 4 treads on older tires on this 5th wheel over the years and fortunately, no significant damage was done to the RV due to the King of the Road engineering of the tire wells and body of the RV. Flapping alligators don’t really have any compartments or body parts to contact.

However, even with a pressure pro or other TPMS to monitor tire pressures, I would only have immediately detected one out of the three failures because the others never lost pressure. When the treads stripped off nearly all of the weight they were carrying shifted onto the remaining two tires on that side.  Even brand new tires can be compromised for life by such overloading.

Good luck with this upgrade, Jim.

ttfn, Budd

Blessed Day of Rest

Sunday is supposed to be for resting and I finally got to do it, today. First one in a long time (or maybe that's just how it seems).

The generator is now generating, once again. The Generac NP 5500 watt that came in DaKotR has always been a little cantankerous but it finally reached a point where it would not start. I had fiddled with it a little some weeks back (actually, months, I think) and got it to start and run but Carbon Monoxide built up inside DaKotR so fast I ran out to see where it could be coming from and found the generator sitting in a puddle of raw gasoline!

I overrode my first impulse (to RUN) and stopped the generator with no sparks. The steel tray that the genny sits in has a 3/4" lip on it and the gasoline was almost to the top. I quickly threw rags and whatever else I could grab to soak as much of the gas out of there as I could.

After much thought and research I decided to ck for gas line leaks, first. I pulled the air filter housing off so I could run the whole fuel line and did find a few less than tight-enough clamps. After checking it all over, thoroughly, I pressed the starter to see if I could see a leak. From the amount of gasoline, I knew that it had to be a doosie.

I pressed it just long enough to have it start to catch up... and then a pulsing stream of gasoline began shooting straight out of a vent on the carburetor air cleaner mating face. Good Fuel pump, for sure. That sucker was squirting a pencil lead thick stream of gasoline a good 2 feet straight out of the carburetor. I instantly shut it off (but it seemed like about 20 minutes for it to quit running) and decided that I had to pull the carburetor off and rebuild it.

So, that was how I spent my Saturday.. a partially disassembled carburetor in one hand and a can of Carb cleaner in the other. After cleaning ( and it was definitely crudded up really bad) I put it back on the generator and hit the starter. NO GAS running anywhere! Super, but no running, either, unless I held the choke fully on.

Pull the carburetor again, opened it up and found 2 little intake holes that had such solid plugs of gunk in them that it was hard to push them out with a probe.

All done, put it back together, put it back on the Generator and hit the starter. Wahoo!!!! runs like new!!! Sure could have used that for a few days after the Tornado hit us a couple of Saturday's ago. But it will work fine, now.

So, on my day off, I have been working (playing, actually) on a rework of our exit strategy next week. It is just looking like we are not stopping the slippage of our timing so we are planning to go to WV as planned, but then spend a few weeks or a month, hanging around the mountains of WV, Kentucky and Tennessee and checking out some COE and state campgrounds. Some of them are really exceptional with FHU/50 sites and with my America the Beautiful Senior Pass in hand, they are half price for us. It won't be Colorado but maybe it will take the edge off of our hitch-itch hunger for the Rockies for a couple of months.

ttfn

Slip-Sliding away….

Back in Raleigh at the moment. Our after school plans have been to take care of a few items in Raleigh and then leave for the rest of the year.

But….

I have some serious maintenance to do on DaKotR, some medical appointments for routine stuff and med supplies for the next year. The “basement” of the house is still pretty full and needs to be emptied before we can put it on the market.  Painting is also necessary and though my son is going to take care of that and the paint is in hand, he has gotten so busy that what was to be done by now will be done… sometime.

M. has a wedding to attend today. We planned to head to the Charleston, WV area mid-week to visit with her good friend on a US visit who now lives in the UK.

It is looking more like the WV trip will be sans RV, though.  There are just too many things washing up on our home beach that need to be dealt with before we set sail for the summer.

The intent was to launch to Colorado from WV but now, the tides of necessity are shifting our Jell-O plans a bit so the WV trip will likely be just a few days and then back here for the rest of our preparations for being gone until next year sometime.

Oops! That was number 3 son on the phone. He is part of the wedding party and got lost on the way to the reception location for photos…. the wedding is not until this afternoon so let’s hope he can find the church from there. 

Actually, I spend a lot of computer time as a dispatcher for family and friends.. .even when I am out of town. “Help Dad. I am lost!”, “Dad, where the hell is Fritzi’s BBQ in Fuquay?”, “How do I get to Iam Lostlane from here?”.  This is an observation, not a complaint. Though I have always raised my kids to be independent and self-sufficient, that can have a backlash after a certain age… You just may never hear from them, again.

Sure, they all have SmartPhones and all know how to use them but a Smart phone does not have a familiar, calming voice that works with you and your situation. It never says “I’m sorry for your ‘lost” condition”.  Dads do that and maybe that need, alone, will keep us connected wherever we are.

But, I digress… These many little items and issues are tightly wedging themselves into our scheduled departure and the visit to WV cannot be rescheduled, thus, that may turn into a side trip from Raleigh instead of a “VIA” on the way to Colorado.

This is life and liberty and it’s all about working around the doctor’s appointments, repairs, tornadoes, weddings and “unfinished” business that we all have trailing behind (or sometimes, ahead) of us like the tail of a comet. We will deal with it as best we can but never let it distract us from our real objectives on the road.

ttfn

Wrapping up and moving on..

This is our last night in the Smithfield KOA. I know that a lot of full timers don’t get enthusiastic about KOA campgrounds but I will say that this has been a completely nice experience… right up to the tornado.

With a monthly rate of $450 + elec (.14/kwh) it has been within acceptable limits for the circumstances. Smithfield, NC is not my idea of a destination unless one wants to spend many days cruising the Outlet mall. Merrily’s Truck driver training class was the justification and the cost was very reasonable to make that happen.

Now, it’s back to Raleigh for a few days to get some med stuff done, a few RV repairs (like finding where the gasoline is leaking from when the generator runs) and finish my RV tools sorting/stocking project which I left unfinished to come down here. Although I did not do much tool work down here, I did find a few things that I had previously thought I would not bother putting in the RV which would have been very helpful.. no, I didn’t mean a chainsaw…. I could have rented one if I had really been motivated to use it.

I got a full PM done on Clifford this morning. First time he has had his oil changed since 2004 (but that was only 12,000 miles ago). I get a regular oil analysis done at Blackstone Labs and they have said it was still ok so no harm, no foul).

I also had the Speedco mechanic plug replug the connector on the fuel temperature sensor that I have been getting some occasional error codes from for the past couple of years.

Interestingly, the codes have stopped (likely dirty contacts on the plug) and my mpg has jumped up 2.4 mpg.  We will see if it holds. The sensor is located on the cap of the rear fuel filter and I cannot reach it from above nor get under the truck to get to it from below. The mechanic said he was happy to replug it a few times to clean the contacts. If the codes start up again, I will just replace the sensor but at $69 I am not ready to Easter-egg it just yet.

Katie had a big seizure yesterday morning while I was heading out to get the PM done. Merrily called and I had to abort that project and return. Katie has not had one that lasted this long (2 hrs.) in over a year. She was on day 35 of no seizures.  We suspect it might have been the heartworm meds I gave her the previous day as we have previously seen seizures happen within a couple of days of her getting meds.

After the R&R (repair and replenish) in Raleigh, we are off to West Virginia and then Denver! We are really looking forward to that.

ttfn

Graduation Day! WaaaHooo!!

My most amazing life partner. I love you.

This is definitely a benchmark day!

Merrily now has her Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) and is a trained professional Over-The-Road (OTR) truck driver.

8 Hard weeks of 10 hour days learning Federal Safety regulations, practicing driving, parking, backing, maneuvering obstacle courses and many hours behind the wheel out on the roads and highways, has earned Merrily a diploma as a professional truck driver.

I am incredibly proud for her in accomplishing this achievement. I went through this 7 years ago and it remains the single hardest thing I have done in my 67 years.

Merrily receiving her diploma

Uh-oh, her nose is turning red. Tears are not far behind.

Acceptance speeches can get emotional.

yep, there they are, right on schedule. That is the Lead Class instructor, Chris Chappell. He was also Smith and mine in 2004. Chris is a real personable guy and a great supporter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There she is, Ms America! The guy in front of her is "Catfish" and beat cancer to go through this class.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Congratulations!

ttfn

She works hard for this Honey..

Today Merrily finished the truck driving class and SHE NAILED IT!!!!!!! It took 8 weeks of 10 hour days but she never missed a day of class.

She set several benchmarks.

• Oldest woman ever to finish the class
• Only woman of the 6 originals, to actually finish and pass the class. The rest were in their 20s and 30s.
• Only woman to take all of her final tests right after having survived a direct hit by a tornado! (ok, so maybe this is more of a Guinness book kind of thing… but it is definitely unique.
• She did excellent on all of the written tests
• She says, “backing a trailer is a guy thing because none of us girls could back worth a darn!”
• She passed yesterday’s forward obstacle course, the Coupling/uncoupling and written regulations tests with no errors!
• She managed to hang in there while 20 of the 43 original students failed the class prior to today.  That, alone, puts her in the top half of the class. 
• Today was the 100 question final written exam and she only missed 3.
• Today was also her last road test, which she passed with no problem.
• She came in exhausted but elated at 1:00 PM and we ate lunch. Afterwards, she read for a bit and then said, “I am going to take a nap…. just because I can.”  … She was always gone to school by 6:40am and was not out of class most days before 6pm.. do the math.. she was never home during “napping” time.
• I love her immensely and forever. God has blessed me almost more than I can bear.
• Now the fun begins for real.

For the past 60 years, Merrily has been and always will be the key to my life.

Merrily, I love you, forever.

Tornado, Tornado, Tornado

Now that I have some connectivity, I wanted to get these pictures and some perspectives about what it was like being inside an RV while a tornado raged around outside.

The short answer:  Not Fun! But…

We are still not quite sure what exactly hit us. The winds had to be in excess of 160 mph to do the damage it did but the “swirling” damage typical of a tornado is completely missing. Although it is being called a tornado, it must have been ground level wind shear. Perhaps a horizontal funnel due to the very high ground speed (60+ mph) it had. Might have just drug the tail of the twister out behind it all the way.

We see plenty of damage like this:

This is the other side of DakotR.

DSC02854.JPG

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the better to see it with, my Dear.

There were other RVs that suffered worse damage but no one was hurt.

 

Just before it hit us, Phillip, one of the workampers at this KOA, knocked on the door to tell us that it was headed this way and we could go take shelter in the meeting room. Hail between marble and jaw breaker sizes was crashing down on him and he wore only a baseball cap.

He was very lucky to not be hurt but I am sure it was still painful.  I quickly thanked him, closed the door, walked back into the bedroom where Merrily was lying on the floor between the foot of the bed and the  bedroom storage drawers. I glanced out of the side window to see hurricane strength winds blowing all sorts of stuff past us. I knew it was too late to try to leave the RV, even if it was only to jump into the ditch 20 feet behind us. 

When we parked here 2 months ago, I had made a mental note that this ditch would be a good place to shelter in a pinch.  Had this tornado been much stronger, it would have definitely been better than the meeting house up at the entrance which got a direct hit and some damage.

For a moment, a 12 inch piece of pink insulation wafted up to the window and paused momentarily before instantly disappearing from view. Must have been a little eddy current there due to the Kitchen slideout protrusion.

The good fortune for us is that we were sheltered from most of the flying debris by the heavy bush and cedar trees lining the deep drainage ditch right behind us. The trees heavily covered in vines that blew over onto the rear of DaKotR acted like a blast shield and deflected the wind up and over us.

Looking at what the wind took out from directly behind us,

Notice the cedar tree stub just to the left of the transformer. That tree exploded and pieces landed on us and clear across the street.

It seems that we got some of the strongest winds in the park blew right over us. This is the only spot that they were completely gone in that whole row.

I sure appreciate the workmanship and materials of the King of The Road we have. Despite the huge weight of the trees on the back of it and on the big slideout, it did not crumple, crush or warp at all. It’s really too bad they are no longer building RVs.

I have posted a lot more photos to view in a set of time ordered albums on my Picasa site. http://www.picasaweb.google.com/emeryn I hope you find this informative.

I am keeping this relatively short to encourage more readers to read the whole thing.  I will be filling in more information about this experience in the coming days.

Meanwhile, I hope this answers a lot of your questions.

ttfn

Hey… Anybody seen Toto?

This time it wasn’t Dorothy.. it was us!

Military training makes one just duck when the sergeant says DUCK!  It drills out of one the momentary hesitation to say why… even in one’s own mind.  DUCK means DUCK NOW and preferably SOONER than NOW!

If you ever hear a tornado WARNING…. go seek appropriate shelter. Don’t waste time trying to find out where it is at that moment because if it is close by, you have probably already lost access to current radar images on TV.  Cell phones, even smart ones will take time to use to try to get information.

Trust me when I say, the time it takes for the best cell phone on the best WIFI or wireless service to find and pull in an image that is 2 minutes old can be the difference between life, death or disability.

TORNADO WARNING is the civilian equivalent of the military order DUCK! Do not try to second guess it or validate the source of 2 minute old data.

Tornadoes don’t appear at one edge of a tornado warning area and travel in a straight line to another edge. They can spontaneously spawn and die all over the Tornado Warning area. They are usually accompanied by hail in sizes from BBs to softballs and traveling as fast or faster than either. They can be slushy or rock hard and you may never know the difference if you are hit in the head by one.

If you think that they are interesting to see in storm chaser movies, ask yourself how big the stone was which was thrown by David to kill Goliath? It certainly could not have been traveling as fast as a single piece of hail.  Consider, too, that getting knocked out by a piece of hail immediately renders you unable to protect yourself or control the safety of yourself and your family.

Whether “stoned” to death by ongoing hail or picked up unconscious by the tornado and shaken ( not stirred) in a cocktail of rocks (yes, rocks), wood, roofing, masonry and everything else that is not part of a space shuttle launching platform, you will not survive and it will be because when you were warned, you did not DUCK!

ttfn

Got the CDL, now for the Diploma

Merrily now has her Commercial Driver’s License in hand and is fully legal and trained to drive big rigs.

Of course, her goal was to become a safe competent driver of our own home and that, she has accomplished through this 8 week truck driver training class.

I am sure that she could have gotten a license on her own without the class through study and some practice with our own rig. But, what she wanted was to be safe, confident and comfortable doing it and that takes a lot of hands on time behind the wheel.

Most of her 10 hour days were spent on the practice field where they have the various field exercises setup with trucks and trailers, obstacles and simulated typical situations to learn to navigate.

Typically, 3 hours of each day was in the classroom learning terminology, technology, regulations, map reading and how to fill out log books. With the possible exception of the log books, all of other content goes to training a driver to be more aware even when a situation is not in play.

The rest of the day was spent getting hands on experience in their trucks with their instructors. That has trained her mind, eyes and muscles to reliably respond correctly in real time situations. This not something that one can get from books. Neurological patterning and muscle memory training has to be done through conscious repetitive actions and that means some long exhausting hours behind the wheel.

Prior to this class she had never driven a truck while towing a trailer of any sort. By itself, that makes for a huge confidence gap. Add to it virtually no experience backing any sort of a trailer and you have borderline panic just thinking about parking our rig.

Now, her confidence is solid and her fears are gone. Add some time on the road and she will be as comfortable handling our rig as she is running to the grocery store in our Smart car.

Congratulations, my Love!

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Two down, One to go

Today, Merrily passed her DOT maneuvering tests (backing 100’ in a narrow channel and a 90 degree backing between two trailers).

She said that was easy compared to the equivalent tests to pass the class. They have less room, tighter limits and less allowance for slop and oversight.

She is happy. Still has just one more test to go, her on the road DOT driving test and then she can go pick up her CDL from the DMV and start driving solo on the road.

I am just about to bust a gut because I am so happy for her! This is just terrific!

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And now.. A Double Wooohoooo!!!!

Merrily passed her 10 speed truck driving certification today!!!!   Momentous occasion!

At this point, at least 6 students out of 43 were unable to pass even a single truck certification and were dropped from the course.

Tomorrow and Wednesday they will take the two  90 minute tests (one each day) for Maps and for logs. If you ever thought that truckers don’t have to be smart, this course will change your mind.

Sure, a few rogues skip by for awhile and make a bad rep for the rest but a career professional driver has to be smart or have a short career, period. 

Merrily is closing in on the end of the class… less than 2 weeks away.

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WooHoo! Merrily qualified on the 9 speed… One more to go…

To most, this probably seems like … “….what?…”. But this is a really big deal.  In order to be certified and get her CDL, she has several tests to pass. Some are written but the hardest are the driving qualifications in the big trucks. They have 9 speed and 10 speed semis with 48’ trailers at the school and to pass the class and get a certificate to exchange for your CDL at the DMV, you have to qualify on both kinds of trucks.

She almost qualified on the 10 speed, yesterday, but due to a capricious decision by the instructor, she didn’t. Today, she did qualify on the 9 speed trucks so just one more to go.

To graduate the class, she still has to pass several different backing  tests (90 degree to a dock, serpentine offset to dock) and the 100 foot alley back (which is not as easy as it sounds). You only have about 6” on either side of your tires to work in to back a 48’ trailer 100 feet in a straight line.

She is very close, though. She has really worked hard at this course and will definitely be a better driver than I am when she graduates from the class in a couple more weeks.

I love her so much but I admire her equally so it is impossible to not be excited and proud for her.  I don’t know how many other 60+ year old women would even consider making this effort but she has and is owning the show and we are going to have an unbelievably great life on the road because of it.

WE, not just me, will travel the country, safely and comfortably and, as always, know that someone is always there to have our back

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Good Morning Pandora!

I love Beegie Adair’s music style! Pandora (I love it, too) just pushed me a note that they have put up a new set of selections from Beegie Adair so I had to check them out.

Yep, Beegie is in there, somewhere.

Pandora, if you have not tried it, is Internet Radio thematically corrected by you for your own listening styles. it does not play just the specified artist but Pandora will find music that seems to fit the same style… Sometimes we don’t see eye-to-eye on what “same style” means but if I strongly agree, I give the piece it is playing a thumbs-up. If I really don’t want to include it, a thumbs-down click will sculpture Pandora’s selection criteria a little to better fit my preferences.

By building multiple playlists or “Radio Channels”, I can have a broad choice of music sources to match my mood. Because Pandora throws in “similar music” as well as the specific artists I choose, it gives me a taste of randomness, but not as uncontrolled as XM or Sirius Satellite Radio.

All-in-all, for a free service (yes, as usual, there is a “premium” version, too) Pandora is nice.

You can setup Radio channels that you configure for the type of music (style, artist, genre, etc.)you would like to hear.  At any time, thereafter, you can switch to that channel and start hearing that type of music.

I also really like GrooveShark which lets me build playlists of just the artist I want without contaminating the mix with similar artists. I can build playlists of pieces that fulfill my own music preferences without semi random insertions by the service.

Both have worked fine over both park wifi and Tethered phones and sound good to me. It is very nice to  not be limited to a specific set of tunes on specific CDs that I have to try to read the labels to pick from.  Heck, by the time I find the CD I want, I am too tired or frustrated to bother turning it on…. maybe next time?

Both are also available (Pandora is free but not Grooveshark) on Android phones and will let me use the playlists I built on my computer.

A Big Hand for the Little Lady

Merrily made another qualification drive, today. it was with a driving instructor that she had not driven with in a few weeks.

She did almost perfect and literally “stunned” the instructor with how much better she was than the last time he rode with her.  He really verbally praised her improvement and said he could not believe how much better she was doing than the last time.

She got kudos for getting up to speed, smooth shifting, great turns, just everything. She came off of that ride with a really big grin on her face, I am sure.

Then, while they were out on the practice field, one of the other students came up to her and put his arm around her and said “Miss Merrily, you are soooo nice. Everyone in the class just loves you. They respect you and if they happen to let a bad word slip out, they immediately apologize all over the place. No one else gets that kind of respect.”

I see that, as usual, she has really set the bar high for everyone and they know it.

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Lets hear it for the girl..

Merrily passed the first of a number of skills tests she will have to perform to get her CDL license and graduate from the truck driving school.

Before any driver gets into a truck and drives off, a pre Trip Inspection (PTI) of the vehicle must be done. This consists of visually and mechanically inspecting and challenging 100 specific points of the truck.

Some examples are:

1. check to see that there is no more than 1” of movement in each brake slack adjuster.
2. Make sure that none of the springs are loose or broken.
3. Make sure that tire pressures are all correct.

Etc… for 97 more things.

The last few PTI items are done in the cab of the truck. Merrily got 99 of the 100 correct. These checks must all be done from memory, too. She only missed 1 thing…… she was sitting in the cab with her hands on the steering wheel at the end and still had about 3 minutes do go to complete the PTI test.(You only have 20 minutes to do it in).

She felt she was forgetting one thing but just could not think of what it was. She turns to the instructor and said that she was finished.

He said she missed one. She said “which one?”

He says “Steering Wheel Check!”

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SEIZURE!

68 days…. Not better than the record 100 days but still much better  than the typical 14 days between them she has experienced most of her 4 year life.  Katie had one this morning about 10am.

I really hate it for her when they happen but thankfully the meds are working and the seizures that she does have are wayyyy  less intense and last only a few minutes instead of hours.

None of us slept particularly well overnight. I usually blame on a full moon because that is typically when I don’t sleep too soundly.

Looking back, Katie has had a few small cues that she might have been working up to a seizure. Little things, like a sudden involuntary flash-kick of a hind leg while she is resting or some pacing for no apparent reason.

She is fine, though.  it lasted about 4 minutes and then she was off walking it off. She seems to have discovered that walking around helps clear it out of her system and I can believe that. The normal Cross-crawl patterning that takes place in the nervous system when walking on 4 legs, is a powerful normalizer for the whole neurological system. 

Therapeutically, cross-crawl simulation, even while lying down, is used to stabilize unbalanced muscle tone and works for all 3 axis of the body (front/back, side/side, top/bottom).

I have not seen anything specific about its use in humans in seizure recovery but from what I have seen in Katie, it definitely shortens the number of bouts of rigor that she typically has (3 –6 per seizure to just 1 or two). It also seems to bring the slobbering and glassy eyed stark staring to an end much more quickly than if she does not walk.

Back when she was having them several times a month, I found that even if I carried her outside on a leash and helped support her while she tried to walk, she would return to normal much more quickly. You could just watch how her walking around went from that of a drunken sailor to a normal dog in a matter of minutes while she was walking, even just doing figure 8’s.

Although this day started off with a few minutes of angst it has turned out nicely.  Though a little cooler in the 50s today, it was still very nice to take a few walks and enjoy the filtered sunlight through the spring trees and a few clouds.

Maybe tonight will be a sound night of sleep for everyone.  Merrily is driving on the road tomorrow and is nailing the shifting so I can hardly wait unti we can climb into Clifford and share the drive to wherever we want.

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Merrily got to drive a Volvo today

Yep.,, and she liked it better than any of the other trucks she has driven (Freightliners and Macks). She had a good day, drove for an hour and even crossed a DOT scale (big deal?) and came home still positive but tired.

Tomorrow is just an all classroom day except for a few demos of the new field exercises to be done starting on Friday. 

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Tuesday’s Child is full of grace

Yep, that about sums up Merrily. Today was a great day for her. Most of the day was on the practice field and her backing problems have been overwhelmed by her persistence and she did GREAT! 

She came home for lunch and when she called to let me know she was just leaving I could tell from the crystal sparkle in her voice that today was going very well for her.

Things had not changed by dinner time, either.  She was still up and feeling in control again.  This is wonderful for me to watch because having been there, I think that she is actually doing better than I was at this point in the class. I know she does not see it that way but all the evidence says that she is nailing it!

Another beautiful but chilly day. Tomorrow promises some rain but so far, nada, so maybe it won’t be so bad.

She is driving on the road tomorrow, so I am anxious to see if her problems with downshifting have gotten any less, too. She was really frustrated all weekend about her difficulties with downshifting and Skip shifting on a down shift.

The good news is that she will be driving a Volvo but it’s a 10 speed and she feels like a 9 speed is easier for her to handle. maybe this will show her that it was the 10 speed transmissions in the Freightliner trucks that was the problem.

Anyhoo, she is sleeping right now because she will be gone all day tomorrow (7 hours out on the road).

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Have a nice day…. thanks, I just did!

Sundays seem to always be an awkward day for me. The whole “is it the first day of the week… or the last?” thing kind of keeps me a little uncommitted as to just what to do on a Sunday.

Tomorrow Merrily starts week 3 of 8 of truck driver training. She is struggling more with learning to back a 40’ trailer than what she thinks is normal.  Actually, that is the toughest of the field exercises that they do.  They intentionally have sloppy hitches between the trailers and the trucks so that it is impossible to just hold the steering wheel in one position and have the trailer move in a constant line.  It wanders all over the place forcing the driver to keep correcting it in real time…. not easy.

She is doing very well in all other areas, though. Getting good scores on the written tests and on all the other field exercises she is getting them down pat.

However, tomorrow, they are stepping up the difficulty of the exercises so they will be even more challenging.  She is not looking forward to that.

Her shifting is getting better, too.  Last week, they introduced skip shifting (where you skip one or two gears at one shift point) and she even got that one pretty well.  I never got that one very well at all. I am really glad that Clifford has an Autoshift transmission so it knows how to do it without grinding the gears.

Our Autoshift truck has a standard 10 speed transmission but the computer controls the actual gear selection and synchronizing so the driver just has to pay attention to the road and the truck takes care of the rest and does not have a stick to shift gears.

As for the rest of today, we walked Katie a few times (she is on day 61 of no seizures, wahoo!) , read the Sunday paper (Merrily’s job- I am not a newspaper reader) and swapped out the empty propane tank with the full one that Emery brought down.

We knew from late last week that Emery and Christi would probably come down today and that was a good thing to look forward to. Merrily even said yesterday that she was missing “the kids” and I will admit that I think of them most every day at least once. Having them come for dinner at Cracker Barrel was really a very good thing on several levels.

Merrily was doing a lot better after dinner. I think she just really needed to see her “kids” even if they are pushing 30. Okay, Okay, so maybe I was really missing them, too.

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A place for everything… and everything, eventually in its place.

I usually try to start my weekends sometime during the day on Fridays but today, I actually forgot it was a Friday and worked right up until time to go pick up Merrily from Truck driver training school.

It has been a very productive day for me. I managed to get a lot of boxes of miscellaneous items sorted and then collated back into the regular storage boxes that already have similar items in them. This is always a work in progress in the RV new items come inside in bags or odd boxes and are set down in convenient places to be dealt with later. 

Maybe there are some RVers that have perfect recall and know exactly where the existing storage box is that has other USB cables or pet items or whatever is similar to what has just been brought in. I am not one of them.  I can put my hands on the box for receipts (most of the time – Middle cabinet, top shelf, left most top-most box), the box with my medicines in it (about 93% of the time – Cabinet behind the open smoked glass door on the far right) and the hair cutting equipment (bright blue plastic box in the middle cabinet, top shelf, far right). if it is not one of these boxes, I am probably going to have to look for it for a bit.

Disorganized, you say?  No!  I am organized and have a place for just about everything… .I just can’t remember exactly where it is.  This is a primary reason that I don’t file paperwork. If I do, no one, including moi, will be able to find it later. I am sure it is a defective gene in there as my Father had the same problem. Rolling with this same story a bit farther, I also don’t try to remember things for other people. I will never remember them when I should or when it is needed.  I will remember it in the shower at 1:22am or while going to the bathroom at 4:27am.

These are not convenient times/places for remembering things that are important to anyone but unfortunately, this is typical of when I will remember stuff that should have been recalled on demand at specific times and places.. .usually earlier in the day…. or week.

Another obstacle to storing items in an RV is that there is INSIDE storage and OUTSIDE storage. OUTSIDE storage is any place that is not directly accessible from inside the RV by opening a door or a drawer. The so called Basement storage area is OUTSIDE storage as is any place in the tow vehicle or Towd if one has it. In other words, If I cannot put my hands on it in my underwear, it is OUTSIDE.

Often items new to the RV are best suited to be kept in OUTSIDE storage and that is usually inconvenient to access at the time the item is brought home so it is set aside for future relocation to the correct storage box and location (When I can remember where that is). Today was a day that I chose to deal with a lot of these sorts of things and put them in their correct storage places (I think). I made big progress, too. I actually put stuff away that had been waiting for relocation for nearly a year. I emptied 2 big cardboard boxes, 2 small ones, 2 grocery bags and also, through superior collating skills, managed to empty 3 of the shoe box storage containers that had accumulated a variety of stuff from 3M command strip items to RV related parts removed during other work.

		Cleanup 101 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

I even found a new location for Katie’s crate. She goes to it to rest, take a nap, hide, chew a bone. Who really knows what a dog thinks it’s for? I put it back of my computer table and was not sure that she would use it. I think she liked it out in the floor where she could hide inside and peek out through the ventilation holes in the side and feel she was in the room with us but still “protected”. Since we never have to lock her into it, I removed the door so she could easily come and go as she pleases. It is ghastly unsightly to have sitting out in the floor and does take up vital square footage but back where I tucked it, is space that is only used when we are traveling and not really visible from the rest of the room. She found it and quietly slipped into it for a nap this evening so I am very pleased.

Now, we can actually enjoy our fireplace, again, which has been quite nice while I am sitting here working on this blog with it in the mid-30s outside. This makes it a bit chilly on the floor and this fireplace does a nice job of keeping my tootsies warm without running the furnaces.

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On a long rainy day…

I am a list maker. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism so I have something to blame when I don’t get things done (“Well, it wasn’t on the list”). However, I think that I am leaning more towards list making as a tool of procrastination.  After all, one should not go off half cocked with only a partial list in hand and this does work quite well, most of the time. 

I can avoid starting a task until the list is complete. Coincidentally, that seems to happen simultaneously with when I feel like actually working on the job instead of the list. I can’t help that. It is just my nature.  Maybe I have watched Charlie Sheen too long and also believe that my brain is bigger, more complex and more capable than most folks. I am certain that there is a lot that goes on in it behind my back so until I get the thumbs up from down deep inside somewhere, starting to actually work on a task before this point has proven it to be doomed work. 

Maybe I have stumbled onto a dark universal secret but I think that there are many men, and even women, that struggle with getting their “doing” ahead of their “thinking”. I just to incorporate that inevitable hesitancy as a part of the planning cycle instead of letting it default to being an actual delay in the execution stage.  It sure works out better this way because, being a guy, I really hate to make a wrong turn and then have to go back.  Likewise, I hate to get started on something, then have to undo what I have done to correct or fix mistakes or omissions.

All of this has been the long way of saying that today was a “planning day” and not an execution day.  I got groceries and a towel hook. I came home, put the groceries away, mounted the towel hook, took Katie for a well deserved long walk between rain showers and then returned to eat lunch, watch a bit of TV (Two and a Half Men, of course), get a tick off of Katie and give her the meds to prevent them and heart worms. All in all it was a totally boring day…. but it was a part of a plan and was well executed and I crossed two things off of one of my lists. I feel it was a productive day. Getting this blog entry posted was just brownie points.

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Baby Steps towards Winter

Today I made reservations for the coming winter months at Portobelo Village RV park in Aransas Pass, TX . We have been studying our needs for wintering locations and just can’t find Florida all that appealing. maybe it’s because we grew up in central Florida or maybe we just need to feel like we are really somewhere new for our first winter of full-timing on the road.

While Merrily is attending the 8 week Truck Driver training School, here in Smithfield, NC, we are staying in the Smithfield KOA in a monthly site. People have asked what it is like so I have included some pictures for a little perspective.

		Smithfield KOA VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The Monthly sites are in an area of the park that was formally for Mobile homes so the lots are quite large, which is very nice to have. I-95 is nearly 1/2 mile to the North of us so whether we hear it or the train on the other side of it, really depends on the direction of the wind.  A few nearby dogs are a lot more perturbing than the transportation noises.

Most days, Merrily comes home for lunch unless she is out on the road in a truck with her instructor and usually, we fix dinner in house but tonight we ate out at Smithfield’s Chicken and BBQ! We split a White combo platter for about $10 with our senior discount so it’s a good satisfying choice.