Seven Days and Counting - Our 2023 Travels

 

As we have for the past few years, we will start out our trip by going over to the east coast of Florida and visit with Dean and Caryl.  The picture above was last year...

This year it will be more like this.  We will be staying overnight at a nearby Cracker Barrel.  The RV park we stayed at previous is on my poop list.  We stayed there during Hurricane Ian, we were asked to evacuate, but they would not give us anything for the nights we lost by leaving early.  Also, with this day and age of INFLATION, their rates are for a minimum of three nights, and something around $90 per night.  No thanks.

Each year there are things that need to be 'taken care of' before we leave, and this year there is a good size list.  We have three of these Fantastic Vents in our motorhome, and two were not working...the one over the bed, and the one in the bathroom.  Now to be honest, "I" broke the one in the bedroom well over a year ago...the one in the bathroom has acted up for much of last year, requiring a good 'hit' to get the fan moving.  Well, the hits did not work anymore.  I figured it was the switch which allowed for it to be turned on when the vent hood was raised.  It ended up being the glass fuse holder.

    

As for the bathroom fan:  Above on the left is the vent lid switch, on the right is the fuse holder.  On the left, when the vent lid raises, the push down will pop up allowing for the power to contact, turning on the fan.  In the fuse holder, there is a glass fuse, which must be working for the power to make it to the fan.  In our case, the black body broke, not allowing the fuse to make contact.  Got a 'generic' type of fuse holder from NAPA for just under $20.

Four or five years ago I had to replace the bedroom vent fan.  When I did, I never secured the copper thermometer (looks like a pencil with wire coming out one end), and just laid it on the vent screen.  That worked fine...until some leaves came down onto the vent screen.  So I turned the fan on high, with the air exiting the motorhome...but a few leaves did not leave.  So I tapped the vent screen to loosen them up, which then took the thermometer right up into the fan, which busted that sucker right in half.  The fan had not worked since then.  Since I was on a roll, I took the fan apart, bypassed the thermostat, and now we have a working fan again, less the thermostat feature.

Other items I did included:

* Restringing and rehanging a curtain which busted last year

* Put a new screen on our entry screen door, which had a 3" rip in it

* Checked the batteries, filled as needed

* Lubed the slide and refreshed the slide seals

* Ran the generator for a good 1/2 hour with the A/C running for 10 minutes

* Filled all the tires up on motorhome and the HHR

* Lubed the car tow bar

* Put new wipers on the motorhome and the car

* Lubed the entry steps

* In the process of cleaning out the dust and dirt that a motorhome acquires while it sits

Have a travel map for Marcia and I to follow.  Has gas stops, nightly stops and a highway route.  Unfortunately, Google's "My Maps" does not allow for more than 10 route stops, although you can start up a second route...but this gets us to Phoenix, and I was still able to put in the various gas and nightly stops beyond Phoenix.

Unfortunately, we decided to skip going through Arkansas, but will hope to go through on the way back.  Mom turns 93 in late April, and she has fallen down at the Assisted Living Facility three or four times in the last 45 days.  She gave up her cell phone about 6 months ago, and now she has removed the computer which she use to love to get on, but it is just too much of a chore now days.  She even accidentally blocked my phone number from her main phone...no idea how she did it, but she also blocked about 4-5 other numbers too.  She still goes down to eat once or twice a day, sometimes deciding to stay in her apartment and have the food brought to her.  Her outing, where the facility takes a group out to eat, out for a scenic drive, stuff like that, are becoming further and further apart. Will she reach 93?  Yes, we think so.  How about 94???  Only time will tell.

So our plans for the 'summer' are to either stay in Arny and Sandy's backyard, -OR-, go up to southwest Oregon for a month or two before returning to the backyard.  

My results came back on my Cologuard test, and it was negative...good to go for three years.  (pun intended)

Getting Indy ready for travel too...gave her a pretty short haircut, except for her ears and tail.  I don't think she has been this short since the first haircut that Pet Smart did for us shortly after we got her.

And I did our taxes and got them off in the mail about a week ago.  First quarterly installment will be put in the mail before we leave. 

Finally, in the first time in nearly 10 years of living in the Condo, I attended an HOA annual meeting.  For those who have followed my blog long enough, you know we have not always seen "eye to eye" with the HOA leadership.  Two years ago we got a new president, and he has been real good.  His attitude is not that of "What I Say Goes", and there is no one on the board now that we have had problems with in the past.  They are trying to gather up all the rules and regulations and put them up on a One-Drive type of location so that people can have instant access to them.  In the future, if a President comes along with the attitude like in the cartoon above...well they won't be able to harass those who need a service dog or an emotional support dog.  (Indy is not the only dog living here now...there are two emotional support dogs here too.)

I'll try and post something each day of our travel...don't expect anything new unless we have a major breakdown or something like that.