Waiting on Delivery, Car Update, Fire(s) Update, All Star Memories

The followers of this blog should know by now that Marcia has MS, Multiple Sclerosis, and has for over 40 years.  Back in the mid to late ‘70’s they treated her MS with adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which had good results.  However, the damage was done…her left side (legs, arms) don’t function like her right ones do…they are weak, they are numbed, they tingle.  After her ACTH treatments she has treated her MS with a variety of vitamins, and Topamax to control the tingling of her left side (Topamax is generally used for seizures, but she has never had a seizure).  The image above shows what MS does…it attacks the myelin sheaths, causing the signals from the brain to run into problems, and the brain then tries to re-route the information.  On a MRI, the brain would show bright spots where the activity is trying to find other routes…her MRI’s show no more bright spots, which is good…the MS is fairly dormant now…but the damage is still there, and she continues on her vitamins (which, by-the-way, is NOT covered by any insurance since doctors won’t (can’t) prescribe it and insurance companies won’t pay for it).  WHY am I telling you all this???  Because we are waiting for a vitamin delivery…so instead of leaving today (Wednesday), it will by Thursday.  Lucky for us…it will only be 95 degrees today!

Tuesday was “fix car day”, and fix it we (Arny) did. To put the new belt on requires a special tool…shown to the right.  All we needed was the ‘long’ bar looking thing, but you actually ‘borrow’ the entire thing from O'Reilly Auto Parts by buying it, using it, returning it within 48 hours…they actually advertise the tools they do this with a counter top display.  However, and there is always a ‘however’, the long tool was too long, and we had to cut it down.  So I bought it, and donated it to Arny’s collection of tools.  The hardest part of the job was getting rid of all the grime that accumulated on the engine, cross bars, etc. from our Alaska trip last year.  So now I not only have a working engine…but a clean engine.  The entire project took about 4 1/2 hours, including trips to O'Reilly.  Total cost was around $70, $35 for the tool and $35 for the belt and intake hose…and I gave Arny $30 plus bought dinner…a measly price to pay for all that work.

    

The “Wall Fire” up in Butte County is under control….they lost about 40 structures, but saved hundreds as the fire came up to a number of homes just south of Oroville.  The pictures above tell the story, including the now notable one of the firemen saving the American Flag from a structure which threatened.  The fire took out a lot of trees, but in some areas it just burned the grasses under the trees (probably due to the retardant dropped from airplanes), and ‘if’ there was a fire break around the house, it was typically saved.  The structures lost were lost due to no fire break, or the intensity of the heat which was taking out the trees nearby also.  Officially, the fire was just under 6,000 acres and is 60% contained…and unless a high wind comes up over the next few days, it will be 100% contained by the end of the weekend.

The 88th Major League All Star Game was held last night…did not watch it, but the American League won 2-1.  Saw this on my blogger friend, Nancy Kissack’s blog this morning.  It reminded me of days gone by…the year was 1984.  My brother Bob, friend Brad (who managed the north area steakhouse while I managed the mid-town steakhouse), and friend Ted (who once worked for Brad but moved on to better things than cooking steaks) got together to attend the All Star Game in San Francisco at Candlestick Park.  If I recall, to purchase an All Star Ticket, you had to also purchase 25 season tickets.  So we bought 100 tickets for three different games, and got groups of people to attend the game with us, selling them tickets at a reduced price to lower our overall expenses. 

The picture above is my ‘stash box’ full of stuff that is in the bank safe deposit box.  The only thing not there anymore is the watch, which my son Michael was given when he got his Master’s Degree…that watch was my great-grand father Charles Burdick’s retirement watch when he retired from the railroad.  In the box you can see my business card, and under it is a ticket stub…which you can hardly make out…that is the all star ticket.  But on the lid of the box is a commemorative handout from the game.  Found a picture of one on the Internet (pictured right), and mine too is still in the original seal.  Saw one on ebay going for $35…another $15 and it will cover the cost of the all star ticket!  I also had or have, can’t remember, the program from the game.  I also took pictures of every single batter, including Daryl Strawberry, George Brett, Rod Carew, Reggie Jackson, Eddie Murray, Steve Garvey, Ozzie Smith (who did his flip), Dale Murphy, Cal Ripken, Dave Winfield, Ryne Sandberg, Tony Gwynn, and a host of other stars from that era.  The game set a nine-inning All-Star Game record for most strikeouts (21)--which would be broken in 1999.  It was a once in a lifetime event for me, glad I did it, wouldn’t do it again though…to many people!

Today is laundry day, dinner with mom and dad, and getting ready for take off tomorrow.  Can’t wait until we get to the cooler weather.

More California Fires, Auto Breakdown

Summer life in California is always full of fires.  It is such a large state, with 40-50% of the land full of forests.  Despite being out of the drought, fires are still a huge issue here.  California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has over a $2 Billion Dollar budget.  The state of Arkansas only has a $5.3 Billion Dollar general-revenue budget.  Yesterday, while Citrus Heights hit 110 degrees, about 60 miles north the “Wall Fire”, which is along Chinese Wall Road five miles north of Bangor, Ca., was burning, engulfing 250-300 acres.  By midnight they upgraded the fire to 1,000 acres, and by morning it was estimated closer to 2,000 acres.  As of 2 hours ago from this posting, it is at 4,400 acres and is about 20% contained.  Thursday another fire was half way to San Francisco from Sacramento, but it was contained, for the most part, within 24 hours…but it too burned 2,700 acres.  This “Wall Fire”, however, is a real butte…seriously, it is in Butte County. 

With this heat lasting through the weekend, it looks like it will end by Wednesday…the day we are headed out of here.  In California you have two choices to cool of by…either head to the high country, or head to the coast…we are choosing the latter.  By Thursday we should be much cooler.  For 6-8 weeks we will be traveling along the coast, up into Oregon, perhaps into Washington.  We are leaving the tow car at my sister’s house.  Hope to find places that we like, camp for a few days…perhaps a week…then head on.  We have been along the coast a few times now, so we don’t need a car for day trips.  This will be different for us…just taking it one day at a time…cooler days we hope.

Took Bubba to PetSmart where I needed to buy a couple months of food…and he needed to have his nails cut again.  The PetSmart closest to us did not have the food last time, so I drove an extra mile to Roseville’s PetSmart this time (didn’t even check the one here in Citrus Heights…kind of like one of those ‘take that’ type of things).  On the way back I see these two cars on the road leading to the freeway…one hit the other from behind.  The guy who hit the couple in the car in front of him must be very unlucky…all of his airbags went off…yet it was just a minor hit to rear of the other car.  So not only will he get a ticket for hitting a car from behind, but also face a huge car repair bill which “might” total out his car “if” he has insurance on it.  Well, it was hard not to chuckle at this guys bad luck…why I do that is beyond me…I think since I have had my share of bad luck it is nice to see it is someone else and not me.  But I paid for it because I did not get halfway home and my battery light comes on.  3 miles from the freeway exit, another mile to my sister’s house, and luck was on my side this time because I made it. 

Turns out to be a serpentine belt, and our initial feelings are that it is only the serpentine belt…until we get it on tomorrow we won’t be sure.  Also need an air intake hose, which they had to order…hopefully we will have it running again sometime tomorrow (I have needed to replace this hose for a good year now).  So instead of doing laundry tomorrow, we (Arny and I) will be working on the HHR, and we (Marcia and I) will have to do laundry Tuesday morning in place of Marcia’s haircut that we had scheduled for that time period.  I’m taking dad to a Dr. Appointment Tuesday afternoon, so there is just not time to get Marcia's hair done...she is just going to go with longer hair for a few more months unless we find a place along our route that the motorhome can pull in at where she can get her hair cut at.  Still planning to leave on Wednesday for cooler pastures.  😉

A Year Later, Remembering the FIRE

March 25th of last year there was a fire in the Storage Facility that our motorhome was parked in.  Of course, the section holding our Jayco Melbourne.  Of course, it was a total loss…..

Here we are tucked ‘safely’ (or so we thought) in parking place C-1, next to this nice class C.  Sometimes I backed it in, as I did here, sometimes I parked straight in, as it was on that fateful night.

  

The picture to the left was looking through site B-1 to the front of our now demolished home on wheels.  The picture on the right is the view from outside C-1.  Remember that beautiful Class A we were parked next to?  Now it is hard to make out ours from theirs.  Frankly, there is was more of theirs left than ours….from the rear ours was nearly all ashes at this point.  I can still remember that feeling in my gut that day when I took these pictures just by looking at these pictures. 

Although this was a BIG setback, we replaced the Jayco with a Dynamax Isata.  Here it is back in October parked at a RV park along the Arkansas River near Little Rock.  The Dynamax is four feet shorter, so it is easier to drive and maneuver. Being smaller, we have to be smarter in what we take and how we take it.  This year we are planning to go to Alaska, which was our planned trip for 2014 until the fire.  To prepare for it, I have redone the pantry, which will be a huge improvement on how and where we can store things now.  We got rid of our short couch, and now have real nice La-Z-Boy recliners.  I have also added some small storage nets to hold some of our small items….one next to each recliner, one over the driver/passenger seats, and one next to the entry steps.  I also arranged the one storage bin which holds stuff, since the other two hold the sewer hoses while the other holds the electrical cords and hoses. 

Above we were parked just north of Albuquerque where we enjoyed the opening day of the annual Balloon Festival.  So far our little Dynamax has been in 16 states, and we have really enjoyed it.  This year’s trip to Alaska is our ultimate trip…but we have enjoyed each of the three years we have traveled already. 

In Portland back in 2012 we visited the Rose Garden.  We knew that along with the roses, comes thorns….

….and sometimes bees.  Roses are pretty, the smell is beyond words, but what comes with them are thorns and stingers.   You just got to take the bad with the good sometimes…..and how you handle the bad many times determines just how much you appreciate the good.

No Foul Play in RV Storage Facility Fire

A news release today, which was reported on TV News and various news websites, announced preliminary findings on the fire at the Florida West Storage facility.  An investigation, involving the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the State Fire Marshal, reported that last week’s fire, which destroyed our motorhome along with 31 other RV’s, nine boats, 2 classic cars and a ‘retired’ military vehicle, was not suspicious in nature.  Rumors of “a person seen on video” and “someone must have wanted to get out of payments” were just that….rumors.  A final report is to be released in July, perhaps we might learn more from this report.  The news release said that another 30 RV’s were also damaged from the extreme heat of the fire.  Total damage from the fire is estimated at $4 to $5 million dollars.

ATF Investigates

Skruffy’s latest bit of excitement is to stick her head out the window while I am driving while Marcia holds firmly to her leash.  She will ride like this for a long time, if we let her.  Kind of reminds me of when we were traveling through Texas a couple of years ago and hit a head wind….at a rest area I put her up on a dead tree and got these shots below.

 

Gotta love that little girl….

Yesterday after I got our insurance papers notarized at our bank (for free ) I drove by the Storage Area and saw a ATF Truck similar to this one pictured above at the site.  As I was pulling out of the condo’s carport I had received a call from an Officer Mahoney (not sure if that spelling is correct) and he identified himself as being from the ATF.  We talked about the age of our motorhome, if we ever had problems with our batteries or refrigerator, etc.  I told him that we had not even owned the motorhome for a year…and were headed out of state in 33 days from the day the fire took place for Alaska.  He chuckled….  I mentioned that it wasn’t a funny to us, but that I totally understood.  He said that he wasn’t laughing at our predicament, it is just so ironic with a tragedy on top of a tragedy.  I chuckled with him because I knew what he meant.  I gave him our website address in case he wanted to see any pictures.  He sure was a nice guy, just doing his job....and he told me that he had a whole lot of phone calls to make still. 

Today as Marcia was at the eye doctor, I took my camera over to try and capture a picture of that ATF truck...but it was gone.  I did see this guy named Charley whom I had met before.  He has a Class A motorhome which is unharmed… he is parked at the far end on the south side away from this middle area that burned.  He said that he has come by every day since the fire, and has been allowed to visit his unit only once for a very short visit.  All the other RV's along his row seemed to have blistering due to the heat, but his unit, being at the far end, was further away from the fire and appears to be undamaged.  He said that he hung around for a long time yesterday while the investigators went through the rubble.  Much of their concentration was in this area on the north side where they pulled out a lot of stuff.  We were in the first unit on the south side.

Finally got a picture of the front of our unit….like I said, not much there.

  

Picture on left is the north side, the picture on the right is the south side.  You can see they pulled a bunch of stuff out of the north side, but also along the south side. There has been much speculation as to if someone did this on purpose, or if it was a malfunction of one of the units.  Not sure we will ever know, although if the talk is true about having “someone on cameras”, well I hope they catch the person if that is the case. 

Charley was one of the lucky ones…. their unit was down at the end, right side.  He and his wife will be traveling up through the Dakotas, and I think he said into Canada.  He just wants to get his motorhome out of there so that they can have access to it and get it ready to leave if it checks out ok.  I hope their dream for the summer is still intact…. too many dreams have already gone up in smoke.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

There is nothing left….all gone, just dust and useless bits of steel.  The steering wheel in the picture is from the Class A which we were parked next to.  Both of us parked front in, rear facing out. There was nothing in front of me, I think there was a boat in front of my neighbor.

Our spot was that first one on the left.  You can see the total destruction of the entire building which I think had 20 parking places on each side, with probably 30-35 motorhomes, the rest being boats or antique cars.  Nothing survived…..

This is the other side….not any better.  All gone.  Amazingly, the RV’s on the side storage areas were not harmed….could not even see any blistering of paint, but I’ll bet it was so hot that each of those are going to need some work done to them, let alone the smoke damage that is surely inside each unit.

As I was taking the first photo above, I walked over to this view point…and this man and lady drive up and come up to the fence….and point.  “Did you have a unit in there?” I asked, “No, but we did last year, how about you?”  “Yes, I was in this first one on the left,” I said.  “That is where we were…” she mutters, “I am so sorry for you.”  I guess I muttered that we were headed to Alaska in just 33 days…”were”' being the operative word there.  And I got in the car and drove away….

Man Plans, God Laughs

Awoke this morning to a text from brother-in-law Mike, “Saw fire at RV storage in Palm Harbor on news….”.  Heart skips a beat…

I immediately get on the internet, type in palm harbor rv storage fire, and I quickly see this picture, knowing that it was where we stored our RV.  I don’t say anything to Marcia as I go out to the car and get the Storage Agreement, verify the name, and I break the news to her.

Above, in the first storage bin, is where we were parked.  “Was” parked….

I think they said there were some 30+ RVs, cars and boats….all gone.   I call Blue Mountain, and the lady says they already had three phones calls this morning.  Adjuster will call us within 24 hours.

Goodbye sweet girl… .thanks for the safe travels you provided, the warm memories, we thought we had more memories to share with you… .but we are just not in control, and our plans have been drastically changed. 

note:  we know "God" is not laughing at our loss, our heartache, just the fact that "his" children think that "they" are in charge....we know now, and already knew, that "HE" is and always will be in charge.