Woke up to rain

The rain caught up with us this morning.  Woke up to overcast day and 46 degrees.  Glad I brought cold weather clothes.  We did leave our chairs outside.  Oops.

Off to an adventure, will check in later.
5:00
We went shopping at the Tanger Outlet Mall since it was raining.  This mall is so much better than the Tanger in Branson.  It has a lot more stores and is alot bigger.  I found goodies at the Journeys and Gap stores.  (I bought me some UGGS)  Then we headed over to grab a bite to eat at Five Guys Burgers.

Sorry the picture is blurry.  But believe me it was sure good.  After eating we went over to Harley Davidson shop and I picked me out one.  This 3 wheeler model was only $35000.00!

Libbie found her one that she thought was her size.

Since Jim already has one, he bought him some shirts.  Doug couldn't decide on just one so he didn't choose.

Then we stopped at The Christmas store and Libbie bought another Mark Roberts christmas elf.  Didn't get a pic.  It was real cute though. Maybe I can find one and post it.  Hers is all wrapped up for travel.
Our last stop was the Art and Craft Fair they were having.  Only thing we found that we couldn't resist was a silver cleaner.  I know, but really that was the only thing that I thought I couldn't live without.
Even though it was a rainy day, we managed to have a good time and spend the guys money. What more can you ask?

Day 3 Pigeon Forge

We finally made it! It is really pretty here and there is lots of things to see and do.  I already know that I don't have enough time.

That's Jim and Libbie pulling into the campground ahead of us.  We are at Bear Cove RV Resort.
After we got settled in we decided to ride around and take a look at the surrounding area.   I wish that I could have gotten a better picture of this church. It was so big and ornate.  Notice all the brass on the domes.  This was so pretty.

We rode into Gaitlinburg to get a feel for what we want to see and do first. Looks like we will have a full day tomorrow.

Stop 2 Lebanon Tn

It was a beautiful drive today.  After a storm blew through last night the temp dropped 25 degrees.  By the time we get to the mountains it might be snowing!

We made it to our campground early enough to go into Lebanon to take alook around.  This quaint little town is known for its antique shops.  It is suppose to be the Antique capital of Tn.   Downtown is a square and all the shops had been turned into some sort of antique store or little knick knack store.

These rock looking things were civil war bullets.  They were very heavy.  Some were still recognizable as bullets but most just looked like round rocks with a blunt end.  The weight of them is what really surprised me.
After walking the square we made a quick stop at Walmart and then went to eat.  The locals had recommended Demos'.  It is a Steak and Spaghetti House.  I never would have come up with that combination.  They are well known in the area for their food and excellent service.  I must say that I agree with the recommendation.  It was delicious!  I had the lasagne, Libbie and Jim had spaghetti and Doug ate steak, of course.
We look forward to arriving at Pigeon Forge tomorrow.  We can't decide what to do first.  I have tried to vote down the hot air balloon ride.   Doesn't sound fun to me at all.

First stop Lakeland Tn

We are staying our first night at Memphis east campground.

 After getting set up we went to the Texas roadhouse to celebrate my birthday.  The steak was good the company even better.  After eating of course they came to our table to announce to everyone that it was my 29th birthday!  I don't know where they got that number.  I think I did tell them that I was celebrating the 32nd anniversary of my 29th birthday.  I guess they just didn't hear me.  They brought a saddle on a saw horse for me to climb on to.  Yes I did climb in the saddle and holler YeeHawwwww with them.   The things you will do when your out of town and no one knows you!
It started to rain and the temp dropped from mid 70's to 57!  We went back to Jim and Libbie's  motor home where We were going to have egg custard pie with a candle of course, but everyone was too full to enjoy it.  We will wait til tomorrow.  they then gave me a gift bag with a candle, cookbook and travel journal.  Great gift!!!

Can't forget the custard pie

By this time I was ready to head back to our motorhome.  We weren't there long when we got call from son Brian.  I called him back so that we could FaceTime.  my son and grandaughter wished me a happy birthday and Ashlynn showed me a fairy star she made.
It has indeed been a good day.  My youngest son started my day off by calling me to wish me happy birthday,then my boss let me off early and now tonight.  What more can one ask for.
I'll post pics later.  It's time for some sleep and to get ready for another day, on the road again!

Twas the Night before!

Twas the night before we leave for Tennessee
And I'm as excited as I can be..
I 've loaded the camper with everything we need.
to have a good time, be comfortable and feed.
We've planned out our trip and everyone agrees
to hike through the mountains and zip through the trees.
On Doug, on Jim, on Libbie let's go!
Ride away, slide away, I'm ready lets tow! tow! tow!

Looking forward to seeing the mountains with all the beautiful fall colors!

Annual Spaghetti Supper

Tonight we went to the annual Spaghetti Supper at the catholic church here in town.  They have had this fund raiser for as long as I can remember.

 We saw several fellow RV'ers there tonight. Some cooking and some eating.

 Generous portions of delicious Spaghetti and meatballs and german slaw.  I am too full to load anything in the RV tonight.
I checked the weather again and I think I better throw in some long johns.  It might get chilly at night .

Got to tell you about my morning.
   I have my alarm clock set to wake me up with a local radio station.  I woke up and was laying there listening to the "morning show" when the announcer says " its 8:00.  I think, he's got it wrong again, He has before. I turn and look at the clock and it says 7:00.  Yep, he's wrong, he'll correct himself in a minute.  I lay there leisurely listening to the music and think about what I want to wear.  The music stops and the announcer says, it's 8:15. "What! "  he didn't correct himself!  I look over at Doug's alarm clock and it says 8:15!   Somehow, probably me hitting the snooze button and missing, I hit the daylight savings time button and turned it off.  Lost an hour.  Bummer.  I didn't think I could move that fast anymore. I made it to work before 9:00.  Don't ask how I looked and if I had any makeup on.  My hair didn't look too good either, but hey, I was there.

The countdown is on!

I started loading the motorhome yesterday.  I think if I load a little each day it won't be so bad.  I have made my menu and stocked up on the items needed.  I don't think I will be doing alot of cooking on this trip.  Breakfast and lunch mostly.
  I was just reading a post from Karen and Al and they are in North Carolina now doing some hiking in the Blue Ridge mountains.  It is beautiful and the colors are beginning to change on all the trees.  I noticed that they were wearing shorts in some of the pictures and now I'm not real sure just what I should be taking to wear.  Even though we are going to a different state, we are still going to be in the Blue Ridge Mountains and close enough that the weather should be the same.  I loved the pics she posted and it gets me excited and ready to leave.  I don't know how much hiking I will be doing.
Check out their blog.  http://florida-georgiacamping.blogspot.com

Taking things apart to take a look

We have been having some orange plastic breaking off the slide when we open it so Doug took a look at the gliders today.  Of course to get where you can see them you have to take a cabinet apart.  After getting everything apart he could see that indeed the glide on the slide was starting to break.  Just little pieces here and there.  Now we have to try to find a part number so that we can order a new glide.  this orange glide is about 12 inches long.  He looked and looked but couldnt find a part number anywhere. Now he has the VIN number and is searching for a part.  Our RV is a 1999 and its hard to find parts for RV's that old.  I hope he can find one.  It isn't causing problems yet, but I see some in the future.  It just better hold itself together for our trip next month.
  Anyone know where to buy parts for a 99 HR Endeavor?

I love this weather!

What a great day it was today.  There wasn't any humidity and there was a cool breeze blowing with temps in the 70's.  Now this is my kind of weather.   We went out and took a look at the damage to the slide out awning.  It has a tear about 8 inches at the bead.  I think that is what they call it.  it's where the cloth slides into the thingy on the motorhome.  I know this is real technical but try to keep up. LOL
We taped it as best as we could.  The canvas is in great shape otherwise.  I hate to have to replace it but I really don't know it can be repaired.  We are going to have an upholsterer take a look at it and see if there is enough width to the material to sew another bead on it.  If not I guess we will have to replace it anyway.  We did finally figure out how to lower the window awning.  We could tell that the slide cover also had a window awning extension but couldn't get it to extend.  A little WD40 does wonders.
     After finishing up with the awning, Doug worked on the lights on the RV cover. It seems that  the switch was bad and had to be replaced.  Mark another one off the list.  Works great now.
     While we were outside of course Doc, the horse,  wanted some attention, mainly, he wanted in the back yard  to eat the greener grass on the other side of the fence.  I got him out, put him on a long line and let him munch away.  Doug brought me out a red solo cup of ice water.  I was taking a drink and heard something behind me.  I looked over my shoulder and Doc was right there.  So close in fact, that in the second it took for me to look up he muzzled  my drink!  His big nose wouldn't fit in the cup so he stuck his tongue in my cup.  So much for a cool drink of water.  I poured the remainder out on the ground and he ate the ice!  Silly horse!  I have the best of both worlds.  I love having a horse in the pasture again, I can brush him, talk to him, give him treats and yet I don't have the  responsibility, the expense, or the  headaches of owning a horse.  LOL  (My next door neighbor owns Doc.)
All in all, it was a GREAT day.

Back Home!

We were slow moving this morning.  Neither one of us was in a hurry to leave.  Even though it rained all weekend  (the weatherman said just 30% chance of rain) there wasnt anything that I wanted to do that wasn't done.

We were so busy we never did set up the satellite tv.  Now that's something for us.  We are still getting use to our new phones.  Mine is the same but a lot faster.  Doug is not big on learning new computer/smartphones.  This is his first smartphone and he says it's smarter than he is.  I just need to get my new iPhone and all my other apple products linked together.  I do love that I can post notes on my computer or iPad and they are on my phone when I am out shopping.  My old iPhone was so slow that I rarely used the internet.  This one is so much faster that I may see that I don't need an iPad at all.  I am wondering if it has out-used its usefulness.  I don't like posting on an iPad because I like a keyboard.  That was the reason I got the Mac even though I had the iPad.  I just wasn't as happy with it as I thought I would be.  Now that I have the Mac Air, I wonder if I will ever use the iPad again.  I was just using it when we traveled and didn't have wifi at the campground.  Now that we have our own hotspot that I can tether the Mac to, I really see no need for the iPad.  Now I have to decide, do I keep it, sell it or what?  Doug loves the iPad and uses it instead of his laptop.  In fact I don't think he has used his laptop since getting the iPad. Different strokes for different folks.  It sounds like I need to get rid of my ipad and his laptop.  LOL
  This is our first trip using our new tire pressure sensors and it was nice knowing that the car back there was ok, tire wise.  The  alarm did go off because I had a couple of tires that were a little low on air.  I hadn't even noticed.  That  TST sure did though.  It scared me to death when it went off.  We weren't even hooked up and on the road yet!  LOL  My next surprise was airing up the tires.   We have always used our air compressor to air the tires up.  Well we stopped at the gas station to air them up and to my surprise it costs $1.00 for 3.5 min.  what happened to .25 for all the air you needed!  Of course we got 3 tires checked and aired up and had to put another $1.00 in for the 4th tire.  Bummer! We are good to go now though.  I'm ready for our next trip the first week in Oct.
 Come on OCTOBER!

Since I don't really look at my page I didn't realize that my blogs that I follow is not on my page anymore.  I looked at the template and it shows that they are all there.  Anyone know what happened and how I can get them back on there.  Everything on the template and layout still shows they should be there but they are not. HELP!!

Apple store training

Well I am at the Apple store for my training on my Mac.  I am learning how to use the shortcuts and copy pictures to my blog. All sorts of stuff!  The more I use my mac the more I love it.  I have a class on Ipages too.

This is my trainer guy!  :)
Of course I am old enough to be his mother, but he is still a cutey!
After I left the Apple store I went back and got Doug and we went to AT&T to look at new cell phones.   After much deliberation Doug got one of the new Samsung Galaxy. It has a large screen and works much the same as an iphone.  Of course, this is the phone that apple sued samsung over.  LOL

I got me a new iPhone 4S.  Didn't think I needed to get the 5 since I have been able to do quite nicely with an old iPhone 3.  Hopefuly I will get them all synced together and all will work well.
I am using my iPhone to tether to my Mac to do my blog.

So far so good. I think I will go play now.

Happy Anniversary Doug!

Today was Doug and my anniversary.  We have been married 32 years!  Doug sent me a pretty plant to work.  He knows that though I love flowers, I think that they are a waste of money.  They don't last long and cost way to much!

 rTonight he took me out to dinner at the Colonial Steak House.  I had a New York strip, baked potato and salad.  They brought us out a chocolate cake with cherries and a candle on top.  The food was great and of course I couldnt eat all my steak so I brought it home for later.  I was going to take my camera with me but just my luck, the battery was dead.  bummer!

  

All in all it was a great day.  Happy Anniversary Doug!

Finally getting something accomplished!

Today we spent the afternoon outside.   It was so nice today.  I got the horse out for alittle while and let him eat some of the grass in the back yard.  He loves that since the pasture is kinda low on anything since the drought has been so bad.  I think he gets bored eating hay.  We also put a couple of pork butts on to smoke this afternoon.  I plan on having one of them tomorrow and maybe do something with the leftovers and then freeze the other one to take with us next weekend.  I have some one-to-one classes scheduled next saturday to learn some more about my new Mac.  We will stay at Maumelle so that we can enjoy this great weather we are having and I won't have to drive to Little Rock early in the morning. Plus I don't need a reason to get in the motorhome for the weekend.
  This afternoon while enjoying the weather we decided to go ahead and install our tire sensors.  I bought these over 3 years ago and never got them to work.  We tried and tried. We got so frustrated and each time we just put them back in the box and forgot about them for 3-4 months.  Well we finally sent them back to the factory and they said that the batteries were all bad in them.  It was going to cost $200 to replace ten of the sensors (you can't replace the batteries on this model) so Doug just upgraded to the new 510 model that has come out that you can replace the batteries.

We were dreading trying again since we had had so much trouble with the last ones.  Thank goodness these were a breeze to put on.  The sensors are alittle smaller and have teeny tiny screws in them so that you can replace the battery when needed.  They come with this neat little tool so that no once can steal them off your tires.  It takes this tool to put them on and take them off.

 In this pic I have the sensor on the tool ready to install on the tire.

It came with a smaller monitor than the one we had.  It shows the tire pressure and the tire temp.
You can put the monitor on a stand or mount it on the windshield.

Here is Doug finishing up with the last sensor.  Good job Doug!

I can smell those pork butts!!! They have been smoking for 7 hours now.  I think its time to wrap them up in some foil and let them rest. The big one will be wrapped in foil and left to cook an hour or two more.   Mmmmm good.  I'm thinking there is a pulled pork sandwich in my future.

Sittin at home on a holiday weekend!

Well Doug got called out to work.  Last I heard from him this morning he was headed towards New Orleans now.  He left saturday morning early.  They were suppose to go to Baton Rouge but have since been moved twice.  He spent last night in Hattiesburg, MS.
  We wound up getting almost 9 inches of rain here.  There were several streets flooded.  I had to cross a flooded creek to get home.  I have never seen this particular creek that bad.  They closed the road right after I got through it.  I know I shouldn't have crossed it.  but I  watched two other cars make it and so I just plodded on.  I wish I had my camera with me.
  Doug left his tractor up close to the house and didn't get it put back in the barn before he left.  When I got home the flashers were flashing away.  I went out and turned them off and not two hours later they were flashing again.  I had thought maybe a cat had walked across the buttons and turned it on, but no, I guess it didn't like all that rain either.  I had to go out and turn it off two more times last night and when I got up this morning they were flashing again.  I called my brother-in-law and he came over and disconnected the battery.  Thats one way to stop it.  We had so much rain that the bucket on the front was completely full of water!  Thats a lot of rain.

  I am about to make our reservations for the Pigeon Forge trip in October, let's hope that the weather doesn't put a damper on that trip!

Isaac is headed our way

Isaac is dumping a lot of water in its path as it heads up through Arkansas.  It started raining here around noon.  We haven't had rain in a long while and though it is very much needed, what we are getting is not what we need now.  The wind is blowing and the rain is falling and falling and falling.  Already the ditches are filled and the streets are filling up.  We had 1.75 inches of rain by 6:00 with no sign of it letting up.  This is just the outer bands that are here now.  They expect and predict several more inches of rain before Isaac moves on.
  Farmers are saying it's too much and too late.  The crops are almost ready to harvest and this much rain can ruin them.  Cotton is 10-12 days from harvest.  The fluffy white fiber is now getting wet and falling to the ground.  Cotton on the ground is useless.  Soybeans are almost ready to harvest also.  When it gets wet just before harvest, it can mold.  Rice, even though it grows in flooded fields, can't be harvested in those conditions.  Isaac is causing damage and hurting alot of people.  I hope that as it moves through our state and on to another that it will weaken and cause no more damage.
  Isaac ruined my trip this weekend, but it has ruined alot more than that for hundreds of people.  I hope that it weakens soon and becomes just a easy rain on a late summers day. Stay safe out there folks.

We are on hold

Looks like our weekend trip will be canceled thanks to Isaac.  Right now Doug is waiting to find out where he will have to go to work.  At first he was going to leave in the morning and go to La. but they have decided that they will wait and see what happens tomorrow.  They may be needed in Ar.  I thought it might be a good idea but no one ever asks me.  I am disappointed but looking at the weather forecast, it doesn't look like good weather the entire weekend.  Oh well. Guess I will look into doing something else this long weekend. Whatever it is, it will have to be done inside.  We really need the rain so I don't guess I should complain.  Maybe I will spend time out in the motorhome. I can pretend that its parked someplace great.
I did get an email from TST today.  They have our unit and will be testing it out tomorrow. I hope to find out something soon.
Everyone stay safe out there.  Catch you later.

To Go or not to Go

I will be glad when Isaac decides what and where it is going.  We planned on spending the weekend at Tunica.  Then Isaac gets wishy washy on where its going to reek havoc.  As of today it may be heading our direction.  I would hate to get to Tunica and Isaac come a callin'.  LOL
I am not giving in at this point.  Of course, Doug may be called out to help if there is alot of outages in the area.  Whatever its going to do, I just wish it would do it.
It feels like its been forever since we have been in the motor home.  It's calling my name.  We tried again to get our TST tire monitoring system to work and still no luck.  We called the folks at TST and they were very nice.  They tried to help us but it still wouldn't  work.  We bought this a couple of years ago and have never had it on the tires.  I know, not good.  Well they ended up telling us to send it back to them and they would check the unit out.  Haven't heard from the yet. I hope that everything gets fixed and back to us before we go to Pigeon Forge in October.
Stay safe out there, wherever you are.

Blogs and Bloggers oh my!

I've been reading the blogs I follow.  It's funny how you can read someone's blog and after a while you feel like you know this person; that they are your friend.   Someone that you have never actually met but you get to know their lives day to day.  Why we are so interested is beyond me, but I know that I missed "sassy" when she didn't blog for over a month.  I wondered if she was ok and how her dog Bennie was.  In fact it was Bennie that caught my attention when I first found her blog.  You see Bennie looks exactly like my dog Muffie.  We lost Muffie a couple of years ago.  She was almost 14 years old.  Seeing Bennie just made me smile. So I started following her blog to see Bennie.  LOL Hope that isn't an insult to Sassy! Not meant to be.  (sassysondaroad.blogspot.com)
    I found Karen on another blog.  She had beautiful rugs that she hand wove.  She also makes socks! Her and her husband were looking at retiring next year and full timing.  Since Doug and I are looking forward to retiring next year, I started following her blog. Her hubby Steve is one of those "can fix anything " people.  Boy I wish my hubby was.  He is one of those, "find me someone to fix this" people.  I have learned a lot from Steve.  I especially have learned how much we don't know about our motor home and unfortunately how it can hurt us!   (kareninthewoods.blogspot.com)
    The very first blog I ever started reading was Tioga George.  He has been blogging for almost 10 years now.  His travels and views are always interesting.  He makes me want to go check out Mexico.

Pinnacle Mtn

    There are so many good blogs out there. There are many more that I follow.  They are listed here on my site.  These are friends of mine that I have never met.  I may never meet them but I still feel that they are my friends.  In this digital world, I guess we now have digital friends.  From Newfoundland to Mexico, and many miles in between, I learn something everyday from my new friends.  They inspire me in different ways.  We all might be miles apart, but we are as close as a blog away.

The weekend is just too short!

We have had a good restful weekend but it was just too short.  Friday night we went out to eat at Laynes Steak house in Star City with the Matthews.

After enjoying a very good meal, we got down to the business of planning our next trips.  I have been checking out area campgrounds for somewhere to stay over the Labor day weekend and unfortunately everything I found was already booked.  It didn't take long for us all to agree on a trip back to Tunica for the long weekend.  We can always find a place to stay there.  We plan on going into Memphis on this trip.
Next was the decision of where to go in October for my birthday trip.  This will be a 13 day trip.  After much discussion, we decided on Natchez, MS.  We are looking at staying at River View RV Park.  I am looking forward to seeing some of the old antebellum  homes in this old city.
It feels good to have a few trips lined up.  I hate it when there is nothing on the agenda.  I need something to look forward to.
We also talked about a trip to Fla. in May.  Of course we also discussed Doug's upcoming retirement.  He has 65 days left.  By the time the Fla. trip comes around we both will hopefully be free from work schedules!
Fun is again on the Calendar!! YEA!!!!

My new Mac!

Sorry I haven't posted lately.  Haven't been anywhere and we haven't done anything, except, BUY ME A NEW MACBOOK AIR!  I have taken the past few days getting used to a mac and I must say that I love it.  It boots up so fast! I love the track pad or whatever  they call it.  I am trying to get use to all the shortcuts.  I like using two fingers to scroll through pages and swiping from one page to the other.  I have spent some time setting everything up and getting my favorites and bookmarks all moved over.  The worst thing that I have experienced is the change in Quicken.  I have used quicken for ten or twenty years.  How long has it been out?  Thats how long I have used it and I have always liked how easy it is to use.  Well..... the Mac version is so different that had I known I think I would have just bought a totally different software and started over completely.  I might as well have.  Nothing is the same!  I am not too crazy about the changes either.  It doesn't do half what the windows version did.  Oh well.  I guess I will get use to it sooner or later.
The next problem that I have encountered is that my camera uses an xd card and the Mac has a SD slot. Bummer!  well there are ways around that.  I will just use my usb cable and link the camera to the laptop.

See there is my new Mac!

I love deer but.....

I was so proud of my sweet potato vine.  It was growing by leaps and bounds.  Unfortunately, it must have not only looked beautiful but delicious also.

The deer love to come up in the front yard and eat all of the crab apples off the tree.   I guess they needed a salad to go with their meal.  That barrel was so full of green vine you couldn't see the petunias! Only good thing is that now the petunias are getting some sun and growing.  There are plenty of crab apples, leave my sweet potato vines alone!  We have golden delicious apple trees too, but the squirrels  try to eat them all before the deer so we don't stand a chance. Both trees were loaded last year and we didn't get a one.  One day they were loaded, the next day they were bare. Hmmm  They also love Hosta plants.  I think the deer think my front yard is a buffet.

Thank goodness they left the one on the porch alone.  Probably because the light came on when they got close.  LOL

Time to head home

We slept late (of course) trying to enjoy our last day here.

Then we headed for the Red Oak Fillin Station for lunch.  Yes we do eat a lot.

After checking things out, we went in to enjoy some Chicken and Dressing, corn, cream potatoes and gravy and a biscuit. All but Libbie, she had a hamburger and onion rings.
Unfortunately we had to pack up and go home.  Jim and Libbie moved on to Lake Catherine State Park for a night or maybe two.  He had to rub it in that we had to go home so that we could go to work.  They sure are enjoying their retirement!  Come on January!

In case you think this looks a little familiar, that's because it is.  We came to this place a few months back when we were checking out Catherine's Landing.  RERUN!
We are home, unloaded and Doug is doing what he likes to do best!

TRIP TO CATHERINES LANDING

We decided to go to Catherines Landing in Hot Springs for the weekend. http://www.catherineslanding.rvcoutdoors.com/  Here is the website for the campground/resort.    I didn't get off until 4 so Doug went ahead and left so that he could get set up.  Hot Springs is only an hour from where we live.  About 3 Doug called and said that we had a problem with the motor home.  He had no brakes!  He made it to the RV resort but only barely.  He was backing in and the motor home locked completely up! It wouldn't move at all. He had NO air pressure.  This is not a good thing.  He looked and looked trying to find a leak in the air bags or the lines and didn't find one.  He unhooked the dryer and still no luck.  There had to be a leak but he couldn't find it.  He decided he had no choice, he called Good Sams and asked them to find a mechanic that would come out.  It was getting late by then and Doug said "just put me on the list for first thing in the morning".  We went to bed last night wondering just how much this was going to cost.

Early this morning Good Sam called and said they had found a mechanic that would come look at it at 11.  True to their word, at 11 he was here. It took him about 15 minutes to find the problem.  We had a bad hose at the compressor.  He had to go back to his shop to make one.  They couldn't get it off and had to cut it with a saw.  That didn't look good.  Bottom line because it was a Saturday,  he had to go back to his shop 25 miles away, and he had us and he knew it, it cost us $559 to change a $50 hose.  We needed Steve (Karen in the Woods, blog) he can fix anything.

We did have a good weekend anyway.  We went to Bath House Row in downtown Hot Springs.

The Fordyce Bath House is set up as a museum so that you can see how it was when it was built back around 1915.

This is a stained glass ceiling in the Mens shower/steam room.  The picture doesn't do it justice.  Even after all this time, the colors are so vivid.

This statue was directly under the stained glass ceiling.

This was the parlor.  Notice the ceilings are stained glass. On each end of this parlor are separate parlors for just men and just women.  A lot of segregation of the sexes in this bath house.  LOL

Here is Jim, Libby and Doug in front of the Arlington Hotel.

Hope you can read this.  It tells of the history of the Arlington and some of its infamous visitors.

The hot water coming up out of the ground is REALLY hot!  It is suppose to have healing powers.  I guess that is why there is so many bath houses on bath house row. LOL

The picture isn't too clear but I guess you can tell that that's King Kong that Libby has an infatuation with.
Well after shopping a little while we decided to do what we do best, eat.

Almost forgot to take a pic for the blog.  There was more but Jim was hungry and ate it before we could get the pic.  Fried catfish, hushpuppies, slaw and french fries.  This place was a great find for us.  Thanks urbanspoon!  The food was great and they also had bread pudding that was to die for.  Oh yea, the name of the restaurant was Mr. Whiskers.  Sure hate to go home tomorrow.

It finally rained!

It has been terribly dry here.  We have not had a decent rain in months.  Yesterday and today we finally got a good slow steady rain.  Since it rained most of the day yesterday, I spent part of the day catching up on my reading blogs.  I have recently started reading RV-a-go-go and I needed to go back to the beginning and catch up. I love the recipes and beautiful pics that they post.  If you don't read their blog, I recommend them highly.  I think you will enjoy their posts.  There are several blogs that I like to follow, Karen in the Woods is another.  I am very jealous that their new adventure is starting soon.  They have sold their house and next month when it closes, they will officially be fulltimers!
While I was soaking up all this knowledge that I gleem from all of these blogs, I started to wonder.  How do you decide what to keep and what to give up?  When down sizing from a stick house to a much smaller RV something has to give!  My biggest question is the closet.  I have alot of clothes and shoes and shoes and more shoes.  How do you decide how much is enough?  Since you are moving from area to area, reruns on clothing shouldn't be a problem.  You can wear the same clothes over and over, I guess.  Is 5 shirts, 10 shirts enough?  Is 3 pair of shoes enough?  A pair of blue jeans, slacks and shorts?  I got to looking in my closet and I realized that I don't wear half of whats in there! So now I know I can cut my wardrobe in half, no problem.  But this still doesn't get it down to RV closet size. It seems like every trip we take I waffle back and forth between taking way too many clothes and not taking enough.  It's hard to find just the right amount.  What about different seasons?  Is there room for both winter and summer clothing? So my question to you is, Just how much clothing do you really need?
Another thing I was thinking about is a dishwasher.  I like to cook but I sure hate to wash dishes.  I think one would fit fine under the cooktop.  I don't have an oven and I have plenty of storage.  I don't think I would miss that one cabinet under the cooktop. I am afraid to price this little goody.   Is there something in your stick home that you really don't want to give up?
Looks like rainy days really get my brain to working.    I have til January 31st to prepare.  Even though we won't be selling the house right away (I am still working on Doug) our first trip should take us 4-5 months to complete.   Now I need to figure out what I need and live with it.  LOL

A Fallen Soldier Comes Home

Today was a very sad day in our community.  One of our young men serving in Afganistan was brought home and buried today.  If it wasn't hard enough for this young widow and her babies, to say goodbye to their loved one, the Westboro Church, if you can call it that, posted on their website they were coming to  declare that his death was God's doing as a punishment.  I believe they were out numbered today and even though they were seen in town,  they did not disrupt the funeral of this fine young man as they have others across the country.

People from all over town came and lined the streets on both sides. Most carrying American Flags.

This fallen hero deserved our respect.

When the family heard that Westboro members were coming to demonstrate, they asked the Patriot Riders to please come.  Over 200 came.

The demonstrators stayed at their hotel.

My thoughts and prayers go out the the Strachota family.  God Bless America, Again

Sgt. Michael Joseph Strachota