Family Times

Our furbaby loved the big yard to roam in

My sis-n-law had graciously offered us her driveway to park our monstrosity. I call it that only because 32 ft. of a white house on wheels parked next to your garage can be a little daunting if you’re not used to it. When we are slid out we take up double the space of an older model with no slides. Most people still think of these only when you mention a camper, they are completely unaware even to this day of slides on campers. These almost double your floor space; this really helps with the full grown Labrador.

      

     Parking in her driveway gave us an opportunity to do two things. One was to spend some much needed time with our families only 45 minutes south of us in Alabama. Reason #2 was to save some money on rent for a short little while. After a week of troubles, trial and a few triumphs we were glad to be here with a loaded baked potato from our local BBQ joint. The next few days were playing and spending time with the two of the newest niece and nephew of the family.  The hubby and I even got to see our moms for a short visit; I had one friend drive all the way up and spend the afternoon with me. Believe it or not it is really hard to convince people to drive 0-45 min to see you after you’ve went halfway across the country. Staying this close to the family and working in town for the summer just so we could spend some time with them was our plan; we’ll see how well this one actually works out.

      

David Crockett State Park, TN

     The truth about our hometown and most of the surrounding towns, they were poor towns; they just didn’t have the industry and jobs like many of the towns we had been in. We ended up spending the summer scraping and scrounging to get by, very thankful the sis-n-law was nice enough to let us stay there. It was a total of ten weeks that we were parked beside her house hooked up to a 15 amp circuit just trying to stay cool in the humid Southern summer.

      

     

The hubby landed a temporary job which allowed us to move into an RV park just down the road and get the rig hooked up to the full 30 amps. We struggled to stay cool here but thankfully the owners were retired A/C guys who just happened to have a few rooftop A/Cs lying around. It didn’t take long for the hubby to start scheming on a plan to trade tools or something for an A/C; we had been dealing with only a window unit for far too long. After being there for almost a month the owner told us that if his A/C would fit, he would bless us with it for free. This was an absolute huge blessing to us since we needed it so badly; he said that since he had been blessed with so much in his life that he would pay it forward. We count our blessings, big and small, every day in this house.

    

  

     We were slowly sinking here but then again, can you put a price on being able to spend time with the family? It was time to start planning our next stop and job in a bigger city soon enough though. The hubby had applied for a security badge for a job in Memphis, TN; still close enough to see the family for weekend visits. We moved closer in to town for the last week of our stay in Alabama, by Wheeler Dam. It was a beautiful small park make for smaller rigs. While backing the rig in the hubby got it in a pinch. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to hearing the sound of fiberglass crunching as it tears a hole into our home on wheels. Yep, add another repair to the to-do list, but tape will work for now (as I write this, it is 9 months later and the tape is still holding).

      

     Here the lil one got to spend some much needed time with both brothers together. Oh how the lil brain expanded with all the lessons they taught. There are certain things in a child’s life that only siblings can teach them; being tough, the world doesn’t revolve around them only, and that the world isn’t fair come to mind first. As parents you try and try but these are some of the lessons only older siblings get to do. The experimented with fire and ants, how long a marshmallow will burn before it plummets into the fire along with just talking and enjoying their time together. I think the most fun was had when the brothers were teaching the lil one how to throw/catch a football. I think they got a kick out of being able to actually throw the ball at the baby and not be yelled at. They are old enough now to know how much force is needed but at the same time make it only sting if the catch is missed; something only big brothers can do.

      

     Time flew by while here, it was time to go much too soon. Leaving family and my son is one of the hardest things to do, but knowing our little family couldn’t survive there keeps pulling me away. I am counting the blessings of technology that allows us all to stay in touch and share moments that would otherwise be missed by many. We had a set of extra hands to help on this trip as my oldest was going on the road with us for a while. A few tears and hugs to all who came to see us off and we were ready to embark on the next leg of our journey. The hubby and I decided on another leap of faith---move on to Memphis while waiting on the security badge for the job there. All else fails it was a bigger city with more money which usually means more jobs.

Until next time……

There’s no other love like the love for a brother. There’s no other love like the love from a brother. ~Terri Guillemets

Trials of the Road

The day had come to slide it in and leave the wondrously tall and windy state of Colorado. To keep it interesting and prevent us from seeing the same scenery, we decided to go south over the Raton Pass through New Mexico and east from there. The truck was running a little funny after the fire, not to mention the 80 gallons of black and gray water that was a solid chunk of ice in the tanks. I can imagine the strain Ol’ Blue was feeling with the added weight in the higher altitudes and we were about to push her to her limits to get us out of there.

      

No room for error (excuse my dirty window)

     Before long we were navigating on I25 headed thru the pass on our way south. This pass was one of the lowest in elevation across all of Colorado. It climbed to a towering 7800 feet and seemed like it was going to take forever to get to the top. We had made it 48 miles along the 50 mile pass when I saw the worst that could happen; I saw a trail of transmission fluid in the road, coming from Ol’ Blue. She had gone as far as she could up this very steep incline. There was no room to pull off the road; there were only 4 lanes of flying traffic with no shoulders, only steep drop offs on either side of the road. The lil one and I had to leave daddy and haul butt into New Mexico to grab some transmission fluid. While waiting on s a state trooper pulled up to help keep traffic over. The hubby explained the situation but because we were blocking a lane of traffic we would have to be towed; no matter if I made it back before the tow truck or not, the call had been made. I happened to get back into CO right after the tow truck got there; they are almost on standby at the base of all the passes.

 We watched them hook up Ol’ Blue with a monster of a truck. It was only 1 ½ miles to the top, there happened to be a weigh station there and that was the nearest he could drop us at. This ended up being a very costly mistake in navigational plans; it costs us $325 for a 1 ½ mile tow. The normal fee for this was $300 just to hook up to you and then extra for each mile, we were blessed to have gotten such a discount on the cost.

      After all the excitement just getting up to the top of the pass we got to test the brakes on the way down. I’ll tell you, after going down it myself previously, my butt cheeks were quickly clenching at the thought of all ‘what ifs’ that could happen. My mind was racing while trying to keep it between the lines as we curved downward into the valley below; the hubby was carrying all of our earthly possessions behind him, not to mention him being hurt in an accident too. I was greatly relieved to have made it to the bottom and into the valley floor welcoming us into New Mexico. Even out of the mountains there was a beautiful view of them in the distance with the desolate rocky desert between us. 

The truck was acting up in spurts, almost as if she had a mind of her own; for a few miles she’d run great and then just lose all power for the next 45 miles. It took us roughly 10 hours to go 300 miles. I think it was 3 days to get from Colorado to somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma as a small RV park on the side of the interstate.

      
     The hubby and I had reached out to everyone we knew who may have any knowledge of a diesel engine and a solution. One friend’s son had a few ideas, we tried them. They didn’t work all the way so we went onward to his next steps in the solution. Eventually between all the brain storming we solved the issue; a map sensor, from the wrong type of truck was installed after the fire (they are not one size fits all type of parts).

     

our view at the RV park in the middle of nowhere, OK

     This was a very good lesson in auto mechanics; when replacing sensors with used ones, make sure they are from the same kind of motor. The lil one learned a lot about chasing down wires and re-taping them, making sure they are no shorts. We spent about 6hrs in an OK rest area under the dash repairing more of the fire damage. We got lucky as this was one the nicer rest areas to have stopped in, aside from the extravagant welcome center they had a dog park; this really helped out a lot. Finally Ol’ Blue was really and truly fixed, except for the A/C, but then again beggars can’t be choosers, can they?

     

love being back in the rolling hills of the South

 
     We ended up borrowing money from friends and family, only to make it back to the Alabama area closer to family. What started out as a 3-4 day trip ended up being a week with a few extra days spent somewhere in the middle of OK and a couple of nights at Wal Marts in KS, AR and TN before making it to Lawrenceburg, TN. We made it to the sis-n-law’s house, or driveway to be exact. Our plan was to spend time with family and stay for about a month. We’ll see how this plan works out, as well as they have in the past, I ‘m not holding my breathe on it to.

Until next time….

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.  ~Confucius 

Sandblasted in the Dunes

We had decided to try and save enough of our tax money to make a trip to Colorado, after fixing the trucks of course. Our method was pretty much throwing a dart at the map and trying to keep the rig on the Eastern side of the Rockies. After enduring long and slow inclines in SD Ol’ Blue had taught us that she doesn’t like the high altitudes with that much of a load on her. Walsenburg ended up being the only one with a campground that was open; the catch was that the water wouldn’t be cut on for a few more weeks due to the steady below freezing temps. This was close enough to a direct pass into the valley to suit our tourist needs, a whopping 7000’ above sea level; the highest I had been in my lifetime. We were looking at land and what it would take to relocate to the San Luis Valley. It quickly became somewhere I personally wouldn’t want to live full time; it was way too cold and windy for my tastes.

      

     The RV Park ended up being like most of the ones in the area; attached to a motel, in a one horse town with only the essentials needed to survive. April 20^th was the day we landed in Walsenburg, National Smoker’s Day in a state it was legal to smoke in; I’m sure a lot envied us. What I didn’t envy was the snow and sleet we awoke to the following morning. Our storage tanks for the gray/black waters had frozen solid, the only fresh water we had was a 5 gallon refillable water jug. This was definitely not my idea of fun times in Colorado.

the desert in the middle of the mountains

      On one of our journeys into the valley we visited the National Sand Dunes Park. After renting a board and spending $20 that we truly didn’t have, we were ready to conquer the dunes. There just so happened to be a storm brewing in the northwest and moving in on us. We quickly realized how the sand dunes were formed upon stepping out of the truck; we were sandblasted! This was how the dunes changed every day and climbed to a towering height of 700 feet. The lil one was singing a happy song on the ride into the park; after digging sand that was forced into every crevice (including our noses), the tune quickly turned hateful.

This was not the list of ‘must visit again’ places. We gained the lifetime experience of sledding down the dunes and those memories can never be taken away.

      The owners of the hotel let us shower in an empty room. I’m thankful they did, we would’ve been really stinky after a week there with frozen tanks. Only an hour away was some old neighbors we had met in Florida; a trip to their sticks and bricks made for an easy afternoon. The lil one got to feed a few alpacas while visiting her old friends we had come to call ‘The Colorado Kids’.

      After a week of roughing it and gathering the info needed to relocate, it was time for us to head south so our tanks could thaw out. Naively we planned on taking a different route out than we did to get in. with our route planned it was time to pack and move again, this time through New Mexico for a brief moment and back across the plains. We were trying to get a little closer to home for a bit and enjoy some family time and relaxation, not to mention a babysitter; we only have those very few times a year.

Until next time….

Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.    ~John Lubbock

Record Breaking Snow

The small snowfalls had melted and our rent was up in El Dorado, it was time for the “we’ll see ya again’s” and move to Wichita, KS. The lil one promised to keep in touch with a friend from here, to this day they still talk and send cards/gifts.

       

      It was a chilly, windy January day; but what could I expect being on the plains during the winter time. A 20 mph day was normal, they didn’t worry about the winds until they started twisting. It wreaked havoc on my long hair, keeping it perpetually tangled and dried out.

        

     Here we gave up our weekends to work as camp hosts in exchange for our rent and utilities. For two days a week, one of them being Sunday which was a half day, two people cleaning and running the office for all of our amenities taken care of. This included the rent, electricity, water, sewage, cable, wifi and free laundry; what more could you ask for? Nothing except a paycheck but this was Ok with us as we could bring the lil one to work with us.

        

     The hubby worked odd jobs for a while until Ol’ Blue caught on fire. We had no idea those block warmers were operating at 15 amps. The cord got too hot and started blazing out from under the hood. This being the second vehicle fire, we had gotten good and quick at putting them out. I imagine it was a sight to see two half dressed, bare footed adults running around in the snow for a few minutes putting out a fire on their truck. We chuckle about it to this day as we re-tell the story.

Imagine 1-2 ft flames shooting out of it!!

       

      This was not a major concern as we still had a few weeks before it needed fixed to move us. Life went on until the hubby pulled up in the 2^nd truck we had and jumped out saying he smelled wires burning. Upon raising the hood he saw the flames on the vacuum lines and quickly jerked them out. It was starting to get bad at this point; in a strange town, both trucks burned, no steady work. We had to keep counting our blessings though; our family was well and healthy, our house was paid for and we were working for our rent. Life was still good.

        

     The lil one really enjoyed us working on the days the kids were out of school, it meant many more playdates. We enjoyed having an extra set of enthusiastic hands helping us clean the bath houses and laundry room. I learned how to use a pc program used in many of the RV parks to make reservations; this could end up being a valuable experience later on.

        

     
     Our major event, other than the trucks burning, was 18” of snow in one day. I awoke to a task of kicking it off the porch just to get the door open. I wish you could’ve seen the lil ones eyes light up. This was the most snow we had been in in our lives; the hubby excluded as he had been in Chicago before. Thankfully we were not on duty at the time of the snow. The managers that were used to KS winters handled it like champs. The owner came and played with his toys, pushing the snow into huge mounds on the edges of the RV park.

        

     I’m glad we watched and learned so well, the following weekend we got 4-6 more inches. This was our turn to shovel the sidewalks and help clean the roads and sites as much as possible. After this record breaking snowfall and the harsh Kansas winter I was ready for buttercups and Springtime.

    

    

     Before long our jobs were finished, the trucks were fixed and it was time to plan the next step. I can’t say that I’ll ever tie myself down every single weekend again. Our circumstances with needing a 40 hr/week job for income made for this to be the only way it would work. In the future after we retire this would definitely be a possibility and just move to a new area every new season, but then again no one knows what their future holds.

Until next time….

"Que sera, sera

Whatever will be, will be

The future's not ours to see"     ~ Doris Day

Running on Fumes

  

     We were blessed just to have made it this far. Our original plans were to head North to North Dakota and the hubby work on the oil rigs; but after talking to the friends in Kansas, we decided to head south and help her out instead. To have made it that many more miles than planned was an absolute blessing after the hubby not getting all he was owed off the previous job. When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. We parked and stayed at their house in the middle of nowhere Kansas. The nearest gas station was 30 minutes away so we had to start planning ahead and keeping the tanks full. It was a whopping 45 minutes to the nearest town with a grocery store.

   

     

     We enjoyed some more fishing and paddling around in their paddleboat on the lake in their backyard. It was a miserably hot July here in the plains, our poor window A/C couldn’t keep up. Our rooftop hadn’t worked since we bought this particular rig. There was immense heat pressing on you as soon as you walked out of the shade, making you want to high tail it back for the cover of the shade.

       

with the heat came the storms

     The hubby began work on their house. Almost halfway thru the job there was an altercation between us and the home owner. Needless to say that with our house on wheels it didn’t take long for us to pack it up and get out of the increasingly bad situation. This is another one of the plusses to fulltiming;                                        if you don’t like your neighbors, you can                                        move.

        

     All we can do is move on and move past the negative. The hubby was blessed with a new job soon enough. We were now proud residents of El Dorado, KS. The RV Park here was suited more for the workers at the oil refinery. There were no perks here; no playground, no pool, small one person bathroom/shower. The best thing was laundry on site, an enclosed dog park and phenomenally nice owners.

     We celebrated the lil one’s birthday party here at the Skate Center. She had just enough friends to make it a nice party but not too big and impersonal. We also experienced the local corn maze and pumpkin patch, their family kid’s day downtown and several other small town festivities that you can only get in those small towns. There were even a few small snowfalls for the lil one to play in.

        

    
     My oldest had come up to work with the hubby; my youngest and oldest were getting along magnificently. Life was good. Until that day our luck changed, as it tends to do from time to time. The hubby and my oldest lost their jobs at the oil refinery right after the Christmas holidays this year. I’m not sure if there is ever a ‘good’ time to lose your job but around the holidays is never a good time, at least we had made it thru them first.

        

     We quickly got online looking for work as our rent was only paid for a few more days here. I got lucky and we got our first camp host jobs just down the road in Wichita. This would open a whole new chapter for us, not to mention keeping our heads above the water. It was time to pack and move on a very cold January day, just a short hop and skip down the road.

Until next time…..

The greatest step towards a life of simplicity is to learn to let go. ~ Steve Maraboli

Thru the Fields of Corn

       We napped most of the day in preparation to the long overnight drive southward, cutting across the state of Nebraska. With the previous problems with Ol’ Blue, we decided to drive at night, all night long.  This should be easier on the truck and tires with the temperatures being much cooler.

       

     The first part of the journey went ok, as it usually does. We had cell service and could communicate for the first few hours, but that was short lived.  Soon we found ourselves surrounded by acres upon acres of corn fields. A few of you remember the old horror flicks of ‘The Children of the Corn’, I happen to be a child of the generation that got the beejeezus scared out of us. Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger come to mind; yes I was one of those kids. All of the images I had from ‘The Children of the Corn’, the psycho kids chasing the helpless victims thru the fields just before killing them came rushing back as we passed miles and miles of  corn.

       

Imagine this on both sides for miles and miles but pitch dark on a 2 lane hwy.

   

     What made my uneasiness worse was the fact that it was 2 A.M. on a deserted two lane highway with absolutely no hope in finding a cell phone signal surrounded by rows upon rows of head high corn. Talk about making your skin crawl, if you were one of the lucky ones growing up watching these movies then you can imagine how I felt. I was praying mile after mile that we didn’t have any truck/tire problem. Hoping we didn’t break down out in the middle of nowhere.

        

     The hubby would have to swerve the rig over every so often to make sure we were still behind him. Most trips we have no problem staying in touch by phone but this trip wan different from most, there was no signal for most of the night. You can do a lot of soul searching going down a lonesome highway for hours upon hours with no human interaction. After what seemed like forever the sunbeams started peaking over the horizon, this was an extremely welcome sight after that lonely night on the road.

Soon we found an abandoned building with a big enough spot to part the rig. I have gotten pretty good at whipping up breakfast or lunch with minimal dishes and space. I hate using paper plates due to the ‘Reduce,Reuse,Recycle’ lifestyle we are trying to pass on to the lil one; but on trips like this                                                   they are a must.

After breakfast we stretched our legs and walked for a few, enjoying the views before our eyes. We were on an old two lane road with abandoned buildings dotting the rolling hillsides and prairies surrounding us, we were in the middle of absolutely nowhere. This was going to be a good day, I knew this because we just happened to park at a crossroads and one of the roads was ours, Miller Rd.  Yep, the Millers have their own road in KS. We had taken enough time filling the belly and joking about our own road that it was time to load up and move farther down the road.

We landed just outside of our destination, I only say this as we ran out of fuel before making it all the way there; only 45 more minutes and we would have made it. After borrowing gas $$$$ from the friends we were going to work for we were able to pull into their yard and hook up.  We were running on fumes in the trucks and our bodies after the all night long push to get to Atlanta, KS with what we had, no extra money on this trip. I had only planned on going a couple of hours north of our location in SD, to have pulled an all night run on the change we had in our pockets was amazing. After 38 hours awake it was time to wish the friends a goodnight and let our eyes close, we laid our weary heads down and slept for what felt like eternity.

Until next time…..

"Outlander! Outlander! We have your woman"  ~ Malachai

The Simple Things are Free

      We were getting very familiar with packing up and unpacking the rig by now. I was slowly learning how to spread out the stuff in the pantry to minimize shifting as we flew down the highway. We had begun to try not to be the first one who needed anything in the cabinets. I had secretly been making bets on how many items would hit your toes upon the first opening after a move. It was really unfair my being the mom in this situation as I was the one having to go into the cabinets for dinner components, but this was just part of life on the road; one of the negatives to compare to the long list of positives.

     This being the third time we had trekked across the state of South Dakota on I 90, we knew what to expect and how long this journey would take. It was still grueling pushing Ol’ Blue up those rolling hills at a measly 35mph. The lil one and I had taken all the pictures you could take on this stretch of open highway. We had played our ABC road sign game until all the letters were running together before our eyes.

     We had decided to stay in a smaller town this time; Belle Fourche, about 1hr north of Rapid City, closer to the job. Wyatt’s Hideaway Campground was the one we decided on, mainly because they had a creek running through it. It was still a few weeks before Sturgis hit town so the rent was still reasonably cheap.

                               

                

   

Always a school lesson at our fingertips 

  This just happened to be the geographical center of the USA, including Hawaii and Alaska. The story goes that the center is actually located 30 miles north of the monument on a farmer’s land. He got tired of tourist coming by and disturbing his sheep so they voted and decided to move the landmark to town to visit and view; the sheep and farmer lived happily ever after in history and peace                                  and quiet.

  

   

One of my favorite past times here was fishing in the creek for trout. Sadly, I only caught a few fingerlings that weren’t big enough to eat. We let them live another day to grow bigger for the next fisherman. The lil one and lab had a ton of fun playing in the knee deep creek on those hot summer days. There was no fear of gators in these fresh waters, it was bone chilling cold.

     We had made very good friends while here previously, they too became adopted family. We celebrated one of their girl’s birthdays during these few short weeks. While having issues collecting our pay from the job, we all bonded together over simple things like how to feed our family with no money. We had found ourselves in the same boat as all of our husbands had worked for the same guy who refused to pay them. The owners of the RV Park worked with us on the rent and understood our situation. One evening the husband brought over a bag of frozen chicken and fresh veggies from their garden; we ate like kings that night.

     Eventually everything worked itself out, like it usually does. The guy finally paid us most of what he owed, I think us harassing him had something to do with it too. A friend’s mom wanted us to come down to KS and do some work on her house. After a few phone calls and counting our pennies, we decided to head that way. We would put off ND for a while longer. Our choices here were to head south and do residential work or to head north to the oil rigs; we decided the oil rigs would still be there, besides she couldn’t find anybody else to do the work. Winter was coming on soon and she needed it done before then. The decision was made and away we went on the next leg of this journey we call life, to Atlanta, KS.


Until next time......


The best things in life are not only free, but the line is shorter. ~Robert Brault