Happy New Year

Seems like I was just here. HERE being Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Temps are relatiively mild at 44°, moderate rains are forecast, and its New Year's Eve day. It's similar, but not quite the same as the first time I experienced a Louisiana New Year's celebration.

Iggy and I scared up a Jack rabbit about 1 AM out by the dog park of this KOA were staying at. They both took off lime a shot, the dog hitting the end of his lead almost immediately; bunny foo-foo hit the fence and had to run almost a hundred feet down to find an opening in the fence to wiggle through.

Things are wet here, saturated, really, so I am reluctant to try my luck putting the 5er in to the backyard, assuming I can even get it through the gate. Sinking the truck and trailer in the red gumbo mud is Not my idea of fun. I've got some planks to cross the grass with. Also have some wide planks to park on if I can get it back there. We will see...

I do hope y'all have a good celebration and a far better 2014.

And So It Goes...

We're safely setup on lot 33 in the O Kentucky RV Park. SWMBO IS ensconced on the porcelain throne worshiping Peristalsis, iON tv is showing Cold Case. Summer sausage is safely back in the winery box; Iggy is greatly saddened that all the ell good food is in the truck while he is in the trailer. And So It Goes.

Merry Christmas

Despite trials, tribulations, false starts and stops, we are in Kentucky, freezing with the locals. If Murphy allows any luck to escape his clutches, we will depart for Louisiana on Friday. I figure if I just keep driving South until I can't go any further my hot water tank and the rest of my plumbing will eventually thaw. What do you think?

Seriously, here's hoping you all have a Merry Christmas and the new year brings joy and success your way.

Sunday

We survived the death line of snow, sleet, thunderstorms, lightning, helacious winds, hail, downpours, flooding - flash and areal - frogs and grasshoppers Dizzy Dick sent up from Texas. Had to pull the sliders in a couple of times when the flying Brahma bulls soared by. Today is grey, wet and windy. Aside from venturing out for a bite of lunch, my area is going to be anchored right here at the table, watching Ohio oaks try to hold their leaves. So, you have a good Sunday, y'hear?

And So It Goes...

Nothing until Monday

No mechanics on until Monday morning. In disgust, went to Friendly's for Brioche French Toast. SWMBO had the meat-lover's skillet. Both tasty, but her toast was limp - not our idea of toast.

Been hanging out all afternoon waiting to move over to an electrical pedestal for the rest of the weekend. Ran the generator last night as they'd pulled out a bunch of stored trailers for pick-up by owners so no electric spaces were available.

And to make things more interesting, an ice storm with freezing rain is forecast for tonight and tomorrow. That does beat the heavy thunderstorms expected in Louisiana and Kentucky tonight. So that's what is happening here. More Monday.

And So It Goes...

Taking A Brake

We're set up in the yard in front of the Akron, Ohio Camping World service center, hoping against the realities of weekends, Christmas parties and other holiday doings, flash flood and areal flood warnings, that today they will be able to check our trailer brakes. It isn't fun driving with next to no brakes. My fingers are curled into unbreakable claws and I'm popping nitro tabs like M&M' s!
They have Saturday service hours, so there is real hope. But there are also those here before us to contend with as well as the issues above, so I won't be terribly surprised if we were still sitting here on Monday morning.
I do hope your weekend is better and safer, if you're in that band of wild weather forecast for this weekend...

And So It Goes.

We're lost

Sitting in a parking lot of a Flying J outside of Milton, Pennsylvania. Got a Subway sandwich for each of us. Plan on visiting the Woolwich factory in the morning. Plans changed about lunch time as we sat in a parking lot in upstate New York. Baton Rouge is still our destination, but instead of traveling down the coast it looks like Christmas in Ohio! So instead of a thousand miles of I-95, we've been over I-84. I-81, and now I-80 since leaving the truck stop in Meridian, Ct. Who knows, maybe we'll visit the airstream factory.

And So It Goes.

~~~

 

Asleep at the wheel

Snowed up, slowed up

Made it as far as the mass-ct line early this AM. SWMBO insisted we pull off after I dozed off into the verge. One moment I was awake the next asleep. Scared the bejeezus out of me. Pulled into the Weston Welcome Center at 2AM and called it a night. Woke up to snow at 8:30. Made it a hundred miles or so to outside Hartford to a TA truck stop about 11:30 and here I sit. Six inches of heavy wet slop that is a greasy blanket on the Interstate has stopped further progress for now... I have no desire to brave the Bos-Wash corridor in a snowstorm on a weekday. Storm is supposed to blow out to sea at midnight. We will attempt further progress then.

My Location

This is my current location as determined by TruckSmart. Click or copy this link into your browser to find me http://maps.google.com/?q=42.1568,-71.9635


---***---

I tried...

I really did. Little did you know, Dick, but I have been trying for the past few days to get packed and get out of here for warmer climes. Despite an almost pathological lack of strength and energy. So yesterday was the big push. And I'm moving like mired in molasses. Add descending temps. I spent hours outside in single digit temps and winds topping out around 30 MPH. An early evening run for food and fuel and pharmaceuticals for SWMBO. Return to no heat from the furnace ... just frigid air pumping out. Tried everything I knew to do but no joy. Worked outside until I just couldn't work any more ... back at it this morning (Saturday) @ 7:30 & -13°F. Finally all packed and loaded at 11:30. As we're pulling out, I caught the awning against a tree and completely buggered that up. I figure close to two grand for a moment's inattention.

We made it the eight miles to our dealer in Bangor. Sadly, the shop was empty, but the owner kindly offered to put our unit into an empty, heated bay until Monday or let us spend the night on site with an extension cord for lights. Without heat, it was best to put her inside, so that's what we did, after I spent nearly an hour trying to unhook. Seems the trailer was twisted due to a snow furrow so it took 3 of us to get it disconnected.

So our journey is momentarily on hold. We're at a motel, warm and bored. Forgot to get the CPAPs so not able to sleep. Tomorrow, with luck, we will have heat, four new tires, and a couple hundred miles under our belts. Sorry there's no photos ... I was too cold and stressed. Expecting a foot or more of snow today, so a slow start tomorrow is likely.

Before the storm

Z

The view from my perch this morning is cold and clear outside with icing and condensation on the inside, Definitely chilly at 5*f and bitter with a NW wind blowing down the lake at us, A winter storm is forecast to hit on Sunday. Bringing us 8 to 14 inches of snow with more to follow. Getting out of here is going to be difficult for a while. And So It Goes. ---***---

Oops!

So. Without thinking, I reached out, grasped my laptop's screen and pinched to lift the computer off the table. I meant to grab the frame around the screen.

You can see the results.

Oops!

So now I haven't got a computer. Dumb de dumb dumb.

And So It Goes.

Leaden Skies

A thaw, of sorts, midweek. Skies are mostly the gray associated with Plumbum and dead humans. Mild temperatures have allowed the ice to get really soft. Today may be the last of the reprieve. Seems all of you good folk out West have been freezing your patooties off, uncharacteristically for this early in the season for most while frightening to some in Southern Arizona, New Mexico, California and Texas. Further East, Louisiana and Florida has been a sweltering mess one day, frigid the next, can't satisfy anyone weather-wise that-a-way.

I've been feeling sorta puny for the past week. Can't get off my ass to do much more than the bare minimum and its getting in the way of living my life. I need some tonic. Maybe then I'd get the plumb outta my bum. What do you think?

Sunday Fun Day

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Bet you forward this one!!!
From: rawainwright <rawainwright@rogers.com>
To: wil <olddog299@gmail.com>
CC:

 

 

 

 

 

    

  
                                                                
   
               
            

Two Irish nuns have just 
arrived in USA by boat,
and one says to the other, 
"I hear that the people in
this country actually eat 
dogs."

"Odd," her companion
replies, "but if  we shall
live in America , we
might as well do as the 
Americans do."

As they sit, they hear a
push  cart vendor yelling,
"Hot Dogs, get your dogs
here,"  and they both
walk towards the hot dog
cart. 

"Two dogs, please!," says
one. The vendor is very 
pleased to oblige, wraps
both hot dogs in foil and 
hands them over. Excited,
the nuns hurry to a bench 
and begin to unwrap their
'dogs.'

The mother  superior is
first to open hers. 
She begins to blush, 
and then, after staring
at it for a moment, leans 
to the other nun and in
a soft brogue  whispers:

"What part did you get?"

/

 

 

 

Sunday Morning

Snow flurries, resulting in a fine coating of frozen Death, cover the world around me. The interface twixt ice and land is suddenly sodden as warm earth of shore meets the ice. One never trusts ice close to shore. Here's photographic proof of why.

Around here, it generally has to warm up some to snow. That's a slight reprieve on the heating system and makes working outdoors more bearable. I'll take it.

Got errands to run, so we will see you down the road a piece.