Hanging Around in Red Bay

When we last posted, I mentioned something about a 3-day weekend? Well, that turned out to be just a dream. As we were just getting up and having our first sip of coffee Friday morning, my phone rang. It was the Tiffin paint shop, instructing us to be in Bay 21 ASAP. So, coffee forgotten, we hurried around and packed up everything we'd happily unpacked the day before and moved the Castle over to the paint shop.

Leaving things in the paint guys' hands, we headed out to Russellville, 24 miles up the road, to shop for groceries at Walmart. We made a stop at Swamp John's for a quick breakfast before shopping. Used to be, I loved to go out to breakfast, but now I consider eating out at breakfast pretty much a waste of valuable "points". But, since we didn't have the leisurely start to our day that we'd planned, and we were both hungry, I agreed we needed to get something to eat. Swamp John's is not known for it's fresh and healthy cooking, so I made do with a small amount of scrambled egg, a piece of bacon and a quarter of a biscuit.

We got to Walmart and did our shopping. Wow - I guess we were critically low on a lot of items needed to keep eating healthy at home. Just the groceries part of the bill was close to $200! We had taken a cooler with us so we could keep our frozen and refrigerated items cold on the way back. When we got back, it was lunchtime for the guys, so we put away the groceries. By that time, the guys were back and announced they were finished with us. But, when Jim checked some of the places that needed buffing, he discovered that some of it hadn't been done, so he had to bring the guy back to finish. Even with that, we were still back in our spot early afternoon, with everything on the list completed.

We got set up and settled in once again. The plan now is to hang around and make sure that everything that got fixed stays fixed. We're still a little hesitant about the gray and black tank level indicators, we may need to revisit that issue. But the kitchen counter is level, the cupboard doors are level, and everything else seems to be just fine.

The afternoon was spent in discussing plans, reservations and routes. We now have our reservations for Colorado Springs starting May 15, and Custer, South Dakota, starting June 17. We've talked about other stops, but so far don't have reservations made.

Jim grilled chicken and I put together a salad for dinner. We had Hoppin John with rice to go along.

Today we got our leisurely morning. For the first time in many days, I was able to enjoy 2 cups of coffee at my own pace. We had a good home-cooked breakfast. Then I did my strength training exercises while Jim did the laundry. I got the dogs out for a good walk before lunch.

We decided to get out and enjoy this beautiful day, since we're once again expecting bad (read: COLD) weather again in the next few days. After lunch, we all piled in the car and took off in search of Bear Creek Lake.

Along the way, we saw some beautiful dogwood in bloom:

Ah, finally, the sign we were watching for:

A very pretty reservoir:

with campgrounds, picnic areas and a boat landing:

We stopped at the campground store and found this hummingbird enjoying a meal:

It was good to get out and enjoy a beautiful day before we have to get our rain gear out again:

Another healthy dinner tonight with leftover chicken used to make chicken/vegetable "fried" rice.

Maybe we'll do some cleaning tomorrow...