It’s Thursday, and We’re Still Here

I wanted to be warm this summer…..yes, I am warm.  Please understand, I am not complaining about the heat!  I wanted to be in a climate where I could get up in the morning, throw on a pair of flip flops,  shorts and a T-shirt and take the dogs for a walk without worrying about socks, shoes, sweaters, jackets, etc.  I have my wish.  I was looking at pictures from last summer at this time and I see I was wearing jeans, socks, hiking shoes, turtleneck sweaters, and a jacket.  I figure there will plenty of time this winter for those clothes. Meantime, I am enjoying the warm weather!

We’re making our way up the list here at Camp Red Bay.  It looks like we will be in a repair bay early next week, hopefully on Monday. 

Meanwhile, we spend our days doing the usual…a little sightseeing, cleaning, laundry, walking dogs, cooking or going out to eat, exercising, and so forth. Today I made a batch of “Sloppy Joes”, using a recipe I basically made up as I went along.  Sometimes, those turn out to be our best meals, sometimes, not so much.  This time, it worked out just perfectly!  As much as I’d like to eat at home every day, that is not practical, given our desire to be “out and about” at least part of the time.

We are also contemplating our route north to Elkhart, Indiana, where we will catch up with many of our friends who are also attending Nick Russell’s Gypsy Journal Rally and the Escapee Escapade right after that. When we start planning a route, we look at  several sources, including Microsoft Streets & Trips, Google Earth, and www.rvparkreviews.com to determine the best routes for us and where there are viable overnight stops along the way.  We also might consult the online Trailer Life Campground Directory, Passport America, Escapees Campground listing, www.recreation.gov for National Parks or Corps of Engineer Parks, and sometimes state directories online.  We also take note of where friends stay and what they say about a particular RV park.  Some of our favorite parks have been discovered that way.

We’ve been researching  a portable satellite dish for those times we want to stay in parks where there is not a “clear view of the southern sky”.  We found that Brannon, of Custom RV near Red Bay, had a portable dish in stock.  It’s the Winegard Carryout MP1 manual dish pictured here.  We now have that little dish and all the necessary connections and cables to use it just about anywhere.

Oh, yes, and  have you noticed  - it’s football season again.  I’ve basically waved “good-bye” to Jim for the duration, I’ll have him back sometime in February.  Since I’ll have plenty of time to myself during the games, I dug out my electronic keyboard and have started “plinking” around on it, just for fun.

We’re still enjoying life every day!

One Week Ends, Another Begins

Not always, but many times, we really don’t notice the days of the week.  However, here at “Camp Red Bay”, it’s impossible to miss the end of a week, the week-end, and the beginning of the next week.

Fridays are happy days – the bank next door is busy with people depositing their weekly pay checks.  Folks are in a good mood.  And starting at 3:00 in the afternoon (when all work here at Tiffin is finished),  there is an exodus.  People whose work has been completed are out of here.  We suspect some people just get out of town for the weekend, too.

Come Saturday, and it’s quiet around here – until later in the morning when he rest of the people who are on their way out, either with their work completed or just for the week-end, crank up their engine and head out.

Sunday is even quieter,  at least until late morning when the next group of people start arriving to get a space in the campground.  By late Sunday evening, the campground is once again filled up.

Monday morning brings the usual parade – those who are already assigned to their repair bay have their diesels cranked up and warming by about 6:45 in the morning, ready to head over to their bay.   The new folks are getting their paperwork turned in and are waiting for the visit from Norris, the gentleman who visits each rig and determines whether we’ll be waiting for a “regular” bay, or assigned to an express bay.  The electronics guys are starting their rounds to see people who have some sort of radio or TV issue going on.  And so it goes at Camp Red Bay.

On Saturday, Jim decided to go ahead and make salsa.  He got started with all the “slicing and dicing” while I went in search of some different varieties of peppers, and maybe a breakfast sandwich.  I didn’t do very well with either of my assignments.  I found jalapenos, which we already had, and that’s pretty much all there is to be found in Red Bay.  And, Jack’s, one of the fast food restaurants available here, was jam-packed with a line out to the street.  So I came back home and we “made do” with what we had on hand for breakfast and salsa.

Not to worry, though, we came up with a batch of really good, hot salsa!  Jim even added a red circle to the lids of the 21 pints he canned, indicating this is a hot batch!  So, for our friends (Dortha) who have chips ready, hang on, we’ll be there with salsa as soon as we can!

We decided to get out and take a drive Saturday afternoon, so off we went to Tishomingo State Park across the state line in Mississippi:

The most interesting sight today was this fellow:

But we enjoyed the Pioneer Cabin:

And the Swinging Bridge:

When we left the State Park, we decided to drive a little of the Natchez Trace Parkway:

 

After that, we came back home and relaxed.

Yesterday, we stayed home and did a little laundry and Castle cleaning.  Jim was pretty antsy all day – it seems that it is time for the Professional Football season to get underway – wasn’t it just a couple of months ago we watched the Super Bowl?  Anyway, he didn’t want to get too far away from the TV in case he got stranded or something and had to miss the first Cowboy’s Pre-season game.  All was well, though, and he got to watch the first kick-off of the season.  I think I was trimming my hair at the time, oh well.

This morning, we checked in with Jimmy Oliver, the fellow who is now in charge of scheduling here at the Tiffin Service Center.  We’re now up to #19 on the list of rigs waiting for a service bay.  Translated, it will likely be at least the end of this week or the beginning of next week before we get in.  But, there’s always a possibility that something will happen to move that time frame, so we don’t dare get too far away without checking with Jimmy.  Once we got that information, we decided to make a run to Fulton, MS to the Wal-Mart there, just in case they might have something different than the Russellville Wal-Mart.  We used the navigation app on the Droid, we call her “Mapzilla”.  She was in a strange mood this morning and decided to lead us on a wild goose chase instead of directly to the Wal-Mart.  Sometimes I think she might be related to “Matilda”, Doug and JoAnn’s Navigation instrument.  Strange sense of humor, these navigation tools!  Instead of directing us to Wal-Mart, Mapzilla took us  on the back roads to the ritzy neighborhood in Fulton, not anywhere close to where we wanted to be.  Jim had a few choice words about Mapzilla, so I turned her off to keep her from getting her feelings hurt – never know where she might take us just to get back at us.

We found the Wal-Mart, found a few items we thought would enhance our pantry and headed back home.   We got a good rain storm this afternoon, no hail, not enough wind to bother us, just a lot of rain.  While it rained, I fixed us some pork chops, potatoes and veggies for a nice, home-cooked meal.

As I was visiting with our neighbors later on this afternoon, I discovered they are also headed to the Gypsy Journal Rally and Escapade,  as we are when we get sprung from Camp Red Bay.  They are good friends with Nick and Terry of the Gypsy Journal – another “small world” realization!   It will be fun to get to see them again in a different setting.

Stay tuned for more Red Bay Adventures!

Friday’s Red Bay Notes

Yesterday marked the end of our first week here at “Camp Red Bay”.  So far we’ve had our toilet replaced, bedroom TV sound fixed, front TV mounting screws checked,  jacks calibrated, a cabinet installed in the bedroom under the TV and a shelf installed in the cupboards above the passenger side slide out.  We’ve also emptied all the cupboards on the driver-side slide out and packed all the contents in preparation for having that slide out floor replaced.

On Wednesday, we took a drive over to Bay Springs Lake on the Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway in Mississippi:

We checked out the Piney Grove Corps of Engineers campground and found a couple of sites that we would both fit into and most likely get a satellite signal.  There were quite a few sites we’d fit into, but most of them are very shaded – nice, but probably wouldn’t get a satellite signal with our roof-top dome.  Just another reason we periodically consider getting a portable dish.  I don’t know if we’ll ever stay there, but we enjoyed the outing and like to know there are options in the neighborhood!  On the way back home, we stopped in Dennis, Mississippi at Rita’s Family Restaurant for lunch.  The selection was limited, but the food was good, and both of us had lunch for $12. 

Then in the evening, Chris Berry arrived to install our cupboard and shelf.  I haven’t taken a picture of the shelf, but here’s the cupboard in the bedroom:

Yesterday we made a quick trip over to Russellville and Florence.  Red Bay is located in Franklin County, Alabama, which is a dry county.  Jim wanted to replenish his beer supply, and I wanted to see if I could find some local Alabama wine, so we stopped at the B&B Package store located just over the Colbert County line.  Jim found the beer he wanted, but they didn’t have the Muscadine Wine I was looking for.

We continued on to Florence to visit Radio Shack.   The problem with the sound on our bedroom TV was a little electronic card where the headphone jacks plug in.  When the jacks are plugged in, they are supposed to turn the sound off on the TV and vice versa.  I guess because of too many times being plugged in and unplugged, the connection to turn the sound back on was broken.  I like to watch TV in bed after Jim has gone sleep, so I’ve been using the headphone jack most nights.  The techs  who replaced the card suggested we find an alternative like wireless headphones, so we’ve been doing some research into that option.  We found a possible solution in “TV Ears” at Radio Shack.  These are much lighter weight than the bulky headphones I found for the typical wireless set up, and they plug right into the satellite receiver instead of the TV.  They are also considerably less expensive than wireless headphones.  The sound on the TV can be up or turned down, and the TV Ears still work the same.  I tried them out last night, and I think they are going to work just fine for us.  Hopefully that will solve the sound issue!  The TV Ears are on the credenza next to the cupboard in the picture above.

Jim is preparing to make a batch of salsa this weekend.  He dug out all his canning jars and big pot, and got everything washed and ready today.  He’s shopped for fresh peppers, onions and tomatoes.  I think tomorrow is salsa day!

The Days Roll By in Red Bay

Today’s picture was taken just about 1 year ago in Grand Teton National Park, I thought it might help some of us feel a little cooler!  Our heat index here today got pretty close to 110*.  A thunderstorm late this afternoon brought the humidity up while decreasing the temperature a bit, pretty much of a trade-off.

Several of our friends have commented to us that  they’re not sure they would want a Tiffin product because we seem to spend a lot of time here getting factory service.  It’s true we’ve been here several times, and that we’ve had a couple of major items to be corrected on our 2008 Phaeton motor home.  This time, we’ve found out we had a slide-out seal leak that resulted in water damage to the floor of our front driver’s-side slide out room.  The floor is broken and now must be replaced.  We’re currently waiting our turn in a service bay to have the new floor installed, which will take about a day, once we get into a bay.  We’re grateful we have a factory service facility to come to!  Many RV manufacturers are out of business now, and those folks must find service elsewhere.  Many of the items we’ve come here for are very minor and could have been fixed by either mobile repair trucks or dealers across the country.  We prefer to come to Red Bay because we know we’ll get the best service here.  We also get to meet other Tiffin owners, compare notes, make new friends and enjoy the small town atmosphere here.  We don’t claim that our motor home is the best-built or the highest quality available – we just don’t have unlimited funds to “buy the best”, but we are still very happy with our Castle. We know that Tiffin will stand behind their products, as they are in this case.

While we’re waiting, I’ve been doing some cleaning and packing, since we’ll need to have everything moved out of the cupboards on the slide out that will have the floor replaced.  They’ll take the whole slide off to replace the floor.  We’re also getting shelves installed in the cupboards on the other slide, so all of that stuff will have to come out of those cupboards too.

Since our last visit, Weight Watchers has established a meeting here, so I attended that meeting yesterday evening.  I really prefer morning meetings, but since this one is right here in town on Mondays, I’ll go!

Today, the dogs got to go to a groomer.  I usually groom them myself outside on a table, but with this heat, I decided to spend the bucks and take them to someone nearby.  She did a good job and, unlike the last “outsider”, didn’t criticize my grooming skills.

We drove up to Florence, Alabama (about 45 miles) on Saturday to do some shopping at Sam’s and Walmart.  The eating out choices here aren’t all that good for staying within my Weight Watchers “points” allowance.  After all the parties we attended in Amarillo, I need to watch what I’m doing!  So we’ve been eating at home the last couple of days.

Hopefully, we will get into a repair bay before long and can get the Castle rolling again!