Day 4--Hit the Ball and Drag George

Frog and Toad getting ready to leave home. (But the brake lights are on and they shouldn't be!)

My father loved to play golf and he always had some good golf jokes to tell.  Good golf jokes allude to the Never Say Die spirit of the guy playing golf. Golfers will play through almost any situation.

This is one of my favorite of his golf jokes.

A man went out to play golf with his buddy, George. He was gone all day and got home rather late. His wife asked him how the day had gone.
“Oh, it was terrible.” The man said. The morning was gorgeous. The sky was blue. The temperature was perfect. The first 3 holes went fine. But just as we were about to tee up to the 4^th hole, George grabbed his chest and keeled over!”

“Oh no,” cried the man’s wife. 

“I know,” said the man. “The whole rest of the day was ‘hit the ball and drag George’.

OK. I know. You are out there screaming OMG, That’s AWFUL!!!  and yelling at me and telling me that was the worst  joke you've ever heard. But you're laughing too, so don’t blame me completely.

As poor taste as that joke is, I can never get away from that punch line. Often it is a metaphor for life. When things go wrong you just have to keep on plugging. (Hopefully, with a little more sensitivity.)

It’s been kind of a metaphor for this trip too. We got the Honda to Iowa, but most days it was just “hit the ball and drag George.”  First trip will be to the hardware store where we can buy a fuse puller. It was the one thing the most prepared man I know didn’t have.

We are here. We are happy! And the Toad’s new name will probably be George.

Frog and Toad in Iowa! We made it.

PS: The road was clear as we drove down it. 

That's how I like it!

Day 3 in the RV--Hey, it Rhymes!

Day 3 went really well! No new problems cropped up, big or little. (The Toad still has its own issues.) We had a shorter distance to go so we hung out a bit in the morning and I got in a long walk.

Before we bought this bus, we looked at a lot of RVs. We had a list of our ‘must have’ options when we finally started looking for our bus. So far…

I am very glad I chose kitchen pantry shelves instead of a 2^nd bathroom.

I am really glad I held out for pantry shelves that slide out. They are so much handier! I want more! I just found a roll of paper towels that I've been looking for since we left. They were hiding at the back of one of the other deep shelves that don’t pull out. Next time I’ll store them in the liquor cabinet. I would have found them right away!

I’m glad I pushed for a vinyl floor and no carpet. Floor is swept and mopped in 10 minutes. That’s my kind of housecleaning.

I’m glad I gave up several extras that were in some of the RV’s we looked at.

• No washing machine and dryer. Laundromats will work fine.
• No gas oven. Have you looked inside one? The heating element takes up half of the space. It looks like it would hold a cookie sheet from a toaster oven, or maybe a pie pan. Instead of where the oven would go, I have drawers. But I didn't give up an oven completely. Our RV comes with a combination Microwave/convection oven.  That’s a space saver that suits our needs.

I am glad we opted for a queen size bed instead of king. It gives us plenty of room to sleep and it leaves a little more room to walk around the bed.

The Laptop table in front of the passenger seat works pretty well. As long as the roads are fairly smooth, I can write while we drive. There is even an electrical outlet next to the passenger seat, so the laptop can be plugged in while driving. Very cool!

Lessons learned:

No audio books, especially when the wind is blowing!  Typing on bumpy roads is counter-productive. Spaces appear where they aren't supposed to, or words are unexpectedly deleted. This is not a Cadillac. Bumps, bounces and road noise are definitely more noticeable.

Size: Larry is glad he didn’t buy a bigger RV! While we probably would not have been as happy with a smaller one, this one is 35’. Add to that about 4 feet for a towing rig, and the length of the Toad, that is a lot of length to figure when you are pulling into a gas station. We are happy with our 35’ size.

Oh, there is one more thing to remember. Toads don’t back up. Period. At least not with the rig we have. SO, don’t go where you don’t fit. If you get stuck, there is only one option. Unhook the Toad.

And that brings us to tomorrow.

Tomorrow we get to Janice’s. Janice lives on a 2 lane gravel road. On each side of the road are deep ditches. There is quite a bit of traffic that goes by her house. Usually it’s just cars and pick-ups. But at this time of year it is also huge Combines that take up every inch of that gravel road. And tractor trailers hauling corn. And very big tractors pulling very big carts. I have just one fear and it is that we will meet a Combine as we travel the mile from the hard-top to the house.  Because, as I've mentioned, 1) Combines take up the road, and 2) RV’s pulling Toads don’t back up.

Tune in!

RV Trip Day 2: Frog and Toad

Day 2 of our First RV trip! So how’s it going you ask? Hmmm. The short answer is pretty well! The more interesting answer takes a little longer.

First, a vocabulary lesson: We are towing a car behind the RV. RV’ers refer to the car being towed as The Toad!  Great play on words, don’t you think?  So when you see me talk about Toad, it is the Honda CRV that is tagging along behind the RV for the trip.

There is another word that keeps popping up, much to Larry’s chagrin. As a Children’s Librarian and Elementary Media Specialist I was very familiar with a series of Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel.  If the Honda was Toad, it just seemed natural that the RV was Frog. And a friend of mine said it made sense, because FROG means Fully Rely On God. So if Frog crops up in this blog you will know why.

That ends the vocabulary lesson.

Packing for our first trip took all weekend. And my shopping list of stuff to buy that I didn't think about, is growing. 

Lesson learned:  Plan, but take lots of cash to fill in the gaps.

Today, gave us another teachable moment. When we hooked up at the campsite, the water pressure was really low, and the water pump ran all the time. We knew that wasn’t right, so Larry turned it off and we turned it on whenever we actually had to have water. The goal was to look for a Camping World and see if they could see what the problem was.

Note: Camping Worlds are not as plentiful as Wal-Mart. There was one 2 hours east of where we were. The next one was 6 hours away, but on our route. The good news is that once we were there, they discovered a valve wasn't working properly and got things running.

Lesson: Follow your instinct. If something doesn't seem to be working, don’t use it. Check it out.

Living in the RV is going pretty well. The kitchen is working out, but then again, the most we've done is fix coffee, heat water for tea, microwave some frozen chicken tenders, and heat up a can of beans.  However, I've had to readjust my idea of meals. When we were looking at RV’s I was insistent on making sure the kitchen would function well. Eating out is nice, but fixing a familiar home cooked meal is good too. Larry enjoys eating out a lot. So for this short trip I figured that after a day of driving he’d be ready to go somewhere for dinner, but I brought a few things, just in case. I didn’t plan very well.

Readjustment number 1: When you have to unhitch and rehitch the Toad, sometimes you are happy just parking, and eating dinner in your own “home”. Plan a couple of easy, favorite meals for travel days.

Readjustment number 2: Sometimes Toad doesn’t want to go anywhere. Yep. It happened again!

Today, we had the GPS off. Everything was set correctly. But the Honda manual said it is best to pull the accessory fuse if you are towing the car for long. We had hoped to make several stops today to run the engine in the car, but that didn't happen.  So Toad is recharging and we are once again, holed up in Frog, eating whatever I can scrounge up for dinner.

Day 2 is in the books. I wonder what Day 3 will bring? Whatever it is, we are Fully Relying On God. So it can only be good things. Right? 

Murphy's Law? Our First RV Trip

We are on our first extended trip with the RV. Perhaps Murphy's Law: (Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong) isn't quite accurate, but the trip has had its share of teachable moments.

Day 1.

Larry and I have been very intent on making sure we both know how everything works. The water and electrical hookups, hitching the car and prepping it to be towed; we are both learning it all together. We don’t always work well together, so this is a test.

I positioned the car and ran the transmission through its paces, while he hooked the cables. He set up the brake package and we checked the lights.

Him: Why aren't the brake lights going off?

Me: Hmm. That could be bad.

Him: They should go off.  

He reconnects the brakes and this time the lights go off. (Phew.)

Him: Why is the door dinging when we open it?  It isn’t supposed to ding. (The key is set in the accessory position and the car is in neutral, so it can be towed.)

Me: It dinged last time.

Him: I didn’t think it did.

Me: Actually it didn’t ding the first time, but it has dinged every time since.

Him: I don’t think it should ding.

Me: It dinged when we left the RV place and the guys double checked to be sure everything was set up correctly.

Him: (mumbling as he walks away) I don’t think it should ding.

I am proud to announce that the conversation, inane as it sounded, was friendly, not irritated. We were a team and we handled ourselves very well. This is good.

Finally, an hour and a half past our target takeoff time, we were ready. We hoped. Off we went. I was glad he was driving and not me. I think he wished he wasn't driving either for that first hour as we wound through a narrow canyon, with rock cliffs on my side, and a river on his. “Just keep it between the lines” has never been truer. We were glad to get on the interstate.

Going through downtown Nashville, an alarm went off on the brake monitor for the tow car, telling us the car battery was dead! (No one wants to hear an alarm go off, anywhere, but when you are driving a big rig through congested city streets, and you are already a bit tense---Really--its not fun!) No rest area, or pull off in sight, of course. 5 miles up the road we pulled into a Pilot Truck stop that was VERY busy. We did our best to squeeze our 55' of  RV plus car into as little space as possible, but we took up one lane of fuel pumps. While I pumped gas, Larry checked the car which was dead as a doornail, disconnected the brake package (hope Kentucky doesn't require it), put a portable booster/charger on the battery and got it going enough for us to discover the GPS had been running the whole time. I had turned it off that morning, but in playing around with ignition switches and brakes, we hadn't noticed it had come back on.

A little while later we were settled in the campground. Time for a beer!! Then, time to set up the RV.

And then I discovered just how prepared my better half really was. Not only did he have a portable air pump/battery booster, but he had a real battery charger that could plug right into the RV and charge up the car. The next big surprise was when we discovered the campsite had cable and he pulled out a 50’ coaxial TV cable! I know. We are camping. Time to get out and enjoy the scenery. But cable is nice, especially, once the sun sets.

Dinner's done. Drinks have revived and relaxed us. We've found a couple of channels we can watch on TV.  We’re checking car manuals so we don't repeat errors made today. Our home on wheels is set up and secure. Hopefully, tomorrow will go a little better. But all in all, we handled whatever came our way today.

One thing is sure. We are a team. This is not a one person show.

Visiting Mayberry

Growing up, the Andy Griffith Show with Andy, Opie and Barney Fife was a favorite of mine and especially my mother. Mayberry was a quiet little town, and the sherriff was a neighborhood fixture that everybody looked up to. Andy Griffith used his hometown of Mt. Airy, North Carolina as a model for Mayberry, remembering it as a small town tucked in the mountains of North Carolina where a young boy was free to roam around. Driving north from Florida to PA, on I-77 I've often wished I had the time to stop in and take a look around but I was always destination bound. This Fall, Larry and I finally took that trip.

I have to agree with Andy. Visiting Mt. Airy was like going back to my childhood, where I could walk the 1/2 mile into town, and do whatever shopping I wanted to do. In this age of malls, shopping strips, and big box stores, this is still a normal small town. However, it has managed to avoid the decay of so many small towns these days. Instead, it has found a way to keep it's identity in tact, not only as a tourist spot, but as a viable community.

At first glance main street looks like most towns with awnings over store fronts, and cars parked along the street. As we explored the town I noticed that Mt. Airy was not a place of endless antique stores or trendy boutiques, the road so many old towns have taken to survival. It is a busy place, with a variety of shops; everything from clothing and gift shops to a drugstore and soda fountain. While you could buy T-shirts with pictures of Andy or Barney, and other souvenirs, the endless supply of tacky tourist junk was not highly evident. There was a nice mix of celebrating the old, while living in the present.

The Snappy Lunch is a good example. This place is a real sandwich shop that was here when Andy grew up, and is still operating. Andy Griffith included it in his show, so it is both a working restaurant and a tourist stop. And it is located right next to Floyd's Barber shop, another combination tourist-business.

For the Andy Griffith fan, there is a museum that houses memorabilia from his career, that began in the local high school.  It is adjacent to the Andy Griffith Playhouse, a working theater. However, it isn't the only museum in town. There is a museum on the main road through town, run by the local Historical Society, that celebrates the local history of North Carolina. It is another reminder that Mt. Airy may recognize the value Andy brings to the area, but it does not solely identify itself with him.

For the aficionado, the true fan, you can spend the night in the house he grew up in. Currently, the Hampton Inn handles those reservations.

My favorite place of all, in this quiet town turned out to be a book store called Pages. It was the quintessential image of a bookstore, complete with a coffee shop.

The two store front windows were put to good use. One displayed new books, but the other had a table and 2 chairs set up in it where a young man was working on his laptop as he enjoyed his 'cup of joe'. Inside, patrons were sitting at tables and the counter enjoying coffee and fresh made pastries.

But the best part was the comforts that were added to this store. Four tables had working jigsaw puzzles on them. Two of the puzzles were finished, but there were two older gentleman working at the others. A sofa, coffee table and a couple of chairs offered a reading area. In the children's corner a toy train had been set up and a corner for kids to look at books they might want to buy. A few educational toys were also for sale.

The warmth in Pages just invited the community to come in, sit down, browse or visit. And there were several people doing just that. To me, it was the ideal of any book lover who ever dreamt of owning a book store. It would be hard to accomplish in most communities these days, because we are so accustomed to malls and strip shops, but in this community that still has a main street, where people park, and walk to do their shopping, it was thriving. For this Book Lover, it was most impressive.

Andy Griffith was not just an actor, but a recording artist. I saw several colorfully painted guitars displayed around town. I suspect they were part of a community art project where people were encouraged to design and paint their own guitars.  All together, it was just one more piece of evidence proving this town has stayed current, and active and yet has changed little over the years.

I was really glad we had taken the time to spend a few hours here. If I'd had a fishing pole, you might have found me whistling a tune as I walked through the woods in search of a local fishing hole.