Wandering Back Home, but First. . .

This morning was departure morning from the state park and heading back home time.  But all did not go as well as it could.  Yep, should the trip home be better than the trip up there?  I guess not.  Remember the picture of my rear right dully tires being off the ground?  Well, if not, I will post it again:

 

After I got all the slides in and everything unplugged and unhooked, I figured it was time to say goodbye to the campground and head back down the road.  Everything was secure, all the dogs were in and ready to hit the road, so all I needed to do was raise the leveling jacks.  I got in, fired up the engine, and pushed the retract jacks button.  This RV has a mind of its own and I am not sure which jack it started to raise first but there was a lot of loud noises and the rear of the bus was moving to the down hill side.

 

I figured they were ruined and I was stuck at that camp site.  But, not to be deterred, I got out my tire iron and used it as a pry bar.  A spring had come off and they were pushed at an angle.  It took all the strength this old man could muster to force them up ever so slowly.  Lying on the concrete and straining to get them both up in place (the front two came up on their own - thank goodness) was way too much for this old body.  Sorry, I was way to busy to even think about taking a picture. 

 

My wife wanted to go to the flea market, so we headed there first.  We got to the flea market without any further problems.  The dogs and I stayed in the RV.  I didn't feel like getting out and walking around.  My wife, of course, did and, of course, brought some goodies home.  She wants to go back tomorrow and told one of her friends that she would show her the inside then, when the dogs were back home.  Not sure if I will try to make the Jeep drivable until the claims adjuster shows up next week.  Like Billy Bob said, it should still be drivable.  Hope he is right and nothing serious happened to the front end.  I am going to relax the rest of the day and I hope you all have a great day, you hear?

Wondering Around RV's Front Yard.

I just wanted to show you what is outside the door of our RV as it sits here in Huntsville State Park.  Someone who works here must have cleared off most of the Palmetto plants growing between the RV parking areas and the water's edge.  For those of you who know how large Palmettos get will realize how large this pile is!  That someone did more work than I would want to do: 

 

Directly in front of our RV, this is what you see just in from the shoreline:

 

Yep, it was either alligators or hogs (and I have not seen any prints or signs of hogs but have seen lots of alligator signs and have seen lots of alligators here in the past).  I keep quite alert when walking our dogs and don't let them get too close to the water's edge.

 

This ugly, wind blown, old man took a self portrait.  He must have been concentrating really hard on what he was trying to do or he was in a really bad mood.  (I was concentrating.  Don't do that very much and it must have hurt - grin)

 

(My wife said to take my picture off.  I did.  Sure don't want to scare any little kids) 

 

This is our youngest pup.  She was a rescue dog and had a name before we got her.  Her name was Gizmo but we just call her Gizzy.  (Hey, that rhymes with Dizzy)

 

All three of our pups just love to go RVing and are always ready for me to take them on walks so they can explore and so our male can mark all the trees.  In a forest this large, he will probably loose half his weight before he gets home (grin).  This will be our last full day here.  We will be heading home tomorrow but will stop at the flea market before going home.  If you read my post about the trip up here, than you know that this big diesel pusher is the only vehicle I have to get around in until I can get the insurance adjuster out to the house and then maybe get a rental car.

 

Got down to 55 degrees over night.  Had to light the furnace this morning to take the chill out of the air.  The overhead AC with the heat strip quit working.  I prefer to heat this rig with electric but my propane tank is pretty full, so everything is just fine.  Now, you all have a great day, you hear?



Wondering who that tree looks like?

Took me a nice long walk yesterday.  It was a beautiful day but a little on the warm side for this time of year even here in East Texas.  But I did see a tree that looks like someone I saw on TV.  Who do you think it resembles?

It reminds me of Jimmy Durante, the "Schnoz" or "Schnozzola", as he was called, who had an abundant nose, to say the least.  Remember him:

Also, on this walk, there were a lot of leaves on the ground from last fall.  This one on the road caught my attention.  It was the one and only one I saw this huge:

Can anyone tell me what tree it grew on?

Speaking of trees, this one was playing host to a lot of fungus:

 

Just above the inlet into the main lake, was this fast running little stream of water.  This little stream seams insufficient to fill, or for that matter, keep a lake as large as Raven lake filled.

 

 

This next picture was taken where I turned around and headed back around the lake.  We are camped on the other side and quite a ways down the main body of the lake.

 

 

When I got back over on the side of the lake we are camped on, but quite a ways away, I took this picture.

 

The weather has been great up until now.  It just started to rain.  Since I haven't checked the weather lately, I will just assume that it will end shortly and I can get back out side where I like to be.  Until then, I guess I will just sit on the couch, read blogs, and play video games.

May there always be a ray of sunshine in your lives and please, have great day, you hear?

Wondering about a great way to start a trip.

Well, we got off to a good start.  The weather was great.  Having a mid-winter warm spell.  See the temperature before we left home:

 

Even the dogs had their things packed and ready to go:

 

And then this happened:

 

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?  Hope your day went a little better than mine, but either way, have a great day, you hear?

Wondering about Loading and RV

What all do you load in your RV when you are preparing for a trip?  Does it matter if it will be a few days or months?  When we load up our RV, we take everything except the kitchen sink.  The only reason we don't take the kitchen sink is that it has one built in.  Thank goodness it also has a gas range, a bathroom, a shower a bedroom, a couple of couches, etc., etc.  You get my gist.  You know we will just have to unload all that stuff when we get back.  It is a good thing that the GVW is 26,600 lbs. and that we tow the Jeep and have stuff in it, too.

Those of you who live in your RVs don't have this problem.  It is just us part timers that do.  I have purchased duplicates of some things, but that would become expensive if it got out of hand.  If I were ever to go full time RVing, I would purchase a trailer that, not only the Jeep would fit in, but all the other stuff that would not be used a whole lot but would be important enough to drag along.

Now, I want to hear from all you RVers out there.  Tell me how you handle this situation.  Of course, I am sure some of you do not have this situation.  Remember, not only do I have my wife's and my stuff, I have to take all the stuff for the three dogs.  Thinking about this kind of makes me want to stay at home. . . NOT!!  I love hitting the road for long or short trips.  Now, you all have a great day today, you hear?

Wondering About a Couple of Jokes

My good friends who are fighting all that snow up in Pennsylvania, sent me a couple of jokes.  Some of you may have seen or heard them, but they were new to me and I thought they were funny.  So, I am going to put them in my blog this morning.  I don't usually do things like this, but I don't really have anything better to say, so why not?  Here are the jokes:

No one believes seniors. . . everyone thinks they are senile.  An elderly couple was celebrating their sixtieth anniversary.  The couple had married as childhood sweethearts and had moved back to their old neighborhood after they retired. . . Holding hands, they walked back to their old school.  It was not locked, so they entered, and found the old desk they'd shared, where Andy had carved "I love you, Sally".

On their way back home, a bag of money fell out of an armored car, practically landing at their feet.  Sally quickly picked it up and, not sure what to do with it, they took it home.  There, she counted the money - fifty thousand dollars!  Andy said, "We've got to give it back".  Sally said, "Finders keepers."  She put the money back in the bag and hid it in their attic.

The next day, two police officers were canvassing the neighborhood looking for the money, and knocked on their door.  "Pardon me, did either of you find a bag that fell out of an armored car yesterday?"

Sally said, No.
Andy said, she's lying.  She hid it up in the attic.
Sally said, Don't believe him, he's getting senile.
The agents turned to Andy and began to question him.

One said: "tell us the story from the beginning."
Andy said, "Well, when Sally and I were walking home from school yesterday. . ."
The first police officer turned to his partner and said, "We're outta here!"

And here is the second one:

Earl and Bubba are quietly sitting in a boat fishing, chewing tobacco and drinking beer when suddenly Bubba says, "Think I'm gonna divorce the wife - she ain't spoke to me in over 2 months.

Earl spits overboard, takes a long, slow sip of beer and says, "Better think it over. . . women like that are hard to find."

Thank you Bert and Erma for sharing these jokes with me and my readers.  Now, you all don't need to quit laughing.  Just laugh all day long and have a really great day, you hear?

Wondering about Tardigrades.

If you are like me, when you hear the word "tardigrades" you say "what?".  OK, how about their common name, "water bears"?  Still haven't heard of them?  Me neither.  Then I see this big beautiful multicolored full page picture of one in my "Dicsover" magazine.  I still didn't have the foggiest idea what the heck they are.  So, of course, I had to do a little research.  The picture was a stacking of multiple pictures taken with a confocal laser scanning microscope.  I guess that means that these things are on the small size, but they sure do look fierce.

Look out, this next one is coming to get you:

 

They are less than a millimeter or less than a thirty-second of an inch long.  Just think if they got to the size of grizzly bear?

 

This next one looks like it is laughing at us:

This is actually what they look like :

 

I bet I have a lot of them in my swamp.  They can be found from the arctic to the equator.  They are every where. .  help, they are going to get me. . ..


OK, they didn't get me (as of yet).  Now don't let these little guys scare you, but have a great day today, you hear?