We're Heading Home!!

   Actually set the alarm this morning for 6:30 so we could be on the road by 7:30 or 8:00.  John had drained all the tanks and cleaned all the hoses last night so he wouldn't have to do all that this morning.  So... when I got up this morning I knew I wouldn't make it to the clubhouse, so I "peed" in a large plastic cup and got rid of it later.  It was raining when John got up so he "relieved" himself while standing under the awning.  You men are lucky that way!!  I fixed myself up while John finished the little bit of outside work that needed to be done.  We had breakfast and tucked all the inside stuff away and we're headed for the exit by 8:00.  By the time we checked out and hooked up the Jeep it was about 8:15.  We figured we could travel about 4 hrs. until we needed to gas up Harvey.  That would take us just over the Virginia line.  We knew gas would be cheaper there, too.  And it was...$2.09 per gallon!!  We took potty runs and shared a sub from Subway and got back on the road... halfway home!!  It started to rain just as we got into PA.  We only hit one traffic snag on the whole trip and that was on the home stretch near Harrisburg. (we used I-81 all the way instead of I-95). We pulled in the driveway about 4:30, so we made really good time!  It felt so wonderful to be home!!  We brought a few things into the house then tried to start up the Rav 4, but it was dead as a doornail.  So I took the Jeep and went to the vet to get some more pain pills for Kylie that I had called about during our trip home.  Then I stopped at The Country Store to get John his natural peanut butter and Clearfield American cheese and a few other things.  He really missed his peanut butter and cheese during our trip!  We brought in only the things that needed to come in, like all the stuff in the refrigerator and perishable food, and worked on putting those things away.  It was kind of funny that we forgot where we kept things.  We even struggled with the light switches and plates and silverware.  They just weren't in the same places that we were used to finding them the last 3 months!!  By 10:00 we were pretty "bushed" and went to bed.  We'll finish cleaning out Harvey tomorrow.  Sunday we'll go to church to reconnect with our "church" family there and then we'll be joining our family for Easter at Hershey Farms for an early dinner.  On Monday we have to take Harvey to Hanover for the warranty work that didn't get done at Lazy Days and we plan to visit with Bonnie and Ken before they leave on their trip out West.  I have lunch plans with Heather and Cooper on Tuesday and we'll most likely visit with my Mom and Dad that evening.  The cable company is coming Tuesday and Wednesday for some problems and a new hook up we want to do.  We're probably getting Bennett Wed. morning for a day or two. John needs to make an appt. with the family Dr. for his knee and I need to make an appt. with my former employer at the podiatrist office for my foot.  We'll probably go over to York to see Dustin, Cathy and the girls on Thursday afternoon and I have Praise Team practice that night.  And we get our taxes done Friday morning.  Other than that we don't have anything to do.  WELCOME BACK TO THE REAL WORLD!!
   This will be my last blog post until we do some traveling locally later this spring.  So stay tuned and bye for now!!  Thanks to all of you who have been following... we love your comments!!!

Getting Organized and Ready for our Trip Home

   I slept till 8:30 this morning.  John was already up and done with his walk.  He took some pictures of the CG, too. 

 

The CG is very roomy...

 


...you can see we have plenty of room on either side.

 

TW and Arlene got us this map to track all the
states we have camped in.  (we have to stay overnight
to have it count!) 

John admitted to me that the main reason we
stayed in this CG on the way home was so we
could add the North Carolina sticker to the map. 
Now we have to work on Maryland and Delaware!

His knee is still bothering him.  He will have to make an appt. to see our family doc when we get home.  This getting older stuff definitely has its drawbacks!!  He sat on the bed and said, "I had a thought".  And I said," you want to leave tomorrow instead of Saturday".  We both agreed because we're anxious to get home and have an extra day to "re-situate" at home before we get back into life's "hecticity".  We had breakfast and then just worked inside and outside of Harvey trying to go through everything in our all our storage areas to see what we will take home and what we will leave inside Harvey.  I had a ball...I love to organize!!!  We had some cup holders beside the bed that kept falling off, so I hung them this time with 3M Velcro instead of the double sided tape that came with them.  I re-organized all the overhead living room storage cabinets and I have so much empty space that I might need to go shopping when I get home : ).   Even the ones under the dinette table are half empty!!  It was now about 1:00 and we wanted to go to Sonny's one more time.  I took Kylie out and went next door to chat with our new neighbor and introduce Kylie to their 2 dogs.  They have a 12 yr old black lab and a 1 yr old black lab.  Kylie wasn't very interested!  So I took her back into Harvey and off we went for our 45 minute drive to Sonny's.  Oh my gosh... it was sooo good.  We bought 2 different kinds of barbeque sauce and then headed back.  Michele called and invited us for Easter dinner on Sunday and then she's going to do our hair.  When we got back we continued cleaning up and then I walked down to the lady who I bought the clothes line from to check out the picnic table covers.  She uses heavy weight vinyl and sews pockets on the ends to fit over the ends of the table and the benches so you don't have to use the metal clamps to keep them on.  I decided to buy a set.   Donna, one of our neighbors that I met yesterday walked by with her Chihuahua, Dusty, and she helped me decide which color picnic table set looked the best with Harvey.  John also gave his opinion and we ended up with the burgundy one.  Donna and I talked some more and she asked if we were going to play BINGO tonight.  We told her  that we had planned on it, so we met outside at 6:30 and went down to the community building.  We had some ice cream at the country store and then waited for BINGO to start.  I won the full card game on 2 of my cards and got $10!!

I won on both of the cards to the far left!

We walked back together and talked outside for a while and then she and her husband, Jesus, invited us in to see their converted bus.  Jesus did all the work himself!  It took him about a year because he was still working at the time.  It was really nice.  Even had a dishwasher and Jacuzzi tub!  He cut the top off and added 8 inches, so it was roomy.  What a project!!  They came over to see Harvey and we exchanged phone numbers and email addresses so we could keep in touch.  I gave them our blog address, too.  They said they would like to hook up sometime next year when they go to Florida for the winter.  It will be their first time doing that.  They also said we should come visit them in Georgia with our RV because they have a 30 amp hook up.  That would be neat!!  They were very nice people!  We look forward to seeing them again!!

This is Donna and Jesus.  We had a fun time with them!

  We did a little more prep for our leaving tomorrow, I did my blog and we "hit the tick" at 10:30. 

We Went to "Mayberry RFD" Today

   John got up early this morning... apparently "someone" was sleeping a little too well and it woke him up.  Here's a hint... it was a female and it wasn't Kylie.  To make up for it I made pancakes with fresh fruit sauce and bacon for breakfast.  We decided to drive to Mt Airy, about 1 hr away.  It's the birthplace of Andy Griffith.  Since we watch that show on Me TV almost every morning (I know, that makes us old geezers) we thought it would be fun!  And it was supposed to be a beautiful day, so off we went.  We stopped at the Family Lodge and Country store on the way out just to check it out.  It has a game room and TV area and ping pong table.  The Country store has homemade ice cream... yum!  We got to the visitors center about 12:00 and got a map and some info as to where to go.

All the spring flowers are blooming in NC

 

The directory was very helpful!

We headed for "Opie's Candy Shop" first, but then decided to stop in at "Floyd's Barber Shop."  We were told that most of the characters on the show were based on real life people from Mt Airy.  Well, the barber, Russell Hiatt, was in the shop today.  He is 91 yrs old and was the one who cut Andy's hair while he lived there.  He quit cutting hair and driving just last year after a nasty fall.  He told us that when he finally was able to communicate after his head injury he asked the nurse if he would be able to play the piano.  She said, "Sure". And he said, "That's nice, because I could never play before".   He also told us about a time a couple from CA came in and told him what small town they were from.  He took their picture (all the walls in the shop are FULL with pics) and put it up on the wall.  A few weeks later a mother and daughter came in from the same town in CA that the first couple were from.  He told them that he had met a couple from their town and the woman said that, being a small town, she knew everyone there.  He showed her the picture and she said, "Oh my gosh... that's my husband!!". BUSTED!!  I told him that even though I only knew him a short time I already knew he was a troublemaker.  He got a kick out of that.  He told us a few more stories and showed us a picture of his deceased wife of 69 years.  I could have listened to him all day!!

Old signs

 

 

There's Russell who the character Floyd the barber
was based on.  John was sitting in the barber chair.

 

  I gave him a hug and then we went next door to "Snappy Lunch" where their specialty is a pork chop sandwich for $4.20.  John and I each got the specialty sandwich, bag of chips and a soda.  Our bill was just under $12!!  A bologna and cheese sandwich was $2 and a cheeseburger was $2.25!  The most expensive breakfast was $3.75, 1 egg with a tenderloin.

There's the famous sandwich.  The menu says, "the only
sandwich that may have you washing your hands AFTER
you finish eating it.

 

Uuummm...it's good!

   Then we went to the candy shop where you can mix and match all kinds of candy from Sugar Daddy's to coconut slices to horehound drops.  Of course, we bought a mixed pound bag.  Then we walked about 2 blocks to the Andy Griffith Museum.

The bronze statue and inscription out front

 

 

  It started with his birth certificate, elementary school and high school years all the way through his TV shows, movies and record albums.  He actually had a platinum album of gospel songs!  It was a lot of fun!

 

 

  Then there was a small museum about the most famous Siamese Twins, Eng and Cheng who lived in Surry Co in the mid 1800's and are buried there.  They died within hours of each other in 1874 at the age of 63.  Between them they fathered 21 children.  They were married to sisters.  It's a good thing because intimate moments HAD to be "among family".   Hard to imagine!!!  From there we walked along the main street and stopped in a few of the neat little shops.  We bought a couple of things.

This jail cell was in one of the shops... John couldn't resist!

  On our way out we stopped at the country's largest granite quarry.  It was huge!!  No wonder a lot of the larger buildings in Mt Airy are made of granite! 

 

 

They sure can make a lot of tombstones in here!!

We left about 5:00.  It was a wonderful day!!  I called my mother on the way home.  She and Dad are doing well.  We stopped at Walmart and Food Lion for a few things and were back at the CG by 6:30.  On the way back to our site we spotted a table out in front of one of the rigs with one of those PVC pipe clothes line hanger I was planning to make when we got home.  They wanted $20 for it, so John and I decided it would be cheaper in the long run to just buy it.  I chatted with her for a while and then a couple stopped by walking their dog and we all talked for a while.   It started to get a bit chilly so we went in and had some Healthy Choice Steamer Café meals for supper.  I called Bonnie.  She and Ken have run into so many problems with their car and motorhome in the last few weeks.  John and I feel so bad for them especially because they are trying to get everything taken care of before they leave for their trip across the country next week.  They are very frustrated but handling it all with much grace!  I talked with Heather for a while and then John went to bed.  I worked on my blog and then went to bed.  Not quite sure what we're doing tomorrow but it WILL include going to Sonny's Barbeque... we need to buy some of their barbeque sauce... yeah, right!!

 

Moving Day to North Carolina

   We got up early to finish preparing for our trip to Forest Lake RV park in Advance, NC.  It will be our last stay at a park before leaving for home to PA on Friday.  John took our small load of dirty clothes down to the laundry while I cooked some leftovers for breakfast.  We ate, loaded up the Jeep and headed down to the office to fill up the propane tank.  Then we pulled in to the gas station on base to put air in Harvey's tires, but it didn't go up to 90 lbs.  So we hooked up the Jeep and off we went.  It was about 9:45 by now.  We had an 8 and 1/2hr trip ahead of us, so we were glad to be on the road.  We stopped about 4 and 1/2hrs into the trip... just over the SC line.  We let Kylie out to go potty, got a bite to eat, gassed up Harvey (for $2.09/gal), put air in his tires and washed his windshield.  We were there a little longer than we wanted to be, but it felt good to be out of Harvey for a while.  We got back on the road and got into a traffic jam around Charlotte.  We lost about 20 minutes and it was stressful for John, but he handled it very well!  We arrived at the CG at about 6:30 and were all set-up by 7:15.  We're getting pretty good at this!   We had some supper while I watched The Voice and John watched TV outside.  He came in about 8:45 because it was getting chilly.  He played on the computer for a while and I watched "Undateable" a new comedy show on NBC.  It was silly, but funny for the most part.  Some of the humor was a little questionable for an old fogie like me.  John was exhausted so he went to bed.  I worked on catching up on my blogs while watching an old movie, "The Three Faces of Eve".  I finished up about 1:00 and went to bed.  We'll explore the CG tomorrow.

We're Going Baby Ear Hunting Today!

We're going to Fernandina Beach today, so we had breakfast, packed a few snacks and were on the road by 10:00.  We got to the beach by 10:45 and it was beautiful!  It was about 70 degrees and sunny with a slight breeze.

It was a very pretty day and look at all those shells!!

  I was searching the shell laden beach for my baby ears while John took a walk.  I found 3 baby ears plus some other shells.  John came back and we played some Yahtzee and he read a little bit.  Then about 2:00 he went for another walk to the other end of the beach.  I texted some of my friends to rub it in that I was on the beach and just like that a huge ugly cloud hovered over, it got chilly and it started to drizzle!  It stopped almost as fast as it started, the cloud passed over and it got hot... almost 80 degrees!!

It was already starting to get cloudy when John started his walk.

 

Here comes the big, ugly cloud!

Now that's nasty looking!  It produced a little bit of showers,
but didn't last long.

The sun came out again so we could enjoy more
time on our last trip to the beach!

  I started looking for shells again and when John returned he said I had to come back and call Alexandra.  She had exciting news for us.  So I called her and she told me that she was accepted to the Lancaster School of Art and had even gotten a scholarship!  Even though she has changed her mind about her going to that school she was still so excited about being accepted!  We are very proud of her, too, especially for bringing up her GPA!!  She has decided since applying there to go to HACC to study to be an elementary teacher.  She recently got a job babysitting everyday after school and will continue with the family full-time over the summer.  I went shell hunting again for a while and I found 4 more baby ears!! 

I kept shell hunting up until the last minute before we left!

Some different shells...the fluted one in the middle is really neat!

My "baby ear" collection.  I was so excited to find 7 of them!!

Then we packed up and left about 4:45.  John wanted to get some outside work done in preparation for leaving tomorrow morning.  When we got back I cooked supper while John worked outside.  After supper I watched The Voice and John read and played on the computer.  We went to bed about 10:30. 

Another Sunny but Chilly Day

   We got up this morning about 8:00, ate breakfast and got ready for church.  The service started at 10:30 so we had plenty of time.  Good thing, because I really needed a shower...I smelled like smoke from last night's campfire.  There were only a handful of people, maybe 20, at the service.  We enjoyed it very much!  Afterward they had a pot luck lunch with fried chicken, salads, casseroles, fruit and dessert and drinks.  What a nice surprise!  We stopped at the commissary to get a few bargains to bring home. 


Look at the pretty mum I got.  I hope I can keep
it alive until we get home and I can plant it outside!







 

We spoke with Bill, the guitar guy's wife when we got back to the CG and s he said Bill was looking for me in the community room a bit ago, but he was now visiting another camper.  I told her to come and get me when he was ready to do some singing.  About an hour later there was a knock on our door and Bill's wife said he was waiting for me.  John wanted to take a nap, so I went down about 2:00 and he said he would come down later and we could play cards.  Bill had mostly older country songs that I didn't know on his computer but we found enough to keep us entertained for about 2 hrs.

This is Bill.  He is a pretty good country singer!

  By this time John had come down and I was ready to stop singing and play some cards.  The camp host treated us to more cookies right out of the oven (I tried to resist, but I thought it would be rude not to eat some after all the trouble she went to!).  We got halfway through our game of Nerts and realized that we had forgotten to take Kylie out, so we left.  We had some leftovers for supper while watching the Duke/Gonzaga basketball game.  Duke pulled out a win.  Heather will be real happy!!  Bill wants me to come back tonight about 7:00 to entertain the group playing Hand and Foot, but I'm not sure I want to.  It really wasn't that much fun... he didn't have many songs I knew or enjoyed singing.  So John and I went down about 8:00 to play Hand and Foot.  It took me about and hour and a half to beat him! 

The group at the community center plays serious
 Hand and Foot!  They have a "Foot" holder necklace
 and a "Hand" holder.

Then a couple who just got to the CG came in and we chatted with them and Barbara, the camp host, for about an hour.  We headed back to Harvey and went to bed.  We're planning to go to Fernandina Beach tomorrow...yea!!!!

Beautiful Day but Chilly!

   I got up about 8:30 and John had already eaten some of our leftovers from yesterday's breakfast.  He was ready to go do his walking, so I ate breakfast and fixed myself up (that took a while) and then repainted my toenails.  When he got back about 11:30 he had gotten all his 10,000 steps in!  We decided to take all the rugs down to the laundry and play some Nerts while it was finishing up.  We left in the middle of the game (to be decided later) so we could get back to eat lunch and take Kylie for her nail trim.  The rugs weren't quite dry so we'll pick them up on our way out.  When John went in to the laundry to get the rugs, they weren't there, and there was laundry in the dryer we were using.  He asked a woman there if she had seen them, but she said," No."  Then a man came in and went to the dryer we had used and here he had put his laundry in without checking to see if it was empty.  Mystery solved!  We headed to the groomed/pet resort which was only a mile and a half away.  They were all so friendly and gentle with Kylie.  She didn't put up any fight at all.  We asked if they could recommend anything to keep Kylie smelling better between shampoos.  They GAVE us a can of dry shampoo and sold us a pet odor eliminator candle. 

Kylie almost looks happy, huh?!?

Then we stopped at Publix to get "a few" groceries, but ended up with about 6 bags full because they had a bunch of BOGOF specials that I couldn't resist.  Hey, we can take the stuff home with us!  We decided to start a fire and use our cast iron sandwich makers to make "hot pockets" with Pillsbury crescents and our leftover steak.  We chatted with the neighbors for a bit while the fire was getting ready. 

I wish you could see the rest of the dog.  He was shaved
Only from the middle of his back.  His hair was wirey
and full, and with the pomp on his tail
 he looked just like a lion!

The pockets were delicious!  We'll be doing that again!! (we should have taken a picture...you would think by this late in the game we would be better at that!!)  After supper we toasted marshmallows and made s'mores.  YUMMMM!!

I'm a happy camper... I'm making s'mores!!

  The fire burned out so we went down to the community room to play Nerts.  The camp host treated us to cookies and another camper, Bill, who plays the guitar invited me down tomorrow to do some singing.  John won Nerts, but it was a close one... 200-191!  We came back at 11:30 and went to bed.  We are planning to go to church on the base tomorrow morning.