CuRVWander

I have been remiss in posting lately.  Mostly because it has been a get up, go to work, come home, repeat kind of thing.  Still being tied to a job is keeping us anchored to this one spot, so adventures in RV'ing are a little hard to come by for the moment. But we did have a very enjoyable Christmas.  We repeated the logistics of getting everybody together at my daughters house like we did at Thanksgiving.  Cyndee's little red PT Cruiser looked like Santa's sleigh with all those wrapped gifts crammed full in the back.  We were so proud of our kids.  They gave very thoughtful gifts. There were no big, bulky items, heavy things, nick-knacks or anything else that was hard to incorporate into 400sq ft of living space that has weight restrictions. And speaking of weight.  Now that colder weather has set in and outdoor activities have scaled way back, we have taken the time to assess our choices in possessions we brought with us from the house....

Since arriving in Georgia in the late 80's we have adjusted to many things.  But there are two things that I never really acclimated to; eastern time and rarely seeing a sunset because of heavy forestation.  Staying up 'till 11:30 to see Carson's, and later Leno's monologue made for an unpleasant moment when the alarm went off the next day.  But as unpleasant as that was, not being able to see sunsets drug on me more for nearly 25 years. This moving into an RV and being able to make home wherever I wanted it to be was going to remedy the sunset problem and tremendously improve the stargazing as well.  But we got an unexpected bonus in that our current camping spot, while still just a couple miles from where we have lived for the last two decades, gives us a whole different view of the countryside.  The spot we are currently backed into borders a small farm that has gone fallow.  But it has not been left alone long enough yet that trees have grow...

There was a lot of trepidation about how our Thanksgiving holiday was going to work.  We could have tried to squeeze everybody into the camper but it would have been tight, really tight.  But a very fortuitous thing happened a few weeks ago.  While visiting our daughter and son-in-law a few weeks ago, Justin just up and volunteered to have, and prepare Thanksgiving at their place.  Sounds great, let's do it. But this did not eliminate the trepidation.  Our daughter's experience in preparing a holiday meal was limited to a couple of the cold side dishes and the green bean casserole.  AND, her and Justin's dietary habits lean toward the tofu and Trader Joe's style of eating.  No matter, we are all going to be together this Thanksgiving and that is the best part of all.  Next year we should be on the road.  Maybe we will be settling in to our winter spot in Texas or Arizona, or on a park host assignment somewhere in the South.  Maybe we c...

Hurricane Sandy did not directly hit the Atlanta metropolitan area but we sure have felt her presence.  Our daytime and nighttime temperatures are about 20 to 25 degrees lower than the average and the wind has been blowing steadily for almost a week without a break. Now I know that wind for a week is nothing new to many of you.  It is a normal day in Texas, Oklahoma and along the coasts.  But around here if the wind gets above 15mph for a couple of hours they put out the red warning flags.  But for good reason, drought-weakened and diseased trees are coming down all over the place.  Atlanta is one of, if not the most heavily wooded city in the country, there is hardly a square foot that is not in jeopardy of a tree falling on it.  We have several monsters surrounding our little RV, and everybody else's RV in the park we are staying in.  Thankfully the owner of the park had a crew in just in September to prune healthy trees and remove questionabl...

Fall is festival time all over the country and the North Georgia area seems especially so.  There are way more festivals on any given weekend during this time than any one person can get to.  But in our 22 years in this area we have come to favor a few and found ourselves attracted to them year after year.  Normally we pick one, or if we try really hard we make it to two each season.  But now that there are no gutters to clean, lawn to mow, leaves to rake, garage to clean or the multitude of other things one has to do to keep a bricks and sticks kept up, we found ourselves with time to get to more this year. A big one that seems to kick off the fall festival season is the Yellow Daisy Festival at Stone Mountain Park, GA.  If nothing else, it is large.  But it is more than just a big festival, it is a diverse festival.  It has attractions by corporate sponsors like you would see at a State Fair, the likes of Ford and the Texas Tourist Bureau....

Every October for 10 years running we have hosted a fall cookout/camp out.   There is a state park less than two hours from where our house used to be.   We would take a couple of days off on either side of the third weekend of October, reserve a campsite and bar-b-que shelter and have anywhere from 30 to 50 people come and hang out all weekend or just the cook-out day. This year was no different except that instead of packing the camper for the last trip of the season, we were preparing our camper that is now our home, to be picked up and moved for a four day get-a-way.   I don't know if other full timers think about it this way but I think about the new level of risk.   I am about to take the roof over my head and all my possessions and hurdle them down the highway through a city that is ranked in the top ten for worst traffic in the country.   It has always been stressful driving through Atlanta, even under the best of circumstances, but this was a whole...

It has been nearly a month now of living in our new rig.  A couple of issues have come up; I noticed that one of my 40lb propane tanks was nearly empty.  That is really strange as it was typical for us to go a whole season on less than one 30lb tank in the Kountry Star.  Granted, we were cooking meals three times a day but that could not possibly explain the consumption I was seeing.  Being aware of this, I started looking for possible culprits.  The first thing was that both of us had been noticing a faint odor of propane when we opened the cabinet doors just below the range, so possibly a small leak there.  But then I saw the read-out on the refrigerator and the little dot that indicates that the fridge is running on electricity was not on.  Dang, the fridge had been operating in 80+ temperatures trying to keep a freezer cold enough to make ice. After several days of working with the factory over the phone to try and diagnose why the fridge wo...