Here we are, on the road: We’re in Santa Clara, California

December 29, 2013 Lorraine’s report

Hello again from the Elk's parking lot in Sunnyvale, CA. What a week it has been. To be here with Susy and Kaitlyn for Christmas has been a lot of fun. You can bet we had an amazing time with them. Thank you Susy for letting us come and be with you!!!

Well, the freezer has kept us here until later on this week. That new refrigerator with the bottom freezer was 2 months past the warranty period of 12 months. In other words, it was no longer under warranty. Chuck called the Samsung factory and worked out some kind of deal, just with the factory to fix the broken freezer one time. Now we are still waiting for a repair man to come and fix the thing. I saw that Bob & Linda got the same refrigerator we did, sure hope you don't have the same kinda problems we are having. We were not offered any other warranty than the one that came with it. And 14 months was only two months past the warranty. Our kinda luck!

Then being run into by an unlicensed driver with no insurance was another problem for us. I think Chuck saw the gal not slowing down and must have braced for the collusion, but I didn't, so I hit pretty good; my head went all the way forward, then snapped back hitting my pony tail holder really hard. I have had a really stiff neck from the whip lash. We were on our way to my doctor's office for the results of my tests and a physical. I had to cancel and make my appointment on Friday at 7:30 am. Way too early for me, but we made it.

That was a long day for us, we left at 6:45, Chuck had his appointment with his doctor, then we went by Costco, then the Verizon store. Chuck found his phone and we ended up with a tablet to be used as a router for the rig. We didn't get home until 4:30 to 4:45 that afternoon. A very long day for Misty.

But the good news is that we are still both healthy. Knock on wood, this life style has been good for us. Just don't know when it will change for us; or where we will end when it is time to come off the road.

On that note I will end this blog. We would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. May you all have enough!!

Hugs ,

Lorraine

12/2913 Chuck’s report

First, we wish everyone a Happy and Prosperous New Year! Once again, we are working on our long range plans for the year, more on that as we firm them up next month.

Yea, we made it through Christmas but it’s been a rough week anyway, I’ll discuss that later.

Let’s see, last Sunday after we wrote the blog, we headed over to Susy’s place. Lorraine made up a nice pot roast for dinner, sort of like before we went on the road, a roast for Sunday dinner. Lorraine and Susy managed to finish up wrapping the rest of the Christmas presents and we watched the Seahawks loose their first home game this season, to Arizona. That leaves the door open for them to possibly loose home field advantage through the playoff, sure hope not.

Monday morning we headed over to the VA for them to check out my CPAP machine. The gal was pleased to see I have been using it and we ordered some new masks and stuff too. I do believe it helps and the memory in the machine shows I only wake up an average of 5 or 6 times an hour vs 35 times before the machine. We then made run to the store for a couple of last minute items for Christmas. We also stopped at a Safeway to pick up some groceries on the way home.

Lorraine had a physical scheduled at her doctor’s at 4:00 so we headed there next. But traffic was really stop/go even on the freeway we were on. One exit before we wanted to get off we saw lots of traffic getting off the road, headed towards one of the big malls. Just a bit further on, as traffic started moving again, we got rear ended by some gal. We were in the 2nd lane from the right so I pulled over to the shoulder, she just stopped and waited. Finally I walked back and stopped traffic in the right lane so she could/would move to the side of the road.

I walked back to exchange information with her and the first words out of her mouth were “no speak English”, oh great. Both cars appeared to be drivable, her car had more visible damage than ours. Lorraine called 911 and of course the cops were busy but would get to us when they could. I continued trying to get some info from the driver of the other car and finally got a California ID card, no driver’s license however.

Finally a highway service attendant came by and told us the Highway Patrol were in route and should be there in 5 minutes or so. By now it was apparent that we couldn’t get to Lorraine’s doctor in time for her appointment but she was able to convince them she really needed to get this done as we were leaving on Monday. They made an appointment for her on Friday at 7:30, way early for us but at least she could get in.

Finally the patrolman got there and got info from both of us. The gal who hit us had no driver’s license, no insurance and who knows if she was even legal. After he got all the info he needed, he informed us that she was getting cited for causing the accident, no license and no insurance. He also said we could drive away. I asked him if he was letting her drive away even though she didn’t have an license and he sort of shrugged his shoulder and said “YES”. I was surprised but didn’t go any further with that as we wanted to get out of there. Anyway, we have some heavy scratches and dings on the back of our car and Lorraine has a sore neck but otherwise we were ok.

Next morning, Lorraine was still a bit sore but not enough to see the walk in doctor. She had been icing it a bit and took some aspirin for the pain. Susy had the day off from work so we picked up Susy and Katie and went to see the movie Walking with Dinosaurs. I can’t believe it, three times to the movie house for me this year, WOW. Not a bad movie and the computer animation was good too.

We have sort of set a tradition that on Christmas Eve we go out to dinner at Outback and continued doing it again this year. Not sure what/where or when I lost it but when I went to pay for dinner, I couldn’t find my credit card. The last place I used it was at the movie house earlier that day but they didn’t have it nor had anyone turned one in. I, of course, called the credit card company to cancel it before anyone could use it and set up to have a new one delivered to us on Friday evening at our coach. We did have a good dinner though even though they didn’t bring me the one I had ordered.

Next morning we headed over to Susy place for Christmas day. Of course, Katie was very anxious for us to get there so she (we) could start opening presents. Mark had stopped by McDonalds for breakfast for everyone and after eating we got started opening presents. After unwrapping the presents, we all started opening the packages. Boy do they have lots of hard to open packages, especially some of the kids ones. Lots of plastic and tie wraps, must keep lots of Chinese people in jobs putting it all together.

Later Lorraine and Susy cooked a ham dinner for us, yum. After dinner they played a new to me board game, Millionaire Monopoly. Almost the same rules as regular Monopoly but all the prices are inflated. By the time the game was over, it was time for us to head home. We certainly had a very nice day.

Thursday Lorraine wanted to do some laundry; wash up some of the things we got for Christmas. She got a migraine headache however and had to lay down for awhile until the medicine took effect. Later Katie came by and she and Lorraine played for the afternoon. We went out to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, another good one. No wonder I’m not loosing any weight!

Friday morning we got going early and got to Lorraine’s doctor for her physical. Other than a couple of times when he was unable to answer some questions for us, she had all good reports. Her blood tests, blood pressure and such were all in the good range. So good news on that front.

We returned back to our place for an hour before we had to head to the VA for me to see my doctor for my physical. I also had a good report from her, blood work and blood pressure were all good too. Both of our doctors said this lifestyle must be a good one for us and we agreed.

We stopped by Costco on the way back and I went by to look at their smart phones. I had almost decided that I was going to get a HTC One phone but found Costco had just pulled them from their stores. She said there was an issue with the phone and they didn’t want to sell it anymore. That pretty much changed my opinion and decision of buying that type.

But there happened to be a Verizon store in the same mall so we went there next, I wanted to see what they had to say about the HTC One. They didn’t have an issue with this phone and I checked out a couple of others while we were there. Long story but we left there with me getting a new phone, a Moto X and we also got a new tablet to replace the Mi-Fi we had been using. The reason we went with the tablet was two fold, it was free and only $10/month vs $20/month for the Mi-Fi. With the Verizon plan we have, it was $10/month extra to go with a smart phone but that was offset with the reduction in monthly fee for the tablet. And if we ever want,we could use the tablet for more than just a hot spot, bonus.

When we got back to our place, Lorraine found her computer was not working. She and Susy were going to see a movie so I tried to work on it. I’m not a computer expert by any means but finally managed to get it to turn on but it had to reset itself. It took about 4 hours before it finally came back to life and it was reset back to almost the same as when it came out of the store, meaning it lost all the favorites and all the computer games Lorraine had on it. But at least it was working.

Lorraine and Susy came back from the movie, they had seen the Hobbit Smaug. They both said it was a good movie, glad I didn’t go as I don’t much care for science fiction type movies. When they got back, I managed to get another couple of programs working on her computer, enough so that she had email and facebook anyway.

Yesterday Lorraine finished up on laundry at our place and we got the new, freshly washed sheets on our bed too. Later we went over to Susy’s place for the afternoon. Shortly after, Lorraine, Susy and Katie went out to get pedicures while I stayed back and played with my new smart phone.

This morning we got up and sort of just took life easy, I worked on her computer once again but didn’t have a lot of luck. But we loaded up the computer and headed over to Susy’s place where Mark was today. He had been thinking about going to the Rose Bowl parade and game with the Stanford band but decided not to go as he wasn’t feeling too well and didn’t want to get sick. He has taught computers for years and managed to get lots more of Lorraine’s computer back and loaded some of the programs that had disappeared, yea. Thanks a bunch Mark, sure appreciate your help.

So we set there watching the San Francisco game and worked on the computer. I started writing this blog then too and will be finishing it up soon as the game is now over.

The weather has been nice for the past week, no rain even though they sure could use some here. It is the driest year on record I heard, less than 8” this year. The temperatures have been really nice too, high 60s and low 70s with a bit of cooling spell coming but still no rain in sight. The lows have been in the lower 40s and a couple of times even to the mid 30s, getting there.

As far as our travel plans go, they are up in the air. Our freezer has not been cooling and the repair guy said it probably needed to have the Freon system recharged and possibly fix a hole somewhere in the coils, to the tune of over $600, bummer. I called Samsung to see what they could do to help us out, knowing it was 14 month old and we only had a one year warranty. They originally offered us the opportunity to purchase a warranty but retracted that offer when the realized it was in a motorhome, go figure. But they did give us a good will, one time repair to fix the problem we have been having, labor and parts, yea. They also have their own repair shop to work on it so I’ve been working with them on the phone.

The repair shop has ordered parts based on our conversation but they will not be here until Tuesday and with New Years being a holiday, they can’t work on it until Thursday. So assuming they manage to find and fix the problem on Thursday, we will probably leave here next Friday. We were planning on leaving tomorrow so that’s five days later than planned. But we will get going as soon as we get our fridge fixed.

So this week we had a car accident, Lorraine’s computer crashed, (mine also lost a couple of programs but not as bad as Lorraine’s) and we are still having fridge problems. On the plus side, we’ve managed to spend Christmas with our daughter and grand daughter once again plus spend some good time with them too. The car can be fixed, the fridge is being repaired this week and with Mark’s help, the computer problems are getting resolved too. So all in all, a good week, I’d say. Too bad our son was unable to be with us this Christmas though.

Christmas morning at Susy’s place. That’s Lorraine, Susy and Katie on the right.