Month: March 2019

Friday, March 29, 2019

Today was another beautiful spring day in Tuscaloosa. Tuscaloosa is in full bloom. Azaleas, star magnolias, dogwoods – all the trees full bloom. We are having the typical weather – cool enough to need a little heat to knock the chill off in the morning and then Fred wants a little air by 2-3:00 and then a light blanket again at night. It’s great!

What have we been doing this week. Working. Max thinks he needs to go back on project to get some rest. He has been doing the spring cleaning on the exterior of Fred. Everything is nice and clean now and the wheels and mirrors are bright and shiny. However, within a couple of hours of Max washing and treating the roof the pollen had collected in a thick layer on the roof. Guess we may have to rinse it off again in a couple of weeks when the pollen count declines. At least we are accustomed to this pollen and we can still breathe.

 

Anne has been working on accounting. There was all the business books to complete as well as tax returns for both the moms, the two aunts and our personal return. She is making good progress but will be really glad when she has it all completed. We have been getting in some good walks each day and have only been to Cookout for shakes twice. We did take a little break this afternoon and got our passport pictures made. Our passports expire in about 6 months so it’s time to get them renewed. We would love to go to the Canadian Maritimes, maybe back to Alaska, maybe other far away places. We also did a little shopping while we were out. Other than visiting with some of the neighbors, that’s about it for our week. Hope you had a good one.

Monday, March 25, 2019

Yesterday we went to church at First United Methodist in Red Bay. We have gone there a couple of times before and are always made to feel welcome. Scott and Teresa, the other NOMADS couple at the Tiffin Service Center attended the service with us.  In the afternoon we went to the Red Bay Museum where a former state representative from the Red Bay area was unveiling a new exhibit of Native American artifacts, some of which were uncovered in archeological digs on his property.  While there we looked through the rest of the museum. The town is very proud of the Tammy Wynette room. Tammy was born in Tremont, Mississippi – just a few miles down the road. It is a really well done museum.

We were expecting to sit in Red Bay today and just wait on our cabinets to be ready tomorrow, but we got the call about noon that they were ready to be installed. Installation took about 2.5 hours. Then we headed to Tuscaloosa, carefully watching the weather. Even with the predicted risk of severe weather we had nice weather the whole way. The only time we got rained on was while hooking up the truck before we left.

 

We are now safely driveway camping again in Tuscaloosa.

Of course, one of the first things we did after getting set up was walk to Cook Out for milkshakes.

Saturday, March 23, 2019

Yesterday we were back in Bay 3 before 7:00 am. And by noon all of our outstanding warranty issues were fixed – we hope.  The intermittent issue with the front heat pump seems to be corrected, but we will have to try it a few more times to be sure.  Assuming the heat pump and radio problems don’t return, this may be our last trip here for a while because they completed the last of our warranty work.  From now on we will take care of things ourselves if it is within our abilities.

After we finished there, Bunkhouse RV Conversions called to say we could come on over to get our new end cabinets installed. They looked good, except the cabinet shop made the drawers too small and they will have to be rebuilt next week. So today, since we had to check out of the Tiffin Service Center campground, we moved across the street to Bunkhouse’s campground.

Other than all that exciting news, Anne has been working on books and taxes and Max has been working around the rig. We did go to Hometown Pizza again yesterday afternoon and walked to Cardinal Drive-In this afternoon.  Of course we continue to make new friends and hand out more NOMADS brochures.

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Yep, still here. But there are worse places to be. Actually, we have been enjoying the slow pace here. We have enjoyed making new NOMADS friends and talking to other RVers about NOMADS.

On Monday morning we walked across the road to Bunkhouse RV Conversions to get a price on replacing our sofa with theater seating.  That afternoon we were surprised to get called into an express bay after lunch. The technicians worked on FRED for about an hour that afternoon and had us return on Tuesday morning. They were able to fix several of the items on our list but preferred to let the others wait for a regular service bay.

After leaving the express bay on Tuesday we walked back over to Bunkhouse to see when they could change out the furniture. They had just had a cancellation so we closed up FRED again and drove him right over. By 4:00 pm we were back in our campsite with new furniture.  Since the theater seats are not as wide as the couch was, we ordered two custom built end cabinets to fill in the spaces and give us a little extra storage. Tuesday night we took time to enjoy a movie comfortably reclined.

Wednesday, was spent doing bookwork and some FRED cleaning and maintenance. And socializing. We went to dinner with two other NOMADS couples here. One couple we had met so we enjoyed getting to know them better. The other couple we met at dinner and enjoyed discussing their upcoming Alaska trip.  After dinner we attended a “Tiffinite” get-together in the customer lounge. With all the food there we should have skipped supper.  We spent most of the evening answering questions about NOMADS.

Thursday morning it was back to bookwork and work around the rig. Right after lunch, we got a call to report to a service bay. There we were met by a very customer oriented technician who listened to our list and immediately started to work.  He did not finish so we have to be back there at 7:00 am. Hopefully we will be finished with our list and have the rest of our new furniture by the end of the day tomorrow.