Author: rvingwithapurpose

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.

Sunday, March 17, 2019

Today started way too early. It was dark out. We were up and on the road at 4:25 headed toward Cullman, AL to meet our dear friends Dave and Carol for breakfast. There were leaving Cullman this morning for Ohio to see Dave’s mom who is quite ill and they left their motor home in Cullman with some NOMADS friends. We were on the way from Red Bay to Oneonta for church. We had a great visit and a very good breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Our thoughts and prayers are with Dave and Carol as they make this hard trip. They should be back in the area Wednesday night so we may get to see them again Thursday before they start their long trip west.

About 7:30 we were on our way again to Lester Memorial. It was so nice to be back in our home church. Hopefully we will be able to attend for several weeks now. Missing our church is one of the hard things about traveling doing mission work like we do. The worship service was wonderful, the music great and the message was a word from God. Such a blessing. It was also great to be back in our Sunday School class.

After church we went to visit our LOLs at the rehab center. It was really good to see Aunt Helen and Aunt Jean. Helen had definitely gone down since we left for Texas in January. She is talking less. She did know us although we aren’t sure she knew our names. She of course held our hands and told us “You made my day.” Sweet. Jean was ill when we left in January and is feeling much better now. She seemed pretty spry today. Neither of the ladies seem to have any sense of time and don’t seem to know if it’s been a day or a month since our last visit. Sad.

On the way back home from church, we drove through the tornado damage from Thursday’s storm. It is really miraculous that there were no injuries. Large trees down on houses, and trailers cut in half by trees were easily seen from the highway. They are still working to restore utilities to the area.

Donna invited us to have lunch with her and Barry which was great since our refrigerator at the house is obviously pretty bare. It was great to have some time to visit with them. After lunch and a quick trip to check on the house, we all went back to the church for a meeting about a trip to the Holy Land and Germany and Austria for the Passion Play next year. Sounds very interesting. We may try to make another trip to the Holy Land. Anne’s mother highly recommended the Oberammergau Passion Play. Sounds like it will be a great trip and a number of our friends are also considering the trip. We shall see.

After the meeting and some visiting with friends, it was time to return to Red Bay. Now it’s about time to go to bed.