Author: rvingwithapurpose

Saturday, December 30, 2017

It didn’t get as cold as predicted last night. We stayed above freezing. With the sun out this morning as we were doing our final load out, it felt rather nice. The weather service says it will be the last nice day for a while.

When we got up this morning a decision had to be made. Anne hasn’t been feeling well – cough, crud that’s going around – but this morning also had a low grade fever. Yesterday she thought she was better and we planned to go to Tuscaloosa to see Mama Ruby and then head south from there. We decided we just could run the risk of going for a visit. We also check the forecast. The weather service was still talking about slick roads from a glazing of ice tomorrow morning. So, since we were already loaded and we really didn’t want to start carrying things back inside, we decided to drive part way to Gulf Shores today. Since we were leaving from home, we drove I-65. That route takes us within a few blocks of Bass Pro Shop. We took that opportunity to stop and trade in some old socks for new. If you don’t know, Bass sales lifetime guarantee socks. When they wear out you simply return them for a new pair. We have been wearing these socks since we started preparing for our hike to be bottom of the Grand Canyon in 2011. We love walking in with old socks and out with new with no money out of the bank account.

We left Bass Pro Shop and headed on south. Our plan was to top off the diesel, DEF tank, and propane all of which were about ½ full. Since we can take care of all three at Flying J, that is where we stopped. However, today they had no one to pump the propane. It requires an individual license and no one working today had a license. (Seems like poor scheduling to us.) They suggested we go to Love’s, about a block away. We went to Love’s and their tank was “out of service.” The temperatures tomorrow night and all of next week in Gulf Shores will not be nearly as cold as north of here, but cold enough we have to have more propane. We called Camping World in Robertsdale and they say they will fill us up tomorrow. We certainly are hoping so.

We stopped for the night in Greenville, AL. Not because we couldn’t have driven further but we don’t have a reservation at the state park until Monday. We can’t get in early because someone else is on our site. We had planned to spend the night at Cracker Barrel (most of which allow overnight parking for RVs) and have supper and breakfast there. This one has RV parking spots, mostly empty, but has signs everywhere shouting “NO OVERNIGHT PARKING.” We just turned around in their parking lot and left. We stopped at the Tractor Supply about a block away to see if they had propane. They don’t. But as we were talking to the manager, a very nice young man, he said it would be fine if we stayed in their parking lot tonight. So instead of spending money at Cracker Barrel, other restaurants nearby got our business.

Our plan is to leave here in the morning, stop at Camping World, then head to the outlets in Foley. This is a very quiet location and we are toasty warm. We are back traveling in FRED again. All is good.

Thursday, December 28, 2017

Do y’all get tired of us talking about the weather? We start out with that because it is the first thing we check in the mornings because it effects what we will do for the day. This morning was 30 degrees, not too cold but still below freezing. However, it didn’t seem quite so cold this morning because we had bright sunshine. Love it!!

We did some more work around the house this morning. We pulled some additional food items from the pantry to move to FRED. We also re-potted some of our succulents to get them ready for the trip south. Some we will have to leave for Juno to oversee for a few weeks.

Soon we had to get ready to go to Cullman. Max had another doctor appointment to see what would be recommended for his hand that has been giving him trouble for a few months. We saw an ortho/sports medicine MD. He is an old friend from Anne’s days of practicing in Cullman and we really trust him. He looked at the hand with ultrasound and found that there is a torn ligament that has never completely healed. He also has arthritis in the joints of his thumb. There are a number of options some of which we have already tried. Worse case, he could require surgery but we certainly want to avoid that. For starters, Max decided to use a splint and/or wraps. It’s not like he can totally stop using his right hand but he needs to limit the movement of the thumb. We will see how this goes for a few weeks and then consider other options if needed. Prayers appreciated. We also made a Walmart run, stopped at the Court House to take care of some business there, the medical supply store to pick up the splint, and to check on Helen and Juno. Since Anne hasn’t been feeling very well it seemed like a long day. Anyway, back home for dinner and relax. Thanks for checking in. Hopefully things will be more interesting in a few days when we are really “RVing With a Purpose”

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Today was another mostly gray day. So much for the sun of yesterday. Our high today was 38 with cold north wind. It’s only 8:00pm now and WeatherBug says its already 30 with a wind chill of 23. We have had lows at or below freezing for four days and the forecast is for that to continue for the next 10 days. That is really unusual for this part of Alabama. Now I know we aren’t cold as compared to Wisconsin and Minnesota, but we are not accustomed to prolonged below freezing temperatures. It is not expected get above freezing from Sunday until Tuesday. We need to find warmer weather.

Today we worked on packing out FRED. Yes, we are going south! We use the guest bedroom bed as a staging area for all the stuff that needs to be loaded. We started today, of course, with our exercise, then multiple loads of laundry. Before long the staging area was full and we started making trips to FRED. We got in a lot of steps today. We haven’t decided when we are heading south. We had planned to leave January 1, but are watching the forecast. We may leave sooner. They keep throwing out that “S word” that is not a nice word around here. We have had snow once this winter and that is enough.

Max also took time today to clean the gutters. So many trees, which we love. But they make for so many leaves. This time of year, every year, we know we need to get some of the trees taken down. Some have gotten too large and too close to the house. Anyone know of someone in the area that does a good job with that?

That’s about it around here today. Praying for our northern friends during this dangerous cold weather. Also, we would as you to remember our friend’s son who deployed yesterday with the Air Force.