Change of Scene

 Can you believe that the picture above and the one below are from the same RV park? 

 When we arrived at Whispering Hills in Georgetown, Kentucky we planned to stay here one week and they gave us the pull through by the pool which we did not like.  Today we have extended for about a month and we got to move to this beautiful quiet spot in the trees – with grass for Jake.  First thing he did was lay down in it and roll around.  I call it “worming”.  He was so happy!  This site is not at all level and it took major work on Kirby’s part but we are nicely leveled up now and tucked in waiting for some weather to pass by tonight.

To back up a bit, when we were in Charleston Kirby had the opportunity to be examined by his former dermatologist since we were in town - just a normal annual exam.  She found a spot on his leg and did a biopsy.  Then we left and they never called with the results so we assumed it was fine.  Please folks, don’t ever assume that.  It appears that the results got “lost” and weren’t found until Kirby called to tell them that the spot where they took the biopsy did not look good.

Fortunately Lexington is a city full of good doctors and one agreed to see him on a day’s notice.  He is now scheduled for some surgery this Friday and we will need to remain here for two weeks after that.

We do love this area and now we get more time to explore it, drink more bourbon and ale and enjoy the countryside and the quaint downtown!

Alignment

Remember the blowout we had a few days ago?  It really messed things up so yesterday we stopped at Red Rock Garage in St. George, UT and got both axles aligned.  He said they were in pretty bad shape and it was good that we did that as we would have ruined our beautiful new tires.  But, oh, that damage.  Isn't it awful?  Every time I am on that side of the rig and see that my heart skips a beat.  My poor home.  We are talking to the insurance company and hope to get it fixed soon.  

It is morning in Mesquite, NV and we will be on our way later to Las Vegas.  The time change got us up early this morning!

Blowout!

Yesterday wasn't the best day ever, that is for sure.  We started out from Yuba Lake State Park for the three hour drive to Cedar City, Utah.  The mountains and the views were gorgeous.  At the end of our little highway we merged onto Interstate 70 west.  Our altitude was pretty darned high - over 7,000 feet at times.

I was minding my own business and daydreaming when suddenly Kirby put on the blinker and the brakes and began to pull to the side of the freeway.  Of course I asked what the heck was going on and he replied - "Blowout". 

I was nervous about getting out of the truck on the freeway and even more nervous about going out to the other side to look at what used to be our tire.  What I saw was Unbelievable! I still can't believe the damage that was caused to our rig by the flapping of the rubber before it finally got Kirby's attention and we got stopped.

We got back into the cab with the flasher going click, click, click constantly and Kirby got on the phone with our insurance.  I do love cell phones!!!  What would we have done 30 years ago?  I will tell you.  I was about 18 years old in Colorado returning from work on a Saturday evening.  On the freeway I had some car problems (cars always broke down back then) and I was stuck on the side of the road.  Fortunately for me, there were houses backed up to the freeway.  I climbed a low fence, knocked on a door and used their phone to call home.  Those were the good old days.  No one murdered me or raped me....they only helped a stranger.

Anyway, back to yesterday.  Help arrived even sooner than we had been told it would.  Kirby had the spare ready so it wasn't long before we were Hitchin' to Go!

That is Mike from Sorensen Towing with Kirby.  He was very efficient, knowledgeable and pleasant and he got us going in no time at all!

Not far down the road at Beaver, UT we decided it would be a good thing to have all of the tires looked at.  We stopped at Beaver Tire and the guys there were all over us when they saw our poor beat up rig.  They showed us where all three of our remaining tires were bulging and ready to blow any time.  So scary!!  

Aren't we lucky - we got to buy 4 new tires for our less than year old RV.  I just want to thank Keystone and the rest of the RV community for selling us a tinker toy for an RV.  Oh, did I mention that the day before our sofa broke?  How, you ask, can a sofa break?  Easy - the front just falls off.

A very wise man once told me - "It is never as bad as it seems, and it is never as good as it seems".  James Ward, Charleston, SC

After getting settled in our space in Cedar City, UT we found a barbeque place right out on the street.  You know, one of the mobile ones, and had ourselves a great dinner of pulled pork and cole slaw.  And then we noticed a little fair going on across the street so we gathered up our energy and walked over.  Great artwork and fun people to talk to.  Our day wasn't so bad.  We were still able to go have fun and that is what it is all about for me.  "She who has the most fun wins!"  I am still winning!

The Best and the Worst

Much has happened in the past week.  Some of it very good and some of it very bad.  So, I will back up to last week.

We left that awesome park in the middle of LA and took 4 different freeways to arrive at our next destination.  The freeways in LA are terrible!  We shook and rattled like crazy as we lumbered down the freeways heading north.

We only had 85 miles to go so it was an easy day.  We arrived at Pyramid Lake RV Resort about 11:00 am and were greeted by a pleasant Chinese lady.  She offered us just about any space in the park.  We should have wondered why there were so many spaces empty but we decided on one near an open area so that Jake could run.  All of this deciding was done without actually seeing the place – you can’t see much from the entry.  So off we went to space #121 and from there on it only went downhill.  After 2 and a half hours of moving, checking, arguing and discussing we had a burned out microwave, converter and later we learned, our TV.

The power at Pyramid Lake RV was a disaster!  There was no ground on the place we were assigned and it blew everything.  We went around measuring the power and finally settled on a location.  Since it was a 3-day holiday weekend, we didn’t feel we had much option of leaving and finding another place and – we were expecting our friends to join us in a couple of hours.

View from the Back

I could go on with this bitching and moaning about what a terrible place this was but I don’t want to dwell on it.  Just know that it was the worst ever, the most expensive and the rudest, most awful management ever!  Here is a picture of one of the picnic tables.  I won’t post the picture of the roaches – you can use your imagination.

This is just one of the tables - some were worse, some were better.

The best part was that Heather and Jim joined us in their 16 foot Scamp.  We have known them for years and years and have traveled together and partied together all over the place.  They also brought their black lab, Lexi, so Jake had a friend too!  The two of them hit it off right away and became best buds.  

Lexi on the left and Jake on the right - love at first sight!

Heather always decorates!

She decorated their camper too!

That was Friday.  On Saturday we had other friends come for the day and surprise us.  We hadn’t seen Alan and Susan in years when they just sort of showed up!  One look at them and I just started screaming with excitement!  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  What a fun day we had all catching up with each other again.  They stayed for a barbeque and we all ate outside together at the broken down table with a rug covering the weeds!  Who cares when you are surrounded by friends!

That's yours truly on the left and Heather on the right - having fun!

FRIENDS REUNITED!

Heather provided glow in the dark necklaces for us!

We remained at that horrible place with our wonderful friends until Monday.  We gave the owners of the park plenty of opportunity to pay for our loses or at least refund our rent.  They continued to be very, very rude.

We played cards and Mexican Train.  We ate lots of great food!  We laughed until our sides hurt, we reminisced about times past and talked about all our mutual friends!  It was an awesome time spent with friends who are as close as family.  Thanks Heather and Jim and Susan and Alan for making our weekend so fantastic!  You are the best!

We had a blast with the games!