Over the last seven years, Diane and I have learned, discovered, or otherwise stumbled upon a few things that have helped us during our adventures on the road.
1. Velcro computer wiring straps (available from Wal-Mart of course) can keep your coach vertical cabinet doors from flying open while going down the road and hitting a pot hole or expansion joint or worst yet….rolling over a speed bump. Just slip one thru the cabinet handles and snick it down. They have saved our dishes more than on
Nickolas, the family pupster here!
I asked Dad if he would let me post again. Last time, I hijacked his blog and posted on the sly. This time he said okay.
I wanted to leave him and Mom a note. They may need what I write here one day.
I am almost 85 years old now, in relative terms, and so I can say that chances are I have a little bit of time left, but only a little.
I don't worry about the end of my life. Mom and Dad do that for me. They comment on how white my face is compared to how it u
Diane and I just finished watching “It’s a Wonderful Life.” It is certainly one of our Christmas traditions each year, as it is with a lot of people, I am sure.
We take it a bit further in our house than most. There are IAWL ornaments on the tree, some glass balls, some ceramic with scenes and lines from the movie. Some are small houses and buildings from the movie with a hole in the bottom to allow for a light.
In my office I have the Bedford Falls Village on display. There are twenty one bu
I just finished listening to a large Navistar RV conference call hosted by Bill Osborne, president of Navistar RV. I was invited by email to attend this call some weeks ago. The purpose of the call was to quote: “discuss the direction the company is headed, put the story straight about industry rumors and answer any questions our owners have about the company.”
The call was directed to current owners and after an opening statement there was a brief question and answer period. This was a one w
1. I leave a baseball cap on the dash whenever I am driving the coach. I don’t wear it all the time but it sure comes in handy when the sun is low and shines thru the gap in our double automatic windshield shades.
2. While we are on the subject of windshields. I replaced my stock Monaco wiper arms with ones with standard sized J-Hooks. I purchased them from Diesel Equipment Corp in Greensboro NC. Now I can use any length frameless replacement blade, easily purchased from an auto parts store or
Today I am thinking about one of the things in my life that I am passionate about, something that goes well with owning a coach.
That something is Photography.
When I was a young boy I took pictures with a Kodak Brownie box camera. While attending broadcasting technical school in Washington D.C. in 1972, I tried my hand at shooting transparencies (slides) with my dad’s old Agfa 35mm rangefinder with a bellow lens. I had some success with it, during daylight hours anyway. When the first Pan
I suspect that many readers of this here blog of mine (notice my use of a bit of Southern Speak) wonder what most of my last few entries have to do with motor coaching. My initial response is: not much.
However, there might be a connection.
I have a restless nature. I can't sit still for long periods of time doing nothing. I have to be reading, writing, watching something very interesting, and usually commercial free, on the LCD. I might play a World War II FPS online. For you non computer gam
This lesson is a continuation of using your eyes and your imagination.
One of the volumes in my Time Life library of photography is called The Great Themes. These photography themes include The Human Condition (life as the camera sees it) War, Nature, Portraits, The Nude, and finally Still Life.
I have captured a lot of nature shots. I have taken pictures of many humans including ones in love, sad, happy and just arrived in the world.
I have not dedicated much time or effort to becoming a
For the last week and a half I have been sick. The first couple of days I was forced to just lay around the house drinking Alka-Seltzer Cold remedy (every four hours) and feeling sorry for myself.
Last Saturday afternoon around 2:30 p.m., I decided that I had had enough of being ill. I drank my last seltzer, put on some shorts and my mowing shoes. I mowed the yard, then trimmed and edged it. I also pulled all the weeds out of the flowerbeds. When I was done, I was tired and sore but I felt much
Last Saturday I roasted two 17-pound Honeysuckle White All Natural Turkeys to provide the main course for 30 people. The event was an open house at Deer Creek Motorcoach and Golf Resort that my wife and I are now the latest residents of here in Galax, Va. We had six coaches visiting and I wanted to make a fine impression. So after a quick morning round of golf with some of our guests, I started on the evening meal.
I cooked one bird in an aluminum roasting pan on a large hooded gas grill over
I have been suffering from a bad case of the blahs, so I have not made a blog entry for some time. You could call it a case of the blags. Today, however, I seem to have a sudden burst of energy. I am looking out my office window at my snow-covered coach and at the 10-inch-thick white blanket that is covering my front yard as well as the rest of the neighborhood and I feel inspired to write something.
What, I don't know. I have not done any RVing lately. Nothing except trying to keep my coach w
This past weekend, Diane and I took the coach, the dog (can't leave home without him!) and the grandboys to Virginia Beach, Va. We stayed in the premier sites at the Holiday Travel Campground. The premier sites are a bit larger pull-thrus than the rest of the sites. The campground is about 40 minutes from our home. We left about 2:45 in the afternoon and arrived about 3:30 or so.
We didn't do much the first night except grill some burgers while the boys explored the playground next to us. Later
As a kid I enjoyed serial stories in magazines. Works of fiction published one chapter at time. I read them and couldn't wait for the next installment. The next chapter.
The number one thing that all good fiction writers say is common about writing is that writing should be about something that you know about. I know about communications, photography, history, RVing, and I know about myself and my family. I have also read that you should write about something that you love. I love all the abov
Yesterday morning started out normal, almost. I woke up with the memory of a disturbing dream. I was walking Nickolas, our cocker spaniel, down a long faded green hall. It reminded me of an old high school corridor, or maybe an old office building. It had a polished dirty brown vinyl tile floor. There were exposed fluorescent lights, the long two-lamp kind that flicker and make a lot of ballast noise. At the end of the hall was a metal door with a reinforced glass window in the top half. The bot
Diane and I had a pleasant and mostly uneventful Christmas. I was busy trying to cure a large phone system suffering from hiccups for some days leading up to The Big Day. As a result I became a last-minute shopper (I have always believed I work best under pressure) and visited Macy's on Christmas Eve in the late morning. I intended to purchase just the RightSomething for my wife. Apparently many other procrastinating men had the same idea.
After carefully shopping I found a Murano blown-glass h
It is very quiet around the house. There is no tapping of little doggie nails on the hardwood floor. No tinkling of a metal dog tag against the side of the food bowl. There is no cheerful crunch of the doggie eating his breakfast.
Life continues to go on. Diane will laugh at a joke, e-mailed to her from one of our friends, when it arrives in her mailbox. She will cry when a sympathy card, snail mailed by one of our friends, shows up in the standard mailbox. She also cries after taking a phone c
This subject pops up every now and then in the Internet forums where I hang about on a regular basis. It may be a post titled "Is your Class A a Money pit?" or "A motor home costs a whole lot more than you think it does!" The people who post these kinds of entries may or may not really have a problem with what a coach or any other large RV may cost. They might just be bored. It's Sunday night and the DW is watching "Desperate Housewives", so there is nothing better for them to do than post some
According to my outdoor wireless thermometer it is currently 43 degrees Fahrenheit. I am sitting comfortably in my motorcoach listening to two things ... a worship CD and the intermittent sound of ice falling inside the fridge. I am defrosting and so is the fridge. As you may have gathered from my previous blog entries, or lack thereof, I have been pretty much frozen in place at home maintaining my business. Our coach has just been sitting waiting for us to come back to it.
This last Tuesday
It’s a stupid game. A famous person described it as a good walk spoiled. Someone else said it is a lot of walking, broken up by disappointment and bad arithmetic. I am talking about the game of golf. It may be a stupid game, an opinion shared by David Feherty, who played on the European Ryder Cup team a few decades ago, but it is also my new passion. I guess that means that golf is my new stupid passion.
In my opinion I am terrible at it. My best game so far is a round in the high 80s. Now, in
Windows XP is now 12 years old. It has been one of the best, if not the best, operating systems to ever be installed on a hard drive. I personally think it is better than Windows 7. However, it is now officially at it's EOL stage. EOL stands for End Of Life. Let us not morn for it quite yet. As Mark Twain was once reported to have said: "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." The above is a misquotation. Mr. Twain actually said: "The report of my death was an exaggeration." In
Well folks, I have decided that the time has come for me to have my own photography and personal observation site. I will post randomly what I see and think about numerous subjects including motorhoming, faith, kids, who knows. I hope you will take a look. http://www.myrandomviews.com/
I have enjoyed my time blogging here at FMCA.com.
It has been a good learning experience. If and when Diane and I retire and go full time, then you can expect to see more random entries here as well.
Gramps
It's been so long since I blogged anything that I find this blank page a bit intimidating. But I will get over that rather quickly.
"What's it like owning a 38 foot coach?"
I was asked that question just a few days ago. I had to stop and think for a minute or two.
I have always thought that having that big thing sitting in my driveway is nuts. It really is crazy. It cost too much to buy, to own, to keep on the road, and to pay the taxes that come along with it. It is insane to own it, but at
2. Keep your temper on a very short leash. Or, when owning a motor coach, patience is not only a virtue but a necessity.
If you are the type of person who always wants to be in control of your circumstances and are uncomfortable when things are not perfect or not even close to it, you will have trouble adjusting to the motor coaching lifestyle. Things are going to go wrong whether you are an old-timer or a newbie. There are preventive measures you can take, but only God can stop anything and ev
You know the old saying; it's the Journey not the Destination.
There is a church two doors down from us. The church allows us to hook up our tow in their parking lot and we leave from there. It is quite convenient. When Diane and I have a trip it starts for us the moment we leave the church parking lot. Actually it starts the moment we start packing up the coach, no, it starts the moment we start thinking about THE TRIP.
The trip, made up of two important parts, the route, and the destination
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