PatrickH's blog entry From the beginning ... got me thinking.
When did it start? When did the idea of being part of the motorhoming community first start to grow inside our brains? When did the idea first hit any of us, including Kay Toolson or John Crean, who founded Fleetwood, or Warren Buffet, the owner of Forrest River?
All of us have our own story about how we ended up owning a motorhome company or, like most of us, just owning a motorhome.
This is my story.
Just about eight years ago m
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
If you are a regular reader of my blog you know that I enjoy the idea that motor homing is a metaphor for life.
It is day four of a new year. How is this year going to be? That is certainly one question I don’t have the answer to. I am sure that many people would like to know what the future holds even if that knowledge is only about the next twelve months.
When I was a kid I remember that there were a number of celebrity prognosticators that would make all kinds of predictions about the fut
Well it is another new year. I am sure that we all hope it will be a good one. This last one was a bit tough for my shrinking household. We lost a grandson, my wife lost her mother, our son moved out on his own (well that is a bittersweet thing). However, there were a lot of things that happened, friends we made, places we visited, and memories that were created this last year that allows me to appreciate 2011. One thing is for sure, I sill enjoy being a part of the motor coaching community. No
Our sixteen pound turkey is currently relaxing inside my electric smoker. It has been getting the smoke and steamed beer treatment for about two hours now with four to go. I keep checking the remote thermometer and making sure that the bird doesn’t finish its spa treatment too fast. This takes a lot of patience on my part but it will be worth it.
Patience is the key, not just for smoking a good turkey but also to enjoying the Motorcoach lifestyle. In case you don’t already know it, rule numbe
Rule 4: Owning a motor coach is a never-ending learning experience -- continued.
Well, I had so much fun coming up with a list of things that I have learned over the five years that my wife and I have been motorhoming, I figured why not write down a few more? So here goes:
I have learned that men need a precise set of directions when parking the coach.
And women know just how to give them. For example:
"I SAID STOP! STOP! DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT STOP MEANS?"
"DON'T BACK UP, YOU WILL HIT IT AGAI
Well, Christmas is only ……days away. You can fill in the blank yourself. I thought I would mention a few things that I would want for Christmas if I didn’t have them already and some things I don’t have that are on my list. These things are almost always gadgets of some kind.
1. Winegard GS-wing Wingman Antenna upgrade. I have one of these. It attaches to an existing Sensor head with no tools required. It is supposed to increase UHF signal gain up to 100%. I am not sure it has done that f
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 Friday morning I headed out to Lowes to buy a couple of things. I needed a flush valve seal for the low flow toilet in the bathroom next to our bedroom. I put off getting one for days just because I hate anything to do with plumbing. Plumbing is wet and it leaks and it frustrates me. However, a water bill that is bigger than it should be due to a bad toilet frustrates Diane so I found myself at Lowes buying the seal, some light bulbs (the old fashioned kind). I also picked up a Roman Shade
Diane has spent the last week in Florida visiting our daughter, Jeri, and her family. The care of myself, Joel, the house and last but not least, Teddy Bear, has been left to me.
That means that I need to take a high-energy, long-legged Cocker Spaniel for a walk every day or he goes stir crazy. When that happens he rings the bell hanging by the back door every ten minutes so that someone, me, will let him out.
Getting up from the couch every ten minutes tends to spoil the continuity of the f
I believe that I am a pretty good motor coach pilot. I still believe that, even though I hit my mailbox while making a sharp turn into our driveway. Obviously I didn’t pull up the street far enough and turn sharp enough, but no real damage done, except to my pride.
My car driving skills while making service calls … that is another thing altogether. I tend to talk on my cell too much while driving. I get distracted by the radio, the voices in my head, and the vehicles in front of me. The last
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
Diane, Teddy Bear, and myself are doing well today. It has been a hectic and yes stressful couple of months. Today however I don't want to write about that. I will soon. Today I want to be hopeful, to remember that even during rough times there is a greater power at work. So until I can find the time to write again, I thought it would be good to reprise one of my entries, one that seems appropriate considering the significance of today.
Derrick
Just a few days before I had this dream that Dia
We have been sitting on lot #3 at the Deer Creek Motorcoach Resort (The one in Galax, Virginia) for about 18 days now, give or take a day. For most of the last five it has been raining hard. If there was ever any question about how well our coach roof is sealed, we now have the answer ... it is definitely waterproof. I performed maintenance on it just before the monsoon arrived.
I washed it, resealed some of the seams with self-leveling Dicor sealant, the kind that needs a caulk gun to apply,
I have enjoyed being part of the motor home community. It means a lot to me. More than I can possible say. At this moment I am at Deer Creek Motorcoach Resort in Galax. It has been my refuge for the last few days. I am surrounded by my friends and I have needed them and they have been here for me. Yesterday I lost one of my grandsons. I never got the chance to meet him. Diane had to fly down to Florida to be with our daughter and her husband after we learned that her unborn baby boy who was goin
Before Diane and I became Motorhome owners, and before my son entered college, we were avid cruisers. This is the story of our first one, which took place a bunch of years ago. This story, which I wrote years ago, will take up some blog space until next week when we shall once again hit the road in our UFO and I write about it.
THE TANGO
My wife Diane is always collecting stories and anecdotes from people. For years if she hears something interesting from somebody she will tell me about it. S
My name is Theodore. I have had a lot of names in my short life; Beasley, Bailey and one other one that I don't remember, or maybe I just don't want to remember.
I don't mind the name Theodore, but I like the name Mom and Dad use best ... Teddy Bear.
I am Teddy Bear Parker. Being a Parker makes me happy. Can a dog be happy? Some will tell you that being happy is only for humans.
Someone once said that a wild bird will fall frozen from a tree limb and never feel sorry for itself. How does
Yesterday, Teddy Bear, our Cocker Spaniel, was very ill. We don't know how, but he he picked up a gastro bacterial infection. It knocked him for a loop. He wouldn't eat, or drink anything, on his own. If we coached him, he would take a bit of yogurt, or maybe eat an ice cube, but neither would stay down for long. I can tell you it scared both Diane and myself. I guess we are still a bit raw-nerved from the loss of our Nickolas just five short months ago. Actually, I was more than scared, I was n
My wife tells me that I am a packrat. I consider myself a collector of memories.
I have a lot of wrist watches, including six Disney ones.
I collect pocket knives. Some are quite old and some of those I have had since I was really young.
There are a lot of things in my small home office. Some of the things would be considered junk by most people. Some may be worth a few bucks. To me they are all valuable.
Hanging on the wall in front of my desk is a gold framed shawdowbox with all the pi
It feels good to be writing again. The last couple of weeks have been very busy for me. ….I know, some people don’t have the time to read about my life; they have one of their own. That is what one person told me in the form of a reply after I posted a blog entry. I had to ask myself, why did they read it then?
Well this week has been phone system training classes and meetings of all sorts. Last week Diane and I spent three really great days at our home away from home at the Deer Creek Motorco
Diane and I have discovered that living in a motor coach simplifies our life. We don't find the small space to be confining. Quite the opposite, it is liberating. Our motor coach frees us from thinking about so many things. She and I normally operate in two different worlds. Diane's world concerns the house, the two men, the cat and the dog that live in it with her. My world revolves around my business, my computers, and my online friends. Most of the time we are in two different parts of the ho
In order to christen the new blog format, I feel it is necessary to post a few more of my truisms. These truisms fall under my Rules for Owning a Motor Coach: Part 4.
Owning a Motor Coach is a Never-ending Learning Experience.
I have learned that a clear sewer connection is a good thing to have … that way, you will see the juice box the grand kids dumped in the toilet as it makes its final journey.
My wife still will not let me stop at South of the Border and buy anything.
My wife will n
In late November of 1990 I received my December issue of Reader's Digest. I read all the humorous parts of the magazine, and one cover story and then promptly stuck it on a shelf with all the other issues that I still had in my possession.
Soon it was Christmas. At that time all of my three children were young. Christine was fourteen, Jeri was eleven, and Joel was five.
It was a tough time for us. I was unemployed. I had been without work for almost two years. The country was in an economi
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
The Night Before.
It will be a day later than we planned but we are going to St Augustine for New Year's eve. We will do our best to make up the time that we lost. We lost it due to ten inches of snow or maybe it was twelve? It will be a long day on the road tomorrow. Hopefully we will pull into North Beach Campground late Wednesday instead of early in the day. Jeri, Tom and Dilly will arrive sometime Thursday Morning.
I think that due to the snow eating the start of our trip, I will add an
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