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About this blog

Ramblings of a Motorhoming Melancholic?

Entries in this blog

 

I Had A Strange Dream: Part 1-The Setup

It's Easter Morning. This is a morning to celebrate Life, new life. I can see it out my office window. I see it in my grand boys; they are here in my office, playing on my computers. Because it is such a good morning I have the urge to share something with you, something that celebrates life. In October 2002 Diane and I went on an eight-night cruise. The ship was Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas. We were there to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. Joel would be entering college the n
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Pilgrimage to Elkhart, Day 2

Saturday morning was sunny, but a bit chilly. Gary and I broke camp and pulled in our slides. He had not put his main one out because it just did not work smoothly. We discovered, the night before, that my main slide had a fraying cable so it would not be deployed for our second night. This would make the interior of the coach a bit tight but that was the breaks so to speak. The night before, while Gary and I were repairing my bedroom slide out topper/telephone pole mishap we had a visitor fro
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Better Than New!

Click on any thumbnail above to see a lot more pictures! Gary, Janis, Diane and I are good friends. We travel together and we both own the same coach. It is a Holiday Rambler Vacationer XL, model 38PLT built on the Workhorse UFO chassis. The UFO has the engine in the rear and it is gas not diesel. We get a lot of comments when we pull into a campground together or separately. For example: "Man, your coach sure is quiet, what's wrong with it?" (Nothing) "Well, it sure is a funny sounding Die
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It has been a year

It has been a year, this week, since I started blogging here at FMCA.com. Boy, time sure flies when you are having stress. I have had a boat load of just that over the last year, I am talking about stress. It started building up more than usual around Christmas 2008 after I realized something was physically very wrong with Mike, my friend and business partner. By late March he was gone. Many of you know the story. He "passed over," to use that innocuous phrase, just after our trip to the FMCA
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A bit about Wi-Fi

It's been awhile since I blogged and a lot has happened since the 23rd of May or whenever it was since I last posted. I say a lot has happened, but not really. Diane, Nickolas and myself traveled to our spot at Deer Creek Motorcoach resort, the one in Galax, Virginia, not Florida. Barry, the owner and developer, asked me to point that out. While there, I did my best to improve my golf game and beef up our Wi-Fi. The golfing was fun ... more about that later. A bit about our Wi-Fi. It is n
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The Giants and the Phillies

One of the things that is on my Motor Coach Bucket List is to travel to as many Major League baseball parks as I can. I love the game of baseball. Like motor coaching, baseball has many metaphors for life. I have loved the game much, much longer than I have loved the rving lifestyle. I have been to a number of major league games. My first one was a weekday night game in late spring of 1989. It was the first home game of the Cincinnati Reds after the Pete Rose Scandal hit the news. There was an
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Gadgets For Christmas!

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
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Still Fighting

This is a very strange thing to report, but Nickolas is back at the small animal hospital at NC State School of Medicine. It has been a long and very weird night. It seems that the pain pill I gave our dog, a dose big enough to knock out a full grown man, didn't do much to our dog but allow him a couple hours of very deep sleep. Diane who had been keeping vigil beside him, out on the deck the whole time wating for him to finally slip away, came to the door to speak to me. I was looking out the
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Skipping Thanksgiving

Skipping Thanksgiving. (A running blog entry) Wednesday: Diane and myself are skipping the traditional Thanksgiving this year. We are presently sitting in site 41 at the Anvil Campground in Williamsburg, Virginia. Skipping the traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings, along with all the work that involves, didn't sit too well with some family members. I say too bad! Diane and I need some time to ourselves. Time with less stress, less responsibility. We need a time to heal from the lo
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Parties, Christmas, Then Head South

Two weekends ago Diane, Teddy and I took the coach for a cold, wet weekend to Beth Page campground in Urbana, Virginia. From Portsmouth it is about a ninety minute drive up I-64 to State Highway 17. It would be a lot quicker if not for slow drivers and lots of stop lights. I didn't mind so much because we were not in a big hurry. We left around two in the afternoon on Friday and the nights festivities would not start until five. The purpose of this trip was to rally up with our fellow Colonial
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I Had a Strange Dream: Part 2-The Dream

Just a few days before I had this dream Diane, while walking Nickolas our dog, was attacked by a Pit Bull. It almost killed her. Mayber that event triggered the dream. Who knows, the human mind and spirit are wonderful mysteries. I Had a Strange Dream Last Night I had a strange dream last night. I was having trouble sleeping. My eyes hurt. I couldn't take the light from the clock on my stereo on top of the dresser. I finally heaved myself out of bed and moved a glass candle holder in front of
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The Last Couple of Weeks

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
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My Name is Theodore

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
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Packrat

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
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The Tango

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
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Daniel

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
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Live from Deer Creek

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,
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Remembering.

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
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Looking Up

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
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Appreciation

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
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Signs

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
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"Cruising" Day Nine

Part IX Saturday: Room Service and Farewell We received a call at eight in the morning. A cheerful voice was at the other end asking us if we were ready for our breakfast. I sleepily replied in the affirmative. I jumped up, robed up and hit the head. While in there I heard a knock at our cabin door. Diane let the room service waiter in. I heard the rattle of cups and plates. Not knowing exactly where the waiter was located, I did not open the bathroom door for fear that I would knock him into t
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"Cruising" Day Ten

Part X Sunday Morning :We have to get off the ship. Diane and I woke at false dawn. Voyager was already docked. In just a few minutes the sunrise could be seen in the glass of the buildings outside our balcony. I took a couple of pictures. We dressed without saying much to each other. We did not have to. Diane put on a red short sleeve lace up shirt and white Capri pants. I think I put on one of my new Liz Claiborne for men tees, brown and off white linen shorts. We packed our dress clothes fr
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How Did It Start? Part One

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
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"Cruising" Day One

Don't let the amount of time that has elapsed since my last blog entry fool you, I am still alive. There has been a lot of things happening lately, but not many of those things has much to do with motorcoaching. Diane and I have been to the two of our FMCA chapter campouts (more about that later) and I spent most of today working on our coach. I am trying to repair the wet bay heater before I need it again. In the next couple of days I will post an up to date entry but in the meantime I have
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