Delaware, Ohio

We made it safely to Delaware, Ohio this past Wednesday. We will sit here now for about a month until campgrounds 'up north' open up. Will spend the next couple of weeks cleaning out our condo and storing many items, having rented the condo out while we were in Texas this past winter. We are camping at Cross Creek Camping Resort which is managed by Alum Creek State Park. It's a lovely park, a tad more expensive than what we are used to but it has all the extras we need - secure, nice setting, laundry on-site, camp store if needed, close to civilization yet far enough away, and manageable drive back to the condo in one day. And, the temperature is about 10 to 15 degrees warmer than living near Lake Erie. A real bonus. This will be the last post until we head out again this summer to Colorado. Will send a separate email out when we are 'on the road again.'

Turtling Along

We were (and still are) nervous about pulling the RV any distance after our event of a blown tire on the RV, so when we left Nashville Sunday morning, we made sure that the weather was going to cooperate and that if possible, we would take as many back roads to head north towards Louisville. The GPS said that we had 132 miles to go, or almost 3 hours of driving if we chose to drive Interstate 65. Instead we traveled on an old truck rural route north which paralleled I65 which was quite lovely with huge farms, big mansions, traveling through some state parks. Very scenic. We drove as far as I thought was manageable with the RV, watching for low bridges, etc. and only until we got to just below Elizabethtown did we get on I65. Which meant we had about 45 miles to go until we were going to stop for the day. Still was quite nerve wracking and the temp outside was 86. Arrived at Grandma's RV Park in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, about 15 miles below Louisville at 1:40pm. We have arrived back into Eastern Time Zone after leaving it 4 months ago! The weather for last night and today was calling for heavy rain, thunderstorms, wind so we opted to spend an extra day here and wait it out. We will leave tomorrow, Tuesday morning, for a campground just north of Columbus - if we can get through the construction on I71 in a timely manner, and if we are delayed any, we will stop one more time before getting to Columbus for a month's stay until mid May when campgrounds open up near our condo in Vermilion. Did we tell you all that we are officially full-timer RVers? We rented out our condo to dear friends and they have since moved in while we were gone. So, we need to get back to the condo and move our 'stuff' out of their way and store it. Becomming full-time was not in our plans when we left last winter, but we are glad that we can help our friends get back to the Cleveland area and nearer their family, AND, we get to really LIVE OUR DREAM of full-time Rvers. If you ever see a big white Ford Truck with a Designer 5th wheel RV attached to the truck going down the road and you notice the graphic on the back of the RV with a turtle walking along the road to the mountains, and the license plate on the RV that says TURTLNG, you know it's us and wave and honk your horn at us as you go by!

Lane Motor Museum

We got the brakes fixed on the trailer, finally. Spare is here and secure under the belly of the RV, and basically we can move now. However, weather again is playing a factor in us moving - today we are supposed to have severe thunderstorms all day, so we sit. Tomorrow we head out again towards Cincinnati. We were bored yesterday so we headed into Nashville to see a museum most people don't know about - the Lane Motor Museum - which said it was a collectors museum of different foreign cars and vehicles. We have been to Nashville a couple of times, we weren't excited about going to see the Grand Ole Opry again, or visiting the music places in Nashville. The Lane Motor Museum is a collection of cars that Jeff Lane, or his family, owned and then he purchased or had people donate their vehicles. Jeff grouped the cars by nation in the building, very effective. Dave got so excited because he saw a Fiat 500, in the picture above - the white one - like the one he paid $125 for when he was in college. Drove it for a year and sold it for $125. He loved this little car. And they still make the Fiat 500 today. This little car has been manufactured by Italy since 1936 but Fiat has been a producer of cars since 1899. A car that wowed me was the King Midget microcar (right) that was made in Ohio in the 1940's. It was purchased from a circus (used as a clown car) and a partner found the boat and then donated it also to the museum. This Jeff Lane had to have lots of money - at age 12 his father gave him an MG TF 1954 but - it was in pieces in the back of his father's pick up truck and had to restore it which took him 2 years. He later took his driver's license test in it. The MGs seemed to be an obsession of the family - many were on display of what the family owned. As a college present Jeff purchased a brand new Porsche for himself and this really started his obsession with cars and began the next 30 years of collecting. Out back in the yard was a US Army LARC, the largest vehicle ever to ply the roads - stood over 20 feet tall. We watched the video on how they got this thing to the museum, scraping bridges, having to take down telephone and electrical wires before it passed under. It's huge! Afterward Dave and I remarked that we didn't see any Carmen Ghias, Austin Healy's, Triamphs, and no Chinese cars and no Toyotas. Jeff Lane got Paul Newman to donate his Nissan 300ZX that he raced, to the museum. The museum was neat to see, the lighting in the building was not that great, but quite a collection. The museum has only been open at this location for 4 years, it renovated the Sunbeam Bread Company building (no, we did not smell yeast!).

Dodged Tornado

Yesterday, as we sat waiting patiently for Tuesday to come to get brakes fixed and to get a new tire, we knew we were going to be in bad weather. Predictions for tornados, heavy rain, high winds for the afternoon through early evening were right on the money. We are right in the middle of Tornado Alley and since we grew up in Ohio where tornadoes are a common nusance in the spring, we were versed on what to do if one came by - but not versed on what to do in our RV. The owner of the campground came by and asked if we knew where we were? huh? and that there is a tornado warning out. We said, yes - we follow the weather closely on our Itouch and track by their interactive maps of storms. Dave even showed the owner what he was talking about - suggested the owner tell people when they come into their camp - to give them a link to the weather channel, or give them a map of where exactly they are when warnings are posted. As they were talking, the sky just to the south of us began to turn green (a true sign of really bad weather and tornado) and the wind and rain ceased (another sign). I didn't hear the train (another sign which is a loud roaring noise). Dave and I talked about where was the best place to be if a tornado came through since a.) we were in a box and that could be rolled over since it's light b). you are supposed to go to plumbing (bathroom/showers or basement) and that was too far away, and c). what would we grab and take. Within 2 minutes the weather outside was rapidly declining. I quickly grabbed my purse with the checkbooks in it and passports and emergency numbers, Dave put the cats in their travel boxes and zipped them in and we got into the truck. The truck is heavier than the RV, it has tempered glass so if something did hit it or we rolled, the glass wouldn't shatter, and/or we could zoom out of there quickly if we had to. We ran into the truck with the cats and just waited. Sat for about 1/2 hour, the storm went by us and thankfully no twister right here. The cats were petrified and didn't say a word while in the box and they didn't even argue when we put them in - they knew something was up. However, when we got back into the RV, the cats sure filled up their poop box - literaly scared the poop out of them. We had lots of rain and thunder until 11pm last night. This morning I ran into town to get some groceries and there are many trees uprooted, power companies stringing lines, lots of flooding. Just glad we were not hurt. Another lesson for us - preparedness.

Blown Tire on Interstate 40

Yesterday we traveled from Memphis, Tn to Nashville TN - but not a normal travel day. We had just passed through Jackson and was heading up into a rise on Interstate 40, an 18 wheeler passing on our left and bam! I told Dave something happened, we both scanned the mirrors to the back - saw nothing. The warning signal came on to say the trailer was disconnected from the truck - a warning we had experienced in another trip when the harness had failed on the truck. We continued on I 40 - buzzing about 62 miles an hour and an SUV pulled up beside us, slowed down, rolled down the window and said our tires were on fire! Holy smokes! Dave immediately pulled over, I handed him the fire extinguisher we keep in the glove compartment, and he headed out to see. Yes, the tires were smoking, he couldn't really tell which one - on the driver side of the trailer - and there was no fire. We stayed sitting on the side of I 40 (dangerous) and then he decided we had to get off the freeway. Another mile up the road was an exit, Dave road with the flashers on, and riding along the berm, until we got off the interstate. I called for roadside assistance - a plan we have - and after some phone calls - got someone to come change the tire. We asked that they bring another tire since our spare would have to be used and we don't want to be without a spare. When the service showed up - nope, he didn't bring a tire. Okay, just change it and we'll take the chance that another won't blow. The guy had a tough time getting the blown shredded tire off the wheel, it had ripped off and spun around the tire. He said that happens all the time. And, the ripped tire cut or severed the electrical brake line and he couldn't fix that. So, no brakes on trailer, no spare - we took a chance to get to a campground to get off the road and get things fixed in the next couple of days.

After two hour delay, no spare tire now, we got back on the road. Signs said - rough road next 9 miles - and we cringed. Oh no. But, we made it to Nashville, just east. And we are safe and no one was hurt. Except me - when Dave pulled off the interstate and parked along the ramp of the exit, he was so close to the side and there was a ditch. We needed to use the potty and we took turns going into the RV and I managed to slip off the steps and my butt hit the steps of the RV and I slid all the way down into the culvert. Ouch. I am so black and blue today! And sore.

Tuesday we wait for an RV repair service to come by to fix the brakes, and to get us another tire for spare. We learned alot of lessons with this incident. We had our paperwork handy, but I didn't have the tire size written down, that's corrected now. We have to be very very specific and demanding for what our roadsize service can do - I insisted that they bring a spare tire - and the guy didn't have one. We should have said - please go get us one befroe we are done here, and we didn't. So - now that we released the service after changing the spare and not insisting on getting us a spare, the cost for the spare is our burden. The brake costs - we will pay for this and the roadside will have to reimburse us. And - we survived a blow out. This is something we were dreading and now that we lived through it and survived, we will be better prepared. And last - we said we wanted to get new tires this June before we head out west in July - well, we just stepped up our plans for new tires a couple of months. cha-ching!

Chip and Grace in the truck

We delayed moving from Memphis towards Cleveland until yesterday, Sunday April 3rd. We make it a point to not travel on rainy days, or windy days. Yesterday was our window of best weather to go east towards Nashville and then head north towards Cincinnati. We are only 500 miles from home - but we can't travel more than 200 miles a day with the cats. Chip gets pretty upset and if we are longer than his 5 hours of acceptance in the crate, he begins to get sick. Not barf, just upset, crazy meowing, a real headache pain to us. And by the time we get him into the RV once we set up, he usually has diahrea for a day, doesn't eat much, his nerves are shot. Grace? She is a trooper and if she thinks I have forgotten she's in her cage in the back seat, we will hear her little high meow and she's staring right at me. I'll talk to her to sit down, be quiet and she does. Chip on the other hand will talk back to me, meowing louder, and start scratching at the mesh even though he has no nails. We have tried relaxers from the vet to calm him - which makes him more crazy and wired. Nix on that in the future. He is an older cat so we are very sensitive to him and try to make our travel day as short as possible. Once we have the RV opened up, Dave brings in Chip first and I immediately release him out. Then Grace follows. Chip heads for the poop box in the bedroom, Grace heads for the windows to look out. Then they both grab something to munch on, then begin to relax as Dave continues hooking up the water and electric. I am inside setting the RV up, bringing everything back out, opening up windows, etc. Dave's and my travel days is typically 1 1/2 hours before we actually leave the camp site, disconnect water/electric/sewer, plus travel time, then 1 1/2 hours once we are at the site to set the RV up and clean the outside from bugs and gunk. The cats time traveling is 1/2 hour before we actually leave the camp site - we put them in their crates and into the truck before we close the slides on the RV. Then actual travel time in the truck, and once at campsite another 1/2 hour before slides are back open and cats are inside RV. So in all they are usually in the crates in the truck for 5 hours. Dave is typically exhausted by the time he comes in - takes a shower and relaxes. If we traveled any longer on the road, the day becomes unbearable as it did yesterday. A separate blog will explain why we were 'on the road' for 8 hours.