Folks, We are still alive!!!

Yes, everyone, we are still alive.  Will try to catch you up on this blog in a short summary.

We left Iowa on Septemeber 27th and ended up in Branson, MO on September 29th after a one night stop in Sedalia, MO.  Spent five nights at Branson and saw three shows.  We're cheapskates so the shows were not named stars, just little tributes.  However, they were very good and we enjoyed them very much.  We saw "Tribute to Marty Robbins", "Tribute to John Denver", and "Tribute to Hank Williams, Sr.".  Bob liked the last one best and I liked the first one best.  We never like the same thing. The only pictures we took were of some of the shows so  won't bore you with them.  While there, Bob noticed that we had a tire on the RV wearing significantly.  This alarmed him but he decided we could make it on to our next stop, Dumas, AR.  While traveling he stopped and checked the tire several times and said that he thought it would be fine.  During this leg of our trip we came thru the Ozark Mountains and realized how beautiful they really were.  I got a couple of good pictures which I will try to post at a later time.
Can't seem to locate them today.

We made it to Dumas where we spent 3 nights on the Arkansas River.  For those of you who have followed us from the beginning, you may remember that we stayed there a week (without cell phone service) on our journey up to Iowa.  Nice little campground but no sewer hookup.  After checking the tire again, Bob was confident that we should be all right to go all the way in to Tuscaloosa, Al before dealing with tires.  So, on Thursday, October 6th, we left Arkansas for Jackson, MS to spend some time with our youngest son.  We had a great visit with him and I have a couple of pictures from there that were taken when we met the parents of his deceased significant other for lunch.

Then, on Sunday, October 9th, we left Jackson completely confident that our tire would be O.K.  Well guesswhat!  It wasn't.  About 50 miles west of Tuscaloosa on I-20 there was a loud explosion and we had suffered a blow out.  Had to pull off and call AAA and consequently were delayed until after dark getting in to Deerlick Creek campground and into our campsite.  If any of you have ever been there, then you know what that must have been like.  Not fun!!  Besides the delay, we suffered damage to our RV.  I have pictures and have posted them below.

Since arriving in Tuscaloosa, it has been one doctor's appointment after another.  We have had two free days since arriving - Monday, Oct. 10th and Wednesday, Oct.19th.  Believe me we needed those to catch up at home and rest a little.  Of course, you have to combine all these doctor's appointments with rig repairs.  We had the truck in the shop one day to repair a power steering leak and the RV was in the alignment shop another day.  We didn't want to buy tires until we knew all the alignment, etc, was in good condition.  And, then we had to have tires put on the RV.  They had to be ordered so we spent one night in the Tire store parking lot.  But all worked out and we now have 4 new tires on the fifth wheel.  Hope we're good to go.

We were supposed to have left T-town yesterday but when Bob saw Dr. Hill, his cardiologist, on Thursday he put a kink in things.  We were just lucky that the campground had had some cancellations that morning and we were able to extend our stay two more nights.  This is football game weekend.  Dr. Hill is not crazy about what we are doing and I think he thinks we're crazy for doing this.  Back in March before we left, he cautioned us to stay out of rural areas and stay near big cities.  So, Thursday, when Bob saw him, he decided he needed to do a further test.  Luckily, we were able to get it scheduled Friday morning about 8:00 AM.  We were there all morning for a nuclear stress test.  And, we won't get the complete results until sometime next week.  However, the Nurse Practitioner called us Friday afternoon with a preliminary report that nothing had changed since they had performed this same test two years ago.  Everything still looked the same.  She said her "guess" was that he would order nothing further.  So, we're banking that is what will happen and we will be leaving tomorrow for KY.  We need to get the tire blow out damage to our RV fixed before we start to work for Amazon.com on Nov. 6th.  No one in the Tuscaloosa area could get this done in our time frame.  But, in Kentucky they can.  Don't really understand the difference but the shop in Kentucky is getting the work.  If we have misguessed Dr. Hill, then we'll deal with that at that time.  After all, God is in charge, not us.  And when I refer to luck, I really mean God.

And here are some pictures:



Front lower panel missing between wheel well and steps.



Part of Mor/ryde fender skirt missng along with scratched up remaining part.



More of the Mor/ryde fender showing scratches and screws missing to hold it on.  Bob is putting some temporary screws in until we can get to KY to hold it in place.



Undercover torn and inslation hanging out.



Undercover torn with insulation hanging out.

 

Back of hotel at entrance to Adventureland Campground along with the lake.
Look closely and you can see the ducks and geese.  Had lots of them.




Campground Office as you approach the campground.



Casino across from the campground as shown from the entance to the campground.



Bob and I with Sonny and Cloma Magnum.  This is a real neat place in Mendenhall, MS to have lunch.



Keih and Bob with Sonny and Cloma.  We really had a good time here.

 And so that's it for this post.  I know I keep promising to post more often but hopefully will now.

Regards, Judy & Bob