Category: Uncategorized

As we get settled into our apartment we need all our energy focused on that. But we still need to eat. And I prefer to do that within the parameters of my new way of eating as much as possible. One solution is breakfast sundaes like this:

Except they aren’t quite as decadent as that sounds. Or looks.

Here’s one version as ingredients then in the bowl:

 

Here’s even more detail of another one:

 

For those of you who really want the details it is 1 cup of 1% cottage cheese, 1/2 to 1 cup fruits of your choice, and 2 Tablespoons chopped nuts. I prefer walnuts but sometimes use slivered almonds or pecans.

All that for 7 points plus in case you are tracking those.

Yummy.

TTYL,

Linda

 

When we decided to live fulltime in an RV we sold almost everything we owned. Since RVs come fully furnished we had no need of that houseful of furniture so it all went to various new homes.

I did keep my favorite lamps, though, as they are not making that type anymore. Mine have no switch per se. Each lamp base is the switch. You just touch any metal part of the lamp to turn it on. And it has three levels of brightness from just a standard light bulb. Touch once you get dim, again to get brighter, and again to get brightest. One final touch will turn it off. I love these lamps. When I am sleepy I don’t have to struggle to find a switch, just touch the lamp and be done.

As RVers we bought a camp chair (we already owned one), a bar stool, and a TV tray but no other furniture.

So they day we got access to our apartment our living room looked like this:

Two camp chairs, a TV tray, and a lamp with no shade. Not what you’d call fancy.

But this was the view from those chairs that evening:

 

I think we are going to like this location.

TTYL,

Linda

In Palmer, Texas, just south of Dallas, I saw a multiplex drive-in theater. Yup. Five screens in a circle. Just like at a walk-in theater you pick your movie then point that direction. What will they think of next?

The billboard for Sonic drive-in restaurant said, “We built it. Now come.”

I-35 in Oklahoma has scenic turnouts. Who woulda thought?

A Cracker Barrel billboard said, “Relax. Unwind,” with a picture of a Slinky. The child in me cried, “No! When you unwind a Slinky you kill it!” Guess how I know that.

A Maine license plate on a truck said, “semi-permanent.” It wasn’t a semi-truck so that couldn’t have been what it meant. So was it “semi” or “permanent”? How could it be both?

It’s different traveling in a car instead of an RV. Now we can stop anywhere for lunch; it doesn’t have to have pull-though truck-sized parking spots. We can pull into any gas station without worrying about if we will have to unhitch to get back out. We can take side roads without worrying about low or narrow clearances. The road doesn’t have to be seven lanes wide for us to make a u-turn. But we can’t stop just anywhere for a potty break; we have to find public toilets. Ones we’d be willing to use. And I still see every Blue Beacon Truck & RV Wash along our route. I wonder how long that will continue?

And motels. I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to stay in motels. We mostly stayed in Comfort Inns on our trip because they were well spaced for our planned stops and we could get rooms with refrigerators to store all the meat we cooked before we left to snack on during the trip. And we could get rooms with desks and sofas where we could sit during the evenings to do our computer stuff. And they serve a hot breakfast in the morning.

But, there was one Comfort Inn we will not be returning to. The one on 14th Street in Des Moines. They would not honor their website price. They advertised a sofa but actually provided a chair and ottoman that was very uncomfortable; in fact it tried to dump me out of it. And the toilet ran off and on all night. We’ll choose somewhere else next time we pass that way.

But, we are home. We are settled into the Extended Stay America where we lived for a month a dozen years ago while the builder finished the house we sold when we decided to hit the road. And we’re slowly getting moved into our apartment. More about that later.

TTYL,

Linda

It took us two days to sort and pack the things we had left in our RV. As I suspected we still had more than would fit in our car so we sent a couple boxes up north under the care of UPS. It’s good to have friends there willing to do favors like receiving these boxes on our behalf for us. Thanks Tom & Nancy.

Speaking of friends, Jerry & Janice stopped by to see us just as we were finishing. Their timing could not have been better. I had just emptied the frig and had a whole bag of condiments we couldn’t take with us. I was feeling terrible about the need to throw away perfectly good food when our friends arrived to save us from that terrible dilemma. Now our condiments will get to keep traveling in their RV.

But the unpacking of our RV is done and PPL Motor Homes in Houston, Texas, is now in charge of selling it. They said it will take a couple days to get it listed on their website then you can go check it out. It will be unit D135 at http://www.pplmotorhomes.com/. (Don’t believe everything you read there. They listed it as having manual levelers; they’re automatic not manual! I’m trying to get that fixed but they are not responding to my emails or phone calls.)

We are now in a motel and we are exhausted both physically and emotionally. In the morning we will sort what’s left here so we can better pack our car then head home. It’s been a good journey and I’ve been glad to have you riding along with us. Thanks for coming.

TTYL,

Linda

There were freeze warnings last night so Dave did a dump and fill then brought in the hose and we ran off our fresh water tank last night.  And dressed in long sleeve shirts this morning before heading south. You guessed it. First I took off my zippered sweat shirt. Then I yanked up the sleeves on my polo shirt. At lunch time I considered changing to a t-shirt but I would have had to open a slide to get to them. So, I decided to just enjoy being warm for a change.

We passed a couple of yard sales. Anyone want to buy a yard? Maybe if it was fabric? Also known as yard goods? Anyone ever heard of yard bads?

In far eastern OK traveling south on US 259 through the Ouichita National Forest I saw the A to Z Guest Ranch, Equestrian resort, followed by the J & D Horse Camp. Both had travel trailer symbols indicating you could camp there. Bet I can guess which would be the more expensive one.

Backwoods Cafe, one of those hole-in-the-wall gas station places not far north of where US 259 crosses I-30, makes wonderful hamburgers and sells sliced meat and cheese by the pound. If we weren’t trying to empty our frig I think we’d have left there with at least some smoked ham. They are not a big place but our rig fit just fine between their two driveways and that’s all we needed.

I saw a billboard that asked, “Would you like to leave a message?” Does that strike anyone besides me as an invitation to mark that sign with graffiti?

“Christmas parade, Monday December 12th”  apparently Lone Star, Texas, wants to give you plenty of notice so you don’t miss it. The town is so small the locals couldn’t possible miss it so they must be hoping travelers will come back for it. Small town parades can be a lot of fun but, honestly, how far would you drive to attend one?

PPL, the RV consignment place where we are taking our RV to sell it, has a list of paperwork you must bring with the rig. Among that list is a Texas safety inspection and a VIN verification. If Texas was our domicile we would have had to do that inspection every year that we entered Texas. But because South Dakota is our domicile we’d never done one so had no idea what to expect. Dave picked a place in Longview, Texas, which would be the first big town we would enter. They said we didn’t need an appointment but to get there at least 15 minutes before closing. We got there more than an hour before closing. But they only had one DOT inspector on duty and he was doing a rush job on another vehicle. No problem. We’re not on anyone’s time clock so we can wait. Wow! Did they ever check out our RV. They had a list of things that included seat belts! And the VIN verification paper is called a green sheet because it used to be green. 🙂 So we now have those papers for PPL when we get there next week. 

In the meantime we’ll head on to the SKP park in Livingston, Texas, for the weekend where we’ll do one last cleaning of the rig and start figuring out how to get the rest of the stuff still in the RV into our car. I wonder if we’ll have to ship some stuff home? If so, where will we ship it since we won’t actually have a home for the next week? Another of life’s little challenges.

TTYL,

Linda