Final Days @ Rainbow's End

Connie and I are finally winning the war with the webworms. There are still a few trying to crawl up the motorhome, but most of them are either spinning a cocoon or going another direction. I guess the Sevin dust did some good once we put in around The Duchess. We are still taking it slow and easy here in Livingston while Connie continues her recovery. I have been able to walk and bike ride most days while Connie has walked at least twice each day this week.

Today (Thursday), we got the motor home weighed. The Duchess came in at a grand total of 36,630 pounds with a full load of water, propane and diesel fuel. The Duchess is rated to handle up to 44,000 pounds so we are well under the maximum weight for our rig. The SmartWeigh program here at the Escapee's Park uses scales to weigh each tire or tire set along each axle. We have three axles on The Duchess so we have three sets of numbers to deal with.It is possible to be under your maximum weight on the RV while being over weight on one of the axles. The Duchess came in under weight on all of the axles. We will need to make some adjustments in the tire pressures to correlate with our axle weights, but everything else is OK on The Duchess. We could actually add some additional weight in our storage areas and still be under the load limits for our rig.

This is where they do the weighing. Both Connie and I
had to remain inside the RV to get the proper amounts of
weight on each axle.

We went into Livingston to have lunch at Florida's Restaurant which is a local place that specializes in BBQ. The have made the list of several top BBQ restaurants in Texas over the years and we were not disappointed in the "lunch specials" that we ordered. There was lots of BBQ and it was delicious. After a walk around the Polk County Courthouse square to visit a few of the local shops, we did some groceries shopping at HEB before returning to The Duchess.

We are leaving this campground tomorrow and headed to Galveston. The campground in Galveston had an opening for Friday night and we took advantage of it. We have enjoyed our stay in Livingston, but it is time to move on. Our home does have wheels, you know.

One of the campers here is bringing their garden along with them.

Fighting "Webworms" at Rainbow's End

Saturday:

This morning Connie and I got up and went to the Pancake Breakfast that was served at the Care Center. While we were there we met a nice couple who have been full timing since 2005. They are now in a Montana Big Horn 5th wheel trailer which is the 3rd 5th wheel they have been in since they started. They travel with two labs who are 9 years old (brother and sister). It was raining again this morning, so another morning inside The Duchess. The sun came out in the afternoon and I was able to get a walk in while Connie took a nap. Connie has figured out if she lays down for a while each morning and each afternoon to take the pressure off of her back that happens when she is sitting or standing, she feels better throughout the day.

Sunday:

Although it didn't rain today, it was overcast and looked like it was going to pour at any moment. We discovered that webworms were attacking The Duchess. They were climbing up the rear back splash along with going up the plastic covers we have on the wheels. There must of been hundreds of them, because they were everywhere we looked. We tried spraying them with a solution of Dawn dishwashing detergent mixed with alcohol and vinegar (we got this idea from a neighbor). It didn't work, so we tried a mixture of alcohol, vinegar and bleach. It did a little better, but still didn't kill most of them. We ended up having to sweep the caterpillars off of the motor home and then stomp on them to kill them. There is no telling how much we killed, but at least it burned up a few calories. As it got closer to sundown, we decided to quit for the day.

Monday

Early this morning (around 2 AM) we awoke to the sounds of heavy rain and light hail here at the campground. The electricity went off a few minutes later, so all of the campers here were "in the dark". The hail stopped after a few minutes and no damage was done to the motor home or the Jeep. Our electricity stayed off until 8:00 AM when it flickered a couple of times and then finally stayed on. Connie and I both had a long night with little sleep. We went for a walk before breakfast and ran into the couple we had met at the Pancake Breakfast along with their labs. They told us that the weather radio they were listening to during the storm was telling everyone to take cover since there was tornadoes in the Livingston area. They left their RV and took cover in the Care Center. We have a weather radio, but did not even think about getting it out to listen to the reports. Hopefully we will remember the have it handy during the next storm we experience.

We went over to Cleveland Texas to do some shopping today. We went to Walmart to pick up a few items along with a quick visit to CVS Pharmacy. At lunch Connie asked the couple sitting next to us (His shirt said Performance Trucking on it) where we could find some metal tire valve extenders in Cleveland. He said his company handled them and called to make sure they had some in stock. They did and we ended up going by his truck center on the way home. We also did some grocery shopping at the HEB in Cleveland. We noticed on the trip over and back that there were several large trees that had been blown over around Livingston including one that was still hanging on some electric lines that crossed over the road. So we were lucky here at the campground that there was very little damage (mostly limbs blown off trees).

When we got back from Cleveland, we started killing webworms again. We tried putting some Sevin dust around The Duchess and it did seem to slow them down a bit. But it was mainly back to knocking them off and stomping them dead. I am surprised that more of the worms/caterpillars are not being eaten by the local birds. Maybe they don't taste good to the birds and that is a defense mechanism for them.

We didn't know when we arrived here that there are webworms at the end of the rainbow.

Rainy Day @ Rainbow's End

Wednesday:

We took it easy today: Connie and I took an early walk, I was able to do a modified yoga workout (with the top of The Duchess being just under 7 feet tall I have to modify anything over my head) and later in the day I went bike riding for about 45 minutes. Connie is still not able to ride her bike, so I was off on my own. There are several county roads around the park that are paved for several miles along with some other roads that are not paved. I spent the time on my bike exploring around the campground: It is a mixture of nice houses along with single wide & double wide trailers all located on several acre lots. Some of the lots are big enough to have one or two horses on them. The weather has turned warmer here with afternoon highs near 90.

Thursday:

I was up early and did my yoga routine again this morning. After a short walk and breakfast, Connie and I went into town to do some shopping. We found out that the Walmart store here in Livingston had closed this past Monday, so all of the other shops in the town are quite busy. It is very unusual for a Walmart to close (without another newer one opening up close by) and we heard several different explanations of why it closed. Since Lake Livingston is located here along with several RV campgrounds, you would have thought that the Walmart would have stayed busy year round. After we got back to the park, Connie took a nap while I went for a long walk. We played a few hands of gin rummy outside before starting our evening meal. For dinner we used our NuWave oven to cook some lamb steaks Connie had marinated and frozen several days ago. The NuWave did an excellent job of cooking the frozen lamb while keeping it juicy. We set it up outside on the picnic table next to The Duchess and kept the heat out of the RV. We decided to bring along both the NuWave oven and the NuWave induction cooktop and it looks like that will be a good decision on our part.

NuWave Induction Cooker

NuWave Oven

Friday:

Connie and I went to the Care Center here at the park for The Big Breakfast this morning. We were able to meet several other people who are here camping here at Rainbow's End Park. One couple mentioned that they seen us on RVillage and from there they had seen our blog. They talked with us about their plans to take their truck/5th wheel to Alaska next year. They have been full-timing for several years and have visited 37 states and a number of the national parks. The wife had back surgery about 12 years ago, so Connie and her discussed their surgeries and recoveries. Another gentleman told us that he had made the trip to Alaska in his truck/5th wheel several years ago and gave them the pros/cons of doing this in an RV. He also gave me his rule of 2's: travel only 200 miles (or less) per day - stop by 2:00 PM - plan to stay for 2 weeks. He said in his first year of full-timing, he and his wife had traveled over 30,000 miles and he could not remember any of the places that they visited. So he learned to slow down and enjoy each spot rather than making it a race to see how many places they could visit in a year.

By the time we had finished breakfast and visiting with other RVer's, the rain had started here in Livingston. It looks like it will rain most of the day, so we will be spending the day inside The Duchess. Gave me time to post on the blog again this morning.

Escapee Rainbow's End Park

Connie and I have settled in here at the Rainbow's End Park. This is one of the parks in the Escapees system (it is the first one the group started with and is where their headquarters is located). We became Escapees members last fall when they were running a special on their membership dues. We had been to this park several years ago when we attended a RV Boot Camp  put on by the Escapees group after we had purchased our first RV, a Jayco 5th wheel.

There are about 200 sites in this campground along with a number of lots which individuals have purchased from the Escapees. On these lots are: (1) some with houses only (2) some with houses and RV storage garages/buildings and (3) some with RV storage garage/building with sheds.

House with RV storage site + sheds

RV storage building with sheds

Small "house" with RV storage

There is also several other community buildings with-in the campground.

Club House (this is where Connie and I took our RV Boot Camp classes)

Activity Center

There are a couple of special buildings located on this site. The Escapees run one of the largest mail services in the country. Full time RVer's that want to make Texas their "domicile" can use the Escapees mail service to create a physical address here in Texas along with have their mail forwarded to them while on the road. We were told that their sorting equipment had broken down three weeks ago and they were hand sorted all of the mail (going old school). The replacement parts had arrived but had not been installed as of today, so everyone is experiencing some delays in mail service.

Mail Service building

There is also a Care Center located here on site. At this building, Escapees members can receive medical care (such as cancer treatments) while still living in their RV.

Connie continues to recover from her back surgery: some days are better than others. We have tried to walk 2-3 times a day for about 25-30 minutes at a time. I have also been able to ride my bicycle the last two days. It has been several months since I have been on the bike, so I have to get my behind back in shape before I can spent much time on the bike.

I met several couples here in the park: Gary/Terri who have been full timing for 16 years and R. T./Sally Hall who have been full timing for 9 years. R. T. Hall is a songwriter/singer who is traveling around the country work-camping and doing performances.

R. T. Hall

Rainbow's End Park

Monday:

Today was a travel day for us (the first one out of Central Texas). We completed all of the departure check-list, disconnected from our hook-ups and left Rosanky around 11:00 AM. We traveled the 200 miles to Rainbow's End Park which is located outside of Livingston Texas. Connie spent most of the trip "learning" how to use the Garmin RV GPS that we had been given as a retirement gift from the group of surgeons that I worked for before my retirement. Previously we had used a TomTom GPS  and of course everything is different with the Garmin. The trip took about 4 hours and we arrived at the campground at 3:00 PM. The Duchess handled the trip well and was much easier to drive than the Kountry Star we had before. The diesel engine in the rear is much quieter and the Comfort Drive System that Newmar uses makes The Duchess a joy to drive down the road. As I always tell Connie, just remember you are big and slow.

We checked into the campground and were assigned to Site 122. It is a back-end site near the edge of the campground closest to the highway. With Connie's assistance I was able to back it to the site on the first attempt (our first time backing a motorhome this large) and we got set up
.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that everything Connie had attached to The Duchess had remained in place during the trip.

Magnetic Knife Holder (Connie put up a catch bag just in case)

Our one painting inside The Duchess

The floral arrangement in the window shield attached with velcro

Once we had finished with the hookups, put the jacks down and extended the slides, we decided to go into Livingston for dinner and to pick up some groceries. We ate at a small bar/restaurant in downtown Livingston called the Blue Duck (from the Lonesome Dove books). Connie and I shared an order of fried catfish and fried chicken. After finishing our dinner, we went to the local HEB to shop. It is the smallest HEB either of us have ever been in, but we were able to get the items on our list. We returned back to the Duchess, took our evening walk through the campground, and then settled in for the evening. I spent about an hour on the phone with Direct TV to figure out why we got about 80% of the HD channels but not the other 20%. After going through a couple of people at Direct TV, I finally was able to talk to someone who knew about motorhomes and their issues. He determined that we were missing something called a "B Band" cable that is attached to the satellite cable and then to the receiver. Direct TV will ship this to us here in Livingston in a couple of days.

We opened up the second bottle of wine from the three we received at our Bon Voyage party, watched a little bit of TV before calling it a night. It always seems like a long day when you have to put everything up for departure and then get everything back out upon arrival.

Final Days in Rosanky

Sunday:

Quiet day here in Rosanky. Connie spent most of the day resting while I spent the afternoon watching The Masters golf tournament. It was great to see Jordan Spieth win the title at such a young age (2nd youngest winner ever of The Masters).

Monday:

Early this morning we had a severe thunderstorm that knocked out the power here in Rosanky. It also fried our Progressive surge protector which probably saved a lot of electrical issues from the storm in the motorhome. We ran the generator a couple of hours to keep the batteries charged up, turn the refrigerator over to propane and tried to conserve as much battery life as we could. Connie when into Bastrop and did some shopping while I stayed here to wait on the electric company to come and restore the power. Around 2:00 PM in the afternoon, the electric company showed up and asked if they could take their truck down to the corner of the field that is fenced off for the cattle on the place. I told the technician that it was very wet in the field, but he was welcome to try it. He got his truck stuck in the mud after travelling a few hundred feet into the field. He was able to get the power back on and then had to wait on a larger truck with a hitch/witch to pull his truck out of the mud. After about an hour the larger truck showed up and took another hour to get his truck out of the mud. I called Progressive since they have a lifetime guaranty on their surge protectors. The process is that I mail them the old one and they will send me a replacement, so we will do this later in the week.

Tuesday:

When we got up this morning, I tried to start The Duchess and the motor would not start. Nothing, not even a clicking noise. We tried several different solutions, but nothing worked. So I spent the rest of the morning trying to find someone to come look at the problem. The earliest anyone could come would be on Friday, so I schedule a time for the repairman to come on that day. The joys of owning a motorhome. I spent the afternoon clearing more limbs along the lane that leads into the property so that the motorhome will not have to deal with trees on the way out.

Wednesday:

Connie took another trip into Austin today to see Katie, her acupuncturist and yoga teacher, while I spent some more time working on The Duchess. That afternoon I got The Duchess to start 5 times in a row, so I called an cancelled the Friday scheduled appointment with the repair person.

Thursday:

Connie and I had an appointment in Waco Texas with the attorney's office who representing her in a lawsuit from a car accident that occurred two years ago. We had to meet with one of the paralegals and go over the responses to the discovery process of the lawsuit. After meeting with the paralegal and completing as much of the discovery questions as we could, we went to lunch at the Kitok's Restaurant in Waco. It is a Vietnamese restaurant: Connie had a Vietnamese dish while I had the cheeseburger and oriental fries.  The fries are made with potatoes, carrots and parsley and have an interesting flavor. On the way back from Waco, the sun was out and we drove back with the top down in Connie's convertible. It was a long day, but something that had to get done before we leave Central Texas. There are still a few items that we will have to scan and e-mail to the attorney's office before we leave Rosanky. We received 2.5 inches of rain in Rosanky after we got home from Waco. Another storming night and everything is soaked here at the ranch.

Friday:

Got up this morning and tried to start The Duchess. Back to the "nothing, not even a clicking noise". Tried a couple of things and decided to call a different company to see if they could get to us that day. I was lucky and they were able to send someone out that morning. The technician got here around 10 AM and spent around two hours going over all of the electrical connections from the ignition switch to the starter. It ended up being the ignition switch that was the problem (or the main part of the problem - there were a couple of other issues he fixed along the way). A bad connection on the ignition switch was repaired and The Duchess started up 10-12 times in a row.

Connie catching a few rays in her convertible

Connie went into Austin to sell her convertible to CarMax. We had listed the car for sale through Craigslist with a couple of responses but little interest. We have been so busy that we did not spent as much time as we should have keeping the Craigslist ad at the top of the page. I sure we would have gotten more for the car than CarMax offered us, but at least we have gotten the last item off of our to do list before leaving Rosanky. I left Rosanky for an meeting with my former employer with whom I am still doing some consulting work. Connie visited some friends of her mom & dad that afternoon while I had my meeting. We then met Heidi/Brooks and Rhonda/Russ at BJ's Restaurant in Cedar Park for dinner. After another nice visit with everyone, Connie and I went back by CarMax to complete the sale (they are open till 9 PM Mon-Sat). It was pouring down rain while we made the drive to CarMax. It took about 30 minutes to complete the sale, get everything out of the car and receive a check from CarMax for the vehicle. Connie has had a convertible for the last several years and we will miss having one. We thought about taking the convertible as our tow car, but we would have had to use a dolly, modify the transmission and deal with the fact the car sits low to the ground. So we ended up with a Jeep Liberty instead.

Saturday:

The Duchess started again this morning (YEA!!). We went through all of the items from Connie's car to see what we needed to keep and what we needed to throw out. We had seen a billboard with an ad about a distillery in Smithville Texas (about 12 miles from Rosanky). Connie called Heidi/Brooks to see if they wanted to meet us in Smithville and visited the distillery. They said OK and we decided to meet them for lunch and then on the distillery. We had a brief visit with my son, Greg and grandson, Rhys (Greg is living in Smithville and Rhys was visiting him for the week-end) before meeting Heidi/Brooks for lunch at the Pockets Grill in Smithville.

Distillery Room

One of the owners giving us a taste

After lunch we travelled to Bone Spirits  Distillery located along the railroad tracks. After going up the stairs to the tasting room, we met with one of the owners who gave a taste of the vodka, gin, moonshine and whiskey they are distilling at this location. Everyone (including me who usually does not like distilled products) liked all of the tastings. Connie and I decided to buy a couple of bottles of the vodka, while Heidi/Brooks bought one bottle of the vodka, one of the gin and one of the whiskey. We had a nice visit with the owner who told us about their process: they use corn to make all of their products and the corn is all grown on farms located in Central Texas (they only use non-GMO corn in their products). They have been open since 2010 and are coming out with a bourbon later this year. He told us their products are starting to be sold in a number of outlets throughout Texas. From the visit to Bone Spirits, everyone came back to Rosanky so that Heidi/Brooks could see The Duchess. After a short visit, all of decided to "crash" (Heidi/Brooks had been invited but we had not) a friend's birthday party/crawfish bake in Fayetteville Texas which is about 45 minutes from Rosanky. The party was great and the hosts were happy we came. Lisa (the birthday girl) is from Louisiana and her husband Phil gave her a the party along with live Cajun music as a gift. Lisa & Phil have a ranch with around 100 acres on which they raise Longhorn cattle and a couple of horses.

Brooks "Hook 'em Horns"

They have been living on the place for about 3 years and have made a lot of improvements and have a 20 year plan for additional improvements. We came back to The Duchess around dark, took our showers and went on to bed. It was a long day but we enjoyed spending time with Heidi/Brooks along with getting to go to a party. None of this was planned when the day started, so it was an unexpected pleasure.

Sunday:

Our plans for the next few months are:

April 20th - Leave Rosanky and travel to the Rainbow Park (an Escapees park) near Livingson Texas. We plan on being there until May 2nd and have an appointment to get The Duchess weighed.

May 2nd - Travel from Livingston to Galveston Texas. Connie will  be on a "girls' cruise" celebrating Rhonda Herrington's 60th birthday and Heidi Ivey's 50th birthday from May 3rd to May 10th. Mike will be staying in The Duchess at an RV park on Galveston island during Connie's trip

May 10-15th - Travel from Galveston Texas to Augusta Georgia.

May 15-18th - In Augusta we will visit with Connie's aunt and cousins.

May 18-22nd - Travel from Augusta to Asheville NC.

May 22-Jun 8th - Attend RV Dreams Reunion Rally and spend time visiting Asheville area.

Jun 8-Jul 1st - Travel in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee (no particular plans at this point)

Jul 1-15th - We will south of Nashville TN near Henry Horton State Park to attend a Johnson family reunion and do some sightseeing.

That is as far out as our plans go right now. We may head north from Tennessee through Kentucky and Indiana up to Michigan for the remainder of the summer months.

We will complete our last day prep for leaving Rosanky tomorrow and make one last run through all of our stuff to make sure we have not forgot anything (I sure we will forget something). Hopefully we will have some sunshine today and tomorrow to dry things out and make the drive to Livingston pleasant.

Closer to getting on the road

Thursday:

We sorted through the last of the boxes of stuff we had put in my dad's barn. Made some final decisions about what to pack in the Duchess and what to leave. We actually ended up with a little bit of extra space in the motorhome that we don't have anything stored in at this point. I didn't think we would get everything in, so this is a unexpected result. We went into Bastrop to do some grocery shopping along with picking up a few items at Home Depot. Originally I was going to take my cordless drill along but I decided that it takes up too much room and I would always have to charge the battery before I could use it. So I bought an inexpensive electric drill with a cord to take along. We also purchased some PVC pipe that we cut into the right length to keep the closet doors from moving when we are on the road (this was a suggestion from my dad).

Connie is now two weeks out from her surgery. She received a call from The Laser Spine Institute asking about how she was doing (everything coming along OK) and telling her to stop using the back brace (to allow her muscles to start doing the work instead of the brace). There are set of exercises that she will need to do twice a day along with a slight increase in the lengths of her walks. The distance from where The Duchess is parked to the entrance to the property is about 0.3 miles and we have been walking up and back for the last two weeks. We will add a few minutes on the county road that runs along the property to increase the distance/time of our walks.

Bunny rabbit along the lane

We are out the country here in Rosanky. We see rabbits almost every time we walk. We have seen deer and one snake along with a roadrunner that makes an occasional appearance.

Mushroom plant along the lane

Friday:

Connie and I travelled into Austin to take care of a few items. We dropped off the last chair we had from the sale of our house at Connie's sister house. We had originally thought it might fit in the motorhome, but decided we do not have the space for it. We then had lunch with Marty Rexroat, a close friend of ours, who will take care of our mail when we are on the road. After that we went to the Container Store where we purchased a trash can and a number of storage trays to fit into our bathroom cabinets to keep items from falling over when we are on the road. We also went by a store that sells kitchen items and purchase a few more silicone lid covers and another set of tongs for the Duchess. One of our friends, Heidi Ivey, was having a "happy hour" to continue the celebration of her 50th birthday so we went by for a couple of hours.

"Happy Hour" @ Freda's - Heidi's 50th

The group was going to a local club to see a band play later in the evening, but Connie and I decided to call it a day and headed back to Rosanky.

Best Friends: Connie, Heidi & Rhonda

Saturday:

Connie drove the car for the first time since her surgery today. She went back into Austin to visit with Beth Clare, Heidi Ivey (and her cousin Julie) and Rhonda Herrington in south Austin. I stayed "home" and spent the afternoon watching the Masters. I'm hoping that Jordan Spieth can hang on tomorrow and become the youngest winner of the tournament. Once Connie got home we went through the paperwork/brochures/manuals we got with the motorhome and Connie "organized" it so that we can find it (we had manuals in English, French & Spanish - we kept the English & Spanish and got rid of the French). This took a couple of hours and Connie forgot to take breaks so she ended up sitting a long time (which she is not suppose to do more than 20-30 minutes at a time). Her back gave her some problems at the end, so we called it a day and on to bed. We will try and take it easy on Sunday. It seems like we are almost done with the decisions on what is going in the motorhome and what is staying in storage. Next week will be busy trying to finish up the items on our list that need to be taken care of before we leave.

HOW NOT TO DOWNSIZE TO A RV:

I have decided to let everyone know how not to downsize (or at least how we did it wrong). IMHO the best way would be to have the RV parked in front of your house before you move out. Divide the items into:

• Must have in the RV.
• Like to have in the RV.
• Items to give away, sell or donate.
• If you are going to store anything, put these items in a pile.
• Items to put in the trash.

Once you have been able to see what fits in the RV, get rid of (or store) everything else. Start up the motorhome or truck pulling your RV and quickly drive away. Don't spend a lot of time dwelling on your decisions on what to take in the RV. You will find out over the first few months that you forgot some stuff that you will have to replace and you brought along some stuff that you will never use. As our friends Bonnie and Fred Lee have told us: It like the old wagon trains heading west in the 19th century. You end up leaving stuff along the way to lighten your load.

Connie and I have moved everything (except for the furniture that we gave away to friends) at least three to four times: from our home to the rent house during its remodel to the apartment where we were dog sitting and then to the ranch/barn/motorhome. The good news is that we have gone through everything several times so we have to been able to a decision about an item and then reverse that decision. However, it has worn us out going through everything time and time again. It is like moving 4 times in the course of 4 months. There are a number of reasons we ended up downsizing this way, but I would not recommend this method to anyone out there.

More Decisions about what to take in the Duchess

Easter Sunday:

Connie and I hosted some family for Easter Sunday. Guests included Connie's sister Debbie, Debbie's daughter Lisa and her husband Gabe and Debbie's grandson Josh. The weather ended up being overcast with a light mist, so we ended up eating in the barn. Connie had stuffed a chicken on Saturday that we cooked in our NuWave oven along with cooking some pulled pork in the slow cooker. Both turned out to be delicious. After everyone had taken a "tour" of The Duchess, we visited for several hours before our guests returned to Austin.

Monday:

Connie spend most of the day trying to organize the kitchen. She went through all of her spices and moved a lot of them from bottles to small plastic bags. She also rearranged where several items were stored in the cabinets and got the last of our "groceries/food" put up.

We discovered that the drain line from the kitchen sink had come loose so we ended up having to take everything out of the cabinet under the sink, use towels to get rid of the water, re-connect and test the drain lines, run a fan for several hours to make sure everything was dried out and then put everything back. I don't know if this was loose from the time we bought the motorhome or if it came loose in transit from Dallas to Austin. We will try and remember to look at this during our next several moves.

I spent the day trying to decide which plastic bins will fit in the basement (bay) storage. After several attempts at arranging bins, I finally came up with a plan that will maximize the storage capability we have in The Duchess.

Tuesday:

Another day trying to get organized. I was able to "test" our small tripod mounted 18" satellite dish to see if I could find the satellite and get the DirectTV receiver to work with this dish. After a number of attempts, I finally figured out that I have to unplug the receiver from power to be able to reprogram it for a different dish. Also found out that the flat cable the company we bought the dish from doesn't work (this is used to go through the window so that you can fully closed it). I will have to get a replacement for this part of the cable.

We made a lot of progress going through more stuff in the barn. We made a few changes in where the plastic bins are located and started to put more of our items in the motorhome. Put our winter clothes in large plastic bags to store in the bays and brought the last of our clothes into the motorhome. By the end of the day we were able to see a "light at the end of the tunnel" at this part of getting ready to start.

Connie's back continues to get better although she has to take it easy. She tries to walk several times a day and has found out that ice packs are her friends.

Still have several things we need to accomplish before we leave Rosanky:

• Sale of Connie's Toyota Solara convertible
• Take Connie's family photos and family financial paperwork to her sister
• Get rid of all of our trash and boxes from the downsizing here in Rosanky
• Connie wants to have some jewelry re-done (stones from one ring to another, etc.)
• Few more items that need to be donated
• Clean up the garage and put all stored items on shelves

We are hoping to be able to head out on the road by the end of next week. I would like to take The Duchess to the Escapees campground in Livingston Texas and go through their Smart Weigh program.

Slow week in Rosanky

Connie and I have been taking it easy this week since we have returned to The Duchess here in Rosanky. Connie continues her recovery from back surgery while I have tried to sort through our belongings to see what will fit into the motorhome. Connie is very limited in her activities during this two week initial recovery period. Today was the first day she felt like going through anything and we spend the afternoon deciding where to put stuff in the kitchen. I'm sure we will change things over the next few months as we settle into The Duchess. Not much else to report. We both are looking forward to being able to get "on the road".