Q'n With The Kids

 Ok, more like grilling but it involved lots of meat!!! We got together with most of our kids here in OKC the other day for a good ole fashioned get together. Sheryl's son brought the steaks and sausage, and everyone else brought the other goodies, we had a feast to say the least.

 The girls guarding the munchies, Sheryl, Kaileigh and Audry.

 As the night went on, the Margarita dispenser got lower, man they were good!!! Our families can be a partying bunch!

A little grill fighting before dinner to work up an appetite. It was a great evening, getting most of the kids together and enjoying each others company. By the end, we were all to full to move and eventually made our ways home.
The other big event of the evening was, our now future son-in-law asked for our daughter hand in marriage, he's a great guy and will treat her well, so our blessing was given. Now it's wedding prep time for the ladies, Woo Hoo!!!

Until next time, keep lovin Your Life as we do ours!!!

The weather here in OK has taken a turn and has just been great. With the nights warming, I have been trying my hand a some night time photography. Most havn't come out to well, still experimenting with the camera settings. However last night as I was walking Scrappy down by the lake here in the park, I noticed the shadow of a tree cast by the bright lights of the entry gate. With the colors, I thought it would make a cool shot. You can see it Here on the Photo Page.

Still Alive!!!

Boy, it's hard to believe how fast a week can go by. It's pretty much been a whirlwind of activity with visiting all the kids, getting new doctors set up, daily life and crazy weather. To think, all that and one a picture to show for it, but getting all caught up in the moments, I just don't think about it at the time.
We have also been looking at new rigs as this one is beginning to show her age at 11 years. Just little things that come up, but I guess that's just maintaince. Our main complaint is still the black tank, the folks in New Mexico never did get it right and after 4 visits to their shop, we just gave up. Yes it still has a leak somewhere (somehow they managed to jack up a brand new tank). This is something that we need to get fixed, so will be looking for a repair shop here on OKC. The hope for a new rig is out the window, as when the economy and life hit a few years back, it seemed to do us in for a while. That's ok though, our current rig is paid for and just needs to have these few issues taken care of. One good thing is, if the rig needs to stay in the shop for a few days (to get it right) we can stay with our daughter. That's the one bad thing about fulltiming, loosing your home while it's being repaired. We'll let you all know how it goes.

Just wanted to get in a quick entry, to let everyone know we haven't fallen off the edge of the earth, so take care and see everyone again soon.

Springtime in OKC

 After a week in Amarillo, TX. we finally made it into Oklahoma City and the Tinker AFB FamCamp. The truck ran well, however, I don't know if it was the strong crosswinds or something else, but the mileage really suffered, 8 mpg (ouch) down from the normal 10/11 mpg. We didn't score as nice a site as we had last time (right on the lake, but we can still see it from the rig and the sites are all pretty nice anyways. We did get to spend time with or little granddaughter before she headed off to GA to visit the other grandparents for 3 weeks.

 Yesterday the weather sure took a turn for the worst, and we had quite the storm come through. Above is the lake at the RV park and yesterday evening after the storm the water line was close to the road by the RV's. I was surprised to see how far down it had went this morning when the picture was taken. The weather had cleared so we met Sheryl son and his wife for a nice dinner at the Texas Roadhouse, with his crazy hours we have to meet them when we can. We had a nice dinner and was good to catch up again after a few months apart. We headed home for the evening, relaxed and went to bed.

Ahhh, Springtime in Oklahoma, we were awakened at 3:00 in the morning by the tornado sirens and spent the next half hour or so in our new home pictured above. This tornado shelter was not here last time we visited this park, you had to take shelter in the park bathrooms. The new shelter was built especially for the park and is right behind the park restrooms, it's really comforting to know we have a safe place to high tail it to.
One thing we didn't think about was what would happen if all of a sudden our RV was gone in a storm. So today I put together a couple of bugout bags with extra clothes and essentials, and our insurance paperwork. Other important is in the safe, which I wrote our name and phone number on with a marker incase it was blown a mile or two away. We could at least get a call should someone find it.
A tornado did touch down and did a lot of damage just a few miles down the road from here last night, so as long as were here we want to be prepared for the worst.

Anyway, we are here safe and sound. We started our health insurance changeover yesterday and got set up with a new doctor. It's just a matter of waiting for the appointment so the referrals can start getting done and we can get Sheryl on the way to getting her back taken care of.

So that's all for today, we are supposed to have pretty bad weather again tonight, we'll be battening down the hatches and hoping for the best. See ya next time right back here (hopefully not homeless.....lol)

The Good, Bad and a RV Museum

The Good - Got a call from the Dodge Dealer earlier telling me the truck was done and all was good, Woo Hoo!!! Went down picked it up, drove around for a bit and headed home. The Bad - That's when it happened, began running rough and then the check engine light comes on.....really!!!, did I just not get it out of the shop.....arrrrrrrrrrrr. Well I head back to the dealer and turn it in. Ok, get a call from the dealer and they tell me it is a bad fuel injector and they'll have it done in the morning. With any luck that'll fix the problem, I guess they could not get it to throw the code and they thought all was well. Looks like it was a good thing it happened again before I left for OKC, at least I know it will be fixed this time.

 After picking up the truck today, I stopped by the a local RV dealer, just to see what they had, yea, I was board. While there I found out they had a RV Museum, the owner had begun collecting and restoring old RVs and now opened his collection to the public. He also has this 1940 replica gas station, very well done.

 This is a 1976 Airstream he painted (I know, that's just wrong) white with red and blue stripes in tribute to our military (so I guess the paint is ok).

In all he had 13 RVs, most were travel trailers and he also had a couple of old motorhomes. It was pretty cool to see all the old RVs and nice to know someone is actually restoring them to their former glory.

Tomorrow, (fingers crossed) I'll be headed for OKC, really didn't mind the stop over in Amarillo (except for missing Easter) had it been under better circumstances.

So cross your fingers and we'll be seeing you fine folks from OKC. Take Care and Keep Lovin Your Life as we do ours (even if it is tried once in a while......lol)

Traded the Truck???

Traded the truck for a Jeep??? well not really. Finally was able to take the truck in for service today, had to drop it off and they'll look at it tomorrow. The Jeep is a rental, our Extended Service Warranty covers the cost of a rental for 6 days, so we should be good. I hoping that all goes well with the truck and it's not something too serious.

Sheryl was able to head on over to OKC, her daughter came by and picked her up yesterday. It's good that she'll get to spend some time with our little granddaughter, as she will be going to GA for a 3 week visitation with her dad. Plus, it's better than Sheryl just hanging out here and missing out on time with the little one.

Sheryl will be back on Thursday and we should be wrapping things up here. We have a couple of other things we want to do here in Amarillo, that the reason she's coming back, instead of me just meeting her in OKC.

Looking to be back on the road soon, we'll let you know how it goes, so take care and see here next time.

Still in Amarillo

It's Monday morning and were still in Amarillo, TX. Saturday when we awoke, the winds were pretty bad, so we decided to stay and see about leaving Sunday when the weather cleared. The truck seemed to be running fine as I drove it around for a bit to see how it was doing. About an hour later I started to smell something, but could not put my finger on it, till I stopped to see an old friend. We popped the hood and the right side battery had blown the fill caps off and there was battery water everywhere. Wow, that's not good, maybe the battery was bad and that's what caused all the problems. Since the batteries were only about 6 months old, I found an Interstate battery dealer and he changed out the battery at no charge (nice warranty). With the truck running well, we got up Sunday morning, got the rig ready to roll, fired up the truck and darn if the check engine light wouldn't go off, ok something is definitely wrong. After a few minutes of discussion and disappointment, we decided to stay and get the truck fixed here instead of risking it on the road. By this time it's getting close to the lunch hour and BBQ was sounding awful good. We drove the truck (hoping to see it the light would reset itself, it didn't) had some great BBQ and came back to the rig. Just before turning into the RV Park, that seem returned, uh oh, I parked at the rig, and darned if my brand new battery hadn't boiled over also. Ok, this means it's not the battery, but more like the alternator.
We'll call the dealer today and see if they can get us in. We do have an extended warranty on the truck, so it shouldn't hurt to bad. The biggest hurt was missing Easter with the family, but reality said, better safe here that stranded again along the interstate.
Ok, that's it for now, will let you know how everything goes, hopefully it will be a quick fix.

Again, I do want to thank everyone for the kind comments and emails. Take care and we'll see you guys back here soon.

Wow! What a Day!!!

Wow, what a travel day. We left Southern NM, at approx 9:30 yesterday, headed for Amarillo TX. Beautiful travel day, a lite wind at our back (for a change) pushing us north towards I-40. All is well (you can see where this is headed). Cruzing along east bound and down approx 70 west of Amarillo when it happened!!! The check engine light comes on and the truck losses most of it's power, it's still running but just wants to limp along.....what the!!!

 Well we were able to limp along at 50mph to the next exit a few miles down the road and into a truck stop. Nice truck stop, however in the middle of no where east New Mexico (as you can tell by the picture) it looks like that in all directions.

Ok, a few frustrating calls to Chrysler Extended Warranty folks , all to find out we have no road side assistance.....darn.....however the repairs will be covered.......good. Problem, can only be serviced at a Dodge dealer, closest one, 70 miles away in Amarillo. 70 miles, tow for the truck and 5ver = Big Bucks, hmmmm. Then I remembered, we have Roadside Assistance through our USAA insurance. Give them a call (long story short) we are covered, they will send a tow service for both the truck and trailer and tow both the 70 miles to Amarillo and the Dodge dealer. Oh and well also tow your trailer to the RV park of your choice, at no cost to you and no up front money, Wow, I love USAA, they are great, and have been every time I've ever had to deal with them.

While we were waiting for the tow service to arrive, a gentleman pulls up towing a 5th Wheel and parks right infront of us. I walked over to let him know we had a tow service coming and that he would prob have to move his rig. We chatted a bit and told him of our whoas, he says, sounds like you computer just needs to be cleared and reset, here I have a scanner and we'll check it out. He plugs in the scanner to the computer port and pull up two codes, he clears the codes and the computer resets. Fire up the truck and it's running like a charm now. Looks like one of the codes was for a cylinder misfire and the other having to do with a fuel injector electrical issue.  What a great guy for helping us out, amazing what a little knowledge and the right tools can do.

The tow trucks arrived and we decided, even though the truck was running fine now, to let them tow it to Amarillo, just incase he truck acted up again and stranded us again in the middle of nowhere.

We finally go into the Amarillo Ranch RV Park around 11:00 at night. I had them drop the truck off here also, as it's running ok now and the dealer can not do anything until Tuesday (got to love breakage on holiday weekends). We drove the truck around for abit last night and it still seems to be running fine. We are going to stay put today (winds are really bad here) and may head out in the morning for OKC, after we test drive the truck again and see how she does. It's a chance we'll take as we are planning on being in OKC for a couple of weeks anyway. We can have the truck checked out there and still take care of the things we need to also. If something goes wrong again, we still have the roadside assistance to help us out.

Well, wish us luck, we'll either be here in Amarillo for a week or so, or OKC. See ya on the next go round.

Scrappy's New Doo

Today was Scrappy Doo's first hair cut/grooming and like all parents we were a little nervous about leaving him with a stranger. His appointment was for noon, however, it seemed the groomer was abit behind, so he wasn't finished until almost 4:00.  When we arrived to pick him up, the groomer said she had quite the time with him, but she loved him and just raved about what a good boy he was.

Well, I sure you are wondering how he turned out................

Well here he is, transformed from our little ragamuffin, to a little puppy, he even looks almost grown up now. The groomer even added a little puppy chili pepper bandanna (too cute!!!). I told Sheryl on the way to drop him off, that if she puts a bow in his hair, that'll be the first thing to go!!!

However the little chili pepper bandanna is way cool, so I think we'll keep it. That was our excitement for the day. Tomorrow we are off for OKC. We are going to shoot for Amarillo, TX Friday, then head on in to OKC on Saturday. Our little Grand daughter will be having an Easter Egg Hunt on Sunday, so we want to be there for that.

Ok, if we have a good WiFi signal, we'll see you tomorrow evening from Amarillo!!!

Suspension Adjustment

In an effort to get ready for our travels, we took the trailer into the RV Doctor to have her suspension adjusted. I was having the leaf spring adjusted to the lowest point on the spring hangers, thus lifting the trailer approx three inches. The reason for this, the trailer has always sat pretty nose high. Lifting the trailer at the wheels should help out with that.

We usually have our work done at another RV Doc in town, but after the last fiasco with our black tank, we thought we'd try the other one in town. They did a good job at a fair price, so we are happy.

 We waited while they did the work and brought the rig back to Holloman and set back up. This is the after the work was done photo, as you can see it's still a bit nose high, but that's due to the air bags in the truck. The truck now sits level with the load on, which is great. Gerald, who helped me install the air bags, came out for a look and noticed the same thing, still abit nose high. After a few minutes of discussion we decided to drop the dose an inch or two at the kingpin. Out came the tools and an hour later we had the kingpin adjusted, we'll have to see how it sets now, but I should still have 5-6 inches between the truck bed and the trailer. It may not be perfect, but it'll be a darn site better than what it was.
Yesterday, we had the oil changed in the truck also. We used our last (of three) free oil change coupons, so next time it'll actually hurt alittle, unless I do it myself, then the damage won't be so bad.

On a liter note, Scrappy Doo goes in for his first hair cut tomorrow, so stay tuned for that. Boy, he's sure not going to look like our little Scrappy, but it'll sure do him good. Friday we take off for OKC.

Ok, take care and see you tomorrow.