So I have been MIA yet again. I think this is becoming a habit.

Ford still in Knoxville

Ford has graciously decided to replace tranny, yet again.

On order. 3 days to get to Knoxville - Arrived in Phx in 3 days from Tennessee first time. Slow truck this time.

I keep knoding off and typing ddddddd. Must of been a typo, should have been zzzzzzzzzz.

We have been looking at houses. Strange market. We have a couple that are getting close to the top of the list. Maybe we will get this done.

My sister and brother-in-law are coming to TN for the weekend of the 4th and my mom and dad are coming as well from Florida. Should be a good time. It has been awhile. My mom had what we thought was a stroke this morning but doctors say it wasn't one. I'm not sure what they called it. Maybe a TIA. She has good care and will be going home tomorrow morning and can travel so we are getting together as of now.

Pictures soon. Beautiful here. Great sky's and beautiful terrain.

good night all.

Arrive in Tennessee

So the trip from Texas to Tennessee could look like a Chevy Chase vacation movie.
We wanted to leave Texas by 10 AM Monday but were a little late. It was noon before we hit the highway.
We drove to Granbery, TX where we visited our friends Dave and Gene Huett, friends we had not seen for some 30 years. We became friends while living in an appartment in LA back in 1974. YES that long ago!
It was awesome to see them. As Dave said they haven't changed abit. hahaha
We went out on Lake Granbery which was great. Lovely homes along the lake. It was nice just relaxing and seeing a new part of Texas for us. We then went out to eat at Babe's, family style and awesome. I am already looking forward to when we can go back there. Dave was correct they had not changed. Same lovely people we knew back in the good ole days.
We left Tuesday morning and headed toward Tennessee. It was a good trip.......for awhile. Outside Granbery we pulled the RV through a Sonic drive thru. Glad I saw the over hang at the window. I would have hit it big time if I tried to pull next to the window. One problem avoided.
We moved on and things were going well. I followed the procedures for towing my Escape. We went along, went through Tesarcanna(sp?), moved along to Little Rock. I would love to have gotten farther but the book says to limit speed to 65 when towing the Escape. I set the cruise control so we were running 63 at the max. In Little Rock we were tired and found a state park, along a river and spent the night. Got there just in time and got a great picture of sunset over the river. I hope I remember to put it in here after I get done with our story.
We got up after a great night sleep and connected the Escape to our rv and hit the road. We once again drove no faster than 63 mph and continued our journey. We got to Jackson Tennessee and pulled into a truck stop to get fuel. This stop had a huge truck stop and a place for autos. I didn't see any green hoses that would represent diesel so I went to the truck side. I pulled into an island after a truck exited only to find that the hose had a big head on it that won't fit in the rv. I was now stuck waiting for the truck to move out of the way after he took care of his bill. So I was waiting and decided to start the Ford to let it run for 5 minutes according to the book. I opened the car door and it was exceedingly hot inside. It was hot outside but not that hot. I turned the key and nothing. All gages were working and everything looked fine but the starter never even ticked. I tried several times and finally thought maybe something happened that would require the thing to be put into park again. so big mistake, I put it into park. It did do that.
Now it would not start and hitting the break would not allow me to take it out of park. I was stuck. The truck in front of me left and here I sat blocking one of about 20 islands. I talked with the cashier and informed her that I was blocking the island and she got someone to place a trash can behind the car so no more trucks would line up behind me. I called AAA and they sent a driver to pickup the Ford. The driver tried several tricks to fake out or correct the problem but no luck. He then informed me I would have to sign a waiver absolving him of any damage to the transmission pulling it up on the tow truck. Option 2 was for him to disconnect the linkage and put the transmission into neutral. Then I could take the car to the dealer. I chose option 2 and he snapped the linkage off, in his hand, broke it. He did get it into neutral and told me where the dealership was so I headed for the dealer. The dealer listened to my sad song and had me pull the car to the back of the lot. I didn't blame them, it was kind of ugly with tranny fluid all over the back of the car. I can't help but wonder how many people I splatted their winshield with trany fluid? I digress... The tech connected to my Ford and said yep, over heat and the rain sensor is triggered which was stopping the car from starting. What the heck is a rain sensor? I thought it but didn't ask. It was not important at the moment. So, when can I have it back? Response, we can take a look at it next week sometime. We are really backed up? Again I wonder, how many flat tow cars they had to fix? No, again I didn't ask. I said so what is my options. They said I could leave it and hang around for a week in Western Tennessee, or just tow the car as is to our destination and fix it there. I asked the obvious question, can it cause more damage, they said no, it is toast already. I asked if it could possibly lock up and they didn't think so. I forgot to ask the important question which I thought up after getting back on the road. COULD IT CATCH FIRE? No, it didn't catch fire but it would be a nice touch for the movie edition. Anyway, I head up the highway, stopping every once in awhile to see if it is getting hot. In between the stops I am watching the video display to see if the hood is starting to turn colors other than the color of the paint. At one point I see images in the hood that distress me a bit. I have Linda take a look to see if she is seeing what I see. We continue to watch while driving and I am figuring out how quickly I can disconnect from the rv should a fire break out. We figured out it was about sunset and we were seeing a reflection of the sky in the hood with clouds, that kind of looked like melting paint. After all that stress we are now driving in the dark and getting tired. I think maby driving at night in cooler temps would help. We find a rest area and whip into the lanes next to the big rigs and set the phone timer to wake us in two hours. There are limits that they want to you hang out. Seems I was the only one following that rule. We wake up and hit the road. next issue begins for the day. The RV has no power. Every little hill I hit the thing slows down to next to nothing and I have to manualy shift the trany to lower gears and I find I am doing 30 in a 70 mph zone. Not good, especially in the dark. I drive this way as stress is building waiting for some truck to give us a boost in the rear accidentally. I start using the emergency flasher and half the shoulder for good measure. Finally i am down to half a tank of fuel so I pull off and get some fuel. I was thinking maybe I got some bad fuel. I fill up and crank up and all was well, we start traveling again and the rv is halling up hills like it is nothing. I was watching for another rest stop as my eyes were starting to cross. When a rain storm hits. I was happy about this because I was still worried that the Ford would overheat and catch fire. Unfortunately the rv started it's work stopage mode on the smallest of hills. We were making great strides as we were now approaching Knoxville. We are getting within smelling distance of our destination. Now we are past Knoxville and my stress level is going up as the hills are getting longer and I am really slowing down. I start thinking I am headed toward mountains, so these hills are probably going to get longer and higher. I finally pull off to get more fuel as I have burned another half tank. Thinking maybe I need to get more fuel to help get rid of bad.
This time when I start the rv it starts a beeping code. 15 beeps, and there is an error code on the console. So I pull away from the fuel island to a safe stoping place in the parking lot and decide I need to find out what is happening. I finally get out the book like all good computer geeks. It took 10 minutes to find the book. Amazing how many places you can hide things you don't expect to use. I start searching through the book for error codes and nothing exist. Since the trany wasn't shifting by itself I look up transmission and can't find it mentioned, except in some wierd place and it half way suggest the transmission is in distressed mode. This is the only place in the book I can find the word transmission. In frustration I find a flashlight and pop the hood.
Guess what? I can't find a dip stick for the transmission. Ok now I know I am really tired. I shut the hood and walk around the rv a few times expecting to open it again and find the dip stick.
As luck would have it, it still wasn't there. Ok this isn't fun anymore. Here we sit with a broken down rv and tow car. We are really starting to get into a fun mode now. I have already called AAA once today and now I have the same vehicle broken down and the rv. While opening the vehicle book for the rv, I found this wonderful card saying call this number if you need roadside assistance. Guess what I did? Yep, I called. We went thru 15 minutes trying to communicate the rv vin number. Once we got that figured out, he says WHERE ARE YOU? I only have one reply "somewhere other than where I wanted to be". So I remember Arizona and the tom tom has coordinates where I am. I give him my coords. He starts figuring out where we are, while I go into the station and ask what exit are we at off 40. I get back to the rv and he says you are at a Pilot station with a restaureant next door, I confirmed and then told him what exit we were located at. He checks and says we have a dealer two miles away from you. He offers to send a tow to pick us up and take us to their impound lot as the dealer has no night drop, or if we stay there he would have them pick us up at 7:30 and take us directly to the dealer. I opted for 7:30 after getting permission to stay the rest of the night. It was already 3:30 or 4:00 AM. We kick back and sleep. Next morning while waiting I order breakfast at the restaurant and before we get the food, the tow is here. We have time to eat as he has to pull the drive shaft of the rv before he can tow it. Food wasn't so good, first time I had pancakes I could not cut with a fork. anyway he has to call for a second tow truck for the Ford. I was informed that Dodge would not cover that vehicle. I am thinking maybe I should call Ford road service but I don't want to get into the positon that the rv is one place and the car in another. The second tow driver shows up, I told him what had happened and that I was going to pay for this tow. I figured should not be too bad for only a couple miles away dealer. We finally get all the vehicles hooked to tow trucks and Linda and Lizzie ride in one and I the other.
We get to the dealer and sitting outside the service depart is a small truck which has the same chasis that the rv. I figure this is a good sign. They say, we don't service that chasis. Not only do they not do it but neither does any of the other dealers within a few miles. He says the only dealer who can work on this vehicle is in Knoxville, some 60+ miles away. WOOPS, I am going to have to pay for the Ford to be towed to Knoxville, this could get expensive at $5 per mile. The tow drivers get on the phone to their boss and Dodge to get permission to tow to a new destination. The driver with the Ford was a kick, he was what you would classify as a colorful individual. He starts ripping Dodge for the troubles I am having and convinces them to pay for the Ford tow. So we start our journey back where we were the night before. I asked the Dodge dealer if he knew if there were a Ford dealer close to the Dodge dealer in Knoxville, surprise, it is across the street. Ok enough playing around. Drop the RV at Dodge and drop the Ford a Ford and lets get this done. The Dodge dealer jumped on the RV, and made it a hot priority. While I was at Ford dropping the car, Dodge took the rv, Linda, Lizzie and all in and got started.
Ford on the other hand said we can't get to it for a week. SOUND FAMILIAR? This time I am not keeping it. I am only about 100 miles from my destination so I can handle that trip to pick it up.
In a couple of hours the RV is fixed. Seems a sensor assembly associated with the turbo boost fell apart and the tube from the turbo boost fell off. We finally can hit the highway and it takes us about 30 minutes to get back to where we had broken down. This time I can drive 70 mph so we head to the RV park in Blountville, TN. Finally we are at the destination location. We get a really nice spot for the month, backed in around trees blocking out the majority of the sun's heat, which is good in a black rv.
Our friend stops by after work to welcome us and he has Teddy his toy poodle with him, so Lizzie has a new friend. After getting caught up on the journey, we go to his house to pickup the Chrysler van. It was been sitting in his yard since Late January when we shipped it to him from Sac. You remember that story where Collin took my car because it did not get picked up when expected. Well the car is now back in our posession. It had low tires, dead battery and a few ants looking for a new home. We took care of the ill's of this car. Add a tank of gas and it is ready to go until I run the wipers and washer. Wipers now on the list of got to have items.
We had a nice breakfast this morning and dinner today with our friends. Great evening catching up on old times.
The Ford, no word yet.

Did you give up yet?

Yes, it has been about a month and no new blog stuff. Kind of defeats the purpose of a blog I guess. But I am back. We begin the next leg of our journey with this present location setup as home in Texas where we are Texas residants, finally. The Escort and Motorhome are now Texas vehicles and Linda and I are the proud carriers of a temporary Texas license.

We went to a softball game tonight to watch the kids play and take care of our grandson one last time before we leave for awhile. Parting is dificult. This place has really become a part of us and feels like home. I love having Mindy and Mike living close to us. Once college bound we kind of lost our daughter. Not like you lose friends but close enough. We really are enjoying seeing them and living around them. But alas we move on to the other part of our journey.

Tomorrow morning we plan to depart for Granbury Texas where we are finally going to visit with some long lost friends from LA, CA. We all lived in an appartment complex north of Pasadina. We enjoyed our time together but like everything else we allowed life events to make the friendship a thing lost. But the joys of Facebook and we are back in communication. We started this process many months back before we even sold the house in Roseville so it has been a long time coming. We are so looking forward to finding out what our friends have been up to for so many years. With Facebook we have a clue but face to face always trumps the computer. The computer is a strong second though.

Then on Tuesday of this week we start our last leg of the journey to Tennessee, it will be a 1000 mile journey, any bets on us making it in one day? I did reserve a campground for Tuesday night but left open the last minute call should we just feel a little too tired to press on the whole distance.I did note that Tuesday we will pickup thunder stormes around half way there so those could have some influence. The RV has a way to go to be ready to role. Still several more trips from the house to load it up. Still have to load the fresh water tank and fire up the water heater.
Got to wash the windows etc. etc..... It kind of feels like it did when we were moving stuff out of the house in Roseville to the RV and POD. Not the best feeling but it is not as much of an unknown as that Roseville departure.

Ya know if you were on Facebook you would have known some of this and I would not have had to spell it all out. Or maybe I would have...... hummmmmm.

Well my intent is to blog our journey. Tennessee is not the final part of our journey, we have a trip to Florida and Ohio. In Florida, we had some Citrus Heights, CA friends who spent the night with us in Texas while on their way to establish a new home in the Jacksonville area. Guess where the maps programs route us when we go from Bristol to Ocalla and Arcadia, Florida? Yep Jacksonville. Guess that will be a two day trip from now on. Also a Roseville friend moved just before we left, to North Carolina, so we have more to look up.

Do you see a pattern here? Many of the people I intend to visit are from CA. Many of them recently, like within the last year. Oh yea, I know others in Tennessee from Ca some years back who live along the way. I need to make some contacts with them so we can visit and they can fill us in on the ins and outs of the great state of Tennessee.

Well, time to quit messing around and get things ready so when 10 am tomorrow hits I will be hitting the road. Stay tuned, as I really really really, intend to keep updating this thing for some time now.
Hang on and I hope you enjoy our ride.
ed

Yes, I know, it has been awhile... AGAIN

I did not drop off the face of the earth and abandon the blog. Well, I guess I did abandon the blog but it was because we have been so busy. Everything still takes huge amounts of effort. I think I blogged about my experience with Sony blue ray dvd players that I bought and would not work with my LG tv I had purchased. Well, after buying a third and different brand blue ray player I found the same problem. So we tried power conditioning, and the ups burnt up but before it did it did not solve the problem. I took back the LG and got another deciding that it was a bad tv. The next one failed as well. So I now have a Visio tv and it is working fine. So the nice Sony blueray player that I liked was not bad at all. I now have a Samsung player that I don't like as well as the Sony but it is working and so goes the saga of a 1000 miles of running to get just a TV working off an antenna working. See what I mean?

Then our bedroom suite I ordered did not go through. It seems the manufacturer stopped making that model and did not pull it from the books, so we had to cancel our order for that. So no bedroom yet. We did however get the mattress and foundation so we now have a bed.
The Washer, Dryer, and refrigerator are due to arrive in another week so we hope to be done with the laundrymat. Time will tell if this becomes the next debacale.

We just completed a week of taking care of Cameron. He is a lot of work, but worth every bit of it. I spend most of my day with that little guy. He and grandpa and grandma are really busy. If he isn't eating or sleeping, he has developed the ability to really focus in on things. It is fun just figuring out what has his attention. The tv gets his attention when it gets busy. He likes the weather, I think. Cam and grandpa work out a lot. we stand and do belly time together. We do air belly time where I hold him above me in the air so grandpa also gets a workout. I better keep up with the workout though as my weights seem to be getting heaver as we go. What a natural.
Cam's mom reports he sleept most all night on Thurs and Fri. So that is a great thing. Mom can get a little more rest before having to head off to work. He is such a happy boy, grandma gets the good job of feeding him, and holding him while he sleeps sometimes. Other times I have found he likes grandpa's Lazyboy chair. Put him between two pillows and rock him to sleep. He does well with this as I don't have to move him so he sleeps a little more solid. Week two starts soon. Stay tuned.

I spoke with our friends Doug and Dana, who are moving from CA to FL. they have a house they have purchased there. They were in Phoenix yesterday which means they will be with us this afternoon. We are looking forward to spending the evening with them. I told them we have an air mattress on the floor from the rv as a bed and they were welcome to use it. So we are having our first overnight house guest in our new home. Awesome.

Also today we are going to have some first and some long time coming experiences. We are having mothers day lunch with Mindy and Mike. First time in quite a while that Linda and Mindy are together for this day and the first is Mindy's first mothers day.

So I think that kind of gets us up to date on the tale of Ed and Linda's adventure into retirement.
Sorry for the long delay. I will try to remember to take care of this a bit more frequently than recent past. I did have and excuse though as I lost contact with the internet for a bit. My sprint link didn't work for some reason and I was thinking the link. Turns out an update took me out. go figure!

Happy mothers day to you all, or is it y'all?

Wow it has been awhile again! I am sorry!

Well, we did it. We closed on our house purchase in Texas. Hay, for the first time since mid December, we are close to having a place to sleep that doesn't have the bed, bath, living and tv area all in the kitchenj! We have been preparing to make purchases but could not do much until we were sure we would have a place to put the items purchased. Can you imagine all that stuff being stacked outside our rv! So anyway we now have a lot of space and nothing at all to put in it.
We don't even have toilet paper for the bathrooms. I intend to remedy that problem as well as many more over the next days and weeks.

We have made another decision that we need to let you all know and that is to delay a little longer our departure from Texas to head east. Mindy is going to have to go back to work soon and Mike doesn't get off for the summer until after the first week of June so we are going to take care of Cameron for a few weeks. That kid has already spoiled grandma and grandpa.

We will use the time to establish our home here in Texas prior to heading east. So we will delay our visits of friends and family a little longer. I am sure all will understand. I HOPE!

I am sure our president will take note of my efforts to expand the economy and redistribute the wealth. Aren't we good? Will this help my taxes next year?

The long lost blogger returns

Ya know, time flys when you are having fun. I have been having fun, so time is flying. EXCEPT working with banks. Anyway the bank called today and said all is well and we can go forward with our house purchase. Now we wait on the builder. They are supposed to be setting up a walk through but they haven't worked on my lists' of things. I just fired off an email to see if I can get things moving sooner. I would love to get taxes done and the home purchase done and actualy put my fate back into our hands insteading of waiting on others.
Like I am not enjoying my grandson and being around Mindy and Mike. Ha, I am liking it for sure. Mike's family is in town so we got to see his parents a couple of nights ago. Always nice to see them. Great family.
I will have to work on more pictures. I may even clean up this blog and make it more readable, with more pictures. Until then you are stuck with my boaring ramblings.
Ya know we did have a refrigerator problem this week. I woke up early in the morning and saw a check light. I went back to sleep but then spent a big part of the day looking for the problem. I knew we were out of gas and could not figure out why as I had not used any gas for some time. Well the check light ended up being an indication that the gas process is not working, i.e., out of gas. It was supposed to be running on electric all this time. I opened the back of the unit outside and found a plug hanging on the wall with no wire plugged into it. I follows a wire I finally found up behind the tubing and there was a plug. I plugged in the unit and then powered it off and on and I have not had another check light. So problem solved. I will have to get gas though when I pull out of this park. First order of business will be to go pickup some propane. Interesting how some mystries are solved. thanks to all my Face Book friends who shared concerning rv'ing and the little things that make it so fun.
Hay life is an adventure.
New things to come as soon as we figure out what we are up to. Tomorrow is another day!

Well days seem to fly by. I can't figure where they go.

We just seem to wake up and find days have gone by. Here it is Thursday and last I knew we were looking forward to Monday and having the house inspected. That did happen. And the pictgure of Cameron happened. I'm lovin it.

We continue to work on getting things done for the house purchase. I meet with a guy to get estimates for window blinds. That will Occupy my Friday. For some reason one thing happens a day and I find the day gone. I guess when you don't have to be accountable for your time there is no accounting for it disappearing. Maybe if we didn't have to account for time at work it would go faster?

So we are in the Leander KOA for another month. April is here already!

Have a great April fools day. DON'T GET FOOLED!