Monthly Archives: July 2015

Retirement Income

Another Fun Weekend – Monte Sano State Park

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With sort of a last minute plan, my wife is about to start back to work after the summer break, we decided to go for a long weekend stay at one of our “close to home” favorite state parks in Alabama.

Monte Sano state park has a lot to offer for us.? It is close to our home, and just up the mountain out of Huntsville so there is anything you want to eat if you don’t feel like cooking.?? But far enough away that when it is quiet, it is REALLY QUIET.?? Lots of trees, shade, and the elevation made the temps feel much more like fall than mid-summer.? We had a great time.

Grand daughter seeing her first deer at Monte Sano State Park in Huntsville AL
Grand daughter seeing her first deer at Monte Sano State Park in Huntsville AL

To add to our relaxing and restful trip into nature, we saw several deer wandering around on the mountain, and lots, and lots of squirrels and chipmunks.? The trees and natural brush between sites makes you feel like you are almost alone up on the mountain.

We also had a group of friends go with us which always helps my diet because the ladies like to out-do each other with recipes, and great food.? I love it when they bring everything out and we have our own little buffet.?? Thanks Ladies!

Teebie-birthday-2This trip also offered our son a place to come celebrate his 34th birthday with us, and also our daughter brought the grand kids to celebrate too.? Little grand daughter loved seeing the deer and even got a close up look as they are not very shy, but will run away before we could get close enough to pet them.

 

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Uncategorized

2 weeks after getting home

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When we reached home, we parked everything, unloaded and pretty much just took it easy for a few days after getting home from such a long but wonderful journey across this great nation.?? After resting and catching up on mail, lawn care, and other items we fixed all the little tiny things that broke or stopped working during the trip.?? Nothing major, just things like the snap on velcro strap that holds the awning arms stationary while driving, and the backup camera went on the fritz.?? It turned out that the antenna was either in the wrong position or had oxidation on the connection.?? I moved it from vertical pointing up, to vertical pointing down and the camera started working again.

small-norma-wayne-lake_141503However,? We found that our upstairs, and downstairs hvac unit were not working and we had to get both of them repaired.? Our upstairs thermostat registered 04….. which on a 2 digit display meant 104.? It turned out to not be too serious, but we were grateful to get it fixed in this 99+ degree weather in North Alabama.? The toad air conditioner went out during the trip, but only on the return trip of our last time to use it on the excursion to Monument Valley.? It was the most expensive to fix, but still worth every penny in this heat.

20150604_111643We are now planning our next trip which will be up the east coast to Maine and maybe even Nova Scotia.? We are looking for points of interest on the way through Knoxville, Hershey and Harrisburg PA,? to Maine. ? We took a year to budget and plan for our past trip and we will probably take the same amount of time to plan and budget for our next journey.

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Retirement Income

Monument Valley to Home

Well, our last post will just describe how we got home from Monument Valley.

We drove as long as we could each day and stayed where ever we could until we got to the KOA in Little Rock Arkansas.?? If it had not been for the Firemen stopping us just before we got to the KOA at Little Rock, we would have ripped off everything on top of our RV.?? Someone had just hit a communications line and it was hanging about 10 feet off the ground and I was looking for the KOA sign and didn’t even see the line hanging there.? They saved the motor home, and I was able to drive around it by detouring through someones front yard.

That was all great, until we got to the KOA and they couldn’t sell us anything or check us in because their computers couldn’t connect to the internet and run credit cards.?? They wouldn’t take cash either and we had prepaid when we registered, but they didn’t know that because their internet was down.?? We have forgotten how to use pencil and paper as a society.

Thanks to my wonderful wife and best friend for planning and budgeting for this trip for over a year.? We had no real issues to deal with.? Everything worked out pretty much as planned.?? We also made sure the RV was freshly serviced, along with the Honda Civic tow vehicle.? We bought new batteries, and new tires for both vehicles, and updated some of the equipment in the RV for safety.

The only minor things that I can think of was:
The RV overheating in Yosemite ( but it cooled down quickly ),
No internet at Yosemite and Mt Rushmore,
The sewer water cut-off valve apparently didn’t get closed somewhere, and the dumping process got messy,
The car A/C completely went out, but only after our last tour through Monument Valley – so perfect timing,
Some NICE gentleman flagged us down at Corn Palace SD, our car was in park and was dragging the tires !!!
( this would have been catastrophic had he not caught us just as we were starting to leave the parking lot )

 

See below for a map indicating our stops and what they were.? Read previous posts to find out details about each stop.

Thanks for going on our trip with us.?? Until next time……

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