Life's Journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, totally worn out, shouting "Wow...What a Ride!"

Monday, September 16, 2013

Just about ready-1 week to go!!!!

That's what we've been up to, just passing time till we leave. Of course there is the daily life of work and then days off. Took a ride last Thursday just to get out of the campground, it felt like fall was in the air, cool and crisp with clear blue skies. A slow weekend at the store brought about a change in hours, things are winding down. No new ice cream, won't get sold before the end of the season, no hot fudge for sundaes-vendor is out, 17 hours left to work :)

The campground is almost empty during the week, 2 park models and a tenting (homeless but working) family are the only ones here through the week besides us. Not only are we getting a new site next summer but seems like we'll have 7 new seasonal families, our younger friends are not coming back. Busy lives and family obligations preclude them from returning at least for awhile. Though they have promised to come back next year for a few visits and to follow the blog. Our new site is twice the size and will be near the store, a view of the mountains and the ability to watch more of the weekend warrior madness will be nice.
Our site next year

the pad will be longer











dead tree will be gone
















I spoke with the folks taking our site next year and they'll take the garden area we put in, yeah! we don't have to take that out. We also bought a wooden deck from one of the leaving seasonals, we had been talking about building one next year and since there was one  already made available we decided why not. Sat down with Robin to square up for the season, working about 300 hours has resulted in a free site including electric and propane, not bad considering we also had  the house sale happening, got my folks moved and dealt with a few personal crisis. We are so ready to put this summer behind us, 7 days to go.


Got woken up Thursday morning at 3:30am to water flooding the bathroom floor and soaking into the bedroom carpet. As we both start to function we see the toilet is filled with clean water, probably had been running since it was used two hours before. We got the shop vac going and sucked up as much water as possible then started with the Shamwows on the carpet. Years ago I wondered why we had so many, now I'm glad we do, after getting as much water as possible initially they have been steadily leaching water out of the carpet for hours. Dave headed to work at 5:30am about 6:15 it was light enough to see outside and I started checking the basement for water. I found some and after emptying the wet stuff out it appeared that water had gotten in the heat duct and some of that was leaking, just a bit if pushed on. So I turned on the furnace to try drying the duct out, later I turned the ac on to help take the humidity out of the inside. Things are returning to normal, giving up a house didn't mean we gave up all responsibilities, things happen that have to be taken care of, usually on a much smaller scale though.

The weekend came and lots of things needed to be done, going through and packing up stuff to get in travel mode. By the end of the weekend the basement was for the most part packed, our yard is being deconstructed and the garden is coming out. Friday I decided to try my CIA cheesecake I've been making for years, with a pot roast in the slow cooker the smells coming out of the rv were driving us crazy while we installed cargo racks on the Ridgeline to carry our canoe. Pot roast came out delicious but we had to wait until Saturday to taste the cheesecake. Saturday we headed into Huntington one last time for this year, dinner was being held at our friends Les & Deb's home. We spent a few hours talking before Mike and Carol showed up, Carol had just come in from FL where she had been visiting her mom. Dinner was chili and cornbread, thank you so much for having us over and for the leftovers you sent home with us. The evening was tinged with sadness as a large part of all of our lives was changing, for more than 15 years unless one of us were busy or out of town every other weekend we would gather on Saturday. Holidays, birthdays, anniversary, hot summer days and cold winter nights were spent in the company of these crazy friends. No tears were shed because they all plan to come out our last afternoon for one last visit.

Dinner!!
Deb & Les 

James- Les & Deb's son (like one of our own)
Carol & Mike

Forgot to take a picture of the cheesecake before it was cut but got one this morning, this is what's left after 8 pieces have been served, still enough for 4 more slices. I got the recipe many years ago from a chef at the Culinary Institute of America back in the early 80's. I've served this many times over the years and everyone was excited to have it again, the recipe makes enough for a 10" springform pan and has to be made at least 24 hours ahead.

I'll be taking a slice down to Robin today, one way to keep from eating too much more. 

14 hours left of work, a week from now we will be on our way. First stop Glimmerglass State Park near Cooperstown NY, since we're not big baseball fans doubt we'll visit there. Decided on the area because I thought that would be far enough for one day, we plan to spend 2 nights and then move on over to another state park in the finger lakes We hope to make a day trip to Corning NY to revisit the Corning Glass Museum, there was so much to see the first time we were there it's a place well worth a second visit. Just hope all the rain in the west doesn't affect travel plans but we'll deal with it if we have to. 

Until next time...

4 comments:

  1. We just had a flood, small one, yesterday right before we were to finalize our packing. Good thing it happened while we were still there in our driveway mode with tools available.
    Safe travels you two! Your on your way for a new journey!!

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    1. Thanks, seems there's always a lesson to be learned, a friend of mine once said I needed a tilt everyday (thing I learned today) just hope they are mostly small and inexpensive lessons. Signed up for amazon prime and the leak detector arrived yesterday, 2.5 days of work for Dave and 11 hours for me, let the fun begin.

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  2. I hope that rain out west stops before you get there! If it doesn't, you'll need that canoe!
    Sounds like things are falling into place. So sorry about your flood but you are going to have such a great time!
    Your cheesecake looks yummy. Care to share the recipe? Rick LOVES good cheesecake :)

    PS-Everytime Rick sees that commercial with the camel that says "It's Hump Day!" he cracks up and says it sounds just like Dave :) Dave didn't have anything to do with that commercial, did he? :)

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    1. Always prepared, from my boy scout days-okay it was my father's troop but I got to hang out with them. Canoe, bikes, extra vehicle and nothing left here that we want just in case we don't come back, you never know. But if he can work 5.5 months and make enough for the year guess we should. It shall be interesting to see how he feels about coming back after being away for so long.

      Recipe is on it's way to you, enjoy.

      LOL-Dave wishes he had something to do with the commercial, we might not have to come back next year if he did.

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