This is the illustrated journal of our second quarter-year of Dreamstreaming around North America, Oct - Dec 2007
We describe our current month's travels in our Journal page, and everything older we store in quarterly pages. This keeps the archive files easier for you to load. Thanks for your interest -- let us know your comments anytime at as4822@gmail.com.
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Christmas Eve 2007
Debbie and I
returned yesterday from celebrating a family Christmas at my
sister's house in Boone NC. We drove up with my mom and stepdad in
our big red truck. Predictably we loaded the truck with things to
take to my sister and to my children. Not just to empty our house,
we took things they asked for and want. Medora received dad's old
leather recliner, a dictionary stand dad made years ago, and
keepsakes of dad's. Hannah and Charles received full toolboxes,
lamps, and other personal effects. We enjoyed a sumptuous feast at
Medora's house followed by a rowdy game of gift exchange bingo. The
winner of each card chose a gift to hope to hold onto. The gifts
most coveted would change hands up to twice before becoming
ineligible for trading. Fortunately we had three gifts extra at the
end and anyone who wanted could take a chance and trade up to one of
the remaining gifts. Everyone enjoyed this twist on the gift
exchange game.
All night
and through early afternoon Sunday rain fell, the longest rain
period we can recall since August. I lit a fire, turned on the
Christmas tree lights, and Debbie and I sat in our living room
counting how fortunate we are to have each other, our families, and
the choices we can make. Last year we had no family in for Christmas
Day and flew out of Charlotte on Christmas morning to spend
Christmas week with Stephen, Kelsey, and Eleanor in Vancouver BC.
Again this year we have no family for Christmas Day so we will
quietly celebrate our last Christmas together in this house. We
don't know in whose house we may celebrate Christmas next year. We
expect we'll have a small (very small? eighteen inches tall?) tree
and will enjoy the runup to Christmas. We don't plan to celebrate
Christmas Day in our Airstream trailer. We both have wonderful large
families. We'll see what happens.
We watched
Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart, Donna
Reed, and Lionel Barrymore. Scenes in the movie moved us both to
tears. George Bailey despairs over his misfortunes then suggests
everyone might be better off had he never lived. The movie
poignantly shows how your lives touch so many others in ways you may
fail to adequately measure. We love the story and have enjoyed
watching this one every year. Today we may watch Miracle on 34th
Street. [If we do watch it this will represent for us the most
movies watched in one week all year.]
week of December 17, 2007
We mentioned
to a friend at a party Saturday evening we were selling everything.
She said she had just purchased a dining room set and we told her we
could have saved her if she had known we were selling ours. The next
day she came by and looked at our table and chairs and bought it and
cancelled her credit card order. This kicked off a very busy week of
writing and posting advertisements for our furniture, lamps, and
indoor plants. Through yesterday we had visits every day from people
wanting to look specific items they found on Craigslist. Usually the
visitors end up shopping and seeing something else they will buy or
they refer a friend. The first week ended with sales of over 1/3 of
our furniture. This is a great relief since two weeks ago we were
despairing at the fast pace of time passing and the amount of work
we foresaw to empty the house. We will have some time next week but
probably won't expect other people to spend Christmas week shopping
Craigslist. We'll gear up again after the holidays.
You might
not expect things to affect you although you hear other people tell
about this or that thing happening. One response to our
advertisements was written in a somewhat stilted English and just
didn't seem like the respondent was "from around here". The
respondent wrote: Thanks for the prompt response i have instructed
my account officer to mailing (overnight) a certified check,while
you hold on my behalf. Once you receive this, my mover will come
pick up at your place.I will be needing the following information to
issue out the payment . . . 1.Your full name 2.Your mailing
address(Physical) 3.Your phone number. ** Please note that the
payment will be overnight to your address and it will be delivered
within 2 days.I have taken a close look at the AD and am satisfied.I
appreciates you saving this for me.Kindly delete the posting as am
definitely buying it from you and it would be sad for me to have the
payment in the mail only to be informed of the its sale**
Jim was
immediately suspicious but we decided to treat it as aboveboard in
case it was genuine. The following day we received this response: Am
sorry it took a while for me to get back to you but on getting the
requested information on where and whom to mail the check to,I
immediately forwarded that to my accounting officer at the Bank, and
the payment will certainly be delivered tomorrow but there is a miss
interpretation on the check. It was claimed that i requested that a
check of $3500 be sent to you but i know quite well i only made a
request for just $350 to cover the cost of the Woodard French
Country Porch Furniture.It was a terrible mistake and i was only
informed about this some few minutes ago. I have been advice by my
account officer that when you do finally receive the check,you
should have it deposited at once at your Bank and deduct the money
for your good with an extra $100 as a gift from me to offset the
cost of your run around while on this. The rest of the fund should
be wired to my mover via 'Western Union' as this will be use to
offset the cost of the shipment he as undertaken on my behalf during
my move,he will be needing the funds to make it over to your place
for the pick up so kindly let me know if i can trust you to handle
this with care i will be waiting for a writing confirmation from
you,regards.
Craigslist advised to deal
face-face with your buyers and don't wire money. Good advice. Who'd
have thought we would invite this sort of malarkey into our humble
enterprise? But there you have it, even in Mayberry we may be
vulnerable to the outside world. Be careful out there, everyone.
week of December 10, 2007
This has been
a busy week! We opened the week with our wonderful financial
advisor, Dan Brienza, to discuss how our cash flow may look for
2008. We shopped briefly both at stores and online. We fixed the
washing machine, Jim spent a half-day with Helping Hands puttering
about the Church doing small maintenance items. We enjoyed dinner at
Church's Wonderful Wednesday fellowship. Deb listed the lawn metal
tulip chairs and table with Craigslist and two hours later had two
responses. The following morning Catherine came over with her old
Honda Accord and we surprisingly fit the two chairs and round table
into the Accord. We spent a fun day in Cabarrus County shopping Pawn
Shops for a particular gift one of our children requested. While we
were in the area we stopped in at Gary's BBQ, famous since 1971, in
China Grove for a small tray and a real splurge, we split a banana
pudding. Saturday evening we attended a large Christmas Party at
Jim's brother's house. Some of Jim's family was there, along with
what seemed like a hundred other people. Any other year we would
have thought it most inopportune but the pouring rain during the
party was very acceptable to any revelers walking to their houses or
cars. We aren't so accustomed to rain as to complain about the rare
occurrence now.
week of December 3, 2007
The oldest
member of our Church, Powell Majors, died at the end of last week.
He was about to turn 101 years old. We attended as fine a funeral as
we've been to. Three of his grandchildren paid tribute to their
wonderful granddad with well-chosen words. A former pastor of
Dilworth Methodist Church presented the homily in magnificent
fashion, weaving the story of how his best friend just passed away.
Dr. Russ Montfort did this wonderfully and we enjoyed it. Words
attributed to Powell included these: "a key to my success has been
keeping the same wife, the same church, and the same bank"
I've
started playing golf with a group of the retired men from the
church. I like playing weekly because I can find my swing a little
easier. Unfortunately I've also learned playing golf in cold weather
is much less comfortable than hitting tennis in cold weather. Some
of the days have been very temperate so we've had nice rounds of
golf too. Inexplicably I've started hitting my drives between 225
and 290 yards. I can't yet (and may not ever) predict which ones
will go the longest but am enjoying distance I never attained
before. Hmm, maybe these old guys are using a different measuring
system? We're enjoying hitting, though, and it's nice to get outside
and enjoy the beautiful NC weather.
We had the
high school holiday open house Thursday evening. Twenty-two people
attended and everyone was so festive. We've been getting together
quarterly but our turnout has been smaller when we meet at the local
bar. I wonder if the large turnout is because of the season or
because we had it in a home instead of the bar? We'll see if someone
will host it at their house next time. We had fun doing it this
time, and hosting this pushed us to get our decorations and some
yard work done more quickly than we would have done otherwise.
The
Installation luncheon last week and the reunion open house behind
us, I spent a little time goofing around outside on a couple of
pending projects. Seeing this, Deb talked me into tackling the
washing machine repair. The washing machine is restored to its full
working status. Deb connived and cajoled and tricked me into fixing
it. She had for several days wielded the home repair book (something
like, "how everything works and how to take it apart") and making a
show of studying the washing machine trouble-shooting page in front
of me. With the priority distractions behind us Deb knew she had me.
So we wrestled the washer, with it's tub of water we couldn't spin
out, outside from the laundry room onto the deck. We turned it over
and took things loose and couldn't tell what was wrong. I was ready
to hand this off to a qualified person but Deb sensed she was close
to having her washer fixed. She reexplained to me how the machine
failed and we finally found the culprit, the lid switch had
malfunctioned. Bingo! The machine is working fabulously. The bonus
is, we scrubbed the floor under and behind the washer and it all
looks so much better. This is especially important in case the house
checkers come by when we aren't around and they look under the
washer to see if we've been cleaning there . . .
week of November 26, 2007
Christmas
tree shopping at Penlands in South Carolina was a sweet experience.
Penlands has been our reliable and wonderful source of trees for
many years. We could browse their tree farm easily while sipping
their hot chocolate. We would find excellent cypress trees to just
fit our 9.5 foot tall ceiling in the living room. Sometimes the
trees would be wide but this year we found a tall narrow tree and
it's gorgeous. This year we shopped for the tree on Wednesday after
Thanksgiving. What a different experience from the weekend rush! We
were, for a very brief time this visit, the only customers in the
shed talking with the owners and describing what we thought our tree
might be next year: an 18 inch live potted and we would plant it in
the ground after Christmas. They had a lot of fun with this contrast
from our 114 inch tree this year. We will too, next Christmas.
Did I
mention our washing machine died upon our return from the nine week
Odyssey? It died of inattention? We don't know, but ordered a new
timer and the washer worked one more cycle before stopping again.
Now we can sell or give away a perfectly good washing machine timer,
too. We have so many things going on for the next two weeks we won't
get around to spending any more time on this problem and I like
going to the laundromat with Deb anyway. There's an intriguing
efficacy to it: for three dollars you can wash two large loads of
wash. They require precious little soap, use far less water than our
washer did, are finished in under forty-five minutes, spin the water
out of the wash much better than our machine does (so the clothes
dry more quickly in our dryer), and we are washing both loads at
once then a whole three blocks back home. What's not to like about
it? We may as well like it, we don't have time to fix the washer
until after the Airstream Club's Officer Installation Luncheon this
Saturday and my high school (East Mecklenburg High) class
mini-reunion at our house next week.
We are
enjoying a new aspect of life made practical by retirement: weekly
morning-long visits to the public library. There's no shortage of
things to read at the house, between subscriptions to Time, Readers
Digest, Airstream Life, Trailer Life, Blue Beret, AARP, QST, and
others, and way too many books we may never get around to. The
library offers more than simply another thing to read. The public
library, as with a campground or park or just about anywhere AWAY
from your home offers a venue conducive to reading. You could read
almost anywhere -- we proved this in college and many times since.
We don't find ourselves choosing to read enough at home, what with
2,800 square feet of distractions inside and a half acre more
outside. How can I read when (1) there are so many cool other things
to do, and (2) there are so darned many things begging to be done
NOW? The library offers an escape from all this and we even get to
read cool stuff or work on the website or just watch people. We like
the library.
I played
tennis 1967 - 1993 and pretty suddenly just stopped. I played to
excess in high school and college and played regularly year-round
with friends and in leagues from 1980 to 1993. When I moved to
Concord, NC, I found neither a tennis league nor games. Courts were
in much shorter supply because Concord just wasn't a very large
community then. And the same summer I discovered bicycling. For my
birthday mid-1993 I gave myself a nice TREK aluminum road bike and
started logging miles throughout the countryside surrounding
Concord.
Bicycle riding can be much like golfing -- a good ride
takes two to four hours and weekend mornings are wonderful times to
be cycling. This pastime becomes a jealous mistress -- all the time
you can spare goes into riding and what time is left you can attend
to chores and family. More riding enables riding more miles more
easily and the passion develops. I didn't miss tennis, particularly.
I had two wonderful children, a fabulous high-maintenance yard and
garden, a demanding job, spent twenty-four months work resulting in
an MBA and then helped coach the high school aged girls soccer team
for a year. And I was riding over 100 miles a week on my bicycle.
All this to explain how I accidentally stopped playing tennis.
Deb and I
spent a week in Chattanooga two months ago. I played tennis with my
brother-in-law at Manker Patten Tennis Club on the Tennessee River
and rekindled a long-dormant love for hitting the tennis ball. It is
just time for me to start playing tennis again, okay? I have started
playing tennis with my best partner from so long ago, my brother. We
started playing together in Kissimmee FL when we worked together at
an RV Park near I-4. We would regularly get up very early and hit as
the sun was rising to both avoid some heat in the summer and to get
to hit before our work day started. We are now hitting for over an
hour twice a week and enjoying the renaissance of our old rivalry.
I've restrung and regripped my old Prince racket from 1991 and am
finding every sort of ache and pain. We're playing on hard courts,
which is very much my favorite, and I think the courts may be harder
on our joints. We need to consider practicing a little moderation so
we can keep going at this. Meanwhile it is wonderfully exciting
exercise and just a tremendous ego boost for us to find some of our
old tennis groove again.
We enjoyed
a major milestone for the month -- we successfully hosted the
Carolinas Unit of NC WBCCI (Airstream RV Owners Club) Installation
Luncheon Saturday. Jim called every member on the roster to
encourage them to attend and we had sixty people show up. we
arranged the venue, the table decorations, the caterer, and the
musicians. The location in our church's fellowship hall was
beautiful and impressive, the food was delicious, and the ceremony
went well. I am now the President of our chapter of the Airstream RV
Owners Club for 2008. Everything went perfectly and the event was a
great success. And we can move on to planning and setting up for the
high school class holiday reunion at our house. This is a great plan
for us -- we will need to complete Christmas decorating before next
Thursday evening so we can entertain the dozen or two dozen high
school classmates we think will show up. We respond well to external
motivations like this, so here goes!
week of November 19, 2007
Kidney
Foundation is making a pickup in our neighborhood next week. This
may be our last scheduled pickup from them for 2007 so we want to
make it a good one. We need to make more space in the attics (garage
and house), want others to have the opportunity to put these things
to beneficial use (lots of clothing, a little furniture, and all
sorts of miscellaneous household things), and we would benefit more
this year than next from any tax benefit we may obtain by donating
now.
The IRS
rules change, effective August 2006, for charitable donations requires us essentially to photograph and list every item for which
we would ask tax deduction. This apparently helps assure tax
deductions are only granted for items in good condition. Deb spent
much of the week sorting through things to keep for our children,
parents, or siblings. Then she catalogues and boxes the donatable
items so we can place the boxes in the appropriate place for the
pickup by the charity. Jim helps move the boxes around and hovers
closely at times to save a few things for later reconsideration. We
held out a few books to return to family, or if we thought a book
might have particular interest to a friend, and a few old first
edition books which we will try to determine value on. The work
seems endless. Deb is scouring closets, drawers, cabinets,
bookshelves, and the attics.
Jim's mom
and stepdad and siblings fled town for Thanksgiving in other
locations. Deb's sister, Janet, invited us over to her house (four
blocks away) for a family get-together and Deb's parents had
everyone in Saturday for their annual Thanksgiving feast. Deb's
three siblings and their children were present. Charles and Hannah,
Jim's children, were on their way until Charles' car suffered
catastrophic mechanical failure 80 miles from the luncheon. They
arranged a tow back to their mom's house and called us to tell us
they would still like to see us. We drove them to our house for the
night and quickly concocted a plan to make the most of driving them
to their house in Asheville, NC the next afternoon.
The rest of the
evening was spent touring the house and garage and respective attics
to determine what the kids could make use of in their house. Jim and
the kids awoke early Sunday to empty our pickup truck and loaded it
with as much as they could, including some dry firewood. We had a
nice drive to Asheville and were happy to encounter rain along the
way -- it didn't help our mission but our region needs any drop of
precipitation so we welcome it. Everyone unloaded the truck, we ate
a delicious chicken, black bean, and yellow rice casserole Deb
brought from home, and we drove back much of the way to Charlotte in
nice soaking rains.
week of November 12, 2007
Deb has
discovered using Ebay for listing, selling, PayPal, and shipping two
items. She found two items to try selling on ebay as an evaluation
of usefulness for clearance of things from our household. The
listing, pricing, estimate of shipping costs, and ad details
required a surprising amount of time. Ebay charges (as they must)
fees to the seller for listing, selling, and payment. Deb received
three bids for one item and one bid for the other. Both items sold
for a sufficient amount to be worthwhile, so this may be
advantageous for us for select items. Our criteria will be the
likelihood of generating bids (not everything does, we later
learned) and the ease of packaging for shipping. We'll try this out
over the next two months and hope it proves worth the effort for
us.
week of November 5, 2007
Jim began
installation of the solar panel kit for our new full-time home, the
CCD 25 Airstream. He was fortunate to have excellent direction from
another Airstreamer, Don Williams (KD6UVT) who installed the same
size panels on an identical Airstream one year ago. Don carefully
photographed and documented his installation with helpful hints.
Since the solar panel kit was almost entirely without an
installation guide Jim is grateful for Don's excellent
documentation. [try this link, http://sierranevadaairstreams.org/owners-guide/maintaining/energy-power/solar-kd6uvt/index.html].
We learned during our nine week Fall shakedown cruise our limiting factor for
dry-camping, or camping without any utility hookups, was battery
power. Our two batteries, if we weren't extremely conservative in
use of lights and water pump, would go to their recommended minimum
in less than three days of use. We would avoid use of the
battery-powered lights almost entirely and use candles for
illumination of cooking and dining if we wanted to extend to three
or more days of battery capacity. A solar panel charging system adds
fifty pounds to our trailer's weight. Our trailer is approaching its
recommended weight maximum. We are willing to find fifty pounds of
books and equipment to remove from the trailer to balance this
addition when we find it necessary.
The
installation seemed to consist primarily of many trips up and down
the short extension ladder to the roof of the trailer and some
crawling and squirming under and into small cubbyholes for wiring
and connections. The reality, as usual, is different from the
perception. The job required two solid days of varied activities
including layout and spacing of the panels on the roof, drilling the
panels' frames for the mounting feet, cutting, routing, and
connecting the sections of wiring from the roof, to the controller
location, and to the batteries, and mounting everything in a
roadworthy and safe manner.
How did it
work out? The panels are sending high power to the charge
controller. The charge controller is monitoring and maintaining
battery condition with temperature compensation. We no longer need
to provide AC (or "shore") power to the trailer to keep the
batteries from leaking down from the several sources of losses (gas
detector, power converter, and normal battery losses of 1%/day).
Also the solar charge controller is superior to the
factory-installed converter/charge controller.
The factory installed
converter/charge controller is a two-stage controller without a
float charge rate, so it would overcook the batteries once the batteries
are charged. The three-stage solar controller has an adjustable
float charge rate to monitor maintain the batteries carefully at
their top rate without overcooking them. We have eliminated battery
power as our limiting factor for dry-camping, barring three or more
consecutive sunless days. We can augment the solar charging system
with our quiet and very small portable gas-powered generator in case
of this unlikely event. Overall this is a good setup and we look
forward to taking it on the road.
week of October 29,
2007
Yes, we
bought the Argosy and brought it home. Here's a picture of it:
We
drove very easily from Charlotte NC up to Lima OH Sunday and rested
well overnight in a motel in Lima. The Argosy is only seven feet
wide, compared to 8.5 feet width of the Airstream, and the two are
approximately the same length and gross weight ratings. But the
Airstream is full with all the furnishings and clothes and food and
water and propane. The Argosy has only the built-ins and everything
is empty. Nothing is in the cabinets or storage boxes or
refrigerator or water or propane tanks.
The previous owners had begun
careful preparations of Snow White for road-worthiness. Upon completing
the transaction we topped off the air pressure in the tires, checked
the lug nuts and lights, and made sure everything inside was ready
for the 500 mile trip home. Consequently the drive to Charlotte
Monday afternoon was a great drive, although a little long at 500
miles, with Snow White behind us.
Wednesday we drove, with our silver trailer, to Myrtle Beach SC for a camping
trip with our WBCCI chapter, Carolinas Unit of NC. This is the
Unit's last rally for 2007 and we were excited about it. Our club
usually has very strong attendance at this location and we expected
the same this year. The weather turned out windy at first but was
gorgeous and wonderful temperatures for early November. No swimming
for us but we enjoyed some long walks and fun time outdoors with our
friends. Of course we caravanned to seafood restaurants. This year
we all went to Sara J's in Garden City and had wonderful service and
great food. And, many of us ended up dropping by the nearby Camping
World to see what things we can't do without and haven't already
picked up in earlier visits to Camping World. Deb and I bought an
outdoor phone cable to connect the trailer to the park's phone
system, so we left feeling lucky we didn't spend more. (Two weeks
later we found another of the same phone cables already in Jim's
junk box in back of the truck.)
week of October 22, 2007
We joined
Deb's family for a dinner in honor of her sister's birthday. We had
our semi-annual dental visits, our first medical expenses since
retiring. We are able to pay for these from our health savings
account as a pre-tax expense. You can see Deb's excellent
description of our home-brew health plan on the FAQ page of our
website. Kidney Foundation picked up twenty boxes of stuff we hope
they find useful and valuable. We didn't need it anymore and our
children wouldn't take it.
Jim worked two days helping hospitals
monitor compliance with life safety and related accreditation
requirements. Jim spent one evening serving his Boy Scout Troop as
"The Voice of the Eagle" in the Eagle Court of Honor Ceremony for
one of their Scouts. He enjoys reading aloud and especially
appreciates helping honor both the Scouts attaining Eagle Scout rank
and the Scouts attending the ceremony and hearing the powerful
messages the ceremony provides.
We learned
of the availability of a vintage Argosy travel trailer we could
purchase for possible use in our upcoming Africa trip from Capetown,
South Africa to Cairo, Egypt. Sadly, another Africa-bound caravanner
decided they could not participate in the 2009 journey and so would
sell the trailer. We exchanged emails and phone calls and agreed
upon a price, meeting date and location. We'll drive to Lima OH this
Sunday and meet them Monday morning to transact the sale and bring
the trailer home. This came up suddenly but we have been in the
market for an Airstream or Argosy for the past year. We have
investigated a couple leads and thought we had found an excellent
trailer seven months ago. It didn't work out and this is the first
solid prospect we've had.
Week of October 15,
2007
This begins
our first week home after nine weeks on the road everywhere from
North Carolina to British Columbia and many points in between. It
has been a wonderful experience and we're not too happy to be home.
We were really getting accustomed to being on the road, away from
the sticks and bricks, away from the yard, and away from being in
one place for months at a time. We're thinking we like the 'on the
road' thing. We'll try it again as soon as we can escape.
This week
we scheduled and accomplished an amazing number of necessary and
helpful things. We had the house HVAC system semi-annual service
visit, our annual Terminix inspection, our oil change for the Accord
and the big red truck and enjoyed Wonderful Wednesday dinner at our
church, annual fundraiser BBQ dinner at the church closest to our
house, another dinner with my parents and another with Deb's son and
his wife. Kidney Foundation called us Thursday and advised they
would have a truck in our neighborhood next Wednesday morning, would
we have anything for them?
Well, sure, we don't have to report
anywhere else each day except Sunday, so we can arrange for plenty
of things for them to pick up in five days, can't we? Okay, we still
know how to respond to an opportunity with a deadline. We spent the
weekend going through the attic with a fine tooth comb looking for
things our siblings and children would not want. Take pictures, list
the items on a writing pad, securely box the items, and stage them
for later carrying to the porch for pick-up. Its a good start on
what will become a weekly occupation from the attic, and closets and
dressers.
We are
pleased to have received a shining report on our big red truck for its
15,000 mile checkup and oil change. The oil is clean as a whistle, a
leak which showed up only upon our return to our own driveway was a
loose oil filter and is corrected, and no other problems have
surfaced. We remain very pleased with our truck, a Chevrolet
Silverado 2500HD. Not only has it towed our trailer across the U.S.
twice in perfect order but also has been extremely comfortable and
without a single problem for 
15,000
miles.
We carefully analyzed gas versus diesel before selecting this
8.1 liter gas truck and have been fortunate so far with the choice.
Our truck is quieter than any diesel truck we have heard, purchase
cost was between five and seven thousand less than comparable diesel
trucks, and gasoline has been consistently, and as much as
thirty-five cents, cheaper than diesel since we purchased the truck.
The gasoline should not cost less than diesel and probably won't
continue so.
Everyone seems to agree gasoline would cost more to
refine than diesel, gas was consistently more expensive than diesel
fuel until Katrina Hurricane hit New Orleans, and diesel fuel will
surely reduce in price again. Our first cost savings over the diesel
powerplant is so substantial we knew our payback for the diesel's
economy would be pretty far in the future even if diesel fuel is
cheaper. This is partly true because we plan to drive less than
12,000 miles per year and we don't expect to keep the truck ten
years.
What is
the economy of purchasing a diesel-powered truck over the same truck
in gas, if you don't need the extra torque from diesel? Ignore the
higher cost of maintaining the diesel (many more quarts of oil per
change and more frequent oil change than the 8.1L gas, if you follow
Chevrolet's oil condition program). Assume we don't need the higher
torque of diesel (we don't), assume gas and diesel cost the same per
gallon, assume diesel gets 1/3 better mileage than the gas (thirteen
mpg vs ten mpg) and assume 12,000 miles per year. This analysis is
for our operating conditions with 8,000 pounds of truck (loaded) and
6,000 pounds of trailer, also loaded. You will probably get
different results than we did. This is not based upon your fuel
mileage with your truck or trailer weighing or hauling more or less
than ours.
The
break-even for the higher first cost is, under these assumptions,
seven to ten years. After the simple payback, we save $831 per year
with the diesel if diesel and gas cost the same per gallon and
maintenance costs don't change. If diesel fuel cost is only
twenty-five cents higher than gasoline then the annual savings is
still $600.00 and payback moves out to even further. We'll probably
start paying a little (but not too much) attention to the age and
mileage of other full-timers' trucks. Our last truck was fourteen
years old when we sold it and was still serviceable, but not in any
manner economical. The interior was disintegrating, the seats needed
to be re-stuffed or replaced, maintenance and oil costs were
increasing annually, reliability was gone, and power was
disappearing. Okay, fourteen years is an extreme difference from
seven or ten years. We're interested in finding the sweet-spot for
comfort, amenities, costs and reliability.
This has
been our first full week home since retiring August 3. We found it
so much easier to get things arranged and completed when work isn't
competing for our time. Oh, and we can brew and enjoy cups of tea
with each other throughout most of the day. Pretty nice!
October 14, 2007
The Carolinas
Unit of NC rally ended this morning after a yummy continental
breakfast with big sweet rolls with lots of icing and plenty of
coffee and fellowship. Members exchanged farewells of "See you down
the road" and set about hitching up their campers and pulling out.
We took our fair time getting ready to leave and enjoyed a glorious
North Carolina Sunday 
reading and talking before heading home. We
weren't overly interested in heading home and beginning the next
phase of our full-timing adventure. This next part pales terribly in
comparison to what we've enjoyed these past nine weeks. We will,
after a brief settling back into the house, begin preparing the
house for the real estate closing. Yeah, it sounds official this
way. What "preparing the house" means is a lot of painstaking
sorting and distributing all our household belongings from seventeen
years or more of collecting. We intend to store so very little so
must determine the best "adoptive home" for our things. The good
news is we won't be doing this in the hot attic during August. And,
we have allowed enough time, three months, to do it.
We arrived
home early afternoon and unpacked just what we needed into the
house. The house was very welcoming, clean, and nice to return to.
We had only two hours before we drove up to Debbie's parent's house
in Kannapolis to enjoy supper with them, show them some of our
pictures from the trip, and pick up our bushel basket of unforwarded
mail from them. Deb's mom forwarded to us only the part of the first
class mail she thought we should need. Her mom held the vast
majority of the mail. We were dismayed by the large amount of first
class "junk mail" we are still receiving -- it never mattered too
much while we were living full-time in the house. This bunch of mail
represents an undue amount of forwarding expense and trash for our
new full-time travelling home. We'll start looking for the best
means to convert to paperless communications from our faithful
financial institutions and others who send us so much paper.
We're sort
of glad to be home. This will be our last blast as homeowners for a
while. We will spend three months here, enjoy it immensely, and find
ourselves on the road again. We're looking forward to the trip
already.
October 13, 2007
The
Club prepared a wonderful hot breakfast for the members this
morning. We drove afterward to nearby Glendale Springs to the Church
of the Frescoes, the Parish of the Holy Communion. Today they had
their annual Festival of the Frescoes and we enjoyed shopping the
booths for fresh canned jams and other possible gifts for friends
and family. Later in the evening we feasted on the Club's wonderful
pinto bean supper with hushpuppies and salad.
October 12, 2007
The big event
of this day was car-pooling with our club to Shatley Springs for
supper. We arrived over twenty minutes before our reservation and
waited almost an hour before seating. We ordered from the menu and
had cold food served by a harried wait person. Maybe it will be
better next time -- the restaurant's reputation is far better than
what we experienced this time. The great thing was the fellowship
shared by the club and with some of the other nearby patrons. We all
enjoyed ourselves this evening.
October 11, 2007
Jim played
golf at Mountain Aire in West Jefferson with one of his golf friends
from the club. The course was gorgeous but the weather and course
conspired to overly challenge the golfers today. They both returned
vowing to have a better golf day next time. Hope springs eternal,
especially for golfers . . .
October 10, 2007
Carolinas
Unit of NC is a great WBCCI Unit full, as no doubt many other units
are, of wonderful and caring people. Thirty-eight months ago we
attended our first WBCCI rally in response to a very warm invitation
from the Carolinas Unit membership chairman and the unit president.
We arrived very late Friday night after work and a challenging
towing experience. Hot coffee and pancakes and warm fellowship
Saturday morning quickly convinced us this is a great camping club.
The rally location was Raccoon Holler Campground in Glendale
Springs, NC.
Today we
drove to Glendale Springs to attend the Carolinas Unit rally at
Raccoon Holler Campground. Arrival a day early affords us some time
to catch up on communications and paperwork for ourselves and the
Unit. Our connectivity in Lookout Vally was excellent but we spent
almost all our time away from the camper. TCPC had wireless but we
spent our time visiting with the Schwartzes and Willoughbys. We
continue to write but are overdue posting to the website and have
pictures to download and sort. We hope to have cellular web access
and will tomorrow investigate the advertised wifi access of Raccoon
Holler campground.
We stopped
an hour west of Boone to wash the truck. Yesterday's drive around
Cades Cove Loop included three trips on extremely dry gravel roads
and the truck never looked worse than this morning. The truck is
much improved with a fresh washing. With or without the truck so
clean, our drive was beautiful from the outset to the arrival. Trees
are turning, everything is so green and wooded, the hills and
mountains are outstanding. We love North Carolina. Cades Cove is at
2150 feet elevation and we are now at 3,400 feet. Accordingly we
will expect a much cooler evening tonight and heard the weather
tomorrow night will be in the thirties. We'll see.
October 9, 2007
Cades Cove
has been a park property since 1937, and the last resident left in
1999. The National Parks System purchased all the properties and
allowed the families then in the houses to stay for their lifetime.
This provided the Parks with an intact community of buildings from
the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. We felt sad at
the demise of the community and had a sense, even if incorrect, the
government pushed the families from their homesteads. Cades Cove was
settled by these families beginning almost immediately after the
Calhoun Purchase in which the Cherokees lost the land. The U.S.
Census of 1830 reflected many families already settled in Cades
Cove. 
Over 650 people lived in Cades Cove
by 1850. We spent the day touring the churches and homesteads along
the Cades Cove Loop Road, an eleven mile paved single-lane road. The
Methodist Church was reputedly the first established but the
Primitive Baptist Church wielded the power over this community. The
NP Volunteer played for us a section of a song sung in the
shape-note method. The singers use only four notes, and each note is
carried by one section of the choir. First the singers sing the song
a capella using the name of the notes, then they sing the words of
the song still using only the same four notes. Both churches'
sanctuaries still stand, one hundred years old, sided by cemeteries
fifty years older.
Two cabins from ca 1830 showed the
half-dovetail corners, round logs, chinking, and almost windowless
construction typical of the time. The picture on the right depicts
an unusual hybrid, the addition of a cabin made from mill-sawn
lumber. This was Henry Whitehead's cabin added to Matilda Shields
Gregory's older cabin. The other cabins, built with lumber from
Peter Cable's sash saw, had square logs or siding with interior
board walls. The settlers needed a springhouse to keep the
milk, butter, and some vegetables. Elijah Oliver's springhouse was
a nice example of ingenuity
in diverting water from the nearby creek in hollowed saplings to a
trough made from a hollowed log. You can see from this picture the
springhouse was not large. Jim's overall impression was of the
hardness of life, reflected by the primitive and small cabins, lack
of running water, and total dependence upon the small community's
crops and livestock. These people had extremely little time off from
their chores. The families were large, the cabins small, the chores
endless, but perhaps the rewards were great. The residents enjoyed
eighty inches of rainfall annually, rich bottomlands for planting,
good grazing on the hills above, and as pretty a place as anywhere
in the world.
October 8, 2007
Lucy GPS did
it again. We entered the destination for Cades Cove campground and
she directed us up a steep and very narrow road up the wrong side of
the mountain to approach Cades Cove Loop Road via the wrong end of a
one-way exit road from the park. We encountered a NPS Jeep driving
down the mountain we were climbing. Jim flagged the driver down and
asked, "although not optimal will this road get us to the
campground?" The ranger, smiling almost imperceptibly, said it would
not.
She provided us directions and advised us to
rely more upon roadmaps than GPS. Jim found a turnaround in a
fortuitously placed driveway and we made our way five miles back
down to US 321E and the correct turn in Townsend, TN. Although only
eleven miles, the detour cost us almost an hour extra driving time.
We set the camper in our campsite in the NPS Cades Cove Campground
and enjoyed sitting and reading outside until supper. The weather is
a little cooler here and the Weather Service predicts rain and more
cooling ahead.
October 7,2007
Em and Paul
invited us in for one last hurrah, brunch at their house this
morning. We awoke early and hitched up the trailer. Deb obtained
permission from the campground to store our Airstream in the go-kart
parking lot while we ran to brunch. Coffee and tea were ready and Em
was cooking a frittata and wonderful whole grain toast. Jim epoxied
St. Francis while brunch preparations continued. We all enjoyed a
long table discussion on family history and travel thoughts before
Paul left for his tennis lesson and we prepared to leave for the
Tennessee Airstream Park in Crossville, TN.
We ran
errands to the Post Office, ATM, and grocery store before returning
to pick up our camper and hitch up for the two-hour drive. We
travelled up US 127 through the Sequatchie Valley, supposed by many
to be one of two such rifts in the world. The other is The Great
Victoria Valley in Africa. These are significant because they are
believed to be formed by giant shears as the plateau literally
splits apart. This creates a narrow valley with very steep and tall
sides forming up to plateaus above.
As we
pulled into TCPC Deb recognized the WBCCI number on the first
trailer we saw in the park. This Airstream belongs to another couple
planning to participate in the Africa Caravan in 2009, and we wanted
to ask them if they would consider us as their South-bound
complement. We sat and talked with Phil and Margie Schwartz for over
two hours before we excused ourselves to park and setup our camper
for the night. We promised to exchange contact information with them
tomorrow before we leave for our next campground, Cades Cove in the
Great Smoky Mountains.
October 6, 2007
We all piled
into Paul's old gold Volvo and drove downtown to the Manker Patten
Tennis Club on the Tennessee River. Em and Deb took a two hour walk
while Paul borrowed a demo racquet for Jim and the guys hit balls
for around an hour. Jim hadn't hit in too long and will feel this
for a few days. Paul graciously complimented Jim's hitting and
welcomed him to return and hit more anytime. Okay, Jim really should
pack his tennis shoes and racquet in the full-timing gear. We can
find room for it somewhere and Jim really loves playing tennis.
Deb and Em walked all over Chattanooga and met
the guys at the club afterward. Jim and Paul had cleaned up and we
all rode to Signal Mountain and viewed the Smokies, Chickamauga Dam,
and Raccoon Mountain before going down the W Road to grocery stores
for the right dinner ingredients. Soon after returning home Doug and
Faith then Mike and Beth arrived to have drinks on the porch before
dinner. Doug and Faith had other plans and couldn't stay for dinner.
Mike and Beth ate dinner with us and Mike shared college stories of
his Road Runner, hunting, being held up at a restaurant, and working
things out as best as he could.
October 5, 2007
We rode around Lookout Mountain's
West Brow and East Brow with Jim's sister, Emily. She showed us the
houses along the east and west sides, or brows, of the ridge. We
parked outside Point Park and viewed the Battle for Chattanooga
diorama. It was fascinating to watch the diorama glitter with lights
representing the various brigades' engagements and listen to the
narration of the battle for Chattanooga. We stopped by Sunset Point
for the view and a few pictures, then Em drove us through Rock City,
part of Fairyland and the Fairyland Club before we returned to her
house for another wonderful meal.
October 4, 2007
Today we
lunched on turnip greens, fresh tomatoes, meatloaf, grilled chicken,
hoecakes, homemade peach ice cream, peanut butter pie, and lemon
icebox pie at Zarzours, the oldest restaurant in Chattanooga. It was
wonderful. Emily gave us a tour of downtown Chattanooga and the
parks and the North shore before we went to the International Towing
and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum. Not just the largest or the
best, they claim to be the only museum for towing and recovery in
the world. We watched a fifteen minute video describing the museum
and hall of fame.
The video also detailed the
striking monument honoring the fallen towing and recovery workers.
They told us an average of sixty-four towing and recovery workers
lose their lives in the line of work each year. Watching the video
and touring the museum with us was a tow truck operator from Kansas
City, MO. He was taking his new roll-back truck from Atlanta to
Kansas City and stopped in to see this monument and museum. He told
us (and showed us) he received two gunshot wounds while answering an
assistance call. He continues in his chosen work undeterred by this
misfortune. He and many, many other towing and recovery workers love
their work. They stand ready to respond at any time of day, under
any weather conditions, on any kind of road conditions and often
well off the roads to help you and me. Their equipment is expensive,
their risks great, and they love this service they perform for us.
We were struck by the immense pride shared by the members of this
museum and hall of fame, and are glad we found this gem.
We drove to
Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park to tour the
exhibits. This is the nation's first National Military Park and was
created in 1890 to preserve and commemorate these battlefields.
There are nine national military parks in the National Park System,
including Chickamauga and Chattanooga, Fredericksburg and
Spotsylvania, Gettysburg, Guilford Courthouse, Horseshoe Bend, Kings
Mountain, Pea Ridge, Shiloh, and Vicksburg. Each of the nine parks
commemorates the significance of the battles in the area. The
battles at Chickamauga and Chattanooga are fascinating and morbid
displays of very clever strategy (General Rosecrans' flanking
maneuvers to take Chattanooga from General Braxton Bragg without a
battle) and sad miscalculations or failures due to leaders' fatigue,
lack of information, or misinformation. It is staggering to realize
the horrific death toll from these battlefields. How did the
Generals' sense of expected casualties shape their strategic
decisions, and did they have a realistic sense of the outcomes?
One of
the museums at the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military
Park is of the rifles and muskets used in the Civil War. The weapons
ranged in caliber from 38 caliber to 79 caliber. Over a hundred
different long guns are on display in this museum with a few facts
about each one. Wilder's Lightning Brigade capitalized on the
innovative Spencer Rifle's seven shot capability to rapidly move the
mounted infantry and have superior firepower. A Spencer Rifle allows
the soldier to fire fifteen shots per minute while the muzzle loader
allowed three shots per minute.
Fredericksburg and
Spotsylvania is the largest military park in the world and features
parts of four Civil War Battlefields. Gettysburg was the largest
battle ever waged in the Western Hemisphere. Guilford Courthouse was
the largest action of the Revolutionary War's Southern Campaign.
Horseshoe Bend commemorates Andrew Jackson's dominance over the
Upper Creek Indian Confederacy. Kings Mountain commemorates a
victory of American Patriots in the Revolutionary War. Pea Ridge was
the site of the Civil War battle leading to the Union's total
control of Missouri and was the only Civil War battle in which
American Indians participated. Shiloh was one of the largest battles
of the Civil War and involved more than 100,000 Union and
Confederate troops. Vicksburg was the site of a victorious siege for
over three months in 1863 by the northern aggressors. You can see a
lot more great information at this link of the NPS. http://www.nps.gov/history/history/categrs/mili2.htm
October 3, 2007
We drove from
Lexingon, KY to Chattanooga, TN, and immediately found a
do-it-yourself carwash to clean our filthy truck and trailer. Total
cost to wash both? Five dollars! What a deal! Today it is 80 degrees
and partly cloudy. Not a lot like Fall season to me, except we can
tell the trees are beginning their annual color change dance. Just
hints of the golden and orange highlights are laced through their
foliage. If we could stick around here we could see the whole dance.
Oh wait! We could stay if we wanted, couldn't we? But we plan to
leave here Sunday and go to Crossville, TN to an Airstream Park
we've heard so much about, then to Cades Cove in the Great Smoky
Mountains National Park for a couple days, then four more days in
the mountains not far from Boone, NC, then home finally.
We are in
Chattanoooga, TN, for a few days to visit with Jim's sister Emily
and her husband, Paul Campbell. We set up the camper in Raccoon
Mountain Campground and drove five miles across Lookout Valley to Em
and Paul's house. While Em prepared some supper, Jim did a few house
repair things for Em and Paul's house. After supper we watched ML
baseball and all talked for hours before we returned to our camper
for the night.
October 2, 2007
We found a
beautiful and quiet little state park high above the highway for our
overnight respite. Norris Dam State Park sits at approximately 1,900
feet above sea level at the very top of the hill above Norris Lake
and Lake City, TN. We enjoyed talking with some of our neighbors,
reading, and getting ready for tomorrow. We were surprised and
dismayed, though, by the disturbance one of the newer arrivals to
the campground. They parked and levelled their trailer and commenced
blowing all the leaves, debris and a huge amount of dust throughout
the park so their campsite would be cleaner than any other. It is a
little difficult to understand the apparent total disregard for the
downwind victims of this cleaning action except to realize how many
times this has been modeled by cities and industries in our country
with water and air pollutions of every sort. It is the first time on
our journey we have encountered a camper creating so much dust. We
hope we don't see it often. Otherwise the state park was very
peaceful and we would be glad to return here someday.
October 1, 2007
Interstates
allow travellers to cruise, almost like on a jet above the clouds,
through our country without seeing very much at all. We decided to
drive back-roads from Sugarcreek, OH to Lexington, KY. Rural
Ohio is pastorally beautiful. Farms visible from the highway seem,
somehow, to have been maintained in very attractive condition and
without much evidence of destitution.
We finally arrived at
Kentucky Horse Park campground after one of our most grueling short
drives in this odyssey. We will be more careful just how small the
backroads we choose will be next time. The roads south of Sugarcreek
and west of Cinncinnati just kept getting smaller and smaller until
we were just barely two lanes and careening up and down the hills
between farmhouses and barns. Then it rained just enough to wet the
collection of fields dust on the road and have it spray onto our
previously very clean-looking truck and trailer. Not any more! The
driving on the rural paved roads was challenging to say the least.
Next to
our campsite was the prettiest little 22 foot trailer you ever saw!
It is Bea and Dave Witten's Airstream International CCD and we saw
again why we loved our 22 so much. They are from Chapel Hill, NC and
are professional photographers. They showed us some of their
pictures and we saw they do beautiful work. We will look forward to
seeing and visiting with them again.
We're
planning to return to our house in under two weeks -- the
realization hit us just today. Now we sense we have turned toward
home. The trip has a different feel to it already. Our thoughts
started turning to making lists and prioritizing what we want to
accomplish at home. What things can we do if we aren't spending all
day at work? What will we do when, for the first time, we have
Saturdays six days a week at home? We've never taken a vacation just
staying home. Had we done so we still would have considered those
days precious and wanting full programming to take best advantage of
the opportunity to get things done around the house and yard.
Hopefully and probably we will see this time differently, although
we think our plates will be pretty full with getting rid of
everything. We have just over three months before closing on the
house so we shouldn't have any problems having fun and doing our
needed chores.
