More rain, more rest, more reading and TV.

Rain came in during the day, and that was fine with us, we both wanted nothing more than to rest today! Movies and recorded episodes of TV series was the order of the day, and early to bed is the plan!

We started the day at a Waffle House, which, believe it or not, my brother said he’d never been to! This was a great contrast, as we had a quick breakfast and were back on the road in no time. It was a shorter drive today, only going as far as the Osceola National Forest, where we arrived at the West Tower camp area by early afternoon. They have done some nice improvements, adding runs to the wooden stalls, so the horses had some room to roam. We got them settled in and got everything set up. My brother, who didn’t get a good night sleep because the mattress lost air during the night, decided he wanted me to drive him into Jacksonville tonight instead of tomorrow morning. He had a train to catch in the morning, and the plan had been to get him there in the morning, but having not slept well, he decided he wanted to get to a hotel room. I drove him in, we had a nice steak dinner, before I headed back in the dark, after picking up Chinese takeout for Hubby. I managed to get back just after 7:30, and settled down for the evening, tired and ready for some peace and quiet.

After weeks of work around the house, side work trips in Augusta, GA, a visit from one of my brothers, lots of preparation, two months of no riding, and a rain delay, we all finally left home in Tennessee to head south for the winter. In the nick of time, too, we had already been having fires in the fireplace! It was a beautiful, sunny day after a long day of hard rain yesterday, and though we got up at the crack of dawn, it was nearly 9:30 by the time we were able to get everything finally packed up and out. With my brother riding shotgun with me in the truck, we had a relatively uneventful trip to Umadilla, GA, where we took an overnight stop at the very conveniently located Southeastern Arena We stopped for dinner at a truck stop just beforehand, and unfortunately, the service was so slow we ended up losing an hour, and combined with the hour we lost moving from Central to Eastern time, we ended up fighting the sunset in order to get the satellite dish up, a challenge as this was the first time Hubby had the chance to set up this particular dish, as we had changed it out during our stay at home, but he managed to finish before full dark. After a quiet evening of TV, we inflated an air mattress for my brother before heading to bed.

Got up early as we always do on a travel day, fortunately it wasn’t raining at that moment, but we had a lot of rain overnight, so everything was soggy. We had moved the horse trailer from down the hill to as close to the road as we could, but it turned out still not to be enough. When we hooked up the van and started pulling, we quickly started spinning in the mud. I grabbed a shovel and started moving some gravel from the road under the rear tires of the van, and after several attempts, finally made it out of the hole, without doing too much damage, and which I quickly repaired. We managed to get out pretty quickly after that. Fortunately, I only had two bales of hay left in the back of the truck, which we put inside a couple of large trash bags, so when we ran into rain later they stayed dry. By the time we got home, the skies had cleared up a bit, apparently the rain was fairly isolated to the Southern KY area, right where we were camping. It was downright dry by the time we got home. We got the electric fence up and got the horses settled in, did some unpacking, then settled down for the rest of the day. We’ll be home until at least the second week of November, doing mundane house and yardwork, doctors appointments, etc., so I will be suspending the blog until we get back on the road. Enjoy your Fall!

Woke up early, and after feeding the horses, I decided to run up to the dump again to do some work while Hubby got breakfast started. I checked the forecast, and unfortunately, the rain is supposed to continue right through Sunday, so after a brief discussion, we decided it would be better just to head out tomorrow for home. No sense sitting here in the rain, not getting a chance to ride, and making the horses stand in these tiny stalls the rest of the week. Besides, we have a busy week in store next week, and it will help us get a jump start on the essential cleaning that will need doing, and maybe even give us a day of rest.

Very quiet here, no one else in the campground, though a few cars seem to go by occasionally. I discovered that my cell phone signal was good enough while it was raining (which was all morning), but as it let up a bit, the signal got worse, and I had a lot to do, so I went looking. Amazingly, as I pulled into the dump, I went from 1 bar of 1X to 2 bars of 4G, so my internet connection suddenly got very fast, relatively speaking. Spent more than an hour working on some stuff before heading back to the RV, where we once again settled down for the evening.

As always on a travel day, up with the alarm, packed up, cleaned up, and out of the campground before 9:00. Had no problems getting through the narrow bridge as we made our way south to 125, stopping once for a few gallons of gas in the van (we were trying to get to Kentucky because gas was at least 20 cents per gallon less!), and made it to the Walmart in Maysville, where they had diesel for $2.19 and gas for $2.26 and filled up there. First time we’ve seen diesel lower than regular in years! We stopped at another Walmart later and grabbed a wrap to eat while we shopped, stopping for liquor before heading out to camp. It was a bit off the beaten track to get here, and I took the website’s advice to pass up 741 to take 742, which is apparently recommended for big rigs, and it was mostly tarmac until the last couple of miles when we had good, though narrow, and sometimes steep, gravel road. After passing several houses that had junkyards around them, the road suddenly reached the top of a hill and opened up, revealing a very nice campground, all sites with water and electric. We stopped at the dump first, as our black water tank was due to be emptied, and Hubby went ahead to find the best site for a satellite signal. By the time I finished dumping, he had selected a couple of sites we thought would be the best, and finally settled on #16. The horse containment here is narrow pipe stalls with a concrete base, not my favorite, but they did put rubber stall mats down to make it a bit better. We got them watered, fed and put away before getting ourselves set up, a chore that didn’t take very long. Hubby had no trouble getting the satellite dish up, and I started my first load of much needed laundry. It was cloudy, hot and muggy when we got here, and it began to rain before too long, but we didn’t bother covering the horses as it was too hot for them. I even managed to check my email, for some reason I could just get a signal when it was raining. Probably not good enough for extensive work, but I noticed I had a good signal near the dump, so at least I won’t have to go miles to do my computer work! Settled down for the evening, as the rain continued to beat on the roof.

Decided it was time to do some serious housekeeping, so out came the vacuum (we bought a new Shark a few months ago, very lightweight and does a great job! Perfect for Rvers!), and the mop, which I used to clean the ceiling. Lots of dusting and windexing, and soon we had a nice clean “house” again! Hubby did a few long overdue chores on the van, fixed his regular glasses (which had a broken frame, which is why he didn’t wear them yesterday, thinking they would fall apart. No irony there, huh?), then we settled down to a shortened afternoon of football and blog catch up. Getting pretty far behind with uploading, haven’t had a decent cell phone/internet signal for weeks now! Not going to be any better at the next place, either, I don’t think. Almost a month without easy access, how have I survived??!! Patience, and keeping myself occupied with other things, like my horses, dogs and husband, that’s how! Actually kind of nice for a change, even if it is a bit inconvenient.

Spent the day resting and writing, now working on “The Best (and Worst) Horse Camps in the USA”, hoping to get it ready in time for the Great Florida Cattle Drive in Florida in January, not sure I’m going to make it! Otherwise uneventful day.