Archives for 2015

After determining we were both too tired and it was too hot to take a ride, and noticing now that the horses were in separate stalls that Hubby’s mare wasn’t eating her alfalfa hardly at all, I brought the horses down by the campsite so they could eat some fresh grass, then took a road trip to do some shopping, picking up several different types of hay, hoping to find one Clio would like. A hay grower sold me Timothy and gave me a quarter bale of orchard grass, and I bought another bale of “local” alfalfa, at least according to the store I bought it from, but it didn’t look like any alfalfa I’ve ever seen, looked more like orchard grass, but the hay guy did indicate local alfalfa looks different from western alfalfa (though the stuff we bought in Texas was from Michigan!) so I took it anyway. The more I look at it though, the more convinced I am it’s not alfalfa. Anyway, when I got back I put a flake of all four types down on the ground and let Clio sniff and pick, and she started chowing down on the “local” alfalfa. That was a relief, at least it wasn’t her appetite that was the problem, now we just have to settle on some kind of forage for her, though I’m still confused as to which it is that she likes! She ignored the Timothy completely, picked a little at the original alfalfa, but seemed to tuck in okay on the other two. Hopefully we can find some more of whatever it is! Got gas and some groceries while I was out, so we’re good to go on the next leg of our journey.

Other than getting the satellite dish set up, and me going fishing down at the lake with the dogs for a while, we had a very relaxing day, though still too tired to really appreciate it. Another really hot and humid day, too hot to go riding, even if we had the energy, which we didn’t!

Spent the day cleaning. ‘Nuff said.

Out early as planned, and thankfully, had an uneventful drive home, never overheating until we started to climb the mountain home, when Hubby had to stop halfway up the mountain to cool down. We had agreed that I would carry on and get the house opened up, and he would come along when he could. I arrived at the gate shortly after 2:00, which gave us the afternoon to get settled in as best we could. We had planned to spend at least the first night in the RV until I could get some preliminary cleaning done, and we had dinner and spent a usual evening there. Glad to be home, super quiet here today!

We had planned on staying in one place today for two reasons; 1) to rest from the longest drive day we’ve done in years (made longer by all the fun we had yesterday), and 2) so that I could do a teleseminar via phone. According to the Verizon coverage map, this place was supposed to have a good cell phone signal, but sadly, that was not the case, which meant I had to drive out someplace until I got a good signal and do the seminar from the vehicle. We had planned on unhooking the truck because we didn’t trust the van much, but then we had trouble with the RV winch, the one that raises and lowers the RV on and off the trailer hitch, even though we’ve never had any trouble with it before. Naturally! So in the end, I had to take the van anyway. I drove back down to the Walmart near the interstate, found a nice quiet shady spot near the back, facilitated the conference call, and then went inside and shopped, I figured that would save us having to stop on the next leg of the journey home, and even though I was already tired, I figured it would be worse tomorrow, so I got it done. Finally got back to camp after 4:00, ready to crash! Hubby had managed to figure out the problem with the winch, mostly just corrosion that he cleaned up, but now it was working like a charm, thank goodness! We did all we could to get ready for another early start tomorrow, then spent the evening doing our best to relax and forget about the trials of yesterday!

Murphy’s Law was in definite force today, with everything possible going wrong. It started out with rain that came in more than an hour before we got out of bed (about 5:45), despite all forecasts saying it wouldn’t arrive until 8:00, so we hurried up to get the last minute stuff done asap. Once we were just about ready, Hubby decided to pull out onto the road before loading the horses into the trailer, but with all the rain, he almost immediately got stuck. After several attempts using blocks and tarps, it became evident things were just getting worse, so rather than play around in the muck and rain, we decided the fastest thing would be just to unhook the truck from the RV and pull it out. A 6.6 liter diesel is no match for a pile of mud, and even though it takes time to hook and unhook, it was definitely much faster than anything else. Miraculously, we were pulling out of the campground intact at 7:00, which had been my original schedule before we started planning around the 8:00 rain, but we lost almost an hour screwing around with the mud. We were already in a slow, intermittent drizzle, but I had to pull the tarp off at the end of the campground road (Broadway, would you believe!), knowing we may lose some of the top bales. Fortunately, we managed to get ahead of the rain in less than an hour, so we hoped it would dry out as the day progressed. Then, on our way through Texarkana, we were on a road with signal lights, and I was just at the wrong timing on a light, and had to slam on my brakes big time to avoid running the red. I saw trucks coming in the crossroad, and was concerned Hubby would try to follow me through the intersection, and not make it. Unfortunately, I came to such a sudden stop that Hubby, though he slammed on his brakes, slid the last 25 feet on damp pavement, and ended up running into the back of me. Fortunately, the rack we have on the back took the brunt of the hit, it wasn’t even enough to set off the airbags in the van, and just barely cracked a few placed on the rack. The front end of the van, however, is a mess! It hit just on the left headlight, and creamed the whole front end. Miraculously, it still ran and didn’t make any disturbing noises, though we clearly had a leak of some kind. We proceeded out to see what would happen, and sure enough, it started to overheat. We stopped for a further inspection, and all I could see leaking was the top radiator hose, so we taped it up and then carefully made our way to the next town, Hope, Arkansas, and made it to a parts store that had a replacement hose. Happily I had a pair of mechanics gloves that gave me some protection from the heat, and I was able to change out the hose in about 45 minutes. Apparently the fan isn’t turning, though, so we’ll have to rely on air cooling for the duration! At least the radiator wasn’t leaking, though it did appear to be bent a little. What a mess! We continued on this extra long day, made even longer by our delays, and finally arrived at Village Creek State Park near Wynne Arkansas. The last bit was uphill, and a slow speed limit, so the van, for the first time the whole day, started to overheat a bit. We didn’t waste any time getting set up, glad we had stalls to throw the horses in (and who seemed no worse for the wear despite the erratic trip), and we finally settled down, exhausted from the length and the stress of the day!

A few hours after going to bed early last night, the rains arrived, trumpeted by much thunder and lightening. It continued off and on all night, waking us up every several hours, both from the noise and from having to get up and close windows. So far, most of the rains here have been almost windless, and even these had very little wind, not even enough to make us bring the awning in. Of course, that might have to do with the fact we’re surrounded by forest, so that may have cut down on it a bit. In any event, we both had a pretty horrible night sleep, not exactly what we needed for this day. Started off taking the dogs for a good walk, though, with Hubby along as well. We’re trying to balance exercise with his meds, every time he takes his pills these days, it makes his legs ache and gives him a headache. We walked before he had his morning dose, and he did just fine. After a late breakfast (we had to sleep in after the rough night!), we started putting things away, because we want to get a REALLY early start tomorrow. There’s rain in the forecast in the morning, but we’re hoping we can get out before it starts up too much. We’re going to start out with the tarp on (something we hate to do, as it ruins the tarp and sometimes beats up the truck, but we haven’t tried it since getting a heavy duty canvas tarp), but hope to be able to take it off once we run out of the potential rain area.

After having such a nice ride yesterday, Hubby and I spent most of the day relaxing, though we did take a walk with the dogs. Didn’t have a very good night sleep last night, just too dang hot and muggy. Never got below about 75 degrees, no sheets and still sweltering in the heat. Hard to sleep when you’re dripping with sweat! We ran fans until bedtime, but even that didn’t help too much. Proof we’ve spent too much time in the south, need to get north! Unfortunately, the weather forecast is looking like rain, rain, and more rain, except for one brief window Tuesday, so we’ve changed our plans again. We’ll leave Tuesday and head north to Village Creek State Park east of Little Rock, Arkansas. It will be a VERY long day, but there’s not really anything in between, and I have a teleconference to facilitate on Wednesday, so we need someplace with a good cell phone signal. We’ll stay on Wednesday to do the conference and recuperate from what will likely be nearly 10 hours of driving (about twice what we normally do, but weather is forcing our hand), and then run home on Thursday, just ahead of a front that’s coming in. Fingers crossed, it will all work out as planned! Having finalized that decision, we spent the rest of the day relaxing, watching TV (further reducing the recorded programming on our DVR, a long overdue exercise), before going to bed early.