Archives for August 2019

Down to my last bale of hay, I managed to locate a source not too far away using Facebook Marketplace, and took the 45 minute drive down there, where I found some beautiful bales, heavier and better packed than much of what I’ve seen in the area, for just $4.50 a bale. I ended up take 18, hoping we’ll use enough to be able to carry what’s left over to our next stop! Went over to Tractor Supply on the West Virginia side of the river, then into Steubenville to the Walmart. I realized when I came through that we’ve been here before but I couldn’t remember when. Of course, that’s the beauty of keeping an electronic journal, all I had to do was a quick search, and discovered that when we stayed at Harrison State Forest back in September 2015, Steubenville was the nearest city and therefore where we did our shopping then, too. On the way back, I stopped at the Richmond Post Office where I was having several things sent General Delivery, but they were closed for lunch. I waited the 25 minutes only to have them tell me they hadn’t received anything yet, but the woman there was nice enough to take my phone number, offering to call me when anything arrived, which I thought was wonderful. Got back to camp to discover that the solar panel kit that we had ordered last week had arrived, as well as Hubby’s medication (which our nurse sent UPS, since we’re both fed up with Fedex!), so after getting Hubby on his machine, I set the solar panel up. I have to say, it was one of the easiest installations ever, it was just a matter of opening the box, opening the folded solar panel, locking the legs down, plugging it in one end and clipping the alligator clips onto the battery, just like that. So easy! It was a nice sunny day today after yesterday’s rain, so we’re looking forward to seeing just how much it will supplement our power system. If it can cut down on our generator usage, we’ll be able to do a lot more boon-docking, which will give us a lot more options where we can stay, as well as saving us some money in so many ways. Fingers crossed it does the job! Finished up an uneventful dialysis, including the new medication that’s supposed to help his iron levels, and settled down for the evening. Had a few problems with the cell phone signal, so the movies were a bit more disjointed than yesterday, but we did manage to get us to bedtime. Looking forward to a ride tomorrow!

The rain came in late last night and it was still drizzling this morning as we slept late. Not much we can do in the rain, so we decided to take a day just to recharge our batteries, not doing much of anything beyond essential chores, and spent the day reading and watching old movies, as I’ve managed to find a sweet spot for the phone and the booster, just enough to mostly get through a movie without interruption. A much needed rest day!

Slept late this morning thanks to the peace and quiet here, then got up and started doing the rest of the setup after my usual chores. Put up the screen room, which was the main thing, then started to try to locate the best direction for a cell phone signal, and proceeded to try to figure out a system that would work better. I took a spin around the campground trying to send an email with some attachments that I was having trouble with, but never could find a spot any better than ours. I ended up putting my 4G booster in the truck, taped a magnet to the top of the trailer so the antenna would stick up there (the highest point I could manage), and powered it up inside the truck. That managed to get me one bar of 4G, which helped a lot, but it still teeters in and out, so the movie we tried to watch during dialysis went great for the first hour plus, then faded for a bit, until we finally gave up in the evening and went back to the Dish PVR. That’s fine, we need to clear it out, then after we pick up the satellite dish at the house in October, we can fill it back up again with some movies. It was a good dialysis session, and other than that, it was a quiet day, though it clouded up and started to sprinkle, and there much rain in the forecast for tomorrow, unfortunately, so I likely won’t be riding tomorrow. But there’s lots of sun forecast for later in the week, so let’s hope the forecasters are right for a change!

So we sat around all morning waiting to hear from the clinic, as Fedex was supposed to be delivering a new medication for Hubby that we needed to get before leaving tomorrow, and finally decided we’d be better off being closer to the clinic when it arrived, so I found a nice little restaurant called Pete’s nearby, where we had a spectacular breakfast. By then it was after 1:00, so we went to the clinic and learned that Fedex had come and gone, picking up a package but not dropping one off. I HATE FEDEX!! Since it was too late to do anything else but top off with fuel (though I tried to get a replacement carpet for our screen room, but Home Depot didn’t have the right size), we headed back to camp and got Hubby started on his dialysis session, already much later than usual. Met some interesting ladies who stopped by after their ride and we chatted for some time about various Ohio camps that we’re thinking about going to, carrying on until it was almost dusk, then got the horses taken care of and settled down for the evening. REALLY looking forward to getting out of here tomorrow! We are NOT having any fun here at all!

After another pretty crappy night sleep, we got up and headed out to the clinic, losing our green screen room carpet along the way, unfortunately. Everything went fine there and at the doctor’s office, then we went to an Indian restaurant for lunch as an early celebration for my birthday tomorrow (and to generally just try to cheer ourselves up after all the aggravation of the past few days,) then a trip to Tractor Supply to pick up some supplies, then straight back to camp (except a quick return to the area we thought we lost the rug, just in case we could find it, but it was gone) where we spent the afternoon under the awning, and playing frisbee fetch with Lola off the leash. No visitors this time, everyone left us alone today, thank goodness. As dusk waned, we headed inside to watch what turned out to be an excruciatingly slow and boring movie, then a short one hour before heading to bed, hoping for a better night sleep tonight!

Had a pretty bad night sleep during the night, then ended up sleeping until 10:30 before I was rested enough to get out of bed, very unusual for me. Got all my chores done, had a late breakfast, played frisbee fetch with Lola for a bit, then started getting Hubby’s machine ready around 1:00. Shortly thereafter, our delivery of dialysis supplies arrived, so I spend half an hour getting those loaded in before resuming his dialysis session. Sorry to say at one point early in the morning, Lola escaped for about two minutes, but the rest of the day I had her either locked up in the trailer or on a cable outside. That wasn’t enough to stop the complaints though. Halfway through the afternoon I got a visit from a couple of the trustees, one apologetic while the other one railed on about Lola having to be on a leash. I again explained, she only was out for two tiny minutes and had been cooped up or tied up the rest of the day, and it ended up in a shouting match. Finally it came out that someone was upset that I was playing frisbee fetch without her being on a leash! Really??? Here’s one of the most obedient and friendliest dogs you’ll ever find, totally focussed on fetching her frisbee, never going beyond 20 yards away from the trailer, and someone on the OTHER SIDE OF THE CAMPGROUND is complaining that she’s not on a leash. Good Lord, where is the common sense God gave these people! All this because two dogs that WERE on a leash, but beyond the ability of their owner to control, made some trouble a few months back. Of course, I wouldn’t want to wish bad things to happen to anyone’s pets, but you don’t put 100 well-behaved dogs on a leash just because one of them MIGHT make trouble, any more than you’d put 100 people in jail because one of them MIGHT commit a crime! Grrrr! Maybe I’m overreacting because of a lack of sleep, but there are such negative vibes here now, we even felt it as we were coming in yesterday, but we were committed because of our clinic day in Canton tomorrow, so we can’t just pack up and leave, which is our inclination when we are faced with this much unwarranted irritation. I know there are people who won’t like what I’m saying here, but I feel it’s only fair that I tell you our experiences, truthfully, whether you agree or disagree. As Dennis Miller used to say, “That’s my opinion, I could be wrong.” We won’t be coming back here after this weekend, too much stress! And I can’t even relieve any of that stress with a ride in the woods, since the map is so bad and the trails are so poorly marked that it’s impossible not to get lost, which only adds more stress! Thank goodness we only to have to suffer this a few more days. So disappointing, this place could be a real gem if the people here would just chill out a little bit, do some real work on the map and trails, be a bit more welcoming, and just use a little common sense!