Lunch with a Chat Room Friend

Today was a special day.. I had the pleasure of meeting up with Lake Conroe Penny, from the RV Dreams chatroom.  It has taken us so long to get together, considering we only live about 20 or so miles apart. I thought it time to finally set a date before Kevin and I pull out for the winter. Rather than have her drive the distance to me, we chose to meet halfway in Conroe at the China Buffet.  We had a lovely lunch and chatted IN PERSON for a few hours.

It was great to meet this special lady. We are all so amazed at what she accomplishes.  She has been RVing since 1968 and knows so much about all kinds of RV’s along with fixing them up. Any question anyone has in the chatroom, we all refer them to Penny. I’m sure we will get to meet again some day. I sure hope so. Thanks again Penny!

Well, I finished up with my Christmas shopping today. After the lunch I continued on to do some shopping.  It was successful and now I just have to wrap them up.  I still can’t believe Christmas is next week. Not too sure where the time goes.  This is a picture of our little tree. Perfect size for the RV.

We have been busy here going thru our storage. We want to empty it out before the end of the month. Still trying to decide what to keep. I hate the paper work. I started shredding but it takes so long, think I will have Kevin burn the rest.  

I have also worked at the golf course a few days.  We did a Christmas party last Saturday and have another one to cater this Saturday at someone’s house.  That will be the end for me, as we are pretty busy for the next week.  We plan on leaving here the 27th or 28th of the month. We will be headed to Florida. We have reservations at McDill AFB in Tampa starting Dec 30th.  Our house is in St. Petersburg and we hope to clean it up and put it on the market.  Also looking forward to the Tampa RV Show and hopefully hooking up with some other dreamers.

Illinois to Oklahoma

We left Scott AFB on Saturday morning. Before taking off I took a few photos. This is definately a park we would return to.

What a great place for $15 a night, although they don’t have sewer hookups.

Our next stop was in Oklahoma to meet up with Lynette and Gregg (aka Mac and Netters).  We were meeting at a casino campground called Bordertown which borders Missouri and Oklahoma.  We were surrounded by casinos. We had three days together and hit three of them, a different one each day. We were looking for the big hit for all of us but Mac seemed to be the only one that came out ahead. I broke even after winning a slot tournament.  We didn’t mind at all, the most important part of this visit was to catch up with each other and just have some fun. We did that along with sharing some great meals.  It was a  great time with these special dreamer friends. I can’t wait to meet up again in Rockport in March if not before..

I am really bad because I kept forgetting my camera but they had theirs, so to see pictures, you will have to read their blog soon. I did snap these two this morning before leaving.

Mac assisted Kevin with the hookup on this cold frosty morning. After all of us having the .99 breakfast at the casino, it was time for goodbyes..  Miss you both already!

Happy Thanksgiving

I can't believe Thanksgiving is already here. Why does time pass so quickly as we get older?!

The last few weeks are like a blur. Let me see. I spent one whole week trying to find a new computer. I also found out in that time span that I am totally addicted to computing.. Something I never thought would happen. I think I had 5 visits to Best Buy. The first one I bought was a Toshiba and got it home and it just wouldnt connect, so back I went. They tried also and couldn't connect. No more in stock, grrr. It was a few days later that I went back and bought the Dell that I had been eyeing. Ok, thats all set but the aircard wouldnt connect. Off to verizon for them to download the program for it..Had one good night with it and then next morning the verizon program is gone... Back to the verizon store for another download. I hope that will be it for quite a while. I finally feel complete with my laptop back in posession.
We were also busy going back and forth from our storage container. We want to have it emptied out by the end of the year. The hard part for me is going through the Christmas decorations. I am sorting in three piles. One for our daughter, one for son and one for us to keep. Not fun but at least its pretty much done now.
This week we are in Illinois spending Thanksgiving with our son and his family. We loaded up the truck with alot of boxes of kitchen stuff along with the Christmas things for him. We left Monday morning and drove over 600 miles staying at Walmart somewhere in Arkansas that night. We were up early and left at 4am Tuesday morning for an easy 300 miles. Only downside was, we stopped in a Sonic for breakfast and driving out of the driveway, Kevin caught a sign on the back of the trailer. It tore the sign down completely and put several scratches to the paint of the RV. Had to give them our insurance info so hope that won't raise our rates.
We are staying at Scott Air Force Base Famcamp. Not a bad park at all. It is about 45 minutes from our son. Have our vucube all set up and it was working like a charm, until last night when we returned, I forgot we were only on 30amp and turned on too many things and blew the circuit. After resetting, our LR tv would not come back on. Directv tried helping me get it restarted but it was a no go. They said sometimes the receiver burns out when this happens. Yikes, no tv in LR.. At least we had the bedroom one. Until late today, for some reason we lost satellite reception altogether. We had even gone out and bought a new receiver for the LR. Tomorrow is another day and we shall try again. It was rainy and very windy today so hopefully tomorrow will be better. We don't do well without tv......so wish us luck!
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone..

Catching Up

I think I left off last week with us working on the Halloween Party at the park. The first night was warm and the turnout was huge. I worked the concession stand and was in charge of hot dogs. Kevin worked the parking lot. The second night which was Halloween, the temps dropped alot and we were cold. Not very many showed up and I didn't sell many hot dogs, but the hot chocolate was a big hit. I took pictures but unfortunately you will not get to see them.
We were hoping the awning would arrive at the dealership on Monday but we got a call from them that it didnt arrive. We were then rescheduled for Wednesday morning at 8am, thinking it would arrive sometime on Tuesday. We began getting things packed up and got the laundry done. Tuesday afternoon got a call that it didnt arrive again. It was rerouted..grrr.. It was scheduled for Wednesday. They then gave us a noontime appointment, hoping it would be there in time.. We were very lucky that the park is not crowded and they let us stay in our site for a few extra nights. All went well on Wednesday. We arrived, and luckily the awning was there. We unhooked and got directions to a great lunch place on the water at St Andrews Bay. Once again took pictures but you won't get to see them. All the work was taken care of and we were on our way at 5pm headed to Ms.
While travelling to Ms we had ourselves a sandwich and soda. My laptop was in a tote bag on the floor by my feet and my can of soda tipped over and landed on the computer. Uh oh.. This is why you will not see the pictures. Foolish me, had not saved the latest ones to disk as of yet. I was planning on it but never did do it. Lesson for everyone.. don't let it go. I had hopes that it would dry out and be okay. We stopped at Hollywood Casino for the night and I didnt know what to do with myself without it.. So I HAD to gamble. I lost, guess it was not a good day for me.
We pulled out of Ms Thursday morning about 10am. Arrived back in Magnolia Tx around 5p to a nice home cooked meal by our daughter. We had reservations for a Thousand Trails Campground on Lake Conroe in Willis Tx so headed there to get settled for two weeks. And that brings us to now. We had two of the grandsons stay with us Friday night, they left yesterday afternoon. We are currently having a relaxing day. I am using my daughters laptop for a few days but I am activly looking for a new one. I loved my 2 yr old Dell but was told by BB Geek Squad that it is most likely gone and not worth the money to have them take it apart. So the search is on. I want something lightweight and compact to travel with. In the meantime I may be without one for a bit.

Good News/ Beach

Just got the call from the dealer here that has been working on getting Dometic to replace our awning.. After seeing the pictures, the gave us a yes, they will replace the roller and awning…. That has made us very happy. Only problem, we are not sure when they will get it in. They needed more info from us and the order will go in tomorrow. Alot depends on having it in stock. We should have an answer tomorrow. If it is something that can be done in the next week, we will just stay here until that can happen. What better place to be stuck!

Today was beautiful, sunny and in the 80’s. I headed to the beach for a few hours and just relaxed and read.. Kevin stayed put. 

Rain may be heading this way, but we hope not, as tomorrow night is the start of the Halloween Celebration here at the park.. Will let you know..

Tour of Topsail Hill Preserve State Park

Today is cloudy but the forecast calls for temps in the 80’s. Not quite there yet.. We had a lazy morning and went to Walmart for a few errands.

I am posting the pictures I took yesterday of the park. It really is a very nice campground. Some people like the 100 section where it is more manicured but others opt for more of a rustic, treed site and some around the small lake. Or as we call it a pond. We hear there is good fishing..

The office

Pool 

Shuffleboard

The 100’s section

 

Laundry

 

Lake sites and the clubhouse in background

Our street

 

Street with cabins

 

 

Newly constructed cabins about to open

The new tent sites, not yet opened

 

Outdoor theatre where they do interactive talks and movies

And finally the road to the beach..

 

That about sums it up. Hope you now have a better idea on why we love this park.. Of course I have already shown you the real draw..

The awesome beach!

Official Last Day of Work Here at Topsail

Well, this month sure has flown by.. Yes, today was our last day driving the beach tram.. And a wet one it was.  We picked up the golf cart at 8:30 and headed to the office to get keys to the tram and pick up our list of checkouts. We only had 11 checking out.. They told us to hold off on the tram runs until we hear from them. We were sent home.. We didn’t hear from them again until 1:30, telling us to start doing the runs again at 2pm. So it certainly was a fast day.  Once the rain had stopped we took the opportunity to take some pictures all around the park. I will post them maybe tomorrow.   And I said it was our official last day because we will be helping out Friday and Saturday night with the Halloween Bash.  We are scheduled to leave here on Monday.

I spoke to our dealer today about our awning and the pictures I had sent them. Of course they claim that they checked it out and the awning was fine.. We don’t believe that. Looks like it was probably a problem from the factory, but who knows. We only know it didnt happen while we had it or we would have known it, for sure.  They gave me a number to call Heartland. I did just that and the guy I spoke to was great. He gave me the number of a dealer in Panama City not to far from here. I called them and they asked for me to send them pictures. They will check that out tomorrow and get back to me but have penciled us in for Monday. Hope all that goes well.