October 7, 2020. Arrived back at Tres Rios on October 2, and will stay until the 20th because I do not want to leave and come back on a Friday, so I changed our departure date to a Tuesday.
Had an eye doctor appointment today to get my cataract checked in my left eye. She said that they are not bad enough to qualify for surgery and to come back next year for another check up. Got another eye glass prescription, so I will probably get new lenses put in even though my prescription did not change much, my right lens has a small scratch on it.
October 21, 2020. Life at Tres Rios does not change much. We do our normal grocery shopping on Monday, and then play cards every afternoon. We took our normal spot ~ 92 ~ which is OK, but it’s right on the main drag and we get headlights into the rig when people come in. We used to stay in the second row but with so many people staying in them, there is no grass, a lot of burrs, and ruts.
We went to Fort Worth and met with Terri Rice’s son, Nick Michels, who works for Edward Jones. He is a young man with three small children (I think he is 6 years younger than Josh). They have so many more mutual funds and ETFs to offer, which will help us get a more rounded account. He thinks we should just sell out the savings account, take a loss on taxes, because he does not think it will recover.
Our week out from Tres Rios started on October 20 so we went to the Coast to Coast at Sun Country. With this election so controversial, we decided to drive to Onalaska, which was the closest place to vote in Polk County. It took us a little over 3 hours, and we stopped for lunch in Huntsville. We got there about 2 and found out that since we had filled out the ballot and sealed it, we could not vote in person. They have these rules; their computer showed that we had absentee ballots, and since they were sealed, we had to either drop them in the mail or hand deliver them to the federal office in Livingston. They could not take the ballots in Onalaska, all because Abbott designated only 1 place per county to receive the ballots. So, we went to the post office and put our ballots in the mail. What a day! We drove 3 hours just to end up dropping our ballots in the mail afterall.
October 31, 2020. Back to Tres Rios on October 27 for three weeks. Had a good Halloween here – there were about 20 kids who dressed up and walked around the park. We sat outside our site and handed out candy. Still playing cards in the afternoon and Jim pool.
November 2, 2020. Well, tomorrow is Election Day, and the day we are going to go get our blood work as we have doctor appointments next week. When we pulled into Tres Rios we had a limited number of spaces we could get into so we pulled into Site 93. It’s down lower and we could not get many TV stations, and especially 33.1, which has one of Jim’s favorite programs on it. So he went to the office and asked if we could move into the site next to Site 74, which is on the outside and use the hookups to 74. They agreed to it, so we moved yesterday after cards. There are quite a few burrs here in this site, and I am pulling some of them out already. We put down our carpet this time to keep some of them out of Lucy’s feet.
I hope we can get one of the other sites in the first row next time we come in here. Right now they are filled up with motorhomes and 5th wheels and if we tried to pull in there I am afraid they would block our antenna.
November 13, 2020. Boy that things gone crazy in this country. Trump did not win by a landslide and things actually showed Biden getting more votes than Trump – if you can believe that. But over the last week it’s been coming out that there are 5 states in contention because they used a software program called Dominion that switched votes from Trump to Biden. It’s been proven that it does this, and even showed in real time on TV how it happens.
People have said they used this system in 2016 to get Hillary elected, however, there was a malfunction and Trump ended up winning. That was not supposed to happen because they did say they had the election rigged. So Trump and his team know all this and currently votes are being recounted.
I listen to Dr. Charlie Ward and he is adamant that the end result will show massive fraud using this Dominion system and it will be proven to the people. Like the insiders say, you have to show the people. He says that Trump is just watching them fraud themselves with how they are acting, saying that Biden is the winner. I did a blog on the whole fraud mess, and I will publish it once everything is finalized. It is very unnerving the way it all is playing out though.
Jim and I both had our annual doctors’ visits this week. Jim’s blood work looks fine; his LDL is up a little bit and of course the doctors starts talking statins right away. That’s all they seem to push these days, instead of diet and exercise.
I saw my doctor who put in another prescription for me; we did my annual “Medicare” tests, which I passed. I declined a mammogram and pap, which I will hold off until next year. So, that’s when I will see her again. Other than that, my cholesterol and LDL were up and my HDL down and with the ratio she showed me, puts me more in the normal range. She was not worried about it at all.
Jim’s C-pap is doing him good. He sleeps much better at night and does not take his morning or afternoon naps anymore. But of course he gets up at 9:15 or thereabouts, so when would he take a morning nap? He stopped eating breakfast, and just has lunch and dinner.
Next week we head out to a new campground north of Houston, then down to Jetstream RV Park for the week of Thanksgiving.
November 14, 2020. Listened to Sydney Powell and Lin Wood, attorneys for Trump. They both talked about the Dominion software, its origin, who is part of the company, where the votes were sent. They have lots of information on the fraud perpetrated on the American people by the Democrats. Lin Wood says they and the main stream media are going down; they have committed treason by circumventing the election and claiming Biden the winner. Trump issued an EO in 2018 talking about foreign interference with elections and I think the Dems just fell into that trap. Looking forward to the day it all becomes public knowledge.
We sold our Colorado property. It has been on the market for over a year and we had two other people interested in it, but both fell through. Then a couple months ago I got a call from a single woman (Dawn Walters) who wants the property to build a small house. She offered us $45,000 cash (we were asking $50,000) with no financing. She is going to pay for the title search and the preparation of the documents; the title company is going to do the work, send us the WD, which we will then execute and mail back to them. We are not going to have to drive up there or anything. Dawn is going to drive to Walsenburg to do the closing, and the title company will just mail us the check. After that, we will have nothing tying us down, and will not own anything except our truck and trailer.
I will have to look into if we need to buy something in order not to pay capital gains tax on the amount we made, which is about $22,000. Question for Nick – our financial advisor.
November 25, 2020. Headed out on the 17th driving all the way to Willis, Texas to Waters Edge RV Park, which is a coast to coast park. We usually stay at the Thousand Trails in Willis but I wanted to check out this new park. It was not as nice as the TT though. The roads at Waters Edge were really rough – lots of potholes. Our site was actually fairly level with good electric and good water quality. They have a huge dog park, pool, but no activities in the clubhouse. They also have a small home park near the water.
We drove to Livingston to get our mail and check out if there was anything for sale. We did find one place which had a concrete slab and building to park the RV under along with a building attached. They are asking $79,900. So, I imagine we will look elsewhere. I think the Escapees park is getting expensive as people are looking to live there.
We also visited the Prison Museum in Huntsville, which is the only other place we visited while in Willis. On Sunday we drove down to Jetstream in Houston for Thanksgiving week.
While at Waters Edge my computer ended up going crazy with the white screen of death. The screen colors started going haywire and I tried turning it off and on multiple times, but to no avail. The monitor stayed white. Then the TV decided to stop working with the remote. It has been acting up and worked on and off, but this time I think it really ended.
I found a company in Houston that could transfer the data from my old computer to a new one. So when we got here Sunday our first stop was Best Buy. It did not take me very long to find a new computer. So I ended up with another HP with Windows 10, and then I had to buy the Microsoft Word program so I could have Word. Jim looked at TVs while I was searching for a computer. He found one and we looked at a few different ones and ended up with an LG which was the best out of the ones we looked at. Best Buy did not have it in stock so we ordered it, to pick it up Saturday.
Jim put the big TV outside where we could get to the controls easier and put our little 12 volt TV inside for the time being.
Tuesday Jason & Ellie came over for the day. They watched a little TV and then after lunch I took them to the pool. The sun was in and out but the water was not very warm and they got cold fast, even though they ran around. Jason’s teeth were chattering so hard I though he could crack them. We painted some rocks, which I was not real happy with. I had oil paints which had to be cleaned with mineral spirits, and did not dry very fast.
Wednesday we stayed at the trailer. I did laundry, then we went grocery shopping. After lunch I baked more cookies and two pumpkin pies. The pies did not bake like the directions. Since I had 2 pies in the oven, it took a lot longer for them to bake.
Jim had two crazy encounters this evening. He had gone out for a ride and when he came back our neighbor was just getting home so he asked her if she needed any help. He said she tried to entice him into her tailer, and when he extended a hand to her, she took his hand and put it on her boob. He kept saying that he was happily married, but she said that was OK, why should that stop you. He did get away from her and when he walked into the trailer to tell me about it, a knock came on the door.
The person turned out to be TK, the father of two kids that Jim stopped in the golf cart and was talking to them because the cart did not have a light on the front, and he was asking them other questions. I guess mom and dad were wondering what was taking the kids so long and called them. Soon after they got home, TK was at our door to find out what kind of person Jim was. He wanted to make sure Jim was not a pedo looking for kids. They stood outside talking a while, and then I went out to see what was going on.
Monday night my neck got chewed up by something. I have numerous welts all over the right half of my neck and they itch. Then Tuesday I seem to have gotten more but this time on my arm and leg. I am wondering if they came from Lucy since we are in a new place and she has been running around in the weeds. No telling what she picked up. And since she sleeps in bed with us, I am wondering if the little critters are crawling in bed. They are too small to see, so I don’t know what we are dealing with. Plus, Jim is not getting bit, just me.
December 5, 2020. Arrived back at Tres Rios on Monday, November 30. We will be here until December 19, at which time we will head back to Houston for the Christmas holiday. We will be staying at Jetstream for the first week, and then Green Caye the second week. After that, we will be heading east to Florida.
I talked with Jacklyn on my birthday and she indicated strongly that she would like us to come to the TCT rally and then stay for a week to visit with her and Sean. She wants us to meet Sean. They already spent a weekend at Bill & Julie’s house, and Sean got a two thumbs up from Bill. So I think it would be good to go and meet him.
So far I have made our reservations at OCP, C-C and TT and also found another RV Park close to Jacklyn that takes PA. Looking good so far.
The sale of the property is still scheduled to go through on December 15. The title company should be sending the WD this week, and then we will get it notarized and send it back off to them. I am hoping that they will send our check to Josh’s house instead of our mailing address.
December 9, 2020. Sale of the property is ready to go through. Got the closing documents via email today. Thursday we will head into town to get them notarized, then straight to the Post Office to get them in the mail. Closing is still set for December 15.
December 18, 2020. The sale of the property went on without a hitch. Dawn drove down to the title office on the 15th and they sent out the check to Josh’s house, which arrived today, Friday.
Wednesday night I think the refrigerator started going kerplunk. By Thursday morning I started looking at it and trying to figure out why it was not working. I started researching the internet; learned that the coils on the outside were supposed to be warm and ours were stone cold. The lights on the panel went off and I could not get it going. Then Jim called Bennett’s and talked to someone in service and they tried to trouble shoot what was wrong. Ended up that the freon leaked out and that shoots the whole refrigerator. It was 17 years old, so it did us good over the years.
Thursday afternoon during cards we started talking to people and trying to find a refrigerator. PPL had a new one for $1550, but then Jim went to talk to friends in the park and one guy, Tony, said Oh I have a friend at United RV let me give him a call. Found out that they had a scratch & dent one for $750 cash. What a deal!
So Thursday night we went to Prosperity Bank ATM to take the cash out to buy the refrigerator. Holy Cow! The ATM did not give us our money. Luckily there were still some people in the bank, and we talked to the manager who said that actually it does not give out more than $600 at a time, and the money got stuck in a separate chamber. She said that the money should eventually get back into our bank account. She could not do anything that night, but said to all her at 8am Friday morning. By Friday morning the money was still not in our account, and I told her that I was coming down and wanted by $700. She could not do anything with the ATM but said she would give us $700 cash from her own account. WOW.
Friday morning we went back to the bank; I wrote her a check for $700 and told her (and even showed her my bank balance) that there was not enough money in there to cash the check. She gave us the $700 cash from her own account and I told her that as soon as the money got back into my account. I would call her when I got money in the account so she could cash the check.
After we left the bank, we drove to Granbury as Jim had an appointment with Shannon Mueller to look at his feet. His toes curl a lot and he was worried about their condition. Learned that most of the problem is him wearing sandals. He grips with his toes so much it is causing them to curl. So periodically I have to massage his toes and try to straighten them. He also has to stop wearing his sandals.
From the doctors we drove to United Rental, which was somewhere in Fort Worth to pick up the refrigerator. Got back here about 1pm, and since I sent him a message about what time we would get back, and by the time I got back from walking Lucy, he was there ready to get to work. While Jim and I ate some lunch, Doug was outside starting to take the parts apart. Then he came in and we got it unscrewed and taken out. We all worked about 3 hours and finally got the new one in.
Jim even called the cabinet worker up the road and he was actually at work, so I drove up there and he cut some panels since the panels from the old refrigerator did not fit the new one – they were too small. Tim the cabinet maker cut them right away and charged us $20 for the two panels. I then headed back to the trailer and Doug and Jim put the doors on and then slid it into place. It then got bolted down and I put the shelves in. Figured all that out as well. I am missing a long shelf in the freezer so will probably order one.
We were so grateful for having Doug around to help us out that we decided to take him to dinner. Jim wanted to check out a new restaurant, so that is where we went.
We went to the Feed Mill on Grace Street. It was OK; but the music was too loud and I asked them to turn it down. The food was really seasoned and not too spicy but to many different flavors. Don’t know if we will got back there.
December 25, 2020. Christmas Day. Yesterday we went to an early service at Hope Luthern. Josh, Karen, Ellie & Jason all played a part in the service. Josh got up and said two passages; Ellie laid the baby Jesus in the manger, and Karen and Jason got up and did a little skit about presents. It was very cute. Jason said he was nervous, but he did a great job.
Karen’s Dad also drove down from Waynesville and got here the same day as we did. In fact, as we were pulling in, he was trying to get through the gate and having a difficult time doing it, so I got out of the truck and went and put in the code for him, not even realizing it was Phil. I was about to go back to the truck when I realized who it was, and went back and gave him a hug.
Sunday (20th) was Karen’s birthday, so Josh took us all to a Japanese restaurant in celebration. Jacklyn flew in Thursday morning, just in time to go to church service with us.
Jim and I are still trying to learn our new “smart TV” – good gracious. It is smarter than we are, and both of us wish we had our old TV back. At least we could figure it out.
Yesterday before going to church our next door neighbor here at Jetstream was trying to fill his RV tires with a little air pump that sounded like it did not put out much. So I mentioned to Jim to loan him our air pump, which he did as well as the air gauge. He was so grateful for Jim’s help that he gave us a bottle of wine and a bottle of Woodford Reserve. I had baked some blueberry cookies and chocolate chip as well so I put some of those in a bag and taped them to our neighbor’s RV and said Merry Christmas.
Today we are going to head over to Josh & Karen’s for breakfast and then open presents. Josh is smoking a brisket for dinner, and we will just hang around there for the day.
December 31, 2020. Enjoying our last week here in Houston. We went over to Josh & Karen’s every evening to visit, but this evening we left right after dinner. They had plans for New Years Eve and we wanted to get back to the trailer. We had to leave Jetstream and go to Green Caye for the week. Boy was there ever a lot of fireworks that went off around there.
Green Caye has changed a lot. They put sheds up on every lot which takes up room and makes it hard to get out of the truck. I doubt we will stay here anymore; I’m going to try and work it out to stay at Jetstream for the two weeks we are in Houston for Christmas.
Had an eye doctor appointment today to get my cataract checked in my left eye. She said that they are not bad enough to qualify for surgery and to come back next year for another check up. Got another eye glass prescription, so I will probably get new lenses put in even though my prescription did not change much, my right lens has a small scratch on it.
October 21, 2020. Life at Tres Rios does not change much. We do our normal grocery shopping on Monday, and then play cards every afternoon. We took our normal spot ~ 92 ~ which is OK, but it’s right on the main drag and we get headlights into the rig when people come in. We used to stay in the second row but with so many people staying in them, there is no grass, a lot of burrs, and ruts.
We went to Fort Worth and met with Terri Rice’s son, Nick Michels, who works for Edward Jones. He is a young man with three small children (I think he is 6 years younger than Josh). They have so many more mutual funds and ETFs to offer, which will help us get a more rounded account. He thinks we should just sell out the savings account, take a loss on taxes, because he does not think it will recover.
Our week out from Tres Rios started on October 20 so we went to the Coast to Coast at Sun Country. With this election so controversial, we decided to drive to Onalaska, which was the closest place to vote in Polk County. It took us a little over 3 hours, and we stopped for lunch in Huntsville. We got there about 2 and found out that since we had filled out the ballot and sealed it, we could not vote in person. They have these rules; their computer showed that we had absentee ballots, and since they were sealed, we had to either drop them in the mail or hand deliver them to the federal office in Livingston. They could not take the ballots in Onalaska, all because Abbott designated only 1 place per county to receive the ballots. So, we went to the post office and put our ballots in the mail. What a day! We drove 3 hours just to end up dropping our ballots in the mail afterall.
October 31, 2020. Back to Tres Rios on October 27 for three weeks. Had a good Halloween here – there were about 20 kids who dressed up and walked around the park. We sat outside our site and handed out candy. Still playing cards in the afternoon and Jim pool.
November 2, 2020. Well, tomorrow is Election Day, and the day we are going to go get our blood work as we have doctor appointments next week. When we pulled into Tres Rios we had a limited number of spaces we could get into so we pulled into Site 93. It’s down lower and we could not get many TV stations, and especially 33.1, which has one of Jim’s favorite programs on it. So he went to the office and asked if we could move into the site next to Site 74, which is on the outside and use the hookups to 74. They agreed to it, so we moved yesterday after cards. There are quite a few burrs here in this site, and I am pulling some of them out already. We put down our carpet this time to keep some of them out of Lucy’s feet.
I hope we can get one of the other sites in the first row next time we come in here. Right now they are filled up with motorhomes and 5th wheels and if we tried to pull in there I am afraid they would block our antenna.
November 13, 2020. Boy that things gone crazy in this country. Trump did not win by a landslide and things actually showed Biden getting more votes than Trump – if you can believe that. But over the last week it’s been coming out that there are 5 states in contention because they used a software program called Dominion that switched votes from Trump to Biden. It’s been proven that it does this, and even showed in real time on TV how it happens.
People have said they used this system in 2016 to get Hillary elected, however, there was a malfunction and Trump ended up winning. That was not supposed to happen because they did say they had the election rigged. So Trump and his team know all this and currently votes are being recounted.
I listen to Dr. Charlie Ward and he is adamant that the end result will show massive fraud using this Dominion system and it will be proven to the people. Like the insiders say, you have to show the people. He says that Trump is just watching them fraud themselves with how they are acting, saying that Biden is the winner. I did a blog on the whole fraud mess, and I will publish it once everything is finalized. It is very unnerving the way it all is playing out though.
Jim and I both had our annual doctors’ visits this week. Jim’s blood work looks fine; his LDL is up a little bit and of course the doctors starts talking statins right away. That’s all they seem to push these days, instead of diet and exercise.
I saw my doctor who put in another prescription for me; we did my annual “Medicare” tests, which I passed. I declined a mammogram and pap, which I will hold off until next year. So, that’s when I will see her again. Other than that, my cholesterol and LDL were up and my HDL down and with the ratio she showed me, puts me more in the normal range. She was not worried about it at all.
Jim’s C-pap is doing him good. He sleeps much better at night and does not take his morning or afternoon naps anymore. But of course he gets up at 9:15 or thereabouts, so when would he take a morning nap? He stopped eating breakfast, and just has lunch and dinner.
Next week we head out to a new campground north of Houston, then down to Jetstream RV Park for the week of Thanksgiving.
November 14, 2020. Listened to Sydney Powell and Lin Wood, attorneys for Trump. They both talked about the Dominion software, its origin, who is part of the company, where the votes were sent. They have lots of information on the fraud perpetrated on the American people by the Democrats. Lin Wood says they and the main stream media are going down; they have committed treason by circumventing the election and claiming Biden the winner. Trump issued an EO in 2018 talking about foreign interference with elections and I think the Dems just fell into that trap. Looking forward to the day it all becomes public knowledge.
We sold our Colorado property. It has been on the market for over a year and we had two other people interested in it, but both fell through. Then a couple months ago I got a call from a single woman (Dawn Walters) who wants the property to build a small house. She offered us $45,000 cash (we were asking $50,000) with no financing. She is going to pay for the title search and the preparation of the documents; the title company is going to do the work, send us the WD, which we will then execute and mail back to them. We are not going to have to drive up there or anything. Dawn is going to drive to Walsenburg to do the closing, and the title company will just mail us the check. After that, we will have nothing tying us down, and will not own anything except our truck and trailer.
I will have to look into if we need to buy something in order not to pay capital gains tax on the amount we made, which is about $22,000. Question for Nick – our financial advisor.
November 25, 2020. Headed out on the 17th driving all the way to Willis, Texas to Waters Edge RV Park, which is a coast to coast park. We usually stay at the Thousand Trails in Willis but I wanted to check out this new park. It was not as nice as the TT though. The roads at Waters Edge were really rough – lots of potholes. Our site was actually fairly level with good electric and good water quality. They have a huge dog park, pool, but no activities in the clubhouse. They also have a small home park near the water.
We drove to Livingston to get our mail and check out if there was anything for sale. We did find one place which had a concrete slab and building to park the RV under along with a building attached. They are asking $79,900. So, I imagine we will look elsewhere. I think the Escapees park is getting expensive as people are looking to live there.
We also visited the Prison Museum in Huntsville, which is the only other place we visited while in Willis. On Sunday we drove down to Jetstream in Houston for Thanksgiving week.
While at Waters Edge my computer ended up going crazy with the white screen of death. The screen colors started going haywire and I tried turning it off and on multiple times, but to no avail. The monitor stayed white. Then the TV decided to stop working with the remote. It has been acting up and worked on and off, but this time I think it really ended.
I found a company in Houston that could transfer the data from my old computer to a new one. So when we got here Sunday our first stop was Best Buy. It did not take me very long to find a new computer. So I ended up with another HP with Windows 10, and then I had to buy the Microsoft Word program so I could have Word. Jim looked at TVs while I was searching for a computer. He found one and we looked at a few different ones and ended up with an LG which was the best out of the ones we looked at. Best Buy did not have it in stock so we ordered it, to pick it up Saturday.
Jim put the big TV outside where we could get to the controls easier and put our little 12 volt TV inside for the time being.
Tuesday Jason & Ellie came over for the day. They watched a little TV and then after lunch I took them to the pool. The sun was in and out but the water was not very warm and they got cold fast, even though they ran around. Jason’s teeth were chattering so hard I though he could crack them. We painted some rocks, which I was not real happy with. I had oil paints which had to be cleaned with mineral spirits, and did not dry very fast.
Wednesday we stayed at the trailer. I did laundry, then we went grocery shopping. After lunch I baked more cookies and two pumpkin pies. The pies did not bake like the directions. Since I had 2 pies in the oven, it took a lot longer for them to bake.
Jim had two crazy encounters this evening. He had gone out for a ride and when he came back our neighbor was just getting home so he asked her if she needed any help. He said she tried to entice him into her tailer, and when he extended a hand to her, she took his hand and put it on her boob. He kept saying that he was happily married, but she said that was OK, why should that stop you. He did get away from her and when he walked into the trailer to tell me about it, a knock came on the door.
The person turned out to be TK, the father of two kids that Jim stopped in the golf cart and was talking to them because the cart did not have a light on the front, and he was asking them other questions. I guess mom and dad were wondering what was taking the kids so long and called them. Soon after they got home, TK was at our door to find out what kind of person Jim was. He wanted to make sure Jim was not a pedo looking for kids. They stood outside talking a while, and then I went out to see what was going on.
Monday night my neck got chewed up by something. I have numerous welts all over the right half of my neck and they itch. Then Tuesday I seem to have gotten more but this time on my arm and leg. I am wondering if they came from Lucy since we are in a new place and she has been running around in the weeds. No telling what she picked up. And since she sleeps in bed with us, I am wondering if the little critters are crawling in bed. They are too small to see, so I don’t know what we are dealing with. Plus, Jim is not getting bit, just me.
December 5, 2020. Arrived back at Tres Rios on Monday, November 30. We will be here until December 19, at which time we will head back to Houston for the Christmas holiday. We will be staying at Jetstream for the first week, and then Green Caye the second week. After that, we will be heading east to Florida.
I talked with Jacklyn on my birthday and she indicated strongly that she would like us to come to the TCT rally and then stay for a week to visit with her and Sean. She wants us to meet Sean. They already spent a weekend at Bill & Julie’s house, and Sean got a two thumbs up from Bill. So I think it would be good to go and meet him.
So far I have made our reservations at OCP, C-C and TT and also found another RV Park close to Jacklyn that takes PA. Looking good so far.
The sale of the property is still scheduled to go through on December 15. The title company should be sending the WD this week, and then we will get it notarized and send it back off to them. I am hoping that they will send our check to Josh’s house instead of our mailing address.
December 9, 2020. Sale of the property is ready to go through. Got the closing documents via email today. Thursday we will head into town to get them notarized, then straight to the Post Office to get them in the mail. Closing is still set for December 15.
December 18, 2020. The sale of the property went on without a hitch. Dawn drove down to the title office on the 15th and they sent out the check to Josh’s house, which arrived today, Friday.
Wednesday night I think the refrigerator started going kerplunk. By Thursday morning I started looking at it and trying to figure out why it was not working. I started researching the internet; learned that the coils on the outside were supposed to be warm and ours were stone cold. The lights on the panel went off and I could not get it going. Then Jim called Bennett’s and talked to someone in service and they tried to trouble shoot what was wrong. Ended up that the freon leaked out and that shoots the whole refrigerator. It was 17 years old, so it did us good over the years.
Thursday afternoon during cards we started talking to people and trying to find a refrigerator. PPL had a new one for $1550, but then Jim went to talk to friends in the park and one guy, Tony, said Oh I have a friend at United RV let me give him a call. Found out that they had a scratch & dent one for $750 cash. What a deal!
So Thursday night we went to Prosperity Bank ATM to take the cash out to buy the refrigerator. Holy Cow! The ATM did not give us our money. Luckily there were still some people in the bank, and we talked to the manager who said that actually it does not give out more than $600 at a time, and the money got stuck in a separate chamber. She said that the money should eventually get back into our bank account. She could not do anything that night, but said to all her at 8am Friday morning. By Friday morning the money was still not in our account, and I told her that I was coming down and wanted by $700. She could not do anything with the ATM but said she would give us $700 cash from her own account. WOW.
Friday morning we went back to the bank; I wrote her a check for $700 and told her (and even showed her my bank balance) that there was not enough money in there to cash the check. She gave us the $700 cash from her own account and I told her that as soon as the money got back into my account. I would call her when I got money in the account so she could cash the check.
After we left the bank, we drove to Granbury as Jim had an appointment with Shannon Mueller to look at his feet. His toes curl a lot and he was worried about their condition. Learned that most of the problem is him wearing sandals. He grips with his toes so much it is causing them to curl. So periodically I have to massage his toes and try to straighten them. He also has to stop wearing his sandals.
From the doctors we drove to United Rental, which was somewhere in Fort Worth to pick up the refrigerator. Got back here about 1pm, and since I sent him a message about what time we would get back, and by the time I got back from walking Lucy, he was there ready to get to work. While Jim and I ate some lunch, Doug was outside starting to take the parts apart. Then he came in and we got it unscrewed and taken out. We all worked about 3 hours and finally got the new one in.
Jim even called the cabinet worker up the road and he was actually at work, so I drove up there and he cut some panels since the panels from the old refrigerator did not fit the new one – they were too small. Tim the cabinet maker cut them right away and charged us $20 for the two panels. I then headed back to the trailer and Doug and Jim put the doors on and then slid it into place. It then got bolted down and I put the shelves in. Figured all that out as well. I am missing a long shelf in the freezer so will probably order one.
We were so grateful for having Doug around to help us out that we decided to take him to dinner. Jim wanted to check out a new restaurant, so that is where we went.
We went to the Feed Mill on Grace Street. It was OK; but the music was too loud and I asked them to turn it down. The food was really seasoned and not too spicy but to many different flavors. Don’t know if we will got back there.
December 25, 2020. Christmas Day. Yesterday we went to an early service at Hope Luthern. Josh, Karen, Ellie & Jason all played a part in the service. Josh got up and said two passages; Ellie laid the baby Jesus in the manger, and Karen and Jason got up and did a little skit about presents. It was very cute. Jason said he was nervous, but he did a great job.
Karen’s Dad also drove down from Waynesville and got here the same day as we did. In fact, as we were pulling in, he was trying to get through the gate and having a difficult time doing it, so I got out of the truck and went and put in the code for him, not even realizing it was Phil. I was about to go back to the truck when I realized who it was, and went back and gave him a hug.
Sunday (20th) was Karen’s birthday, so Josh took us all to a Japanese restaurant in celebration. Jacklyn flew in Thursday morning, just in time to go to church service with us.
Jim and I are still trying to learn our new “smart TV” – good gracious. It is smarter than we are, and both of us wish we had our old TV back. At least we could figure it out.
Yesterday before going to church our next door neighbor here at Jetstream was trying to fill his RV tires with a little air pump that sounded like it did not put out much. So I mentioned to Jim to loan him our air pump, which he did as well as the air gauge. He was so grateful for Jim’s help that he gave us a bottle of wine and a bottle of Woodford Reserve. I had baked some blueberry cookies and chocolate chip as well so I put some of those in a bag and taped them to our neighbor’s RV and said Merry Christmas.
Today we are going to head over to Josh & Karen’s for breakfast and then open presents. Josh is smoking a brisket for dinner, and we will just hang around there for the day.
December 31, 2020. Enjoying our last week here in Houston. We went over to Josh & Karen’s every evening to visit, but this evening we left right after dinner. They had plans for New Years Eve and we wanted to get back to the trailer. We had to leave Jetstream and go to Green Caye for the week. Boy was there ever a lot of fireworks that went off around there.
Green Caye has changed a lot. They put sheds up on every lot which takes up room and makes it hard to get out of the truck. I doubt we will stay here anymore; I’m going to try and work it out to stay at Jetstream for the two weeks we are in Houston for Christmas.