29-30 November 2024 Recovering from too much food

After a very busy few weeks, we took the opportunity to sleep in late and have a relaxing morning. Then David worked on the clothes washing machine. He had watched a Utube video of how to diagnose the issue so he had some idea what he was getting into. First he found the drain pump filter and pulled it out. He found a bunch of coins clogging up the filter. Hoping that was the cause of the issue, he cleaned it out and started the washer to test it. Of course it was not that easy. And it still was draining slow. So he proceeded to take the washer apart until he could reach the drain tube where it connected to the wash tube. After wrestling with the spring clamp he was able to pull it off and found the source of the problem Clogging the drain hose was a COVID era face mask, a door handle key used to open doors without touching the handle, and a small cover that has been missing from the Wanderers electrical plug cable storage bin cover for several years! After wrestling the drain hose back on the wash tub (with at least one long string of curse words that scared Keira) and putting everything back together, the clothes washer works again! Good thing, because we were running out of clean clothes!

27-28 November 2024 Thanksgiving

We spent Wednesday making side dishes and desert while preparing the ingredients for the stuffing and turkey. We were up early Thanksgiving day to get over to Cynthia’s and Felix’s to get the turkey stuffed, prepped and in the oven by 9. Then helped prepare other dishes for the feast. Everything was ready by 2:30 and we had a wonderful feast with family. We have so much to be thankful for this year! We had Cynthia and Felix, Brian and Lauren, Ed and Mary (Brian’s parents), Andrew, Olivia and Avery. David’s turkey turned out spectacularly but Leslie’s Rum Cake stolen the show! It was delicious!

22-26 November 2024 Cheryl B Memorial

David arrived home just in time to upend his suitcase into the dirty cloths hamper and refill it for an early flight the next morning to Columbus Ohio. We stayed in the Dublin area of Columbus near the revitalized river front area. On Saturday, after sleeping really late, we drove over to Jason and Michelle’s new house near Wilmington. We had a wonderful visit and dinner with them. On Sunday we went to Cheryl Boyd’s memorial. We had time to visit with Chad and Emily, Justin and Ashly, Beth and John, Amy, Jessica and Brian and Landon. Jason and Michelle also showed up. This is the biggest concentration of cousins in one place of our family in a very long time. The service for Cheryl was beautiful. She would have been very happy to see so many of her friends and family together. We later went to dinner with Justin and Ashly, Chad and Emily and their children Liam and Maeve. It was great to have an opportunity to catch up with all of them!. On Monday, we drove over to Canton and picked up Veronica for lunch. We ran into Cheryl in the parking lot and dragged her along to Cracker Barrel for lunch. While we were there, Beth and John surprised us and stayed to visit for a bit. Later we drove back to Columbus to prepare for our flight home on the 26th.

11- 21 November 2024 Busy days

The 11th, we were up very early so Leslie could drive David to the airport for an early flight to California, then she drove up to Dallas to pick up her Mom and take her to June’s going away party. They had a wonderful time at the party and Leslie then stayed overnight in Fort Worth. In the morning, she toured a property we were interested in near Granbury before driving home to Conroe. Meantime, David made his way up to Edwards Air Force Base. He spent the next 10 days working on base. While he was there, he visited with our friends Bill and Pam. He also had dinner with our friend Scott. Even managed to do a wine tasting at Antelope Valley Vineyards. Leslie worked around the Wanderer. The clothes washer picked this time to suddenly stop draining and posted error code A10. Things like this always seem to happen when David is out of town! Leslie joined Cynthia and Felix one night to go see Three Dog Night in concert. Leslie stopped at the body shop and picked up the Behemoth on the way to pick up David at the airport. They did a magnificent job repairing the damage from the hitch failure and even detailed it inside and out. We are happy to have our big truck back! It has been a busy 11 days!

29 October – 10 November 2024 Settling in for the winter

We settled in for the long winter stay. We got up to Livingston to vote early and pick up our accumulated mail and packages. Leslie joined Cynthia, Felix, and Lauren in taking the grand nieces’ trick or treating on Halloween evening. We took Keira over to get to know Cynthia and Felix’s three dogs. Fortunately, that all went well and the three dogs seem to get along well. We also got to go back to church and get back into the swing of the church schedule. Leslie’s foot was pretty sore after walking so much on Halloween but is getting better each week. David repaired the MaxxFan in the bathroom again. This time the lift transmission leaked out is lubricating oil and seized up causing the motor to overheat and draw so much current, the current limiting resister burned up on the motherboard. Almost $200 in parts to get it working again. We dropped Keira off at Cynthia and Felix’s on Sunday night in preparation for our travels Monday morning. She stared at the front door for hours waiting for us to return for her. On the fourth we dropped the truck off at Woodlands Body shop to get it repaired from the hitch failure and picked up a rental car. It’s going to take almost 2 weeks to complete with over $8K in damages.

28 October 2024 Alvarado to Conroe TX

The drive from Alvarado to Conroe was uneventful. The hitch still thumped a little when we stopped hard or accelerated quickly, but it was a lot less noisy than the previous banging! We pulled into the same site that we had last year in Leisure Lane RV Resort ($600 per month + electric) around 2:30. We were surprised at how empty the park was. After we had gotten set up, David went to the office to check in, pick up a gate clicker and cable modem. He found out that a lot of people had left when the hurricane hit a couple of months ago which took out power and water to the park for 6 days. Keira seemed to be acting a little bit funny, like she remembered the place from the spring and was worried we were going to take her back to the pound.

22 – 27 October 2024

We crammed as many trips to view real estate as possible in this week knowing we were leaving. Overall, we viewed over 50 properties in the 2.5 weeks and none of them were “the one”. A couple were close but were priced above what we wanted to pay along with the needed modifications to make it perfect. Leslie’s boot, socks and sole came in from Amazon. She hates the boot, but her foot does not hurt as much and with the sole on the other foot, she is not limping. We squeezed in another trip to Lost Oaks to top off our wine stash. We met with Leslie’s Friend Tiffany and her husband David in downtown on Thursday. They are considering going fulltime RVing and had a lot of questions about how to make it work. We had a fun time discussing the fulltime life! On Saturday night we had dinner with Diane, Donnie, Matt and Renay to finally celebrate Diane’s 80th birthday, cake and all. It was fun catching up. David put in a lot of work hours

14 – 21 October 2024

David finally had time to work on the hitch and added the new spacers. The hitch is definitely fitting tighter than before. Hopefully it will stop the banging. We enjoyed dinner with Leslie’s childhood friends Billy and Robin on Sunday. They have been looking for a house for over two years and had just closed on one. They gave us some great advice on the area. Our relator had us running around to a view bunch of houses, which helped us better understand what we liked and didn’t like. But none of the houses fit the bill. Leslie’s foot was still hurting, even with the special shoe the doctor had put her in. So, she sent a copy of her x-rays to Lauren. Lauren looked them over and told her she needed to be in a boot, not a shoe or it would never heal. We got on Amazon and ordered the boot, compression socks and a sole to add under the shoe on her other foot so she would be at and even height. David put in a lot of work hours.

6 – 13 October 2024 Busy Times

Our relator has been sending us dozens of listings. We have also been looking on our own. So far, nothing that makes us interested. Leslie went to the orthopedic doctor which confirmed the diagnoses and provided a special shoe to wear while the recovers. She will need 6-8 weeks to fully heal. Leslie also went to see her knee doctor after having Lunch with her mother. We enjoyed lunch with our friend June on Sunday and caught up. David put in a lot of work hours.

30 September – 6 October 2024 Catching up

We didn’t waste any time diving into our itinerary for our visit. David saw his dentist and spent several long day’s working; Leslie visited her dentist and doctor. We found out Leslie’s foot, that she hurt in Estes Park when Keira knocked her off the stairs, has a fracture that will need to be looked at by an orthopedic (next week). We had dinner with our friends Rick, Jim and Kelley at the new location for King Tut. On Sunday, we met up with a real estate agent we were connected with through Zillow. We toured three new build houses on two acre lots in Granbury. It was interesting to see the new houses under construction but none of them appealed to us and none of them had decent views. But it gave us a start and we like our relator, Laurie. It gave us a chance to explain to her what we are looking for in our forever home. After we left Laurie, we drove around the area on our own to see what is there. We then headed over to our favorite local winery, Lost Oak, for a glass of wine and to pick up some favorites for the road.