Month: October 2025

Finishing the summer of 2025 trip

We left Red Bay this morning. Until about an hour after we got up we weren’t sure if we were going to stay an extra day or leave. Last night a front came through with a significant amount of wind, and it was forecast to be windy until Wednesday morning. The worst will come on Tuesday, and it seems we really shouldn’t be going anywhere that day. The motorhome and I don’t handle 45-60mph wind gusts very well! We finally decided to head out, but we didn’t leave until 11:00 to let the storm get a bit farther past us.

We did get pretty much all of our miscellaneous work done while in the area. The motorhome looks fabulous! $$$$ but the body work and paint look great. The drip rail that joins the top cap to the sides needed a complete recaulking and repainting. That took one day. The second day was putting the new bay doors on and repairing the two that didn’t need replacing plus painting everything. We also had them polish our headlights, and they look like new. The whole thing took 2 days and 4 hours (they were long days), but we got to stay in the motorhome while they worked. This picture was taken by the guy who did the FABULOUS wash and wax – Ricky Johnson of RV Cleaning in Vina, AL. Note I am wearing my “No Kings” shirt. We both attended a protest in Florence, AL while the rig was being washed.

Isn’t she pretty?

We had Lindsey & Winchester make washable slipcovers for our pilot and co-pilot chairs. These are to protect the seats from the claws of our cats. They never scratch the furniture on purpose, but they do launch from it some times! The can be tucked much tighter than shown, but this was after driving all day, so don’t blame the manufacturer for the looseness.

Front of new seat covers
Back of new seat covers

We also had top covers made for both recliners. Again, this was really just to protect against “launch” scratches. The fit quite well when tucked down a bit.

Protection for recliners

I also had L&W make washable, removable covers for our dining table chairs. These are well-built IKEA chairs, much sturdier than the originals from Tiffin. But they had a very light colored seat, and they were starting to spot. The woman who took the measurements and delivered them said these were the first she had ever done. I am quite happy with them.

Chair seats

L&W also re-upholstered the headboard, but it is virtually indistinguishable from the original so I won’t show a picture. L&W makes all the soft furnishing Tiffin uses, so the similarity isn’t really surprising! While my side of the headboard was just fine, kevin reads in bed so often that his (rough) hair had caused some minor holes in the vinyl.

Today’s travel finds us in the parking lot of an Elks Lodge in Sikeston, MO. The temperature is cool enough we don’t need AC, so we are just dry camping. Tomorrow we will be well north of St. Louis at Canton on the Mississippi at Lock and Dam 20. We plan on staying there Monday and Tuesday nights due to the wind storm coming. It is a nice place to settle for a bit since we can watch the barges lock through. Wednesday we expect to be back home! I admit that I am completely ready to be done traveling for a while. By 3 1/2 months, I am usually looking forward to home, and we have been gone for over 4 months this time. Now to get to all the doctor and dentist appointments we have scheduled between now and Christmas when we take off again.

Finally in Red Bay, AL again

No pictures in this post.

After the Elks Lodge we chose to stay at a KOA west of El Reno, OK for a night. We got some laundry done, cleaned the tanks, and generally reveled in the idea of unlimited water LOL! The next night was at the Grand Casino parking lot outside Shawnee, OK. We took a short day because we really, really needed to get the motorhome washed! There was a Blue Beacon on I-40 in western Oklahoma City, so we took the time to get it washed. It is always an hour or more, because they are always busy. But the Casino was an awful place to spend the night. We had been in such quiet places for months that all the noise and lights kept me from sleeping well at all. Ugh. I begged Kevin for no more parking lots, so we stayed the next two nights at Corps of Engineers campgrounds, one in Russellville, AR (Old Post Park) and last night outside Hernando, MS (Hernando Point). Both were lovely and quiet.

Hernando Point was where we found out the truck’s battery was 100% dead! Kevin tried to charge it with the MH and the battery cables we had, but they were cheap ones and didn’t do a good job. So off we went to the next bigger town, the metropolis of Senatobia, MS population 8,500. Of course it was 20 miles from the campground! We made it to an auto parts store, but they didn’t have the booster and cables Kevin wanted, so he ended up at a Walmart nearby. Hard to park a MH at the auto parts store, so I parked on the street and he walked to the stores. Got back to the campground well after 6:00pm, and we started the generator and the new charger to get things working. We didn’t want to leave the truck, parked in a closed boat ramp area, so the CG host said we could just boondock in the lot instead of the site we had reserved. By 9:00 pm the truck was 40% charged, and we turned off the generator. The next morning Kevin charged the truck a bit more, then he drove the truck to Red Bay while I followed in the motorhome. Once we got here, he was able to isolate the charging line error in the umbilical that connects the powered items in the truck to the motorhome. He will fix that first, then he’ll see about getting a new battery for the truck. It has been my experience that once a battery is completely exhausted, it is not reliable in cold weather or under loads. If we were in civilization all the time, I wouldn’t worry because you can always find someone to give you a jump, but that is NOT where we generally stay!

So tomorrow Kevin gets to rewire umbilical cords (dead one and the spare which was from the Jeep). Should keep him busy. I intend on getting a bunch of oven mitt blanks quilted, ready for cutting on the Accuquilt. He will probably finish first!

This next week is for getting hte motorhome worked on. We have some body work (oops!), getting some slipcovers for the pilot and co-pilot chairs, covers for our dining chairs, and replacing the headboard fabric. We will also get our yearly engine, chassis service, and generator service plus a real detail job on the MH. There are a few minor things we are getting repaired too, but just little nits and lice stuff. However we have to be at the body shop ten miles away at 6:00am! Shiver!

RMMA Rally and heading home

We spent our last night in Ignacio visiting a bit of Chimney Rock Monument and a Native American flute player. The weather was threatening as we drove up, and it got worse. Lightening and thunder were all around us, so the planned outdoor aspects of the visit were superseded. We got to listen inside the Visitor Center, but I did get just a hint of a small ruin, shown below. The giant kiva and the Big House were out of reach this time, so I guess we will have to go back!

One of the smaller ruins at Chimney Rock

We drove to Farmington, NM where the Rocky Mountain Motorhome Association, a regional group from the FRVA, was having a rally. It was our first time at a regional rally, and it was a nice change.It was small enough (100 or so rigs) you got to meet people more easily. The Frustrated Maestros I mentioned last time were a blast! Not all were great musicians, but the purpose is FUN, and I am pretty sure everyone had a lot of that. It took me a while to get into a popular music style since I do so much more formal choral music, but I finally figured it out. Now if only I didn’t get so nervous singing a solo!

Oh, I have to mention that the Verizon service at the Fairgrounds where we had the rally was astonishing! Look at this screen shot; even Starlink could only run at about 180 or so.

I have never seen speeds like this!

In addition to singing three mornings, I also taught a class on making oven mitts. The students got to pick their favorite fabric kit, quilt the fabric, cut it with the Accuquilt, machine bind the edges, and then finish sewing. We had a blast! One of the nicest groups of folks I have ever had the pleasure of teaching, they had enthusiasm and great attitudes as you can see from this picture (yes, they gave permission). Everybody finished one mitt completely, and the second mitt didn’t need much more work but wasn’t quite finished in the two hours we had. I had so much fun picking out the fabric, and I have quite a few kits left. Guess what some of my Christmas presents will be?

We had so much fun

All good things must come to an end <sigh>. We are heading to the Red Bay, AL area for work on the motorhome, so most of the rest of the trip will be pretty boring. We spent the first night out of Farmington at the Santa Rosa State Park in NM. We would normally have planned on somewhere closer like Albuquerque, but the Balloon Fiesta is running and there isn’t a place within 100 miles at a reasonable distance. But the state park was lovely. There was a lot of water in the lake since they have had heavy rains, and the area was a lot greener than we had seen it before. Here is a picture Kevin took from our site. The only issue we had getting here was a major accident just a few miles from our exit to Santa Rosa. It took us about an hour to go 3-4 miles! Somehow a semi had destroyed their trailer (peeled the roof right off!) and crunched the tractor pretty good just at the start of a big construction zone. It was awfully tiring driving 2-3 mph. Just about everyone was well behaved, but I was glad to get to the campsite.

Santa Rosa State Park campground view

We are now in a crowded Elks Lodge parking lot in Amarillo, TX. There are 7 other MHs here, and we are parked awfully close to each other. But the price is right, and it is fine for a single overnight. I got the chance to clean up and sort all my sewing stuff, so that is good. We plan on averaging 200-230 miles a day to get to Red Bay on Saturday. We stay in a parking lot there too!

I probably won’t post again unless I get some sewing done. I have a pair of oven mitts that are partially complete that I was using as a sample, so I need to finish them. I also have the October Kona Block of the Month to finish. Oh, and all those Christmas presents!