A message to my friends

Hi.  This is Martha.

I haven't written a blog post yet, but I'm actually an author on this blog, so I can...and I get to write post number 100!  I'll be poking my nose in once in a while to say hey and give some of my perspective.

This post is for my friends, especially Lynn and Marie, who I gave this blog to so they could follow our progress...

Despite what my dear husband has posted, we have done a few things besides fix the RV.  We had a lovely visit with my brother-in-law and his wife...went wine tasting in Herrmann, Mo.  We took a short trip to St. Louis to have dinner with my husband's sons and two of the three grandkids.  The oldest granddaughter had her wisdom teeth pulled, so she and her mom stayed home.

We had planned to just kick back and relax this weekend, but between Chuck's repairs and the mid-90's temperatures, we ended up not doing much outdoors.  We did drive into town to get parts and a few groceries.  We managed to get one good picture!

I also my desk sorted out and organized, so I might be able to find something in it now.

I can't believe it's only been 2 weeks since I did my last massage.  For the first time in 11 years, I'm letting my fingernails grow.  It feels strange, to be honest.  We didn't have room to bring a massage table, so I'm not even working on Chuck now.  I had to book him a massage with someone else.  THAT feels weird!

We're going to Iowa tomorrow, to see family.  We booked a campground in Iowa again in August because we've decided to go to the Iowa State Fair!  So we're going to do a little back and forth as we go along.

After Iowa, we'll be in Wisconsin, and we'll be staying in one place and just sightseeing by car.  I'm definitely looking forward to having a home base for a little while.  Packing it all up and moving is fun, but it gets tiring to do it every few days.

Thousand Hills State Park - Near Kirksville, Missouri - Telephone Lines And Quirky Repairs

After leaving Lost Valley Lake RV Resort we headed toward Carroll and Jefferson Iowa.  We drove half way yesterday (June 10th) to Thousand Hills State Park near Kirksville, Mo.

When we arrived we tried to locate our campsite which was in "Camping Loop #1."  I motored past that turn and I decided to turn around by going into camping loop 2 and coming back out.  Upon entering the Camping Loop 2  I must have hit an overhead telephone line with my satellite dome (we heard nothing). This in turn must have whipped the line up and down and on one of the down cycles the telephone line got under my rear air conditioner shroud and ripped it from the coach and smashing it into 10 pieces.

This was an "aw sh_t!" moment for sure. Now I have no cover on the A/C, it's Saturday afternoon, no RV dealers in Kirksville or the surrounding areas.  Having no option I decided to preform surgery on the shroud by drilling 300 holes and installing 150 wire ties around all of the cracked and dislocated pieces. In the photo below you can see some of the wire ties. After stitching the shroud back together I applied "100 mph tape" inside and out over the cracked and stitched shroud.  I then added four more fasteners to the shroud when I put it back on the air conditioning unit. I'm hoping this will get us to my wife's sister place in Jefferson, Iowa (180 miles from here).

In the mean time I relied on Amazon to have the correct shroud and of course they did. It is being shipped to my wife's sister's address in Jefferson, Iowa on two day "Prime" delivery.

I worried and vexed when we loaded the "Beast" as to whether I was carrying too many tools. The answer to that concern is no, I had what I needed to make a quirky repair. And that is a good thing in my book.

This park is really a nice one.  But as is the practice of most state parks, there is no sewer or water and the electric service is only 30 Amps. There are hose bibs available to fill your water tanks but they are far and few between.  The park features numerous trails, a marina with boat and pontoon rentals and Native American petroglyph's to see.

 If you have a boat you can ski and tube here and the lake is stocked with small-mouth bass. Since I have handicap status our site cost us $25.25 nightly. The shower house is very nice and very clean too. 

That's all for tonight, I will post again when we get to Iowa and our next RV park. Keep on, keepin on.

Charlie,