Things to consider

Copied from a friend's Facebook page:

1. When one door closes and another door opens, you are probably in prison.

2. To me, "drink responsibly" means don't spill it.

3. Age 60 might be the new 40, but 9:00 pm is the new midnight.

4. It's the start of a brand new day, and I'm off like a herd of turtles.

5. The older I get, the earlier it gets late.

6. When I say, "The other day," I could be referring to any time between yesterday and 15 years ago.

7. I remember being able to get up without making sound effects.

8. I had my patience tested. I'm negative.

9. Remember, if you lose a sock in the dryer, it comes back as a Tupperware lid that doesn't fit any of your containers.

10. If you're sitting in public and a stranger takes the seat next to you, just stare straight ahead and say, "Did you bring the money?"

11. When you ask me what I am doing today, and I say "nothing," it does not mean I am free. It means I am doing nothing.

12. I finally got eight hours of sleep. It took me three days, but whatever.

13. I run like the winded.

14. I hate when a couple argues in public, and I missed the beginning and don't know whose side I'm on.

15. When someone asks what I did over the weekend, I squint and ask, "Why, what did you hear?"

16. When you do squats, are your knees supposed to sound like a goat chewing on an aluminum can stuffed with celery?

17. I don't mean to interrupt people. I just randomly remember things and get really excited.

18. When I ask for directions, please don't use words like "east."

19. Don't bother walking a mile in my shoes. That would be boring. Spend 30 seconds in my head. That'll freak you right out.

20. Sometimes, someone unexpected comes into your life out of nowhere, makes your heart race, and changes you forever. We call those people cops.

21. My luck is like a bald guy who just won a comb.

Baking

Before we left the farm in Virginia, Carl went one day and picked pumpkins and squash at a farm in the county (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-visit-to-pumpkin-patch.html). I had tried making pumpkin soup a couple of weeks ago and it wasn't one of our best efforts... so, I had looked up other ways to use pumpkin, and decided to try pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie.

I should have taken pictures during the process, but, we cooked the pumpkin in the Instant Pot. One "pie pumpkin" we could fit in whole; another we had to cut in half and cook half at a time. The one that we cooked half at a time I scooped out the seeds before I cooked it. The one that we cooked the whole, I separated the flesh from the seeds after it was cooked. I think I prefer scooping the seeds before cooking, but, we also kept the seeds that I separated out after cooking and will use them in smoothies.

Finished products (partially consumed):

Three loaves of pumpkin bread and 2 pies

The microwave / convection oven is "interesting" to use for baking. It is not very large, and it doesn't heat evenly so we had to move the items as they were baking to try to get them evenly browned (or, not burned!). They came out okay, and we are finding them much more tasty than the pumpkin soup. 

I still want to give pumpkin soup another try, but I think I'm going to use a recipe that makes a sweeter soup rather than the "savory" one that I used before.

It is nice to know that we have the motorhome all to ourselves for two whole days (they won't be working on it until Monday at the earliest) - so I wanted to get things done that would be really hard to do around interruptions.

We also dumped our tanks today, so I could wash a lot of dishes without being worried about filling up the grey tank.

Well....

A picture from our "campsite" this evening...

That's a Tiffin Allegro which had been parked in our "lane" of rigs backing away from us into the shop for the weekend...

Doesn't it look like it is smiling?

And, yes, that means that we are still at the campground at National Indoor RV Center. They took Gracie at about noon to install the long-awaited awning but, the support arms that were shipped with the awning do not fit Gracie. They are pretty sure that the correct support arms are available at another place in the Dallas area and will be able to get here by Monday but... we are spending the weekend at NIRVC.

We are a little disappointed... we were hoping to be on our way west by this evening (not far, just about 45 minutes away to Bridgeport, TX and a Thousand Trails campground), but, we had prayed that God would arrange things for us as He wanted it, so we think He wants us here for some reason, and we're satisfied with that for now.

Thursday...

Well... on Thursday, 

• we both got dental cleanings 
• we visited the columbarium where Dwayne's ashes are located

The niche to the right has the urn that will be for my ashes someday.

•  I had my appointment my internal medicine doctor.
• We used up another gift card -- trying out "City Cafe Bistro To Go" - which we enjoyed a lot!
• Waited around when we returned to the rig because we thought it was going to be weighed this afternoon... but it wasn't. (It may be weighed on Friday, but we don't know for sure.)
  
• Went up on the roof and checked out the installation of the heat pump / air conditioner 

A picture of the new unit -- but... see where the arrow is pointing -- there was a piece of what we thought was styrofoam packing material left on the roof. "Sloppy installation" is what we initially thought.

Carl decided to take a look at the unit under its cover...

When he got the shroud off, it was obvious that a couple of the pieces of foam were not evenly placed... we again thought "sloppy", but this time of the manufacturing.

As Carl looked at it more closely, he realized that there needed to be more foam pieces to ensure that air being drawn into the unit came in through the coils - we were thinking we would need to get some foam pieces, but then... we looked more closely at the styrofoam that we had thought was packaging...

What do you know? it fits and nearly completes the foam pieces...

There is still a gap between plastic pieces, and the foam pieces have been torn apart so they don't seal perfectly, but... that piece that had been left on the roof (and could have easily blown away) was a necessary part of the unit that we are purchasing and will be charged for installation.

Needless to say, we are *not* happy campers right now!

Both the issue with the BMK (which was wired incorrectly when we were here in the spring) and this mistake would possibly not be found by less knowledgeable or curious RV owners. With the BMK, they would have not been aware of power draws against their batteries by 12V appliances/lights/etc. With the air conditioner, they would have gotten less efficient performance and wondered why their new heat pump / air conditioner did not seem to work as well as the one they replaced, even though it was a more powerful unit.

We will be making our frustration known to the folks here.

And... the part that we were hoping would come in today not only did not come in, but... won't even make it to the supplier (Dometic) until 11/30. So, we have asked if it could be sent from Dometic to the NIRVC in Phoenix and that we could have it installed there sometime later in the winter.

We are hoping that we will be able to get the awning (the long-awaited awning!!!) installed on Friday and then we'll be done with what we want to get completed here and can get moving along to our next destination...

Shopping (using gift cards)

In the process of going through things and consolidating between our two rigs, we located a number of gift cards that we have had "for a while" and had not used... some of them are for places which are specifically in and around DFW, so we wanted to take advantage of using them while we are here.

Today, we visited Half-Price Books,

... how come there are "Cat Reference" books and "Dog Training" books, but no "Cat Training" books?

We also visited Cotton Patch Cafe for lunch, and went to the Dillard's Clearance Center which is what the Dillard's store in what-used-to-be Vista Ridge Mall (now Music City Mall) is now. We got 3 gift cards / rebate cards used up, and had fun doing it.

Miss Kitty and I both had successful annual exams. Tomorrow to the dentist for both of us, and then one more doctor appointment for me, and we should be *done* with our non-RV activities for this visit!

Two items completed (we think!)

The folks at NIRVC took Gracie into the shop today (near midday) and we think that they have completed *two* of the five tasks on our list: replacing the front air conditioner / heat pump, and correcting the BMK so it measures the 12V power sources and draws in addition to the 110V sources/draws. We've tested both this evening after getting the rig back, and they both seem to be working -- HURRAH!!!

Gracie in the shop -- she was right near the door, so we could take a picture (we're not supposed to be *in* the shop, but I actually went onboard for a minute or so because I was trying to remember if we had something in the pantry that I needed for supper before I headed out to the store to buy it and the guy working on it let me onboard!).

Miss Kitty stayed in the bedroom (we had both bathroom doors closed and latched). She was quite vocal about not thinking this was appropriate treatment for a kitty before we left in the morning, but we figured she would be better off in there than stuck in her kennel in the Jeep all day.

When we got back from our errands today, we parked the Jeep in the space that Gracie usually occupies in the "campground" and enjoyed the beautiful fall day sitting outside in our chairs.

 

I got to the eye doctor and got a new prescription. Not much changed so I don't know whether I'll get new glasses or not -- it may depend upon whether Carl gets his eyes checked once we get to Mesa and if we find a glasses provider that has a 2-for-1 deal going. We also got to meet with our financial advisor - he had all good news for us which is always nice!

All-in-all, a really great day! 

Miss Kitty and I both have annual checkups tomorrow. We don't think that NIRVC will take Gracie into the shop tomorrow, so we can bring Miss Kitty back to the rig after her appointment. She has to fast from midnight tonight until her appointment tomorrow morning... so it is possible that none of us will get much sleep - but she will *definitely* be interested in getting some food after her appointment! It will be good to get those to-do's moved to the "done" column tomorrow!

Out and around NIRVC

We took our walk around the lot of National Indoor RV Center(NIRVC) today... we walked all through the parking lot where rigs in for service are parked, and then around front where rigs for sale are parked...

We've been noticing this PleasureWay class B van in front of the building listed for $81K+ with a pop-up to give additional standing space and sleeping space.  (https://pleasureway.com/models/tofino/)

It is hard for us to conceive that this is listed to sell for more than Miss Doozie is listed for!

If you've been reading the blog for a while, you might recall that we were at NIRVC at the end of March / beginning of April (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2020/03/our-current-status.html). At that time, they were doing construction to add on to their facilities.

A lot of that work is nearing completion:

Looking toward the front -- I think they are planning to put Sales in the office area up front.

A couple of the bays where they are actively working today.

Some more bays where there is still driveway to be poured.

Looking from the back toward the front on the east side of the new building.

Looking from the back to the front on the west side of the building - this side is right in front of where we are parked.

We are again in our favorite spot at the very end of the "campground" row.

We think that the other "campground" residents should be grateful to us that we like this site because (1) many folks don't like it because the trees limit satellite reception, and (2) we park *way* over to the side which allows an additional rig to park next to us. The one to the left of us is technically in the same parking spot that we are occupying. When he came in yesterday, the owner/driver had quite a time shoe-horning it into the space, but he got it in, and has his slides out on both sides! We don't have our passenger-side slides out... I think if we did, we'd be able to shake hands or pass the salt shaker through the windows!

We know that they are going to need to get into the bay where the inverter is installed (which also happens to be our main storage bay), so we can take items out and temporarily store them on the ground next to the rig if necessary. Right now we have the fire pit, propane tank, gas grill, and bikes stored outside.

The items that we need to be addressed are: replace the awning (that was torn off back October 2019 in strong winds when Carl was driving near Cheyenne, WY), add a slide topper over the kitchen slide, make the Battery Monitoring Kit (BMK) work to monitor 12V draws and sources of battery power (this was installed in the spring but it was wired to only monitor 110V draws/sources), replace the heat pump/air conditioner in the front as it gave out this past summer, and weigh the rig all "4" (actually 6) corners. The ordered parts of the awning and the heat pump/air conditioner are here. The slide topper is scheduled to arrive on Thursday (the service tech said that it is always possible that could change, but that it has been scheduled to arrive on that date for a while and hasn't been delayed). They plan to take the rig tomorrow (Tuesday) to install the heat pump / air conditioner. They plan to take it on Friday to install the slide topper and awning. The shop manager was supposed to come either today (Monday) or Tuesday to check on the BMK (it is almost quitting time and he hasn't come on Monday so far). They generally do the weighing on Thursdays. So... *if* the slide topper comes in, and *if* the BMK correction can be diagnosed and completed, we should be able to be on our way by the weekend. We'll believe it when we see it! 

At least we are getting a lot of other things done: we both saw the dermatologist today, Tuesday is eye doctor for me and meeting with financial advisor, Wednesday Miss Kitty sees Dr Bill and I see my gyn, Thursday we both see the dentist and I see my internal medicine doctor. We got to attend MBBC on Sunday and be with our Sunday Bible Fellowship class. If we happen to be held over, we can attend our church again. There are a lot of folks here that we would love to see, but we're limited by Covid-19 concerns (we certainly don't want to bring infection to anyone). We figure that our schedule is relatively open and if we need to stay here longer, we're not going to sweat it.