Carols appendix

On Friday morning the 22nd of March, Carol woke up with a pain in her lower right side of her torso. She wasn't sure, but her gut (get it gut) was telling her that it was her appendix. So, instead of getting up and getting ready for work, we got ready to head down to the ER ward of the Kaiser South Sacramento.

We've become great fan's of Kaiser, ever since we joined about 4 years ago, and this experience was no exception. We arrived at the ER at around 7:00 AM. They gave her something to reduce the pain and then scheduled her for a CT scan. The CT scan was done by 8:15 and we had met the surgeon by 9:15. By 10:30, she was in the Pre-Op ward to have her appendix taken out.

The doctor and nurses told me that the procedure if all went well would be an hour and a half to two hours. With me waiting in the Surgical waiting room, the doctor came out before 12:00 noon to tell me that surgery had gone well and she was in recovery... WOW, that was fast! Because of the excitement and protracted recovery time involved in Carols Gal-bladder surgery 6 years ago, the surgeon opted to keep Carol over night to keep tabs on her recovery.

With a little respiratory and physical therapy, Carol was ready to go home on Saturday morning. Naturally, I spent as much time as I could with her, but with we still had the three dogs at home that needed looking after. Thankfully, Katie and Russ tag teamed with me to help keep the dogs walked, watered and fed, and all was right with the world.

Carol's recovery went much better than the one tied to her Gal-bladder, and she was back to work, full steam, a week after the surgery to remover her appendix. 

As always, Carol was a real trooper. Carol's only regret is that she was down and out while Karen and Mike were passing through town as they left for their 6 month road trip around the United States including Alaska!

Also, she missed out on a great dinner where I took Karen and Mike to Shady Lady for dinner. We wanted to take them to dinner there specifically because they serve 'Four Roses' burbon which is one of Mikes favorites!

Now that Carol is feeling all better, we just have to figure out where we want to go next in the motorhome. We're thinking maybe Half-moon bay!

Happy Camping! Eric and Carol

March Motorhome Modification and Maintenance Madness Part 2

Starting with Friday the 8th of March, we began the process of getting the tops of the Front, back and sides of the motorhome repainted. Anyone who has seen our motorhome in the past knows that our Rig is really beautiful, but many of the Allegro Buses that are of our vintage, has problem of blistering and pealing of the paint at the top of the coach. So, we set out over a year ago to get bids on what it would cost to get the rig painted. One of the bids was as high as $10,000. However, we found Performance Color RV in Sacramento that would paint it for about $2,700 which was much more along the lines of what we expected.

 Below are a couple of before and after pictures of the rig.

Also, here is a video showing the rig while it was at Performance Color RV.



Of course, when we got the rig painted, we couldn't be in the rig. So, we talked to Performance Color RV about if we disappeard for the weekend how that might work. We agreed that if we dropped the rig off Friday morning, it would be done by the end of the day on Tuesday. Well, it turned out that on Sunday the 10th of March, the family would be getting together to celebrate Mike Wraights 65th Birthday as well as Chuck's wife Terri's birthday. We didn't want to miss out on all of this celebration, so we thought we would head up for a visit.

As always,  Karen and Mike were wonderful hosts during our visit up there.

Mike and Karen have also been preparing for the longest RV trip of their lives. They are taking a trip Georgia, then Conneticut and then to Alaska. This trip is expected to take 6 months! In preparation for this trip, they had their own list of things that needed to be done on their motorhome before they could hit the road. So, while we were in Oregon, we helped with the following list of their own "March Motorhome Maintenance and Modification Madness" Items: Replace the water pump, bring a recliner into the rig, install floor molding, fix the water line that feeds the shower head, install plastic sheeting for the spare tire area and replace the straps used to tie down the window awnings.











With all of their RV work completed and the birthday celebration completed, we headed home from Oregon on Tuesday morning and the rig was ready for us when we got there just as promised.

Now the only things we have left that needs to be done on our rig is getting the dash air conditioner and a few other items repaired by Folsom Lake RV. That will wrap up our March Motorhome Modification and Maintenance madness. We'll keep you posted on this as well!

Happy Camping! Eric and Carol

The video of the entertainment center upgrade

Hi there everyone,

Here is the video of what was involved in upgrading the TV cabinet in the front of the RV from our 29" tube style TV to the 32" TV. Not only does this TV have a slightly larger viewing area, but it has a digital receiver that pulls in 32 over-the-air digital channels and it uses a whole lot less energy than the old tv.



Happy camping! - Eric and Carol -

March Motorhome Modification and Maintenance Madness Part 1

Hi thre everyone,

Well, for the month of March, we aren't going any where in the motorhome, but the motorhome is going to see plenty of activity. We took out a 401K loan of about $3,000.00 so we could get some work done on the Motorhome. We will be getting some painting done and some work done based on the Extended Warranty that we purchased when we bought the motorhome.

One of the things we also wanted to do was upgrade the TV in the Motorhome. This is what the old TV looked like...

But, in order to do that, we needed to modify the cabinet that the TV is mounted in. The new TV is 6 and a half inches shorter than the old TV. Also, it will be about 50 pounds lighter.

And this is what the end result looks like.

So, not only did we save 50 pounds of weight on the rig, but now we've improved the view out the front window! :-)

Stay tuned to the blog, after we finish all the work that is being done, we'll continue to update the Blog and eventually put together a movie about it.

Happy Camping! Eric and Carol

February festivities

Sorry everyone that we haven't posted much to the blog this month. It's been a busy month, just like so many others. No RV trips this month. Just recovering and trying to pay off bills from our fabulous vacation that we took in January to Quartzsite. Eric did celebrate his birthday in February, it was wonderful. Karen and Mike Wraight treated Eric for his birthday with a gift card to Outback steak house. Eric, Carol, Katie and Russ went to Outback and celebrated Eric's birthday with a dinner out. It was another wonderful evening out for the four of us. We always so sincerely enjoy having a dinner out with our two wonderful kids.

The day after Eric's birthday, Chako, the Pit Bull Rescue organization that we volunteer for had an orientation for new Chako Volunteers at the County Shelter. We had a great turn out of 35 some new potential volunteers. The following weekends we then did shadowiing sessions where the volunteers who were truly interested in getting involved. We had 15 that really wanted to get involved and we are thrilled at the interest. Twelve of those new volunteers will be working at the Sacramento county shelter so we are very excited about it! :-)

This last weekend, we went to Pioneer to visit with Carol's family. Loretta's birthday was also in February, so we celebrated both of our birthdays by having a Bar-b-que and some pineapple up side down cake made by Sandy. Not to be out done, Carol, made her family famous potato salad! Billy also did the honor's of bar-b-que'ing the burgers and hot dogs with Bill Ealy doing a fine assist.

Happy camping! Eric and Carol

Our 2013 vacation - The Movie

Hi there everyone,

One of the things that Eric has started to really enjoy doing is making Videos of our adventures full timing, and our vacation was no different! On our vacation this year, we covered 1,380 miles in 9 days. We boondocked for 6 days in the desert with no 'Ill effects' except that laundry really piled up on us. We then spent 3 days at Bolsa Chica state beach and saw a couple of new attractions in the Southern California region.

Those these activities have been chronicled already in this BLOG, we finally have the video ready for your enjoyment. The video is made up mostly of video footage shot on the road, with a few pictures tossed in for good measure!

Enjoy!!!



Happy camping!

Eric and Carol

Our last full day on the road - The USS IOWA

With Friday bring our last full day on the road, we made the most of it. We took a day trip out to San Pedro to see the battleship USS IOWA.  This must be the trip of BIG things 'cause Thursday it was the massive shuttle Endeavor and Friday its the even larger USS IOWA. This massive ship, created in World War II is still to this day part of the ready reserve fleet. In other words, though it is floating museum today, it could be called back to active duty tomorrow. At over 800 feet in length, and able to feed and house over 1,400 crew, she is truly massive.

The USS IOWA is known as the ship of presidents. This is because the ship, when originally built, had a bathtub installed in the Captains quarters so that if, and eventually when FDR traveled during World War II, he would be comfortable on board.  It was also the mode of transportation on occasion for Ronald Regan and George HW Bush.

After we got done seeing the USS IOWA, we continued up the coast just a few miles to the point Vincente Light house. We came up here mostly, cause we heard a large whale pod of 27 had been spotted up there the other day. Though there were no whales to be seen today, we did see a group of dolphins!

For dinner we returned to Steve and Lena's for a delicious BBQ dinner with Steve, Lena and MorgAn and Marina. That evening was the perfect bight cap so to speak to another wonderful vacation. Today, we head home with another bunch of wonderful memories!

Happy Camping!

Eric and Carol