Friends from the Beginning and Now

I started dabbling in the blog world back in 2007.  We went full-time in May 2009.  During that time I started writing about lots of things in order to learn how to do.  The aim was to have a running documentary of how:

• We chose the RV life,
• We transitioned to it, and also a 
• Log of a few of people and places we were going to see in the new lifestyle.

But there are a lot of gaps even with a blog...  

We met Ron and Jan through mutual friends but not sure exactly when that was.  We started attending Barcroft Bible Church in 1995 and it may have been that year.  For some reason, our paths never crossed much and we moved on to a different church.  A few years later we also recall seeing them at Lake Fairfax in 2009.  

Turns out Ron and Jan also have a motorhome and moved to the Seattle area about the same time as we started full-timing.  After 5+ years there, they moved on to Arizona before ending up here in Florida.

Last week we were at the Tampa RV show paying for something at one of the vendor booths and Jan said, "Hi! didn't know you guys were coming to the RV show!"  We turned around and there they were.  It had been years since we had seen them. We spent 15 minutes chatting and catching up and were glad for our unplanned encounter.

We made a note to get together for dinner and last night it happened at Ford's Garage.  I didn't recognize the name but we realized there are a number of these restaurants all over Florida.  Pam said we had been to one of these restaurants before and I had no recollection.  

We all arrived by 5PM and then spent a couple of hours over dinner catching up and hearing about how they chose to live in Florida.  

They love it here and are actively involved in the community including serving regularly at a local food bank for the homeless.  We shared stories of RVing in cold weather, being in Arizona and heard also about their work with the creation and operation of Jill's House in McLean, VA over 10 years ago.

As we talked we remembered the time we saw each other in a large church.  We were sitting near each other but had never met until then.  We didn't plan the meeting but it happened.  We saw them again a few months later at the Lake Fairfax where we stayed with our new coach for a few weeks.  They were there before they hit the road to relocate in the Seattle area.

Then, fast forward 10 years to the Tampa RV show and another unplanned meeting!  They were there at the beginning of our full-timing days and now what appears to be the last couple of weeks of it.  How fun is that?  

It was great to spend time with them again and we'll be looking forward to the next time.  Thanks for joining us today on the Roadrunner Chronicles!

There's A Story in Every Square Inch - The Quilt

Here's the end result -- One terrific T-Shirt Quilt.  What a treasure!  There must be a better word for it but this masterpiece is really something!

Here's how we got it --

I have often looked at the Roadrunner and reflected on how many stories come from walls and contents of our motorhome.  I look at the door lock and remember when it wouldn't open.  I look at the smooth panel near the steps and remember when I caused a two foot crack in it as I tried to back over a small post.  I look at our new carpet and the excess pieces we had made into throw rugs to cover our cold ceramic floors in winter time.  There are hundreds of stories in this place!  And wonderful memories.

Now another series of evens that generated this story in the past few months.

~We have our own unique T-Shirt quilt made by super seamstress and friend Susan ~

Here's how the story goes.  You may remember our front of the dash center console tray table that her husband Kirk made for us that fits securely below our radio on the front dash.  This is one talented couple that does nice things for friends for fun.  They are amazing!

Here's one gift that we will forever cherish.  Susan had had a sewing hobby for years and taken many classes to make her professional quality Bernina machine doe some amazing things.  This project was  a labor of love and we really appreciate it.

Last September when we stopped by Oklahoma City to see Kirk and Susan, she showed us a number of T-Shirt quilts she had made for family members.  I had never heard of a T-Shirt quilt but this was intriguing.  I have often thought I have way too many T-Shirts and one thing leads to another.  Next thing I know, I have 'purged' my overflowing T-Shirt draws and those memories are gone too.  But Susan's idea had some possibilities.

I remember years ago when Pam made a couple of quilts for our two kids when they were little.  It took a long time and it was a lot of work.  I hated to have Susan go to all that trouble.  But she offered to make one for us and said more than once she would love to.

Some times you have to let friends be nice to you and after a little bit of convincing we decided it would be a really cool thing to have.  We thought about it for a couple of weeks and then asked if the offer was still on the table...

It was --- and we pulled out old T-shirts and decided which we could use and which needed to stay.  We can up with about 35 T-Shirts and boxed them up.  After she got them in the mail we discussed colors of backing materials and front matter borders and those kind of details.

We also measured our current bedspread and adjusted the numbers to come up with the exact dimensions we wanted.   We went back and forth on positioning of shirts and logos.  After she got a general idea of what we were thinking she cut of the shirts and laid them out.

Over the course of a few weeks, she got the one side done, then the other and then finished it off and boxed it up.

Here are some of the steps pictured below:

Here she has organized all the T-Shirts and cut them into sections.

Some color planning was required to enlarge with a back border for some sections to match the others.

 Things are getting into the same sizes.

 One shirt was used to make a couple sections a few times

 Some options of the layout

 The shirts were sewn onto the backing with border strips in place

 The front side pretty much done.

 A closer look at the small sections made from pocket logos

 Then the choice on the quilt sewing design:  free flow or square

I think I left out about 47 steps and how she adjusted, adapted and managed to pull it all together with this beauty.  Each time we talked on the phone or got a text, our anticipation grew.

And then the quilt arrived and we were stunned!  What a masterpiece!  Wow - we were totally awe struck.  And to Susan it was like, "Yeah there were a couple of things I had to figure out but really no big deal...".  That's how it is with people that really know what they are doing.

They make the hard and complicated things look easy!  Except it doesn't look easy and its not a hobby I would choose.  But Susan is great at it and she enjoyed doing it.

The quilt arrived like so many other packages.  In this day and age lots of packages arrive on the door step at Kelly and Jon's house.  Although it was in an Amazon box it wasn't a product we got off the internet.

The first thing you see out of the box is the cool notation section:

Roadrunner Chronicles

The Adventures of Randy and Pam Warner

Pieced and quilted by Susan Waite

December 2017

Can you see the small outline of the United States Susan sewed in there?  

Next, we wanted to see what we had and Brooks helped us open it and we unfolded in out on the floor.

Harrison was quick to help out also and he jumped right in the middle of it.

Later, we refolded it and brought it back to the motor home and spread it out on top of the bed.

Perfect!

Every square inch of this thing tells a story.

Here are a few on the corner of the bed:
- The Arches t-shirt that I got when we visited in 2011.  And we visited again in 2015.
- Right below it is a Tiffin Motorhomes T-Shirt that we picked up in 2014.  Every May they come out with a new one.  We have been to Red Bay, AL many times.  And love it each time.
- To the right of the Arches T-Shirt is one from Tobermory Village Campground which commemorates our time in Ontario Canada seeing Adam and the Bakers from 2010
- Below that is a T-Shirt Pam got from our time at the Masters in April 2013.

And so it goes -- we could go on for hours...

The larger prints are from the front or back of the T-Shirts. The smaller logos on some of the shirts come from the area over the left pocket.

Susan did a fantastic job of putting it together and used every shirt we sent here.

Thank you Susan!

That's it for this edition of the Roadrunner Chronicles ~

Christmas came early for us and during this Holiday Season, we hope you are enjoying it and looking forward to a nice time.

Thanks for joining us today!  We would love to hear from you our readers...

Gold Manor Update #3 - New Roof

The roof guys came on a day when there was lots going on.  The roof repairs included taking off two layers of shingles and replacing any sheathing that was rotted.  There were six sheets they had to replace.  Over the years of neglect, a large tree branch punched a hole in the roof.  Rain and water seeped in causing other problems but the new roof ensures that won't be an issue again.

Cars and trucks were parked everywhere in the front yard.

On the roof, Timo's crew was ripping off the two layers of shingles.

Front side, back side and eventually the boathouse. Here over the front porch you can see some of the water damage that caused wood rot.

The dumpster loaded up quickly (above).  Below, I watched with awe as one of the slightly built men carried more than one 4'x8' sheets of plywood up the ladder by himself.

Once the new plywood was down, they put the covering down and then the shingles.

At one point, I think we counted 14 vehicles on the property including the delivery truck with the hydraulic lift for the shingles.  When the roof materials truck arrived, half a dozen cars and trucks had to move out from the front to the house so the truck could move into place and use the hydraulic lift to move pallets directly from the truck to the roof.

It was pretty impressive to see how these guys went to work and got after it!  Below is a photo of the work going underway on the back side of the house.

The new roof made a remarkable difference to the look on the house.  Not to mention it removed the source of wood rot and other problems.

Two days later and another bin filled with debris, they were almost done.

Things happen so quickly and in rapid succession, its hard to keep up and remember just a couple of weeks ago, things were in complete chaos.

One more major item ticked off their checklist!

Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!

Gold Manor Update #2

We are in the middle of a 32 day renovation.  Kelly and Jon put together an aggressive schedule and we are all doing our part.  "All" includes the subcontractors, Kelly, Jon, Pam and me.

This has been one of the (if not THE) most fun projects we have been a part of the last few years.  So far no major glitches and we are learning a lot.

Here are a few before and 'in-progress' photos:

First the kitchen.  This is looking from the door into the garage.

Here is a look from the hallway.

Here's what it looked like after they removed the counter, sink, shelves, dishwasher and oven.

Those rooms look a lot bigger when they are empty.

The photo below shows the wall separating the kitchen and the living room.  The stove and some cabinets had already been removed. It took the workers a couple of hours to do this.  The foreman loved swinging that sledgehammer to demolish the old stuff.  We had already removed handles, latches, hooks and any other pieces Kelly wanted to keep.

It was looking cleaner hour by hour.

If you look closely in the living room to the right of the light, you can see where the contractor had marked where the wall was going to be removed in the living room.  Kelly walked around with him a few days prior to that and they measured off and marked what walls needed to stay and which ones were to be modified.

Some people like Kelly and Jon can walk into a place and see the potential of big changes.  They can envision walls coming down and opening up the combined area.  They did that in their current house and decided this place was another good candidate.

Looking from the front living room back to the kitchen.

The next day they took out the studs to complete the wall removal.

This doorway and the one next to it are both going to be removed and opened up into the hallway to give the area a more spacious look.

It worked.  I asked Kelly if she had seen this done in her graduate studies for her Interior Design work and she said, "No, some people are good at math, this is just how my brain works.  I see things like this."

This is what the debris looked like piled up on the porch.  It easy to throw it out the window and cart it off to the dumpster.

Here is a look at the bar that was taken out.

Instead of a bar, they decided to build a half bath and a pantry next to the place of what will become their dining area and den.  They took off the brass railing and footrest.  Kelly applied some Norwex cloth elbow grease just to see if the foot rest would shine up. 

It did!  So that will likely find a place after their rehab is done.

The empty area looked like this before they started building it out.
The photo below shows the project well underway.

Another room that was 'demoed' was the Master Bathroom.  Pam removed the cabinet doors below the shelving and the whole vanity came out.

The shower doors and frame were removed as well as the vanity and mirror.

Once removed, the flooring was now exposed and had to be filled in.  Also the space near the tile cup holders on the wall had to be filled in.

It took a while to piece in the area under the vanity but it turned out fine.

That's a quick snapshot of what some of the areas that were removed and readied for renovation.  A lot of activity was going on with more to follow!

Thanks of joining us for Gold Manor Update #2 on the Roadrunner Chronicles!