Checking Out the Tidewater RV Show

I’ve been looking forward to the Tidewater RV Show for some time.  A few months ago a friend said he envied the lifestyle we used to have in the Roadrunner and said he wanted to go with me next time it came to town.

It didn’t work out for him and me, and the Brooks and Harrison were coming over for a few minutes to check out Pam’s garden.  I thought about having them join me but Harry was getting over a cold, so I knew his stamina would not be able to withstand the rigors of traipsing around the RV show.  The option with grandma and her garden was better so they did that while I ventured down to the Virginia Beach Convention Center on my own.

It was a short but memorable time!  Amazing what can happen in a couple of hours.  Would you believe I bought an RV.....?

Naw -- didn’t think so.  I know better than that.  Actually I wasn’t really tempted, but one of the of the things I wanted to do was to see what was new and maybe find something that might fit our needs down the road.  I think we are currently looking at a trailer to pull behind our F-150.

They had some overflow RVs parked outside near where I was parked so I wander over there first.  I like the feature of this trailer that had a small door on each side of the bed.  I am an early riser, so I like the idea of getting up and closing off the bedroom so I don’t wake Pam.

I took a quick look at a couple of other ones but was anxious to see what was going on inside.

Next I went inside paid my $9.00 ($1 off for a military discount) and set out looking around.  I’ve done this more times than I can count and wandered up and down a few aisles looking at things.  Nothing in particular sparked any excitement.

I see more and more tiny RVs that are very small which have a basic double bed and that is about it.  I don’t quite get it.  Looks to me like an expensive hard shell / tent type of a deal.  But I guess they must be selling or they would not be making them.  There are all kinds of ways to do the RV thing.

RV shows are also great places to see the unusual and find some interesting items.  I signed up for a chance to win $100 and $500 at a few places knowing I can ‘Unsubscribe’ pretty quickly.  I passed a tent arrangement on the back bed of a Ford  F-150 and had a nice chat with the sales person there.  Plus I picked up a nice roll-up throw blanket I can put in my truck.

After about an hour or so I made my way along the back wall and talked with some more vendors.  One handed me some personal products and talked about reducing chemicals on the planet. Reminded me of Norwex products.  Our daughter Kelly and good friend Hillary sells those products.

The booth belonged to Dana McKee with whom I talked for a few minutes.  Turns out she is

advocating for safer laws in DC to get safer personal care products on the market.  Her website is 

beautycounter.com/danamckee.  

As we talked, I found out she is also a John Maxwell certified speaker. 

Interesting.

Another thing I found out was that she plays a key role in the RV show and is the contact person for vendors to get space at the show.  The more we talked, I decided I very well may have a table at next year’s show to promote one or two volumes of my upcoming book

I was telling Dana how much we like Dodd RV and have been to their stores many times over the years.  I think last year when we were talking of downsizing while we were in Williamsburg, we found their store in Yorktown and visited there looking at Class C’s.

I said we are fans of Dodd’s RV (who sponsored the RV show for the 39th consecutive year) and Dana suggested I talk with with Susie Dodd, who is the manager of the entire show.  I met her and learned more.

After that, I found some items for the boys and headed home.  I scored pretty well with the boys who tried on some sunglasses I picked up.

They fit perfectly!

It was fun to go to the RV show and I met some interesting people and got some good ideas for our next RV.  It was time well spent!

Thanks for joining u on the Roadrunner Chronicles!  In the next edition, we’ll finished up with Part 3 on how we sold the Roadrunner...

A Hike in the Park

In September when friends Gabe and Bruce were here in October, we visited with them at their campground at First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach.  It was at that time we decided to buy a yearly pass.  In addition to camping, there are also some great hiking trails.

Yesterday, Jon went to work and Pam and I went over to see Kelly and the boys and to go with them on a hike at the park.

The weather has been really great the last few days and it was a perfect day for a walk in the woods.  The trails are easy, well maintained and marked well.  We picked the yellow trail and the boys had fun spotting the 6” x 2” markers on trees along the trail.

The area has its own special beauty with cypress trees and Spanish moss all around.

Pam and I want to do more of this and we are off to a great start with the holiday season and new year beginning.  We hiked (walked) for about half a mile before it was time to take a rest, eat some snacks and take a couple of pictures.

Harry decided early on it was better to grab a ride so he alternated between Kelly

and Grandpa.

The boys are at such a fun age.  Their sense of wonder and excitement is pure joy.  We are loving it.

 We did a leisurely out-and-back along the yellow trail which was a great little excursion for all of us.

 We made it back over to Kelly’s in time for their lunch, then Pam and I went to run some errands.  We stopped for our own lunch at Chick-Fil-A and shared our standard 4 count chicken fingers meal with waffle fries and a drink (half sweet tea, 1/2 regular tea).  It was fun to see Sarah and her kids along with visiting brother and girlfriend.  

After some after-Christmas shopping we headed home where I resumed mowing the back yard and bagging the leaves.  Just before dark, I tried out my 14” chain saw that did a good job on the regular sized firewood we got a few weeks ago.  Our small fireplace works better with smaller chunks of wood.

Then was another amazing dinner from Pam’s kitchen (shrimp) and we had a nice evening watching a good bowl game.  I also did a little reading.

=

I love this time of year to reflect, slow down and take a deep breath.  With a few more holiday days left, I hope you all enjoy some time off and have a great New Year’s celebration.

Wishing you all the best as this year comes to a close ~

Randy and Pam

Thanks for visiting on the Roadrunner Chronicles!

It That Time of the Year!

Seems as if the time has flown by and here we are almost in the middle of December.  Hope you and yours are warm and enjoying life.

Thanksgiving seemed like a blur.  It came and went very quickly.  We celebrated with Kelly and Jon and the boys. Jon cooked 3 turkeys (not all for the same meal) and they turned out great.

Jon’s parents were able to drive up from Georgia the day after Thanksgiving so we had another turkey then.

The next week we had appointments and did some decorating.

Friday night we got into the spirit and drove downtown Norfolk to the Roper Performing Arts Center.  We were treated with a great concert entitled “Across the Ages - A Celtic Christmas”.  It featured two Scottish performers and a local group of singers called “The King’s Choir”.

Shona Donaldson and Paul Anderson

 Donna Thomas leading the King’s Choir

We’ve also been able to tackle a couple of projects we’ve been meaning to get to.  The first one was in my office.  It only has dual prong electrical outlets so Pam and I installed a GFCI outlet and put a three prong in another outlet in the office.  It was not a big deal except I had never done it.

This is right up Pam’s alley, so she showed me how do it and life is better and I have lamps and printers and such much better organized.

The other one was a storm door in front of the house. We wanted to do it earlier, but ran into some complications after the renovations were done on the house.  Apparently the opening for our front door measured out to where it is not the standard 36" x 80”.  That means a custom door is necessary which is almost double the price of a regular door.  Hmmm.  That didn’t sound too good.

We already knew we were going to get the door from Home Depot so we talked with them about installation.  We figured that if something doesn’t work out, they would make it right.  Another plus was that it would be done by professionals and not by a guy who knows enough just to be dangerous...🙂.

The Home Depot guy said the door opening may be different because it was “wrapped’ with aluminum siding.  I removed the wrap and we had it  re-measured.  Sure enough, a standard sized door fit fine.

Today was the install day and we are happy with it.

Finished product.

The kids and grandkids are on the beach headed south for some beach time.

The boys having fun in a pile of leaves at home.

The boys enjoying warmer weather in Florida for a few days.

I’m very happy to report Pam’s internal radiation treatments are going well and she should be done by the end of the week!

Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!  

Making More RV Memories

October seems to be a fun month in the RV world.  Folks are making plans or even already traveling south for the warmer weather.  I love this time of year.

We are also making plans for camping in Florida this winter, but I’ll save that for another time.  I was struck how fun it has been the last few weeks seeing RV friends.  First we had the pleasure of meeting up with Bruce and Gabe and we also got to spend some time with George and Marge.  Fun fun fun.  We talk about our times together and figure a way to meet up again in the future.

Our new RV memories happened this time with Gabe and Bruce.  We met them while on a Habitat for Humanity projects in Macon Georgia.  I believe we first met in November 2014.  It was so much fun with the group we had that we tried to repeat and all signed up for another gig in 2016.  Over the years we have kept in touch but never managed to hook up again until this recent visit.

They are living in Georgia but had lived on the Eastern shore and also spend time in Richmond raising their family.  We got together this time for a few minutes at First Landing State Park where they were staying and we also had them over to see our new digs.

They left and saw friends on the eastern shore but we found we still had one more chance to see them on their way back from the Eastern shore.  They were pulling their trailer so we found a convenient shopping center where they could park it for a couple of hours while we all went to lunch.

We arrived at the appointed location on time and they were locking things up.  I pulled up in the truck which were taking to lunch and Pam pulled up in the Honda, having spent the morning with Kelly working on a project.

Our F-150 has a push button start thing with a FOB which I keep in the tray.  The great thing about that is one doesn’t have to worry about pulling out your keys to start the truck.  Also, the truck beeps if I leave the FOB in it so I never have to worry about locking it in the truck.

So I drove up, left the truck running, locked over to see that Gabe and Bruce were finished up, got out of the truck when Pam drove up.  The truck was still running and she parked and locked the car (can you guess where this is heading ???) and then put her purse (with her truck FOB) in the truck, closed the door and locked the truck.

Then realized the truck locked.  With the engine running.  What?? No -- wait a minute, it never locks with the FOB in there.  Not possible.  Or is it??

With two FOBs in the truck apparently so!  😳  Now what?  Hmmm.  There must be a way out of this.  I noticed the keyless entry on the driver side of the truck and though, “I sure wish I had set that up.  It would come in handy at a time like this!!”

Hmmm.  Maybe the Ford dealer had the keyless door code.  I called them and they did not.  Hmmm.  Maybe CarMax had the info and I called them.

Nope.  Did I mention the truck was still running?  I had the thought that we could probably go to lunch and get back in an hour and it might be still running since it has a 35 gallon+ gas tank.  It was an option but not a good one.

I asked CarMax about our service warranty and if it covered towing and they put me in touch with the service people.  I went through my long sad story of locking my keys(FOB) in the truck and they said no problem, we can help.  After another 10 minutes or so I had the presence of mind to ask if this was free or was there a charge and how much?

The lady said I had $100 toward the cost of the service to unlock the truck and she did not know how much the vendor charged.  Hmmm -- that did not sound like a good option either and I knew we were covered with USAA.

I thanked the lady and said I had made a mistake and should have asked earlier but we had a free service with USAA and were going to call them.

I contacted USAA and it was all automated.  I never actually talked to a person, but I got a service call scheduled and verified our location on a map.  Then the wait began.

We decided even if we got the situation solved quickly, by now the lunch hour was in full swing and we didn’t want to hold up Bruce and Gabe from continuing on their trip.  There was a Subway in the shopping center and Bruce and I went over and brought back lunch.  They opened one of their slides on the travel trailer and a we sat down to eat our lunch there.

Not exactly what we had planned but it worked out great.  Before we knew it, a car pulled up and they ran  their tool down the window and unlocked the car in about 30 seconds.  That was a little scary to think all one needs is the tool to gain access to all our stuff.

We were elated to get it open, turn off the truck and that was that.  No charge and I realized I should have called USAA first.  From the time I hung up with the automated system to the folks arriving on the scene was 16 minutes.  Timely service indeed!

We were well satisfied.  I made a mental note to get the keyless entry set up (and did that two days later after going back to CarMax and have them extract the factory code from the vehicle).

We continued on with lunch and had another nice time with Bruce and Gabe.  And we added another episode to our RV memories!  And it wasn’t even our RV... 🙂

Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner (less) Chronicles!

Flashback: Pancakes and Polishing the Roadrunner

Sometimes my mind wanders.  There we were, reading to the boys before afternoon nap time and engrossed in "Curious George Makes Pancakes."

The boys love pancakes and this one had a few blueberries in the plot.

For some reason it triggered a thought back to our time at Cheyenne Wyoming during Frontier Days. I remember gong to a free pancake breakfast downtown in Cheyenne and along with hundreds of other folks, being served some big pancakes.

It was a fun day.

A day or two later I was in the midst of one of the many projects we have going at our house in Norfolk (15 minutes away from the boys). I decided it was time to clean the vinyl siding on the house and garage.  I had some fairly expensive spray that was supposed to take the grime and algae? right off the vinyl.  I hooked up the hose and started on the garage first.  I figured I could give it a test run on the back side of the garage and no one would notice if it didn't work out.

Well, the green stuff and dirt didn't loosen up and fall right off after I sprayed it.  Instead, I had to use elbow grease to get it clean.  I got a bottle of Awesome spray soap cleaner from Dollar Tree and it worked perfectly. With my ladder and some rags, I systematical rubbed down one side, then the other, row by row on the siding.  I didn't mind it, but it took a little while.

In fact I did one side and the back, and on another day did the front and saved the other side for yesterday.

All in all I spent about and hour a side on the garage but I was pleased with the results.  Not only did it get clean, I got some exercise,  and felt a sense of accomplishment while I worked away.

As I stepped back it reminded me of all those times that I washed and waxed the Roadrunner.

I never minded doing it and knew that I was saving money by doing it myself and I knew that it was done well.

So there I was -- thinking of days gone by that were fun memories.  Thankfully we have pictures of all the places we went and things we did and can look back and smile.
We're about to head out on a road trip tomorrow and make some more memories.  We'll be in the truck going to Canada, (north of Toronto), Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee for a couple of weeks.

I imagine there will be lots of those kinds of days with flashbacks and memories of our time on the road.  We enjoyed it SO much.  And we are enjoying this stage of our life too.  Hope you are having a great week and thanks for joining us today!

On to Renovations

It is hard to imagine that two months ago we started on our sabbatical from full-time RVing.  We had originally planned to be in Red Bay, AL this week getting some minor repairs done and parking the Roadrunner on 4th Ave and 2nd St.

But things have a way of working out a little differently sometimes.  We connected with a buyer in February and headed back to Virginia Beach.

A couple of weeks Pam and I found a house and had three weeks before closing.  So we drove to Arizona and back and had a blast, seeing friends and family along the way.  We arrived back in time to sign papers and are new home owners.  We've been looking at renovation plans

and signing contracts right and left.  We are not doing the work on our house but are having it done.  The 7-week schedule began yesterday.  The major items are a new kitchen and two new bathrooms.

We have the benefit of having a talented Interior Designer daughter and an ace realtor son-in-law so they have some good contacts.  Plus we have seen the work they have done on their own house over the years.  And they (Jon and Kelly) close on Friday, Lord willing, on the sale of the flip house they just finished.

Pam and I are organizing the garage, making shelves and work benches.  Today we also spent time marking out the space for a garden in the back yard that I will be tilling.  Yesterday I spent time mowing the front yard after the dumpster was delivered.

Inside Dan put down a thin hardwood type material on the floors near the kitchen and bathrooms to protect them.

They have made good progress in the last couple of days

and we have been ordering materials and looking at appliances and tile etc.

This is going on while we have been attending to the fun stuff we get to do as grandparents.  We took the boys to the Virginia Aquarium which is always a treat.

And we get to spend time with them at the house.

And fishing in the lake behind the house.

So that's what we've been up to lately.  Now and then we get asked, "Do you miss RVing"? I usually answer, "We made the right decision and are very fortunate how it has turned out. We got to full-time for almost 10 years and loved every minute of it."

We'll have more to say on it and the transition from full-timing to re-establishing a "regular life".  We have much to be thankful for and are enjoying this adventure.  It's not better or worse -- just different.

More later and thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!  Hope you are well and enjoying where life is taking you.