May 2011

May 31st We arose early and did some touring today. A funny thing happened today as leaving the campground we turned left and drove about ½ mile and discovered that our gas tank was empty and we knew there were no stations going west for at least 35 miles, so we turned around and went back 5 miles and filled up. Upon going west we decided to stop at a local fruit stand and buy some produce, so at that point we were about 45 minutes behind our original schedule. We then stopped for breakfast in Spring Run and found a great place that had good food at very a reasonable price. We drove to Shanksville to visit the Flight 93 Memorial for our fallen heroes on 9/11/01. It is a very somber place and at the present time it is under construction and is scheduled to have this phase finished by 9/11/11 and total completion by 9/11/2014. After that we drove to Indiana, Pa to tour the James Stewart Museum. Even though he was a great actor, he considered his military duty more important and throughout his life he visited his home town often. We then made our way home, stopping at both a NAPA store and Wal-Mart. So once again it was a great day.

May 22nd after work yesterday, and it was a long day, we left around 8PM and drove to Kathleen’s son’s place where we stayed overnight. We arose early and 5 of us went into Lebanon to be extra townspeople in a movie that is being shot there. The movie is going to be about the Blue Eye Six, which is local story in our hometown lore. Kathleen, her son and granddaughter, are decedents of one of the famed Six. It was a long day with a lot of hurry up and wait, but a great experience for all of us and we had a good time doing it. We sure would like to see this become a big screen event, as it has a lot of story behind it. After that we stopped in to see Jon’s mom for a short visit and than we did a quick Wally World stop before heading home. Arrived at the MH in the late afternoon and just relaxed after a long day.

May 16th we did a lot of driving today as we went to Easton to get another bumper for our car and also on the way back we got an estimate to have our car repaired. While still in Florida when we were on our way to the Bay Pines VA Hospital we were rear ended at a red light. We received payment to have it repaired, and now we are getting everything together to have it done. When we returned home Jon replaced the bumper assembly and just has to put on the step guard another day. Even though in was a rainy day it was a good day to get everything done and it is great to be at a campground.

May 2nd well we did our Cabela’s thing yesterday and we had a great time and bought some great items, best of all didn’t cost a thing. Today was the first day of work for Jon and he got reacquainted with a lot of the shop and also learned some of the new items brought into the shop along with new challenges that are up coming. He started to install lights in the one area of the shop that were purchased over the winter; he will finish up that job tomorrow. At the end of the day as any first day of work after a lay-off of 6 months he was sore and tired. Kathleen had the day off and will be in the office tomorrow for her first day. She did take this off day to go shopping at her favorite store here in Perry County. She does have a few other shops to go to but they can wait till another day. As again another good day at the campground.

April 2011

Apr 30th we traveled up to Paradise Stream which will be our summer home. It was a great campground homecoming as a lot of the seasonal campers stopped by and greeted us and caught up on all that happened over the winter months in all of their lives. We did manage to get the camper set up for the summer; it is good to have everything ready for our time here. We did have one incident and that was the living room slide out came out about 12 inches while we were driving and we had to keep it retracted several time in the last 15 miles. We found a leak in the hose and will have to repair it prior to leaving. Tomorrow we plan on going to Church and then do some visiting with the family. We also plan on doing our yearly Cabela’s shopping spree which will be a free event as we save up our points. It was a great day at the campground.

Apr 29th wow so much time has passed since we last wrote to the journal. The last 4 months were such a blur as we had visitors come and visit and/or stay at our place. Back in January during the car show we were visited by two friends of ours, one was the first we got to meet and the other one we worked with while in Maine. Also, during this time Kate’s brother died (he lived in Ocala). She came in for the funeral, and she came down and stayed for a night. At that time she was looking into buying a park model here in the future. In late January Ron and Kay were in the area and we spent a few days with them and showed them our part of Florida, that also include going to the local vineyard and tasting of the wines. Later Jeff & Shirley came down for a week and they as well are looking to buy in the area, not really here at the park. Dennis and Pat bought a place south of Sebring, they got a real good deal as the brand new house sat empty for 4 years and was sold by the bank. Our friends and group of people that we hung with did a lot of different things that included going to the Canadian Snowbird Fest, spending way too much time going out to eat, and just generally having a great time together. We had our schedule of Monday bowling basically stop in February as we could just not fit it in, as we had the guests stopping by and also Kathleen was starting to prep for some surgery that was done in March and she didn’t bowl the rest of the year. On those Mondays Jon golfed and that had him going out 3 days a week. Jon did go back after a six week layoff and bowled the No Tap Tournament our group has and bowled a 300 with an 802 series. On March 23rd we went on a 3 day cruise to the Bahamas with Jon’s two sisters and niece and their spouses and Jon’s great niece, Gracie was along. We had a great time and it was good to be with some of the family. Also during this time we replaced the carpet in the motor home and had the sofa reupholstered along with the window frames and valances done. We stayed active in our church activities along with Sunday services; we went to the Wednesday evening Bible study. On the 23rd of April we started our journey north. The first day’s journey got us to Camp Fountain in Orlando, where we had a great time with the Fountain’s. We left there on Easter Sunday and drove north to the Charlestown, SC area for the night and then we continued to the Outer Banks of NC for two nights and toured the area. We found Kitty Hawk and the Area of the Wright Brother’s first powered flight very interesting. We then traveled further North to Harper’s Ferry WV. We are in a campground in MD. That is between a railroad yard and a very swollen Potomac River, as they had a lot of rain in the last several days, storms that came across the country and killed about 340+ in its wake. Today we toured Harper’s Ferry and determined that we had underestimated our time here to tour the area in its entirety. We just briefly touched on the town itself, while we toured the Antietam Battlefield and spent a lot of time at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. We then went back to the campground and started to make preparations to travel tomorrow.

January 2011

Jan 4th as we start a new year we are mostly keeping to our same schedule, which is bowling on Monday’s, Jon golf on Tuesday and Thursday and Kathleen with arts and crafts along with the Happy Hookers on Fridays. Today as soon as Jon was finished with golf we went up to Lake Wales and met up with some of our workamping friends at Bob Evans. We had a delightful evening and it was good to renew friendships, sometimes we don’t do this enough. One thing that we all agree on and that it is great to live in a campground.