'16/#53 Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah

It's that time of year and I just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah. We are still here in Missouri and if nothing else it definitely feels like Christmas! The temperatures will bounce back and forth between the upper 20's and the low 50's. And there is even a possibility of a little snow. Hopefully it is snow and not freezing rain. Either way we are prepared.

This is a time of year when people get together with friends and family to celebrate their respective holidays. This year we are not going to be able to do that but will celebrate on our own. I'm sure there will be phone calls and messaging going back and forth, but other than that it will be a quiet time for us. I think this year we will enjoy the quiet and reflect on all the things we have to be grateful for. The list is long, but I will say that our friends and family are near the top of that list. Of course there is our health and a roof over our head, and the ability to live this adventurous lifestyle we have adopted. We are also grateful for whatever the future holds for us. Whether it is new friends that we meet or wondrous things to be seen during the rest of this adventure, it is going to be one big surprise party.

Don't think that I am looking through rose colored glasses. I know that there will be bumps in the road and setbacks along the way, but that is what make the good things even better. How you decide to deal with these glitches in life determines the kind of life you will have. We look at them as learning experiences that will make us stronger and that we can pass on to others to help them have better lives.

We are also continuing our commitment to helping others. We found a local food bank and have made them our "pay it forward" project. Every week when we go shopping a few extras find there way into the grocery cart to help those who may not have the things that we take for granted. It is a good feeling to know that some one's day is a little easier, a little brighter, or a little less stressful because someone cared.

So on this Christmas Eve and First Night of Hanukkah we wish everyone happiness and good health from our home in Forsyth, Missouri because.....

Home is where we park it,
Frank and Mary

'16/#52 As Ready As We Can Be

The cold weather that has been forecast is starting to move in. This morning the temperature was 57 degrees and it is supposed to drop down to 11 degrees tomorrow morning. That is a 47 degree drop in 24 hours! Right now it is 35 degrees, a 22 degree drop in 7 hours. As I have said before, the trailer is skirted and heat lamps have been deployed. Propane tanks are full, electric heaters are on, and the electric blanket is ready for tonight. That is everything we could think of and are hoping it will be enough.      

Right now I am sitting here filling propane cylinders as people come in to get ready for the cold. I am watching bad TV and drinking a lot of coffee. Mary is at work and I am planning dinner. One of the girls where Mary works just quit so she will be home a little later than scheduled.

I am going to end this blog since there is not much going on here at our home in Fosyth Missouri because.....

Home is where we park it,
RFrank and Mary

"16/#51 'Tis The Season No Matter Where Home Id

It is only nine days until Hanukkah and ten until Christmas and we are still here in Forsyth, Missouri. If you have been watching the weather you know that a real cold spell is headed our way. We are hoping that we stay just south of the front and that it doesn't last too long. We have added a few more deterrents to the cold. Underneath the trailer skirting we have a halogen light to heat our water filters and the attached hoses. It should also help with the cold coming through the floor of the slideout. We are from Florida, so we need all the help we can get to keep warm. Saturday we are expecting a high of 56 degrees during the day and overnight lows of 10 degrees! We won't see temperatures above freezing until sometime Monday! It is definitely feeling like Christmas.

 We have done some decorating for the holidays with most of it inside. Outside we have a wreath on the door and out front a small yard sign. Inside we have our flat Christmas tree, a little bit of garland, a couple of hanging ornaments, and a few more seasonal items we have picked up over the years. We also have our menorah out for Hanukkah.

People have been coming in to get their propane tanks filled. I expect it to get busier as the temperature drops. With ready access to propane I am making sure that we always have our tanks full. Along with several electric space heaters we hope to stay defrosted if not warm. Most RVs are not made for sustained cold weather, unless you consider the ability to move to warmer climates, HAHA!

Well that's all for now from our home in chilly Forsyth because.....

Home is where we park it,
Frank and Mary

"16/50 BRRRRRRRRR!!!!

We told everyone that we are going to winter in Missouri and try something different and people thought we were nuts. Well it is definitely different. Since this RV adventure began we have wintered in Florida every year except once. That was the year we worked at Amazon in Kentucky, and that was only until December 22! This year we are planning on staying the whole season here in Forsyth.

Mary did her usual research on line about preparing an RV for winter weather. A list was made of all the things we needed to purchase and install to be ready to survive the cold winter. As usual we put everything off until the last minute and only started our preparations once the temperatures started to drop. As you may have seen on Mary's FB page the bottom was enclosed with styrofoam insulation. This helped quite a bit keeping the space under the trailer at least 10-15 degrees warmer than the outside air. Next we put window insulator kits over the windows. You know, the plastic that sticks to the sides of the windows and then shrinks taut when heated with a blow dryer. That did wonders stopping the drafts that were coming in around the windows. Also, before we left Florida we stocked up on pool noodles. When cut to size they work great to fill in the gaps around all the slide outs.

Well we thought we had done really well at winterizing our RV for the winter. But not yet! We already had a heated hose from our stay in Kentucky and figured that would do us here in Missouri. Not quite! The other morning, when the temperature had dropped into the mid 20s we woke up to a little surprise. Mary had no water to flush the toilet. Fortunately RVs have a fresh water holding tank, so a flip of a switch and the pump kicked on and we had water again. But now we had to make sure it didn't happen again. With some pipe insulation and fiberglass batting we went to town on everything that gets water to our home. Any exposed hose was covered, our water filters were wrapped, and we even wrapped and covered the park's pipe that comes out of the ground. This morning we woke to an outside temperature of 19 degrees, under the trailer it was 39 degrees, and we had running water. SUCCESS!

Inside the trailer it is a whole different story. Our electricity is free since we are work campers and we get compensated for only so much propane each month. Because of this we use electric heat as much as possible and conserve our propane. At night that means we lower the furnace thermostat to 50 degrees and enjoy the warmth of our electric blanket. In bed it is heaven, but out of bed.....brrrr. This morning while we had outside temp of 19 and underneath temp of 39, inside it had dropped to 51. When we wake in the morning the thermostat goes to 70 and electric heaters are turned on. Once we are up and moving the furnace gets shut down and the electric heater keeps us around 65 degrees.

I think that is enough about our winter survival trials for now, so until the next blog from our home in Missouri because.....

Home is where we park it,
Frank and Mary

'16/#49 Yogi Hits The Road

The owners up here in Forsyth have decided not to be a Jellystone park anymore. The franchise fees were not justified in the business plan. Today it was time to say goodbye to Yogi.

Gary and I, with the help of a guy with a sign installer's truck got Yogi off his base and into the back of Gary's pickup. I'm not sure where Yogi is headed but I am sure he will find another home soon.

Mary is going to post more pictues of Yogi's departure on Facebook. Now we are living here in our Yogi free home in Forsyth because....                                               

Home is where we park it,                                                                                                    

Frank and Mary                                                                                                                      

'16/#47 Happy Thanksgiving

Well here we are on Thanksgiving Day. It was just the two of us and we had a very relaxing day. Dinner for two was the usual turkey, stuffing, and assorted side dishes. Actually it was just a turkey breast, but that gives us more than enough of the part of the bird that we like the most.

We started the day by sleeping in knowing the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was being recorded. After our eyes were open for a while we started watching the festivities from New York and preparing our traditional dinner. With everything going smoothly and the parade on DVR we decided to take advantage of a quiet day by doing laundry! Yes laundry. Why not? Dirty clothes never take a holiday.

With the laundry done and time before dinner we flopped into our easy chairs and started watching movies that we had saved on  the DVR. Later we had our dinner, ate too much, and cleaned up. Then we continued our mission of doing as little as possible and just relaxing. Aaaah, a perfect Thanksgiving.

Well, we are still here in Missouri and enjoying the cooler weather in our home in Forsyth because.....

Home is where we park it,
Frank and Mary

'16/#46 The End Of Birthday Season

Yesterday was my day to run all over town and get my free birthday meals. That meant a trip into Branson which is about 25-30 minutes away. There are two parts of Branson, MO. The most well known is where all the theaters and restaurants are located. Then there is downtown Branson. Think of Las Vegas the town and Las Vegas the "Strip".

We first headed to the theater area and Denny's for breakfast. This is twice we have been here and both times it was pretty busy even though there doesn't seem to be many tourists. I guess it is like it is in Florida, busy with snowbirds in the winter and busy with locals in the summer. Up here in Branson I guess the seasons are reversed.

After I filled myself with more breakfast than I should we drove west out of Branson just to see where the road went. Not too far down the road traffic stopped dead so we made a quick right turn and wound up on a stretch of highway that seemed to take us out into the middle of nowhere. The road eventually took us right back into Branson. I guess all roads here lead to Branson!

We headed back east toward Branson proper because Mary wanted to go to Dick's 5 and 10 in downtown Branson. It was probably an old five and dime in it's day but is now a tourist attraction. Dick's is now primarily a tourist town gift shop with everything Branson. It was kind of neat to see some of the old time gifts, toys, games, and candies that brought back memories of my youth. Some of it just reminded me of how old I am.

We didn't buy anything. There was nothing there that we couldn't live without and the tourist stuff was your typical tourist trap trinkets. If you have been anywhere you know what I mean. The magnets, key chains, hats, shirts, are all the same where ever you go, just tweaked to reflect the area they are promoting. Whether it is from Daytona Beach, NYC, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, or a hundred other places the junk is all the same "made in Japan" crap!

After walking around a while it was time to find me a free dinner. Back to "touristland" Branson and a nice meal at Ruby Tuesday. The sun had gone down by now and the temperature was dropping so we put on light jackets and enjoyed the cool clear evening before heading home.

I am starting to get used to the narrow, winding, unlit, back roads around here....especially at night with the sun gone and total darkness by 5:30pm. There just seems to be too many hours between sundown and bedtime this time of year.

Well I am going to get busy outside since the weather is beautiful today. The high will be around 60 degrees and sunny so we are going to enjoy it while we can here in our home in Forsyth because.....

Home is where we park it,
Frank and Mary