Archive for November, 2009

Hi! WOW, I’ve got a great Wi-Fi internet connection here at the RV Park we are at today in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi! This RV Park is called Hollywood RV Park and Casino – yep, a casino! We have stayed here before – twice last winter. It’s a small quiet RV park and right next door is a parking lot and a pretty decent size casino. We are staying here just one night and, just like the roll of a dice, who knows what direction we will go tomorrow or where we will end up! BUT, now I have internet connection for my laptop – I’m happy……..

So since you’ve had two days of no pictures on my blog….you are about to suffer today thru alot of pictures so let the page download fully so you can see all the neat pictures I’ve taken……

We spent two days with Bob and Linda in Pensacola and really enjoyed our stay. Let me show you where we parked the Montana for two nights….right in his driveway…….if you look closely, you can see one of our front legs is broken (for now, we will fix it in Arizona), we’ve got a jack under there to level it out……

There’s the super van that we took to the Wind Creek Casino in Alabama yesterday! Nice ride…..

OH, when we were in Pensacola – we had to go shopping – look what we bought……

Don’t see it?? Let me zoom in a little……see it now……

Yep, it a camera for the tail gate, well, for wherever you want to install it on. This little camera shows from the bumper to 10 feet behind the truck. Bought it at Advance Auto Parts store for forty something dollars – don’t remember exactly how much……OH, there’s the monitor right there on the dashboard and it just plugs right into the cigarette lighter outlet.

The bicycles are staying straight on the front of the RV now. We are good to go…..

Okay! We made it to Biloxi today….Cloudy, raining, and boy, did that rain come down heavy at times!! Flooding on some parts of route 90. But, this picture right here is what you see when you enter Casino Alley in Biloxi. Alot of casinos to enjoy here. OH, the RV park that we are staying at right now is only 45 minutes west of Biloxi, so we aren’t that far. But, we have a casino right here in this parking lot, so we are all set……

They are building a Margaritaville here and, hmmmmm, wait a minute, they were building a Margaritaville here last winter too….now that I think about it, this construction site hasn’t changed at all in a whole year. Nothing has changed about it, still looks the same as last winter! Talk about job security…..

Some more pictures of Biloxi…….

Ohhh, here comes the Hard Rock Casino on the left…..

Of course, every destination needs a tourist trap…..Come get y’all souvenirs…..hee hee…..

Okay, we promised Jake a run on the beach…….I must say that the temperature outside was between 66 degrees and 70 degrees the whole time, so don’t think it was cold out…..nope, nice a warm right next to the ocean……

There he is….a happy little puppy……..almost can’t seem him against the white sand……

I must say that the ocean water has a tint of brown in it….not really a blue ocean at all……all the water down here has a brown tint to it…..and now that I think about it…..I’ll be drinking bottled water until we leave this area….yuck!

There’s our GPS telling us where to go, traveling right against the ocean…….and yep,  it’s no big secret, you know what GPS brand we have!

OH, and no blog entry is complete without a picture of Jake still in bed…..that lazy mutt!

Well, we are settled for the afternoon and I’m looking at the casino right out my window in front of me. You know it’s calling my name too!!!! So, wait, before I leave for the night to live it up next door, I need a question of the day for you…oops, sorry…I mean “y’all”! Okay, tell me…..you know I love casinos….tell me where your favorite casino destination is. Is it Reno? Las Vegas? Connecticut? Biloxi? Have you been to Biloxi? Let’s talk casino! Leave me a comment below……I want to hear from you!

Have a great night and I’ll be back tomorrow……night night!

Hello! Today we traveled but not with the RV…we took Bob and Linda’s full size, fully custom van! It’s really nice too….lights everywhere inside, DVD system with a good size TV up above the driver’s section, remote controls for everything….tv, radio….you name it, there’s a remote control for it! And besides what it looks like, this van is very comfortable to ride in. But don’t think of it as just any old cargo van, this is right up there with the Class B recreational vehicle! I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

I did take a picture of it, but I can’t post pictures on blog updates from my Blackberry and I’m using my Blackberry because I don’t have a Wi-Fi signal around me….one vicious circle!

So, where did we go to today? We went to the Wind Creek Casino (doesn’t that name just sound inviting!). It’s a nice casino too – very tall building in the middle of Atmore, Alabama. Hmmmmm, only took about 1 hour and 15 minutes to get there one way. Not bad at all especially in a nice comfy van!

Everything went well today until we let the GPS take over and lead the way. First of, the GPS (should I mention the GPS brand name or just leave the company alone), anyways, the GPS device didn’t recognize the Wind Creek Casino, it wasn’t listed of all the casinos it has listed from here to Biloxi. Well, that’s okay, it’s a rather new casino, so that was understandable.

So I looked up the Wind Creek Casino website on my Blackberry to get an actual address to plug into this GPS. Found the physical address on their website, programmed the GPS to go towards that address and we were go to go! Ha! That’s what you think! Or that’s what should of happened!

What actually happened – and there were more than one mishap with this computer device so stay with me here – first off, getting to the casino (remember the address I got from the casino website), well, nope, the GPS didn’t get us there. When that gizmo said, “You have arrived at your destination” we were looking at a farm house on five acres with as many as 15 cows around us. I swear. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.

So, okay, it was a little off, and not by much either – the guy at the gas station we stopped at after we made a u-turn said “Over that way about 7 miles, but not more than 10 miles” of course, in the opposite direction that the GPS wanted us to go, which was back to the farm!

Okay, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad going 10 minutes out of the way, we had a great time at the casino and enjoyed the buffet! It was the ride home that got kind of interesting…..

We all thought to give this GPS another chance to redeem itself. So I enter the “home” address into it and we are off in pretty much the right direction. We recognized route 31 and route 4 on the map showing on this device – I mean everything was going great until it said to “turn right”. Turn right?? Turn right where?? Ohhhh, here we go again…. But sure enough, in the middle of no where, there was a one lane dirt road with an open metal fence on both sides of it and this ragged dirt road went into a field about 40 feet and turned 90 degrees to the left and I guess this dirt road followed the main road that we were initially on. We didn’t find out where this dirt road ended up, because we decided to play it safe and stay on the main paved road.

So, staying on the main road, the GPS is now “recalculating”! So this GPS says to take next right. So we take the next right hand paved road and travel down the road about 200 feet and start seeing flashing red lights on both sides of the road telling us to stop. And, yep, we sit and watch a long black train approach and do its thing. After the train was gone and where this road came out was at a side street to the main road where we needed to be and thankfully Bob knew where he was to gets us all home again.

We have a GPS in our pick up truck that is not the same brand name as this one that we used today. So, tell me, I wanna hear from you! Yes, you! Do you use a GPS? Do you use a map instead? Did you use to have a GPS that is now sitting on the side of a major highway somewhere? Tell me your GPS story!

I’m off to watch some TV and relax with Jake now – we are westbound tomorrow morning – where we end up, I really haven’t a clue – maybe we will just put the GPS in charge again! Have a great night!

Hi there! No internet signal for the laptop, so this is a quick Blackberry blog post tonight. We made the 475 miles (about) trek to Milton where we are now visiting our friends Bob and Linda!

They have just the right amount of room to back the Montana right into their driveway. Perfect! And laying here in bed next to Jake, I just now realized how quiet it is outside around us. Far cry from the city noise.

It was an 8 hour trip up here and along with being greeted by great company, we had dinner at a local Chinese food restaurant and finished the evening off with a stop at Walmart. I didn’t buy anything at Walmart, but just browsed the magazines and books section, but Linda wanted to exchange a cell phone for an upgrade. I helped program the speed dial and voice mail and now she’s go to go

I don’t think this blog entry is going to be long and I didn’t even take my camera out today to get any pictures…it’s been a long day and I’m just glad we are here.

We are leaving on Monday morning and not sure what’s in store for tomorrow, but whatever we do, I’ll have the camera ready! Have a great night and enjoy your weekend! Nite Nite

Okay, wow, I took on alot today and I conquered a good portion of it! There were some close calls, but I survived. I went to visit Universal Studios all day today and fought the enemy, fended for myself, and came back to tell about it!

Let’s see here, I survived a F5 tornado (Twister, the Ride), lived thru a subway accident with a big truck caving on top of me from the street above (Disaster, the Ride), fought off a great white shark in the deep blue sea on a little boat (Jaws, the Ride, which was kinda of on the scary side), fired my hand held laser gun and killed all the aliens on the planet (Men In Black: Alien Attack the Ride), and I’m the one….yes, it was me…..that safely got E.T. home again!! (E.T. Adventure, the Ride).

When it came to the Incredible Hulk, I stared at him and we were eye to eye…..and I turned and walked away because there was no way I was going to get on that roller coaster! I mean, the roller coaster went straight up and up side down and side ways…..forget it! My stomach would hate me forever My poor feet don’t like me right now, that was really alot of walking around all day. I’m really exhausted.

So anyways, when it came to lunch time, there were lines at every restaurant, 45 minute wait at a decent restaurant, so I took the fast and easy way out and ordered a chicken sandwich and fries at one of those take out vendors. It wasn’t too bad and sure did the job. I was at Universal Studios from 9am (when it opened) to 6pm (when it was getting a bit chilly the minute the sun went down). Oh, pictures! I’ve got pictures!……..

OH, and I have to say that most of these ride I went on did not allow me to take pictures of the ride or inside the buildings…..go figure.

Oh, one more thing, we are leaving Kissimmee tomorrow morning, so where we end up tomorrow night, I have no idea. So, I hope, I really hope, wherever we end up, I have Wi-Fi, but if I don’t catch a signal, I’ll be sending out a blog entry from my Blackberry (Blog entries sent out from my Blackberry will not have pictures). Have a great night!

Hi! Hope everyone had a wonderful day! We didn’t do too much today. We went out for lunch for Thanksgiving, having turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and topped it off with a chocolate cake, over at Denny’s across the street. It was simple and very nice. We came back to the RV park after, oh got a quick picture of the park, hang on…..

Our RV isn’t in that pictures above, but it’s just a picture I snapped walking Jake around the park. It did finally stop raining and it’s really nice out, right around 65. Today we really didn’t go that far in the afternoon, just enjoyed the weather and environment. Jake did too….

OH, the bike rack has been reinforced!! All those power tools paid off…..Take a peek….

See! Cut the wood, paint it, and presto – reinforcement!

Let’s see how it works will the weight of the bikes – stay tuned! Enjoy the rest of your day today and tomorrow I’m off to Universal Studios all day – one girl, one park, one camera! Check back tomorrow for pictures and to hear about my day at Universal Studios (I’ve never been there before!)

Well, Hi, how are you? I feel like a duck! Bleh. It’s been raining all day today with some heavy downpours and it’s suppose to rain right into tomorrow. A friend of mine back home said, “Hey, just be happy it’s not snow”. Okay, you got me there! Jake wanted to sleep late today, so of course, I’m a sucker when it comes to him, so I let him….

I was going to go to Universal Studios today, but decided, obviously, to go Friday – AND it’s probably better that way, because all those crazy people out there will be out shopping on Black Friday and I’ll have Universal Studios all to myself!! I like that! Go shopping, spend your money, leave me alone at Universal Studios all to myself!

Okay, what did we do today….there are some minor repairs that we need to make on the camper, soooo, when you have to repair something, what do you need?? Power Tools!! Yep, we had to take a trip to Craftsman Land and pick up some power tools! A whole kit of them! Let’s see, it came with a power saw, power drill, power light, and some other kind of power saw. Don’t ask me what they are called….I know they have formal names, but who cares….charge up the battery and let’s go! HEY, wait a minute, maybe if I show you a picture, you know what came with the kit!

So after the trip to Sears, we came back to the RV and ate lunch, fed Jake and watched some more RVs come in and park around us. It’s not that busy here…I mean, there are alot of RVs all around us, but I see…about 8 or 9 open spots too. So, you know what that means?? Come on down! We got a spot waiting for ya!

Later this evening we are going to go out to dinner somewhere, not sure where. There are restaurants all around us! We have Ruby Tuesday, IHOP, Perkins, Bennigans….then we are going to hit some souvenir shops and I’ve got to pick up some postcards for all my buddy’s back home to let them know I’m still alive. Yes, I’m sure they all read my blog, but a postcard just drives it right home! I know, I’m so mean! Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving Day and stay warm! As for me – Quack! Quack!

Hi, We are suppose to be walking around Old Town here next door to the RV Park that we are staying at, but about a 1/2 hour ago, it started pouring out. So much for that idea, so we are hanging out inside the RV, watching the news and preparing strawberry shortcake! Yummy!

I’m getting ahead of myself already. Okay, let’s back up a little to this morning. One of the front legs on the front of the fifthwheel is broken. Yes, I know you know that already. Well, not broken in two or damaged, it just disconnected from the little motor piece inside the leg shaft. Well, we jacked the camper up on a solid jack and did some research today on obtaining a new leg for the RV.

Camping World can help us get us a leg to install it ourselves for $430 total including overnight shipping and taxes. So we took a trip up to Camper’s Inn in Leesburg to see what the story is behind the warranty we have to fix this leg. Camper’s Inn (we bought this unit at Camper’s Inn in Kingston, NH) told us that we need to make an appointment, have the service department get a hold of our warranty company and get the work approved and then bring the unit into the shop to have it fixed which the total process could take days to weeks, depending on how busy they are and ordering the part, blah, blah, blah.

SO, we have decided to tie up the leg so it’s stable and doesn’t fall down to the ground and “limp” over to Arizona to get it fixed. Why? Because we are here till Saturday and when we get to Arizona, we will be there for at least two months (which a month stop in Las Vegas!). Hey, maybe we will get it fixed in Las Vegas, don’t know, have no idea…..nothing is planned out except for the fact that we want to try to get this entire repair covered under the warrant plan!

SO, today after we did that, we decided to visit my aunt and uncle in Groveland, Florida. On the way over there, we spotted a farm stand on the side of Route 27 and did a quick U-turn! So we bought some strawberries……

We stopped by to say Hi to my aunt and uncle and sure enough, my aunt is still keeping herself busy with weaving and creating a blanket. I got pictures!

So that was a nice visit and we left to return to the RV to feed Jake. He was with us all day today. So we fed him and left to go to dinner and a stop at Walmart. We ate dinner at Denny’s. A sure bet, predictable food, predictable service. I like it like that and their club sandwiches are so good. Off to Walmart and then back to the RV. We were going to walk around Old Town but it’s still raining outside.

OH, speaking of raining. I was going to go to Universal Studios tomorrow all day, but the weather is not working in my favor…..so, I’ll have to try for Friday! I’m going to spend all day at Universal Studio, just me and my camera and I’m gonna have some fun running around like a little kid. I’ll take plenty of pictures for ya! So that’s it for today and the only thing that is calling my name now is……..

Have a great night – chat tomorrow!

Now wait a minute – I started writing this blog entry at 11pm on the 23th – I know it says the 24th above, but it’s a 23rd entry!

We made it to Florida – 1578 miles completed and we land in Kissimmee at the Tropical Palms RV Park! Wow, what a long ride down. Let’s back up a tad and post some pictures!

The front leg to the fifthwheel broke….now, I don’t mean, physical damage broke, but inside, something broke, something disconnected between the motor and the leg. The motor turns fine, you can hear the motor running, but the leg doesn’t seem to budge up or down. So, unfortunately, this leg detached from whatever was holding it up in the leg shaft and the leg fell free to the ground on 495 in Massachusetts at 65 mph. So here’s what the pictures look like from that episode!

This is how we are temporarily holding up the leg….

This is what the pad (underneath) looked like that was riding the 495 turnpike at 65 mph – yikes! The damage could of been alot worse if we would of hit a minor bump.

Then we had problems with the bike rack set up. The plate under this hitch starting bending with the weight of the bicycles. I think with a little reinforcement – it will be good to go again. The plate started off straight and just with the bouncing around of the bicycle on I-90 in Massachusetts, it ended up crushing the plate….That’s our project number #2 after we order new parts for the fifthwheel leg……never a dull moment……

And after all that, we needed a break and I see that we aren’t the only ones!

And yet again, another break down the road…..as you can see there is no bike rack on the front of the fifthwheel…the bikes are inside the RV for now…….

Last night we made it to South Of The Border on the border of North Carolina and South Carolina. This is a very tiny, little town right off the highway. There’s not much here except for one campground, two gas stations, a couple of restaurants, and souvenir shops galore! It’s a convenient place to stay just off 95.

So we made it to Kissimmee tonight and it’s time to relax a bit. I can’t believe it was 80 degrees here at 6:30 tonight! What a pleasant surprise that was! A little on the muggy side. Today we stopped at Subway and decided to skip the Truck Stop food for a while. Ugh. I’m exhausted and we are here at the RV Park until Saturday when we will be moseying along to a new destination with new stories and new experiences. HEY, don’t rush the week here….we are in Kissimmee – let’s enjoy it! We are planning to hit Old Town right next door to this park and maybe a major theme park…..I’m not telling ya – you’ll have to check my blog to see what I’m up to! Have a great night and thanks for checking in on me!

Hi Everyone! We made it to the campground right at “South Of The Border” right at the border of North Carolina and South Carolina! Over 500 miles done today and this campground has noooo Wi-Fi internet access I bet it’s because they want you to get out of your RV and into their tourist shops!

Today was uneventful and because I’m doing this blog entry from my Blackberry, I can’t post pictures

We left Grantville, Pennsylvania at 34 degrees at 6am – brrrrrrrr….and now it’s raining out and about 52 degrees. But it’s okay, we’ve got full hook up tonight which means Heat!!! We are also going to do a load of laundry tonight in the RV (yep, got a washer dryer in here), and then just relax!

We did stop at a Flying J truck stop today and had a cheap breakfast buffet. $7 bucks and cheap food if ya know what I mean……ugh.

We will be enjoying dinner in the RV tonight…I don’t see us going anywhere tonight.

Jake’s doing good too! He’s got a day of resting in the pick up with three pit stops! And now, it’s supper time for him.

Everything is really great and hey, thanks for checking it on me! I’ll be back tomorrow when we are settled into a Florida campground With Wi-Fi! Stay tuned……

Hi! Well, I don’t have Wi-Fi where I am right now so I’ll be doing this blog post from my Blackberry and I hope it comes out half way decent.

We are sitting in Grantville, Pennsylvania at the Hollywood Casino for the night. The Massachusetts highway did quite a job to our rig today but nothing serious thankfully.

First off, on I-495 one of our 5th wheel front legs fell free onto the highway at 65 MPH! No damage, it just skidded along the highway on the plastic disk attached to the bottom of the leg. We pulled over and worked the Zip-Tie magic to temporarily hold it up and in place until Florida where it will be properly repaired.

Then, by the time we hit I-90, the bike rack that is attached to the front of the trailer had bent – pretty heavy bikes along with all the bouncing along the awful highway beat up the bike rack, so we unloaded the bikes and put them inside the RV, detached the bike rack and put that in the bed of the pick up, until we get to Florida to fix and reinforce the bike bracket.

I got some pictures but can’t post pictures on my blog from my Blackberry.

So we made it to where we are now and we ate dinner inside the casino and I lost twenty bucks in the slot machines and now I’m posting a blog entry before calling it a night.

It’s been a long day…..But, other than that, we are all in a great mood and we are not turning around! We are Florida bound and I hope tomorrow is a nice easy day. I can hear Jake snoring next to me right now, he’s out cold.

Have a good night and I’ll be back tomorrow to blog more! If ya want to email me, I can be reached at dpjake11002@aol.com. My Blackberry let’s me get my email 24/7 and I love it! Nite Nite!