Road Trip!!!!

This is Kirby and his brother, Charles, anxious to get on the road for their big Labor Day adventure trip to Ohio. We have spent the last two days getting all their food ready and packing the camper with everything they need to survive 4 days in the wild. I just hope the wild can survive them!! My "wild hog" husband spent last night color coordinating his doorags and biker shirts (which I then had to iron!!). Can anyone say SPOILED ROTTEN??




That's the Hillybilly Hilton behind them with its new orange and black paint job. It originally only had one pale green stripe across the window area, but they decided it needed to be dressed up a little. They even carried the orange and black theme onto the hub caps!! Do men ever grow up??

The camper now has air conditioning, a refrigerator, a generator, and a microwave. If they ever redo the plumbing, we will have a shower. It has a toilet, but I'm not sure where it flushes to and I didn't want to ask. Some things are better left alone.

How fast is that again???

I am the proud owner of a new modem and I can't tell you how much difference it has made on my computer. I got this computer Christmas and really couldn't tell much difference between it and my old one, so I just assumed that you could only go as fast as your internet connection and getting a bigger, better computer didn't really matter. Then we got a notice from Suddenlink that they were going to double our internet speed for the same price. I couldn't wait to see how much better it would be, and I was shocked and dismayed to find that, if anything, my computer was slower than ever. The last straw was when I realized that I could get videos and things much faster with a weak wireless signal on my laptop than I could on my super duper home computer with Suddenlink's new faster speed. So I called Suddenlink. And if you have ever called the cable company, you know what that was like. Endless waiting, punching in my phone number several times, explaining my problem to three different people before I got the right one, scheduling a tech to come out two weeks later, etc. But while I was on the phone with them, they had me go to www.speedtest.net and check my download speed. My computer registered 146. The guy on the phone said there was a problem and that it was Suddenlink's problem, not my computer. So, today, the tech shows up and the first thing he tries is checking the signal coming into the house (which was fine), so he switches modems. My download speed on the aforementioned website is now 6386. Was my computer slow or what???? So, now I can actually watch a video without waiting for it to stop and start over and over and over. Wonder how long that modem has been bad and I just didn't know it?

Be it Ever so Humble . . .

I've had some requests for pictures of the finished roof, so here it is. I let Kirby choose the color and now he wishes he had picked a darker roof. I like the roof color, but I want to paint all the dark brown on the house a different color. I was thinking about blue, but now I've changed my mind. I guess I need to go to Lowes and get some paint samples.

We had a long two weeks of working so that we could take this week off and I am really looking forward to being home. Of course, Kirby and company will be gone to their bike rally so I'll be on my own (boohoo). I'll be doing scrapbooking, eating chicken and more chicken (Kirby likes beef), watching old movies and probably shopping a little. OK, shopping a lot.

I realized these last two weeks that Kirby and I have a favorite Mexican restaurant in every city between here and Los Angeles. Every time we get a load assignment, we look at each other and say "Lupes" or "Mazlatan" or "Panchos" or "La Carreta" depending on which direction they send us. We used to have a favorite Chinese place in Kingman, AZ that we went to so often they brought our drinks and Kirby's red peppers as soon as we sat down. We didn't even have to tell them what we wanted. They had the best crab rangoon!! We just don't go through Kingman much anymore. I guess the point of all this is that we love to eat and figure if we have to travel all the time, we might as well enjoy the local food. I guess I should write articles for travel magazines or something since I'm out there anyway.

In case you wondered, the dog is taking antibiotics again, but longer this time, in hopes of getting rid of the lump under her eye. She looks really good right now, but still has a week of meds to finish up. Hopefully, the lump won't come back again.

Tomorrow I'm going to help load the camper for the big trip, so I'll take some pictures. I want them to paint a logo on the side of this thing that says "Hillbilly Hilton" but so far they aren't going for it.

Sitting & Waiting

Today we are in Kingsport, TN waiting for a load that goes to Seabrook, TX. That's in the Houston area and of course, we will be getting there just in time for the hurricane. We hope to be in and out of there before the hurricane comes, but if the traffic is anything like it was last time they had an evacuation, we will still be on the interstate when the hurricane is over. My in-laws spent 24 hours in the car last time and went about 60 miles. That hurricane turned toward Beaumont and missed Houston completely, but you never know whether to stay or get out of town. Anyway, we just had lunch and our load should be ready in a couple of hours.

Yesterday, we were in West Chester, PA, and it was about 65 degrees. So nice compared to the over 100 degree days we have been having for the last few weeks. I guess if you could live up north in the summer and then move south for the winters that would be the ideal life.

In my last post I was telling everyone about my husband's new camper. He thinks I will enjoy camping now that we have all the comforts of home (including a new generator so we can make our own electricity). I politely informed him that as far as I am concerned, we camp out in this truck 10 or 12 days at a time, so I don't consider camping out in another truck on my days off a real break from my job!! Unless he plans to set up that camper in the parking lot of a Garden Ridge, I don't see myself spending much time in there. I also informed him that the only fishing I intend to do is with a fork at Red Lobster. I catch them already breaded and fried.

It's about time

Here is a video I got from my mother-in-law. I think you will really enjoy. This kid is so adorable. http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=9e7c4b40cf5a13cea6ca

Now, for what I've been doing. I just realized that it has been a long time since I updated my blog. The house is finished and the roof and siding look really good. We only need to do some touch up paint on the window frames.

We have been really busy the last few days. Kirby and my nephew Tom bought a 23 foot camper from a man who had been using it at a hunting lease. It's in pretty good shape for a 1976 model. We have spent the last two days working on it, rewiring and painting it inside and out. There are still several projects we will need to do (like replacing the old seat cushions and mattresses and putting in an air conditioner), but they should be able to enjoy it when they go to their bike rally in Ohio Labor Day weekend. I've been making curtains for the 8 windows and will probably make covers for the cushions eventually.

Kirby's brother is coming up here from Waco, Texas, to visit the end of this month, and he's going to the bike rally with them. That means I'll have a whole week all to myself and I plan to do some cleaning around the house, but mostly I'll be shopping and reading.

We had our annual homecoming at church today. The visiting preacher was 86 years old and he did a fantastic job. He really made me laugh when he talked about his obituary. He said someday when you see in the newspaper that he has died, don't you believe it because he has eternal life through Christ. He has his cemetary plot already paid for and the marker has his name on it, but at the bottom he has "I'm not here, but thank you for stopping by." My sister's group, the Miracles, sang and they were great. Then we had a wonderful pot luck dinner after the service, too. It doesn't get any better than that.

Tomorrow we are leaving for Godley, Texas. It's a little south of Fort Worth. I have about a million things to do before we leave, including taking my dog to the vet. She has a knot on her face under her eye. She took antibiotics for it a few weeks ago and it got better, but it is coming back again, so I hope they can figure out what is causing it.

I love watching other people work

Here is the crew working on my siding. They finished the roof yesterday, but you can't see it very well in this picture because the sun is shining on it so bright. They spend a little time working out in the sun, then they are on the front porch asking if I have any more of that sweet tea. I have used up all the ice in my icemaker two days in a row. But I'd rather be making the tea than working on that roof. The siding is ivory and the roof is mocha tan. I think when it's all finished we are going to paint the front porch the color of that blue ladder. It looks good next to the wall. We're going to replace the porch rails and the gutters eventually since right now everything is painted dark brown. All that will have to wait, though, cause today we are leaving and will be gone for a couple of weeks. I won't even be here to see the finished siding!! But I can already tell it's going to look good.