Start of 2009 Old Dominion Cardinals Camping Season

April 23, 2009 found us heading to Virginia Beach to meet up with the ODC group to have a wonderful weekend of fun and food. Why yes, food. Linda & Jim Mathney, Chuck Tolson , Larry and I met at the Flying J at Carmel Church on Interstate 95 and after fueling up we headed to the beach. Arrive around 1 pm and got all set up and then several others from our group arrived. Thursday night was TV night as all of us seem to have shows that we can't miss.
Firday more of the group started to arrive and then off to the beach some of us went on our bikes. Now it was suppose to be just a short little ride which turned into 11 miles around trip. Okay, all I can say is I MADE IT. Don't think I need the upcoming stress test on next Thursday but oh well will do it anyway.
Firday night Happy Hour was great getting to see most everyone for the first time since Christmas.
Saturday a group that had brought their motorcycles went on a long ride and other just visited and some of us "dummies" did another bike ride.
Now it is Sunday afternoon and most everyone is gone home but five coaches are staying until tomorrow morning.
More from the Big A Bus on the next trip.

Big "A" Bus is Back in the Barn 4-8-09

We got home to Virginia yesterday (4-7-09) around noon. We had spent the night in Roanoke Va at a Wal Mart and then came by Sams Club in Charlottesville to buy some supplies and meat for the house. We had used up or taken everything with us in January so it was time to re-stock the freezer.
Started unloading the bus and Larry asks me why it took me 3 weeks to load it and I think we have to unload in one day. Well???????????? What do you think? I want to get it done. Anyway we did some, stopped and had some lunch, had a nap, and then finished.
Today will be catching up on grass cutting for Larry and I am still trying to determine what we are cooking for Easter Dinner. The girls want fried chicken and I have about chickened out. When we were in Preston working we had lots of chicken. Bry said he wanted flank steak which would be fine with me . As you can see we wont be doing the traditional Ham for Easter.
We are glad to be home and really had a great 3 months working and playing.
Now the bus is in the barn for at least 2 weeks while we go get our annual doctor appointments done so we can travel for another year.
More travels later.

April 6, 2009

Well it has been three months since we left Virginia and it has been an exciting time.
If you have been keeping up with this Blog you know that we have done a lot of different things but trust me we have enjoyed all of them.
We left Preston, Georgia Saturday morning, April 4th heading North. We went to Greer South Carolina and stayed at Bill Dorris' manufacturing plant parking lot. Bill is a friend from way back in elementary school and we had just seen him last weekend at the "mimi" reunion of 1962. He is interested in buying a motorhome and wanted Larry to look at it and give him some advice about it.
Sunday we traveled on to Gaffney SC to the Freightliner Service Center to have some work done on the "bus" on Monday. They now have the "bus" in the shop and we will just wait it out and see how long this takes. They hae a real nice lounge for you to wait in. Hopefully tomorrow we will be moving on to Virginia. We are only about 350 miles from home so we should be able to make that in a day unless we hit some bad weather.

UpDate on the Build

The build is going great except for the rain. We had to stop work last Thursday (26th ) at 11:30 am and then did not get to work at all on Friday. We had all the outside and inside walls up but were working on the roof truss and only needed to finish 6 more and we would have been done.
Saturday morning Larry and I left for Canton, Georgia to attend a "get together" of some of my classmates from elementary and high school. We had about 23 people in attendance and had a wonderful time. It was raining so hard on the trip up that we had to stop once and wait it out.Got back to Preston on Sunday afternoon and went to Terry and Polly Adams (member of church and owner of local IGA grocery)house for a "low country boil", shrimp, sausage, corn and potatoes. Oh so good.
Monday we got a lot of work done. Finished the truss, worked on bracing everything and then on Tuesday morning wrapped the entire house and got part of the roof on before the rain came.Today, Wednesday, I had to go back to Albany to have the root canal finished and it was raining anyway so no one was working, however after lunch they were able to work and finished the roof except for one section because they ran out of tar paper. Also all the windows and one door were put up along with some siding. It has been a challenage keeping enough materials on hand. I think the people are surprized at how much work these old people are doing and were not prepared for it.

There is more rain predicated for tomorrow so we will wait and see what happens but at least the house is "dried in"