Helen, GA Side Trip + Cleaning the RV

Hi all - Dianne here.  I will let Roger tell you about our side trip to Helen, GA the other day.

  We are down to our last day here at the Bald Ridge Corps of Engineers Campground on beautiful Lake Lanier north of Atlanta, GA.  We took advantage of a rainy day this week to wash the roof and sides of our motor home.  Yesterday, Roger put a new coat of Rain-X on the front windshield and I washed the outside windows.  

 The front cap of our motor home was starting to look really tacky with stains from bugs long gone.   The prior owners of our motor home paid extra to have Diamond Shield applied to the front cap.  This is a hard film that prevents rocks and other road hazards from pitting and chipping the paint.  It works really well, but when it gets a little older, it makes the front cap look dull compared to the paint on the rest of the RV.  After a little Google-searching, I discovered that it is recommended by Newmar and others to periodically coat the Diamond Shield with some 303 protectorant.   My project for yesterday was to get the latest bug guts off the front, wash the cap, and rub in some protectorant.  I must say it looks great!! 

 The unsightly old bug stains disappeared after gently rubbing in the protectorant.  We are once again "house proud," even though our house happens to have four wheels!

Laundry here at this campground is a BARGAIN -- 75 cents per wash or dry load, and the clothes actually get dry.  Compare this to $2.00 per load at Disney World.  Not only that, but now that we're out of  "snowbird" country and back into the land of weekend campers, the laundry is not busy at all.   Add in the fact that we are parked close enough to view the washer, and it is a perfect setup.  My laundry is now all clean, dry, and folded, and I won't have to do laundry again until after we're back in Indiana.  This summer, at least until the house sells, I can take my laundry to our "sticks and bricks" house and do it there while working in the yard.  Some lucky home buyer will inherit my new LG front-loaders, but at least I can use them for a while.

We have tweaked our plans just a bit.  Instead of arriving back in Indiana May 4 as previously planned, we will now arrive April 30.  The reason for this is that our daughter has an early meeting on May 4 and it would help her for us to have our granddaughter, Kaia, spend the night on the 3rd and take her to school.  Needless to say, I was not about to turn down that opportunity!   If you missed her guest blog from Disney, scroll down a couple and it's there.  

Now that I've covered the mundane day-to-day stuff, I'll turn it over to Roger.

Roger here...  Our time at Lake Lanier has been pretty quiet.  We have spent a lot of time walking, reading, and watching TV - both inside and outside.

 It was good to get some of the chores out of the way - especially the cleaning of the roof, long overdue.

The dogs (and cat) are able to have pretty long leads at this campsite because it is so isolated from the other sites.   The site is elevated about 15-20 feet above the level of the lake.  Yesterday, when we looked outside, we did not see Chaplin.  He has gotten away from us during previous years, resulting in hours of searching.  A closer inspection of the site revealed that he had slid down the embankment and was enjoying some quiet time resting in the woods. 

 The picture does not really show the steepness of the drop-off.  Suffice it to say that he was covered with that red, red Georgia dirt.

A couple of days ago we decided to venture away from the campground to explore some of the mountains in Northern Georgia.  We intended to go hiking at Unicoi State Park, about an hour away.  It rained off and on most of the day which put a damper on any hiking (wimps that we are).  We did, however, find the picturesque town of Helen cradled along a mountain stream.  

To say that Helen has a German influence is an understatement.  All of the buildings -- and I do mean all of them -- look as if they were dropped in the town from Germany or Switzerland.  It was a really interesting place - obviously a tourist destination.  

We decided to have lunch at one of the restaurants -  Hofer's Bakery and Cafe.  It was a good decision.  I had one of the best Reuben sandwiches!  We both hit the bakery aisle on the way out for some yummy German doughnuts.  (Mine was chocolate - of course).

Dianne again -- My sandwich was also delicious at Hofer's.  I chose the vegetarian sandwich, which had cucumbers, lettuce, tomato, onion, two kinds of cheeses, and more stacked on fresh, chewy French bread.  It was delicious!!  As far as the doughnuts - many of you know I never met a doughnut I didn't like!!

That's all for now.  We'll update from Chester Frost park outside Chattanooga.  We plan to spend a few days there and visit Roger's cousin, Beth, and her husband Russ (both were in Roger's high school class) before making our way back to Pendleton, Indiana.  Much yard work awaits us there!!

Stormy Weather and Lessons Learned in Two Parts

Roger here...

PART ONE.  Last Thursday night was our last night at St. George Island on the Florida panhandle.  While I was packing up the outside "stuff" in preparation for an early morning departure followed by an eight- hour drive, Dianne, who had been watching the Weather Channel, told me that storms were predicted during our drive the next day.  I noticed that the skies

 were beginning to cloud up, so I came in to watch the weather.  (Thankfully, our satellite allowed us to get the Weather Channel because there were NO local stations to pick up on St. George Island and we also had very spotty cell phone coverage, so using the tether to our cell phone wasn't an option.)

As it turns out, the prediction was for heavy winds during the day and severe thunderstorms, hail, and possible tornadoes at our destination at the Corps of Engineers campground at Lake Lanier, just north of Atlanta.  It is not fun -- and in fact, quite dangerous -- to drive a high- profile vehicle in extreme winds.  The few times that I have driven the motorhome in less severe, moderate winds, required me to have both hands on the wheel to be ready for any sudden wind thrusts that could push the vehicle in another lane or off the road - very nerve-racking.  I had no desire to do that for eight hours, so I called our destination, told them we would be a day late.   I then made a reservation at River Park RV in Valdosta, four hours down the road, but well south of the storms. 

As it turns out, the forecast was accurate.  There were severe winds, snowball-sized hail, downed trees, and tornadoes.  When we arrived at Lake Lanier, the only damage at our site was a fire pit full of 8 inches of water

 - no campfires that night!  We dodged a bullet and felt somewhat smug at having done so.  Little did we know that the bullet was out of the gun, but had not yet reached us.

PART TWO.  The next day was beautiful - warm, sunny, pretty vistas of the lakes and forest from the motorhome.  We wanted to be sure to explore the campground area on that day because the next day was supposed to be cloudy, rainy, and cold - no forecast of severe weather, just crummy weather.  

I got up early the next morning and was reading on the couch.  It was raining and I felt sorry for the man in the campsite across the street who had arrived the evening before and was in a tent. Everything was normal at his site when I first looked out the window.  When Dianne was heading for the coffee, I told her that it would be a good day to clean the roof on the motorhome because it was raining, but no lightning.  I then said that it was probably a little too windy.  (That comment soon became a HUGE understatement.)  

At that point a huge gust of wind toppled a pine tree across the street. 

 It missed the man in the tent, but prevented him from driving his truck.  Within a minute his tent blew down and he scampered to his truck.  Another stronger gust followed, which prompted Dianne and I to "stow" the satellite dish (not supposed to be in winds stronger than 35 mph) and pull in the two slides to help stabilize the motorhome and prevent damage to the awnings that extend over the slides.  We were feeling pretty good about having weathered the storm and were thankful that we did not have the problems of the man in the tent (whose truck battery was also dead), but our problems were just beginning.  A loud pop, followed by the loss of electricity, extended the day of frustrations.  If you watched the national weather that day, you probably heard about extensive damage in northern Georgia due to 50 mph straight-line winds.  Thousands were without power for hours.  That was us.

We decided to use the day to plan an upcoming trip to South Dakota to officially change our residency.  We could make reservations using a tether from our laptop to Dianne's phone.  We switched the refrigerator from electricity to propane , knew we had water, and settled in for a quiet "inside" day.  A comedy of errors (not really funny ones) ensued.

While Dianne was researching campsites on the computer, she noticed that the computer charge was low.  I said "no problem", we'll just run the generator for a while and get our electricity from it.  Unfortunately, to prevent the motor home from running out of gas while on the road, our generator does not operate when the gas tank is less than one-quarter full.  On the day of our drive we had a half-tank south of Atlanta and could have stopped to fill up, but we decided that we could probably find a gas station closer to the campsite, and besides we had plenty of gas to get there - plenty of gas to get there, but less than a quarter tank left = NO GENERATOR. 

 We then determined that we could charge the computer using a connection to the motorhome battery.  Dianne said that the connecting tether was in a box with other miscellaneous electronic wiring.  She thought she knew where it was.  The search began.  Every nook and cranny was investigated - no box of electronic connections.  About two hours later I asked if it could be in the small compartment above the driver's seat.  IT WAS!  I did the happy dance.  Dianne smiled.  Unfortunately, the right connecting tether was not in the box.  We evidently don't have one.  There would be no computer until the electricity came back on. 

Other issues....  We decided to use our rechargeable, battery-powered Coleman lantern for light.  We did have lights that operated from the house batteries in the motorhome, but we did not want to drain them since we could not run the generator.  Unfortunately, we had left the Coleman lit outside all night the night before, and drained the battery; obviously, we had no electricity to recharge it. 

All of our cooking would need to be done using the propane-fueled stove top and oven - no microwave or outdoor grill (in the rain).  However, we turned on the furnace the morning before to take the chill off instead of using our electric space heater that was stowed in an outside bay (too cold to go out and get it in jammies).  We forgot to turn it off.  It kicked on several times the next evening.  When we checked our propane level, it was low.  Ouch.  A good thing we had a supply of crackers.  

Walking the dogs was another issue.  Their morning constitutional was delayed for about three hours due to the wet and windy weather.  When Chaplin, a very quiet dog, needs to go, he stands by the door and stares at the door.  He did a lot of that on that day.  Thank heaven their bladders are much, much larger than mine.

Finally, there was nothing much to do.  No TV.  No outside walks.  And for me...  no reading.  I had just finished the book I was reading on my Kindle the night before and was planning to order a new one.  When I tried, I discovered that the Kindle would not connect due to poor cell phone coverage.  I could have ordered a book using our computer, but then, as you know, we did not have an operating computer!  

There was really only one activity to occupy our time and that was watching the saga unfold with the man in the tent. 

 Did I mention his truck battery was dead?  He attempted to charge it with an electric battery charger plugged into an outlet, not realizing that the campground power was out.  His wife then arrived with jumper cables, but there was no way to get the two vehicles close enough to connect due to the downed tree.  After a few hours a crew came to saw up and remove the tree.

  At that point the man packed up his wet tent (yuck), jumped the battery in the truck, and followed his wife out of the campground.  (I did offer to help, but honestly he was too angry to want help from anyone!)

Frustrations with two people in a confined space (no escape due to the rain) almost always leads to conflict.  I was proud of the way that the two of us conducted ourselves; however, I did grind about an eighth of an inch of enamel off my molars.  (Dianne here - I ground a QUARTER INCH of enamel off mine!!!)

Looking back on the day, we were very lucky to have endured only a series of frustrating inconveniences.  No one was hurt.  Nothing was damaged.  It could very easily have been a different story.  At 7:30 p.m., the electricity returned.

(Short note from Dianne - As you can see from the two photos below, our three

 "sons" were mostly unperturbed throughout the whole drama!)  

LESSONS LEARNED. 

1.  Walk the dogs BEFORE it rains.

2.  Charge the computer when the electricity is on.

3.  Never arrive at a campsite without enough gasoline to run the generator.

4.  Always have an extra book to read.

5.  Know where the electronic tethers/chargers are kept and order a charger that allows the computer to be charged by the house batteries.

6.  Retrieve the electronic heater from the outside bay on cold mornings, even if you ARE in your jammies.

7.  Don't forget to turn off the furnace.

8.  Always have a supply of snack food that does not need to be cooked.

9.  Turn off the Coleman lantern before you go to bed.

10.  Never be too smug about how you handle situations.  Inevitably, your smugness results in being taken down a peg or two!