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[Ron]

Week 3: Ending 12/1/2002: Part 1
Last Sunday (11/24/2002) we had a wonderful visit with Uncle Hershey and Aunt Edna in Birmingham, Alabama. They have lived in Birmingham since 1964, so they are still just Northerner transplants. Having Southern Hospitality served up with Northern dialect was sure a treat!

The home across the street from theirs was up for sale and “open for inspection” so Ron begged Aunt Edna to go across and take a gander. 7 bathrooms. Seven! Truth be told, we actually lost count, but that’s what the listing sheet said. Of course, this count includes the bath that is in the maid’s quarters. The courtyard was gorgeous, too. All in all, it just must have been the location that warranted the $2.75 million asking price. Joan stayed with Uncle Hershey, who wasn’t as interested in snooping as Ron.

When they returned, Ron cajoled Joan into snooping too. On the second floor, Joan asked: “Where does this go?” and that’s how we “discovered” the entire master suite that Aunt Edna and Ron had missed. Wow! It included an enormous master bath, bedroom, dual huge cedar walk in closets and a third floor exercise room, part of, and accessible and only from, the master suite.

Still, $2.75 million? Our motorhome might not cover the mortgage points on it!

After a lengthy goodbye, and packing a home-baked chicken under our wings, we set off for Red Bay, Alabama, birthplace of the HappieCamper. Route 24. Sigh. 75 miles of 4 lane divided highway. Did I mention that a “divided highway” is not a controlled access highway? 65 miles per hour, in the dark, with cross traffic coming to screeching halts up to the edge of the road, and sometimes darting right across the road in front of us. Don’t they understand how long it takes to stop 32,000 pounds of motorhome and Tahoe? Oh wait, I mistyped. The last 20 miles of Route 24 is not 4 lane 65 MPH divided highway with cross traffic, it’s 2 lane, 65 MPH undivided road, under construction, hilly and twisty.

We arrived at the campground Sunday evening, hooked up and went out to dinner.
Monday was spent with the service department, and taking a tour of the factory.

Monday night, we met another couple from Massachusetts here at the campground. They had noticed the HappieCamper’s license plates, and struck up a conversation. Nice to again hear no accent down here!

More news to come.

[Ron]

Week 3: Ending 12/1/2002: Part 2

Tuesday
Washed the HappieCamper last night… the Allegro Campground has a site dedicated to washing rigs, and the HappieCamper was sure in need! Unfortunately, it was about 40 degrees with a stiff breeze and the water was COLD! Stu (the male half of the couple from Massachusetts) kept me company while I scrubbed. I’m sure he decided I was nuts, and I’m sure he was right.

Spent the day with Service -- they are being SO helpful working to expedite our service.

Wednesday
Spent the day with Service – they are really hustling to get us finished before Thanksgiving. Since we’ve modified out coach to include full basement storage, and due to some of the other work done that required removal of some of the undercoating, the HappieCamper needs another dose of undercoating. Carl is the undercoating specialist. Carl did a great job on the HappieCamper – well, it looks waterproof. We’ll let ya know after we drive in the rain. Carl’s dad is a preacher in Las Vegas and is quite ill, and Carl was headed out to catch a plane – we are praying for everything to work out for the best.

Thursday
Thanksgiving! We are thankful for so many things, and to so many people, words cannot express all of our gratitude.
We are also thankful for lack of holiday traffic, so we spent the day traveling, and the night in a Wal-Mart in Phenix City, Alabama, right on the border near Columbus, Georgia. We knew it was going to be busy on the day after Thanksgiving, so we planned on leaving very early in the morning. 4:30 AM the alarm goes off, Joan looks out the window and says “about a dozen cars”. She walks Jake, while Ron readies the HappieCamper to travel. By the time we left at 5:15, the parking lot was nearly half full. Lucky we escaped when we did! We don’t think that the HappieCamper would have been able to negotiate that parking lot if it were full of 4 wheelers.

Friday
We pulled into Ponderosa RV park in Kissimmee, FL. Ponderosa is PA Campground – we get a 50% discount per night. The nightly rate is $26, so we’re paying $13 plus taxes. We pay for 2 nights, planning on moving on shortly.

Saturday:
We decided to go to Lazy Days RV Supercenter in Seffner, FL, right near Tampa. So off we go in the Tahoe leaving Jake to guard the HappieCamper. Lazy Days has about 1200 RVs on the lot right now. 1,200! They say the split is about 60% used to 40% new. We wanted to look at how much it would cost to upgrade the HappieCamper (Don’t tell her!).

So we arrive at Lazy Days at about 2PM (they’re open till 5 on Saturdays), and admire a couple of high end (750K – 1MM) coaches that were parked in the customer parking area. We walk inside, and are greeted by a very friendly receptionist who asked us if we wanted sales help, or if we wanted to visit on our own. We chose to be unescorted.

As soon as we walked in, we couldn’t believe our eyes: Beth and Stu, the couple from Massachusetts who we met at the Allegro Campground !!! They were looking into upgrading their motorhome. They introduced us to Norm, the salesperson who had previously helped them purchase 2 motorhomes.

They were leaving, so we made dinner reservations with Beth and Stu, and Norm took over with us.

We perused the new inventory then the used – and we really like a 2002 Allegro Bus. The HappieCamper is a 2000 Allegro Bus, but Allegro changed the body style in 2001. Anyway, to make a really long and boring story somewhat tolerable, we decided to hold off on upgrading our motorhome until after our trip to Alaska.

Dinner with Beth and Stu was great. We ate at a seafood restaurant called Shells – along with the obvious seafood connotation, they have a barrelful of peanuts in the customer waiting area – and you are encouraged to toss the shells on the floor. The peanuts were good, Ron’s Salmon was good and Joan’s Grouper was very good. A review will be posted in the “Restaurant” section.

Sunday:
We are finally slowing down! We slept in, and started our quest for discount tickets to Epcot. Now, we can certainly afford to pay full price ($55 each for a day, give or take) to attend Epcot, but….. why should we? If we visit a timeshare presentation, we can get a steep discount. And if our luck is good, maybe we can score a free meal, too. All we have to waste is time – let’s waste it by saving moolah!

We don’t really want to move on yet – there are plenty of things to see and places to go, we pay for 3 more nights at the Ponderosa.

See you next week!

[TJ]

>>As soon as we walked in, we couldn’t believe our eyes: Beth and Stu, the couple from Massachusetts who we met at the Allegro Campground !!! <<

Clearly, you are being stalked. I suggest notifying the proper authorities.

>>Anyway, to make a really long and boring story somewhat tolerable, we decided to hold off on upgrading our motorhome until after our trip to Alaska.<<

Alaska?? Are you sure? If you want to be cold, you could have just stayed in MA! We're expecting some snow tomorrow. I'll send you some via e-mail.
Have fun at Disney World. Jean and I are taking the kids there next summer, so try not to break anything.

[Jay & Victoria]

Well, I must say we here in the frozen arctic tundra are somewhat jealous of your FLORIDA address right now. It is snowing as I write (type). My trusty thermomomomommp--kpj ter (it's really cold) says 22.8 degrees.............................. And that's in my office. Seriously though, The weather here is ...........how can I say this "freakin cold".

To change the subject... remember the 2 dead trees on the corner of Middle and Parkerville? Of course you don't. Well there were 2 dead trees, had to be 3.5 million years old were suddenly stolen. er ugh I think stolen or they could have been cut down and hawled away. Well they are gone. It's weird because now I can see your house without obstruction. I am having the guys that built that big wall in China coming out to give an estimate to block the view. Funny huh? Depends on how much wine or beer you have had.

I am suddenly lost for words and losing feeling in the extremites. (boy is Victoria going to be pissed) so I will leave you with a few words of wisdom. Carry weapons, shoot and then ask questions. Well have fun you two + Jake and write some more. It's better than reading Dave Barry.
J&V

[Ron]

Better than Dave Barry? Wow. Is that a compliment or not?

Thanks for the tree update. If you notice the woodpile at the house across the street, I think you'll see it has grown...

It was so cold down here yesterday, we actually had to turn off the air conditioning for a couple of hours. Up north, we hear it's so cold that Ted Kennedy was actually seen with his hands in his OWN pockets... ba da bing! I shoulda been a comedian -- not!

Hope all is well with Wesley and Evan, and you two, too.

Joan, Ron & the Jakester (still hangin in there -- doesn't want to miss out!)

Typoes by Ron.