It's an adventure!

Last week we experienced our first real hitch. We were in Hot Springs, AR, south of Little Rock. The weather started storming and then hailing.

We've never seen hail like this in Colorado! It was pounding on the roof, and then things began to shatter. We lost all three fan covers on the RV (they are heavy plastic or something) - they just went to pieces. We have a broken windshield on the car, more dents than you can count, and other sundry damage. Thank goodness for insurance! But it's an adventure, for sure. We're trying to stay positive.

When Marv and the insurance adjuster were on top of the RV, they discovered that the roof was caved in and had been for some time. It turns out to be a design flaw which Tiffin will fix for free, so we are headed back to - you guessed it - the factory in Alabama. The system there is that you show up, your rig goes on the list, and you stay there in their campground for the days or weeks until they get to you. No advance reservations. Keep the RV available from 7 to 3 every day.

At least the satellite is now working, and we have a lot of DVD's we can watch. Since there's nothing else in that little town, which will remain nameless. I guess we are lucky that the hail damage meant the roof damage showed up. Otherwise who knows where we would have been when we found out!
It's a long way from the West Coast to Alabama, the only Tiffin factory.

I promised I'd add pictures from earlier and here is a Lego person made of - guess what? Legos!

This is also from Tampa. This beautiful park had a number of interesting benches with art on the top. Lots of texture and depth to them. Kinda wacky, which I really like!

We're spending this weekend in Tupelo, where we saw (surprise!) a statue of Elvis. (In case you are too young to remember, Tupelo is his birthplace.) This campground is really pretty - lots of trees and birds, cooler weather. A lot of rain, too. But it's very quiet, which we appreciate! 

Tomorrow we drive about an hour to Alabama and get in line. Ho-hum. Pray for us and patience!

Togetherness

Having grown up in Japan is really helping me deal with such close quarters. We have about 400 square feet from front to back of the RV (with the slides out it goes from 8' wide to almost 14'). But you can hear everything the other person is doing. More detail would be TMI, but you know what I mean. In traditional Japanese homes, the walls are mostly sliding framework panels with paper inserts. Again, you can hear everything. So you learn not to listen and pretend you don't know what you shouldn't.

When Marv wants quiet time, he sits in the driver's seat with his earphones on. When I want to be alone, I usually go in the bedroom and close the door (often napping as long as I'm there). We've managed not to get into each other's hair too often. When we do, it's pretty obvious! Someone gets grumpy. Or two someones.

We spent a few days in Tupelo, MS, where we walked along the Natchez Trace Parkway. The National Park is over 400 miles long and 800 feet wide on average. The little bit that was open for walking was just beautiful.

Oops, that one just slipped in there by accident.

We don't have forests like this in Colorado - such variety and so tall! We enjoyed the cooler air in the forest, too. Tupelo is pretty humid. 

So we went further north, to Little Rock, AR, where we spent a couple of weeks being entertained by my college roommate, Peggy and her husband, Tom. They took us to several nice restaurants (with pie, of course), to church, and sightseeing in Little Rock and Hot Springs.

Peggy and I hadn't seen each other in about 30 years. She even took me to quilt stores! We had a great time! Thanks, Peggy and Tom. 

April update

Whoa! It's been a busy month. We left Florida on April 1st and have visited Alabama (where the RV factory is), Mississippi and Arkansas.

We discovered that the town where the Tiffin factory is has nothing else in it. Nothing. At the time we had no satellite and no TV stations came in by antenna. No sports bars. Even McDonald's only had the news on. So I had to listen to the NCAA Championship Game on the radio! Can you say frustrated? (1/2 pie slice for the town and no pie slice at all for the campground.)

The tour of the factory was interesting. Tiffin makes 12 RV's per day, about 3000 per year. Very hands on!

Marv wearing safety glasses and headphones for the factory tour.

An ancient RV, one of the first Tiffins, from 1976. Note avocado shag carpet! Yuck!

Not our favorite stay, but we lived through it.