We are preparing to move out in the morning.  We got in here on the 26th, Monday.  We have done very little in the way of sightseeing, hiking or other local activities.  Carol has been focused on getting her “store front” going so her photos will be available to sell. You can visit  http://anncarol.imagekind.com/ to see what she has been up to this past week.  I have had a continuous, it seems, round of minor maintenance and repair chores that have kept me busy between bouts with my own computer.  The tally of jobs seems long, but most of them were a couple of minutes and resolved issues that have been bugging me for some time.

In the mail when we arrived was a package from Fleetwood with a new latch for the throne room door and two marker lights for the front corners of the coach.  One had burned out and the other had cracked.  The throne room door latch was never right from the day we got the coach.  I had “fixed it” innumerable times and most recently had sought to replace it, but the cylinder opening is just slightly smaller than residential standard.  I figured Fleetwood would send me the part that fit.  They did, but instead of knobs the latch came with levers. It actually seems to be an improvement.  The marker light replacements caused me to be seen rolling around on the ground under the front of the coach and reaching way up into the innards to reach the connectors for the lamps.  Just a couple of minutes for each.

I took an hour and a half to wash the whole coach (not the roof) and get it nice and clean so I can dirty it on the road tomorrow.  It always feels good to remove the travel dirt so I can open a cabinet without getting filthy.  I had been trying to replace the parking lights on the front of the RAV4, but was unable to figure out how to do it without removing all of the grill and metal work above the bumper.  Took it into West RV and Automotive and they removed all that plastic and metalwork, at the cost of an hours labor, and changed two dollar light bulbs.  Thank you Toyota for an incredibly stupid design.

Part of our reason for hanging here in Livingston was to go to the New Years Eve show at the Liberty Opry.  We had contacted Deb Freedman and Scott Mackler who had just moved from Rochester to Dallas this Fall and they agreed to join us in Livingston and go on to the show.  Mid afternoon on the 31st they arrived at our site and it was really wonderful to see them way out west here.  They need to write there own blog post, or maybe book about the trials and tribulations of there move from Rochester to Dallas.  Scott has a new truck and Deb has yet to be able work as a doctor while she waits for Texas to license her.

 At about 5:30 per Carol’s plan we got in the RAV4 and headed for Liberty,  dinner first at Chili’s, the only passable restaurant in the area.  They have a bar even though the county is dry.  We joined the Chili’s Uniclub which got us permission to order drinks.  This began an episode that could have been on a sitcom.  They only had two wine glasses and three of us ordered wine.  Scott agreed to drink his white wine from an on the rocks glass.  The ladies ordered red wine, BAD red wine.  Back it went.  Deb decided to go along with Scott on the chardonnay, but Carol really wanted red wine so they brought her a Marguerite! not quite! so back she went with instructions to bring out the other red wine.  It was amazing just how white that wine looked and tasted.  I got my Marguerite and was quite happy.  We went on to the show and we all enjoyed it immensely.  It was four hours of country, rock, blues and gospel, why would any group call themselves “Rendered Heart” I kept thinking about rendering chicken fat..  I must have missed something.

We got back to the coach by a little after 1 PM and spent several minutes setting the living room up for sleeping.  The verdict is that the convertible sofa may be fine for one, but for two it is less than wonderful.  Who knew?  As we resumed consciousness, Carol began the preparation of a delightful breakfast with fresh made corn bread, scrambled eggs and fruit.  It sounds simple and the preparation was not elaborate, but we were all full and satisfied and then we sat at the table for another hour or so.  Finally as time came for them to leave we had to take some pictures to record the event.