Category Archives: Cabella

20240408-14_Spring-is-finally-here-2

Leave a reply

NOTE:  This post is mostly narrative, but there are two (2) photos with captions.  Photos were taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

MONDAY 08 – SUNDAY 14 April 2024 — The second week of April

 

Monday 08 … A solar eclipse, oh my!

  • I called Lakeside Service Company to set up an appointment for annual service on the air-conditioner portion of the HVAC unit for our library. The temperature has to be above 45 deg. F for them to test the system, so I made an afternoon appointment for the first week of May.
  • We observed the solar eclipse from home. It was not total at our location, so not total darkness and no corona or stars, but it was still interesting to see.  We thought about driving south, perhaps as far as Bowling Green, Ohio but decided against it.  Probably for the best as it turned out, as there were reports of people taking many, many hours to get home from there.  We tried to photograph it with our phones using a neutral density filter, but were not really equipped for this and the photos did not turn out very well.

 

Our new Rec/TV room furniture, minus the cardboard and Styrofoam packaging.  (Photo from 05 April.)

 

Another view of the Rec/TV room furniture and its relationship to the location of the TV/monitor and associated equipment.  (Photo from 05 April.)

 

Tuesday 09 … I took care of a couple of errands and a major task (with Linda’s help).

  • As I headed out to take care of the errands, I performed my first turtle rescue of the season. I spotted a small turtle on our street just east of our house.  It was crossing the road from the small swampy area on the south side to the pond on the north side.  I picked it up and placed in on the north side, well away from the edge of the road.  I know that one has to exercise great care when doing this on any road, especially with heavier and/or faster traffic, but I am always dismayed by the utter disregard that most drivers seem have for these small, vulnerable creatures, who are not evolved to deal with motor vehicles and roadways.
  • My first errand was a visit to our local Tractor Supply Company store. I was looking for a tow behind lawn rake with a pin-hitch that would work with our lawn tractor/mower.  They had the one I wanted online, and I had seen one in the local store many months ago, so I was hoping they still had one in the store.  They did not, so I ordered one for delivery to our house.  Delivery was by freight truck, and would take about two weeks to get here.  Oh well; there was rain in the forecast for the later part of this week, so I would be lucky if the property is even dry enough to use it when it arrives.
  • Errand number two was a visit to our local Rural King store for some work clothes. I put on few pounds during 2023 and early 2024, mostly due to dining on cruise ships, and I needed some work trousers with a slightly larger waist size.  I ended up buying two pairs of bib overalls; built-in suspenders and no belt.  Perfect!
  • Our major task was to disassemble and clean (wash) all of the bird feeders. I handled the disassembly and brushing out (both done outdoors) and Linda handled the cleaning (inside).  When they were dry, I reassembled them and then filled them with the appropriate feed.  We did not fill the hummingbird feeder, as Linda’s research indicated that they had only just made it to southern Ohio.  We decided that the Oriole feeder needed to be replaced so Linda found one on Amazon and ordered it, along with some kitty litter.  Yup, we decided to set up a litter tray for Cabela and see how that goes.
  • Sometime during the day, I received our first Boondockers Welcome (BdW) stay request for the 2024 season; one-night on Friday 26 April. Our site is typically “blocked out” on our hosting calendar from the beginning of fall until the end of winter, plus any time we are traveling, but the exact dates vary each year.  We also block it out if we have projects with workers on site, or have social gatherings.  This year, we kept our guest site blocked out through April 15.

 

Wednesday 10 … early release, vision, streaming.

  • We received notifications that our vision examinations, set for tomorrow, needed to be rescheduled. Linda called the clinic and got us back-to-back appointments with an optometrist the last full week of the month.
  • Today was an “early release” day for the Ann Arbor Public Schools, so Linda was on-tap to drive down and retrieve the grand-daughters from their respective buildings. Because she handles child care when needed, she sees the girls more often than I do, so I decided to go along and get some grand-daughter time.
  • After dinner we were discussing what to watch on TV/streaming and decided to subscribe to Netflix. We watched Netflix a lot during the CoVID-19 pandemic, and have some favorite programs that are only available there.  Our profile was part of a friends’ account, however, and Netflix has since clamped down on that arrangement, so we needed our own account.  We set up two-factor authentication (2-FA) for the account, something we are gradually doing with most of our online accounts, along with setting up Passkeys to use in place of usernames and passwords.

 

Thursday 11 … rain, Rx’s, deliveries, and another BdW stay request.

  • Rain started overnight and continued through the day and evening, so we did not get any outside work done today.
  • My new blood pressure medication prescription arrived, but it was not exactly what I expected. My new doctor told me during my visit last week that he was raising my dosage from 10 mg per day to 20 mg per day.  I watched him type in the new prescription, but I could not see what he was typing.  When I looked at the bottle, it was for a 20 mg tablet, but the instructions said to “take 1/2 pill daily.”  Oh oh.  I checked and, sure enough, the bottle only contained 45 pills and could not be refilled for 90 days.  In other words, I had enough medication to take 10 mg per day (my original dosage) for 90 days, but only enough to take 20 mg per day for 45 days.  This was not what I expected and not what I needed based on what the doctor told me to my face.  I called the number for our mail-order pharmacy (OptumRx) to verify that they had filled the prescription as submitted.  They had, and there was nothing they could do other than suggest I contact my doctor.  Since this was not an emergency, I messaged him about the situation  via UofMH’s version of the EPIC portal.  I had still not received a reply to my earlier message from late last week, and I did not expect one right away to this new one, but it would be an understatement to say that I was a bit miffed at this point about the situation, and the lack of a timely response.  I decided to wait until next week to follow up with a phone call.
  • We had an Amazon delivery of coffee pods, Red Lentils, and other such things. Amazon Prime trucks seem to stop at our house a lot.
  • Sometime during the day, I received our second Boondockers Welcome request for the 2024 season. This one was for one-night on April 16, the first day for which a stay request could be requested.

 

Friday 12 … More rain, and a walk (but not in the rain).

  • The rain continued overnight and into today, so Linda met Diane at the mall to get their steps in. She stopped at the grocery store on the way home to re-provision fresh fruits and vegetables.  Or vegan (whole-food plant-based) diet require more frequent visits to the store for fresh items.
  • I hung out at the house and worked on our blog. An Amazon delivery showed up with our kitty litter and new Oriole feeder.  Amazon Prime trucks are on our street almost every day, sometimes more than once, and we do not have that many houses in our little subdivision.

 

Saturday 13 … Nothing of note.

  • There was nothing of note on our calendar for today. I’m sure we did something, probably many somethings, but whatever we did is lost to the sands of time.

 

Sunday 14 … A partial family get-together.

  • Our son and his family were here for brunch/visit, and to pick up a printout of their 2023 tax returns.

…

20240228_T8-C6_DCL-DREAM_Debarkation_Fly-Home

Leave a reply

NOTE:  This post has 11 photos with captions interspersed with narrative.  The photos are in chronological order, but do not always correspond to the closest text.  Photos by me (Brue) taken with a Google Pixel 6 Pro unless otherwise indicated.  (Photos by Linda taken with a Google Pixel 6.)

 

WEDNESDAY 28 February (T8-C6) — Debarkation & Flying Home

 

Cruises always end and, like any vacation trip packed with things to do, there is a sadness at it being over combined with a sense of relief (exhaustion?) that’s it’s done (for now) and the anticipation of returning to “normal” life.  We have always experienced that same combination of emotions at RV rallies, both small and large.

The Disney DREAM is back at the dock at the Disney Cruise terminal in Port Hollywood, Florida.  Looking aft from out stateroom balcony we see the RUBY Princess (Princess Cruise Line) at dock.  (In late January of this year we booked a repositioning and British Isles cruise on the REGAL Princess for April 2025.)

The Disney Dream returned to Port Hollywood early in the morning and was docked by sunrise.  Debarkation is generally less of a hassle than embarkation, which includes the check-in process, but it can also be somewhat abrupt.  One gets the sense of “here’s your hat, what’s your hurry.”  Or, as my parents relayed to us after their visit to Hawaii, where they were presented with leis when stepping off the plane and greeted with “Welcome to Hawaii, enjoy your visit, go home.”  (True story.)

A wider view of the Disney Cruise terminal at Port Hollywood showing some of the activity taking place on the dock prior to debarkation of passengers.  The full length of the RUBY Princess is visible.

Our stateroom on the Disney DREAM looking in from the balcony doorwall.

While Disney tries to make guests feel welcomed everywhere, and at all times, the reality of a cruise ship is that they need ALL guests off the ship as soon as possible so they can “turn it around,” i.e., prepare it for the guests embarking for the next cruise, which usually leaves that same day by late afternoon or early evening.  While guests are getting off the ship, large amounts of trash are being off-loaded, and large quantities of supplies—including food, beverages, and fuel—are being taken on-board.  It’s quite an operation, and I always find it interesting to get a glimpse of it.  For me, at least, seeing these operations does not detract from the “magic” or luxury of the cruise experience.  Indeed, one of the best cruise ship experiences I have had was the “behind the scenes” tour of the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) JOY on our Panama Canal cruise with Paul and Nancy.  Cruise ships are floating cities and amazing machines, with everything on-board to provide the necessities and comforts of life, including culture and entertainment.  How all of these systems function is fascinating to me.

The “bath” room in our Disney DREAM stateroom, which had an actual bathtub and included a sink.  This made perfect sense as these staterooms can accommodate more than two people, some of whom are often children, and younger children need a bathtub rather than a shower.

We were off the ship at 9 AM, the scheduled time for our debarkation group.  We claimed (found) our checked bags, and then cleared customs (since we had been out of the country).  We used our Trusted Traveler Program (TTP) Global Entry (GE) status for the first time.  (ABIR the entry process was fairly quick and easy, but I don’t recall the process ever being slow or difficult, except when re-entering the USA from Los Algodones, Mexico at a walk-through CBP station.)  Everyone else also got through Customs without any hassle or delay.

The “water closet” in our Disney DREAM stateroom.  Again, it has a sink.  We really liked the two room, dual sink arrangement.  The DREAM was the first ship we’ve been on that had this as part of a regular stateroom (not a suite).

All of our group was flying home from the Fort Lauderdale International Airport, with the Michigan contingent flying home on the same Delta flight.  Marilyn was flying back to St. Louis, Missouri and Katie to the research triangle area of North Carolina.  We proceeded to the Ride Share area of the cruise terminal and called the number for the van shuttle service that transported us from our hotels to the cruise terminal at the beginning of the cruise.

A view of the living room area of our Disney DREAM stateroom.

With regards to the preceding photo; The sofa was very comfortable and, as Disney does in its land-based resorts, the back folded down to make a single bed.  It was NOT a typical pull-out (articulated) sleeper sofa (which tend to be extremely uncomfortable) or a slide-out (trundle) bed.  The desk (left) was also a good size, and the desk chair was reasonably comfortable.  The table was small, but big enough for coffee cups, etc.  It would have been a bit small to dine comfortably, but we never ordered room service or brought food back to our cabin.  We also had two chairs and a table on the balcony.  Linda provides a sense of the scale of the room and the space available to us to move around, which was very adequate.  If our stateroom on the MSC Magnifica had been as nice/comfortable as our DCL DREAM stateroom, we would probably not have cancelled the World Cruise we had booked starting in early January 2025.  Alas, that was not the case.

Our flight back to Michigan was scheduled for early-to-mid afternoon, giving us plenty of time to get to the airport and take care of things there.  It meant we would wait a while for our flight, but better that than rushing to make the gate in time.

A better view of the desk and associated storage in our Disney DREAM stateroom.

At the airport, we self-checked our larger bags and proceeded to the TSA security checkpoint.  This was our second time using TSA Pre-check.  As before, DELTA had also tagged our boarding passes with “Digital ID.”  And, as before, the process was smooth and easy.  We waited for the rest of our party to clear through security and then proceeded to our gate and settled in to wait for our flight.  The timing was such that we got a light lunch well ahead of departure.

We had to vacate our staterooms early so the cabin stewards could start the process of turning them around, but had to wait a while for our scheduled debarkation time.  All of the other guests were in the same situation, and people found places to rest while they waited.  Sadie was a perfect fit for these porthole windows on the promenade deck.  (Photo by Linda)

The flight home was uneventful, the best kind, and we arrived back at Detroit Metropolitan International Airport (DTW) a little ahead of schedule.  (This is usually the case, as I think Delta publishes longer flight times than are required for their flights, giving them some wiggle room to arrive on time even if there are departure delays or weather routing delays.  I suspect that all airlines do this, as they get “dinged” for late arrivals.)

A wider view shows one of the lifeboats hanging above the promenade deck.  (Sadie’s eyes are open.)   Chris is in the chair at the left edge of the frame and some of our suitcases are just visible at the bottom of the frame.  (Photo by Linda)

We arrived at the gate at the DTW McNamara Terminal around 4 PM, patiently took our turn getting off of the plane, and made our way to the baggage claim area, where we retrieved our larger suitcases and then headed to the US Park shuttle area in the attached garage.  The rest of our party were not parked where we were, and made their own arrangements to get home.  Back at the US Park fenced/secure lot, we were dropped off at our truck, paid our bill at the exit gate, and headed for home.  We got home around 6 PM, and it didn’t take long for Cabela (the cat) to appear and come in the house.

Silly Sadie has re-awakened.  I think Chris was ready to go home.  He really enjoyed the cruise, but he has a very demanding job managing a restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan and had to check-in regularly to make sure everything was running smoothly in his absence; clearly more difficult and stressful than when he is there in person.  (Photo by Linda)

Linda had stocked microwaveable frozen meals before we left for the cruise to make sure we had something to eat upon our return that was quick and easy to fix.  We unpacked the essentials (technology, medications, toiletries) after diner, but not our clothes.  I like to launder all of our clothing after a trip, but that would happen over the next day or so.

A view of the area where our family hung out waiting to disembark the Disney DREAM.  Considering the number of passengers waiting to get off the ship, we had no problem finding a comfortable, quiet place for all of us to sit and wait.  Brendan grabs a power nap while Madeline uses Shawna’s phone.  Yup, that’s about right.  (Photo by Linda)

Was this family cruise/vacation all that we hoped it would be?  Yes, it was.  Would we do it again?  Absolutely, although we might not pay for (as much of) it as we did this time.  🙂  Cheers!

…

20240220_T0_DCL-Dream-Prep

Leave a reply

NOTE:  There are no photos for this post.

 

TUESDAY 20 February (T0) — A Last Minute Thing

By 8 PM, we were basically fully packed and settled in to watch TV before going to bed at bit earlier than usual as, and we wanted to get a good night’s sleep in advance of our flight to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida tomorrow morning.  But there always seem to be last minute things, and this time it involved the cat’s feeder or, more specifically, the wooden enclosure I built back in August 2023, to house her automatic feeder.  A critter, which turned out to be a raccoon, had been clawing and/or biting the opening where the food drops into a metal bowl, trying to get to the feeder itself.  I decided at the last minute (11 PM) that I needed to reinforce that area before we left.

I made a quick trip to the barn to fetch tools, screws, and see what wood scraps I might have.  I found a couple pieces of 5/8” plywood left over from the original housing project.  They were the same width as the front panel; perfect.  A little drilling, dry fitting, and attaching these pieces to the front with screws, and I was satisfied that the critter would at least be delayed from succeeding until we got home.  So much for getting to bed early and relaxed.  I think that the housing is going to need a metal sheathing at some point in the future.  That point, however, will be when the daytime temperatures are more pleasant for doing this kind of work.

…

20240201-19_Trip-Prep

Leave a reply

NOTE:  This post contains four (4) photos.  First photo taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.  (All other photos taken by Linda with a Google Pixel 6.)

 

01-19 February 2024 — Preparing for another cruise

Cabella (the cat) has several places around the house that she likes to sleep but, when available, this is her favorite.

I suppose the first thing of note about this month, but not the most important, was my birthday; seven decades and change, and still counting.  Not bad for a guy my height and weight.  I am still in generally good health and feeling good about our active retirement, which is what really matters.  Happy birthday to me.

From the moment Linda had booked the cabins, preparations had been on-going for our upcoming Disney DREAM cruise.  Research was done, and shore excursions were booked.  Our daughter (Meghan) is an excellent and enthusiastic researcher, and she dug in.  Our 5-night cruise included a “Marvel Day at Sea” and a “Pirates Day,” all of which required some kind of suitable attire (or costume) in order to be a full participant in the events of those days.  She also learned that it was common practice to “decorate” cabin doors.  The doors are steel, and the decorations need to be magnetic, but it turned out that such decorations and widely and easily available.  The group ended up agreeing on custom t-shirts, one for Marvel Day and one for Pirates Day.  We each got our own color for each shirt, but the same designs.  (We did something similar a few years ago the first time with did Walt Disney World with Paul and Nancy.)

Linda and Diane try to get-together and walk once a week.  Weather permitting, they meet at Kensington Metro Park.  This image from February 9 clearly shows that the lake was still mostly covered in ice.  (Photo by Linda)

Of the ten of us going on this cruise, only Linda, her sister (Sr. Marilyn), and myself had ever been on a cruise.  Linda and I tried to provide useful/helpful specific information about packing, luggage, embarkation, etc. without overloading everyone.  Each family or individual was on their own to make flight arrangements to/from Fort Lauderdale International Airport, as well as hotel arrangements, but they were all experienced travelers, including the three grand-daughters.

 

 

I got this MURDLE (Murder Puzzles) book for my birthday from our friend Kate,.  Linda and I were at one of our local Panera locations, and I took the book with me to work some of the puzzles.  (Photo by Linda)

 

Linda booked us into the Hyatt Place hotel about 1/2 mile from the Disney cruise terminal at Port Everglades in Hollywood, Florida (Fort Lauderdale area) and shared that location with everyone else.  Our daughter and her husband, his daughter (Katie), and Linda’s sister also stayed there.  Our son and his family made a reservation at the nearby Embassy Suites as they were able to get a room that would comfortably accommodate all four of them.

 

 

 

 

Sadie at home being Sadie a few days before the Disney cruise. (Photo by Linda)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that’s about all there is to say about everyday life while getting ready to go a trip.

…

20240101-05_A-new-year-begins

Leave a reply

Note:  There is one (1) photo in this post, taken by Linda using a Google Pixel 6.

 

MONDAY 01 – FRIDAY 05 January 2024 — A new year begins with new adventures

Madeline and Cabela around 9:30 in the morning.  Mads looks happy but a bit bleary-eyed, so maybe we did let her stay up until midnight wish 2023 adieu and welcome in 2024.

The youngest and middle grand-daughters spent last night with us.  I think we let the older one (Mads) stay up until midnight, but maybe not.  Or perhaps she was tired and didn’t see the point.  I doubt that, however, as staying up until midnight seems like a very adult thing to do; and at the newly turned age of 11 years, she wants to be very adult.  Anyway, that was certainly my family’s tradition as I was growing up, and we carried that into our adult/married lives.  There was a period of time when my parents even hosted a sizeable party of neighbors and other friends.  We always went outside at the stroke of midnight and made a lot of celebratory noise.  Being in the St. Louis, Missouri area at the time, the weather might be pleasant or cold and snowy.  Marilyn had to return to St. Louis before the turn of the year, but for many of her holiday visits over the years she was with still at our house on New Year’s Eve.  And we were usually working hard to finish a large jigsaw puzzle.  Part of the tradition was also food, especially smoked salmon (me), cold shrimp cocktail (all of us) wine and finely bubbly at midnight.  Carbonated non-alcoholic options were always available, of course.

I don’t recall if Brendan and Shawna drove up to get the girls, but I think we picked them up and brought them to our house and dad/mom drove up to retrieve them.  The rest of the week, through Friday the 5th, mostly involved getting things ready for us to fly to Florida on Saturday the 6th.  From the calendar it appears that:  we renewed our domain name, and possibly our hosting plan; one of us had a doctor’s appointment, and; we went out to a movie with John and Diane and then had dinner.

…

 

20231201-02_Returning-Home

Leave a reply

Note:  This post contains two (2) photos near the end.  Both were taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

FRIDAY 01 December 2023 — Another travel day

Our trip last month from home to Luxury RV Resort in Gulf Shores, Alabama in October was around 1,400 miles and took 15 days because of our transit of the Natchez Trace National Parkway (NTNP).  The trip in the other direction was estimated at around 1,050 miles and a little over 14-hours driving time.  A shorter distance, for sure, as it would be more direct and we were not planning our route to include any special sites along the way.  Still, that would be an average daily driving distance of about 265 miles for each of the four travel days we planned for the trip, with a total driving time of 21 hours for an average 5 hours per day.  Our trip yesterday, however, was only 223 miles, so we still had 827 miles to travel over three days, or about 275 miles per day.  That was still within the 150 – 300 miles per day target that seems to work well for us.  In spite of cold temperatures, which would require us to quickly winterize the travel trailer once we got home, we were nonetheless eager to get there.

Our next overnight stop was the Grand Ole RV Resort in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, a place we have stayed several times, including at the beginning of our drive down the NTNP.  We like this RV park, and find it convenient when RVing up and down I-65 through Kentucky and Tennessee.  Our mapping/routing apps indicated a 256-mile drive which we estimated to be about 5 hours driving time at our estimated average speed of 50 MPH.

Check-in at RV parks is generally sometime after noon, but can be as late as 3 PM.  A call to the resort confirmed that we could arrive and check-in sooner than that.  I suspect, but I do not recall, that we broke camp and were on our way between 9 and 9:30 AM and arrived between 2 and 2:30 PM.  As best I recall (ABIR), the weather was nice when we arrived, which gave us plenty of time to leisurely “make camp,” and then go for a walk around the RV park.  We then detached the truck from the travel trailer and went in search of food and fuel.  I do not recall what the weather was like during the evening and over-night hours, but if we had storms (which can be fierce in this area) they must not have been too bad as we were not awakened and our truck/trailer did not have any damage.

 

SATURDAY 02 December 2023 — A minor technical issue, and home at last

As mentioned above, when we left Luxury RV Resort in Gulf Shores, Alabama on 30 November, we intended to take four days to make the trip home, stopping for three nights along the way, and arriving home on Sunday, December 3rd.  Indeed, Linda had made a reservation for each of the three nights.  ABIR these many months later, our last and final stop was booked at the Lebanon / Cincinnati NE KOA northeast of Cincinnati, Ohio and east of I-75, another KOA where we have stopped in the past.  The distance for this leg was approximately 300 miles, with a time estimate a little over 4 hours, which we figured would be closer to 6 hours.  (We use KOAs because when they are convenient to our route as it is easy to book online and easy to cancel with little or no penalty.)

One of the issues for us, when towing the travel trailer, is that the fuel economy of the F-150 / trailer combination usually averages around 12 MPG.  This is about 60% – 50% of the 20 – 24 MPG we can get from the truck during extended highway travel without the trailer.  We have a 36-gallon fuel tank so, hypothetically we can travel 432 miles before running out of gasoline, but we do not like the run the tank below the 1/4 mark if possible.  As a practical cutoff, as we approach the 300-mile mark of a leg we start to incur additional travel time because we have to stop for fuel before reaching our destination.  That also means trying to find a filling station that we can get into, position the rig for good access to a pump, and exit without getting stuck or damaging the trailer.  Yeah, we worry about things like that.  (Our preferred routine is to get to our campsite, set up camp, and then disconnect the truck and go find fuel.)  Fuel economy combines with other factors to determine a realistic ETA such as:  a) the time required to exit an RV park and make our way on surface streets to the highway we plan to travel, and b) the fact that we tend to drive at 62 MPH on highways posted at 65 or 70 MPH.  Basing our ETAs on that average speed has worked remarkably well for us.

Our only technical mishap of the entire trip (with the trailer) happened this morning.  Everything was going according to our usual routine for breaking camp and packing up.  When I tried to unplug the “50A RV” shorepower cord from the socket end of the Hughes Power Watchdog EPO surge/transient protector device, however, the ground pin on the cord broke off and remained lodged in the Power Watchdog.  The ground pin turned out to be potted metal surrounded by brass, and was much weaker by design that I would have expected.  Also, the plug was molded so, given these two facts, there was no chance of being able to do a field repair on this expensive piece of junk.

We did not have a spare “50 A” cord with us, as they are just too bulky and heavy to carry a second one.  (We always had a spare in the converted motorcoach, but we have the space and load capacity for that.)  We also did not want to try and buy a new one as they are expensive, the RV park store was unlikely to have (a good) one much less at a bargain price, and we did not want to take the time to go find one somewhere else.  We did have a “15 A” cord that was sufficient to run the lights (LED) and control circuits for the refrigerator, hot water heater, and furnace, which would allow us to use propane as the heat source, but because we were moving into an area with much colder temperatures, we were not comfortable with that option.

While our planned drive today was 300 miles, we were still almost 600 miles from our house.  That distance represented a 12-hour drive, including one or two fuel stops.  We pondered the situation for a while, but fairly quickly decided to cancel our overnight stop for this evening at the Lebanon / Cincinnati NE KOA, and just go home.  I probably drove faster that 62 MPH, but we still arrived home in the dark just ahead of a looming drop in temperatures.

 

The dining room portion of our open floor plan with the entry vestibule and kitchen.  Rather than try to keep the trailer warm, which would use a lot propane, we unloaded most of the food and other cold-sensitive items from the interior of the trailer.  Some of them are spread out on the table and others are on the floor in the vestibule by the stairs to the lower level.

 

Since we did not have a chance to winterize the travel trailer before getting home, I plugged it in to shorepower (which I had to turn on inside the house), turned on the propane furnace, and set it to about 45 degrees F.  Winterizing the trailer in the next few days would be a high a priority.

 

More of the stuff from the trailer on the counters in the kitchen.  Stuff tends to get loaded into the trailer gradually but unloaded quickly, so the unloading process tends to reveal just how much stuff we have onboard.

 

Much to our delight, and something of a surprise, Cabella (the cat who is not our cat but is basically becoming our cat) quickly appeared and did not hesitate coming into the house.  I worried about her the whole time we were away, even though our neighbor (Mike) was checking on her automatic feeder every week and restocking it as needed.  I was relieved that Cabella had clearly been getting enough to eat and looked well.

…