Art Work and Parking

First off welcome Jackie, my latest follower.  Seems like a gal after my own heart, wants to travel but has a art/craft that involves lots of materials!  WE will figure it out!


I'm feeling pretty good today. I was able to put in a solid morning of work on several animal head sculptures. I had an order for a Polar Bear before Christmas that I promised for February shipment, and got orders for a Moose and a Deer while we were gone.  January is often a slow month, so these were an unexpected bonus.


Thoughts about our trip continued:


I'm learning that each couple, or individual, has to find their own way of doing things.  Some say there are "pink" jobs and "blue" jobs, or if solo "all" jobs.  But as I read about other couples, I have learned that some men do most of the cooking, and some women do most of the driving.  There is no "only" way.


It seems for most couples, the man is the driver and the woman is the ground crew giving directions.  If you have followed my blog for a while, you know we have an unusually difficult home parking situation, and although we did manage to get the Alfa parked four times before Christmas it was not without mishap, nor great strain on our relationship.  


So this time we tried reversing our roles.  Craig drove down the short but curvy part of our road, and got the Alfa backed into the first 37 feet or so of the driveway.  It took a couple of tries, but he did it.  However, but the time we got it that far I was getting frazzled.  So we stopped, and changed places.  It turns out Craig is much better at giving directions, and I am much better at taking them.  The result was we got her parked and were not upset with each other.  


Still not an easy job, but a neighbor who had watched us before happened to be walking his dogs on the road and declared we were getting to be "experts!"


Last fall one of our friends, who is a retired Navy pilot, told us that in parking a large plane a pilot must do only what the ground crew signals him to do.  He must not try to drive the plane himself.  That's what I did and it worked.


I don't mind this role reversal, but Craig can keep doing the dumping and power connections!  


Who does what in your rig?

Sick in an RV

I think I will be reflecting on our first "longer" trip by writing a series of posts rather than try to digest it all in one piece. Much of what I have been thinking about writing is what I want to remember.  Some is written for others who are sharing this adventure vicariously, and some is just blather.
 

We left the rally grounds early Sunday, but not without catching the “bug” that was going around.  I became very sick about 9:00 PM.  I won’t go into the details, but it was much like what we called the “24 hour flu” when I was a kid! Maybe I don’t have the resilience that I had back then, but this sure took me down.  I was over the worst of it by morning, but rode lying down on the couch to our appointment at Alfateers so they could service our generator and install the new fuel filter that we ordered last week.

By Monday morning I was again able to eat and except for being weak and sore I was O.K.  The secretary at Alfateers said that at least 100 people had fallen ill at the rally.  I bet that was just the number reported into the first aid station, and that there were at least 100 more like me that did not.  She also told me that a few weeks ago she was at a family gathering in the area and 10 of the 60 people got sick.  One went to the hospital and was told there is a new strain of flu going around, and her doctor called it the Riverside County Flu.   So maybe it wasn’t “food born.” The good thing was that it ran its worst course in about 12 hours. Plus a couple of days of mild discomfort.

What I learned:

1.  Getting sick in an RV is no worse than getting sick at home.   Sick is sick.
2. The bathroom is closer in an RV than in any house!
3. In a class A, the couch is also a bed.
4. An air freshener would have been good to have, but running all fans full force for awhile can make the sick room smell better.  In general Craig and I both dislike artificial sprays or deodorants.  But it might be a good idea to try a few to find one that is tolerable for this type of emergency.
5. Carry a small bottle of bleach for clean up. 
6. Use the sanitizing hand wipes!  Just having them is not enough.
7. Pepto-bismol does nothing other than make things more colorful.

And last: 
All members of the team should be comfortable driving.   

When we left Alfateers Service center on Monday morning Craig was just starting to feel a bit queasy.  Since we had dry camped for six nights we were out of water and needed to dump. We had to get to our next full hook up location, two hours away, as quickly as possible.  

Craig started to drive because although I was better, I still felt weak and tired.  After about an hour he had to pull off at an exit, set the brake, put it in park, and leave the driver's seat for a dash to the back.  Because I had been taking turns as the driver, I was able to take over and maneuver through an unknown, semi-busy city area and get us safely back onto the freeway, and on to Santa Barbara.

I would not have wanted this to have been my first time driving!  If I hadn't been able to take the wheel, we would have been stranded on a busy exit of the L.A. freeway system! Not good.

So my message to all of you "partners" is share the driving.  Make a point of driving part of every trip.  You don't have to start with backing up or winding country roads, but you should be comfortable with all of those different controls, especially on the diesels.  Because I drove into the park for the pre-rally, the subject of women driving came up.  Several women told me that either they were afraid to drive, or that their husbands wouldn't let them drive.  

Ladies, most of us have had babies!  
We CAN drive large RVs.  

Besides it's fun...