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Various Errands and Repair

Current Location: Fort Toulouse Campground, Wetumpka, Alabama

Callie (the cat) has adapted fairly well to the trailer so far. After her initial investigation into this new space, she has decided that it is acceptable and that we should be allowed to stay and feed her.

Val ran errands today, heading out to get her hair cut and a stop by another pet supply store to see if she could find a larger pet carrier for Callie to ride in when we travel. We met for lunch in Montgomery and then Val continued finishing up her shopping.

This evening, Val headed to her prayer shawl ministry get-together. Meanwhile, Malcolm stayed at the trailer and, with Callie’s help, replaced the seals in the toilet. It was a fairly straightforward job (though smelly). The toilet flushes much better now.

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And Then There Were Three

Current Location: Fort Toulouse Campground, Wetumpka, Alabama

Today was a busy day, as we expected it to be. Malcolm started the morning off with a blood test in preparation for an upcoming physical exam. After that, he picked up a new battery for Val’s car and took it back to the house and installed it. Then, on to work where he found out they still haven’t switched his computer over to the new company’s domain like everyone else has been, so he arranged for that to happen this afternoon.

While that was going on, Malcolm watched the annual ethics training video on his personal laptop and signed off on that. He also took the opportunity to back up new pictures to the “offsite” backup drive he keeps here in the Alabama office.

Malcolm picked up Val and the laundry at lunch and we headed over to the new Zaxby’s restaurant (in Wetumpka) and had a quick lunch. Then, Val was dropped off at the house while Malcolm went back to work. Val took care of laundry and groceries during the afternoon. We had “breakfast for dinner” (eggs, sausage, biscuits), then headed out to start taking care of house-selling errands.

First stop was Home Depot. We picked up some items for the yard (fertilizer/weed killer as well as fire ant powder). We also arranged for them to come out and measure our three patio doors in preparation for having them replaced. While there, we also picked up a new range for the kitchen. There were a bunch of appliances in the front entry of the store that were on clearance (the range we chose was a floor sample) with an additional 10% off. We loaded up the range in the back of the truck (delivery was $80) and headed over to the pet store to do some shopping before taking the range to the house and storing it in the garage for a while.

Pet store?

The newest Traveling Talley - Callie

The newest Traveling Talley – Callie

Since our son will be heading off to the Air Force in the next few months and we’ll be selling our house, our cat Callie needed a place to call home. We decided to test her out in the trailer and will be giving her a few rides in the truck to acclimate her to that, as well. So far, after a couple hours in the trailer, she is sprawled out on the bed with Val while Malcolm writes up the blog post. Hopefully, future trips in the truck will be as calm as the one out to the campground (save for the first five minutes of loud yowling).

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Home for a While

Current Location: Fort Toulouse Campground, Wetumpka, Alabama

This morning we rolled out of bed early and had the trailer all packed up and ready to travel before breakfast in the clubhouse at 8am. Since it was anticipated that our home campground (Ft. Toulouse) would probably not have running water when we arrived later today, we started filling the fresh tank on the trailer. It took quite a while before it got to the 2/3 mark, so we chanced grabbing a quick bite while Malcolm popped back to the trailer to check the level.

After a couple of trips, Malcolm just stayed near the trailer while he prepared the truck to get ready to go. At one point, he could distinctly hear the sound of water hitting the ground. A quick run back to the trailer and it looked like a flood was coming out from underneath. Malcolm shut the water off quickly and looked under to see what damage may have occurred. As it turns out, the water was running out of the two overflow/vent tubes (one on each side) as designed.

Malcolm drained some of the water out of the tank until the overflow tubes quit running, then unhooked the water and put everything away. We hitched up and pulled out about 9:00 or so. The trip home was uneventful and we arrived around 4:30 pm, dribbling water all along the way. As it turned out, the water is still on here at the campground, so we hauled several hundred pounds of water all the way from Tennessee for nothing. Well, at least we’ll have water at the ready if they do turn it off here.

Another big trip has ended. Malcolm will be working the next couple of weeks (at least) while we also start working on our house to get it ready to sell. The remainder of the fall will probably revolve around house repairs and putting the house on the market, so travel will be mixed.

 

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Ready to Roll!

Another iPad post. This time it is because we are all packed up and in bed to try to get some sleep before we roll out tomorrow. We’ll be up with the sun so that we can hitch up, roll out and get to the tire store around 7:00 am.

More tomorrow when we stop for the evening. You can watch our progress via our Track My Tour link. You can find that in the Trip 6 page up in the menu under, appropriately enough, “Trips”.

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Countdown to the Big Trip

Current Location: Fort Toulouse Campground, Wetumpka, Alabama

Malcolm remembered to bring his laptop home from work today, so he’s back to posting blog entries the normal way (with a normal keyboard).

This morning, Malcolm stopped by Gray’s Tire and Auto to ask about putting metal valve stems in the trailer tires to avoid damage to the current high pressure rubber valve stems from the TPMS sensors. They agreed that replacing with metal stems would be a good idea and agreed to do the work.

The final decision was how to best accomplish the switchover. Malcolm offered to bring in a tire or two at a time from the trailer, or to bring the unit by early Saturday morning on the way out of town. After explaining that we’ll be pulling out early Saturday and heading far north, they said to bring the trailer by at 7:00 AM Saturday (1/2 hour before they officially open) and they’d start to work on it right away to beat the morning rush of customers. Good deal.

Val caught up on laundry today and did some more final prep on the trailer for the trip. At work, Malcolm took advantage of the fact that the company president was in town for a couple of days, as well as Malcolm’s boss (who is based out of the Texas office). They clarified some policies on working in different offices (such as expense reimbursements, etc.) versus working on a job site.

Also, Malcolm indicated that at times he would be available for extra work on the road to earn additional income, if possible. With the current arrangement of coming back home to work every couple of weeks, we’ve found that we are often way over budget on fuel each month due to the extra travel required to do so. Malcolm’s boss agreed that would be a good idea, so she is working on rounding up some documentation that he can do in the evenings at his leisure. Malcolm did set the expectation that this shouldn’t be time critical work, to keep from ending up working full-time on the road. We do still want to enjoy our travels.