101 - Another lesson learned

So we are continuing to learn about our new home as we go. This week's lesson was ice. When it gets cold enough outside, water freezes... you might have heard rumors to that effect... whether that water is in a hose, in a pipe, or on the ground. As we awoke on Wednesday morning and attempted to flush the toilet, the water did not come swirling around the bowl as it usually does when the lever is depressed. We made due with water bottles, but it brought to light a problem that we'll need to learn to deal with during what's left of winter - frozen water, aka ice.

Forums are great informational repositories... thank goodness for forums. They can be confusing at times, and they are sometimes so full of opinions that you don't know what to believe, but in this case, the forums probably saved us from a catastrophe. Apparently, you should NOT allow the water to drip from the faucets during a freeze as you would in a house... which is exactly what we were about to do. I'm not sure how it happens, but they say it will leak and there was something about waking up to icicles inside your RV and having to rent a steamer to shampoo your carpets that we decided we would rather avoid. Instead, you fill your fresh water tank, disconnect the hoses (water and sewer if you've emptied the tanks recently) and stow them in the belly of the beast where it is warm and toasty. So instead of using city water, during a freeze, you use the gravity feed from the tank. It's little things like this that are really good to know. They really ought to have a school for people who buy RV's.

We still haven't identified and remedied our propane issue. Mike thinks it might be a leaky hose. Right now, the spare tank is still half full, but then it's been relatively warm for the last few nights and we primarily use our space heater... which makes it kind of stuffy in here sometimes to be honest... it's a beast. Anyway, there is a mobile repair guy in the area (so says the brochure that the camp gave us) and I am going to call him on Monday. It's not something we can ignore, and Mike doesn't have the free time to figure out what's happening. Mike doesn't have much free time at all really.

We went to the grocery store tonight. That's my big outing for the week. I was running low on supplies, and while Mike loves beans, I needed to replenish some pantry staples.

There is a town about a mile down the road that I could walk to if I got really desperate for something to do, but I doubt I will attempt it. Cute little town, reminds me of Georgetown in some respects, but more quaint. Mostly I stay home and find little projects to keep me busy. Yesterday I did four loads of laundry, sorted through most of the shred pile cutting out just the personal bits of information and throwing the rest into the trash... I probably got rid of five pounds of paper we've been lugging around, I cleaned the bathroom sink, and I finally cleared the area around the dining room table (or mostly did), and I made chili in the slow cooker. That kept me busy for most of the day. Now I'm caught up on laundry and all of the shredding has been taken care of so... I may have to relax tomorrow...

Maybe I'll walk around the park and take pics, although I'm not sure there's a lot to take pics of. It's a nice place, if you arrive during office hours, they escort you to your site - all pull-thrus. Our site has a concrete pad. They have a playground, two pools, a pond... some spots have a lot of trees, ours has young trees. The price reflects all that, so it's good that Mike's company is picking up the tab. It's probably less than a hotel, so it works out for both of us.

Since Stacy likes pictures, and since Stacy represents 12.5% of my total readership, I want to keep Stacy happy.  :p As always, you can click on the picture to enlarge it... trust me, the pictures make more sense when you can actually see them.

The sky has begun to fascinate me. I never really thought about how different it can look relative to your location. The sky changes everywhere we go, and I have to say - it does some pretty spectacular things in Georgia. Unlike the fluffy, Disney-like clouds of Florida, Georgian clouds cover great spans and have amazing depth to them. As a result, the sun paints some interesting murals as it starts to sink into the western sky.

This was interesting. There was a spot in the sky that I thought was the sun behind a cloud, but then I saw that the sun was actually to the right of that spot. Every time I took a picture of that spot, it came out as a rainbow. It's harder to see in the other pics, but you can see a corona-like effect around the sun, and the spot I was seeing is to the left of the sun.

This is not the sun. It's a bird. A cute little fat bird that runs amazingly quickly when there is a camera trained on it.

Back to the sun...

This one almost looked like a picture of the sun setting on the surface of the ocean. It was really neat.

This is at Pine Mountain, the RV park where we're staying. I love when the rays of the sun shine down like that.

This is the same sunset from another angle.

Same sunset, it bathed everything in gold.

This was Marval in Kentucky. I miss waking up to this view of the Illinois River. So peaceful.

If you get up early enough - and I actually did sometimes, you can see smoke rising from the water as the temperature starts to rise.

I don't know why, I just liked the contrast of the leaf and the cracked asphalt. This was on the way to the office, up a hill so steep it could easily have been in Scotland. Seems like I climbed it every day for one reason or another, but it's good, it gave me some much needed exercise.

This is how elves get their shoes... from squirrels eating pecans. Oh the carnage...

This was not smoke on the water... It was a bit disconcerting to wake up to the smell of smoke and not know why. My first assumption is always that our RV is burning. It takes a second for my sleep-addled brain to put two and two together... they were just burning piles of leaves.

Happy Saturday night... I'm about to hit the hay.