April May 2006
The Rolling Home didn't make the Bluegrass
Festival in Benson. In mid April, I got a call from FEMA asking
me to deploy to the tornadoes that hit in Arkansas on the first and
second of April. They told me about six weeks, so I said
sure. We left The Ranch not long after our friends the Striblings
headed to Alaska for the summer.
However, before we left, I put a metal roof on our Casita. The wind in the high desert gets pretty strong from time to time. In early April, we had sustained winds of 50 mph and a gust of 84 mph. The wind took some shingles off our Casita so to forestall losing the whole roof, I put a steel roof on it. It cost me about $600 and I did the work myself. Now its going to take a really big storm to take things off our roof!
We left The Ranch and traveled east out of Carsbad, through Hobbs and then Seminole and La Mesa Texas. We dropped down to I 20 around Sweetwater and stayed in an RV park on the west side of Sweetwater the first night out.
The next day, we pulled into the Flying J at Tye near Abiline and filled up. It cost us about $165. Ouch~!
We traveled on to CowTown RV park on the west side of Ft. Worth and spent two nights there. While we were at Cowtown (our second time in this park) we hit the Camping World south of Ft. Worth and bought a new water filtration system for the rig and replaced our CB with the Cobra CB with most of the radio in the microphone. This CB also has the NWS weather channels in it, so it makes a nice addition to the rig.
We transversed Ft. Worth/Dallas during mid day and headed east to Texarkana. We had intended to stay at Passport America Park on the Arkansas side of Texarkana, but when we arrived, it was a pretty tight fit and not in the best part of town, so we opted for the KOA that was on the Texas side of the state line.
The following day, we came on in to Little Rock and parked at the North Little Rock KOA. We have been here a month and will be here another week or 10 days until we head northeast for the Indy 500 over Memorial Day weekend. We will be staying at the Boone County Fairgrounds again, my hometown in Indiana. We will be at the Indiana Good Sam rally. Its a nice rally and a great place to leave the rig while we run the 30 miles to Speedway and the race.
While we were in North Little Rock, we had a nice visit with Dan and Karon Saunders, fulltimers who come from the Little Rock area. They have followed our website for a while and decided to come visit since we were so close. We enjoyed our visit with them and hope to fun across them on down the road.
Karon and Dan
This was an interesting deployment with FEMA. Its a small disaster compared to the Katrina Rita gig last year. Its about the same size as the Texas wildfires we worked in late January and early February. I worked DHOPS at this one. DHOPS is the disaster/direct housing operations and I along with another DAE was responsible for issuing site inspection requests and work orders to get the mobile homes we placed for folks whose homes were destroyed by the tornadoes. At this point we have about 50 mobile homes placed. These folks will be rebuilding and returning the mobile homes to FEMA as their own dwellings get repaired and become livable.
A couple of Fridays ago, we drove up to Marmaduke, AR where the major damage occured. The north side of that town was pretty devasted. The following pictures are of homes on that side of town. The water tower with the dent in it is in the middle of the wreckage. The local authorites tell me that a John Deere tractor put the dent in that tower. It is still standing but its about the only thing standing in that area. Its pretty amazing that that tractor was tossed that high into the air and also that the tower didn't come down.
Marmaduke, AR Dent in Tower FEMA Trailer
Its now early June and we have left Little Rock. We went to our friend Michael Standridge's house on the east side of Little Rock where we filled up our diesel tank with some free fuel. Michael is now a fulltimer and he had a tank of diesel that was road fuel and would simply go to waste after he left. No problem for us to fill up for free!
Mike and John Mike and Jules
We moved on to Marmaduke again, as I wanted Libby to see what had happened there and also we had to deliver some items to the FEMA folks who were still working up there.
After Marmaduke, we drove over to Caruthersville, MO and parked at the Aztar Casino campground. This was a nice campground, good restaurant at the Casino (they liberated a few bucks from us at the Casino) but the campground folks didn't enforce their rules. They don't allow skateboards, bicycles, in line skates etc. in the park. Of course, there were four kids who ran around all day on their bikes and inline skates screaming and yelling and generally being annoying.
Mississippi River
The next day, we drove on up toward Illinois. When we stopped for lunch, we both decided that driving for an hour or so was pretty tiring, so after lunch, we sacked out on the couch for an hour or so. Then we moved on up the road to Benton, IL. There is a KOA there and we stayed the night at that park. I guess we drove for three hours on Monday and did around 150 miles.
The following day we moved on to Thorntown, IN. This is my father's hometown and we have stayed at Old Mill Run Rv park a number of times. Our last day in Thorntown, Libby and I were in the local cafe. I asked the waitress if there were any Veach folks left in town. Her reply was "my mother". It turned out she is the daughter of my dad's cousin. I remember Eva from when I was a kid. She came up to the cafe and visited with us for a couple of hours. It was pretty interesting. She also called my cousin, who lives in Lebanon and that same day, we went to lunch with Pat and her hubby.
We had a nice visit with them on Thursday and then again on Saturday when we had lunch with them.
In the meantime, we moved to the Boone County Fairgrounds and the Good Sam rally.
On Sunday, we drove to Speedway, expecting to park in the large parking lots just north of the track where we had parked several times before. Unfortunately, those lots are now prepaid lots. We drove on to a local neighborhood and parked in some guys front yard for $20. We actually were closer to where we needed to be than we would have been in the big parking lots, so it worked out well for us.
The race was very exciting although the weather was hotter than we had ever experienced at Indy. Last year, the temp was in the low 70s and very pleasant. This year, it was almost 90 and very humid. One year, it was around 50 and windy. Libby was very cold that time and missed a lot of the race standing behind a building to keep out of the wind!
Our favored driver, Danica Patrick started 8th and finished 8th. She drove a great race but got caught in the pits twice when a yellow light came out. That cost her some time and maybe a spectacular finish.
Our seats were about 50 feet from the track and directly across from the entrance to Pit Road. When Mr. Scheckter hit the wall in turn four, he skidded right into the safer barrier that protects the pit wall (and the drivers) Scheckter was doing well over 200 mph when he hit the wall. I suspect he was still doing better than 150 mph when he smacked the wall in front of us. Another car ran over Scheckter's rear wing and it flipped up into the stands across from us. Five folks were injured, none seriously. We were lucky that it flipped the other way but certainly didn't look good to see folks diving for cover across from us.
roll em out Scheckter in the wall another wreck
At the end, Marco Andretti was in the lead when he passed our seats. At the last moment, Andretti was passed by Sam Hornish Jr. It was Hornish's first finish after 7 tries at the Indy crown. A great way for him to finally get the full 500 miles under his belt and finish in first place.
We left Lebanon on Monday following the race and headed for Ky. We stayed at the PA park in Berea, KY once again.
When we tried to turn on the air conditioners, we had no power in the rig. I spent a few hours trouble shooting and figured out that the power transfer relay was shot. It lives in the power distribution panel under our refrigerator. I did a temporary fix and we moved on to Racoon Valley near Knoxville the next day. The power worked fine at Knoxville, so the next day we moved on to our next long term park, Sundowner in Hayesville, NC.
When we plugged in at Sundowner, no power again. I did the temp fix and called the manufacturer of our power distribution panel. They told us that they no longer made the panel, but gave me the part number for the offending relay. I called Granger supply in Atlanta and they did have the relay. The next day, Libby and I drove down to our old area where we used to live in Atlanta and bought two of those relays!
I installed the new relay yesterday and it appears all is well once again with our electrical system.
We will be here (barely inside NC) until early to mid July.
However, before we left, I put a metal roof on our Casita. The wind in the high desert gets pretty strong from time to time. In early April, we had sustained winds of 50 mph and a gust of 84 mph. The wind took some shingles off our Casita so to forestall losing the whole roof, I put a steel roof on it. It cost me about $600 and I did the work myself. Now its going to take a really big storm to take things off our roof!
We left The Ranch and traveled east out of Carsbad, through Hobbs and then Seminole and La Mesa Texas. We dropped down to I 20 around Sweetwater and stayed in an RV park on the west side of Sweetwater the first night out.
The next day, we pulled into the Flying J at Tye near Abiline and filled up. It cost us about $165. Ouch~!
We traveled on to CowTown RV park on the west side of Ft. Worth and spent two nights there. While we were at Cowtown (our second time in this park) we hit the Camping World south of Ft. Worth and bought a new water filtration system for the rig and replaced our CB with the Cobra CB with most of the radio in the microphone. This CB also has the NWS weather channels in it, so it makes a nice addition to the rig.
We transversed Ft. Worth/Dallas during mid day and headed east to Texarkana. We had intended to stay at Passport America Park on the Arkansas side of Texarkana, but when we arrived, it was a pretty tight fit and not in the best part of town, so we opted for the KOA that was on the Texas side of the state line.
The following day, we came on in to Little Rock and parked at the North Little Rock KOA. We have been here a month and will be here another week or 10 days until we head northeast for the Indy 500 over Memorial Day weekend. We will be staying at the Boone County Fairgrounds again, my hometown in Indiana. We will be at the Indiana Good Sam rally. Its a nice rally and a great place to leave the rig while we run the 30 miles to Speedway and the race.
While we were in North Little Rock, we had a nice visit with Dan and Karon Saunders, fulltimers who come from the Little Rock area. They have followed our website for a while and decided to come visit since we were so close. We enjoyed our visit with them and hope to fun across them on down the road.
Karon and Dan
This was an interesting deployment with FEMA. Its a small disaster compared to the Katrina Rita gig last year. Its about the same size as the Texas wildfires we worked in late January and early February. I worked DHOPS at this one. DHOPS is the disaster/direct housing operations and I along with another DAE was responsible for issuing site inspection requests and work orders to get the mobile homes we placed for folks whose homes were destroyed by the tornadoes. At this point we have about 50 mobile homes placed. These folks will be rebuilding and returning the mobile homes to FEMA as their own dwellings get repaired and become livable.
A couple of Fridays ago, we drove up to Marmaduke, AR where the major damage occured. The north side of that town was pretty devasted. The following pictures are of homes on that side of town. The water tower with the dent in it is in the middle of the wreckage. The local authorites tell me that a John Deere tractor put the dent in that tower. It is still standing but its about the only thing standing in that area. Its pretty amazing that that tractor was tossed that high into the air and also that the tower didn't come down.
Marmaduke, AR Dent in Tower FEMA Trailer
Its now early June and we have left Little Rock. We went to our friend Michael Standridge's house on the east side of Little Rock where we filled up our diesel tank with some free fuel. Michael is now a fulltimer and he had a tank of diesel that was road fuel and would simply go to waste after he left. No problem for us to fill up for free!
Mike and John Mike and Jules
We moved on to Marmaduke again, as I wanted Libby to see what had happened there and also we had to deliver some items to the FEMA folks who were still working up there.
After Marmaduke, we drove over to Caruthersville, MO and parked at the Aztar Casino campground. This was a nice campground, good restaurant at the Casino (they liberated a few bucks from us at the Casino) but the campground folks didn't enforce their rules. They don't allow skateboards, bicycles, in line skates etc. in the park. Of course, there were four kids who ran around all day on their bikes and inline skates screaming and yelling and generally being annoying.
Mississippi River
The next day, we drove on up toward Illinois. When we stopped for lunch, we both decided that driving for an hour or so was pretty tiring, so after lunch, we sacked out on the couch for an hour or so. Then we moved on up the road to Benton, IL. There is a KOA there and we stayed the night at that park. I guess we drove for three hours on Monday and did around 150 miles.
The following day we moved on to Thorntown, IN. This is my father's hometown and we have stayed at Old Mill Run Rv park a number of times. Our last day in Thorntown, Libby and I were in the local cafe. I asked the waitress if there were any Veach folks left in town. Her reply was "my mother". It turned out she is the daughter of my dad's cousin. I remember Eva from when I was a kid. She came up to the cafe and visited with us for a couple of hours. It was pretty interesting. She also called my cousin, who lives in Lebanon and that same day, we went to lunch with Pat and her hubby.
We had a nice visit with them on Thursday and then again on Saturday when we had lunch with them.
In the meantime, we moved to the Boone County Fairgrounds and the Good Sam rally.
On Sunday, we drove to Speedway, expecting to park in the large parking lots just north of the track where we had parked several times before. Unfortunately, those lots are now prepaid lots. We drove on to a local neighborhood and parked in some guys front yard for $20. We actually were closer to where we needed to be than we would have been in the big parking lots, so it worked out well for us.
The race was very exciting although the weather was hotter than we had ever experienced at Indy. Last year, the temp was in the low 70s and very pleasant. This year, it was almost 90 and very humid. One year, it was around 50 and windy. Libby was very cold that time and missed a lot of the race standing behind a building to keep out of the wind!
Our favored driver, Danica Patrick started 8th and finished 8th. She drove a great race but got caught in the pits twice when a yellow light came out. That cost her some time and maybe a spectacular finish.
Our seats were about 50 feet from the track and directly across from the entrance to Pit Road. When Mr. Scheckter hit the wall in turn four, he skidded right into the safer barrier that protects the pit wall (and the drivers) Scheckter was doing well over 200 mph when he hit the wall. I suspect he was still doing better than 150 mph when he smacked the wall in front of us. Another car ran over Scheckter's rear wing and it flipped up into the stands across from us. Five folks were injured, none seriously. We were lucky that it flipped the other way but certainly didn't look good to see folks diving for cover across from us.
roll em out Scheckter in the wall another wreck
At the end, Marco Andretti was in the lead when he passed our seats. At the last moment, Andretti was passed by Sam Hornish Jr. It was Hornish's first finish after 7 tries at the Indy crown. A great way for him to finally get the full 500 miles under his belt and finish in first place.
We left Lebanon on Monday following the race and headed for Ky. We stayed at the PA park in Berea, KY once again.
When we tried to turn on the air conditioners, we had no power in the rig. I spent a few hours trouble shooting and figured out that the power transfer relay was shot. It lives in the power distribution panel under our refrigerator. I did a temporary fix and we moved on to Racoon Valley near Knoxville the next day. The power worked fine at Knoxville, so the next day we moved on to our next long term park, Sundowner in Hayesville, NC.
When we plugged in at Sundowner, no power again. I did the temp fix and called the manufacturer of our power distribution panel. They told us that they no longer made the panel, but gave me the part number for the offending relay. I called Granger supply in Atlanta and they did have the relay. The next day, Libby and I drove down to our old area where we used to live in Atlanta and bought two of those relays!
I installed the new relay yesterday and it appears all is well once again with our electrical system.
We will be here (barely inside NC) until early to mid July.