Rollin', rollin', rollin'.....

Continued driving through Chilhowie, Benton, Ochee, and Cisco, checking the bicycling lanes and whether there are rumble strips or not.  Bill won’t be able to cycle on that part of the road unless he wants to give the bike a good shakedown! LOL! We needed new valve stem covers on the camper so made a stop at Advance Auto Parts. Tim helped us out and when we shared with him what we’re doing, he told us about a 48 hour F.L.A.M.E.S. training school going on just a couple of miles from there

and to mention him to the chief. Thanks Tim! It was nice talking to you! The verse on our business card was Tim’s very favorite verse…”Be strong and courageous…for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go” Joshua 1:9  So we drove over to the Chatsworth Fire Department

and met Chief Baxter who operates the school and saw all the firefighters who were just finishing up 48 straight hours of training with only 3 hours sleep.

They were tired, but still cute! LOL! One of the firefighters offered to take our picture with the chief….he was twisted steel and sex appeal, I’ll tell you! ;) The Chief said the firefighter was steel, he was twisted and I must be the sex appeal! LOL!

I liked him right off! LOL! Bill was like “What am I? Chopped liver?” Sorry ladies, the firefighter was too shy to have his picture taken….So after sharing our story and enjoying our visit, we continued on checking road conditions in Fairmont, Griffin, and Zebulon. Many of the stores in Zebulon had bicycles as part of their display. The book store had a bicycle out front with paperback books in the spokes. Will have to check it out more closely this summer. We had a craving for pizza and Little Caesar’s was having a special so we ate for $8.56! It was yummy. Also saw my first Piggly Wiggly on this trip! LOL! We stopped at the police station in Butler and met Chief Jimmy Towns. We shared our story and he told us that in the summer, if we had no place to camp, we could stay at the police department. Sure would feel safe there! We continued driving looking for a campground following a "camping" sign but couldn't find it in the dark. The next one the GPS mentioned was another 15 miles away, the Albany RV Resort. When we made the turn to find the one in Albany, somehow the main power cord to the camper was cut almost  clean through! So the next few miles were driven in the dark with no camper lights! We followed the GPS right to….RV Sales and Service! Our hearts sank, no campground? But there down the road were the lights of the campground, Yay! Another night of falling into bed dog tired. When Bill stopped off at the campground office in the morning, he shared our story with the manager and he asked if we knew that the church that made the movies, Flywheel, Facing the Giants, Fireproof and Courageous was right in Albany. So after buying the supplies to repair the wire and doing a great job by the way,

we headed to the west side of Albany to find Sherwood Baptist Church. Wowee! What a place.

We dropped off our information and are waiting on a call back from Pastor Ken Bevel. Little did we know when we had a problem that night that it would give us the opportunity to visit Sherwood Baptist and share our story. Please continue to pray for us as we continue to plan for this adventure this summer.

P.S. Forgot to share this funny place with you up in Georgia:

No longer a port hole.....

It's been a busy few days, but here I am catching you up on the bedroom window project. Last time, I left you hanging talking about drilling holes! Actually, didn't go too crazy, just wanted to move the curtain rod up some to make the window seem larger.

 After I did that, I received the vinyl I wanted to put on the glass. It will give us more privacy and light and of course had to have dolphins on it! LOL!

I ended up having to seam this and wrestled with it for a couple of hours, but I was victorious! I put up the nautical lace curtains but I could see we needed something a little more....

so I snitched two pictures out of my bathroom in the house and hung those up too!

Just in time too as we spent the next day loading up the camper to take a trip to preview Bill's southern route for the trip this summer. We left Saturday afternoon around 2 and started for Knoxville. It was 4:00 by the time we got to Knoxville and we had skipped lunch so we stopped at a Cracker Barrel for some much needed fuel for the body! We met Anthony there who was the Senior Vice Commander of the VFW in Coeburn, VA. Nice chatting with you Anthony and thank-you for your service! We continued to follow our planned route for the summer and made notes about road conditions; the roads sure have changed in 27 years! On the back roads on the way to Maryville, we saw this large hand lettered sign, "Prayer will get you to heaven, Trespassing will get you there quicker!" LOL! Nope, we didn't trespass! ;) After passing through Greenback, Vonore, Madisonville and Etowah, it was starting to get dark and we were pretty tired from loading the camper. Would we ever find a place to park? Just in time, we found Hiwassee Court RV Park.

They weren't officially open, but let us stay the night. We opened up the camper and crashed into bed. We were up, bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning heading toward Chilhowee, TN

Window on the World....and a gift!

Bill came home with a surprise yesterday! Our friend Patty gave us some beautiful Longaberger baskets to help with our organization!

Hope she doesn't mind that I am thinking of using the big one for clean underwear, whoops! Did I say that out loud? LOL! I'm sure that these will prove to be most useful and I'm looking forward to adding them to the little beach cottage on wheels. Thank-you Patty! Also have a name suggestion for our little cottage....how about, "Toes in the Water"? We talked about using the other part of the song, but didn't think that would be appropriate when we pull into a church parking lot.....;) So, on to the bedroom window! After considerable fluffing, here is what the original curtains look like.

Cute, but doesn't really look like we're at the beach does it. I took them down and here is the naked window.

It's a little low, my belly button has a really good view...LOL! I had an idea to use one of the rods that were in the closet.

These were in our last house and are too small for anything here. I had the rod, but do you think I could find the brackets anywhere?! No. Hmmm, what can we do instead....The curtains I plan to use have openings instead of a rod pocket so the rod will show. I looked through my cans of spray paint and found this one.

So I just spray painted the rod that the original curtains were on. A coat of clear on the top and it was done.

I hung up the nautical lace curtains but it isn't doing anything for me.

I think I might have another solution. Meanwhile, some very necessary items showed up in the mail too....a sewer hose and a drinking water hose.

Never knew I could get this excited over a couple of hoses....LOL! Bill flushed out the water tank and we tested out all the faucets and drains. Found a couple of small leaks that were quickly fixed. Our holding tanks are a little on the small side, so we will just take advantage of campground showers and bathrooms when we can. I think I will go out to the camper now and drill a few holes, for what you say.....see you tomorrow!

Jest fer Pretty...

Thought you might enjoy seeing some of the homey touches I've added to our little beach house on wheels. I had a few feet of border left over after running it through the whole place so wondered what I could do with it. Hmm, those kitchen cabinet doors look mighty plain....

so I took out my little craft scissors and started cutting up the border. It may be a little over the top, but it's a beach cottage! LOL!  I hung up the pretty soap dish that our friend Deb gave us...it was just too pretty to put a bar of soap in! Heavy duty Velcro to the rescue!

The little bluebird is something I found thrift shopping with my mom one day, he looks like he's hanging there, but really has a command strip on the back of him.

Since we really needed a rug for the living room space, I started looking online for something that would fit. Well, 75 to $100 was just not going to cut it! On to the Walmart online store where I found this one for $20!

It doesn't have thick pile, but there is a definite advantage to that...I don't have to roll it up to bring in the slide, it just rolls right over it. As you can see, it fits just right....a measuring tape can be a girl's best friend at times. Staged the living room a little, how do you like it?

The little dog was given to me by my stepdad a few years before he passed and looks like the Boston Terrier we had years ago. He's coming along for the ride too. A well-loved family picture put up with heavy duty Command strips...will let you know if this stays up.

Another fun beach sticker for the bathroom door..

these are great and adhere to just about any surface for wall decorations that you can't bump into. When I was grocery shopping last week in Walmart, I found this sticker for the bedroom.

Kind of romantical! :) It had a couple of extra swirly things that I didn't use....until today. There is glass in the upper cabinet doors over the bed and, well, they looked kinda plain....and the swirly things did kinda sorta look like waves....so I put those up too!

The last thing I want to change are the window treatments at the bedroom window. But that is for another day! Please pray for me as I have been sick and this cough is dragging me down, but I will persevere!

More Like Home...

I am still on the mend, but we managed to get a few things done on the camper this weekend. Whenever I am looking at Pinterest for ideas on organizing the inside, I see that many people name their campers. We're calling it our beach cottage, but even those have names. We lived on Cape Cod years ago and really loved living within 5 miles of the beach. Evening swims and walks along the beach are times I will always cherish. So if you have any ideas what we should name our little beach cottage, leave us a comment on the bottom. The smart tiles we used in the kitchen came out so well that we decided to put some in the bathroom too. After we used the tiles right down to the scraps, I was looking at the scraps and thinking, "What can I do with these...". So I decided to cut out sections and stick them on top of the tile as if they were set in. I pulled off just a small section of the backing and tried them in different designs.

Once they were on though, there is no getting them off! Bill put up soap dispensers in the bathroom and kitchen for me so there will be less clutter on the counters. They look good, will be handy, aaand, I got them on sale! LOL! So here is the before and after in the bathroom that I promised you.

This will be a pleasant place to start the morning. Another thing I was thinking about was how to store utensils for cooking. There are no drawers in the camper, so I thought a crock would be cool. I checked on Pinterest for some ideas and sure enough, there were hundreds of them! One idea used a tin. I have some tins I found at a thrift store years ago out in Wyoming and I pulled them down off the top of the cabinets to have a look at them. After brushing the dust off, (cough, hack) I think this one will work just fine!

It will hold all the utensils I really need and will fit along the back of the stove.

I put up a pretty wreath in the bedroom that came from Bill's mom

and also found some cute beach wall stickers that I put up here and there.

Now with Daylight Savings, Bill can be out on the road for his rides instead of in the shed. He's lost close to 35 pounds and I have lost 18. We both have a ways to go, but will be healthier for it. I will keep you updated on various improvements we do and when we get closer to our leaving date, will share the organizing and packing up. Thanks for reading and please keep us in prayer.

Mini Makeover in Progress....

It has been a busy weekend for sure! Bill caught a bad chest cold and his training has been on hiatus for the last week. Stuffed sinuses and deep cough, no fun! He felt better on Friday, so we went up to A&L RV Sales to see our friend Kevin and bring our little camper home. After a refresher course on hooking everything up, we were on our way!

Since I have picked up a few things on sale every once in awhile, we had some things we could work on on Saturday. I put up my seashell border, while Bill worked on the tile in the kitchen. This product is called Smart Tile, an adhesive backed vinyl tile that can be cut with scissors. On sale of course! I really like how it is coming out. This will be easier to clean and adds color. Here's a before and after:

The living area got a facelift too....think I need a little bit bigger rug. :)

Then it was on to the dining area! I just love the color!

Progressed to the bedroom. We found a nice memory foam mattress at Walmart online for a great price...so much better than the VERY firm RV mattress. Even though it's a little on the small side, I really like the window over the bed. The next size up was too tall, but this works for me. 

My daughter made the little cat pillow for me back in 1996. It's hard to believe that she is all grown up now with children of her own. It will be a little piece of home that will be coming with us. Stay tuned for the bathroom makeover! Bill is going to start training again this week as it will be warm and we'll see how the coughing goes. As for me, I am dragging my tail feathers this morning and can feel this cold nipping at my heels. Thank-you for following us and we count down the days to the beginning of this venture.

Be part of the adventure at Generosity.com

My Routine

I have a guest blogger today! None other than my Dear Hubby, Bill. He wants to talk about his weekly routine. There's not a lot of excitement while you're training, but he has continued on and is improving his times and his own health. So here is his routine....

"I would like to describe to you my daily routine, what I go through each day while working and training for this trip “Twice Across America”.

I start each day (Monday-Friday) getting out of bed by no later than 5:30am. I take time to do my reading, shower, shave and out the door by no later than 6:30am. It takes approximately 30 minutes to make it to the office and I am sitting at my desk, routinely, no later than 7am.

My day lasts for a minimum of 10 hours, so I am leaving the office around 10-15 minutes after 5pm and arrive at home in the vicinity of 5:30-5:45pm each day.

Deb and I exchange pleasantries and then I'm off to change and out to the shed for my cycle training. On average I am in the shed before 6pm with wheels spinning, (actually only one wheel, the back is the only one spinning) for the next hour. Back into the house, shower and time to sit down. It is now normally some time between 7-7:15, I get to relax for a little while, check up on Facebook, do a little research and off to bed. The time is somewhere between 9 or 10pm, and the day starts again at no later than 5:30am.

Since I work 10 hour days, I have a very good boss who allows me to leave work on Fridays, work load permitting, after 12 noon. My work load normally allows me to leave the office between 12-2pm. If that happens, and the weather is good then I can get out for a ride on the road instead of in the shop. It's always better to get out on the road for training since it's actual road conditioning and not just stationary training; your body responds to actual conditions differently than just indoor training. If I can get out on Friday, I try to get a least 13 miles which is now my minimum whenever I can get out. 

Saturday, I am not the type of guy who can sleep in so even on weekends I get up early. I will spend more time doing my devotional reading, study, and review last week's reading. After, I will do some research for the trip, catch up on Facebook, notes etc. Around 10am I will get ready for a ride, so Saturday's are my long ride day. The longest ride on a Saturday so far has been over 40 miles, with my goal to get 50 miles on a Saturday in two weeks from now. Sunday is pretty much the same as Saturday but my wife and I go to church and are home about noon so I go out before lunch and try to get 13-30 miles all based upon weather, time etc.

Now with the nicer weather coming, (this week it is to reach 70 degrees and the days getting longer) I will attempt to ride outside after work and get home before dark. I should be able to get in 13 miles each night Monday-Thursday. Will see how it goes."

We are now roughly two months away from our departure date so our training goal is to work for miles instead of just weight loss and conditioning. Please continue to pray for us as we answer the call that has been placed upon our lives.