Little accident - Day 431 (Yr 2, Day 64)

Asheville, NC

Everything is fine, hopefully, and for a change it didn't involve a vehicle.  Mitch was out on a job and he slipped and fell, bending his arthritic knee backwards a little (it was a choice of walking down a wet, slippery grassy incline or down a concrete path strewn with papers.  He didn't realize the papers were of the glossy, brochure type which made them just as slippery as the grass).  He was able to get up and walk around, although it felt very sore, so we spent a few hours at the urgent care center.  Dr. took x-rays and didn't see anything out of the ordinary (he did see a lot of missing cartilage and bone spurs, and gave him a referral to an orthopedist, which he's wanted to do anyway for more Efflexor shots).  Anyway, the outcome of the visit was it's probably just a twist and he should stay off of it for a day or 2, keeping it elevated and iced as much as possible.  He can return to work on Wednesday.  His boss is being extremely generous: rather than docking his pay, he said he will be "in training."

Meanwhile, the location of the urgent care center took us in a direction I haven't been through yet -- Biltmore Village.  Apparently this is also a very historical area as well.  It reminds me quite a lot of Forest Hills, NY where all the buildings are Tudor style and very upscale.  I'm hoping to get some time to walk around that area too, as it's very different from the downtown area or the arts district.  At some point, I also hope to go to Hendersonville or the Black Mountains for the gorgeous nature settings which the area is really known for (not to mention the Biltmore Estate and Winery).

Meanwhile, the High Holidays are looming right around the corner.  Our friend from shul (Morgan) is alone so we invited her to spend a holiday meal with us.  I have a lot of cooking planning to do!

Updates & Downtown Asheville - Day 430 (Yr 2, Day 63)

Asheville, NC

Sorry I haven't written all week, but I hate to write the "same old, same old," and there wasn't much to report on that was different or out of the ordinary or that I haven't already written about.  Although I can see this is going to be a very long post!

We're still enjoying the lifestyle.  We both especially love spending time outside in the "back yard" overlooking the river.  A few times this week I set my laptop up at the picnic bench and worked outside.  We even made a campfire one evening.

We did meet a few interesting folks as well.  In general, there seems to be a huge turnover here - people generally come in just for a few days.  For instance, we met a lovely couple - Joe and Chris - who live in Spring Hill, FL.  They've done a lot of traveling in their Keystone Cougar (with rear entrance).  They were planning to spend about a week here (never been to Asheville before), but there is a potential hurricane heading to FL and they wanted to be home, just in case.

Another extremely interesting couple arrived in their bus conversion - a 1948 Greyhound!  If you look closely, you can still see the words and the dog in the metal.  But let me tell you - this is as much a hippie bus as the 60s Volkswagens!  Mark is the owner and he invited me in to take a peek (ok, I invited myself).  Again -total hippiedom!  He said he bought it about 9 years ago specifically for the purpose of Burning Man, and has traveled the entire country 7 times since then.  He's in Asheville, actually, for a meetup with a bunch of Burning Man friends.  They've rented a huge house in the mountains, but the bus won't fit up those hills so he's leaving it at the campground.

Another interesting couple who pulled in yesterday, Kurt and ?? (I didn't get to meet his wife yet) own a 1970s Airstream - one of the originals.  It's quite a beauty, even though I'm not sure I'd be happy living in it.  They just started full timing a few months ago (from this area).  His wife is an occupational therapist.  They'll be here until mid-Sept. so I'm hopeful we'll get to know each other better.

Now to the updates... we did have an mobile tech come and look at the freezer and a/c - which, by the way, haven't been leaking again.  The a/c is probably better because of the diversion Mitch created.  The tech said it was a gasket that needed replacing, which is covered by the warranty, so we'll get that done next week (I'm sure it's something Mitch can do, but since it involves removing the a/c unit, he'd rather pay the deductible and have a professional do it).  Regarding the frig leak, it all seems to be fine since we shut off the water supply to the ice maker.  That's not something the tech wants to do because he doesn't feel there's enough space to remove the unit and he doesn't want to cause any damage to the counter.  He suggested that if it's still a problem, to take it to a shop that will have more liability.  For now, we're grateful that we had a year of luxury of an automatic ice maker, but decided to invest $5.00 in a few ice cube trays and a small container to hold the cubes.

And now for today - the first time since we arrived here (on Aug. 3rd) that we actually went out and did something besides shopping and chores.  The plan was to go to the downtown area and walk around a bit.  There were 2 things that seemed enticing: the pinball museum (play old fashioned pinball and video games for a flat admission fee) or a music & beer tour (Asheville is known for its many, many craft breweries).  Mitch really wasn't interested in the standard historical trolley tour, and neither of us are interested in the haunted tour.  There was also a comedy tour and a few different beer tours.  Anyway, we figured we'd just play it by ear when we got there.

As expected, it was very difficult to find a parking spot.  After riding around the city a few times, we finally found a lot that had 1 space in the back corner that would accommodate our truck.  I think next time we'll take a bus and our urb-e's (http://www.urb-e.com) (which, by the way, are finally starting to ship, so with any luck, maybe we'll have ours by the end of September)  Don't freak at the price -- we bought ours when it was part of the Indigogo campaign so it was about half the price.  It folds up real compact and can be put in the back seat of the truck or taken on a bus or train.

Got off the subject there.... anyway, we parked and found we were just a few blocks from Pack Square Park - a large park in the center of the city where they hold a lot of events.  It turned out that this week was the "Organicfest" - loads of vendors with green or organic products -- everything from handmade fabrics and soaps, to farm grown shitake mushrooms and honey (one vendor brought a hive), to lots of awesome vegetarian / vegan foods. Best of all, all of the vendors are local.  I didn't realize just how health conscious a town this is, although initially I did observe it was a very hipster town, thus a healthy lifestyle would make a lot of sense.  Our take-aways (purchases) from the fair were:  dark chocolate coconut, shitake mushrooms, 5 different styles of homemade tempeh, and sesame and smoked sea salt.  We also sampled pear and bourbon based hard cider, shared a thai tempeh veggie wrap for lunch and a delicious goat milk gelato for dessert.  It was a blast and I was in heaven sampling all this good stuff.  We learned of about 5 vegetarian & vegan restaurants in the area as well; can't wait to try them.  I noticed that the area really doesn't have a focus on southern food which is mostly BBQ joints.  I'm sure that's easily found outside of Asheville.

One thing I noticed -- I don't know if I'm just so out of the fashion world and don't see these things, or if it's limited to Asheville, but watching people I felt like we were in the 60's with all the tie-dyed prints and psychedelic colors.

The city itself is very quaint.  Although not the River Arts District (a tour for another day), it is a very creative town with a lot of painted murals all over the place.  Even the graffiti is very artistic.  Stores are very mom & pop.  I don't know the history of the architecture, but some of the buildings are very beautiful.

And now, the photo tour:


This is a 3D mural directly across the street from where we parked.

Sample graffiti:

A very interesting diner:

I never heard of this before today - the "Before I Die" wall (http://beforeidie.cc/site/about/).  After reading about this, it was great to have participated in something so much bigger than myself.  This was awesome!  We actually met the man who maintains it daily (sadly, he says that some kids come and write nasty things or draw mean pictures).  Basically you fill in the blank next to "before I die I want to...."

I posted my message:  "Before I die I want to do more to help others."  How very interesting that within about 1-2 minutes after I wrote that, a homeless woman approached me and asked if I could help her buy something to eat (of course we gave her a generous donation).  I think the Universe heard me!

Some examples of how "hippie" the town is.  These 2 stores are very typical of most of the ones we passed:

Another thing going on in Asheville is a brass sculpture collection (http://www.ashevillenc.gov/Departments/ParksRecreation/CulturalArts/CulturalArts-PublicArttheUrbanTrail/UrbanTrailWalkingTour.aspx)  We didn't do the whole tour but we did come across one small park (Pack Square Park).  The placque tells of how this area was a crossroads for drovers of turkeys and hogs.

Monument to a Confederate war hero:

Some views of buildings and streets.

There was never a lack of entertainment and street performers.  Here are guitar players, a mime statue (I really thought it was a statue until he moved) and some hula dancers.  I took a video of them dancing, but it didn't come out very well.

And now for some of the things we saw at the Organicfest fair:

Bike race.  Participants were treated to a free massage!

Live entertainment

 Even something for the kids:

This one for Jessica (I was thinking about you when I saw this.  We didn't go inside for fear that we might buy something, or a lot - that we don't have room for.

Closer look at logo on truck:

Around town - Day 423 (Yr 2, Day 56)

Asheville, NC

First, I have to say that I hate fruit flies!!!  We seem to be infested with them again.  I'm able to drown a few in a glass of wine vinegar, but not enough of them.  I suppose it could be worse (like roaches or snakes!)  Still - just so annoying!

This morning Mitch was up on the roof trying to figure out the cause of the leak thru the light fixture in the bedroom.  It was confirmed that it's directly under the a/c.  He's pretty sure he needs to remove the unit as he didn't see anything around it to caulk.  Just like with the frig, he made a diversion system so any water coming from the unit will be redirected off the roof.  Meanwhile, I did call a mobile RV tech but they may not be able to come out until next Friday.  I guess we'll just have to survive without ice and a/c in the bedroom for a few days.  Then again, the bedroom leak isn't that great so I can probably run it for a little while.

Today we visited the WNC (Western No. Carolina) farmer's market, which seems almost equivalent to the other state run one in Raleigh, although I think Raleigh is a bit nicer aesthetically.  One building was dedicated to private vendors and little shoppes, most of who sold either crafts, cheese, wine or canning jars of jam or peaches or relishes or sauces.  Then there was the huge area where the farm stands were.  It must not be full growing season yet, as the predominant produce (90% of what was there) were watermelons and peaches, with a few tomatoes and peppers.  I was a little disappointed that there wasn't all that much to choose from.

We then found a Dollar Tree nearby, in a section called Asheville Outlets - a large indoor and outdoor mall with all the upscale mall type stores.  It looked like a nice walking layout, but not my cup of tea.  I prefer more rustic, locally owned mom & pop type stores in the area.  The arts district and downtown area are like that.  Hopefully we'll (or should I say I because Mitch works in those areas) get a chance to explore further.  I know there's a trolley tour downtown which we're hoping to go on.  Maybe next Sunday?  Ah, we all know about plans!

Update on the frig - Day 421 (Yr 2, Day 54)

Asheville, NC

Mitch's homemade remedy of Seran wrap and tape worked well to divert the flow of water to the outside of the rig rather than through the seams into the inside.  However, the leaking seemed to have stopped and by the morning the towels were still dry and there was no sign of water on the plastic.  I noticed there was about 1/2" of ice inside the freezer, so I'm thinking that must have caused the air flow to stop or at least had a lot to do with why it was leaking.  I defrosted the freezer this morning and so far, so good.  I called an RV mobile tech but they said it would be hard to diagnose the problem if they couldn't actually see a problem; it was better if it was still leaking so at least they could see where the leak was coming from.  So I guess we'll count our blessings for now and keep a close eye on it.

Oddly, I also felt a drop of water from the ceiling under the fluorescent light in the bedroom (while I was folding laundry).  I think that's right under where the a/c unit is.  I turned the a/c off for a while and it was fine.  I think I will have Mitch go up on the roof on Sunday and clean out the vents as I'm sure it hasn't been cleaned in the 8 years of the rig's life.

We were going to invite a friend from shul over, but I decided to give her a rain check.  I explained that although it was shallow and insane of me, I felt it was too much pressure to get the house ready (scrubbing, vacuuming, etc) for guests, in light of how much work I had to do and not being sure what the water situation would be like.  Now I feel very bad.  I mean, I could care less what other people's homes look like - the messier, the more lived in!  So why do I demand perfection of myself?  I know people won't judge me if there's a little clutter laying around or if the floor isn't perfectly swept or mopped (in fact, I bet most people wouldn't even notice).  I guess that's one more character trait I need to work on.  But one thing at a time.  So far I've come a long way with needing to plan things to the minute, and I've gained about 75% patience.  Ok, maybe only 50%, but still a bit more patience than I used to have.

Although it was hard, I managed to open the day shade all the way (needed to tape it to keep it from falling.  One of these days we'll have to move the couch out so we can get to the mechanics and tighten it).  Anyway, our back window faces the river, and it's really lovely to have this great view whenever I walk into the downstairs area.  Sorry the photo isn't that great.  Hopefully it's enough to get the idea though.  Eh, maybe not - you really can't see the river with all the glare in the photo. Guess you'll have to trust me that most of the white area is actually running water.

Will this ever end? - Day 420 (Yr 2, Day 53)

Asheville, NC

We made it back (thank God, safely) to Asheville from Marion.  Once again, Critter helped us back into the spot right before a torrential downpour.

Two mechanical problems today:  first actually happened yesterday -- the horn on the truck got stuck on.  The only way to get it to stop was to remove the fuse.  We tried a few tricks we found on the internet but nothing worked so we had to take it to a mechanic (it is very dangerous to drive without a horn, especially when towing 20,000 pounds).  They checked under the hood and the dashboard but didn't find anything.  They said it was probably something within the steering column, but they would need to take it apart and we'd need a rebuild kit to they could put it back together.  There goes another grand.

Then, tonight, we discovered water leaking out from under the refrigerator.  Recall the big flood we had last year?  We think it could be the freezer compressor.  For now, we put lots of towels down on the floor, shut the water flow to the ice maker and since the pump and hoses are actually outside the rig (and the water is leaking through into the rig), we put together a make shift diversion of seran wrap and tape so the water would flow to the outside.  Praying it works for the night, until we can get a mobile tech to come out tomorrow (this, at least, should be covered by the warranty company).


At least I have a beautiful view of the river again.

Smaller quarters - Day 418 (Yr 2, Day 51)

Marion, NC

Work on the rig is well under way.  Looks like it's been gutted to get to the waste tanks; should have taken a picture.  Good news is they didn't find anything wrong with the generator; must have been a loose wire somewhere which got corrected when they moved things around.

The manager (Mike Gunter) has been very accommodating.  For one, he pushed the schedule around so that they would work on the rig Monday and Tuesday instead of Monday and Wednesday.  Also, although the tech assured us we could probably stay in our rig while they were working on it (at least at night), there is no way this could be possible:  for liability purposes, we can't stay inside the locked bays, and with all the guts out, they can't move it outside (not to mention there's no sewer system).  Mike felt bad, and not wanting to ask us to stay in a hotel overnight, or possibly for a few days, he worked something out with their sales department and got us a loaner rig, which is parked in the adjacent campground.  Ok, it's way, way smaller quarters than we're used to (a Class B - basically a van with a galley, water closet, bed and table), but we're still very grateful for the service.  All things considered, it's rather luxurious for this class of RVs.  It really is an excellent vehicle for weekend camping (a Fleetwood Pulse, if anyone's interested.  This is a 2008 unit). 

Our temporary living quarters

It was a scramble to get some stuff, though.  The bay closes at 5 and I was only told about the loaner at 4:30.  The service area lent me a golf cart to get to the bay area (I could have walked the 1/10th of a mile, but knowing I'd be carrying a lot of stuff with me, not only back to the lounge, but then to the campground, I needed a way to carry it all).  Not having much time, I just grabbed a few necessary items like clean clothes, some toiletries and a few beers (oops - forgot the chocolate!).  I decided to forego bringing pots & pans and other food, which is a good thing because there's really not a lot of room to cook or wash dishes here.  We still have some $ left on the insurance claim so we'll just eat our meals out and get reimbursed.

Someone from service gave me a ride back to the site so he could take the cart with him.  I entered the trailer and the reality that this isn't a full service hotel hit me - nothing is provided (duh!!!)  I forgot linens and pillows.  I made a mad dash back by foot to the bay (more like 1/4 mile from the site).  Sweating and out of breath, I was lucky to have found an employee entrance still open (all the bays were closed).  I entered and was even luckier to find my mechanic still there, so I ran in and grabbed what I needed.  Even luckier is that Mitch called me at that moment to tell me he just arrived "home" and was looking for me in the lounge.  I told him where to find me (mechanic even opened the bay door for him) so I could get some help bringing the bulky pillows back.

Of course, quite a few more things were forgotten to be packed in our haste besides the chocolate and extra charging cables; namely, toilet paper and towels.  Too late now to go back to the rig.  We used our used t-shirts for hand towels (and will hold off on showering for one day until I go back later to get some), and I found a neighbor outside and asked him if I could borrow a roll of tp (he literally saved our asses!)

So now it's a question of whether everything will be finished by the end of the day or if we'll be here longer.  Mitch believes it will be longer.  My gut tells me he's right, although since they scheduled work on 2 days, reason would tell me they would stick to their schedule and get it all done.

It's really too bad that there's nothing local around here because it's such a lovely campground.

UPDATE:  we will be here one more night but looks pretty good that it'll be ready tomorrow and we'll return to Asheville on Thursday morning, as originally planned.  I took a walk back to the bay to get the rest of the stuff we needed.  Looked like Santa carrying a huge bag over my shoulder!

Travel day - Day 416 (Yr 2, Day 49)

Marion, NC

Not a drive I really enjoyed.  It was only about 40 miles, but 10 of them were down a 6% grade (trucks limited to 35 mph with 3 runaway ramsp on it -- and you're not supposed to use your brakes!), and the next 10 was on a 1 lane, winding road, also with many hills.  We took it real slow, and at once point we could see about 14 cars lined up behind us - no doubt pretty pissed off that they couldn't pass us!  Too bad, though.  We do what we need to feel safe.

Anyway, the reason for our travels (I'm sure I mentioned it in previous posts) was to return to the repair facility that replaced our slide back in May.  There was other work to be done, such as replacing the gray tank and figuring out why the generator doesn't work (probably a loose wire somewhere).  We were waiting and waiting for the parts for the gray tank, and after 1-1/2 months in Raleigh, staying with the kids and in hotels, we decided enough was enough.  We knew Mitch's job would take us to Asheville (40 miles away) at the end of the summer, so we told them we'd take the rig back and return when the parts came in (recall the story -- the day we were going to pick it up, we had the blow out on the truck, which put that in the shop for another 2 months.  The RV place was kind enough to deliver the rig to us in Raleigh at no charge).

Of course, the backing up was, as always, a nightmare.  I wonder if we'll ever get the hang of this!  It's a large campground, the sites are huge, it is almost empty, so it's almost like trying to park in a parking lot.  Three people offered to help, and we finally agreed, after an hour and a half of trying ourselves, to let them.  One of them was a truck driver, but he confessed that it's much harder to guide someone in then it is to do it himself (Mitch, although he accepted the help to guide him, would not relinquish the driver's seat).


They need 2 days to work on it, and they didn't have 2 consecutive days, so the plan is Monday and Wednesday.  They told us we'd be able to stay in the rig during that time, but honestly I don't see how that's possible, especially if they're working on the tank (we won't have any place for the water from the sink or shower to go), unless they can finish that all in one day.  I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Mitch will commute the 40 miles into Asheville and I will set up shop in the customer lounge.