Bert's Musings

We have freeze warnings for tonight. It has been rainy for what seems like days. Tuesday evening wasn't bad and we took 2 hour drive into the Smokies on Hwy 73. A lot of it runs right beside a rapidly flowing stream. It was beautiful. Last night Arnold and Sandy Herzing asked us if we wanted to got for pizza with them. Kathy initially siad yes but she has been fighting a cold and by mid-afternoon it got the best of her and she decided that we better stay home. Arnold brought us a quart of homemade saurkraut yesterday and we had it with some pork chops tonight. It was goooood! We just came back from walking the trash down the hill to the dumpster and are buttoned up for the night. Tomorrow evening we will get everything hooked up so that Saturday morning all we have to do is unhook the electric, pull in the slides and head off to Crossville. We will fuel up at Crossville, unhook the CRV and then leave the motorhome at the Pilot while we go to the bank and do some banking. After that...

Today I learned that I only saw where the tornado hit before going back aloft, travelling another 3 miles and then really doing some damage. I didn't go see the damage but I was told that 26 structures were damage. At one place cars from a repair shop/junk yard were blown onto the highway. The "retiree" who gives me rides back and forth to work Mon-Wed lives about a mile from the damage. They didn't even notice any strong winds. They did lose power for 8 hours. It was damp and cloudy here again today. The sun peeked through on occasion, but not often. High was in the mid 50's. The low tonight is supposed to be near freezing but that may be the last time we have lows in the 30's, until we get back in Indiana on Sunday.

The power to the campground went out last night. I didn't have our inverter switched to standby mode so when we lost AC power my CPAP quit working. It doesn't take long for me to wake up when that happens. It was a little after 2 AM. I got up and looked out to see that the entire campground was dark, even the few street lights that are normally on. In the distance I could see lights so I think the outage may have been just at the campground. I switched on the inverter, so that my CPAP worked, and went back to bed. Everything was back to normal when we got up. We attended the 11AM contemporary service, at the Christian Church of Loudon County. People were very friendly, the music was good (even though it wasn't bluegrass or southern gospel), and so was the message. Two young men, late teens, went to the altar after the message. We ate at the marina near the Fort Loudon dam. They had a buffet. The food was okay and the view was great. Our table was by the window on the right....

We were spoiled by the incredible weather the first part of the week. It has been rainy, on and off, the past couple of days, and it keeps cooling down. It is 52 right now, 4:30PM. It was in the 40's last night. Wednesday night there was a tornado about 10 miles from here. A couple of people suffered minor injuries. I guess it did a fair amount of damage to the little town of Greenback. We went to the Sonic for lunch and tried out several of the hot dogs that we have seen advertised continually on TV. They were OK but not as good as the ones at Sam's. After lunch we drove around the area some. We thought there would be a walking path along the river, down by the power house & dam, but if there is one we couldn't find it. We spent the afternoon lazing around watching travel shows on California. It is possible that I snoozed through most of one of them. No real plans for tomorrow. I've still got a cold and am trying to rest up over the weekend in hopes of getting rid ...

Weather was not so nice today, but still great compared to what many of you are experiencing. The high was 68 and the low last night was 63. It rained this evening and there are some thunderstorms coming in a short while. Had a somewhat frustrating day at work dealing with T&L's computer system. AARHG!!!! When you don't have access to one of their few computers and you have to use one of the network connection boxes the service is absolutely pathetic for people who work with drawings. I traded over 10 emails with their "Service Desk" people, about the poor serivce. Arnold had a Doctors appointment this afternoon so Kathy had to come pick me up. He isn't working tomorrow or Friday so she will either have to take me to work or be without a car. Almost forgot, while on our walk we noticed a couple of dogwoods just starting to bloom. Below is a photo of the old Falcon I mentioned earlier. From the way the front end sits I doubt that there is an engine in it. The t...

The weather was awesome again today. High in the low 80's, light breeze, and the humidity must have been low because it didn't feel that warm. It is supposed to rain tomorrow. Kathy cooked a lot and warmed up the RV enough so that she did run the AC for awhile to cool it down before dinner. Arnold & Sandy Herzing (Arnold is a Staley retiree who I worked with in Decatur) and Scott Jones (my boss at ARSEE) came for supper. We had an enjoyable meal and a lot of good conversation. Scott will be at the plant working tomorrow, along with me, and then he is heading back to Indy. I still plan on working here through the end of next week. Arnold took me to work and back today so that Kathy didn't have to be without a car, or leave the RV by 6:45 to get me to work by 7:00. He is taking me to work tomorrow again tomorrow but Kathy will need to pick me up since he has a Doctors appt in the PM.

The weather was awesome today. The high was 77 and the low last night was 55. It is supposed to get down to 53 tonight but hit 80 tomorrow. Kathy took me to work this morning and Arnold Herzing brought me home so that she didn't have to come back to get me. It is about an 8 mile drive over to the plant from the campground but takes about 15 minutes since you drive through the length of Lenoir City. The have already come up with more things for me to work on while I am down here. I now have to make sure they understand that when I gave them an estimate of the cost of my coming down for two weeks it was to do the work they had asked about and that it did not include the extra work they now want done. I doubt that will be a problem The old Ford car is an early 60's Falcon. The truck probably is a similar age. I forgot my phone when I went for a walk so I didn't take any photos. Now for the story about backing around in the parking lot. The lot at the place where we had the bra...

We are parked at Lazy Acres Campground in Lenoir City, TN. We arrived around 7 PM. We left home 1 PM Friday and stopped in Avon, IN for recall repairs to our refrigerator. We then headed for Evansville/Newburgh, IN. We stayed overnight in a Walmart parking lot in Newburgh. I had installed new "coach" batteries before we left home. I thought everything went well until I plugged in my CPAP machine getting ready for bed. The inverter was not working. After putzing around some, outside in the rain, I gave up on it and slept without the machine. I found out that I really do need it for a decent nights sleep. The next morning I putzed around some more with the control panel and the inverter started working. The thing still does not work the way it used to. I need to get out the books and try and reset things back the way they were. So much to learn about motorhomes. We made our 10 AM appointment at SMI Industries with no problem, it was only about ...