Fixing Howard

Throughout our trip we have fixed several things on Howard ourselves, and we have had a few repair jobs done by the dealer or a service contractor as well. I am surprised by how many things we have been able to tackle by using some common sense and researching the internet!

We originally purchased Howard from Terry Town in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We took him back there last fall before our standard one year warranty was up and they fixed a few things for us. We did purchase the extended warranty on the major items when we purchased the motorhome, and a couple of those things had some issues so we stopped in again to the dealer on our way out of Cadillac.

I can say we are not sure if the extended warranty was such a great idea since mostly they either did not have time to fix something (our stove), an item was covered but not that particular part (one of the slide-outs) or the part needed to be mailed to the manufacturer (the control for the jacks). So the jury is still out. Supposedly we can take it to any dealer who will work with our warranty company. We did contact Big Foot about our control box for the jacks which is having issues and they gave us the address to mail it to them, so we are hopeful this will be fixed! And we got our slide out fixed, but it cost us about $60.

Being in Grand Rapids for the day without our home always puts us a little out of sorts. We did get to have lunch with a friend who I used to work with in Roanoke, Jon Allen. He and his family now reside in the Grand Rapids area, so we had a nice time catching up and sharing all of our adventures with him.

We stayed the Woodchip Campground in nearby Byron Center, Michigan after we picked Howard back up.

Staff - 8 - Staff was nice enough.

Natural surroundings - 7 - Nice and quiet neighborhood.

Roominess - 8 - Normal sized lots.

Facility Fun - 7 - Playground, outdoor pool (not open until Memorial Day), 

Facility usefulness - 9 - Laundry, dog run, propane, picnic table, fire ring and grill at each site, free wifi.

Bathrooms - 8 - Nothing to complain about here.

Cleanliness - 8 - Nice and tidy.

Nearby attractions - 7 - Close to Grand Rapids.

Value - 9 - Paid $18 a night for a pull-through site with full hook-ups. Used Passport America.

Overall - 8 - Clean park, and the right price with PA discount.

Out with a Bang

We are so sorry, but this post has been removed because it is a part of our book Napkin Dreams that details our trip around America!

50 McDonalds - New Jersey

A quick stop on the road for some coffee and we checked off our New Jersey McDonalds. This stop was in Flemington, New Jersey. We love facilities with parking lots big enough to handle Howard and our toadie!

Easter at a KOA

I'll have to admit Easter is one of the hardest holidays to celebrate in Howard our RV. First there is the whole kids not going to sleep and the Easter Bunny having to hide the eggs since the wide awake kids are in the room where the hiding takes place. Secondly there is the problem of lack of room to hide said eggs in a 300 square foot home and a rather smallish yard.

Decorating eggs, making a ham dinner, hiding presents and the like all require an extra dose of creativity for us, but with God's help it all works out.

Still, we had a pretty nice Easter this year, focused on the resurrection of Christ and not letting any other silly things mentioned above get us down! We had some nice discussions as a family about the true meaning of the holiday and we always try to incorporate elements of the cultural holiday and apply them to the sacredness of the Holy Day.

The campground we stayed at, Capitol KOA in Millersville, Maryland, had some fun activities for the kids. All of the boys spent copious amounts of time on their jump pillow, burning off loads of energy in the process. Our younger set made some crafts and played some games on Saturday and then took part in the campground sponsored "Egg Scramble" early Sunday morning. They hid toys and eggs in hay on the ground and this novel approach to the egg hunt was pretty cool and no one got hurt or trampled in the process.

I am including our campground review of the Capitol KOA for those interested in staying here.

Staff - 10 - Campground managers were super friendly and you could tell they loved planning things for the kids! This contagious attitude infects the entire staff!

Natural surroundings - 9 - in the city but you can't tell. No traffic noises and lots of trees.

Roominess - 7 - Normal sized lots. 

Facility Fun - 10 - Pool open during the warm months. Playground, jumping pillow, giant chess set, ping-pong, pool table. Planned Activities.

Facility usefulness - 9 - Laundry, dog run, propane, large camp store, dump, fire ring and picnic tables at each site.

Bathrooms - 8 - Bathroom is clean and up to date, individual showers are hot. With little kids though, we are not thrilled with the KOA individual shower set-up.

Cleanliness - 8 - Clean and well maintained.

Nearby attractions - 9 - Close to Washington DC and Baltimore and Annapolis.

Value - 6 - Paid $60 a night for a pull-through graveled site with full-hook-ups. This was using our KOA value card (we also applied some points, so our actual cost was less than this).

Overall - 8 - Not cheap, but a nice in between place for Baltimore and Washington site seers. Great staff!

Cold season in Howard the RV

By Patsy

There are many pros and cons to living in an RV. When we first decided to start our adventure on the road, I thought I had researched them all, but sadly, I was mistaken. There were a few surprise issues that came along with living in an RV that I had not previously considered. One of those illusive issues was the one that deals with cold and flu season.

One of the cons of living in close proximity to each other is that if one child comes down with a cold, all the family will be sharing the cold. However, depending on how you chose to look at this, it could be a pro. After all, you will not be listening to everyone’s lungs for the next several days wondering if anyone else is going to come down with this, you just know it is going to happen and buy children’s cold medicine in bulk.

Of course buying children’s cold medicine in bulk is a con, because so many pharmacies are keeping the medicine behind the counter and you have to go up and ask for it with an ID, fingerprints and a signed promise not to use the chemicals in the medicine for anything other than its intended purpose. For our family of 7, I need quite a large amount of this stuff and it is getting a little tricky scoring enough to help all my sons. On the pro side we are so often on the move, that I rarely have to visit the same pharmacy twice. Just about the time I accumulate enough cold and cough medicine and the pharmacists have put my picture up next to their window with the caption “Don’t Sell to this Woman”, we are on our way and hitting the next pharmacy in another county.

Then there is the con of trying to get some sleep in an RV when you can hear all the coughing going on all night. You can’t just shut a door and so shut out the sounds. Since we are all within 32 feet of each other, you hear all the sounds of the congestion concerto played out throughout the wee hours of the morning. The pro on this is that one vaporizer takes care of the entire family in one fell swoop. At bed time, we give each child cold medicine, schmeer their chests with Vicks and then plug in the vaporizer. Then my husband and I look at each other trying to decide if we should give ourselves a good dose of cold medicine so we can sleep through all their noise. We chose to be good and not partake in the medication process….usually.

As I sit and write, I am listening to a symphony of coughs and sniffles that, were it put to music, would take at least 10 sheets of staff paper. It isn’t very pretty, but it is rather well orchestrated if I do say so myself. Each son wakes with the faint whisper of a dry cough. As he opens his eyes more fully, the cough turns into a throat clearing substantial noise. Finally, in an effort to clear his lungs well enough to breathe, he lets go with a cough that crescendos enough to wake his brother. As the first son quiets for a session of sniffling, the waking brother begins his morning cough. And thus the sounds of musical mucous echo through our home.

I keep telling myself that this is only going to last a few days. I tell myself that having everyone sick at the same time is better than having one sick for three days, then the next one sick for three days, and so on. This way, we will get no sleep for just a few days and then we will be done. I tell myself to remember that the boys are not feeling very good and to be as patient as I can since they are likely to be a little extra whiney. I keep telling myself that this raw feeling in the back of my throat has NOTHING to do with the illness running through our family. I keep telling myself that I am the mom and moms do not get sick days. I keep telling myself these things, but I am having a very….cough, cough…hard time….cough, hack….believing the things…sniffle, sneeze, cough….that I say. Cough, choke…I think I’m a liar.

Check out lots more posts like these at Patsy's blog French Fries Under the Seat!

Away in an RV

Our little family celebrated the birth of Christ while still parked in Macon. After attending a Christmas Eve service at a local church, our night was pretty typical, with four out of five boys asleep by midnight. The trouble was that Tanner was still up and way too excited to go to sleep. The second part of this trouble was his bed is right by the stockings and Christmas tree, so needless to say we had a long night in store for us!! This is one of the roughest parts of living in the RV.

Christmas morning started early with a flurry of excited activity. Everyone was pretty happy with their gifts and there was enough new inside toys that they found plenty to do on a rainy day, which gave dad and mom a chance to rest a little.

Another issue with living in Howard is cooking a huge meal. While I am sure we could have done it with our two small ovens and the crockpot, we just did not feel like we wanted to do all that cooking and find spaces to place the food in the middle of all the packages, boxes, toys, wrapping paper and boys bouncing off the walls!

So we loaded up the mini-van and the Martin clan headed to the Golden Corral. To our surprise we were joined by a large number of other folks who must not have wanted to bother with cooking themselves. We enjoyed having our choice in foods, and we really liked the chocolate fountain. We enjoyed less the swarms of roaming toddlers and sweet potato souffle fighters. It felt like Santa's workshop on Christmas Eve. Both exciting and chaotic.

After lunch we returned home to play some new Wii games, pop some popcorn and watch Kung Fu Panda 2. Eventually Patsy and I retired to our room to watch our lovable Bears get scored by the Packers, boo hoo. In all honesty I think we will look back on this and last Christmas on the road with great fondness, but are looking forward to Christmas next year in a stick and brick home.

Howard's little friend

By Patsy 

 

This post has been removved because it is now part of our book on amazon! you can purchase it at this link -
http://www.amazon.com/Napkin-Dreams-ebook/dp/B00AZR24LG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358190007&sr=8-1&keywords=napkin+dreams

http://www.amazon.com/Napkin-Dreams-ebook/dp/B00AZR24LG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358190007&sr=8-1&keywords=napkin+dreams

Hephzibah Children's Home

No longer will they call you Deserted, 

   or name your land Desolate. 

But you will be called Hephzibah,

   and your land Beulah; 

for the LORD will take delight in you, 

   and your land will be married.

Isaiah 62:4

One of the goals of our trip was to find some ministry outside of being a pastor's family. Jesus certainly did not limit the ministry he did to inside a church (Ok a synagogue)! We really prayed that God would open some doors for us in this regard.

The door opened for us to stay at Hephzibah Children's Home for most of the month of December. There is a small RV Park with full hook-ups here at Hephzibah for people who come here and volunteer at the home.

Hephzibah has been serving the needs of children since 1900. For more than a century, the Home has been a stable influence on hundreds of children and young people in need of out-of-home care. Hephzibah is located on a beautiful piece of property, around 200 acres in Macon, Georgia. The mission of Hephzibah Children's Home is to provide a Christ-centered, safe and wholesome environment for children and young people in crisis.

So far we have been at the Home for almost a week and we have picked up trash, helped a new mother move to a new room, cleaned an apartment, set up a room for a banquet, changed light bulbs on very tall chandeliers. and other assorted tasks. We also met some new friends who have been very kind in making us feel welcomed here at Hephzibah! We have had some free time to play football and let the kids ride their bikes and all the kids love getting to ride around on the golf carts!!

This works our really well for us in Howard as well, so we can set up a tree and all our Christmas lights and we do not have to move the rig and take it all down each time we move to another place.

Howard Goes to Roanoke

By Patsy

This post can now be found as part of our new book Napkin Dreams, which can be purchased on Amazon.com

 

Santa Claus, Indiana

What would be the perfect time to visit Santa Claus, Indiana? One would think around Christmas time, but one might be wrong in that assumption. A couple of days after Thanksgiving we stopped in the little tiny town of Santa Claus and found the town pretty quiet on a Saturday afternoon!

The campground in town was closed for the season, so we could not stay there, which meant we could not stay to see the light show at night. The theme park Holiday World was closed for the winter and so was a local eatery called Frostys. Hmmm, maybe this town should have had a Labor Day theme!

We did stop by Santa's Candy Castle, which was open for business and our main reason for swinging by this oddly named burg. Even here we were a bit disappointed by what was mostly a store with five dollar hot chocolates and a chance to write Santa at seven dollars a pop! I guess Charlie Brown was right when he said Christmas was becoming too commercialized!

They do have some fun bubble gum machines inside where for a quarter you can watch your bubble gum do all sorts of fun twists and turns and bounces and lifts before you eventually get it for some chewing delight. This was fun, but our favorite thing in Santa Claus was the chainsaw artist who was carving a St. Nick out of a hunk of wood in the parking lot of the Candy Castle! We enjoyed watching him in his element and perusing his completed works. Almost wanted to buy one, but then where would we put it in Howard!

So from our perspective, Santa Claus, Indiana may be a better place to visit in the summer! At least we did not drive very far out of our way and we had a little fun stopping in this town.

 

50 McDonalds - Kentucky

Our Kentucky stop at McDonalds was at a Golden Arches in Owensboro. The kids got trunk or treating buckets and a nice elderly employee stopped and talked to us for quite awhile about our traveling across America. It seems almost three or four times a week we talk to someone about our adventures on the road.  We have certainly fulfilled one of our goals in meeting new friends along the way.

Campground Review - Wright's Orchard Campground

We stayed at the Wright's Orchard Campground in Altoona prior to visiting the Curve just outside of town.

Staff - 7 - Employee who checked us in was helpful and helped us with a problem with the washing machine. No one around after 5 pm.

Nearby attractions - 8 - Right on outskirts of Altoona. 

Eat'nPark cookies

Natural surroundings - 7 - On a pretty big street but back in the woods so you do not hear or notice traffic. Lots of trees.

Value - 7 - We paid $31 a night for a back-in gravel site.

Bathrooms - 7 - Bathrooms are older but clean. Bathrooms were not heated.

Roominess - 8 - Site was a little short for our rig and toadie, but it was wide enough. Campground was not crowded this time of year.

Facility fun - 1 - Not much to do here. There is a model train set-up in the office, but it was closed and locked up.

Cleanliness - 7 -  Average park in terms of cleanliness.

Facility usefulness - 7 - Dump station, fire rings, laundry, picnic tables. 

Overall - 7 - Convenient stay if you are ever near Altoona.

Campground Review - Toledo KOA

We stayed at the Toledo KOA during our visit

Nearby attractions - 7 - Close to Toledo and within a couple of hours to Detroit and Cleveland.

Staff - 8 - One lady we spoke to was exceptional, another young man was cordial.

Natural surroundings - 7 - Plenty of trees and in the country. Gravel roads were in rough shape because of the rain.

Value - 6 - We paid $36 a night for a back-in gravel site with full hook-ups.

Bathrooms - 7 - Large, but showers were dirty and toilets did not flush very well.

Roominess - 7 - Normal sized lots.

Facility fun - 8 - Playground, pool, mini-putt, game-room.

Cleanliness - 6 -  A little run down from what I normally expect for a KOA.

Facility usefulness - 8 - Dump station, fire rings, laundry, camp store, exchange library, propane.

Overall - 7 - Not quite what we have come to expect from KOA.

50 McDonalds - Indiana

We visited our 21st State McDonalds in the town of Warren, Indiana. This was a convenient stop because it was just off of Interstate 69 between Indianapolis and Fort Wayne. We had actually stopped at one earlier but could not find a parking space for Howard so we drove on in our relentless pursuit of fast food goodness with spacious truck parking. Our quest was not in vain!!

Campground review - Wolf Creek State Park

Wolf Creek State Park was our temporary home while we prepared for our conference in Mattoon, Illinois.

Nearby attractions - 7 - Within 90 minutes of Decatur, Terre Haute, Springfield, Bloomington, Peoria, and Champaign.

Staff - 8 - Camp hosts were very friendly couple.

Natural surroundings - 9 - State Park with lots of tree and on lake. Saw lots of ruby-throated hummingbirds.

Howard feels lonely with no other RVs around.

Value - 8 - We paid $20 a night for a back-in gravel site with electric only.

Bathrooms - 6 - State Park bathrooms with decent showers, no soap at sinks and a few moths and spiders.

Roominess - 8 - Pretty big lots, park was basically empty, with campers far and few between.

Facility fun - 8 - Playground, beach (closed after Labor Day), hiking trails, boat dock.

Cleanliness - 8 - Very clean and tidy.

Facility usefulness - 4 - Dump station.

Overall - 8 - Pretty state parks very quiet after the summer days are gone.

John Ball Zoo

So as we waited for some minor warranty to be done on Howard the RV in the tourist destination of Grand Rapids, Michigan, what is a family of seven to do without their home?? We bought the RV in Grand Rapids, but did not think through a situation like this.

We had been to several beaches over the past week, and we did want to pack a bunch of stuff in our van, so we looked for interesting options in Grand Rapids.We lucked out when I discovered the local zoo, John Ball Zoological Gardens, was on our reciprocal list! So we were in for a fun and free day! The John Ball Zoo is small, but just the right size for us and the weather was nice with a decent amount of clouds but no rain.

Our favorite exhibits were the parakeet (there were a ton of them) where we got to feed the little birdies and several of them landed on us, the baboon who was in a playful mood and the petting zoo where a goat kept trying to eat my zoo map and some pigs kept trying to eat Patsy's shoelaces.

We always learn some new animal facts with each zoo we visit. On this one we learned that elephants can't jump, kangaroos grow to be over six feet tall, and wallabys nurse their young even after they leave the pouch.