Life in a RV, errr, Trials and Tribulations From the Past

I am doing some internet/computer/email housekeeping. I will never clean it all up, but that is another blog post for another day. Today's cleaning found an email from August 2008 when Man and I were taking Tana to Goshen Indiana for some repairs. Life as an RVer is never boring. It can be heavenly, it can be a challenge. Here is a story of one of those CHALLENGING days!

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KKKKKK, we are in downtown Goshen, about 3 or 4 miles from the place that is gonna fix the landing gear, Lippert.

I mean, we are in DOWNTOWN Goshen, like downtown Tecumseh, only a little larger, but, dead arse downtown, no place to pull over, traffic up the ying yang.

SOOOOO, In the middle of downtown, all of a sudden, we hear this thunk thunk thunk. Man is screaming, we got a flat, we got a flat. It is obviously on my side, in the back, two tires, we know you can drive with 1 flat on dual tires. So, we keep driving, yep, we do.

Thunk thunk thunk.

So, we end up driving about 1 mile before we find a chiropractor's office to pull in, which, by the way, did not make that chiropractor happy as we were sitting in the middle of his driveway for 45 minutes.

The white section on the right of this photo is the fender in FRONT of the tires. You can see Man's hand letting air out of the tire. You can see a hunk of concrete wedged between the two tires.

It took letting ALL the air out of the outside tire and banging on the concrete with a hammer and a long breaker bar (long bar of steel or something).

Anyway, he hit that danged thing for about 30 minutes before it finally fell out. AND YES, I have it as a memento of the day.

We we able to get 35 pounds of air in the tire because we have a air compressor. You can only let this compressor run about 10 minutes at a time. So, he ran it in the drive there, and got 35 pounds, got to Lippert and ran again, and then got to the campground and ran again.

Only reason we could do this is cause we have the dual wheels, otherwise you could not run a tire that way.

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That stone still is under the back seat of Big Butt, the memory of the thunking still fresh in our minds.  As Man and I frequently say, "Owning a RV means, Ya better be handy with your hands and handy with your cash."  This time it took some hands, some tools and a lot of Man's energy to bash that concrete rock outta Big Butt's tire.

Not long after we replaced the tires, it was time, and this episode/experience convinced Man not to wait any longer.  Surprisingly, we saw no evidence of damage to the interior of those two tires.

Now, I will delete that email.  One down, thousands to go!

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19th Edition of Smile For The Camera, Gift

Twas the Night Before Christmas.  Man read it every year to our 3 sons.  It was such a special gift to his entire family.

Twenty-nine years later, the twins gave the gift back to the family by reading the same story to all of us, one reading one page, the other reading the next and both reading the last.  (And, yes, I have most of it on a video.)

L and M read to their entire family.

The gift of reading and the gift of a family tradition carried into the next generation.

This is my entry for the 19th Edition of Smile For The Camera, Gift.

The challenge is:  It is the holiday season and a time for giving. So give Smile readers the gift of sharing, sharing a family photograph. It can be a gift given or received, it can be the gift of talent, it can be the gift of having the photograph itself. The interpretation of gift is yours.

This is also my post for the Geneal-Bloggers Advent Calendar, Christmas Gifts, the challenge reads:  What were your favorite gifts, both to receive and to give? Are there specific gift-giving traditions among your family or ancestors?

Answers:  Family, memories like this one, were and still are my favorite gifts.  Gift-giving traditions starting with my three sons included books, educational toys, records, puzzles.  They were always the first to buy, and are still my favorite to give to the grandchildren.
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