Laundry and Internet!

Hooray! The laundromat here in Georgia has fast Wi-Fi. This makes up for the fact that our phones have, at best, crappy service and spotty internet connection. Guess Fairburn is a bit off of the satellite purview..

Met up with Mark Schaeffer and his family, quite a bit of fun there. Great chinese food from a Greek restaurant and a trip to REI was our first visit. Hopefully more to come, they have tickets for the faire now and we hope to see them out!

Going through a bit of a "what the hell should I be doing now" phase. Working on an invention idea for ren faires, need a prototype designed. Uploading music videos I've recorded in the RV with hopes of getting some music out there. Intro video link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09coxlsmAro&feature=related

So let's see what happens with this :)

Still working out through the Insanity program with Jimmy, Cameron, Marge, Amanda and whoever else drops by. It's grueling but we're getting in good shape. Not even sore anymore (entirely....) but it absolutely destroys our calves. It's a lot of jumping plyometrics and cardio, which is great for us really. Especially Amanda who is gearing up for her first run of Sirena at Bristol in July! Excited for her and for the expansion of TSP.

So not a ton to report from Georgia yet but a lot of irons in the fire and hopefully something will materialize soon.

Oh yeah! Forgot The Alamo :p

Get it?
We stopped at the Alamo as a side trip to our excursion. Casey and Jimmy's idea.

So glad we did! Great piece of American history and gorgeous to boot. Great little tourist trap area with fun shops. Even the one with color-changing ink in the sun! Love that one.

I highly recommend it. I had no idea it happened on my birthday and that Davy Crockett met his end there. Learn something new every day if you're not careful!

The long road here....

Wow, so we are finally in Fairburn Georgia at our campsite but what a trip to get here.

Allow me to elaborate:

We began with a wonderful trip and five day vacation to Sedona. Saw the family including my lovely Nana and her boyfriend Bernie. After the stay, we drove back to Apache Junction to get started on the schlep to Georgia.

First problem, Appa did not start up. Two months unattended in the Arizona sun apparently for a happy RV does not make. We kept trying and eventually called AAA to get a guy out there. An hour later he arrives butI says the engine is just flooded from our attempts to start it. Everything works fine now, its just flooded. So we wait and watch Dr Who with Casey and jimmy.  We began trying to start the engine at 5, finally get it to start by pumping the bejesus out of the gas at 10pm. Wow.

So we get just out of town and stop for the night. Next day we set out and find a new problem, Appa overheats easily now. After stopping for gas, he won't start again for a couple hours. Yikes. So we start to work around that by not stopping the engine to gas up.

Next problem. In one of our bejesus -pumpings to get the engine revving, Amanda steps too hard and the cable connecting the gas pedal to the bit that lets the gas in snaps! We call AAA and they send a towing guy out. The nearest shop is 144 miles away. AAA will cover the first 100 miles but the next 44 have to come out of pocket....crap.

Fortunately the AAA guy says "I think I can fix this" and does with some heavy gauge wire! Some creative tying and wrapping and we were back in the road!

The next day we realized we wanted to be in Georgia sooner than we were planning. Amanda started just trucking it past jimmy and Casey and I took a couple hour nap at 3am. Woke up at 6:30 with a coffee-addled Amanda in desperate need of some rest. I took over and drove us the rest of the way and into our camp!!

Now we just need to check our engine regularly, turn it over every once in a while and take good care of our baby.

Sooo much more I could write but I don't want to be too verbose and my thumbs are mad. Typing on my phone .....our next generation will have some messed-up thumbs!

Sedona pictures!

Full account of trip to Georgia soon, but for now pics from our five day vacation in wonderful Sedona!

Sedona vacation!

On vacation in Sedona with the family, Casey, Jimmy and Amanda. Even my grandmother (Nana) is here with her boyfriend Bernie.

Bit of a hectic trip but transition is always stressful and now with such a large group here, coordinating activities will be certainly fun. Went out to dinner at the Red Planet Diner, fun memories there. Hoping to do some serious hiking while we are here. And swimming, sunbathing and hottubbing!

But there's a new computer waiting for me in my folk's room, so bye bye 5-year-old MacBook, you've served me well and will serve your new master well also. Amazed it's still trucking like this, I must have taken good care of this one.

Off for some breakfast and computering! New post from new computer soon :)

Black eyes and dinner for 12!

Went to an awesome trampoline-covered fun place for Marges birthday on Monday. Tons of fun but a kid in our group and I had a collision that resulted in a black eye for yours truly. Hurt worse than it looked at first, now it looks worse than it feels.

By the way, who's idea was it to candy-coat Advil anyway? I find myself licking the damned things before taking them like "oooh,  I deserve a treat...."

Anywhooo, now relaxing at Breck and Sharon's after cooking an Asian meal for the family. Cousins, aunts, cousins once removed, you name it. A group of about twelve all together and it worked great! I taught everyone to make spring rolls and Amanda made a great stir fry with rice. What a team!

Now starting to see the end of Arizona in sight. About time to start looking ahead to the next adventure, Georgia!

Not a lot to report on the seelie players front unfortunately. Materials sent out and waiting for progress on gig leads. Move soon hopefully...

Picture of the black eye below .

First hike!

Finally went hiking! Big thanks to Tony Miller, or Shamus the insultor, for the wonderful tour guiding. Talked about superpowers, politics and more then closed with great Mexican food!

Pictures below....

Another day, another Village Inn.....

Yeah, so the video's a bit smushed but you know what? It took a lot less time to upload, so there!

Working on music while in the RV, I've started doing a once-weekly music jam and Amanda is coming to the next one! Can't wait :)

Helped Casey make about a bazillion deviled eggs for the RESCU Rally (RESCU is a group that works like a pseudo-insurance company for rennies, basically financial assistance for financially downtrodden rennies...)
The rally was awesome and we had a blast, we even gambled a bit (blackjack, who knew you were so addictive?)
Casey's deviled eggs won the salad portion of the food competition, so yay. We received as a thank you (you guessed it) a plate of deviled eggs....our favorite food on the planet!

Amanda won a really nice bamboo flute from the silent auction and is learning to play it when she has the time.

Whelp, laundry's done and we're taking up our server's section. Time to watch more West Wing and snuggle. Rough life right?

MRS. LANDINGHAAAAAAAAAAAM! YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN!!!!

Anyone watching West Wing will get that. Any not, start watching The West Wing.

Loving our new life!

Got a pizza made in the ovens maiden lighting! Tasted great and watched a Japanese comedy/melodrama while eating. Memories came flooding back, I forgot how this show chokes me up. Fortunately Amanda felt the same.

Got a free mattress today, Cameron is upgrading. So big gain there. Now we aren't sleeping on tetrised together pillows. Now walking over to a music jam night with my guitar.

Things are really starting to settle into a new lifestyle. I'm always ready for an adventure cause its there, ready or not!

Oh, and look what was strolling through our backyard today....

Just for the fun of it....

Cooking!

Totally went to an amazing bulk and fresh produce store yesterday. We have veggies and food for miles. This place is our new mecca: The Good Apple.

Thank you Cary and Jimmy for making this possible!

Now I can cook

And cook I shall

Been a busy week!

Also, Amanda hit culinary gold last night. We were enjoying some barbeque ribs at Uncle Breck and Aunt Sharon's last night when Amanda suggested adding cinnamon to our ribs out of the blue. It was actually quite delicious, I'm guessing this was since it was a molasses-based BBQ sauce. The whole meal was splendid and we are now refreshed, showered and laundried! Ah the life of dirty hippies on the road...

So grocery shopping today and developing our own cardio workout due to the absence of a certain Jimmy Freer (snowboarding today...lucky bastard)

So as you can see, life has settled down a bit into more of a rhythm and we are finding that while every day is an adventure, it often exhausts us too much to post about it!

Happy V-Day

Jimmy and Casey are hosting a Doctor themed party tonight. We, lacking costumes, will simply be bringing some Doctor-themed booze...

Last night hung out with Amanda's friend, John Keating. Wonderful fellow and we had a great time. Went out to a restaurant where you order and pay for your food and then they give it to you...raw.
 You then take your food (in our case raw chicken in ziplocs) out to the huge grill out back and cook your own sandwich. It was awesome! Definitely want to go back and grill up my own dinner while playing sand volleyball (they have two courts) or billards upstairs in their "lounge."

Tomorrow is "Recovery and Laundry Day." Lots of wet clothes to clean and gotta freshen up our garb before another weekend of faire. No fungus-laced bodysuits for this faire! I think the next Kickstarter that needs to happen is "buy the Fantastikals a second bodysuit." It'll probably get funded in 3 hours....by Fantastikals...

First Day!!!

Also, Whitney Houston died today apparently. That's a shame...

Now we're gonna eat quite a bit (mostly meat) and continue to curse James Freer for his strenuous, but ever so effective, workout regime. Yesterday's 20 solid minutes of 8 pushups (Amanda did Mountain Climbers instead for a more cardio workout), 12 lunges, 8 let-me-ups (pull ups from a situp position, requires benches) really kicked our collective asses. But we're feeling results already and this beats the hell out of not working out. Even if it REALLY doesn't feel like it right now.

Settling in

Well, jimmy and Casey have arrived! They are actually three doors down from us! We had drinks last night and I am starting a character for an RPG night!

In other news, I re-repaired the leak on the roof and we are working diligently on a replacement refrigerator. Amanda made a pretty garland for herself, picture below.

Jimmy is starting us on a new workout regime, pretty intense. Seven and a half minute sessions of each exercise. We do them in a pyramid ladder: do one, rest one, do two, rest two and up and then at your peak, go back down the pyramid! Upper body is SORE and more to come tomorrow...

Overall we are acclimating well. Even got our AC on (can you believe that?) and making sure we stay sunscreened and protected.

Video update soon with next coffee-shop post!

Getting settled in

All is going well, despite the world's best efforts sometimes :)

We are now better at knowing Appa inside and out. We learn new things every day and its very exciting! Even set up some instruments and made a bit of music (learned Long Train Running and Mrs. Robinson for starters). Hopefully we can jam with some neighbors.

Cooking even works great. Been making some great dishes and practicing Japanese during meal times.

Hardest part is to come to grips that each day is ours to plan. We get tons done but it still feels like a vacation. We worked out twice today and it was awesome! Even talked to the entertainment director and she is very interested in TSP. Gonna meet with her after President's Day, fingers crossed on that one.

Here's a pic of the interior :)

First post in Arizona!

The trip was long and arduous but we are here:

Learned many many things about RVs today (like how to know your fridge is broken or when/where to dispose of your drainage tanks...)

Got our Faire ids, sunglasses and sunscreen. Met our neighbors who seem nice and enjoyed some video games and wine in the RV for our first night!

The Sirena Seelie Player's Kickstarter was great and now we get to look forward to finding new and more GIGS!

Saw some friends from Wisconsin, people we know from Bristol and I even got a chance to connect with the glassblowing family here at AZ that I knew years ago.

Time to go hiking and get back to setting ourselves up. Hard to know what to do with the free time, feels like there's a million things to do but also there's more than enough time to do them in. So it's all good.

From the road

Taking a break lying in bed while Amanda has a driving shift. Been going for quite a while now. We've made a diagonal swath across Missouri and are now biting in to Oklahoma. Not sure when we are going to finish for the night but we have a lot of driving ahead of us and we both want to sort of power through it while we have the energy (thank you late night coffee).
Refueled and got a bunch of groceries at home in edwardsville today. Also got our water tank set with some for the road. Now we don't need a hotel!

Munchkin has acclimated nicely and is now exploring the vehicle in full motion, even jumping up onto the dashboard to see what was going on. Brave little girl! She is now the proud owner of an engraved reflective collar with a hand made red bowtie on it! Thanks to mom for the craftsmanship :)

Highlight of the day was Amanda creating a bit of a workout routine in the RV. My favorite was running in place because looking out the windshield, it felt like we were running really really fast.

Many more miles to go but each one brings us closer to our destination! Onwards!

Made it to Edwardsville!

In other news, turns out I didn't do a good job patching up the roof. We were barely 10 minutes out of Oostburg before we heard this *fwap fwap* sound coming from the roof. Suddenly, the patch tape detached, flipped over and smacked my driver's windshield, much to our surprise...

Oy vey!

So yesterday was such a clusterf**k and I was so exhausted that I collapsed after dinner and didn't write a post.
Long story short:

Subletter fell through. Trying to find another
Appa is almost fully loaded, finishing this morning
Storage pod on roof fits perfectly
Leak on roof repaired?
Money is tight (shocking right?)
Heading to St Louis today to see the folks
Munchkin is handling this all brilliantly
The Seelie Players rock

So the adventure begins today and I just want to thank Keaton, Cher, Amanda, Walt, Diane and my parents for helping us get to this point and push beyond!

More detailed report to come!