Anther AKC trial

Last week I went up to Concord , NC for an AKC agility trial.  I was hoping to have the AC fixed in my RV before going.  Back in July it seemed like the dash board AC wasn't working. It was really hot on the way home from Perry Ga. My thermometer said it as 87 degrees in there. I should have stopped and turned on the generator and then turned on the over head AC. But I didn't.  Just suffered it out. I had fans blowing on me and the dogs.  When I got home I called the good RV place but the couldn't see my RV until August 17th, which was over a month away. Ack!!  A couple of weeks later, I noticed that I had a leak under the passenger side of the dash board. Leaks in RVs is something to always avoid.  So I called this other place that can service truck engines and they said they could get me in Monday.  I dropped the RV off on Monday morning 8:30am.   Tuesday came and I decided to call them. They said they were running die through the system to check for leaks and they would call me back. Wednesday came and went. Thursday I called and left a message.  Friday I called them again. They called me back but I was busy and couldn't answer the phone. They left a message.  I listened to the message and it said that the compressor was cracked and so was the heater coil. They were getting prices for those items and will call me back with the price.  Those two items are very expensive. I was guessing 2000.00.  Then they called me back and said that the condenser hose was clogged and that's why it drainaged into the RV.  That they couldn't really get to the hose because its up inside the HVAC box and they wanted to take the HVAC box off and clean the hose out. But  my RV is very old and the box is plastic. He was worried it was break went it took if off, since is was already cracked. He was going to find a new box before he took the old one off. The first place he called didn't have any and he would call Monday.  On Saturday, I drove by their place. I had some questions. Like why they had two totally different scenarios of what was wrong with the RV??   But they aren't open on Saturdays. I notice the steps were out on the RV. I decided to put them back in. Its not a big deal that they were out but why expose them to rain when you don't have to. So I opened the door and noticed the door hinge was broken. Ugh!! The door wont stay closed now unless you dead bolted the door.  Great. You cant have an RV door that wont stay closed. Now Im pissed.  So Monday I go by and  he said I gave him the RV that way. Oh yea, I always drive around with a door that wont stay shut. That sounds safe huh??   I tried to find a replacement door handle/lock thing but couldn't .  He couldn't either so he  ordered one from somewhere.  I told him I needed the RV by Wednesday. He said no problem. Guess what?  The RV wasnt ready by Wednesday. They didn't unclog the hose and the door hinge wouldn't be in until Wednesday afternoon , by UPS..  So I waited with my dogs for the handle to come and  for him to fix it. That's another how disaster story that Im not going into. 
We are finally on our way to the trial, 4 hours later start time. Now thunderstorms are all around and I was missing the B-match.  I had to stop for gas. There were no easy  to get into gas stations by his garage. So I drove down the  highway a bit and stopped at a Flying J gas station. If you are a Good Sam RV club member, it gives you a 3cent discount on gas at Flying J.  So gas there was right at 2.00 a gallon. Whoohoo. But now it was pouring down rain, lightening  and windy.   The other good thing about using the Flying J was it let me fill my tank all the way up. Usually the pumps turn off at 75.00  But not this time. Whoohooo.  I pull up to the tank and I open my side window to make sure Im close enough to the pump. When I did that a ton of water poured off the RV and right into the window and down onto the leveler controls. Ugh!!  Im sure that wasn't good for them but they worked when I got to the trial.  So after filling up , I sat in the parking lot for about 30 minutes for the storm to pass.

(Ill explain the blue tape on the windshield.  Its how I line up my RV with the lines on the road. You sit differently in and RV then a car. You aren't as far to the left as you are in a car so its hard to judge how close to the center line you are. So I have two pieces of tape on my windshield. If Im lined up with the one on the left, then I know Im as close to the center line as I can get without going over. And if Im lined up with the tape on the right, then Im as close to the edge of the road as I can get without going off or hitting mailboxes.  It really helps if you are on a very narrow road)

The rest of the trip was fine. I got to the trial around 7pm. There was a guy managing the RV parking. I told him I wanted to park over in the grass field area. He said they only put four wagons out there . (each wagon lets 4 RV's hook up. Sometimes only  two 50 amp Rv's. )  He said the spots could already be full but I could go look. He said it would be easier just to park close , here on the parking lot. So that's what I did. I backed into a spot, got my front wheels up on levelers. Seemed level to me and hooked up my electric.  Then I took my dogs for a walk. I walked over to the field. There were several 50 amp RV spots out there. I decided to move my RV. I really didn't want to be on that black asphalt .  That's all I need, to burn my dogs feet all weekend. And then if they need to go out in the middle of the night, I have to walk a distance to find grass. SO yup, I put in my slide, undid my levelers and disconnect my electric.  I moved to the field. It was kind of a lot of work but since I was going to be there for several days, might as well have a good spot.

 

So that is my RV, the one with the head lights.  You cant really see it but the wagon, with the electoral stuff, is in-between those other two 5th wheelers.  My friend, who was also suppose to come that night but didn't come until the next morning, hooked up in front of me. She had to ask those people to move their car.  The only bad thing about being in that spot , was the  people kept driving over the RV electrical cords with their cars. Ugh!!  They aren't made to be run over and I kept worrying they were going to break. They aren't cheap either.  SO instead of driving around to get to their RV, they just drove between the RV's and over the cords.  My friends electrical went out during the night. It turned out her cord was bad. I wonder if it was from them running over them with their cars. Next time, Im putting my big orange cones out, so people have to drive around.

The next day was the trial. We did FAST first. Miley had kind of a bad run. She just kept jumping weird. She would have gotten the Send Bonus but she dropped both bars in the send. Ugh!

Java run was ok. But I didn't understand the judges call. First off, Java broke her stay. So I called her back to me , she hadn't taken any obstacles. The judge said I couldn't do that, that was training in the ring and even though I can train a zillion teeters in FAST, you cant train a startline. Ugh.  (Ok, not just because this made me made. This other person goes out there and puts her dog in front of  one of the #1 jumps. She leads out and releases the dog. The dog doesn't go and starts sniffing the ground. Then she goes to him and starts clapping her hands to get his attention, he keeps sniffing . She leads out and keeps calling him, he keeps sniffing.  She steps in towards him again and calls him and claps, he takes the first jump. OK, that's training in the ring, IMO. Why is that acceptable but not what I did acceptable. Just wondering if someone had an opinion on why)
Anyway, Java took the dogwalk, the #3 tunnel and the #8 jump and the judge called fault. I have no idea why. I wasn't doing the send, so I don't understand why she said "fault" , like I did the send. Ugh, anyway I had her do the teeter and she stopped on the first time, so I ran out of the ring and rewarded.

Next up was Master Standard

Java had a nice run except we got the wrong tunnel entrance both times. Ugh!!  Nice teeter though.



Im not sure why she missed the first one.

Miley missed the weave pole entry and then stressed.



Next was JWW. This was a tough course.

I have no idea why Java cut behind me after the weaves. I got her  head as she is coming out, I think I have her and I turn to see where Im going and then she cuts behind me.  Then this course ate dogs up. going down that line to the #14 jump, most dogs took the tunnel.  Miley did good until the #14. I really thought I had her  and then at the last second, she took the tunnel.

Friday we did T2B first.

Java was kind of crazy and missed some jumps but had a nice teeter. 



Miley did good, only one dropped bar.  The weird thing was she turned into the blue curtain when coming out of the tunnel. I was calling her name, so Im not sure why she did that.



Next was Master standard.

 Once again, so close with Java.  Got the wrong tunnel entrance at #11.  I really wanted to be  on the right side so I had a better chance of getting to the far side of the dogwalk, with a running dW.  I guess it messed up the tunnel thing. Ugh.  Many dogs went off course at the #20 tunnel. Many dogs went into the wrong end or they messed the entrance and went around the back of the tunnel.



Poor Miley, she had table trouble on this run.  I kept debating if I should leave the ring but in the end decided not to.



Then Jumpers. By this time I was getting frustrated with the wrong tunnel entrance thing. So I wanted to make sure she got the right one this time.

Java Qed!!  And got her MXJ title. She took 3rd place. There were freaking fast dogs here. She was 5.9 yps.



Miley had a terrible run. She was just freaking crazy. Just running around the ring taking jumps. We finally left.

The next day JWW was first. The rings were running way ahead of the timeline. Its a good think I went over and hour early.  I got there and about 5 minutes later, we were walking the ring. Then I took Java outside to warm up and when I got down to the ring (she was the 24th dog in), it was2 dogs until we were up. Ack!!

I had planned to front cross between 7 and 8 and then between 9 and 10.  I didn't make the second one.  But we managed to Q again. Took 3rd again with 6.6 yps.  We were only a second behind this really fast sheltie.



Miley Qed too!!!

Java Qed and took 1st place. I was given a gift with the teeter. I really thought she had called the teeter.



Poor Miley stressed gain in the ring but not at the table. Im not sure what is going on with her.

I stayed until the end to watch my friends runs and then drove home. The ride home was uneventful. Yay11

To New Hampshire, starting with the train

So a couple of weeks ago I took the train, with my mom, to New Hampshire. Well actually we took it to Boston and then took a rental car the rest of the way.

This all started when we were kids and would go to visit my grandparents at Lake Winnipesaukee.   I take that back, it really started when my mom was a kid. My mom and her parents came to America when my mom was 10 years old. They came from Germany and didn't speak much English. So my grandparents worked for a couple that had a lot of money. My grandfather fixed the cars and took care of the grounds. My grandmother was the house keeper and took care of the kids. The family they worked for had a house on Lake Winnipesaukee on Bear Island.  You could only get to this island by boat.

(this is Bear Island, that Bear didn't use to be there)

(Because they only way to get to the island was by boat, the mail is delivered by boat too. My mom can remember running down to meet the mail boat)

 

My mom and my grandparents  would take a little fold boat and go to bear island. They would bring a tent and camp out. They also brought their cat with them. My mom said they would take the leash off the cat and off she would go. But as soon as they started packing up, the cat would show up, just in time to go home.

Eventually my grandparents learned to speak English and got other jobs. My grandfather worked for PanAm and my grandmother worked at a bank. They remained very good friends with the couple they worked for. That couple decided to buy another house on lake W.  but this time it would be accessible by car. So the bought a small summer house on Governor's Island. It was a small log cabin with two bedrooms and one bathroom.  The couple wanted the lot but not really the house. They wanted to build a large house that was a year round place. The lot with the cabin was on it, was very large. So my grandparents asked if they would divide the lot in half and let my grandparents buy the lot with the cabin. So that's what they did.

 

Here was the log cabin.

 

That door on the bottom left was added when I was already in college.  My grandfather was making a basement and they were trying to see if they could live there in the winter. They only made it through one winter, it was to cold for them.

I took this the year I graduated from college. They first thing I bought when I graduated was a dog. Even before I bought a new car. LOL  Anyway, this was the fire place in the cabin.

 

What a cute puppy!!

 

We went by the property while we were up there, this year. My grandparents had to sell the cabin because they reassessed the properties and the taxes were now more  then what they made on their retirement salary. The people who bought it, just wanted the lot. They bulldozed the house. Here is what it looks like now.

 

 

This was their friends house , that they bought the cabin lot from. Their house still looks the same except for the buildings added on the back there.  But the big house, looks just like it did when we were kids.

 

This was the house on the other side of my grandparents. They had a girl the same age as me and we played and hung out together. I don't know what her family did but they were rich. Their house looks the same.

 

One year, their daughter and I were outside, probably swimming. He her dad was landing his new helicopter.  The helicopter had pontoons on the legs, to land on water.  Well when the pontoons hit the water, the water is freezing cold, they started to deflate. Her dad took his pants off and got out of the helicopter.  I think he was trying to prevent it from sinking.  It didn't sink. Tiffany and I were just laughing and Im sure he didn't think it was to funny. The next year when we went to the lake , the helicopter had a platform.

 

I just posted this so you could see the helicopter. I was much younger when he first brought it to the lake.

 

So now you have some history. We went to the lake every summer for 2 weeks, that I could remember. We had lots of good memories of the lake. So my sister decided to buy a house on Lake W. and asked me to come up for my birthday. (We always went to the lake around  my birthday).  I decided to ask my mom to go with me since she had lots of memories there too. I knew she wouldn't fly, so the first plan was to drive. But after thinking about driving 20 hours, I didn't think I could do it. So we decided to take the train.

The train took about 24 hours. The first half of the ride was had a "roomette". It has two small chairs and fold down into a bed and another bed on top that pulls down. The toilet is right in the room too.

 

 

Here is the room and my suitcase is sitting on the toilet.

 

 

I know you want to see the toilet. That is the sink above, you pull it down to use it.

 

 

This is a picture of me lying in my bed. You are looking at my feet. You can touch both sides of the walls with your hands.

 

 

This was the aisle way to the room. You felt like you were drunk when walking in the hallway. It swayed a lot.

 

 

This was the dinning car. The meals were very good . I had steak  Coming home the ride during dinner was rough but going up it was fine.

So we left Savannah at 8pm and we were suppose to change trains in New York at 1pm. But our train was running really late and the train guy (who takes care of you in the roomette section)  felt we were going to miss our train in New York. So in Washington DC, he called the conductor of the other train, that was now in Washington DC at the same time as us. And asked if we could switch trains now. He said we could. Lucky we didn't check our bags and had them with us. You didn't have much time and got off and went over to the other platform and got on the other train. Of course I get off the train and start walking and I can feel I must have started my period. Ugh, that explains my migraine at 3am. . There were no bathrooms , that I could see, and we didn't really have time to stop. We got on the other train. You cant use the bathrooms until the train starts moving. we only sat there about 2 minutes and the train started. So I got to the bathroom ASAP.  Oh the joy of being a women. Good think I had every thing I needed. You couldn't really buy anything on the train.

Now we  stayed on this train all the way to Boston. We got to Boston a 6:30pm.  Then took a taxi to the airport to get the rental car. There is a rental car place at one of the train stations in Boston, but they closed at 4:30pm on Sundays.   So we got our rental car and were on the way to New Hampshire.

Did you know at McDonalds you can get a lobster sandwich?

And they tasted pretty good. Not as good as the hot lobster sandwich I had later in the week but not bad at all. And 1/2 the price too.

We pulled up to my sisters at 10pm that night. I was beat and a little grouchy.  LOL

More on the trip tomorrow.

Weekend Visit with Stephanie

 

This weekend I went down to Myrtle Beach to see Stephanie.  She is now in her new apartment and since she doesn't have any furniture, we decided we would go shopping.  Also, I brought her her big screen TV. She had bought in on black Friday for when she got her apartment.  It was to big to fit in her car , so I had to bring it to her.

Her apartment is nice. This is what she sees out her back screened porch.

I also brought her diploma that I had framed.

On Saturday we went to Myrtle beach and walked.

It was pretty crowed but not to bad. It was 9am , so I cant imagine what it was line at 12noon.  The waves were huge but I couldn't get a picture that really showed them.

After that we went to breakfast at a place called "Eggs Up".  It was packed and I can see why. The food was great.
Then we went furniture shopping. Well we actually started Friday but everything at all the stores were very expensive. So I looked up used furniture on the intranet. I found this place called "Unclaimed Furniture".  So we went there on Saturday. They had really good deals. We found this dresser/TV stand that had been reduced because it had a blemish on the corner. Its not really that noticeable.

It was a deal. Only 150.00.    I was worried we wouldn't be able to carry it up the stairs, Stephanie lives on the 2nd flood. But we did it without any problems. (we took the draws out)..  So now Stephanie has some place to put her clothes, instead of plastic bins.  We also put up curtains.

This King Kong was huge. You can see the sign below on the left, for a size comparison.

The next day we went to Huntington Beach. Ive been wanting to go there with the RV, so I wanted to check it out ahead of time. (I wouldn't go during the summer because its to crowed).

 They had these big chairs outside the camp store. They are USC and Clemson colors. 
 The beach was very nice. They have life guards where you first walk onto the beach.  But if you go further down the beach, no life guards but no people either. LOL.

Sorry the picture isn't good. I must have pressed something that darkened it. I tried to fix it on my computer. It looks fake now. Ugh!

Its so nice to walk at the beach.  When we got down to the RV section, there were lots of dogs on the beach.  Kind of hot for dogs to be on the beach , IMO, but nice to know people are all ok with dogs on the beach.

We had a good time and bought some T-shirts at the camp store.  It was sad to go home but that's life.

Wordless Wednesday

July 4th in Savannah

We went to Savannah for a few days during July 4th.  It was really hot and humid but I did take my dogs for some short walks.

There were a bunch of trees around this one pond. There were birds everywhere. I could have spent hours there. I didn't because the people riding bicycles kept coming by.

This guy must be use to people because I got really close. He didn't care. At home, they fly away so easily.

Now he did fly away when the dogs lunged and barked at him.

Look at this brown bird. He was huge!!!

That dark blue colored bird seemed to be fighting with an all white bird. At least that's what it looked like. Could have been something else. Look at the bird on the left top. To funny looking.

Then this fox came running right toward us. It was like he thought he knew my dogs. Then he pulled up short.  He did slowly make his way our direction. I kept walking away. It was making me nervous. In SC we have had numerous foxes bite kids. It would be kids on a playground at a park or church. The fox would just run out and bit the kids. The fox was always rabid. Ugh.  I couldn't find a big stick if I needed it.

He crossed the street toward us. I kept going to the marina. Other people where starting to walk around, so I think he decided to  leave.

This was a small alligator. We saw a bigger one when I was driving but by the time I turned around to go back, he was gone.  

I was hope to see the squirrel that I said was a bunny-squirrel. It had a small white fluffy tail. I got video but no pictures.  If I get around to up loading the video, I post it later.