Who’d believe we’re already into the third month of 2023! My how time flies when you are retired! We are still in Brownsville, although we are heading out on the 7th for our worldwide tour of the US which should take us about a year. Our trip plans include a trip to Perry GA for the FMCA convention, a trip to Orlando to see my wingman Randy, then up the coast to see the sights of the East Coast. Then in June it’s go west old man with our sights set on Las Vegas to see our grandson Oliver and his hip-hop dance troupe compete in the Nationals.
It has been an event filled couple of months since my last post, so sit back, and as my son Josh always says, “Pop a Baptist Beer” and relax as I catch you up the latest with the Schiessl clan. Vicki and I are both doing very well. We’ve had some medical procedures done here as a result of visits to the doctors. Vicki had an endoscope to help with GURD. Nothing spectacular to report and with medication she is doing really great. Mostly it indicates that we’ve got to drop a couple of pounds and cut out the wonderfully spicy Mexican foods which are so abundant here in South Texas. For me it was having a cataract removed from my left eye and as the song goes, “I can see clearly now”. As a side note, how many of you reading this, sang that last quote? Bet it’s an earworm now! LOL. Also had a steroid shot in my right knee and that’s a temporary fix as it is certain there will be a knee replacement in the foreseeable future. The X-rays and MRI have confirmed that the knee is completely shot. So, the likelihood of me kicking in the NFL is sadly gone forever. Although I may have a chance with the Dallas Cowboys!
Getting back to our upcoming trip, March 4th I went to the mailbox and got terrible news. I received a summons for jury duty. Fricking Federal Jury Duty!!! I am due to report in April, where I’ll already be in Florida! AARRGGHH!!! So have written the court explaining my situation and hopefully they’ll either postpone or excuse me from duty. Talk about rotten luck. In the event that I’ll be unable to get out of it, I guess I’ll fly back here and serve. Why couldn’t this have been a Powerball ticket instead of Jury Duty.
We’ve had more work done on the rig thanks to our wonderful Neighbor Dan. He is a retired RV repair technician and really knows his stuff. Looked at our rear AC and diagnosed it immediately. He saw that they had failed to install a $14 sensor and the AC works great. Also installed a piece of weather stripping between the intake and exhaust ports and now the rig gets cold enough to hang meat. Also, he rewired the thermostat and now we have not only AC/Heat pump, but now our propane furnace works as well. Dan is the man!!! Payment was simply a 2-inch-thick Rib steak for he and his wife and a bottle of top shelf bourbon and Crown Royal. What a deal!!! The only other issue we have is the front slide rail has teeth which are bent which in turn destroys the cog which rotates the slide out. So we’ve got guys coming tomorrow to fix that and at least be able to slide in before we go. We may have to order the part on the road and find a place to have it installed. Ah, the life of an RVer!
The rest of the family is doing well. Frank is still kicking and relieving the Angel of the Winds a few dollars every Thursday. No major problems for a 90-year-old dude! Elisabeth and Justin are doing fine and take Frank in stride. Justin is working on his pilot’s license and Nizzy is running her department basically from home. Josh and Annalise are doing well. Both are basically overwhelmed with life, acting as Ubers, transporting Emmett and Oliver all across the state on weekends and holidays. Sometimes together and sometimes apart in opposite directions. Remember those day well. We get to watch them both at their events and Josh and Annalise are so good at videoing them at all their games. Oliver finished football and moved on to wrestling and ended his season with an outstanding pin. He is also into hip-hop dance and we’re looking forward to seeing him perform in Las Vegas in June. Emmett is tearing it up in baseball on both the mound and in the field. For Christmas we got him a Radar gun to check his speed although his dad uses it his games and has much more fun with it. You can see and hear the games on Facebook at the Stanwood Cannons 10u page. I am the unofficial statistician and score and report the stats to Josh. It’s been really fun watching these boys develop.
I’ve tried to condense this post of the last two months into what is truly newsworthy and important. I’ll try to be quicker in reporting new and interesting adventures as we begin our journey across the country. Keep us in your thoughts as we will do the same. Please don’t forget to drop a comment on a post you like or dislike. And by the way, did we mention, we’re still loving retirement!
So good to read your post. Enjoy catching up with your adventures. Tell Vicki, I just bought a house just south of Seattle. So next time ya’ll head back up that way, you’ll have to stop by!