12:30 PM Tuesday November 9, 2004

Were she still living (she passed away 24 years ago), it would have been my mother's 90th birthday when we took the motorhome to Bill's RV Service last Thursday, November 4th to have the furnace and hot water tank serviced and repaired if necessary. We were "homeless" for most of the day and that was a new experience. I did laundry and Phil protected the outside faucets from freezing at our former home and then we ran some errands. We feel very fortunate that Bill had the parts to repair the furnace (there was a large hole in the burner ... I guess when it ran, we really were smelling gas!!!) and there was a loose wire on the hot water tank (he reconnected it) and the entire bill was less than $350. Phil and I were prepared to buy new ones to the tune of about $1,000 but thank goodness, that wasn't necessary. The furnace has been purring away since we brought our home back to Gloria and Lester's and now that it's burning efficiently, the gauge on the LP tank hasn't moved. Much better!

For any travel/history/railroad buffs out there, I've just finished a great book that I highly recommend. It's called THE OLD IRON ROAD An epic of rails, roads, and the urge to go west by David Haward Bain. Driving 7000 miles one way, (they shipped the car and flew home) the author, his wife and two children spent two months, the summer of 2000 traveling from Vermont to San Francisco in there Dodge Durango 4X4 staying off the interstates as much as possible. They followed the route of the first transcontinental railroad and many sections of the Oregon and California trails as well as sections of the "Old Lincoln Highway", one of our first paved transcontinental highways. Mr. Bain's research is full of interesting details and historic reference that was extremely entertaining. Sadly, about two years to the day after they returned home, his wife passed away at 46 years old from heart failure. An intense "heads up" for Phil and I as well as a vivid exponent for "doing it now".