Doctor's Appointments Can be Fun?!?

When you're a full-time RVer, it's easy to get behind on regular doctors' visits. So we used this stationary time to make appointments with most of the local doctors that we used to see on a regular basis. But today's blog is not filled with pictures of doctors' waiting rooms, but rather some of the activities available in the towns where those doctors practice. Our first visit was to Weatherford, Oklahoma, for dentist and optometrist appointments. We're glad to report that we had no cavities, and we got new glasses ordered. This is also a great place to see old friends, including those who still work at the university where we retired. This day in Weatherford, we visited the brand new park in town with our friend Patti. She's standing beside one of blades from one of the wind generators that surround this windy town.

Weatherford also sits on Route 66, so the blade includes pictures of some of the icons of this iconic highway that runs right through downtown.

We had several spots on our skin that we wanted to ask a doctor about, so we made an appointment months ago with a dermatologist. We made a trip to Stillwater, Oklahoma, for that appointment. That's where we also went to an Oklahoma State University basketball game. Our youngest son got his engineering degree here, and he rode to the game with us.

We actually had a group of 13, as Denisa's sister and family discovered this opportunity. It was during the university's Christmas break, and the college wanted to encourage more fans to attend. So a can of food for the food drive and $1 would get you into the game.

The $1 tickets put us on the very top row of this tall and steep gym. This was our view of the court far below.

But when we saw that the student section was completely empty, we headed down much closer to the floor where Blake sat when he was a college student. 

Incidentally, the doctor reported that all of Denisa's spots were just "wisdom spots" that come with age. The spots on Mark's face that really prompted the visit were more than just "wisdom," and she froze six of them off. You can see one of them close to his right lens. He wore those scabs for a week, and hopefully he'll wear a hat on all of our hikes in the future.

The next appointments were just for Denisa, and all in Oklahoma City. She had a mammogram, a bone density test, and an appointment with her gynecologist. But even more fun than three medical appointments, was the day we went to the horse races. Our granddaughter loves horses, so to see them gallop at top speed right in front of us at Remington Park Racetrack was a new fun experience for her.

We watched the horses parade from the paddock where we got really close views and picked the one we hoped would win. It's a free activity (unless you choose to wager on the horse you just picked) and a fun way to spend a little time.

While in Oklahoma City, we can also recommend a visit to Scissortail Park and Myriad Gardens. This downtown area is a great place to walk, and it has ice skating and some fun Christmas decorations this time of the year.

Even though the park's playgrounds are literally in the shadow of the downtown's tall buildings . . .

it has some spaces that seem very remote. This sculpture made of sticks is decorated for Christmas with a newly crocheted scarf and a wreath.

During that last doctor visit, we also made it a point to visit the Christmas light display in the park at Yukon, Oklahoma. Even though the lines to drive through can be miles long in the middle of the evening, we found that arriving at 5:20 p.m. allowed us to drive right into the park. The sun was setting on the shortest day of the year when we started our two-mile loop to walk through the display.

We got to see some of the displays in twilight,

and others in the dark.

The row of Christmas trees reflected in the lake were some of our favorites. 

Denisa is silhouetted in front of the trees in the picture below as they turned to an icy blue color. We had our jackets on when the sun went down, but we have been enjoying some of the nicest December weather that we can remember.

The crystal-wrapped trees were sparkling as they changed colors.

After all the Santa Claus displays, we were glad to see a nativity scene, and then a light display with Mother Mary holding baby Jesus. We liked the wording, "The reason for the season."

So now we are all doctored up and ready to start another season of travel. We feel good about getting all those appointments behind us, while having fun field trips in the different places that we had medical visits. Who knew that doctors' appointments can be fun?!?

Merry CHRISTmas Eve (and happy baking memories)!

Merry CHRISTmas eve to all of our blog friends! We are having a great holiday, as we are driving a grand triangle visiting different family groups. Our children and grandchildren were all together to take our annual Christmas card picture. As our group gets bigger, it's getting harder to get them all to look at the camera and smile at the same time.

While we have spent an unusually long time in the Midwest this fall, we are enjoying unusually nice weather. That allows us to play outside and take pictures without wearing coats.

We got to spend time with our son and daughter-in-law in Oklahoma City right before Christmas. We had some beautiful weather days that we enjoyed with them. One of those days was while we were taking care of our grandchildren. They love spending time with Aunt Claire and Uncle Blake!

We made some baking memories when we decorated Christmas-stocking-shaped rice krispies, with a record number of sprinkles on them.

We've been spending time in the Oklahoma City area, where we get to spend time with both of Denisa's sisters. We love getting together and baking Christmas memories! We had two different sessions of baking and decorating Christmas cookies with their grandchildren.

Carter missed the group session, so Aunt Connie had a private cookie decorating time just for her. That's probably why Carter told her, "I love you, Aunt Connie!"

One of our family Christmas traditions is baking tiny German cookies called peppernuts. The ingredients include a long list of spices. They really do have pepper in them, as well as ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice. All measured up in a bowl, those spices made for a uniquely pretty picture.

After mixing up the ingredients, the dough is rolled into snake-like pieces. Then they are cut into tiny cookies that are placed on a cookie sheet to bake. Mark worked on one end of this baking sheet, while Denisa filled the other end. Do you care to guess who is the organized baker with straight rows, and who put her pieces in willy-nilly fashion wherever they would fit?

After several hours of cutting and baking, we had a large bowl of German peppernuts ready to give away to our relatives that can appreciate these unique peppery Christmas treats. That's a big batch of baking memories right there!

If you look at the picture above, you'll see a row of Gingerbread houses on the counter. Those weren't made from one of those kits you buy at Target. Those were cut using paper patterns from the sheets of freshly baked gingerbread fresh out of the oven. 

After the pieces cool, they are assembled into houses with tasty decorations. That's another family tradition at Denisa's sister's house where they are baking memories.

While our house on wheels doesn't have the kind of kitchen for those big projects, we enjoy helping with them during the holidays in other kitchens. We are also starting new holiday traditions of baking memories that even a three-year-old can enjoy. It wasn't decorated as carefully as the picture on the box, but we baked this Christmas tree ourselves. It looks like Carter has some of her Gram's willy-nilly baking genes.

Now we are heading towards Kansas City for Christmas Eve. After stopping at Mark's brother's house to enjoy a few hours with their children and ten grandchildren, we will spend Christmas eve and day with our own grandchildren and their parents. In the meantime, we wish you a Merry CHRISTmas eve (and happy baking memories)!

Our RV Warranty Summary after Seven Years

While we are off the road for a spell, Mark has some motor home repair projects planned. He had noticed that our coolant tank was leaking while we were traveling on the west coast. We had just hoped that it would make the very long drive across the country so we could get it fixed while we weren't traveling.

We were also racing against another deadline. This fall is the seven year anniversary of our motor home purchase. We bought our used motor home at a dealership in Memphis, Tennessee. We feel blessed that two newbies like us made such a good selection that has served us well these seven years. We had never bought a warranty before in our lives. But seven years ago we decided that since we were going to live in this vehicle and because it has so many expensive parts, we would buy one. We saw good reviews for a company called "Wholesale Warranty" and we paid $4,935 for a warranty that would fix most things.

The fine print in the contract says that it doesn't cover things like window blinds or belts and hoses. But we bought it for the peace of mind that it would help us when big things happen. For example, it did cover the air conditioning compressor this summer. But it didn't cover the serpentine belt (or its installation) that broke when that compressor locked up. It does not cover the expensive towing that was needed to get it to the RV repair shop, but we pay an annual fee to another company that does take care of that.

Probably the biggest problem with our warranty was the limit on the amount they would pay for labor on repairs. When we signed the contract, their $80 per hour limit seemed like plenty. Now we know that diesel repair shops charge twice that amount. The latest was $165 per hour, so we end up paying over half the labor charges ourselves. Another limitation of the warranty is that it doesn't pay for the shipping charges to get replacement parts to the repair facility. So we found that overnight charges for getting emergency parts will cost us dearly. We learned to wait for cheaper shipping options since we had to pay that bill. 

Over the course of seven years, we found that any warranty work had to be done by a certified repair shop. So even though Mark could fix things more cheaply, they wouldn't pay for the parts if he fixed it himself. Also, the certified repair shop had to agree to do the extra paperwork that the warranty company requires. Some shops refuse to mess with warranty companies, so that can limit your repair possibilities. Any work done has to be pre-approved by the warranty company, so that will add a day or two to any repairs. Because we had many items taken care of a year ago in Alabama, the company even sent out an adjuster to confirm that they all were needed. That added another bit of wait time, but the adjuster agreed with our list of things to fix. 

If you are handy--like Mark--sometimes the warranty work can cost you money. We have a $50 deductible, so we always have to pay that first. If a repair is small, we found it is cheaper to do it ourselves. In the case of this radiator repair, Mark probably could have done it himself. The part was only $98, and that would have saved us all the labor charges that we had to pay half. Doing it himself would have also saved us the ridiculous "shop fees" of $111 that diesel repair places like to charge (and that warranties refuse to pay). So our part of the bill for the radiator turned out to be $586, while Mark could have fixed it himself for only $98 out of pocket. Of course, he would have done all the labor himself. But right now we have more time than money. So we took a picture of our new pretty radiator reservoir tank after the expensive installation.

Our warranty was good for seven years or 75,000 miles, whichever came first. Because we are slow travelers, the seven years came first. As it was sitting at a Freightliner shop to get its final warranty work done, we crunched the numbers. It cost us $4,935 to purchase the warranty seven years ago. During those seven years, we had six different claims. Wholesale Warranties paid a total of $6,811 for those claims. We paid $1,402 to cover the rest of those repair bills. So the warranty company definitely lost money on us. But we also recognize that sometimes we paid more than if Mark had fixed it himself. In the course of those seven years, Mark fixed lots of things himself. For example, when we were in Canada in 2019, he ordered and installed and paid for the controller board for the transfer switch himself because it was faster to do so. 

So in summary, would we recommend buying an RV warranty? We are glad that we bought that warranty for our new-to-us motor home seven years ago. When this one expired, we didn't buy another one because we assumed it would be cost prohibitive to purchase one for an eight-year-old motor home. Mark is also a lot smarter about how to fix things on a motor home than he was seven years ago when we were a bit overwhelmed with this beast of a vehicle. For seven years we did travel with the peace of mind that if any of the big things broke down, we would have help with the bill. As we continue wandering down the road, we'll be on our own to cover those repair bills. Wish us luck! We have come to love our home on wheels that has taken us to so many beautiful places in the last seven years.

It's a zoo in Oklahoma City!

You might notice that at this time of the year, our blogs are less frequent. While we are sitting in one place we have less travel-worthy news to write about. But that doesn't mean that we aren't having fun. For example, one day we had a fun family day at the Oklahoma City Zoo. Our family would include our son and daughter-in-law who live in Oklahoma City (who are helping to entertain their nephew). . .

as well as our son and daughter-in-law and their family that are visiting here. We didn't get everyone's picture, but you can be sure that there is a grandbaby in every one.

We are blessed to get to share these grandbabies with another set of grandparents that are as crazy about them as we are! They are visiting the zoo today as well.

The Oklahoma City Zoo has a new arrival, and the baby giraffe was out enjoying the lovely autumn weather with us.

This zoo has done a good job of making enclosures that allow the visitors to see the animals up close.

We've had some pretty close bear encounters on the trail, but we've never gotten a close-up view of a bear paw like today. This black bear was right against the glass when we walked by.

A renovation of the Asian section of the zoo was completed several years ago, and Africa is under construction now. Oklahoma City has a zoo that is growing and is being well cared for. While we enjoyed seeing the real animals, the children seemed to love riding on the animal statues that are sprinkled throughout the zoo.

Our granddaughter's favorite animal is the panda, and she took off in a run when she spotted the panda display as we entered into Asia.

She loved these animals almost as much as the real ones! Because the only real pandas in the United States are at the zoo in Washington DC, we'll take this panda zoo experience as a good substitute today.

You can also buy a key to the Oklahoma City Zoo. Proudly worn on a lanyard around the neck, it allows the keyholder to unlock more stories about the animals we were seeing. Boxes at many different displays had key holes that unlocked the audio recorded by local news channel reporters.

As we walked back through the giant lotus blossoms on our way out, we were enjoying another lovely day of autumn weather here in the Midwest. While we're not traveling, we are still enjoying some great fun exploring the local attractions with people we love!