Friday, September 30, 2011

Butterflies

It's been another one of those weeks..

Lots of preparations..
getting the property ready to
bring our new home on 
wheels to her temporary location.

Getting modified brought in
so she can have a level spot to 
park it in..


Doing laundry at the 
laundromat..
for perhaps the last time..


We packed things that we need
to stay in the RV for the weekend, 
as well as for the few days after.
The truck was packed to the gills!

We drove down to stay
tonight at the Grantville Holiday Inn.
This is where we are going to
take possession of our new
2012 Montana 3700RL.
We are so excited!

We checked in,
then walked to behind the hotel, 
where they have all the new
RVs staged and ready to hookup.


We walked around until we found
our home!


Tomorrow morning we
get the hitch installed
in the truck,
get our walk through..
then hitch up & go!

We are staying 2 nights
at the Hershey HighMeadows
campground,
so that we can get used 
to her a bit..
before taking it home!













Saturday, September 24, 2011

More preparations, Red Cross, and MRE's

This flood stuff is never-ending.
Since we are forced into downsizing
sooner than we thought..
we have been putting feelers
out to anyone looking for 
some gently used furniture.

As luck would have it, 
our friends Alex & Nicki
are buying some of it!

We borrowed the box truck from work..


and loaded up the furniture 
for them to get it out of the 
upstairs of the house.

We are so impressed with
the American Red Cross.
Between them and Salvation Army, 
we have been provided lunch, dinner, 
and cleaning and sanitary supplies.


I gave them hugs today, 
for all their help.
George gave this volunteer
one of our rose buds, 
which are blooming, 
despite being under 6' of water!

One of the things they bring
around are MRE's..
'Meals-ready to eat'.
They're the exact ones our military use.
We decided to try them..



We shared them with Nicki & Alex..
the consensus was
that they were ok, but
nothing like a home cooked meal.

We had a guy come and scrap 
the mobile home, and he's almost done.


George has all the things needed
to hook up electric, sewer, 
and water..
so that our RV can be in the same
footprint as the mobile home.
For the next while,
we'll have a nice view of the
same destructive river,
but from the comfort of our home on wheels.


Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Comin' down

It has been a whirlwind week!
As everyone knows, we bought
our new home on Saturday,
a Keystone Montana 3700RL.


Since we pick it up SOON,
on October 1,
we had to find a place to
park it, and FAST!

We did some calling around,
mobile home parks,
friends were offering their driveways.
There are no campgrounds
within commute distance.

George had a bright idea...
if we get the flooded out
mobile home off the property,
we would have room to park it there.

So...
I quick posted an ad
on Craigslist,
for someone that wanted
all the scrap metal FREE.
George got 20 calls in 15 minutes!

A nice young man came
down and started going to town!


He said he would have it done
by the end of the week.
Good thing!
George has been looking
into getting all the hookups
needed to adapt to the RV.

This should be perfect
for us, since we own
the property anyway.

We just have to hang in there..
for 10 more months..
then we can pull outta there!

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Hershey RV show

We certainly needed a getaway,
after the last week's devastation.
We had already planned on the Hershey RV show.
We stayed in a nice Holiday Inn Express,
in Lebanon, PA.

Friday night after checking in,
we headed over to the
Thousand Trails RV resort,
where Howard & Linda
were staying after their
fall rally.
We sat around the campfire
with other RV-Dreamers.


We stayed for a little while, 
and talked to everyone, 
it was a lot of fun!


Today, Saturday,
we went over to the RV show.

We really wanted to see in person..
the model of Keystone Montana
that we liked the best.

We went straight to the Montana section..


We found the model we liked..


George & I went through the rig,
a Montana 3700RL.

Howard & Linda came by
and looked it over, and 
gave us some good advice as well.


It's exactly perfect!
We ended up buying it..
but this model pictured has the
Big Sky package.
We bought the rig without it,
which saved us $10k,
but we still got the features we wanted.

I have a few pictures..
but not of  'ours'...


We are ordering ours through the 
factory in Indiana.
We ordered it with a
washer & dryer,
second battery,
slide awnings,
auto-levelers,
and a partridge in a pear tree. :-)

The RV will be delivered on 10/1!
George and I will pick it up, 
and do the walk through, 
while they install the hitch.

Stay tuned for more pictures!

We are very excited.
We will have a new home,
even though we aren't ready to 
go on the road quite yet.

 Now we have to find a place to park it!

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Days after..

The last couple of days have been a blur..

We've taken things out of the
house, and piled it all on the street,
for the dump trucks to haul away. 

It's weird recognizing your 'stuff'
in shards & pieces.

We took some stuff out of the 
upstairs that we need in the near future,
the rest we've left there for now.

The mobile home is all cleaned out,
and will be condemned.

FEMA came today, and asked all
the questions they ask.


They rolled off the 
square feet of the house.


Local dignitaries & our congressman
came to show their support (or to be seen..!)


Even Salvation Army came
and brought spaghetti.
It was great!
I was too busy eating to 
take a picture.

So now, our next step is 
to wait and see what FEMA decides.
The code enforcement officer
is coming around to inspect the houses tomorrow.

We're supposed to find out
what aid we will get by Monday.

In the meantime,
we're going to the Hershey RV show.
We're going to relax,
shop for our new home,
and try not to think about what
we lost..
and think about what we are gaining..

Sunday, September 11, 2011

No words..

Nothing can prepare you for this much devastation.


The flood of September 2011
left 12 FEET of water in the house..
that was from the basement
to 2 feet above the kitchen counters.

Our furniture, clothing, and other things
were spared, as we got them out,
either in the upstairs rooms, 
or in the box truck.
The trailer, where we stored
a lot of the RV things we've been purchasing..
is totally ruined. Our washer & dryer, 
pictures, yearbooks..
all gone.

This is a picture of how high the
water got to:

The American Legion brought food..


Public Health came and gave tetanus shots..


We are waiting for FEMA to
assess the situation,
there is a rumor that they may
condemn the whole area.
This will open us up for aid.

Please keep us in your prayers as
we try to decide our next move.
For now we are staying with some
good friends that have a spare room.
It's hard to 'live' in a place
that's not familiar, 
out of your routine.

On the way home from 
packing up the truck with the good things..
we saw this:


A rainbow..
signs of promises to come.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Homeless

Well, the flood of September 2011 has passed.
George and I are for tonight staying with friends.
I took enough clothes for 3 days.
We went to WalMart yesterday,
and bought the extra toiletries that I
forgot to grab.

The aftermath so far:
Although we don't have pictures of the house yet,
this is the street leading up to the street
the house is on:

Hard to see, but if you enlarge,
and look center, all the way to the back,
that is where our street turns left.
We are looking across the main
street (River St.), about 
1/4 mile away.

See the stop sign? That's how deep the water is here.

I'm not sure what the point of this is..
people (most of them our neighbors)
sitting where the river water got up to,
watching it recede.



Apparently it's a tradition. Geez.

Anyway...tomorrow, Sunday,
we should be able to get into 
the house and assess the damage.

We think that the water completely
flooded the basement,
going into the first floor, and possibly up 
into the first floor about 3'.
Hopefully it didn't go over
the kitchen counters,
as we had taken all the things in
the bottom cupboards
and placed them on the counter.

More to come...

Thursday, September 8, 2011

September flood

 Irene, Lee, Katia..

The power of water.

Although TS Lee didn't dump water on us,
and Hurricane Katia decided to join the party  
further east in the Atlantic..
the two of them together 
made a squeeze-play,
and funneled over 8" of rain into our area
over a 3 day period.
This caused the Susquehanna
to slowly (then fast!) rise..
from .5' to crest at 40'.

Unfortunately, as in previous flood posts,
the house takes on water in the basement,
starting at about 30'.

Last night we got some help,
and got a lot of our stuff upstairs,
and our furniture in a truck from work.






All cleared out. Fridge in background is on milk crates
 After everything was where we thought
it would be 'safe' from water..
I took off, and spent
the night at Heather's house.
George stuck it out
until about noon today.
He took a picture on his way out..
was taken out by boat!


Here's a few shots of around the house..

Road going out..blocked in!

From basement..it's almost in.
Starting to pour in.

Water up to the patio roof..chairs on top for safety!

White house on right is ours.
The above picture was taken about noon.
As of this writing, the river
hasn't crested, about 2 more feet yet.
We won't be able to go back to the 
house until Sunday at best.
Hopefully all that's ruined
is carpet, drywall, and an appliance or two.

The rest we were getting rid of anyway..
just not this way!!


Saturday, September 3, 2011

Lunch with friends

Never say that George and I won't
travel to see friends!
When we found out that
would be within a few hours drive of us..
we just had to go and see them.

They were 'moochdocking' 
in one of their friends' driveways.
Howard & Linda are preparing
for their second rally this year,
in Hershey, PA, which starts in 8 days.

I plugged the address in our GPS,
and had no problem finding their fifth-wheel
in the driveway of this nice housing development.

We sat in their rig, 
and talked about our plans,
their lifestyle, and all things 'full-time'.


We were all getting hungry, 
so we headed off for something to eat.
Their friends suggested a pizza place
not too far from there.


The pizza was pretty good!
We had a great time talking about
all kinds of things,
and getting to know them better.


We are hoping to meet up with 
them after the rally in a few weeks.

George & I aren't going to this one,
but we are going to the Hershey RV show
so we can start shopping :-)