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!

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.

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!

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!

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..

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.

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...

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!!

Lunch with friends

Never say that George and I won't

travel to see friends!

When we found out that

Howard & Linda

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 :-)