These are our last days of this month long stay here in Buffalo. We are really happy we were here this time so we could help with Patty’s Dad. It’s a little sad that we are now moving on again and we won’t be a part of the further transition that Patty’s parents are going through. Anyway, we will be back here in just 3 weeks for a wedding picnic celebrating Patty’s nephew’s (Adam) wedding.
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| Rosey has been on a blooming spree of late! |
On the 7th, Thursday, Patty went to sit with her dad at the rehab place on Sheridan Drive. The family is hoping that Tom gets moved soon to a better place and Patty wants to be there when that happens. The place he is in now is absolutely the pits! I am usually not too fussy about things like this but I couldn’t breathe in this place. The smell of urine and whatever else was horrific. The only bad thing about the other better place is that it is about 25 minutes away. The facility is located in East Aurora NY about 20 miles south.
I decided to wash the truck at Patty’s mom’s house while Patty was taking care of her dad. I had not washed the truck since we were in PA over a month ago. Yeah, I like my vehicles clean and try to keep them that way. It was perfect weather for washing the truck, bright sun, low humidity, and temperature in the mid 70’s. After washing the truck I was going to go to be with Patty at the rehab facility. However, Patty came back with her sister before I got done with the truck. It takes me a long time to fully wash a vehicle; the truck takes me 3 hours to do the outside and the inside.
A little funny thing happen on the way to wash the truck; at least it is now funny! When I left the inside of the rig I had my Kindle just in case we were going to be at the rehab facility for a long time. I didn't think I would need it but took it anyway. I also needed to get all of the stuff ready and in the truck to take to wash the truck. There were a lot of things I needed to get so I laid the Kindle down on top of the BBQ grille and forgot about it and left it there.
On Friday I then wanted my Kindle as we were going to sit for a while at the new rehab facility in East Aurora. I couldn't find it anywhere. Of course I didn't look on top of the BBQ, why would it be outside and on the BBQ! Anyway I figured I had left it at the hospital on Tuesday. I called them and they had not seen it so now I figure it has been stolen. On Saturday morning I ordered a new Kindle. Then that afternoon on our way out Patty had forgot something so we went back to the rig except I pulled near the BBQ, something we had never done before. Damn, there it was sitting right there all of the time! I got the new one canceled and all went back to normal, well sort of.
Friday the 8th Absolut Care of Aurora Park in East Aurora NY said they had a place for Patty’s dad Tom. So we asked Tom who he wanted to ride with to the facility, either Patty’s sister Sandy’s or in our truck. Tom decided that our truck was the most “luxurious” of the 2 so we should take him. The only thing here was to get him up and into the truck. He did it but it took a little effort and the use of a step stool.
Absolut Care is like night and day compared to the place on Sheridan drive in Tonawanda. First off the place was built in the last decades instead of the past century. Also, the people working there seemed to be younger and had better attitudes about working. Absolut Care is just a much better place all around.
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| Front entrance to the East Aurora Rehab facility. |
After we got Tom settled in, Shirley and us went out for a fish fry again at Mr. Dee’s. We met up with Patty’s sister Cheryl and her husband Joe who arrived ahead of us. After we were seated another couple of women friends of Cheryl joined us too. We had another great evening out, too bad Tom isn't able to get out now.
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| All of us at Mr. Dee's for a fish fry. Start left front and clockwise: Mary Anne, Patty, Me, Shirley, Joe, Cheryl, Nancy |
The next couple of days we basically just spent time with Patty’s dad. Sunday the 10th our last day of this stay in Buffalo we went to Cheryl and Joe’s for dinner. We stayed until after dark so there wasn’t any time left to start our cleanup for departure in the morning. We had a last glass of wine and called it a night.
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| Patty and her Dad Tom. |
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| Cheryl giving Dad a shave. |
Leaving day after a long stay has a few more things to do than usual. However, we are now getting pretty use to even the long stay departure routines. On a long stay we have much more stuff left outside than usual. We also do not put stuff back in the same way we would if we were leaving in a few days. So this morning I have quite a few more things to do than I would for an overnight stay.
The other thing extra is the tank draining here at this site. Since the sewer is so far away (40+ feet) I have been just leaving the tanks closed until time to drain. Now that we are leaving I want the sewer hose to be as clean as I can get it. To accomplish this I have been lifting the sewer hose in between the dumping’s to empty the hose before I refill it. While I am lifting the hose I have the black tank filling again with clean water. I also put a quarter cup laundry detergent into the tank with the second filling. After I get the hose empty, I open the black tank again to drain it out. I then repeat this operation again but without the detergent. After the black tank I drain the 2 grey tanks in the same manner, lifting the hose each time. This whole process took me a little over an hour. However, I was doing other things while the tanks were draining or being filled.
It took us about 2 hours to get ready to leave this time. We were on the road by 11:15 am for the 3.5 hour 245 mile trip to our next stop for the night. We decided to boondock at the Pennsylvania visitor’s center just over the border from NY on I-81. This is a first for us to Boondock in a parking lot. I called ahead to make sure that the visitor’s center allowed RVs to park overnight and found that they in fact do. I was told to just let someone know we were parked and we would be fine there. Great!
We arrived at the PA visitor’s center at 4 pm and found a place next to some large mobile machinery that was in transport. Ideally we would have liked to park next to the curb as far out as we could. The big transport was taking up 3 slots of the truck parking so we decided to move the cones protecting the transport machinery and place ourselves in the protected area with the machinery. When I went in to let them know we were staying the night I was told that the transport machinery had been there for over a week and nobody knew what it was. I thought that was a good sign for us to just get real close to the transports and we would be safe there.
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| We wanted corn for dinner so we stopped at a road side stand to get it. We had to pull over in this parking lot a little way down the road. This is somewhere in the western center of NY. |
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| Corn was on the honor system. Jut put the money in the steel box on the right. |
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| Our site at the PA visitors center. I moved the orange cones to include us with the large transports next to us on the left. |
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| I went out to get fuel and when I came back we were surrounded by trucks. |
We woke up the next morning and found that we were surrounded by trucks and cars associated with the movement of these 2 transports. Seems our timing was perfect in that they were going to move these big transports this morning after they had been sitting there all week! We fired up the generator and made our coffee and did a little web surfing while watching the goings on around the transports. We also were able to get our showers in as well. I had put about 20 gallons of fresh water in our tank so we could get showers.
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| This is more of a close up of the Boeing machery getting ready to leave. |
When I went out to start our departure routine I talked to one of the guys involved with the transports. These transports are about 100 feet long and very wide and are traveling from Canada and were going to Boeing Aircraft in North Carolina. These 2 large pieces of machinery are used to move parts for the new Dreamliner aircraft in the manufacturing facility. It has taken them 4 weeks to get from Quebec Canada to Just across the border in PA. The guy told me that they need to go through this inspection process at each state and country border. This morning it took about 4 hours of inspection before they could start to move.
We were on the move by 10 am on our way for the 175 mile trip to Keyport New Jersey. It was a wet ride with lots of rain for most of the trip and especially in PA. Once in NJ the rain let up and the temperature rose into the 80s; it was in the low 60’s when we left. We arrived at our friend’s (Cindy and Rob) house in Keyport a little before 1 pm. We park in their driveway which has water and a 50 amp RV hookup. This is where we started from 2 years ago after we sold our house and purchased the rig.
Two years ago this was the first back-in we did with the 5th wheel. It is the harder right hand side back-in which took us over 2 hours to get into the driveway our first time. This time we were in and disconnected from the truck in just less than 15 minutes! We have come a long way since those days!
Now we can have some beach time and see my daughter Jennifer and Patty’s son Chas. We are hoping for a dinner out with Chas and his girlfriend Lisa and with Jennifer and her husband Christian.
That’s it for this post!
Stay tuned!
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