It really kind of annoys me when people start out blog posts apologizing for not posting recently so I won’t do that. I know I haven’t, if you follow our blog then you know too, and to be completely honest, I was busy trying my best to help my friend so I’m not really sorry.

After we did our trek from San Francisco, back east across the country in July, staying mostly for free on BLM land and at truck stops, I sort of despise paying rent.

We stayed a night in Nevada for $2, a free night in Wyoming on a reservoir, and a pretty neat night at the largest truck stop in the world in Iowa.

It seems like once you get east of the Mississippi, BLM land gets harder and harder to find.

I just spent two weeks at my mom’s in Cincinnati with the pups while Allen was working in Boonville, Indiana. I was planning a fundraiser in our hometown for our best friend’s little girl RaiLee, who was very recently diagnosed with DIPG. 

We were about 4 hours apart. Since I wasn’t there, and since we had a hard time finding a campground that wasn’t going to make him move the camper in the middle of those 2 weeks, he stayed on the tower site. 

Of course he got permission from the engineer there before moving in. But he had water & 110 electric & a sewer for the gray water. 110 is the same electric you have in your house, just a regular outlet. We can run one big thing on 110.

We have our choice of:

• the washer/dryer
• one air conditioner
• the fireplace
• microwave/convection oven
• the central vac
• electric water heater

If it was 95 degrees or 2 degrees outside, that would be a problem. But it’s been nice. Cool at night and warm during the day, so it’s not bad at all.

Allen came over to Cincinnati last Saturday after work for the fundraiser. Considering we only had two weeks to get it all together, I think we did a good job. People will surprise you with their generosity. I’m still writing thank you cards and plan to mail them tomorrow.

On Sunday we took everything down to them in Kentucky and spent some time visiting. I don’t think either of us wanted to leave, but we had to so Allen could work Monday. (See: The Crappy Part of Traveling Full-time for Work)

Eustace got his first taste of running wild in the country. He chased a rooster all the way across the property, was amazed by some ducks swimming in this little pond, and saw his first glimpse of Storm, the pet wolf.

They de-rigged the tower and loaded trucks Monday. At lunch we found out for sure that Georgia was next. So Tuesday we packed it up and headed 558 miles SSE to Cordele.

Allen talked to the engineer down here and he said there was plenty of room for us to park the camper. So we stopped at Love’s to dump the tanks on the way down ($5 well spent) and now we have water and 110 again! This job should take less than a week. They want to have the old antenna down and new one up and running by Friday so my guess is we will be leaving Sunday or Monday.

That spool in the middle is full of brand new coax cable they need to install on the tower for the new antenna. They forgot to grab the pipe that goes through the middle and sits on the reel stands so I had to go buy one today.

We are surrounded by cotton fields on all sides. I haven’t seen any mice (yet). We saw a stray cat running around last night. Our camper is FULL of ladybugs! It seems like every time we go back to the midwest in the fall (which hasn’t been for a couple years), we wind up transplanting ladybugs! We also have ants all of a sudden so I got some diatomaceous earth yesterday and spread that around the baseboards to try and cut out that problem.

This is a view from up the tower. Thanks Danny!

Charlie and Eustace are loving the country life, like always. They saw an armadillo yesterday under the porch connected to the transmitter building. There are wild pigs down here but luckily I have yet to see one! Danny hit one with the truck on his way into work Wednesday… yikes! 

Yesterday the guys grilled burgers for lunch and today I did a bacon wrapped pork loin for them… Tomorrow I think Danny is stopping to get some pork chops for them and a piece of salmon for me – my favorite! Saturday we are loosely planning on grilling ribs (but we’ll have to get a bigger grill than our Weber Q!)