This and That

It's been a fairly uneventful week, all in all. The weather turned much colder over the weekend, with highs in the 50's and lows in the 30's. I must be acclimating quite quickly to Florida, as I really feel cold, even though I know, deep in my northern heart, that it really isn't that bad :-).

We did get the truck back, finally! All I can say, is that I am extremely happy that we had made the decision to take the Ford extended warranty when we purchased the truck, as we are now well ahead of our investment in it! In order to do the work, they had to remove the cab of the truck from the chassis in order to get to the engine and make a diagnosis. They did discover a bad valve lifter, as well as the cam shaft damaged, and a rocker arm was broken. All in all, I'm amazed that we were able to limp our way to the dealership. Once it was all diagnosed, they also had to remove the engine itself to do the repairs. Ford only authorized replacing the known faulty valve lifter rather than all of them, and we opted to pay out of pocket to replace them all, seeing as the engine was torn down that far. So all new lifters, new cam shaft, new rocker arm, all new seals and gaskets....it was a large amount of work! She runs just beautiful now, seems even quieter and our miles per gallon has increased a bit. We're very pleased with the work done by the mechanics at Langdale Ford in Valdosta GA and all the service representatives were great as well.

Chelsea, however, didn't have such a good week. One morning she had an allergic reaction to something after our morning walk. Her face swelled up, her skin turns bright red, and she starts panting very heavily. This necessitated a quick trip to the veterinarians office for a shot of benadryl, which eased her symptoms quickly. When we go back for her vaccination updates the end of the month, I'm going to ask about carrying a shot or two with us as this is the second time this has happened, and at times, we are not near a medical facility for her! It didn't end here for her, though, although the reaction never came back. A few nights later, as we were getting ready for bed, we noticed her backside was wet and gooey. Investigation revealed that one of her fatty cysts had burst, like a boil, and we now oozing yucky stuff. Eww. We couldn't get the flow to stop, so it was off to the 24-hour facility in Spring Hill to get that taken care of. Needless to say, the "pet" portion of the monthly budget was blown for February! Anyway, they cleaned her up good, and gave us antibiotics to fight the infection. It needed to stay open though, so it wouldn't abscess, so we were following her around with paper towels for a couple of days, and had tarps covering all the carpeted areas! She's doing fine, now :-).

The only other thing of note the past week was getting together with some blog readers, Bonnie and Richard Waltman. They've been readers of ours for some time, although only in "lurking" mode :-). They are from New Jersey, and are waiting for the house to sell so they can hit the road. Being in the area at Chassa Oaks RV Resort, they sent me an email, and we got together Sunday afternoon for a good long chat session. They are also RV-Dreamers, having attended the rally at Hershey PA. It's an amazing thing to me, still, that even though we've never met, we all feel as if we know each other. It's a "like-minded" sort of thing I guess :-). So   we can add another new set of friends to our group!

We have a pretty busy week coming up, having an old friend from New York visiting us this week. It'll be a lot of golfing for Al and Ed, and we have a few outings and restaurants in the line-up. I expect to start having some pictures to go along with my dialogue again soon! Stay safe, and warm in those northern climes.