Well it is finally March, which seems like a silly thing to say since February’s only 28 days. But March in North Carolina represents springlike  weather, occasionally broken up with wintry conditions. I don’t mind the weather so much except that I tend to do outside stuff that and videoing, and then the weather turns and I can’t finish the video. So for the last 2 weeks I have tried to finish up some repair work on the Aliner, but the weather has not cooperated. It’s either too cold, or to rainy. Or it’s just right on days when I have to work late and then it’s just dark. Well this week is daylight savings time so it will be lighter much later and I hope I’ll be able to finish these projects that have lingered on. I actually have one of those silly whiteboards we have all over the office in my kitchen with a long list of videos I need to finish. Believe it or not I do tend to start videos that I believe are worthwhile subjects and interesting ideas, but sometimes I can’t get a complete video pulled together. Several of my videos are places I’ve been to that I want to do a video on but halfway through the video the card fills up or my batteries all die and so I need to go back to those places and finish the video. Which also means I have to go back before the season changes from winter to summer or summer to winter. You might guess that I’m a complete idiot if I’m walking through a summer forest on a hike to a waterfalls and you suddenly notice that it’s winter. You do realize I don’t hike that slow.

So last weekend I published too many videos all at once by mistake. I did the last of the series of my Dog Training Made Easy, a video about my unbelievable experience Driving a Steam Train, and of course I published a quick shorty about Losing Dakota. I will say that Akela is an awesome dog to train. And although I don’t remember what training any other of my puppies was like except that they never seem to have a long attention span, Akela seems to be able to stay with the training for 15 to 25 minutes without any trouble. Like any puppy he’s easily distracted but still tends to stay focused on me, which is a really cool trait for a under one-year-old puppy. On the warmer days we have gone running down the Statesville Greenway Trail and he has stayed at heel for as long as I want him to. And I generally don’t have him on leash, as most of you know. He also always comes back when I call him, even if there is somebody or something that he’s interested in. Make a note of this,  we’ll see if this continues in the next 2 years as he gets older and more independent. Right now I have just the slightest concern about him because he seems to be a little bit afraid of his own reflection, which he suddenly discovered in the sliding glass door.

So the new chapter begins with just me and Akela, the new car, a Toyota 4Runner, and slightly modified Aliner. We will once again be climbing some pretty good mountains and getting out into the wilds to try to work some of this extra padding off of me. One of the big problems with moving, besides having to settle into a house and new job, is finding competent medical care and dentists. I have been to 2 dentists now that will not take care of me if I don’t spend the maximum amount of money in their office. And what I mean by that is, that I do not like to have x-rays. I have wonderful teeth, I haven’t had cavities in 20 years, and I don’t see any need to get a set of x-rays the first thing when I meet a new dentist. I’d like to know that I like the person and their dental hygienist before I start padding their pocket with stupid useless treatments that really tell you nothing if you don’t have some problem. Now that’s just the opinion of the blogger, not necessarily the management. So I wasted a couple days trying dentists and still haven’t found one. I’ve tried to find a doctor a couple times but that hasn’t worked out very well either. Mainly because none of them have American names or they have some strange specialty that I’m semi-afraid of being experimented on because they want to “practice” their “specialty”. Perhaps you have already noticed I’m a fairly poor patient. I like to be in control of my health, though at the moment I am not in control of my blood pressure. I like to believe that it’s currently high due to all the things going on in my life but you would’ve thought it would have been lower after the train ride. Although I did actually go into work for 4 hours afterwards.

So anyways I’ll give you a quick hint of some of the things that are coming up. I am going to the Aliner national rally in Williamsburg, Virginia. I am actually camping at the colonial Williamsburg Thousand Trails RV Park, although the rally is at a separate RV park about 20 miles away. But besides having a fairly strong aversion to RV parks, I also don’t want to be double parked in with 300 other Aliner’s with the dog. When I made the reservations and everything I thought I would have 2 dogs, one of who would be slightly crippled, so that was one factor in not wanting to be in this RV Park which is mostly a big parking lot. The Thousand t\Trails Williamsburg RV Park is a little more wooded and spacious.  Not just parking lots with power poles. It also is a Passport America Park, so its half price. But in either case, I will have video of both RV camp grounds and the rally, and the local attractions.

For Labor Day I’ve decided to do one of the things that I always promise I’ll never do, and that is to  take a long trip amonst all the other holiday travelers. I this year I decided to drive the length of Florida all the way to Key West. I like to do all that I possibly can to stay off the roads during the holiday weekends. But I was looking for reservations in the keys for campgrounds and for some reason that weekend was open. So we are going to take a week to drive down there, stop and see Mom and my brother Bill, and then go play with Hemingway’s cats. So that will be a couple of videos to enjoy. In between then and now I think we will stay more or less in the North Carolina/Tennessee/West Virginia areas on weekend trips. At least as soon as the weather turns a little bit warmer, and I finish fixing up the Aliner.

So I think that’s all I’ve got for today. I have this furry little brat keeps dropping a wet drool filled ball in my lap while I try to do this, so I better get off here and play with him. He’s been ignored for most of the week. It’s actually bedtime but I have laundry I have to finish. But it’s good talking to you folks. Leave me some comments, and suggestions for any future blogs.
And as always, I hope to see you on the road.

Thanks for stopping by,
Rick, and Akela