Denham Springs

Though not a lot has happened, I suppose it's time for a weekly blog update! As you know we are staying at the Denham Springs, LA, KOA, and as it turns out, we were able to get the monthly rate after all. Though still a bit pricey, it's cheaper than the $1,000 we had anticipated.

Before we hit the road back in June, we would occasionally drive through this campground to try and get a feel for the lifestyle, and figuring we'd be back here for a couple months, to see what the park looked like and had to offer. In the six months since we left, they have made some improvements and are expanding the number of monthly sites. One of the improvements they've made is to put in a small dog park area, which the kids love! It's not huge but big enough to let them off leash to run and play for a bit. Another couple who have been here for about 6 months, Linda and Dick, have a 3 year old boxer named Raz, who has become fast friends with Abby. They have about the same energy level and have a blast. Linda also showed me a city dog park, located about half mile behind the campground, which I never knew existed the entire time we lived here. We walked the dogs over there last week before all the rain hit, and they had fun playing with some 6 month old pups. Mikey generally prefers to walk the perimeter and sniff everything he can, going on sensory overload!

One of my chief complaints since we starting fulltiming is that we've never had hot water. It's always been warm, or mostly lukewarm, but I just figured that was one of the downsides of the RV lifestyle. Well, we hooked up here in Denham Springs, and lo and behold we had HOT, scalding water!! But then the next day we noticed we had a hot water leak, too! Russ got out the manual, we drained the tank, fiddled around as much as we could since we couldn't reach all the parts, filled it back up, ended up draining it again, and finally made an appointment to have it looked at since it was under warranty. There was a certified Atwood water heater repair shop in Hammond, about 40 minutes away, so early Wednesday morning we closed everything up, anchored everything down, and drove the motorhome up to Hammond. Long story short there was a crack in the hose fitting. DJM Enterprises (http://www.thervservicecenter.com/) was very professional and extremely customer service friendly. They are a small shop, but we would definitely recommend them to our RV friends should you find yourself in the area needing service. I still have very hot water, but no one seems to be able to figure out why the temperature suddenly changed. Can't just be the Baton Rouge water!

The night before this adventure I visited my friends in the Baton Rouge Chorus (http://www.batonrougechorus.org/). It was their first night together since the holiday break and nearly everyone was there except for 3 (hopefully I'll see them next week). They are a very small chorus so even when a couple are missing, it can make a big difference! On this particular night they were being visited by Janie Macchiaroli from the Regional faculty. Every chorus in the region is entitled to these visits, and it's beyond me why any chorus would turn down this great opportunity but I hear some do! Janie is the Education Coordinator for the Region, a Certified Sound Judge, coach, quartet medalist, Associate Director of Houston Horizon Chorus, and most of all a friend of mine! She has been a member of Sweet Adelines since 1971 and has also served on the International Board of Directors. It was great not only gleaning more words of wisdom from her coaching but also to chat and catch up afterwards.

The chorus, under the direction of Cate McRitchie (pictured front row on the far left), is planning to spend the next 13 weeks working hard on their contest songs, and I intend to visit as many times as possible while we're in town the next couple months. It was fun to see everyone and get the chance to sing again!

Other than that nothing much has been happening. The park here has a small kitchen which serves dinner on Saturday nights and breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays. We gave it a try Sunday morning.....good and reasonably priced. We made our first of several dr. visits and went to our storage unit. We're in the process of going through the couple hundred LPs that we've accumulated over the years to see if there's any worth putting on eBay. And I found a guy locally who will buy up the remainder for $100 so that will get rid of a couple boxes! We've also got about 100 45s of which only about 4 are worth eBaying so will probably throw those in to the guy, too. So until next week continue to have a great New Year!