It’s not what you think! Neither Judy or I have suffered any injury. I am writing about a damaged rotator cuff on the TV antenna. You see in an RV you have to have an antenna that folds flat against the roof when you travel. A couple days ago we were preparing move on a chilly morning. The antenna was frozen solid. I returned periodically to try moving it as we worked through our pre-flight check list. At long last I put a little more muscle into trying to move it, and I broke it. I had to get the cold aluminum ladder out and climb on the icy roof and rotate it into the proper alignment for lowering by hand.

Climbing onto the roof went on for two days and I decided it was time to repair the rotator. I disassembled the antenna and found the plastic rotator cuff had two ribs inside and they had broken off. I rummaged through my parts bins and found two setscrews that could take their place. After an hour of drilling, tapping and filing the refurbished part mated perfectly. It may be that the renewed part will work better with steel teeth that it did with plastic teeth.

We are now in Mississippi and yes the nights are often below freezing. We have been hanging around in the northern edge of the state. We have been staying in Corps of Engineer parks on two Mississippi lakes, Arkabutla, and Sardis. These parks are really nice parks with long sites with full water and electrical power. The best part is when we show our “Golden Age Pass” we get 50% off the already low price. Today our cost is five dollars. We are still finding lots to do and see. At Arkabutla Lake we spotted a large flock of White Pelicans and a couple dozen Great Blue Herons.

Both of these parks are nearly empty. Perhaps there is a message there: Freezing nights and empty parks, …should we be heading further south? Well we will head for Texas after the New Year. Arcturus. our Alpine coach is handling the cold weather just fine and we are able to keep walking and bicycling by bundling up with several layers of cool weather clothing. We really have no true winter cloths along. Meanwhile we are decorating the coach with Christmas lights and nativity scenes to get into the season. Neil, Renee and Miss Georgia will be dropping by for Christmas when we meet them in Nashville.

This may be a couple days waiting for the e-mail to go out. Our internet connection is tenuous at best here. It is times like this that we realize how much we come to rely on the computer connection to research our next destination, pay bills and keep in touch with all our friends back home and along the way.

For now we will close with Seasons Greetings and don’t let the Grinch steal your Christmas.

Gary and Judy.