Shade Saga - The Conclusion

Yippie!  The "shade saga" is over!  It only took two more trips to Home Depot and two hours of work!  Dad had to put them up a non-conventional way, but it works.  No more suction cups, pillows, Velcro or brooms.  I forgot to tell you about Mama using Velcro straps and the broom to hold the shades open.   The Velcro worked for a few days. The broom worked fine, but it was a pain to put it in place and take it down each day. 

The new shades look so nice.The color is perfect and they look so much nicer than the old ones even before they broke.  The folks didn't replace the bedroom ones though because they are not raised and lowered much and they are still in good condition. 

It's amazing how much more window there is when you don't have pillows blocking the view.  BOL!

This really is not that comfortable.

We have new shades!!!!

I am a happy camper!

Look!  No pillows!  BOL

  The new battery arrived for the laptop and it wasn't the problem.  Mama ordered a new power cord and it arrived on Wednesday.  The power cord was the problem, so now we have two batteries which is not a bad thing.  There is something strange going on though with the power cord.  It only charges when the computer is turned on and is running.  It cannot be in a sleep mode and it has to be on.  What is up with that?  Our old one charged when the computer was turned off.  Is Mama doing something wrong?

The folks were able to watch fireworks from the campground last night.  The Hard Rock Casino is just down the street, so that show was pretty close. They could see other fireworks in the distance. The 4th is huge here.  Dad said they should have gone to his hotel to watch the fireworks at the beach.  Mama said traffic would have been terrible and she didn't know how we would do alone.  We were fine though.  It didn't scare us even though it was pretty loud.  We took our last walk at 8:30 p.m., so we were safe inside before the big noises started.

Scout is planning our next trip.

Our time in Florida is almost up.

Next week at this time, we will be on the road.  We are headed home for a visit.  It will take us three days to get there.  Actually, we are stopping off to do some trout fishing first.  Grandma, Grandpa and one of my skin cousins will be there.  We will head home after that.  It will take us a day just to get our of Florida.  Mama is ready to leave South Florida.  She is not happy being at the bottom of the state during hurricane season.  Let's just hope nothing shows up in the radar in the next week.  Dad is actually going to DC next week, so we are on our own.  We had hoped we would be able to go, but he has to work on Monday and needs to be there on Tuesday.  Motor homes can't travel that fast.  BOL!

On a sad note, we lost another one of our blogging friends.  Jaime has gone to the Rainbow Bridge.  Mama always laughed when she saw pictures of Jaime with her HUGE teddy bear, Kevin.  You are missed Miss Jaime.  We are thinking of her family.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Loves Having A Full View Of The Outside World Again

The Shade Saga

It is not uncommon to have problem with RV shades.  The strings break which causes the shades not to stay in place.  Our shades started having problems a few weeks after we bought the motor home.  The motor home is eight years old so that is not surprising. The folks were told that re-stringing them was a major pain. Dad said it was worth the $16 that the kit costs to try it.  Mama bought a re-stringing kit before we left Houston in March.  Mama has been asking Dad to try re-string one since that time.  She didn't think she could do it herself because she watched a You Tube video and it looked really hard.  In May, Mama was still asking Dad to re-string it.  She was tired of propping up the shades with pillows and suction cups.  The suction cups fly off and the shades fall down and that scares us.  The suction cups fall behind the couch and then Mama has to use kitchen tongs to fish them out.  It is quite a production.  She decided to cut off the "day shade" and just leave the night shade to make it easier to hold the shades up.  She couldn't use the day shade anyway.  That worked well for a few weeks, but then the shades lost all their pleats and were harder to hold up.

We can use pillows on the two windows that have couches in front on them.

Mama started growing impatient and decided to try re-stringing herself.  However, the video she watched said she needed to take down the valance and she couldn't figure out how to do it.  Dad told her not to attempt it.  He told her on a rainy weekend, we would put up new shades.  Finally, this past weekend was rainy.  Mama was excited. Dad was not.  The folks headed to Home Depot.  They had picked out shades there.  They are not RV shades, but according to forums Mama has read, people have used these and are quite happy with them.  Dad said they should just buy one to make sure they liked it because since they were custom cut and they could not be returned.

Let me just say that putting this shade up was not easy. The folks started on it Saturday afternoon and finally Sunday night it was up.  It took five trips to Home Depot to accomplish this. They kept bringing home wood and bigger screws.  The biggest problem is that the valance is in the way and it will not come down.  The folks checked the forums and found out that the manufacturer says it is not removable.  It is very hard to get the shade to clip into place.  Dad kept lowering the placement of  it so that he had more finger room.  It was difficult and several bad words were said.

Ready to see our new shade? 

Isn't it pretty?

Mama loves her new shade.  It has a black out feature which will help block the sun.  We are not sure how well it does that yet because it has been raining since it was put up.  She will really be happy when the remaining four are put up, but she doesn't have a clue when that will happen.  We only have one more weekend here and it doesn't sound like Dad wants to waste it putting up shades even though it would make Mama really happy and she would love to have it done before we go home.  Pssst....Dad if you are reading this, that is a big hint for you. If Mama is happy, we are all happy.  BOL

Dad thinks he has a different way to install the rest of them, but it involves another trip to Home Depot and even longer screws.  BOL   FYI:  Dad is actually really good at home repairs but motor homes are a totally different beast.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Glad That All He Has To Do Is Look Cute To Make Mama Happy