A Morning Walk and Preparing for Winter

The morning dawned bright and sunny after yesterday’s rain and even thought there was a bit of a chill in the air that didn’t stop us from a morning walk on the nearby greenway.  Nashville Parks and Recreation have been working on an extensive greenway system for several years.  Many sections are finished; many others are not.  However, they are making progress connecting the sections.  We had noticed that the bridge over the Cumberland River was open so we wanted to check out the section from the Wave Pool to Shelby Park.  It really felt good to stretch these old legs again.  We have been walking around in a circle in the various campgrounds, but haven’t been for a distance walk or a hike since we left the Adirondacks in August.  There is a new Nature Center at Shelby Park.  We went to check that out also and found free coffee and muffins.  That gave us a boost for the 3-mile return trip.

Greenway bridge over the Cumberland River

Shelby Bottoms Greenway kiosk.

Tennessee is in the South, but by no means the Deep South.  It gets cold here in the winter.  Freezing temperatures at night are normal and below zero temperatures are not uncommon.  To RV here in the winter requires a little preparation, especially for the water system.  This afternoon Gene insulated our outside water hose and spigot.  Our first winter in the Montana, he prepared a water hose which we now use just in the winter.  It has a length of heat strip which is held in place by duct tape which is covered with foam.  The foam is held in place by about 6 rolls of duct tape.  More foam on the spigot.  We have a garbage can which we put over the top of the water spigot to keep the insulation dry, but the slide is too close for the garbage can to fit.  For the time being he is using a plastic garbage bag until we can get something more suitable.  That should keep our water flowing on the few cold winter nights we may have during the next couple of months.  Our underbelly is heated so our plumbing and storage tanks will be fine.

Does anyone remember the rotary style phone?  That is the one with numbers in a circle and you stick you finger through the hole to dial.  There aren’t many of those left in this world, but my parents have one that they still use. Not only that, it’s a “princess” phone and it is blue.  It’s special, alright.  They had all rotary phones in their house until about 10 years ago when they broke down and bought a touch tone with an answering machine.

But it wasn’t until 2 years ago that they got a cell phone.  I thought this was great progress, but I soon realized that I seldom could reach them by calling the cell phone.  There were a number of reasons—they forgot to recharge it, they forgot to take it with them.  Whatever.  I got out of the habit of trying to reach them by cell phone and just called the home phone.  After about a year, they finally got in the habit of recharging and having it with them, but I can never reach them on that phone.  This afternoon I got a call from my mother.  “Did you call me?” she asked.

“No”, I replied.

“Well, I had a message that you called on my cell phone.”

I thought for a minute and could vaguely remember calling her about 3 weeks ago.  “I may have”, I said, “but it has been several weeks ago.”

“Well, I’m returning your call.”

I am still laughing.