Lake Wylie

Happy Veteran's Day and Happy Anniversary to Naomi and Marty. :)

Today we packed our lunches and enjoyed a lovely picnic next to Lake Wylie. Clear skies, sunny and about 68 degrees.

I took some pictures and thought I'd share. My phone isn't very smart and neither am I when it comes to the camera feature, but I hope you get the idea.

 

That's the bridge over Lake Wylie. We drive over it nearly every morning on our way to work. What a nice way to start the day. 

This is T-Bones. We've been there a couple times and really enjoyed it (except for the smokers on the deck...sigh). Good food and margaritas. If you come and visit, maybe we'll take you there. Here's their website.  You can probably find some better pictures there. 

Today we were working all around Lake Wylie so we had many opportunities to view the fall colors around the lake. We also saw some pretty impressive homes. 

Although we have been in this area for seven months, longer than we've been anywhere so far...there are far worse places to be. 

Home Improvement Project

This summer one of our neighbors did a project in their MH that inspired Chris. Yesterday we bought the supplies and this morning he jumped out of bed, excited to have a project. I was less excited and slept through most of it.

Here's a before picture. The rectangle that looks like a desk blotter is the cover to our stove. 

And here's the after! 

And a more panoramic view. 

Nice, huh? 

How did he do it? 

He used these peel and stick tiles from Lowe's (also available at Home Depot or online and in a variety of colors and sizes). Ours are a little more brown than they appear in this photo. 

What a big difference! 

Thanks to Chris, my talented and patient husband. 

Customer Review: Carmax

Wow, three posts this week. How exciting.

As I mentioned last time, we got a new car.

I hate car shopping. I've had limited experience with it, but generally it involves going to a car lot where some guy latches onto me (the only place that ever happens) and won't let go, asking questions, trying to be my pal.

Another reason I hate car shopping is because I really don't care much about cars. Does it run? Can I afford it? I'm good to go.

But it was obvious that we needed a new car. We'd been driving a 2008 Chevy Aveo which barely held Chris and I, let alone the equipment we need for our  jobs.

Reluctantly I agreed to visit a couple of traditional car dealers. At one, an over enthusiastic saleswoman was determined to show us a car but she wasn't sure where it was. She loaded us into a Jeep and drove around the lot with her hand out the window squeezing the key fob waiting for the car to beep.

That didn't end well.

One of our neighbors here at Carowinds works in the service department at Carmax. He and Chris had a long discussion about vehicles to consider. When we went to Carmax he introduced us to a salesman named Keith.

At Carmax the lot is gated and locked, but all the cars inside of it are unlocked. We told Keith the basics of what we were looking for and he pointed us to the areas where the SUVs were located. "Take a look, sit in a few cars and I'll check back with you in a few minutes."

What? He wasn't going to follow us around and try to make chit chat? We didn't have to ask for someone to go and get the keys for the cars we wanted to get inside?

My car shopping world was rocked.

After we found the car we wanted, the test drive and transaction were relatively painless. Everyone we met at Carmax was friendly and professional, eager to help. They also had a financing rate that was much better than my bank offered.

All in all, we're very pleased with our experience at Carmax and will go there again next time we need a car.

Meet Danger

We got a new car!

If it wasn't raining, I'd go out and take a picture to post. I found this one online which is the same year, model and color...2013 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport.  Isn't it beautiful?

When we were doing the paperwork at Carmax (more about them in another post) the woman asked if we had a name for the car yet and I remembered a previous post about combining our names...

Meet Danger our beautiful new car.

End of Carowinds Season

Although there was some speculation (by us and others) about whether we'd make it...we did. The Carowinds/Scarowinds season came to an end on November 1.

I think we'll put our experience at Carowinds in the That Was An Interesting Experience But We Don't Plan To Go Back category.

As I've mentioned before, this summer was difficult. It was hot. I mean really hot. And humid. For weeks. Our air conditioning, even after getting it fixed, just couldn't keep up. So, that's the sort of thing that just sucks the energy and good humor away rapidly.

In addition, the summer was stressful with three time-consuming and costly trips to Ohio for family events where our presence was minimally tolerated.

Neither of those things are Carowind's fault, but they added to the issues which made Carowinds an often less than inspiring place to work.

• Lack of leadership
• Rules that weren't enforced
• A general attitude of putting in our time on the clock and that's it.  
• Co-workers who sat around watching while the rest of us sweated our asses off, compounded by the fact that management was aware of these issues and did nothing. 

Stuff like that.

But, there were some good things about being here.

Overall, I liked my co-workers (with two notable exceptions mentioned above) and enjoyed working with them, even if I didn't always like working with the public.

Chris liked most of his co-workers and also didn't have to be around them much because he was driving the international students around. He enjoyed getting to know the students and hearing their impressions of the US.

The campground is nice. Large, level sites with plenty of space between us and our neighbors, excellent wifi.

We like this area and the fall weather has been outstanding.

I met some nice people. Many of them were repeat visitors who remembered me when they came back and that was nice too. One man stands out in my mind. I picked him up at Carowinds in the tram and he was by himself going back to the campground for something. During the four or five minutes we were together he told me that his wife had died a few years ago (he was probably about 70-75) and that he had re-connected with his high school girlfriend and now they were married, traveling and enjoying life. They were at Carowinds with assorted grandchildren. What touched me was when he said, "I never thought I'd be this happy again."

Even though the season is over, the campground is open year round so we'll stay here as long as we can while working our new jobs, and that's a nice perk for surviving the season. We still have to pay, but it's about 25% of what we'd pay at another campground.

Do we regret our time here? Absolutely not! We have met some people that we'll keep in touch with and we were glad for the opportunity to be here. And, if we hadn't been here, we wouldn't have met the people who led us to our new jobs. it all fits together.