RV Navigator Episode 214

It has been many years since we last visited South Africa (at the very southern most tip of Africa).  In 2006, we drove a rental RV in South Africa for about 6 weeks.  We of course cooked our meals and drove the RV to all of the attractions.  This time we are on tour with meals, transportation, and sightseeing included.  I remember having lunch in Kruger NP while watching elephants eating grass on the shore of a river.  Now that's camping.  This time our visit to Kruger will be via safari jeep driven by a guide.  WE are still enjoying the adventure but just in a different way.

We boarded our flight from Chicago to Cape Town, South Africa on a Monday and arrived on Wednesday morning at 11am local time. This involved a 13hr and 10hr flights and several time zones. We moved from snowy winter to hot summer with long days and the sun in the North.  Welcome to the Southern Hemisphere.  We RVed here in 2006 but this time we are on a safari and cruise. Lots of travel details plus our take on Chat GPT in this episode. We'll be on the road in South Africa for another 5 weeks so the next episode will be from here also.

We certainly did not enjoy returning home on Christmas Eve to a rapidly cooling house.  The new-ish furnace would not turn on and the temperature was -9º outside.  It would be 1-½ days before the holiday ended and we could get help.  We rousted our furnace repairman out of bed at midnight and he was able to counsel Ken on how to hot-wire the furnace since it became clear that the thermostat was dead.  Even after the hardware stores reopened and Ken was able to buy a new one, he could not install it correctly.  There were so many wires, many the same color.  Who knew? 

Above is the paragraph written by Martha for her blog.  She instructed Chat GPT to make the above paragraph more “lively”, the result is below:

Talk about a Christmas Eve surprise! We arrived home to find our furnace had decided to take a vacation, leaving us with a rapidly cooling house and temperatures outside at a bone-chilling -9º. But we weren't going to let a little thing like a broken furnace ruin our holiday spirit! We rallied together and managed to hot-wire the thing with the help of a midnight furnace repairman. But that was just the beginning of our adventure. Once the hardware stores opened, Ken was determined to install a new thermostat, but let's just say, it was easier said than done. With wires upon wires, all the same color, it was like trying to solve a puzzle blindfolded. But in the end, we persevered and our house was warm and cozy just in time for Christmas Day!