Evolution & Ascent ...

A perhaps strange pairing! Evolution is changes to this blog. Heretofore ... an old-fashioned word but I love it ... anyway, heretofore the Timmber Wolf blog has been supposedly about our adventures traveling in our RV, the Timber Wolf. Supposedly because a few other things have crept in here and there but principally it has been our travels. There have large time gaps in some of it because other, non-traveling adventures have gotten in the way and distracted me thoroughly. There's not a lot of you reading this so I guess that means I can do as I please with it.

The last published blog was about events the end of June in 2018 BUT the last blog about that didn't get finished until today, the 13th of March 2019! The one before that was published back in October of 2018. I was actually doing well finally catching up on that trip and the final post of the trip was almost finished when POOF! my computer went belly up, taking my attention away from the writing and burying my photos and notes about the end of that trip. (More about that in a later post.)

So, now for the "EVOLUTION" of the Timmber Wolf blog. It is no longer just about our travels but will be about our other adventures and actually, anything that wants to jump out of my brain and through my fingers on to the keyboard, sharing these adventures with the family & friends who read this blog.

As for the "ASCENT" part of the title ... We made it home from our trip through Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and elsewhere on June 20th. Long before we left, we had already decided that I was retiring from H&R Block at the end of the season and we were becoming a one car family, which Geoff promptly and a bit prematurely made happen! This and other things were in Decisions, decisions, decisions posted March 31st.

It does look like I never mentioned that part of our one car family decision was that we were going to get a new car, either another Outback just two years newer or the new Subaru, an Ascent which is very like the Outback but bigger with more load space and three rows of seats instead of just two. In May we went to our Subaru dealer, Subaru of Jacksonville, to look at the new Ascent and decide what we were doing. We were already decided on getting another Subaru both because of the quality and reliability of the make but also because we knew and trusted the dealership. The dealership only had the one vehicle in stock and for this long term purchase we wanted to get exactly what we wanted, not just what they had in stock so we decided and ordered an Ascent in Tungsten, the color shown in the stock image shown above.

We did not expect the car would be in until August or September but shortly after our return from our trip north, the dealer called that our Ascent was here if we were ready for it and on July 6th we headed up to Jacksonville to pick it up.

Since then we have spent a good bit of time getting to know the changes from earlier year Outbacks, getting to know our car. We also registered it and ordered custom plates that say SLVR WLV (Silver Wolves) which have since arrived and been put on the Wolf.


We are quite happy with our Ascent and the larger cargo space has been great especially since sometimes we need to haul my mobility scooter. We now actually have two of those, the original red PoGoGo I've written about before and the new BluGoGo three wheeler we got recently so when needed Geoff can use PoGoGo while I use the new one. Both of them are GoGo Elites by Pride and we have found a local dealer/servicing business we trust.

Of course recently Geoff did a test run around the neighborhood in it and turning into our driveway managed to turn it over and skin up his knee!!!

No sooner did we get used to our new vehicle and get rested up from our trip and we were just beginning to think we might have a bit of a quiet spell around here and mid August I was sitting in my recliner with the tv on and reading a book on my Kindle ... Geoff was in the other room ... and BANG!!! lightning struck. I mean literally, loudly and sudden darkness! The TV was out, the whole house generator did NOT come on, the security camera system was down, the security alarm was screaming, the house phones were out, the computer router was dead and my heart was pounding like a steam engine.

On further investigation, the cover blew off the phone box outside and the alarm system company said it was the back door so the KABOOM must have moved it enough to set that off. The cable TV did come back but not the internet and thus our house phones were out as they are attached to the internet. We ended up having to replace the computer controller in the whole house power, the TV in my office, the security system controller, and the computer router! A couple of nearby houses had similar issues. Oh and my heart beat finally ratcheted down to normal.