1,000 Foot Ore Freighter, Soo Locks, MI

1,000 Foot Ore Freighter, Soo Locks, MI

Near Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia

Near Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia

Colorful Truck Sales, Weed, CA

Colorful Truck Sales, Weed, CA

Hollywood Sign

Hollywood Sign

Mackinac Bridge, MI

Mackinac Bridge, MI

Pelicans, Grays Harbor, WA

Pelicans, Grays Harbor, WA

Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park

Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park

Two Weeks From Today . . .

We were out the door about 12:30 to have our regular brunch at our local Denny’s, followed up with HEB, and then gas for the Jeep.

It looks like the bump stock that Joe replaced last week has fixed my ‘clunking’ suspension problem, and for only $70. And since they come in pairs, I have a spare in case the one on the other side falls off.

I had hoped to try out my Eclipse Filter/Camera combo again today, but Mother Nature intervened once again with a solid overcast. In fact it looks like Tuesday might be my next chance.

I want to see how large a zoom I can use and still see all the sun’s disk. Plus I have to allow for tracking the sun as it moves along during the eclipse.

We’ve been making a list of things we want to take with us, and one thing that came up was to take folding chairs. As I’ve said, we plan to just walk out into the Days Inn parking to watch the eclipse without having to travel anywhere. So it seems that some chairs would be nice too.

Then, depending on the traffic situation we may make the 20 minute trip over to Kempner, TX to have dinner at the Kempner Brick Oven, a really good German restaurant. And if that doesn’t work out for some reason, there’s a Golden Corral just two doors away.

So two weeks from today, we should be at our hotel in Killeen.

During our recent stay at the Quality Inn up in Mable Falls last weekend, I was amused to find this placard on the bathroom counter.

I think it is their polite way of telling you, “Don’t Steal Our Stuff Or You Will Pay.”


Thought For The Day:

The black woman on the syrup bottle is gone, the black man on the rice box is gone, the Indian woman on the butter is gone, but they kept the land, and the old white man on the oats box is still there. So who’s the racist here?

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.


March 24, 2010

The best $40 Ice Cream I’ve Ever Eaten…

Today started off with a trip to the ATM for some cash and then a stop at the RV park office to sign up for another week here in Las Vegas.

It’s a nice park, not too expensive (only about $125/wk. + elec.), and convenient to the Strip.

The only downside (downsides?) is that the sites are narrow and there’s no real shade.

RoadrunnerRV

We headed out about 12:30 pm and drove over to Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville restaurant for lunch.

Margaritaville

We had eaten at his original restaurant in Key West last year and really enjoyed it, so we wanted to give this one a try.

Margaritaville1

Jan had the same Monterey Chicken Sandwich that she had in Key West, and really enjoyed it again. I, of course, had to have a Cheeseburger in Paradise.

After we finished eating, we made the obligatory gift shop stop where Jan got her a Margaritaville Las Vegas T-shirt.

When we got back out on the street we encountered these brightly-feathered guys.

Parrots1

So following up on the whole Jimmy Buffet – Parrothead concept, here are some parrot heads.

Parrots2

Parrots3

We next decided to drive the Strip again trying to get some more pictures of the different casinos.

Paris

This is Paris Casino. I assume the balloon sign refers to the Montgolfier brothers, who are credited with inventing and flying in the first hot air balloon in the 1780’s.

440px-1783_balloonj

And, of course, what would Paris be without the Eiffel Tower?

Effiel Tower

There’s also New York New York which models the New York skyline, complete with the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty..

NewYorkNewYork

Flying Saucer

And, although it’s not a casino, for some strange reason, this flying saucer-shaped building houses a fashion show center

Finishing up on the Strip we decided to check out The Gold and Silver Pawn Shop, otherwise known as the History Channel’s Pawn Stars,

Pawn Stars
We even saw one of the show’s stars, Chumlee, who seems to be the court jester//comic relief on the show.

Nice tats!

Chumlee

And Jan got herself a new opal ring.

Sweets for the Sweet.

Ring

Leaving the pawn shop, we wanted to check out The Gun Store. They have billboards all over town advertising that you can rent and fire a machine gun on their in-store range. We found out it cost $50 for 50 rounds and $25 for each additional 50.

They were pretty busy, so we’ll probably come back tomorrow. Jan wants to shoot a Thompson Submachine Gun, otherwise known as the Tommy Gun from the Prohibition Era.

Thompson

By now it was almost 5pm, but with our big lunch no one was hungry for supper, so we decided to just get some ice cream at Dairy Queen,

Unfortunately, the Dairy Queen we chose was inside the Boulder Station Casino.  So $10 of ice cream cost me $40, what with our $30 contribution to the Las Vegas economy via the slot machines.

We got back to the rig a little after 6pm, where I resumed fighting “The Great Toilet Wars”

More Reports from the battlefront soon…


March 24, 2011

Bay Doors and Waste Valves . . .

As is pretty normal, Jan had one of her ‘rebound’ 2nd day migraines, not as bad as the first one yesterday, but still not fun.

A little after 11am I called American Coach with some questions on several projects I’ve got in work on our coach, and as usual, they came through with great info.

The latest news on my dented bay door is not good. The fairgrounds and the landscapers are pretty much denying that they did it.

Coach Bay Door

But it was not there last Wednesday when we moved from site 407 to site 404 to get a 50 amp hookup. We haven’t moved since, and no one else has been back there, except them.

And since I just changed from Progressive Insurance to GMAC I really hate to file a claim less than two weeks after I got my new policy.

Still deciding what to do.

After lunch, I got back to work on checking our battery’s water level.

About 4:15 pm Jan and I headed into Tucson to Poco & Mom’s, a very small, very delicious Mexican restaurant that we were introduced to last year by our friends Al & Adrienne.

Poco & Mom’s does wonderful things with Green Hatch chilies, and we always eat here when we’re in Tucson.

Coming home, we detoured over to Camping World to pick up new black tank waste valves.

Valterra ValveWe have valves that leak slightly and want to replace them. I suspect mine may just have something stuck in the gate, but since I have to remove it anyway, I figure I might as well just replace it instead of cleaning it.

Mine looks to be pretty easy to remove and replace.

We’ll see.

I got an email this afternoon that the paperwork for my Thousand Trails membership is in the mail and hopefully will be here Monday. Don’t yet know how long it will take to get everything wrapped up.

That’s about it for today. Hopefully, Jan will be feeling better tomorrow.


March 24, 2012

Last Day in Tucson . . .

Brandi called yesterday to tell more about the video of Landon helping his daddy mow the grass. She said Lowell had gone out to mow the backyard, and she and Landon were watching from the patio. All of a sudden Brandi said Landon turned and ran back into the house.

Brandi said at first she thought he was scared of the noisy mower. But in just a second he reappeared from the house dragging his toy mower behind him.

He wasn’t scared. He just wanted to help Daddy.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to Skype from Las Cruces tomorrow afternoon. Our Internet signal has been too slow here in Tucson

The RV Park here at the Pima County Fairgrounds is closing tomorrow partly because they’re starting to get ready for the Pima County Fair that starts April 19th.

They’ve already started bringing in the Porta Johns, and a lot of carny trailers are showing up.

Tucson Fair Porta Potties

And what’s a fair without a leafy green elephant,

Tucson Fair Green Elephant

or a giant ice cream cone?

Tucson Fair Ice Cream Cone

Heading out about 1:30pm, our first stop was Harbor Freight Tools. I wanted a heat gun, and they had one on sale. I’m tired of trying to heat shrink tubing using Jan’s hair dryer, and this will fix the problem. Of course, I also found a few other things I just had to have. I mean, it’s Harbor Freight Tools, right.

Our next stop was Wal-Mart where we both needed something. Then it was down the road to Bookman’s used book store. Jan was looking for one last book in a Charlene Harris’ series, and she finally found it here.

Later we decided to have one last meal at Luckie’s Thai for some more great Chinese food.

And of course, more great leftovers.

We had our usually delicious meal at Luckie’s before finally heading back to the rig.

And on another note, the war is not yet won. When I checked my traps after we got home tonight I found two more mice in my traps.

Darn it!

Tomorrow Jan and I plan to head for Las Cruces about 9:30.


March 24, 2013

Cactus and Fried Chicken . . .

Well, I finally tracked down the elusive extra circuit breakers for our site and they were both popped. There is a master circuit breaker panel at the far end of the row that also has 30 amp breakers in it. But it is strange that it’s always the ones in the remote panel that blow, and not the ones on the site pedestal.

Resetting them put power back to the pedestal by our site. But since the park is emptying out, no one is likely to park beside us before we have to leave next Sunday, so I probably won’t go to the trouble to switch us back.

In anticipation of heading up to Apache Junction next week I’ve been checking out RV parks in the area and they look pretty promising. I found several parks that start giving long-term Passport America discounts beginning April 1st, rather than the 1 or 2 nights during the season.

One of them, Santa Fe RV Park, lets you stay for 14 days for $13.50 a night under PA. That’s $94.50 a week, cheaper than we’re paying here at the fairgrounds.

About 11am I walked down to the park office and re-upped for another week. I was hoping we could stay until Monday, but the lady confirmed they will be closing the park on Sunday and we have to be out.

A few minutes later Chris and Charles Yust showed up after finishing up at the FMCA Rally down the road at Lazy Days. After they got settled we all headed out about noon to check out the Saguaro National Park, about 10 miles north of here.

Seguaro NP Visitors Center

After getting our National Park Passports stamped, we headed out on the 8 mile loop through the park.

The variety of cacti is just amazing.

Cholla

Cactus 2

Cactus 3

Cactus 4

And many of the cacti were just beginning to bloom.

Cactus Blooms 2

Cactus Blooms 3

Cactus Blooms 4

Cactus Blooms 5

Cactus Blooms 6

And of course, the name-sake Saguaro cacti were everywhere.

Seguaro Cactus

Seguaro Cactus 2

Seguaro Cactus 3

Cactus 5

These are Saguaro ‘bones’ or ‘ribs’.

Cactus Bones 1

These rods are what’s left of a Saguaro after it dies.

Cactus Bones 2

And sometimes it’s all about the view.

Cactus 6

Cactus Rocks

Since it was now getting to be supper time we decided to eat at Poco & Mom’s, a small family-run restaurant that our Tucson friend’s Al and Adrienne had taken us to several years ago. Really good Mexican food with a lot of Hatch green chilies.

Well, I knew they were closed on Mondays, but what I didn’t remember is that they close at 2pm on Sundays. Bummer!

So after a couple of minutes of discussion, we headed down the road to Golden Corral. They can sometimes be hit or miss, but one was really good. Delicious Prime Rib, great Fried Chicken, fish, etc. All good.

Tomorrow is another day.


March 24, 2014

Save the Date (and the Time) . . .

The Date: May 15

The Time: 10:00 AM

The Event: My seminar on Gate Guarding for Fun? & Profit at the 54th Escapade in Goshen, IN from May 12th to May 17th

Hope to see you there.


Well, as I suspected, the Tractor Supply shear pin sheared after about a second when we tried to bring in the slide before hitting the road this morning. But, luckily, it proved to be pretty easy to crank it in manually as Jan was bringing it in with the motor.

Slide Manual Drive

About 15 minutes after we were finished with the slide, Dave Evans showed up to see if we needed any help with it. I told him that his timing was perfect: He got there just in time to miss the work, but early enough to show his concern and get credit. LOL

Plus the breakfast casserole that his wife Janice brought over yesterday made for a delicious breakfast this morning. Thanks again, Janice.

The next problem occurred when I brought the levelers up. Visually they were completely retracted, but the lights on the control panel said they were still down. Normally this means the hydraulic reservoir is low on fluid, and that proved to be the case this time too. I always keep a couple of quarts of ATF on hand just for that purpose. So a few minutes later we were ready to go. We pulled out a little before 11, hooked up the toad by the Activity Center, and were on our way.

Being a Monday midday, traffic was pretty light. We headed south on I-45, then took the Houston Tollway for 18 miles and then got on I-10W. 65 miles later we turned off onto SR71, and a few minutes later we were at the Colorado River Thousand Trails.

It was an easy trip, and for an added bonus, after passing through Brookshire, we started seeing more and more Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes all along the highway, and a really big patch where we turned off SR71 toward the park. Hopefully, it will be a good year for them.

Due to the warmer weather, and the easy-popping, weak 30 amp breaker we had here last time, we upgraded to 50 amp this time. After checking in at the office, we got parked and set up, and using the same manual/electrical combo we used this morning, Jan and I got the slide out with no problems.

A little later I called American Coach and told them that I had received the incorrect shear pin. After a little work, they finally found what I think is the correct one. Unfortunately, they only had one in stock, but they did say they would send it out free because of my receiving the wrong one before. Hopefully it will be here by the end of the week.

Our daughter Brandi called about 4 to let us know she’s got the flu, diagnosed, and everything. Luckily (for us) we haven’t seen her since last Wednesday so we should be outside the window of opportunity.

Dodged a bullet there.


March 24, 2015

Jalapenos do not an Inferno make . . .

I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that I planned to paint the rig bumper this morning, but I wasn’t thinking about how early we were leaving out this afternoon for our lunch date, so no painting today, but maybe tomorrow.

Jan and I headed out about 1pm for the Tempe area, about 20 miles east.

Getting in the area, and since I do so much business with Godaddy, it was interesting to find what I thought was their HQ.

GoDaddy - Tempe

It’s a very large complex, complete with covered parking for some, and open-air parking for others. They’ve also got covered basketball and tennis courts for the employees. Must be nice. I’ve never had a playground at any of the places I ever worked.

We got to our lunch destination about 2pm, and met our lunch companion in the parking lot of the Tilted Kilt, another entry in the ‘breastaurant’ category. And as it turns out, this one is their headquarters location, with their HQ building right across the large parking lot.

Tilted Kilt 1

We were there to meet long-time blog reader Rod Ivers, who had suggested the place, and we were happy to add another ‘breastaurant’ to our list.

Rod and I both had burgers, while Jan had their Gaelic Chicken, pan-seared chicken breasts over fettuccine, and covered in an Irish Whiskey Cream Sauce. She said it was very, very good, and that she’s glad I’m driving home.

I had a cup of their Beer Cheese Soup, made with Guinness Stout. Very good, and maybe Jan should be driving home. I also had their ‘Inferno’ Burger with fries.

Tilted Kilt 2

Also very good. But I’m sorry. These people must really be from up north, because jalapeno peppers and pepper jack cheese do not an inferno make. But a few shakes from my Volcanic Pepper shaker took care of that.

10-Pepper-Flakes-2

We now have 5 chains in our ‘breastaurant’ list: Hooters, the original one, Twin Peaks, Bone Daddy’s House of Smoke, Bombshell’s, and now Tilted Kilt. As far as how we rank them, it’s Twin Peaks, then Tilted Kilt, with Bombshell’s and Bone Daddy’s much further back. And, Oh, we’re ranking the food here, not the girls.

But Courtney, our ‘lassie’ would have ranked very high on any list.

Tilted Kilt - Courtney

It’s hard to put Hooters on that list, since we pretty much go there for the wings.

One thing that was kind of funny was that even the busboys (bus guys?) wear kilts. But they don’t look as good in theirs as Courtney did in hers.

We spent a couple of hours there and had a great time getting to know Rod, and finding out how many of the same places we’d traveled to.

Rod Ivers - Tilted Kilt

Rod is heading out in his RV tomorrow or Thursday, so hopefully, we’ll see him down the road somewhere.

Coming home, we stopped off at a Dunkin’ Donuts near the RV park, and I got my first bad coffee from them. It was so bad it almost tasted like Starbuck’s. They said it was fresh, but it had a burnt, bitter taste. And this wasn’t even straight coffee, but a Caramel Latte.

Back home and later in the evening, I got an email saying that my long-delay domain name transfer from Network Solutions to Godaddy had finally come through, but due to the way that NS had it configured, I was having trouble setting it up. So I gave GoDaddy Tech Support a call and talked to a very nice young lady named Misty.

But even before talking about my problem, the first thing I asked her was how do you get to park in the covered parking area, She laughed and said that if I found out to please let her know. She’s been with them for about six months and still doesn’t know.

I asked her if it was as fun a place to work as I’d heard, and she said it certainly was, and that Godaddy goes out of its way to keep their employees happy. She said they have bikes and pedal cars to get between the widely separated offices and buildings, and besides the basketball and tennis courts for fun, if you don’t want to take the elevator or the stairs from the second floor to the first, you can take the giant spiral slide. Said it was really funny to watch guys in suits going ‘Wheee’ with their arms in the air like kids as they take the slide down.

She also said that they don’t use scripts when working with customers, and they’re not timed. They’re just told to keep us happy. And it was certainly obvious that they weren’t timed, since fixing my problem took just a couple of minutes, and we spent the rest of the 25 minute call talking about RV’ing, traveling, and things to see around the country. We even talked about cats. (inside Godaddy joke)

By the end of the call, I’d figured out that she didn’t work at the complex we’d seen in Tempe, but their much, much bigger headquarters up in Scottsdale. So I don’t know if this one has a slide or not.

Tomorrow, maybe painting, maybe not.


March 24, 2016

Green Apples and Ham, er Pork . . ..

Another quiet morning in the White household. But whatever, it was nice. For most of the morning, we both goofed off with reading and Internet stuff. We didn’t walk, feeling that we had made up for it with yesterday’s 2.05 miles walking/shopping at Wal-Mart.

For some reason, we can walk a lot farther, a lot easier, in Wal-Mart than around the park. But hey, 2 miles is 2 miles.

About 2pm Jan started working on the batch of Funeral Potatoes she was taking to Dennis and Carol’s this afternoon. Pretty easy to put together, and then just pop it in the convection oven.

Jan and I headed out for Livingston, and Dennis and Carol Hill’s at the Escapees Park there.

We got to Dennis and Carol’s about 4:45, and soon after, the other guests show up.

Dennis Hill Gettogether_thumb[5]

From left to right: Dennis, Jim, Carol, in back of Mark, my Jan, Kim, the other Jan. It appears that other Jan’s husband, Dave, has wandered off.

Lucky for us, Dennis’ ‘Smoking A Butt’ did involve pork, and boy, was it good. Along with Kim’s Grilled Beans with Bacon and Cheese Bacon Biscuits, Carol’s Cole Slaw, and my Jan’s Funeral Potatoes, it was a really great meal.

As far as liquid refreshments, Dennis had a nice selection of adult libations, so I decided to try a Redd’s Green Apple Ale. And now I have a new favorite grownup beverage. In addition, when I gave Jan a taste, I had trouble getting the bottle back. Now we want to try their other flavors, Apple Ale and Strawberry Ale.

After a really nice evening, and saying our goodbyes, we headed back to Conroe, taking with us Dennis’ lovely parting gifts of his delicious smoked pork.

We got back to Lake Conroe a little before 9:30,  wrapping up a very nice day.

Tomorrow we head out for the Clear Lake area for Jan’s final wrap-up doctor appointment. Then I’ve got a couple of clients to visit to take care of some computer problems they’re having.


March 24, 2017

Oink, Oink . . .

Our last day in Tucson, Jan and I were up and out the door a little after 10am with our first stop back at the Pima County Fairgrounds to see if I could find the computer mouse I left in Seminar Rm. 4 after our Gate Guarding seminar.

The mouse was black and the ruffled cloth on the tabletop was black, so it didn’t end up coming home with me. It’s not a big deal, only a $7 Amazon mouse, but I’m cheap and it was worth a stop-and-look in any case.

But no luck. The room had been stripped clean.

So leaving the Fairgrounds mouseless, our next stop was the Oink Café at Kolb and Broadway, but along the way, we checked out the Valero station at Kolb and Valencia to see if it was suitable for getting diesel tomorrow on our way north to Apache Junction. It’s only 3 miles off the Interstate and 30 cents a gallon cheaper than the Pilot right down the road. And since we need a little over 100 gallons, that makes a difference.

Several people had told us about the Oink Café. How can you not like a place whose slogan is ‘Breakfast, Lunch, Bacon’? And they do have bacon, eight different kinds of bacon, as a matter of fact.

Jan went with, what else, a BLT with Apple Cider Bacon.

Oink BLT

She said it was probably the best bacon she’s ever had.

I had the 50-50 burger, which is a 1/2 patty that 50% Beef and 50% ground bacon.

Oink 50-50 Burger

It doesn’t get much better than this. And their coffee was really good too.

I also tried a sampler of 4 different types of their bacon.

Oink Half Flight of Bacon

From left to right: Applewood Smoked, Honey, Jalapeno, and Pepper. All very good, and all very distinctly different tasting.

And of course we had to get some donut holes to take home for tomorrow’s breakfast. And of course, they’re Maple Bacon donuts. All bacon all the time.

There’s also an Oink Café up in the Phoenix area that we might check out while we’re up in Apache Junction.

After lunch, it was over to the big Ace Hardware over on Houghton for some hardware items. Then it was on to 3 different auto parts stores until I found AW32 Hydraulic Fluid in gallon jugs.

Getting home I took care of some maintenance items around the rig. First up was using the AW32 to top off the reservoir in the rig that powers the rig’s power steering and the hydraulically-controlled radiator fan. Next, I topped off the radiator coolant and checked the engine oil.

Then I added Rain-X wiper fluid to both the rig and the truck, as well as topping off the brake fluid in the truck, and checking the oil and transmission fluid too.

Finishing up with this, I worked on some Internet stuff until it was time to head down to Omar’s for a dinner get-together with a bunch of other RV’ers, including Dennis and Carol Hill, and Sharon and Don del Rosario.

Omar's Group

As with our previous visits, our food was really good. We both went with breakfast, Jan with a Belgian Waffle with Strawberries and Whipped Cream,

Omar's Belgian Waffle

while I had the Omar’s Favorite, with 3 Cheese Enchiladas, Shredded Beef, 3 Over Medium Eggs, and Country Potatoes.

Omar's Omar's Favorite

All very good.

Tomorrow we’ve got a 145 mile trip up to the Santa Fe RV Park in Apache Junction where we’ll be for two weeks, before we head out for Vegas, Baby,


March 24, 2018

Mach 2 . . .

After a quiet morning, about 3pm Jan and I headed up to Webster to have lunch at Cheddar’s once again

We both had our usual Chicken and Shrimp, and Veggie Plate, just as delicious as usual. All their sides are good. Then after a nice leisurely meal, we circled by the Post Office in Webster to mail a letter, and then our last stop was back at Brock’s Car Care to get a couple of things out of the truck that I had left when I thought I had it back permanently.

Coming back down I-45 toward home, we saw traffic signs detailing that the FM 646 exit (our exit) will be closed from 9pm to 5pm this coming Monday through Friday nights. At some point they’re going to tear down the 646 overpass over I-45 and replace it with an underpass. But I don’t think this is for that, since they don’t look like they’re ready for that yet.

Oreo (Android 8.0) seems to have broken my phone. I just upgraded about a week ago and this is the first problem I’ve noticed.

I use the Texas Lottery app to check my Mega Millions and PowerBall lottery tickets by scanning the barcode on the bottom of the ticket. But since I upgraded to Oreo the camera doesn’t turn on. All I get is a black screen.

Texas Lottery Scanner

So the next thing I did was try the Savings Catcher Receipt scanner in the Wal-Mart app and it worked fine.

Wal-Mart Savings Catcher Scanner

And checking Wal-Mart and Sam’s Scan & Go apps showed they both still worked too.

So then I tried rebooting the phone, again with no change. Next, I deleted the Lottery app, rebooted, and then reinstalled it. Again with no luck.

Strangely this same thing happened on my previous Galaxy S5 after an update. But that time it took out my Wal-Mart scanner. So I’ll have to keep looking at the problem.

While we’re on the subject of the lottery, I’ve already lined up my first purchase after my big win.

F4H-1a

F4H-1b

It’s an F4H-1F, a pre-production variant built in 1959, and the 11th one produced before the model was re-designated the F-4 Phantom II in 1962. This one was used by the Navy as a test bed for various projects and only has 461 hours since it rolled out of the factory.

I spent a lot of time in the late 60’s working on F-4’s at the MCAS (Marine Corp Air Station) Beaufort, SC (part of Parris Island) and got a couple of check rides in the back seat of one. Also got to work on one of the Blue Angel’s F-4’s one time, so it’s one of my favorite planes.

This one is listed as the “World’s Only Privately Owned F-4 Phantom Capable of Flight”, and even better it’s going for the bargain price of only $3.95 million. And that includes 3 spare J-79 engines, 3 fuel drop tanks, 2 drag chutes, and fully-active M-B ejection seats. A bargain at twice the price.

Looking forward to hitting Mach 2 again.


March 24, 2019

Starry Night, and Peaches . . .

We spent this morning on a number of different things, some trip-related, some not. We did look back through our possible extra-cost excursions, trying to decide which if any we want to add to our trip.

I also ordered a couple of these compact travel umbrellas to take along with us. They are pretty good size and have the best reviews,

Compact Umbrella

but really they only have to last for the trip. And at $17 each that’s not too bad.

Jan got the Pink Peach version,

Compact Umbrella Pink Peach

while, keeping the Van Gogh theme, got the Starry Night one.

Compact Umbrella Starry Night

While I was ordering stuff I went ahead and ordered another bottle of the Busch’s Aluminum Wash, since doing all four rig wheels pretty much uses up an entire bottle. FWIW I’ve tried a number of other brands that I’ve bought locally but this stuff is the only thing I’ve found that works.

And while I was thinking about stuff for the trip that we’d ordered, I thought to the TSA Prohibited List and found, as I had suspected, that our sharp-pointy walking sticks are not allowed in our carry-on bags, but must be checked. Not a big deal though since we’d already thought about checking a single, larger bag in addition to the two bags each that we will be carrying on.

I also made our coach once again legal to drive by digging out and installing our license plate stickers, so now we’re good to go for next Sunday’s test drive and the family trip up to Kingsland Friday week.

And on another coach note, I talked with Cummins on Friday about the burnt-on residue on my oil filter mount and the tech said it is pretty hard steel rather than aluminum, so I should be able to scrape it if I have to without worrying too much about scratching it, as long as I’m careful.

And he also said the oil filter mount is replaceable. “Four bolts and it comes right off,” he said. However, I suspect this is one of those ‘MUCH easier said than done’ situations, based on the location.

Without orangutan arms, I don’t think you can reach it from underneath, and you can’t see it from the rear engine compartment. So I’ll have to see if it’s at all accessible from under the bed.

So I’m crossing my fingers that the leak is fixed now.

We knew long-time friends Butch and Fonda Williams were coming through Houston on their way from Quartzite, AZ to the Escapees Rainbow Plantation Park in Summerdale, AL, where we stayed last October on our way to Florida. But we weren’t quite sure where or when we would be able to meet.

But they ended up ‘rest-stopping’ last night the other side of Columbus, and called this morning a little after noon to say they were at the Baytown Buc-ee’s. So we headed up to meet them there.

Butch and Fonda 1987 MCI Bus

They’ve got a 1987 MCI bus that they converted and put in a new engine, and recently spent the winter at Quartzite. So now they’re heading back to their home in Indiana by way of south Alabama.

Sounds like 2008, our first year on the road, where we came home to Houston from Alaska via Gatlinburg, TN, and the Smoky Mountains.

After catching up for a bit, we headed right down the feeder about a mile to have lunch at Saltgrass Steakhouse, their first visit to one.

Butch and Fonda Williams

Not only did they seem to like their steaks, but we turned them on to our favorite Wedge Salad. And luckily, the restaurant wasn’t really busy, so we were able to spend a couple of hours catching up without the guilt of hogging a table that was needed.

Finally saying our goodbyes, we headed home and they headed east on I-10 to a nearby rest area for the night. Hopefully, we’ll see them their next time through here.

Last week I posted the following as a Thought For The Day.

Wife tells programmer husband “Pick up a loaf of bread on the way home from work and if they have eggs, get a dozen.” (If you’re a programmer this is hilarious!)

Several readers, who were programmers, or programmer’s spouses, disagreed with the hilarity of the statement, and said they didn’t get it. In hindsight, I guess I should have clarified it as ‘OLD programmers.’

Several others, from my early programming time-frame, saw it the same way I did. So I guess you had to start out in the stone-age of computers like I(we) did.

In my case I started out at age 17 in 1966, programming in Fortran II on the IBM 360 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Everyone was talking about/waiting for, Fortran IV.

Never did figure out what happened to Fortran III?

So I guess you had to be there, or maybe ‘then’.


March 24, 2020

Up On The Roof?

Jan and I were out the door a little after 7am this morning, heading up to Friendswood for our annual checkups.

Rob Amato, our park owner, has been working on getting our new streetlights installed, and just got them upright a couple of days ago. And this morning was our first time to see them in action.

They’re daylight LED lights and really brighten up the area.

RV Park New Lights 1

And the daylight part means it looks like this underneath.

RV Park New Lights 2

We got to the doctor’s office about 8am, and found that they would only let one of us into the office at a time. Everyone was wearing masks and gloves, and complaining about how hot it made them. Then after letting Jan and I in one at a time, they put us in a room together. After the nurse drew our blood, the doctor quickly went over our prescriptions and we were out to the desk to pay.

That’s when I mentioned, “Aren’t we supposed to pee in the jar?”

Whoops!

I think they were a little too much in a hurry to get us out the door.

Then after filling our bottles, we drove down to the Home Depot on FM646 for a few things. It was interesting to find that it was pretty much business as usual there. I wanted to get a can of spray cleaner to clean the coil in the Coleman Mach 15 AC unit in the front of our rig.

I pulled the inside panel to see if I could unclog the outside drain hole, since rather than run off the side of the rig, water was dripping down inside. But while it quickly became obvious that I was going to be up on the roof in the near future, I also found that the coil was pretty dirty and I needed to clean it ASAP.

As we left HD, I submitted an online order to the nearby Whataburger so we could drive by and pick it up. Our receipt said our order would be ready in 5-7 minutes, and to park in the lot and an attendant would bring out our order.

But after about 15 minutes we had not seen anybody, so we got in the drive-thru line and found our order waiting for us. Don’t know where the problem was, but our burgers were as fantastic as usual.

Then we drove across the roadway to park in a shady spot in the WalMart parking lot to consume our long-missed burgers and fries. These were our first burgers in a long time since we’ve been prepping for good numbers on our tests at the doctor’s.

Done with our burgers, we drove over closer to WalMart and went in to pick up a couple of items. Though the store was about as busy as usual for a Tuesday morning, the parking lot seemed to reflect the whole ‘social distancing’ meme.

Rather than most of the cars being clustered near the doors, cars looked to be scattered all around the parking lot, even out to the edges.

So spread in the parking lot, and then huddle together in the checkout line.

Got it!

Our daughter sent over this text this morning, reflecting the trials and tribulations of Homeschooling.

Homeschooling Day #2.

Landon was getting ready to log into Zoom for his morning meeting with his class and I told him the items he still needed to do this week and he said “I don’t have to do ALL that today, do I?”

And I said “no, we will space it out” and he says “whew, you’re my savior…the lazy teacher I always wanted!”

Our son, Chris, sent back, “Smart Ass runs deep in this family.”

He would certainly know, if anyone would.


March 24, 2021

Happy Birthday!

Today, on March 24th, 1999, “Beauty”, our 1999 American Eagle coach, rolled off the assembly line at the factory in Decatur, IN.

Our Beauty RV

We bought her from Roman Holiday Motorhomes in New Braunfels, TX on December 26, 2007. She had only 64,511 miles from the two previous owners, and was in fantastic shape. We picked her up on January 6th, 2008, and then after a month of prep, on February 6th, we headed for Alaska.

Well, in a roundabout way, at least.

Our route over the next two months took us out through Yuma, San Diego, LA, over to Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Tucson. Then across to Albuquerque, up through Denver, Cheyenne, and on to Billings.

Next up it was on over to Bellingham where we entered Canada at the Sumas crossing on April 13, 2008. And after the drive up to Dawson Creek, we got on the Alcan Hwy, and we were in Fairbanks, parked at the Chena Marina RV Park there, on April 26th.

We spent the next 5 months workcamping there, finally heading back home on September 19, 2008. We took a different route back, down the Cassiar Hwy, then coming south from Prince George, down the Cariboo Hwy to Cache Creek, and then across to Lake Louise, Banff, and Calgary, finally reentering the US at Sweet Grass, MT on October 8th.

Next, it was on east through Iowa and Illinois, down through Nashville, and over to Knoxville, Pigeon Forge, and Gatlinburg. Then it was on down through Alabama to Gulf Shores, before finally heading back to Houston, getting here the Sunday before Thanksgiving, November 23rd. So, almost 10 months on the road.

A wild and crazy first year. And a hell of a lot of fun!

Well, Uncle Sam was right on the money this time, and our Stimulus Funds showed up in our account this morning, just as promised. And since today was also Jan’s regular SS payday, it was even better.


March 24, 2022

P. F. Chang’s And More . . .

For the last several days our shore water pressure coming into the rig has been good, intermittent, or nonexistent. However, whenever I looked closer, it all started working for a bit. But after a process of elimination, and the fact that water from our internal tank going through the pump works just fine, the only thing left really was the shore water inlet/check valve.

And when I went to Amazon to order a new one, I found I had ordered one back in June 2013 while we were at the Bend/Sunriver Thousand Trails Park in Bend, OR. And for the same reason, as I found out when I checked the blog for that date.

RV Water Inlet Check Valve

It should be here tomorrow morning, along with a new hose splitter.

4 Way Hose Splitter

This one is solid brass, so it won’t crack/rust like my previous plastic/steel one. So it’s going to be a busy weekend, I guess.

This morning we left the rig a little after 1pm, with our first stop at Esthela’s Barber Shop over in Bay Area Blvd/FM528 area.

Up until about 4 years ago, it had been Lou’s Barber Shop, where I had been going for about 30 years, not too long after it opened. Then Lou sold the shop and retired to Corpus.

Next up was our lunch at P.F. Chang’s, our first visit, but probably not our last.

It was that good.

PF Chang's

When we sat down, our server dropped off a platter of their Chicken Lettuce Wrap for us to sample.

PF Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wrap

So good that a couple of us ordered it for their meal.  Probably the idea for the sample.

Jan ordered the Mandarin Crunch Salad with Chicken.

PF Chang's Mandarin Crunch Salad

Which she said she would order again.

I got the lunch version of the Kung Pao Chicken Bowl, which was listed as Very Spicy.

Yeah, right!

PF Chang's Kung Pao Chicken Bowl

Though it was pretty tasty.

And here is this motley bunch.

PF Chang's Opry Group

Bob and Maria, on the left, we have known since the mid-80’s. while Connie, Harry, and Sadye, we’ve known since 1997 or so. And Jan of course, I’ve known since July 1967. July 5th to be exact.

And we’ve already got next month’s get-together scheduled, this one at the Black Bear Diner down in our area.

Already looking forward to it.

 

 

 

Schafer’s And Sunspots . . .

We headed out for our lunch at Schafer’s Coastal Grille over in Clear Lake Shores about 12:30. We just ate here a few weeks back, but decided it was time again.

Jan started out with a Side Salad,

and then moved on to the Keto Shrimp Tacos.

The ‘Keto’ part means that instead of Taco Shells, it’s cradled in scooped-out Avocados.

I got my usual Wedge Salad, my 2nd favorite one. Saltgrass is a little better, but only by a little.

Then like last time, I got the Filet Bites appetizer as my entree.

And of course, you can’t beat the view from the patio.

Finishing up, and on our way back to our area, we made a Kroger’s stop at the big one on SH96, before hitting up Wal-Mart for our weekly visit.

We had thought we were going to be getting together with some friends this afternoon, but that fell through when they had car trouble.

Before we left for Schafer’s this afternoon, I decided to check out the Eclipse Glasses that came with my Celestron Camera Filter Kit.

When you are not looking at the sun while wearing glasses, everything is absolutely black. But when I looked at the sun, I saw an orange ball about the size of a pea at arm’s length, a lot smaller than you would expect.

Then this afternoon, about 5pm, I decided to try the camera filter part of the kit. So after taping the filter over my cell phone camera lens, this is what I saw at 1X.

It’s fuzzy because there was a slight overcast masking the sun a little.

And here is 10x.

10X is the limit of my optical lenses, so I decided to try 100X, which is my S21 Ultra’s maximum digital zoom.

And I was really surprised to see this.

Sunspots.

Amazing!

I’m not sure why this shot is so clear and the other ones fuzzy, but it works.

Since the 100X setting doesn’t show the entire disk, I’ll experiment with backing down the magnification to 75X or so. But it looks like I should be able to get some great shots on Eclipse Day.


Thought For The Day:

They had to do a ‘study’ to figure this out. Really?

Study find squeezing stress balls not as effective as punching someone in the face.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™


March 23, 2009

Scavenger hunt…

Today Jan and I  did a scenic tour of Baldwin County pawn shops on a scavenger hunt.

And the prize was…

A new…er, used VCR.  The one in our coach died a couple of days ago and so far we’ve been unable to find a replacement.

The only ones I’ve found still on sale are DVD/VCR combos that are too big to fit in our overhead cabinet. So I had the bright idea to check out pawn shops. So off we went. And found ZIP.

Apparently, pawn shops got out of the VCR business a good while ago, so no luck there. So I’ll have to figure something else out.

Next time, maybe a tour of Baldwin County flea markets?

After our tour Jan and I went back to Lulu’s for dinner.  Just had to split another Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding.  Mmmmmmm!

Yesterday was Garbage Day, except here they don’t pick up. Instead, we drop it off.

Dumpsters

There have been a few parks we’ve stayed at that have garbage cans at each site, but most have dumpsters somewhere.

The ones here are convenient for dropping off our garbage on the way out, and we’ve never found them overflowing as we have in some parks.

Tomorrow we’re going to take the Ft. Morgan ferry over to Dauphin Island, see Bellingrath Gardens, and then come back the long, scenic way thru Mobile, Daphne, and Fairhope.

Road Trip!


March 23, 2010

Eau de toilette – part deux…

Well, we didn’t get started out today until about 1pm.

We had heard about a chocolate factory tour (with free samples!) here in Las Vegas.

So a little Googling sent us to Ethel M’s Chocolate Factory and Cactus Garden.

EthelM

They have a self-guided tour of the plant where you can watch the candy being made.

EthelTour1

EthelTour2

It turns out that Ethel M Chocolates was started by the founder of Mars Candy after he retired from running the company. He wanted a custom candy manufacturer to make small batches of candy by hand using high-quality ingredients.

And they take their chocolate very seriously. Just look at these signs posted around the factory.

EthelSigns1

EthelSigns2

EthelSigns3

I had never seen how chocolate is grown so this was interesting.

Chocolate Pods

The pod at the top is a cocoa pod which contains the cocoa beans on the bottom left.

And finally, we came to the most important part.

ChocoSample

THE FREE SAMPLES!

Then it was on to the Cactus Garden that was on the grounds of the Chocolate Factory. Not exactly sure why a chocolate factory would have a Cactus Garden, but it was interesting.

Cactus1

Cactus2

Cactus3

Lizard

Cactus4

Cactus5

Cactus6

Cactus7

Cactus8

Cactus11

Cactus9

Cactus10

Leaving the factory we drove over to Camping World so I could check on getting another pedestal base for our toilet.

Turns out that I can buy a new toilet for almost $100 less than I can buy a new pedestal. So we drove over to Vegas Trailer Supply to just buy a new one. I’m tired of fooling with this one.

Getting it back to the rig, we were hungry, so we drove over to Buffet Asia to try out another Chinese buffet. It was slightly better than the one last night, but not by much.

After this, we headed home and I got started putting the new toilet, well, trying to, anyway.

It turns out that, although this was the same model toilet from the same manufacturer, they had decided to completely change the base mount where it fastens to the floor.

So I’ll have to try again tomorrow after getting some more screws.


March 23, 2012

Nothing so far . . .

No mousies were found in any of my traps this morning, so maybe I’ve finally thinned out the herd.

About 11am, the park host lady showed up with a Priority Mail package from our daughter Brandi. Really glad it came before we have to leave on Sunday. The box contained our mail, and at the bottom, a nice surprise – a couple of boxes of Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies. Hmmm!

Later Jan fixed us a great lunch of cheddar cheese and bacon quesadillas, using the Oscar Meyer Pre-Cooked Bacon. Really good.

And of course, a few Thin Mints for dessert.

A little after 1pm, Tom and Barb Westerfield pulled out of the fairgrounds, and headed for Las Cruces for a few days. We’ll be there on Sunday too, so maybe we’ll be able to get together for dinner.

After Tom and Barb left, I worked outside for a while around the rig. I cleaned the rig windshield and then adjusted the new wipers I installed recently, so they’ll track better. Then I caulked around the bottom of a couple of windows to see if I can eliminate the stains that come down from there.

Lastly I tidied up a couple of bays and washed them out. That was about it because it was pretty hot out in that sun.

After a short nap to rest up, Jan and I headed out a little after 5pm for dinner and some shopping.

Jan had been wanting to eat at Red Robin for a while, so we first headed up just north of downtown to the Tucson Mall area. Red Robin is another of our favorite burger chains, and their burgers come with all-you-can-eat steak fries as well.

Jan always gets the Mushroom Cheese, and I usually go for the Burn’in Love Burger with jalapenos and chipotle mayo.

Leaving Red Robin, we stopped off at the Sam’s Club a couple of miles away for kitty litter and a few other things before getting back home about 8pm.

Tomorrow’s our last full day here in Tucson. Time to move on


March 23, 2013

Shirts and Shower Curtains . . .

Today turned out to be pretty much a stay-at-home day. Something that it seems we don’t do often enough.

I think Jan pretty much read most of the day. It looks like I’ve got her hooked on one of my favorite authors, Saxon Andrew. Saxon has 5 different science fiction series, with anywhere from 4 to 7 books in each series for a total of 20 books, all of them excellent.

A friend turned me on to Saxon, who I guess you could say writes in the Golden Age style, with rousing space battles and amazing inventions that save the day at the last moment.

I, on the other hand, worked on some projects, some around the rig, and some website stuff.

I never heard back from the Blue Ox people about getting my Aventa tow bar serviced, so I guess I’ll have to try and catch them at another rally, or maybe visit their factory in Pender, NE later this year.

About 4:30 this afternoon, we lost power again. And just like yesterday, our 30 amp breaker wasn’t popped. And resetting it just in case did nothing. The outlet was just dead.

I think today we probably were drawing too much power. Jan had just taken a shower, so the water heater was running, plus she was using the microwave for supper and the AC was running.

I had called the RV office this morning and reported yesterday’s problem, but no one ever came out to fix it. So today I was still using the outlet for the empty site behind us. And now that one was dead too.

So I pulled a little more power cord out and connected us to the outlet of the site beside us. I told Jan that I had enough cord length to reach 5 other outlets before we would no longer have power to the rig. So she can blow the breaker a few more times before we’re out of luck.

I now think that the problem is that there is another circuit breaker in the line somewhere, which is blowing before the 30 amp breaker in the outlet box at the site. And having two breakers in series like this is against every electrical code I’ve seen.

I’ve got to go down to the RV office tomorrow and re-up for another week, so I’ll ask them then.

Finishing up, for you Big Bang Theory fans, I came across this website called SheldonShirts.com. It tells you where you can buy pretty much all the shirts that the characters wear on the show, and even things like Sheldon’s Clothing Folding Board that he used to fold his laundry, and of course Sheldon and Leonard’s Periodic Table shower curtain.


March 23, 2014

They sent the wrong %#@$*%^ parts . . .

We were promised heavy rain and thunderstorms, but except for a few minutes of light sprinkles, it didn’t show up. That made it a little easier to get back on my slide problem. So about noon I headed outside to give it another shot.

The first thing I did was to release the motor brake so I can move the slide manually. You just pull it down until it clicks. This brake is what keeps the slide retracted while we’re traveling.

Slide Motor Brake

This is how the slide can be moved manually.

Slide Manual Drive

After a lot of trial and error, I managed to get the shear pin holes in the shaft and spur gear lined up and was then able to use a pin punch to knock out the rest of the pin.

Slide Spur Gear Shear Pin Hole

So now all I needed to do was hammer in the replacement pin, and I was all done, right?

WRONG!!

They sent the wrong %#@$*%^ pins!

When I first looked at the pins that American Coach sent me, they did look a little big. But I figured once I got the old one out, the new one would fit. But it was definitely too big.

About this time, Janice Evans showed up with a breakfast casserole for us to have tomorrow morning before we leave to go back to the Colorado River Thousand Trails for another two weeks. Thanks, Janice.

Since we were heading out about 1:30 for Wal-Mart, I decided to check the Tractor Supply Store that’s right down the Interstate. So after dropping Jan off to get her hair cut, I drove down there to see what they had.

But unfortunately, they didn’t have exactly what I needed. I found a close one, but it’s a little small and may not be strong enough. I did check to see if they had any bolts that looked like they could work, but didn’t find anything. The pin is only 9/64” and I couldn’t find any Grade 8 or Grade 5 bolts that small.

Getting back to Jan, we picked up some stuff there, and then we drove across the street to have dinner at Culver’s, one of our favorite places.

We’ve eaten at a number of Culver’s. but never in this area. It’s always been up in the IN/IL area. Didn’t realize that they were spreading down here. But we’re glad to see them.

Jan had a Mushroom and Cheddar Butterburger, and I had a double Bacon Cheese Deluxe Butterburger. Really, really good.

Culver's Betterburger

On the way home we made a quick stop at the Lane Bryant store in the Outlet Mall. Back home I installed the new pin, but I’ll be surprised if it works.

While I was doing this, Lynette and Gregg McHenry dropped off a jar of hot sauce he’d made.. Later I tasted it and it was really, really good. Thanks, Gregg and Lynette.

Gregg McHenry's Hot Sauce

Depending on how long it takes to get the slide in tomorrow morning, we hope to head out around 10am, but we’ll see how it goes.


March 23, 2015

Convenience Can Be Expensive . . .

There’s joy in the Oilpatch tonight. For the first time in months, the rig count actually went up this week. By ONE whole rig. But, hey, it’s something.

A little after 12 I went down to register and pay at the Countryside RV Park office. The ‘resort fee’ TT members pay at Encore parks has gone up from $3 to $4 this year, but still not bad at all, especially since it doesn’t count against our 50 free TT days.

Finishing up at the office, I drove up to the Wal-Mart SuperCenter on Apache Trail to pick up some antifreeze for the truck. My radiator has a small leak that I’m pretty sure I can fix, but it’s toward the bottom of my list since all I have to do is add a little coolant every couple of weeks or so.

I’ve normally just grabbed a jug of the pre-mixed 50-50 type, which goes for about $10.50 a jug. But a jug of the old-fashioned concentrate type caught my eye, and then the price difference caught my eye too.

As I said, a gallon of 50-50 costs $10.50, but a gallon of full strength, I.e. twice as much, costs $12.50, only $2 more. Convenience isn’t cheap.

While I was there, I checked out their sewing department, and found just what I needed for my solar screen project. It’s a black crochet thread, the perfect size for what I need.

About 4:30 we made the 20 minute journey over to the Famous Dave’s BBQ at SanTan Village, just at the other end of the block from the Grimaldi’s Pizzeria where Jan and I had dinner last night.

We walked out of there happy and stuffed with BBQ, and enough left over to take home. Always good.

If tomorrow morning is like this morning, I.e. not much wind, I plan on putting a first coat of gray paint on the rig bumper that my son Chris repaired a month or so ago. Apache Junction is pretty much the first place we’ve been that hasn’t been windy.

We’ll see how it goes.


March 23, 2016

Smoking . . .

We didn’t walk this morning, knowing we’d get our walking in this afternoon at Wal-Mart. And since it was pretty windy, we didn’t set outside either.

Later in the afternoon, I went back outside to take a look at my truck’s AC condenser fan problem. I was planning on getting a new 50amp cartridge fuse this afternoon, but I wanted to see if that was going to fix the problem, at least temporarily until I can replace the fan.

So I looked over the other fuses, hoping to find another 50 amp that I could borrow to test things out. And going down the row, I came across a 50 amp for the Power Seats.

Wait, I don’t have Power Seats, so that one was available. So I plugged it into the fan position and tried it out. And it did work, although the fan was still grinding walnuts, as before.

So I thought I’d give it a better test when we go out this afternoon. But what I found then was that besides the noise, after a few minutes, a very pungent burning smell appeared, making me think it might start smoking and burst into flames at any minute. So the fuse comes out until I can replace the fan.

But the AC will still work anyway. I just have to be careful using it idling or at low speeds, which is when the condenser fan actually comes into play.

Jan and I headed out for dinner and shopping, with dinner being at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Conroe. It’s been a while since we’ve had some good hot wings, which for me means Mango Habanero, their 3rd hottest, because I like the sweetness, and a side of Blazin’, which is their hottest.

While we were there, and after we finished eating, I spent some time updating a bunch of apps on my Galaxy S5. The 4G in that area runs about 50 Mps, a lot quicker than here at the park. Just wish I had taken my Galaxy Tab with me too.

One of our blog readers asked about how I map out our walking paths at the parks. I use Google Maps Satellite View and then the Measure Distance function.

Conrot TT Mapping_thumb[1]

If you right-click on the map where you want your walk to begin, a white dot appears on the map. Then you just left-click following your path on the map, using smaller segments as you work your way around the curves.

The white box at the bottom of the map keeps a running total of the distance. The route shown above, totals 5,258 ft., but actually is about 1.03 miles according to Runkeeper. Close enough for our walking.

I mentioned last week that I tried to refill one of my Touch Free Soap Dispenser empties because of the high, $8 – $15, cost of the store-bought refills.

SoftSoap Refill_thumb[3]

I popped the lid of the empty off and poured in the liquid soap, happy that the Softsoap refill only cost $1.98. But I was kind of disappointed when, rather than coming out as a foam as before, it came out more as a thick liquid with a few marble-size bubbles. But hey, it worked.

Then blog reader Joe Green suggested I try diluting the Softsoap. so I poured half of it back into the original container, and then topped off the refill with hot water and shook it.

And that did the trick. Now when we use the dispenser, we get a perfect handful of foaming soap.

Touich Free Foaming Soap_thumb[2]

So now I’m even happier since a refill will only cost me $0.98 rather than $1.98.

Tomorrow afternoon Jan and I are driving over to the Escapees Park in Livingston to have dinner with Dennis Hill and his wife, Carol. He said he’s smoking a butt.

I certainly hope that has more to do with pork, rather than cigarettes. But knowing Dennis, you can never be sure.


March 23, 2017

It’s Dead, Jim . . . Again

I was up at about 8am this morning to see off our temporary next-door neighbors Chris and Charles Yust on their trip back to San Angelo, TX

Just goes to show you how much I like them that I would get up that early.

But they didn’t even get out of the Voyager RV Resort without a problem. While they were hitching up their Trailblazer in the designated area on the road leaving the park, a Winnebago Tour came by with the door awning still out, scratching the side of their rig. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to get a tag number.

Not a good start to their journey.

We had planned to go over to the Fairgrounds for the Pet Parade and Chili Cook-off starting at 11am, and the Closing Ceremonies at 3. But as the morning wore on, Jan developed an upset stomach so we passed it by. In fact we ended up not leaving the rig at all for the day.

Hopefully, she’ll feel better tomorrow.

The last couple of parks we’ve stayed at  I’ve noticed that my Cradlepoint CTR350 Wi-Fi router and Verizon AirCard were taking longer and longer to connect. Then this morning sometime between 7:40 (the last email) and 8:15 (when I noticed the Internet was down) the Cradlepoint died. In fact it no longer even showed up on my list of available Wi-Fi signals.

I originally had a CTR500 that I bought in 2008 which lasted until July  2015 when it went ports up. In trying to replace it, I found that Cradlepoint was no longer in the AirCard router business. So while I was looking around for a replacement, our friend Janna Clark came through with a CTR350 from her box of old, outdated electronics. And that 350 worked fine until this morning.

Looking things over, and after cycling the router power several times with no improvement,  I then plugged the AirCard directly into the computer, dialed in, and found I could get on the Internet with no problem, so it wasn’t the AirCard.

Next up was to do a full reset on the router, taking it back to the factory settings. At this point, I logged into the router directly and set it up once again. I was now happy to see the router showing up on my Wi-Fi list.

Thinking I had fixed the problem, I unplugged the AirCard from the computer and plugged it into the router. But rather than the problem now being fixed, the Wi-Fi signal disappeared from the list. And when I unplugged the AirCard, the Wi-Fi signal came back. And the signal came and went every time I repeated the sequence.

Ok, that’s weird.

So my next thought was maybe it was actually a power supply problem, with the added load of the AirCard lowering the voltage. But my VOM showed 5.13 volts unloaded and 5.03 volts under load.

So no problem there.

At this point, I figured “It’s Dead, Jim” and started to look for a replacement. Amazon had a new 350 that was about $150, more than it cost originally. But a used, like new one, was available for $20, so I put my order in and had it sent to the Santa Fe RV Park in Apache Junction where we’ll be starting this Saturday.

Of course, the AirCard still works directly on the computer, we just don’t have Wi-Fi in the coach for our Kindles and Galaxy Tab. But we can hotspot my phone for these if need be.

With the rally over, tomorrow will be a fix-it day with several projects on the menu.


March 23, 2018

Well, It Was Fun While It Lasted . . .

Which Was About 10 minutes.

I spent a good while last night working on a client’s laptop, trying to get her Gmail account synced to the Outlook 2016 part of her Office 365 program. I had already spent Tuesday afternoon working on the machine remotely through TeamViewer, but I just couldn’t get it to work.

Normally this is pretty simple. Just set the Gmail account for IMAP and Let Secure Access. Then go into Outlook 2016, click on Add Account and off you go. But it just wouldn’t work. It actually wouldn’t let me enter all the account parameters like Server Ports, encryption, Secure Password Authentication, etc. So after going around in circles for a while, I told them to drop it off at the office so I could work on it 1 on 1.

So last night it took a while to research but I came across a posting talking about problems with the very latest version of Outlook 2016, and it listed a fix, a back door, so to speak, that let me get to the full setup. And at that point, it just took a few more minutes until it was done.

I got a call from Brock’s Car Care about 11:30 saying our truck was repaired and ready to go. Apparently, the electrical switches on the new (used) transfer case were defective, but they didn’t check this, since they didn’t know about the Tow Mode.

So they took the switches out of the broken case and put them into the replacement. And now everything worked.

Leaving work about 3:30 I drove over to Chris’ to pick him up so he could drive me back over to Brock’s to get my truck and head home. There was no new charge so I got in the truck, ready to go. But first, of course, I had to check out the tow mode. And this time it worked perfectly. YAY!

I made it down FM 528 about 1.5 miles toward I-45 and decided things were going so well that I would stop at the convenience store and get a Mega Millions ticket for tonight’s $421 million drawing, but before I could turn in, I heard a ‘DING’, and looking down I saw my Oil Pressure gauge sitting on ZERO.

Not this again.

Since I changed out the oil filter back at the beginning of February, I’ve not seen the oil pressure problem again . . .  until today.

Since I didn’t want to take a chance with the engine, I called for a tow back to Brock’s, called my son Chris to be sure I could use the truck again, and called Brock’s to tell them about the problem and that I was on the way back.

By the time I got towed back to Brock’s they had closed, so I took an Uber over to Chris’ to get his truck and finally head home.

I’m hoping that maybe Brocks bumped against the oil pressure sensor cable and loosened it. Or it could just be bad luck that the oil sensor or the oil pump died at the same time as everything else.

But either way, since Brock’s is closed on weekends I won’t know anything until Monday at the earliest.


March 23, 2019

A Week Lost, Now Found . . .

After a quiet morning talking over our upcoming trip, I went outside about 1 pm to clean the oil off the back of the rig, and then do the wheels if I had time. I had stopped by the storage room on the way home from work on Friday and picked up my pressure washer to do the job. I had bought a gallon of Mean Green Cleaner/Degreaser at WalMart the other day just for this job.

Mean Green Degreaser

They don’t explain why Mean Green Degreaser is purple.

I wanted something that would be safe on painted surfaces, and yet still cut the oil coating the rear of the coach, and this stuff seemed to do the job. I ran it through my Karcher pressure washer,

Karcher Pressure Washer Tanks

first soaking the entire area down and then letting it percolate for a while. Previously I had modified the washer solution pickup by adding a longer hose so I could pull directly from a jug of cleaner, instead of constantly refilling the small tank.

After spraying down the entire area and waiting a bit, I put on the high-power nozzle and was able to just wash all the caked-on gunk with no problem. On a roll, I opened the engine compartment doors and repeated the procedure.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any before and after photos, so you’ll just have to use your imagination on how good it looks. In fact overall, except for a few scrapes, our 20-year-old “Beauty” still looks pretty good. The only real problem is where the clear coat is coming off in places, making it look like it‘s peeling after being sunburnt.

Next, I started in our aluminum wheels, using Busch’s Aluminum Wash,

Busch Aluminum Wash

the best stuff I’ve found. They will take a wheel that looks like this,

Wheel Before Cleaning

and make it look like this, though somehow I didn’t get a before and after on the same wheels.

Wheel Rear After Cleaning

Add a little ‘Tire Wet and it looks really good.

We had originally planned to do our test drive tomorrow until I realized that I had found a lost week. For some reason, I thought that next weekend was April 5th, 6th, 7th, when we’re going up to Kingsland to get together with the whole family at our son Chris’. So we’ll put it off until next weekend.


March 23, 2020

A People-Person Call . . .

Tomorrow morning Jan and I have our annual doctor checkup appointments. I was wondering if they were still on, since we didn’t get the usual robocalls confirming our appointments. So I put in a call to the office and talked to them.

When I asked about our appointments, the lady went off for a couple of minutes and came back and told me that they were only doing Tele-Health appointments using FaceTime. When I reminded her that these were our annual checkups that involved a lot of blood draws and peeing in a jar, she again went off for a couple of more minutes. This time when she came back, she said ‘OK’, and that we could come in for our 8am appointment as long as we were feeling OK.

Jan was also supposed to get her yearly mammogram tomorrow afternoon at 1;30 and we got a robocall this morning confirming it. But then this afternoon I got a people-person call asking if Jan could come in at 9am tomorrow morning instead. When I told her Jan had another appointment at that time, she rescheduled her for 7:30am Thursday.

Yikes! That’s two days this week I have to get up way too early. But since it’s for my Sweetie, it’s OK.


March 23, 2021

Jonsin For Bravocado . . .

Jan was jonsin’ for her Bravocado Toast at Snooze, so we left for Webster about 1pm. And though it rained earlier this morning, it was sunny and in the high 70’s by the time we got there so we sat outside on their patio.

Snooze Bravocado Toast 20210207

I got my usual 3 Egg Classic with eggs over medium, bacon, fruit, and an English Muffin.

After lunch, we made a quick stop at the nearby UPS store to drop off an Amazon return. Just walk in, give them the open bag, show them the QR return code on my phone, and they give me a receipt.

Quick and easy.

Coming home, we made a quick stop at our storeroom to drop off some stuff, and then a Cowboy Coffee stop so we could sit out on the patio and enjoy it.

Several readers have asked about my AC repair. Well, so far, so good.

It’s running just fine, and just in time too, since even though we’re getting temps the in 50’s/60’s at night, it’s running into the high 70’s/low 80’s in the daytime.

And no, I still don’t know what caused the problem with the Control Box. The AC stopped working but then we got a cold snap and didn’t need it for a few days. And then when I took the cover off days later, and was just looking up at the Control Box, all of a sudden there was a bright flash and a sharp ‘Crack’ from inside the plastic box. And then smoke started coming out.

And of course, when the magic smoke escapes, that’s all she wrote.

So I’m still not sure what caused the circuit to wait a week to short out with me just looking at it, and more importantly, how it drew enough current to burn through a 10 gauge wire without popping the breaker.

Sometimes it’s just one of those things.


March 23, 2022

Planning . . .

I mentioned the other day that we have had two Holland America Alaskan Cruises canceled in the last 18 months or so, one in August 2020 and the other one in May 2021, both succumbing to the WuFlu

When we started thinking about rebooking this year, we realized that we really didn’t have a big need to revisit places along the cruise, ones like Ketchikan, Sitka, Juneau, Skagway, etc. We saw all these on our previous HAL cruise in May 1998.

What we really wanted to do was revisit our old haunts in Fairbanks, North Pole, Denali, Talkeetna, etc., places where we lived and visited there during our five-month work-camping gig in 2008. Plus adding a few new ones like Soldotna and Homer.

So we’ve decided to just fly up to Fairbanks around the middle of August, and then rent a car for two weeks or so. Then after spending about a week there, head south hitting all our other spots along the way. And then fly home from Anchorage.

So now we’re making a list of places we want to visit, things we want to see, and places we want to eat at. Especially the ‘eat at’ part.

We had also talked about taking an overnight detour down to Alyeska to spend one night at the Alyeska Resort there. We stayed there one night on our 1998 cruise, and really enjoyed the great restaurant at the top of the mountain, which you get to by taking the ski-lift to the top.

Back then we took the lift to the top in the early afternoon to make a reservation for that evening. At that time it was sunny and beautiful out, with one of the servers putting up the umbrellas for diners on the patio.

But when we came back up about 5 hours later for dinner, it looked like this.

Alyeska Hilltop

And this was the middle of May.

But all these plans went out the window when we checked and found that a room for one night this coming August is $599.

No thanks.

Tomorrow we’re meeting up with the Alvin Opry Bunch at the P.F. Chang’s by Baybrook Mall. Jan and I have never been there so we’re looking forward to trying it out, as well as seeing old friends.

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s blog the flamingo that Debi brought along for Jan when we met up at the Golden Corral in Conroe.

Debi's Flamingo

It’s only about a foot tall, so it will have to be an inside flamingo until it grows up enough to be released into the wild to live outside with the rest of the flamboyance.

Flamingo Flamboyance from Side 20220305

Thanks a lot, Debi.


March 23, 2023

Wirklich Gutes Deutsches Essen . . .

Or

Really Good German Food.

Jan and I were on our way this morning a little after 8am, heading for Fredericksburg about 6 hours away, counting our 3 stops.

Since our Jeep’s still in the shop, and not wanting to stress Old Faithful (313,000+ miles) we rented a car, a 2023 Toyota Corolla. Pretty nice so far.

Jennifer, our office manager and Karma-sitter, sent over this photo of her making herself right at home.

Karma at Jennifer's 20230323

Our first stop was at the Buc-ee’s up in Katy, a little over an hour away. The second one was at the Buc-ee’s in Luling, another 90 minutes along. (Are you sensing a pattern here?)

One thing I found interesting was this ad board at both Buc-ee’s locations.

Buc-ee's Salaries

Might need to rethink my vocation choices.

Our last stop was at the US87 exit from I-10 at the Love’s Travel Center. This is only about 30 minutes from Fredericksburg, but keeps us from running to the restroom as soon as we get there.

And in the next couple of years, we’ll be able to make this a 3 Buc-ee’s trip, since they’re going to be building one at that exit too.

We got into Fredericksburg about 1:45pm, right on schedule. And our first stop was at Der Lindenbaum for lunch, actually the real reason for our visit here.

Our daughter-in-law Linda’s mother was born in Germany and said that Der Lindenbaum’s (The Linden Tree) was the best German food she’s had since moving to the States. And we never had anything better when we made our Germany/Austria visit in 2019.

And as with most places we like, we have our favorites. We started off with an order of their fresh-baked German Marble Rye Bread.

Then Jan gets the JagarSchnitzel.

Der Lindenbaum JagerSchnitzel 20230323

JagarSchnitzel is a crispy breaded pork chop, covered in Wild Mushroom Brown Gravy, along with German Potato Salad, and, of course, their delicious Red Cabbage.

Jan said it was fork-tender.

I got the Bürgermeister Plate, with Polish Sausage, Bratwurst, and Knackwurst, along with Sauerkraut and German Potato Salad.

Der Lindenbaum Bürgermeister Plate 20230323

Of course, I had to add an order of the Red Cabbage to my lunch too.