Our RV Adventures

As I posted early this morning, we didn’t get back from the Opry until almost 1 am, so this post is a combination of Friday and today.

We started out Friday morning with a walk around the park before coming back to the rig to get ready to head out.

Jan and Brandi were going to have a Girl’s Day Out while Landon is in Day Care. Brandi starts back to work this coming Monday after her 3 month maternity leave and she’s had Landon in day care for a few hours each day to get him used to it.

I think it’s really more to get her used to being away from him.

While Jan and Brandi were having fun, I got to work on the toilet.

I had two tasks in mind. First I wanted to work on the the seals so that the bowl will hold water again, and second, I wanted to work on the mount some more.

Well, one out of two ain’t bad.

I disassembled the bowl from the base and clean the ball and all the rubber seals. Finally I used a tip I saw on RV.Net a while back. Someone had suggested using plumber’s grease. Plumber’s grease is 100% silicone grease, the consistency of Vaseline. It’s waterproof, non-toxic, and unlike Vaseline, it will not harm the rubber seals. I coated all the seals, the mating surfaces, and the ball with the grease.

Then it was on to the second problem. This toilet is pretty new. I replaced it while we were out in Las Vegas this past March.

Thinking the easiest thing to do would be to replace the old one with a new one of the same type. Wrong!

Although the toilet itself is the same, they changed the mounting holes on the base. The original base had 4 mounting bolts, two on the front and two on the back.

The new one has only two mounting bolts, one on each side. I got a new flange that fit over the old one and provided the correct mounting holes, but it also raised the mount up about 3/8 inch. This made it hard to get the toilet seated correctly so it wouldn’t rock. I’ve tried using different types of shims, but the construction of the toilet base makes it hard to get the shims to fit.

After fooling with it for about an hour I made it better, but it’s still not perfect. I have an idea on how to fix it, but it’s going to take some more work, and I ran out of time today.

But the good news is, that after remounting the toilet, it now holds water just fine.

After taking a shower I picked up Jan at Brandi’s about 4:30. I did get some Landon time of my own, feeding him a bottle. By the time he was finished, he was falling asleep again.

Leaving Brandi’s we headed down to Dickinson to eat a light supper at Monterey’s Little Mexico before heading to the Alvin Opry. We usually just a bowl of their Chicken Tortilla Soup beforehand, because we always go out for a bite to eat after the show.

Which is why we don’t get home until around 1 am.

We were really looking forward to tonight’s Opry because it’s Legend’s Night. This is where the singers dress up like and imitate their favorite stars.

First up was Rhonda Walters doing a dead-on imitation of Kitty Wells. Rhonda is known as “The Queen of the Alvin Opry”.

Then we had Abby Gough doing a great Reba McEntire.

Next we had Earl Epps doing George Jones (before his hair turned white). Earl looks and sounds like Jones, and has a number of records to his credit, including this cut of Be Bop Blues.

Then Rhonda was back, along with Kim Lanier doing a hilarious take-off on The Judds, Naomi and Wynonna. They’ve done this several times before and it’s always a hoot.

Ruben Perez is always a surprise because he’s someone different every time. This time he did a great send-up of Little Richard doing ‘Lucille’ If you click on the link above you’ll get a 30 second clip of his performance.

Finally we had Julianne McBride as Brenda Lee.  Julianne is only 13, but has a great stage presence, and a fantastic voice. She can really belt out a song.

What stunned me about her performance and appearance was that in 1958 I saw Brenda Lee on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. She was just 13, the same age as Julianne. Pat Boone was the emcee that night, and what’s amazing is that Julianne looks just like I remember Brenda Lee looking then.

After the show we went to the IHOP in Pearland, along Rhonda Walters, her husband Ron, and our long-time friend, Maria Sutton.

That was about it for Friday, a long day and a late night.

Today, Saturday, was a Girl’s Movie Day with Jan, Brandi, Linda, and Piper, going to see the new movie “Morning Glory” at the 11 am showing, and then after the movie, Chris and I met them at Mario’s Italian Restaurant in Seabrook at 1:30.

Before meeting everyone for lunch, I went by the office and paid the rent for the month, and then made an trip to Home Depot looking for new toilet shims. Part of the problem is finding something that will work and still be hidden by the base of the toilet. I’ll keep looking.

Had something real strange happen this evening. Jan and I were just sitting here watching TV and the generator suddenly started up all by itself. Took us a few seconds to figure out what that loud rumbling noise was. There were some pillows kind of laying against the dashboard where the switch is, but I sure don’t think they were close enough or heavy enough to cause the problem.

Will have to see if it happens again.

Thought for the Day:
Having an opinion is not the same as having the answer…

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