Our RV Adventures

Another lazy morning starting with coffee, and Jan and I splitting one of Terry Russell’s delicious cinnamon buns. Then I caught up on some computer stuff while Jan read. A really nice way to spend the morning.

About 11 Nick called to see what we had planned for today. Which, like most days, was pretty much nothing, just enjoying life.

Next I tried on the three pair of new pants I got at Wal-Mart yesterday. And once again, I bought  Goldilocks pants.

You know what I mean . . . Goldilocks Pants. One pair is too tight, one pair is too loose, and one pair is juuuust right. How do they do that?

The pants, Wrangler Cargo Pants, are all the same style, just different colors.

I’ve also purchased Goldilocks Underwear. In this case, a 3 pack of Hanes, with the same problem

Also, while I’m ranting, why do they only make pants in even sizes. Normally I wear a 36 waist, but depending on the style, a 37 would fit better. But they don’t make a 37, just a 38, which is too loose.

And getting back to men’s underwear, they all seem to span two sizes, i.e. 32-34, or 36-38, with no overlap. Why don’t they make a 34-36, which would fit me better?

Who makes up these rules?

Then a little later I went out to check on my black tank valve replacement from yesterday. Removing the cap, I found no black tank leakage, but a couple of tablespoons of grey water leakage. It’s probably been that way for a while, but was masked by the black tank stuff.

So it’s now on my list to also replace while I’ve got the panel off. I’ll try to pick one up at Camping World before we leave the area.

Later,over at Nick’s we worked on some problems with his blogs. And it looks like I may have caused another one. In trying to figure out how to add pages to the nav bar on his theme, the menu shifted up on top of his logo picture. Don’t know why or how it did that. So we called Chris Guld of Geeks on Tour who set up the blog to take a look at it.

About 4:30 Jan and I headed out to meet Nick, Terry, and Nick’s cousin Beverly, at Lucky Wishbone, a steak fingers, chicken, and fish place we ate at once before, but this was a different location. But it was just as good as last time.

Coming home about 6:30, since it was on our way, we went by Camping World to pick up a grey tank valve. Figure they might already be closed, and they were. Will try again tomorrow.

Later, after Nick got home we fooled with the blog problem some more and found out something interesting. The menu problem only shows up on some computers, not all.

It shows up on mine and Nick’s, but not on Terry’s. It also doesn’t show up on Beverly’s or Chris Guld’s.  Strange.

That’s about it for today. Thought I repost some more of our visit last April and May to the High Sierras of California.

——————————————————————————————————————-

Thought for the Day:

Better to keep your enemy in your sights than in your camp expecting him to guard your back.

——————————————————————————————————————-

High in the Sierras…

Posted on April 27, 2010

We decided to go out for breakfast about 9 am while we were waiting to see if our new site was open yet. Noting that the site was on the way out, we drove by to check it out and found that it was already empty. But there was a problem.

Although it was a pull-thru, the site was kind of short and rolled off down the hill in the front. By the time I had pulled far enough into the site to setup I’d be tilted downhill too much to get leveled. I thought I’d talk with the Park office when we got back.

On recommendation of the office we had breakfast at Pete’s Place in Oakhurst and it was really pretty good. The bacon was especially good.

We got back to the park about 10:30 and I stopped off at the office to find out if another site was available. One of their people took me out to look over two other sites and I picked 511.

About 11:30 we moved into our new site and got set up.

This is a really nice area of the park, off the main road so it’s nice and quiet.

But because of all the nice trees it took a while to get a sight line on the satellite, I had to move it three times before I got a signal. Here’s how I ended up finding a hole in the trees.

If I had a roof-mounted sat dish, we’d have been out of luck. As it is, I had to set up the dish about 30 feet behind the coach.

The weather had been overcast and drizzling on and off all day, and it seemed like the perfect time for an afternoon nap.

And it was.

About 4:45 pm we drove into Oakhurst to have dinner at El Cid, a Mexican restaurant that advertised in the park brochure. And it was well worth the trip. The chips were hot, the salsa was cold, the iced tea was good, and the food was great!

And the view wasn’t too shabby either. We sat out on the glassed-in patio that overlooks the High Sierras,

and looks down on a cactus garden with numerous bird feeders. And tulips, too.

Jan was happy to see all the finches since she used to feed them in Houston before we went fulltime. She was surprised to find out that the finches stay here all year, even during the winter with snow on the ground. In Houston they only stay around for a couple of months in the fall.

We saw several of these red headed birds too, but no one knew what they were. A little Googling told me that these are male house finches. We had never seen them before.

Even bluebirds were hanging around. Don’t know how happy they were, tho.

We got back to the rig about 6 pm and settled in for the night.

The weather is supposed to be even worse tomorrow, so we’ll probably wait until Thursday before we do any sightseeing, but we’ll see.

More tomorrow…

dfgadsf

We both slept in this morning, Jan getting up at 9:30, with me following about 10. I made coffee and Jan toasted up some of Miss Terry’s great homemade bread.

Didn’t even need jelly, just some butter slathered on. Great!

After enjoying our coffee and toast, and checking my email, I went out about noon to change out my leaking black tank valve.

First I drained the black tank, and then used the built-in flush system until the water ran clear in my transparent hose segment.

About a week ago I’d sprayed the four bolts with penetrating oil hoping that would free up the somewhat rusted bolts.

And it did. Or at least it did for the front two. They came off very easy. However the rear two just would not budge.

I finally had to get a couple of pieces of pipe to use as ‘cheaters’ to give me enough leverage to break the nuts loose.

But it didn’t work. At least not that way. It did however shear the bolts into, which accomplished the same thing.

After I got the bolts out, it took only a couple of minutes to pull out the old valve and the gaskets.

Next I mounted the new gaskets on the ends of the exposed sewer pipe, and then slide the new valve in place, rotating in up and down to be sure it had seated with the gaskets.

I then installed the new bolts after greasing them up. Then after carefully tightened the bolts, I closed the valve and put the cap back on the hose connection.

Before I put the panels back on tomorrow and close everything up, I’ll take the cap off and be sure I don’t have any leakage.

All in all, it was a pretty simple job. It would have only taken about 30 minutes if it hadn’t been for the stuck bolts.

While I was working on the valve, a guy from RCS came over to borrow a pair of Channel-lock pliers. RCS is the company that runs the carnival that is arriving here at the fairgrounds to prepare for the Pima County Fair that starts April 14th

I was surprised to find out that they were coming here from the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo in where else, Houston. If they do the Houston Rodeo, they’re a big outfit.

About 3 pm, Nick and Terry, and Jan and I headed out, first for Wal-Mart for shopping, then on to Barnes & Noble for books, and then Luke’s Italian Beef for what else, Italian Beef. And Luke’s was as good as last time.

Coming home we stopped off at Nick’s cousin Beverly’s for a while.

After getting home, Nick and I went over some problems he’s having with some of his blogs, before finally calling it a night.

Here’s a repost of some of our visit to the Yosemite area last May.

——————————————————————————————————————-

Thought for the Day:

Without coercion and extortion, most governments would cease to exist.

——————————————————————————————————————-

The Acorn Pole…

Posted on May 4, 2010

Today was another ‘get ready to travel” day. We plan on leaving about 9 tomorrow morning and moving about 230 miles north to the Wind Country RV Park in Rohnert Park, CA,  which will put us about 45 miles north of San Francisco.

We plan on staying there a week exploring San Francisco, Monterey, and the Napa wine country.

About 1:30 I dropped Jan off at the park laundry so she could do some heavy rugs.

When I picked her up about 4 pm we drove over to the acorn pole here in the park to see the handiwork of the Acorn Woodpecker.

And this is their work.

What you see above is a telephone pole, and food storage container for the Acorn Woodpecker and his acorns.

He enlarges the cracks in the pole and stuffs his acorns in there to keep them safe. But sometimes that doesn’t work. In Arizona, Acorn Woodpeckers stored 485 pounds of acorns in the sides of a wooden water tower that fell thru to the inside and they couldn’t get them back out.

About 4:30 pm we picked up George and Sandy Stoltz at their RV here in the park to drive into Oakhurst to have dinner at El Cid, a great Mexican restaurant we found here.

Great Friends, Great Times, Great Food.  I”m sure we’ll bump into them again somewhere on the road.

More tomorrow from the Napa Valley

fgsdfg