Our RV Adventures

This morning after coffee I was feeling really industrious, so I decided to wash several months of road grime off the truck. I don’t want to take it through a car wash until I get the window fixed, so I get to do it by hand.

About 1pm I headed up to Brandi’s to pick up my client’s two UPS units that finally came in. When I checked the tracking this morning, it said the package was out for delivery at 3:19am. 

3:19 ?

This is the email our son-in-law Lowell sent concerning my package.

A Large U-Haul truck with 2 uniformed UPS guys squeezed into the cab that was full of dozens of boxes parked in front of the house at 11am. Both guys got out & unloaded about 50 boxes from the rear of the truck into the street in front of our mailbox looking for the packages for this address. They came up empty handed & re-loaded everything to head to their next stop. They will be back waaayy laaaateerr today once they come across the pkgs destined for our house.

Guess we now know the meaning "External Factors"

But as it turns out they came back a little later with my package, so after picking it up I headed over to my client’s to install their new UPS units.

One install took a lot of time due to the fact that the plug was behind a ‘ginormous’ cabinet that I had to take a bunch of stuff out of, and off of, before I could move it. And then of course put it all back in the right place.

But, hey. I get paid by the hour.

After finishing up, I headed home, and then a little later, we picked up Dennis & Kathy Brophey from their site and headed up to Clear Lake to have dinner at King Food.

We had a good time getting to know Dennis and Kathy, and the usual great meal from King Food.

After we left the restaurant we drove around and showed Dennis & Kathy the area, finally getting home a little before 8pm

Thought I’d repost our visit to Yosemite National Park this past May.

Enjoy it.

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Thought for the Day:

The fact that you play tuba doesn’t make you any less lethal. – Marine Corp bandsman in Iraq

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Yosemite Redux . . .

Originally posted on May 19, 2011

Today was our day to visit Yosemite National Park. It was a second visit for us, since we were here last year, but the first time for Nick and Terry. So we had a great time showing them some of the fantastic views we had seen last year.

We left the park about 9, heading first into Oakhurst to pick up some things, like gas, breakfast, and lunch,

Gas, because there are no gas stations in the park proper, breakfast because everyone was hungry, so we stopped off at Jack in the Box, and for lunch, sandwiches from Subway, because we found out last year how bad the food is at the dining hall at Yosemite Lodge.

So we decided that with chips and drinks from home, sandwiches from Subway, and some of Jan’s delicious lemon bars for dessert, we were all set.

On our way into Oakhurst our daughter Brandi called with the latest Landon update. He had his 9 months checkup today, and Brandi wanted to let us know that he’s doing fine with no problems.

Finally, about 10 we left Oakhurst to make the 16 mile trip into the park itself. But the 16 mile trip takes almost an hour because the road is very curvy and we were climbing from about 2300 ft. to over 6000 ft. before dropping back down to about 2000 ft. on the valley floor.

After you enter the park, it’s about 35 more miles to the Lodge area. At about 4500 ft. we started encountering more and more snow as we climbed, But not near as much as last year. But then we were three weeks earlier last year.

Last Year.

This Year.

One of the most spectacular views in the Park comes as you exit the Wawona Tunnel and get your first view of the Yosemite Valley.

That’s the 3000 ft. El Capitan on the left and the 4700 ft. Half Dome in the middle of the shot. Half Dome just looks shorter because it’s a lot further away.

And this shot shows El Capitan, Half Dome, and BridalVeil Fall (Yes, Fall, not Falls. Don’t know why). Just a fantastic view.

Here’s a little closer shot of BridalVeil. Note all the mist at the bottom. We’ll see more of this later.

And here’s my Sweetie outshining it all.

This is Yosemite Falls, as seen from Yosemite Lodge. At about 2400 ft. it’s the highest waterfall in North America. BridalVeil is only a little over 600 ft.

That is a lot of water going over that cliff.

Last week, one of two people killed in the park was killed near these Falls.

After getting our National Park Passport stamped at the Visitor’s Center, we started on the loop that would take us back out of the park.

About 1:30 we stopped for lunch at a beautiful spot along the road.

We even had a helpful raven to clean up any crumbs we dropped. And of course Jan made sure we dropped a lot. At one point she even tore off a large chunk of my sandwich to give him.

Leaving the picnic area, we spotted two does right along the roadside, just walking around grazing.

Nearing BridalVeil Fall I found this Swallowtail Butterfly, although I’m not exactly sure which one it is.

This is a shot of BridalVeil Fall taken from the path leading up to Vista Point near the base of the Fall.

And this photo was taken from Vista Point. You can only get about one shot before the mist obscures your lens.

All that water coming down translates into some really strong rapids at the base.

Leaving BridalVeil and heading on, we notice the fog starting to move in along the mountain ridges, and it started to get colder quick.

Getting back to the Park entrance area we decided to make the 2 mile trip out to Mariposa Grove, home of Yosemite’s largest Sequoias, some of them over 300 ft. high. We didn’t get to do this last year as the road was snowed in.

Although there are over 500 giant Sequoias here, they really don’t measure up to the ones in Sequoia National Park where we plan to go next week.

We finally got back to Oakhurst a little after 5, and deciding no one was really hungry for supper after our late lunch, we just stopped off and got cappuccinos.

Later, around 8 Jan fixed us a light supper of Cheese Toast made with Miss Terry’s delicious homemade bread. Really good.

That’s about it for today.

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Thought for the Day:

The mystery of government is not how Washington works, but how to make it stop.

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I was up about 10am, and after coffee, I worked outside the rig, setting out the Solar Patio Lights and other decorations

I also got to meet Eileen from the Rexhall Aerobus next door. She and her husband own a ranch in Wyoming near Yellowstone National Park. They’re here for a month or two, and I can see why. It’s 12 degrees there right now.

About 12:30 I headed into Clear Lake again to go over some possible upgrades with a client. I also spent some time bringing them up to speed on some new software I’d installed for them.

I left the client’s about 3:30 and headed over to Brandi’s to pick up our mail. I was glad to see our new license tag stickers had arrived since the old ones expire tomorrow

But what hadn’t arrived yet was the two APC Uninterruptable Power Supplies that I had ordered for today’s client.

The batteries were failing in their old ones, and it’s usually cheaper to buy new ones than to buy new batteries for them. Hopefully they’ll be in later today, or by tomorrow at least.

Well, now I don’t know where they are. They were out for delivery at 7am this morning, but then when I checkws Tracking I found this.

November 30, 2011

12:27:00 PM

League City TX US

Delay in delivery due to external factors

So what does ‘external factors’ mean? They lost them, dropped them, or what?

Leaving Brandi and Lowell’s I stopped off at the dry cleaners and then our store room. I wanted to drop off Landon’s animated rocking horse Christmas present since it takes up so much room in the rig.

Getting back to the rig I found Kathy Brophey was visiting with Jan. It looks like we’ll be having dinner together tomorrow night. We’re looking forward to it.

Jan and I headed out about 5:45 to stop off at Wal-Mart before meeting Chris, Linda, and Piper, our son and his family, at Mario’s Flying Pizza in Seabrook.

Then, after a great dinner with our kids, Jan and I drove into Clear Lake to a client’s office so I can close out the books for the month and print the monthly reports. Normally, when we’re on the road, I do this using LogMeIn.com to remotely access the office computers, but I had some other things I wanted to check out, so tonight’s hands-on.

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Thought for the Day:

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

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