Our RV Adventures

Well, we’re down to the last two days of our gate guarding adventure. Monday morning about 9 am we’ll head over to the Gate Guard Services yard for the night. Then Tuesday morning we’ll head out for Celina, OH to meet up with Nick and Terry on Sunday to help them get ready for the upcoming Eastern Gypsy Journal RV Rally that will kick off with Early Bird parking on Sunday, September 2nd, with the Rally itself starting on Monday,

Along the way we’ll spend one of our five nights in Sikeston, MO, which just coincidently happens to be the home of Lambert’s “Throwed Rolls” Cafe. Funny how that stop just happened to work out. Besides the one in Sikeston, they have two other locations, one in Ozark, MO, and one in Foley, AL, and we’ve eaten at all three. Funny how that just happened to work out.

Besides Lambert’s delicious country cooking, the free pass-arounds, (fried okra, black-eyed peas, fried potatoes, etc.) there’s the fun of hearing “Heads Up” and seeing a softball-sized roll sailing overhead. Here’s more info on how this got started at Lambert’s,

We’ll also spend one night in Vernon, IL to visit Jan’s sister Debbie and her family. We’re really looking forward to seeing everyone again.

Finishing up, here’s what we were doing three years ago before Nick’s rally in Celina.

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Thought for the Day:

Dragons don’t have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive.

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Wings and more Wings…

Originally posted on September 25, 2009

As I said, today was pretty much just an errand day.

We’re at the Sleepy Hollow Lake Campground in Corfu, NY, a little east of Buffalo.

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It’s the only park we’ve ever stayed at that has a petting zoo! They have alpacas, goats, sheep, pigs, and emus. Not bad.

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And for some strange reason, it also has its own fire truck!

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Not sure that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

After sitting outside with Mister awhile, we headed out looking a good place to have lunch.

While looking for, what turned out to be an out-of-business Mexican place, we stumbled on Quaker Steak and Lube, a restaurant with, not surprisingly, an automobile theme.

And really good food.

Besides a full menu, they also specialized in Buffalo Wings. I noticed that besides the normal ones, they had ’Atomic Wings, so Jan and I decided to try a sampler plate of 5 wings.

Wing Chart

According to the SHU (Scoville Heat Units) chart on their menu, regular Buffalo wings rate a 3000 of the chart. Really, really hot wings rate a 30,000.

Their Atomic Wings come in at150,000 SHU!

Jan ate two wings and I ate 3. They were hot, very hot. But I’m not sure they’re any hotter than the hottest ones that Hooters has.

But for the rest of the day, our lips did tingle and feel like they had been sunburned.

After lunch, with our tongues still tingling and our eyes still watering, we drove over to Sam’s Club for some ‘stuff’.

Heading back toward home we stopped off at a Walgreens that had flu shots available. Jan wanted to get one. This is just for the normal flu. The Swine (H1N1) Flu shots won’t be available until sometime next month.

As usual, I didn’t get one. As I tell Jan, “I depend on the kindness of strangers”. I figure if everyone else gets a shot, then I won’t need one.

I haven’t gotten a flu shot for years and I haven’t had the flu for years. And pretty much every time I got a shot in the past, I’ve gotten the flu.

So there.

We also stopped off at a NAPA Auto Parts so I could buy a new battery for the truck. We’ve had a couple of instances recently where our truck wouldn’t start, so I wanted to take care of the problem.

I installed the new battery in the NAPA parking lot so I wouldn’t have to bring the old one back later.

Later that evening, we decided to have more chicken wings. This time from the place that created the first Buffalo Wings in 1964 and started the whole thing.

It’s called ‘The Original Anchor Bar” and is located in Buffalo, of all places. The place is really a family Italian restaurant and has been around since 1934.

The wings came about when some friends of the owner’s son showed up right before closing one night, and the son asked his mother to fix something for them. She took a bunch of chicken wings that she was planning to use for soup, deep fried them, and then dunked them in a sauce she had been working on for another recipe.

And a legend was born!

This being an Italian restaurant, besides an order of Spicy BBQ Wings, we got a cheese and pepperoni pizza, and an order of Pizza Logs, kind of like Italian Egg Rolls. All very good. And we had leftovers.

Then it was back home to get ready to head out tomorrow on a two day trip to Celina, OH for the Eastern Gypsy RV Rally.

More tomorrow…

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Landon’s 2nd birthday is coming up next Monday and we ordered this expandable basketball goal for him.

It looks like a neat toy and we’re sure he’s going to love it. And it can grow as he does.

Note that according to the description it’s designed for ages 1-1/2 to 5 years.

However a little further down the page is this required legal notice.

HUH?

So exactly what is the “small parts” Landon is supposed to swallow? The ball that’s almost as big as his head? The hoop that’s even bigger?

What?

On a similar note, I’ve made my donation to the Save Our Balls campaign. How about you?  (Get your mind out of the gutter, Nick.)

Buckyballs are adult toys made from powerful rare-earth magnets and are a little larger than a BB. Their popularity has taken the company from two guys in a garage to a $50 million company in three years.

Their sales and marketing plan was approved by the CPSC (Consumer Products Safety Commission) over two years ago. Now, with over half a billion magnets sold, and less than two dozen “incidents” with children, the CPSC has changed its mind and told the company to recall all of their products sold, refund all the money, and go out of business.

The danger with magnets is the fact that if a child swallows more than one, the magnets can stick together through the walls of the intestine and cause damage and infections.

This, of course, ignores the thousands of “incidents” of kids swallowing other small objects. In fact there have been over 30,000 hospitalizations from children swallowing money.,

They also sell Buckyballs in cubes, rods, and even Big Balls. (Again, out of the gutter, Nick)

So after reading the story I immediately ordered 2 sets, and they are really a lot of fun to fool around with. And of course they will be nowhere around when Landon is.

Well, one week from today (Tuesday) we will be on our way north to Celina, OH. Where the high temp today, 74, was lower than the low here today, 76.

And we’re really looking forward to some cooler weather.

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Thought for the Day:

I really hate it when the voices in my head argue with my imaginary friends.

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Quebec

Originally posted on September 18, 2009

Today was our day to see the city of Quebec.

We started out with breakfast at our new favorite breakfast/lunch place, Cora. Hopefully these will show up in the US soon.

We drove around Quebec, finally ending up in Vieux Quebec, or Old Quebec where we found a Tourist Information Center.

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We found that there was going to be a 2 hour bus tour at 2:30 pm and signed up for it. Luckily for us, today was the last day for this tour, and, even luckier, it was all in English.

We’ve noticed a lot of touristy things are starting to shut down, or reduce their hours, due to winter coming on, and the tourist trade is dropping off.

We had some time to kill before the tour started so we drove to a Glass Shop on St. Jean street that Jan wanted to visit.

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Finally we headed back to rendezvous with our tour bus. Our driver, a Quebec City native named Francois, spoke very good English, luckily for us. But Jan said he sounded like Inspector Clouseau of Pink Panther fame.

Our tour gave us a look at the major sites in Quebec, in both the old and new sections.

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Here is the Simons fountain in front of the Provincial Capitol of Quebec.

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Here is the view from the Plains of Abraham battlefield site overlooking the St. Lawrence river.

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The battle of Plains of Abraham, also known as the Battle of Quebec, took place during the French and Indian War in September 1759, and the British victory over the French led to France relinquishing all claims to Canada.

Here’s Jan with another view from the battlefield.

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And here is the Chateau Frontenac Hotel, one of the most magnificent sites in Quebec. Built in 1893, the Frontenac is one of the premiere hotels in North America.

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Here’s one of the many pedestrian-only streets in Vieux (Old) Quebec.

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This church, the L Eglise Notre Dame Des Victoires (The Church of Our Lady of Victories) , is the oldest stone church in North America.

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Another view.

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And this building, built in 1675, is the oldest one in Quebec City.

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After our tour was over, we drove over to Tomas Tam’s, a Chinese buffet restaurant we’d seen advertised. And it was very good.

Canadian Chinese food. Who knew?

On our way back to the rig, we drove pass everyone’s favorite chicken place, PFK.

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PFK???

Leave it to Quebec to put their own stamp on things.

PFK in French stands for ‘Poulet Frit Kentucky’, or Kentucky Fried Chicken to us.

Getting back to the rig, we got ready to head out early tomorrow on a long travel day.

More then…

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