Our RV Adventures

After our walk and morning coffee, I finished up with the computer I was delivering this afternoon, and then headed out a little after 12 to delivered my latest computer to the client.

I spent some time with her showing her the differences between her old Vista and her new Win7 OS, setting up her email account and making the recovery DVD’s for the system.

My next stop was at another client’s for fix a problem with their order system, then it was on to the PO to drop off some letters, and then home.

About 15 minutes later, Jan and I headed back out to meet our friend’s Bob and Maria for dinner at King Food,

On the way I made a quick stop at Rudy’s BBQ along I-45 in Webster to pick up a bottle of their very coarse ground Black Pepper. I get a new bottle every year before we hit the road, so we can use it on the road. It’s hard to find pepper ground this coarse just anywhere.

We had so much fun at dinner that we were there for over 3 hours. We known Bob and Maria since the mid-80’s and we always have a great time when we get together.

Good fun and great company can’t be beat.

It seems that today just got eaten by locusts, as I never got a chance to hang my restrung shade, and probably won’t be able to tomorrow, either.

Since this is a short blog, I thought I’d repost our visit to Bearizona in 2011.

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Bearizona and Las Vegas . . .

Originally posted on April 30, 2011

Today was a travel day, from Williams, AZ to the Thousand Trails RV Park in Las Vegas. But before I tell you about that, I wanted to recount our visit to Bearizona yesterday.

Bearizona is a drive-thru/walk-thru wildlife park that just opened last year, and new exhibits are being built even now.

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Here’s my sweetie with the park mascot.

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These are American Burros who are apparently more interested in dinner than us.

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Next we had the American Bison or Buffalo.

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This guy was only about 20 feet from the truck, and I think he was bigger than the truck.

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These are Gray Wolves. When we pulled up to their area, they were just laying around under the trees until one of the park guys went by on his ATV. They all perked up and came running over to the road, I guess thinking they were going to be fed.

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In the next area, we had Dall Sheep. We saw a lot of these along the roads in Alaska.

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And more sheep, this time Big Horn Sheep. We’ve seen these a number of times traveling out west.

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This is the fabled White Buffalo. True albino buffalo are extremely rare, but I don’t know what these are. They could be leucistic, which means they would have blue eyes instead of the pink eyes of an albino, or they could be a buffalo/cow cross.

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Finally we saw bears, lots of bears. Black ones, brown ones, little ones, big ones. All around us.

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But the cutest ones were the four 3 month old cubs. They were playing, falling, and wrestling like a bunch of puppies, into everything.

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I even shot some video of them.

They even had a baby javelina, with his own bed.

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He even has his own toy to play with. I wonder if the Big Horn Sheep have a toy javelina to play with?

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Another one of those ‘so ugly they’re cute’ animals.

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In the Petting Zoo area, Terry made a new friend. In fact, for a while we thought he was going to follow her home.

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A baby fox.

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But, beside the bear cubs, I think everyone’s favorite were the Bobcats. It was almost like they enjoyed posing for us.

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They would sit on the rock for a while, take a break and wander off, and then come back and sit on the rock again.

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Just beautiful animals.

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We all had a great time at Bearizona and look forward to visiting it again next year to check out the new animals.

Bearizona is well worth your time if you’re in the area.

Now back to today.

We left the Canyon Gate RV Park in Williams about 9, heading for Las Vegas 213 miles away. The reason we left so early for such a short trip was that Nick had planned to stop at the Speedco about 15 miles outside of Kingman and get the oil changed in his rig. And I was going to check out the instant oil analysis service they offered.

But it didn’t quite work out that way. Despite Nick having called twice and being assured they worked on RV’s and could get him in and out quickly, when he pulled into the parking lot, he was basically told to get out, and that they only worked on big trucks driven by guys working for a living.

When Nick mentioned that their website says they service RV’s, the guy said he didn’t care, just move!

And then they seemed to go out of their way to make it difficult for us to get out of their parking lot. So much so, that I ended up damaging the left front corner of my rig getting out of a tight turn.

Even stranger, a flat bed tractor-trailer pulled in right before us, and after talking to the same guy, started to leave immediately. But then had to wait for Nick to move out of his way. In doing so, he told Nick “these guys are a bunch of a$$hole$”.

So either his truck wasn’t big enough, or he wasn’t working hard enough, I guess.

I know that plenty of RV’ers have used Speedco, but I never have, and now never will.

So, after this brief but unpleasant interlude, we were back on the road to Las Vegas, about 115 miles away.

We were a little worried about the high wind advisories we were seeing, warning of bad conditions crossing the new Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge, but except for the occasional ‘interesting’ wind gust, the trip was smooth and the scenery was great.

Both Nick and Jan had worried about crossing the new bridge, but because the sides are high, and RV’s are supposed to stay in the left lane, you never realize that you are almost 900 feet about the Colorado River as you cross.

It’s really kind of disappointing.

We got into the Thousand Trails here in Vegas a little after 1 and got set up. Then about 3 we drove down to Boulder Station Casino to check out the buffet there.

And it was just as good as last year. As usual we sat around talking for a good while before heading home about 5 pm.

We’re going to be here for two weeks, and hopefully we’ll have as much fun as last year.

More tomorrow.

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Thought for the Day:

Happy FUN BALL! – only $14.95-

Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Happy Fun Ball.

Caution: Happy Fun Ball may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.

Happy Fun Ball Contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.

Do not use Happy Fun Ball on concrete.

Discontinue use of Happy Fun Ball if any of the following occurs:

Itching Vertigo Dizziness Tingling in extremities Loss of balance or coordination Slurred speech Temporary blindness Profuse sweating Heart palpitations

If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.

Happy Fun Ball may stick to certain types of skin.

When not in use, Happy Fun Ball should be returned to its special container and kept under refrigeration.

Failure to do so relieves the makers of Happy Fun Ball, Wacky Products Incorporated, and its parent company Global Chemical Unlimited, of any and all liability.

Ingredients of Happy Fun Ball include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.

Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

Happy Fun Ball comes with a lifetime guarantee.

Happy Fun Ball

ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!

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Once again, after walking a little over a mile around the park, we sat outside and enjoyed our coffee and the view.

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Here’s Pinkie, our resident Roseate Spoonbill, along with some of the Ibises.

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And here’s Old Blue, the Great Blue Heron that hangs out around here.

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But after goofing off all morning, it was back to work. Today was the day to take a crack at restringing my blinds.

As it turns out, it’s not really hard, just kind of time-consuming. Here I’ve laid out the 4 parts in the order that they will be assembled.

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My first task to measure out the two sets of strings I’ll be using.

The formula is:   Width + 1/2 Width + Height x 2 = length of string needed. Since this is a 4 string blind, two sets will be needed.

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When I first took my blind apart I discovered it used two springs instead of just one like most stringing diagrams I had found.

But a little more research yielded this diagram.

Next I took each string, folded it in half, and then looped it through each spring.

Then using a stiff piece of wire as a needle, I threaded one string through the folded over ‘eye’ and taped it over.

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Then following the diagram, I started threading the cord through the ‘night’ section of the blind.

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Then I did the same thing with the lower ‘day’ section.

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Here’s the blind laid out and completely strung.

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Then all I had to do was slide the pieces together, and put the endcaps on. But since it was getting late, I decided to wait until tomorrow to rehang it.

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While I was working on the blinds, Jan was removing every thing from one of our slide pantries, so I could repair several of the shelves that had broken due to too much weight.

Jan also used this chance to go through the contents and throw away any thing with expired dates.

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A little judicious repair with some heavy duty zip ties fixed things up.

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About 5:30 Jan and I headed up to Webster for dinner and some shopping. Dinner was Chili’s, and the shopping was Sam’s Club for prescriptions and Kroger’s for some groceries, and then it was home for the night.

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Thought for the Day:

The government should fear the citizens . . . not the other way around.

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