Our RV Adventures

Or at least it seems like it. They’ve been in Production here for a couple of weeks now which means they’re getting crude out, and there’s been a steady stream of tankers in and out ever since. At least until a few days ago, then things slowed down.

Now it turns out they have a problem and are going to have to redo the ‘coiled tubing’ phase again. Don’t know yet if there’s debris in the hole, or a clog of some sort. But the good thing for us is that it makes it more and more likely we’ll be able to stay at this site until we leave on the 23rd of November. Here’s hoping.

Also hopefully we’ll get a little rain (emphasis on little) in the next few days because the dust is getting really bad. Last year they had water trucks that would go though every few days and wet down the roads, but I’ve only seen that happen once, early on right after we got here.

You may have noticed a couple of new tabs at the top of the page: Jan’s Favorite Recipes, and What Were They Thinking?. We get a lot of requests for her recipes I mention here on the blog so now I have a place to put them.

I’m going to start out with some of what she calls her "Gate Recipes", simple, quick, and very good, and then we’ll add more as we go along.

First up, Strawberry 7-Up Cake, Pineapple Angel Food Cake, and her famous Crockpot King Ranch Chicken. Enjoy.

As far as my What Were They Thinking?, it might also be titled How Dumb Can Someone Be?, and will be my spot to illustrate some of the rampant stupidity at large in the world today. For some strange reason, there’ll be a lot of government stuff on there. Who knew?

Under the heading of Where’s Landon, he’s now firmly of the opinion he doesn’t like his picture taken. So much so that he goes out of his way to avoid the camera.

See if you can pick him out in this photo.

Hint: He’s the one in the middle with his back to the camera. He stayed that way the whole time.
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But Brandi finally got a shot when he ran up to her.

Had something a little strange happen at the Wal-Mart in Pleasanton yesterday (Friday). I was there getting groceries and also picking up Jan’s 4 prescriptions. Told the young lady that I would just pay for them when I checked out with my groceries, so she clipped one of those anti-theft thingies you see on clothes, to the bag and off I went. When I got to the checkout, the lady removed the thingie and scanned the prescriptions in. The register beeped and said "Already Scanned In". In my mind I figured it was because the pharmacy had already started scanning them when I told them I’d pay up front. So the cashier hits a couple of keys and then scans them again. Everything went thru fine and off I went.

Later in the evening, after I went to bed, I got a voicemail from the pharmacy asking me to call them. When I did this morning they ask ‘politely’ if I had paid for the prescriptions. Told them as far as I knew I had. Said the cashier had taken the thingie off and scanned them through. I did mention about the "Already Scanned In" problem. She ask if I still had my receipt and could I check it. I said I’d dig it up and call her back.

And as it turns out I almost got $82.84 worth of free prescriptions. On the receipt it showed they were scanned in, but then immediately voided. I never noticed the price change because I had looked at the running total after they were first scanned in and the amount seemed right. I didn’t look the final total since I would have had to take my glasses off to see it on the small screen.

I told the pharmacist that I wouldn’t be back over there until next Thursday, and did she want me to just give her a credit card number over the phone. She said no problem, just take care of it when I come in next week.

And I almost got away with it.

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Thought for the Day:

We the people are the rightful masters of both the Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who would pervert the Constitution. – Abraham Lincoln, 1859

or as my friend David Cross says:

All the monkeys need to be REPLACED AT THE SAME TIME.

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It’s been a busy three days, but not gate-wise. For the last week or so we’ve been doing about 30-35 vehicle a day, with today (Wednesday) doing about 45. A nice change from the 300 a day we had at the peak. But I sure hope it doesn’t get much slower so they don’t get the idea they don’t need us. We’d really like to stay here until we leave for Houston on the 24th of November. We’ll see.

For the last week or so I’ve been fighting problems with my eyeglasses. The ear pieces are those spring-loaded type, and they both just came apart within a week of each other. I tried a number to ways to glue them back together, Gorilla Glue, SuperGlue, contact cement, even ShoeGoo. But nothing would hold for more than a day or two.
Then I got a bright idea. My new frames were identical to my old ones, and I still had them, so I would just take the ear pieces off the old ones and install them on new ones. Piece of cake, right? Well, no. The taking apart thing went just fine. The getting them reinstalled part, not so much.

Holding the glasses frame in one hand, the ear piece in the other, the tweezers holding the screw in the other hand, and of course the little tiny screwdriver in the other…well I think you see the problem.

I could never get everything lined up and the screw started. So after about 30 minutes of wasted effort, I gave up and went with the Nerd method. Holding them together with tape. I figured I would drive into Pleasanton on Monday and let the Wal-Mart Vision Center take a crack at them.

So after handing them off, I did some shopping, picking up some cold stuff so we wouldn’t have to worry about it tomorrow in San Antonio. Getting back to the Vision Center about 20 minutes later, they had me all ready to go. Turns out they have a special little screw-starter to make things easier. They didn’t have any for sale, but I found one on Amazon I’m going to order.

Coming back home I saw this sign again and finally had a chance to take a picture of it.

What does it say about your town when the ‘Premier Gated Community’ is an RV Park? Actually it’s probably our kind of place.

Tuesday afternoon about 1pm we headed in San Antonio for our combined birthday celebration. Both of ours are in October, mine on the 5th and Jan’s this Friday on the 25th. Does make it more convenient when we have to renew our driver’s licenses in South Dakota.

Anyway, our first stop was at the Palladium IMAX theater out on I-10 West. This place is huge. Besides the 16 screens and the usual movie food, it has a gelato stand, a Starbucks, two restaurants and two bars. Jan had to try the Pumpkin Gelato and pronounced it fantastic. If they started renting out rooms, you could live here.

The reason we passed so many closer theaters is that we heard if you were going to seen "Gravity", the new Sandra Bullock-George Clooney movie, see it in IMAX and 3D. And this was the only place in town that had both.

We’ve seen IMAX movies before, and we’ve seen 3D movies before, but this was our first IMAX 3D one. And it was worth the trip. And the movie itself was great. The action started very quickly and just never let up until the end. Jan compared it to an Indiana Jones movie that just never stops.

The story is about a Space Shuttle Hubble Telescope repair mission with Sandra Bullock, the Mission Specialist, doing the repair in space, and George Clooney as the Shuttle Pilot. And then everything goes terribly wrong.

Although the movie has a lot of special effects, they take a backseat to the story and the characters. And we did like the fact that they didn’t overdo the 3D part just so you wouldn’t forget the movie was in 3D.
Having worked on the Shuttle Program for 10 years at Johnson Space Center, there were a few things I noticed that wouldn’t have happened that way in space, but nothing so glaring that it interfered with my enjoyment of the movie.

This one is a must-see.

Getting out of the movie about 4:15, our next stop was a nearby SuperCuts so Jan could get her hair trimmed. I always kind of dread taking Jan to get her hair done, because if they don’t do it like she wants, she comes out very unhappy, and then for some reason I end up very unhappy. Strange how that works out.

Then it was on to La Fonda on Main for dinner.

Jan had this Beef Chile Relleno with a Verde Chicken Enchilada.

And I had the Pork Carnitas with a Avocado Bowl. The pork is resting on a grilled nopales (cactus) leaf

For dessert we split a piece of their delicious Tres Leches.

And here’s the beautiful Birthday Girl herself.

Our meal was as delicious as usual and we always enjoy going back.

Now it was shopping time with Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart, and Barnes and Noble on the list. Finishing up about 9:30, our last stop was the Pilot/Flying J on the way home. They had Jan’s Pumpkin Spice coffee, but had apparently run out and stopped selling the Pumpkin Spice Cappuccino that they had last time. When I mentioned to a young lady cleaning up nearby that it wasn’t even Halloween yet, much less Thanksgiving, and they’d already stopped selling it, she said, "Yes, it’s very popular and everyone waits for us to start selling it every year."

When I said that maybe that meant that they should, you know, order more maybe, she just looked at me like I had two heads, or something.  It’s amazing that some places can even stay in business.

Wrapping up today, I’ve had some sort of stomach bug all day. Don’t know if it’s just something going around, or if it’s something I ate. Personally I blame the nopales on my pork carnitas dish last night. Yeah, that’s it.

I mentioned the other day that one of the truck drivers had seen a bobcat near our gate so here’s Mister doing his best ‘Bobcat Bait’ impression.

After all the guy did say the bobcat was smaller than Mister, but we’ll keep a close eye on him anyway.
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Thought for the Day:

We’re Not Retreating, We’re Just Advancing in a Different Direction – General Douglas MacArthur

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