Our RV Adventures

or Not At All

And Jan says “Ten Days and Counting.”

After my rejoicing a week or so about the increased speed on our Verizon signal, it all went to . . .  well, crap. For this past week the Internet keeps dropping in and out, sometimes going to 1X, sometimes nothing at all. Other times it gets into this cycle where it will work for about 5 minutes, die for a couple of more minutes, and then work again. I’ve reported it, but no fix so far.

Like I said before, “Ten Days and Counting.”

Well, apparently we broke Jamie, our long-time Gate Guard Services supervisor here at the Whitsett office. We found out yesterday that he’s turned in his resignation and will be leaving at the end of the year. Bummer.

He goes out of his way to take care of his people and does everything he can to make this job a little easier. And he’ll go out of his way if necessary.

Earlier this year, about 7pm one Saturday evening, our generator just up and died. I called Austin, our support guy, and left a message. About 15 minutes later Jamie called and said Austin was off that weekend and he would take care of the generator. After asking me about the problem, he and his wife showed up about 20 minutes later. Turns out he was home cooking dinner when I called and dropped everything to take care of us

It turned out that the alternator had died, letting the battery run down until everything just stopped. He showed up with a new alternator and a new battery and had us going again in about 30 minutes. Now that’s support.

He’ll be missed.

On another note, I got polled by Gallup the other day. They called on the phone and spent about 15 minutes asking questions about my (our) life, some yes or no, others on a scale from 1 to 5, or 1 to 10. Sometimes, I guess as a control question, they asked the same question again, just worded a little different, with a different way to answer. Interesting.

Finishing up, several readers have ask for more of our Newfoundland trip in 2009 so here it is

They called the wind Moriah…Mt. Moriah, that is …

Originally posted on September 7, 2009

After breakfast at our hotel, we left Twillingate about 10 am heading for Corner Brook, about 255 miles away. We had a really nice room overlooking the ocean. Here’s our morning view…

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Around lunch we stopped in Windsor to eat at Mary Brown’s Chicken and Taters again. After lunch we placed a call to Miss Piper, our granddaughter, on her 16th birthday. We didn’t get her, but left a message on her voicemail.

About halfway to Corner Brook, around the Mt. Moriah area, we started running into a lot of wind…I mean a LOT!

In fact, even the birds were walking. While we were pulled over a while, we saw a raven trying to fly in the wind and being blown away.

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After sitting on a guardrail post in front of our truck for a while, he finally jumped down and WALKED off.

While we were stopped at a Visitor’s Information Center, Piper called us back. She had been in Arkansas, kayaking with her boyfriend and his family. It was good to talk with her.

Fighting the high wind gusts, 40 – 50 mph, we finally arrived in Corner Brook and got checked into our Comfort Inn hotel.

After looking at a map, we decided to drive the 30 miles out to the Lark Harbour area at the end of the peninsular that looks out over the Gulf of St. Lawrence. And once more we were treated to spectacular scenery.

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Coming back to the hotel, we decided to eat at Jungle Jim’s, the hotel restaurant. It’s a chain up here, kind of like a Chili”s or TGI Friday’s.

We both had Stir Fry’s, and then split a Spiced Apple Burrito for dessert.

Thought for the Day:

In 1920 the 18th Amendment took effect, banning the production and sale of alcohol in the United States. In 1933 the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th and allowed the sale of alcohol once again.

In the 1960’s – 1970’s laws were passed banning various types of drugs, both natural and man-made.

Now the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Drug Czar, can ban any substance he decides to.

Question – Why did it take an Amendment to the Constitution to ban alcohol, but now one person decides what is legal and illegal?

Discuss among yourselves.
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At least that’s my story and I’m sticking with it. It’s a tool, not a toy.

But it sure is neat.

It’s my new WORX Power Screw Driver that came in from Amazon today. My old Coleman driver was about worn out and this one was top-rated by Popular Science so I thought I would give it a try. And I’m glad I did.

It’s smaller and lighter than my old one, but has a lot more torque. And even better I don’t have to keep up with a lot of different bits. Pretty much every one I’ll need is included in two changeable barrels.

Each one of these barrels holds 6 different bits, from Phillips and Flat Blades, to Torx and driver bits. There’s even one with a small drill bit for making starter holes for screws.

You can rotate the barrel manually, or by pulling back the slide, the barrel will rotate one position to the left. Kind of like a cross between a pistol and a revolver. Guess that’ why they call it a ‘Semi-Automatic’ Power Driver.

I also like the fact that it uses standard 1” bits, and you can even insert your own longer bits from the front. I’m also going to try and see if I can buy a couple of extra barrels to load my own bits into.

The only possible improvement I could see would be a way to store the 2nd barrel in/on the driver so it doesn’t wander off. But you have to keep track of the charger anyway, so they can stay together.

All in all, a really neat toy,   ehh, tool.

We’re at 11 days and counting until we head back to Houston, and Jan’s gone past giddy and is almost into delirious, she’s so excited. Me too.

Since this is a short blog, I thought I repost some of our visit to Newfoundland in 2009. This is our drive from St. Johns, where we arrived on the Ferry, down to Twillingate.

Thought for the Day:

“We’re lending money we don’t have, to kids who will never be able to pay it back, for jobs that no longer exist.”  – Mike Rowe, “Dirty Jobs”

Icebergs and Puffins…Not!

Originally posted on September 6, 2009

After availing ourselves of the free breakfast at our hotel, we headed out for the 280 mile drive to Twillingate, an island peninsular north-north west of St. John’s.

Twillingate is known as Iceberg Capitol of the World and has boat tours to see them, and also puffins and whales. And we wanted to see them all.

But on our way out of town we stopped to take some pictures of the town. It’s a very quaint town of about 100,000 people, with brightly colored buildings, and, of course, the beautiful backdrop of the countryside.

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And St. John’s has it own version of the icon statues we’ve seen in other towns. In this case, it’s an mermaid perched on an iceberg. Here’s an example.

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On our way out of town, and talking over our schedule, we decided to stay an extra day if we could. So I called the RV park in Louisbourg to see if they could accommodate us for another day. When they said they could, I then called the Ferry to see if we could move our return trip from the 8th to the 9th. No problem. Five minutes and it was done. Aren’t cell phones wonderful!

Along the way, Jan finally had a moose sighting. It didn’t appear scared at all. It just stood there like a statue.

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About lunch time we stopped at place called “Mary Brown’s Famous Chicken and Taters”. This is a Newfoundland chain that seems to be everywhere here. The ‘taters’ are fried potato wedges. I’m not sure it would beat “The Colonel”, but it was good.

After lunch we drove across the street to a combination gift shop/visitor’s center, where we had another moose sighting. This time it was a whole family. And, again, they seemed strangely unafraid of us. It was like we could have just walked right up and petted them.

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A while later we stopped at a scenic pull-out to stretch our legs and take in the view. Noticing one of the telescopes you see at these spots, I walked over to take a look.

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And I was surprised to see who the manufacturer is.

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I know this family, or, at least, I think I do. I assume they still own it, since it’s the same name.

I took piano lessons in the late 50′s, early 60′s from Dot Cain. Her husband owned this company and they must be doing good, since I see them everywhere, and now in Canada, too.

Small World!

Along the way we saw a lot of interesting flora.

Arriving in Twillingate, we found a small, neat fishing village with a lot of local charm and atmosphere.

On our way into town, we stopped at the place that offers the boat tours to sign up for a tour tomorrow morning. And were very disappointed to find out that both the icebergs and the puffins had gone south for the summer. All we could see were whales and dolphins.  Bummer!

We decide to pass, so went to check into our hotel. While we were registering, the manager said “Susan, come out here. These people sound just like you!”

Turns out the reason she sounded like us is that she’s from Houston too. She was here visiting the manager and his family. She lives in The Woodlands, and also worked at Johnson Space Center, like me, although she was just starting about the time I left. We even worked in some of the same buildings at JSC.

Another Small World moment!

After getting set up in our room, we took a drive out to Crow Head, an area at the tip of the island, that juts out into the North Atlantic, with some spectacular scenery just as the sun was going down.

Coming back to the hotel, we had a very good meal at the restaurant, and then turned in after a long day.

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