First Day of Freedom . . .
Our first day of gate freedom and I slept in until about 11am, my first full nights sleep in 3 months. When I’m on the gate I normally sleep 3 or 4 hours at a time, twice a night. I can do this for long periods with no problems, but it’s certainly nice to not have to.
Along with our morning coffee and pumpkin bread, we enjoyed just sitting and talking, and not jumping up at the sound of the bell alarm. Jan did say that she still hears bells in her sleep. For my part, I find myself checking out tag numbers to see if I recognize them as we walk around.
About 1pm Jan and I headed out for some shopping and then a trip down to Katy to have dinner with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon. They leaving tomorrow for Oklahoma to visit some friends and then spend Thanksgiving with Lowell’s parents before coming back home Sunday night.. So this would be our only chance to see them for a week.
Our first shopping stop was the Convenience RV Store a couple of miles north of here next to the Fish Pond Restaurant. I was looking for a couple of things, 12v light bulbs, and a shower door latch.
in our bathroom, besides the overhead lights, we have six light bulbs, three on either side of the vanity mirror. A week or so ago, four of them suddenly died, all three on the left side, and one on the right.
Now three bulbs going out in one fixture is kind of suspicious, and makes you think that maybe there’s a problem with the fixture itself. But I took a good bulb from the right side and it worked in the left fixture, and one of the dead bulbs still didn’t work in the right side. At first you’d want to chalk this up to just a coincidence, and it kind of is, but not quite.
In the 8 years we’ve own this coach, I’ve replace two of these six bulbs, both on the right side. And I’d be willing to bet that those two bulbs are the ones still working. The other four are original to the coach when we bought it in 2008, and may just be original to the coach from1999.
And actually it’s not that unusual for bulbs with the same amount of hours to go out in a group. Back in my younger, skinnier (stupider?) days when I was working in radio and TV broadcasting, I used to moonlight replacing the bulbs in the transmitting towers for a number of stations in the area. I have no fear of heights, and I worked cheap, so I usually got the job. And one thing you did when you went up to replace a bad bulb, you replaced them all at the same time. Otherwise, if one went out, more would follow, sometimes within a few days.
These bulbs were kind of expensive, and sometimes the station would try to cheap out by only replacing the bad one. I’d warn them that I’d be back in a short time, but they wouldn’t listen. And anywhere from few days to a few weeks, I’d be back.
I was also looking for a new shower door latch, but as it turned out they did not have either the bulbs or the latch in stock, but they did order them for me, and they should be in by noon tomorrow.
Nice service.
Our next shopping stop was Wal-Mart, of course. It’s not really shopping without a Wal-Mart stop. Beside the groceries and stuff, we both got haircuts while we were there. I hadn’t had one since the 1st of October so I was starting to look a bit shaggy, at least on the sides. Not a lot to worry about on top.
Finally about 4:15 we were on our way down to the Katy area to meet Brandi, Lowell, and Landon at one of our favorite restaurants in that area, Torchy’s Tacos.
Where else can you get a taco with a grilled jalapeno sausage, queso fresco, shredded cheese, and pico de gallo. Not your average taco.
Later, after some time at Brandi’s, we finally headed back to Conroe, getting back to the rig about 9:15.
Another nice, but long day.
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Thought for the Day:
“If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re going.” Professor Irwin Corey
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