Our RV Adventures

Since I did absolutely nothing yesterday to prep for our travel today, Jan and I were up about 6:45am to a start on things, especially since we planned to head out about 8 to have breakfast at the Conroe Cracker Barrel.

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I normally start marking things off on my checklist the night before we travel. But because we spent the afternoon having fun (and dinner) with Janice and Dave Evans, and it was dark by the time we got home, I got nothing done.

But after 8 years of RV’ing, we’ve pretty much got it down to a science, so in about an hour, everything was done, except to crank up, unhook power, bring in the slide, and roll.

Getting to CB only a little after 8am means no wait, unlike showing up later in the morning or early afternoon. And since we’re not in any real hurry, we had a nice, leisurely breakfast, getting back to the rig about 9:30. And after wrapping things up, we pulled out of the site. with Jan following me in the truck down to the Activity Center where we hitched up and headed out.

When we came back from Cracker Barrel, the weather was sunny, but I noticed while I was hooking up the toad, that it was changing. Clouds were rolling in and the temperature was dropping. And we encountered the change out on the Interstate too.

The winds really kicked up with enough strength to make it an interesting drive, to say the least. This was not a very relaxing trip at all.

About 30 miles down I-45, we stopped at the Pilot/Flying J, to take on some diesel. Unlike the other one on our route, out in Brookshire, this one has 6 straight-in RV pumps, and an easy out when you’re done. And since I was using the Pilot RV Plus Card, I got my usual 8 cents a gallon discount off the cash price. But there was a problem.

The first pump I tried was running at about 30 seconds per gallon, meaning that 120 gallons would take me about an hour. After reporting the problem inside (probably a clogged filter at the pump), I switched over to the pump on the driver’s side, and finished the fill-up from there. This one was doing a gallon in less than 5 seconds.

Back on the road, we finished up our wind-blown trip and pulled into the Colorado River Thousand Trails about 1:30pm. And although we’re in a different site from the last time we were neighbors, we ended up right next door to our friends, Vance and Bonnie Clegg.

For dinner tonight we finished up the remainder of last week’s chili, putting it over rice with cheese and tortilla chips. Really good.

I mentioned earlier about using a checklist. In fact I’ve use a program, an Android app, called RV Checklist for years. A free app, it comes with a number of pre-done rv-related checklists, including an RV Departure checklist, an RV Arrival and Setup checklist, and a Camping Preparation list

The Departure one looks like this.

But you can also make your own personalized ones, which is what I did. And it looks like this.

And when I check an item off, it turns green like this.

Over the course of a number of travel days, I wrote down every step needed for Jan and I to get ready to roll, most of mine outside, and all of Jan’s inside. The list has saved my rear a couple of times, usually because I was interrupted in the middle of things when someone came over to talk.

We also have one labeled RV 2 Motel Checklist, that was honed in 2012 when we stayed in a motel while our rig was in the shop in Las Cruces, NM. Every time we found something we’d forgotten and had to go back to the rig, it got added to the list.

And over the years we added and deleted other stuff to make it work for us.

Finishing up, in yesterday’s blog I was talking about how the Potatoe Patch’s ‘Throw’d Rolls’ aren’t as big or thrown as far as Lambert’s. Well, as it turns out, one of our readers, Joan Scott, left a comment that might explain the reason behind that difference.

Joan said she used to be the Insurance Underwriter for Lambert’s and that they have seen a fair share of lawsuits from their ‘throwed rolls’. It’s really hard to believe that someone could  be injured by a soft, fluffy yeast roll.

A few years back, I think it was the Sikeston, MO Lambert’s location, I saw a roll come arcing overhead, right through the hands of the father, and hit a young boy in a highchair right in the face with a soft ‘plop’. The kid who also had his hands up trying to catch it, just picked up the roll from his tray and started eating it.

I think some people just want to sue.

“I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.” – George Mason, Address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 4, 1788

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Although Jan was back to normal this morning, we decided no to walk today, and just start fresh Monday morning over at the Colorado River Thousand Trails in Columbus. And since we leave for Columbus tomorrow morning, Sunday’s out too.

In addition, we were also going over to Janice and Dave Evans about 1pm. Janice wanted me to take a look at some computer problems she was having. Things like, strange popups and messages, changing homepages, and slow-downs.

I started out by running the free version of SuperAntiSpyware which found a number of browser add-ons that were probably causing the ‘Search’ popups and other stuff. Then as a double-check, I also ran the free Malwarebytes AntiMalware to catch anything that the first one missed.

Then it was on to CCleaner and Glary Utilities to clean out the ‘gunk’ in the registry and other areas to speed things up. When that was all wrapped up, we all piled into Janice and Dave’s SUV and headed down to the Potatoe Patch restaurant in the FM-1960 area for linner.

Based on what we heard, and what we read on the Net, it’s kind of a Lambert’s Throwed Rolls clone.

And it is, to a point. At least it’s kind of a mini, scaled-down version.

Rather than the four ‘endless’ pass-around’s at Lambert’s – onion fried potatoes, fried okra, macaroni & tomatoes, and black-eyed peas, here you get a single large serving of fried okra and fried green tomatoes.

But these are both very, very good, especially the fried green tomatoes. Unlike any we’ve had before, these are very thinly sliced and almost crispy fried like potato chips, but not too crunchy. Really just perfect.

My Jan had the Chicken Fried Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Mac N Cheese,

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while I had the Chicken Fried Steak with Mashed Potatoes and Corn on the Cob.

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Dave’s Jan had the same Chicken Fried Chicken, but with Sweet Potatoes and Cole Slaw, while Dave went with the Beef Liver and Onions with Mashed Potatoes and Creamed Spinach.

They did have ‘throwed rolls’, but following the scaled-down Lambert’s theme, they’re a little smaller, and they don’t throw them near as far.

Unlike Lambert’s large softball-sized ones, PP’s are about the size of a hardball. But they’re both soft and puffy yeast rolls, and taste pretty much the same, and that’s very good.

But they do kind of wimp out on the whole ‘roll throwing’ thing.

Rather than an overhand throw of 50 feet from one end of  the dining room to the other like I’ve seen at Lambert’s, here it’s more of an underhand toss from 10 – 15 feet away.

But I guess if you call yourself the ‘Home of the throw’d rolls’ as PP does, you’ve gotta get’em at least a little airborne to use the phrase.

One thing that might be influencing the whole underhand, overhand thing is the fact that the ceilings at Lambert’s are more than twice as high as the ones at PP’s, so it’s hard to get a good high arc on the long distance ones here.

I did try to get the roll guy to throw me one from about 30 feet away, but he wimped out and walked a lot closer before he would toss me one.

But all in all, it was very good food, and we’ll definitely go back, hopefully soon.

Friend and blog reader Jim Hamm sent over this article about medical marijuana being a big help treating migraines, in some cases dropping the frequency from more than 10 per month to less than 5 a month.

http://www.livescience.com/53461-medical-marijuana-reduces-migraine-frequency.html?cmpid=NL_Health_weekly_2016-01-24

Do I smell brownies in my future?

Tomorrow we’ll head for Columbus and the Colorado River TT about 10am for the next two weeks. And as has been our routine lately, we’ll have breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in Conroe before we leave here. We’ll be ready to roll before we go eat, and only have to bring in the slide, unhook shore power, and then crank up and go when we get back. 

We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics.

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