Our RV Adventures

Well, it was up and out by 7:30 this morning, on our way to meet Vance and Bonnie Clegg for the breakfast buffet at Schobel’s Restaurant in Columbus. On the way, I did make a quick stop for gas at $1.48⁹ a gallon, the cheapest I’ve seen around here so far.

We thought the buffet started about 8am, but they seemed to be running late today, because it wasn’t up and running until about 8:15. But we were having so much fun talking we didn’t even care.

But when they did get it put out, it was great as usually. Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Ham, Sausage, Chicken Fried Chicken, Fried Potatoes, Grits, and Biscuits with Sausage Gravy. And they even had Bread Pudding for dessert.

All really, really good.

And as I said, so was the conversation. Turns out we have a lot in common with our travels, military stuff, and music. Both Vance and I were in bands, He was in the Marines as a RIO in F-4 Phantom Jets at MCAS Beaufort. I was a DOD contractor working on F-4’s at MCAS Beaufort, although I don’t know if we ever nailed down the timeframe.

We talked well after we were finished eating, until we finally had to relinquish our table to the busy restaurant. Hopefully we’ll be able to do this again soon.

Getting back home I checked in with Brandi about our visit this afternoon, since we had just remembered about the Super Bowl today. We figured Lowell might not want to go out and miss part of it, so we were going to offer to come tomorrow night. But it turned out, Brandi was cooking dinner so we would be staying in anyway.

Weighing In:

We headed out a little before 3pm for Brandi’s house in Katy, about an hour away. We did make one small detour along the way, circling through the Oasis Truck Stop about 15 miles east of Columbus. We had noticed that they have CAT Scales in the back and we wanted to check them out for weighing our RV.

Getting a straight front/rear weight is no problem. Just drive onto the scales and tell them on the intercom that you want to weigh. No problem. But with an RV, it’s also important to get your side to side weight too. In other words, how much weight is on each individual wheel.

For example, our coach is rated for a maximum of 12,000 pounds on the front axle and 20,000 pounds on the rear axle, for a total of 32,000 pounds. But it’s important to know how much is on each front tire, and each rear dual tire set.

In our case, ideally there should be approximately 6000 pounds on the each front tire and 10,000 pounds on each rear tire set. I said ‘ideally’ because it’s usually not the quite the case. Due to the weigh of slides on one side, batteries on the other, waste tank locations refrigerator, etc., it’s sometimes hit or miss. But you want to get it as close as possible.

And to do that, you need to be able to get a normal front and back weight, and then a one side only weight. So you need to be able to pull onto the scales so that only your right or left tires are on the scale platforms. Then you can just subtract the single side weight from the total axle weight, and then you know the weight on each tire.

So that’s what we were checking out here at Oasis. Can we pull onto the scales with only side registering. And here, as seen below, the answer is ‘yes’.

But over the years, we have seen CAT scales with guardrails along side that prevent this. This is done to keep truck drivers from ‘fudging’ their weights the same way.

But here it looks like we’re good to go, so we’ll probably stop here this Sunday as we head back to Lake Conroe.

When we got to Brandi’s, she was whipping up a delicious meal of Pork Tenderloins, Roasted Parsnips, Carrots, and Pearl Onions, Wild Rice, and French Bread. And homemade Brownies and Blue Bell Ice Cream for dessert.

YUM!

And as soon as Brandi said ‘Come and Get It!’, Miss Kitty assumed her position under the table.

Everyone knows that anything that hits the floor belongs to Miss Kitty, and she doesn’t want to miss anything.

This was certainly evidenced back in August by Landon and Miss Kitty bumping heads, knocking out two of Landon’s front teeth. When they hit the floor, Kitty ate them.

You can read all about it again here:

https://ourrvadventures.com/2015/08/the-rest-of-the-story-2/

After a really great meal, we all curled up to watch the Super Bowl, including once again, Miss Kitty who also has her place on the sofa too.

We all watched the game until a little after the start of the 3rd quarter, when Jan started nodding off. So we headed home, getting back to the rig about 9pm.

A very long day, but a very nice one too.

Wrapping things up, as far as the SuperBowl goes, here’s a couple of interesting facts.

1. There are five friends who have attended every Super Bowl since SB 1

http://www.today.com/news/meet-5-friends-who-have-attended-every-single-super-bowl-t70936

Tickets for that first contest were only $10.

2. There is only ONE known recording of Super Bowl I. But no one is allowed to see it.

Played on January 15, 1967, it was broadcast by both NBC and CBS, one holding the rights to AFC games and other the rights to the NFC games. Neither one saved their tapes, recycling them after use.

This was before any type of home video recording, with everything saved on large 2” reels recorded on large RCA VTR’s (video tape recorders) like this.

Not something found in the average home.

Check out the link below to find out why this recording may never be seen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/03/sports/football/super-bowl-i-recording-broadcast-nfl-troy-haupt.html?_r=0

(Hint: It’s the lawyer’s fault)

Maybe Shakespeare was right.

Thought for the Day:

Sticking with the SuperBowl theme, I saw an article online about Marshawn Lynch, who plays for the Seattle Seahawks. It talked about how, unlike many NFL players who retire broke, Marshawn still has all of the $49.7 million he’s made in his nine years in the NFL. Instead he’s lived on just his $5 million a year from endorsements and business ventures.

When I told Jan about this, she looked over and said, “He’s not married, is he”

Truer words were never spoken.

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