Our RV Adventures

Please remember, Our RV Adventures is an Amazon affiliate. When you do your shopping through any of the Amazon links here, including the Search Amazon box in the right sidebar, it won’t cost you any more, but we’ll get a small commission on everything you buy. Just click on the Amazon link, then shop as usual. Thanks.

Plus, many of you are sharing our blog with others using the “Share this:” buttons at the bottom of each blog. Again, Thanks.

Jan was still nursing a migraine today, which was why  we didn’t do Wal-Mart yesterday after the movie and Red Robin. So we just stayed around the rig today, especially  since it was rainy and cold, with the temps barely inching into the 50’s before quickly falling back into the 40’s, heading to the low 30’s, maybe 20’s tonight.

Our snow for tonight has gone away, but is still a possibility for tomorrow night.

A few days ago, on our way into Bend, we drove through our favorite weigh station to be sure it’s still in operation.

When we were first here in 2011 we noticed this weigh station never seemed to be open, and in fact, we’ve never seen it manned. Though occasionally there will be a truck parked there.

But although it’s never open, the electronic scale is always active.and will give you your rigs weight as you drive though. But unlike the CAT scales, it’s not full length. So you have to drive onto the scale one set of wheels at a time, front wheels and then the rear ones. If you aren’t towing, you could then back up and pull through again, weighing only the right wheels. Thus giving you the rig’s side to side weight.

And unlike the CAT scales, it’s free.  Our kind of deal.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, while we were in Las Vegas, I upgraded from our decade-old 3G aircard to a 4G MiFi. And being much faster, we can now consistently stream programs from the internet. We often could on our 3G card also, but it was really hit or miss, depending on signal quality.

But now we’ve been able to catch on some missing episodes of our favorite TV programs. For example, we were big fans of Rizzoli and Isles and were sorry to see it go off the air. But we had never watched the final episode, though we had recorded it and still had it on the DVR.

But somehow we missed recording the 2nd to last episode. maybe due to bad weather, I don’t remember. But the other night we streamed the missing episode and then watch the final one. It was nice to not have to work around commercials, and the video was rock steady with nary a glitch. Nice.

I did nail down one more reservation this afternoon, this one for the Billings Trailer Village RV Park, in, where else, Billings, MT. We stayed here in March 2008 while we were visiting a friend while on our way to Alaska.

And then we stayed here again on our way back. And both times we got snowed in.

Here’s the park in March.

And here we are in October.

You’d think after all this we wouldn’t keep going back, but we’ve stayed there a number of times since then, even though our friend no longer lives there.

On the subject of Alaska, our friends Chris and Charles Yust are on their way up to the 49th state and recently posted this from Watson Lake, BC, the home of the Sign Post Forest.

Here’s what we saw in April 2008

Although we didn’t leave a sign, Jan has a sign out  there somewhere from1958 when her family drove from Orlando, FL to Fairbanks when her father was transferred to then-Ladd AFB.

But since the snow was several feet deep in places, we didn’t go looking for it.

Wrapping up, I’ve seen several posts on Facebook from RV’ers wondering what to do about the condensation on the windows and other surfaces in their RV during the winter. They said all the windows were dripping, and in some cases, even the cabinets.

We too had this problem when we first started RV’ing, especially in the bedroom. Jan would put out several containers of DampRid trying to control the problem with not much success. If you’ve got everything sealed up tight, the moisture from cooking, washing, showering, and even breathing lingers and condenses out on every cool surface, windows and outside walls.  But finally we discovered the secret.

Leave one or both of your vent fans partially or fully open without the fan running. Yes, you will lose some heat, but you will also lose the moisture. Since we started doing this years ago, no more condensation problems.

About tomorrow, we’ll see.

“The reason for the unreason with which you treat my reason , so weakens my reason that with reason I complain of your beauty.” ― Miguel de Cervantes

ggsfgg

With last night’s forecasted 40°, I said that we’re normally 3-5° lower out here in the countryside, so I was looking for 35° or so.

Well, it went down to 29° last night here at the park, but then was up to 79° today, sunny and breezy. But tomorrow is looking for 56/31 and rainy.

But then there’s this on Friday night.

Notice the little snowflakes falling from the cloud. And since they’re showing 29° here in Sunriver, I figure low 20’s based on past performance.

After a slow morning, we headed out about 12:15 up to Bend to see “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2.” We had decided to see it in IMAX 3D, but were shocked by the Sticker Shock. Senior tickets were $32.50 for the two of us!

WOW!

And I won’t even mention $14 for a medium popcorn and medium drink.

One thing that was different this time was that we had to pick our seats at the box office. They had a monitor facing us with open seats in blue and taken ones in black. Then your seat numbers are printed on your tickets. But it really wasn’t needed on a Wednesday afternoon since there wasn’t more than a dozen people in the theater.

But we both really enjoyed the movie. The story was great, with a lot of action, pretty much non-stop. It answered a lot of questions about Star Lord’s background, and also why he was kidnapped from Earth as a child. And of course, any movie with both Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell in it has to be great.

There a couple of glitches in the showing early on. In the first 5 minutes of the movie, it kept popping in and out of 3D, but finally settled down. But the other thing was kind of curious. As the trailers played before the movie started, every other one had no video, just audio. But what was curious was how they were being shown, at least to me.

BTW they’re still called ‘trailers’, even though we see them as previews, because years ago they were originally shown at the end of the film, not the beginning. Kind of like people still talk about ‘filming’ or ‘taping’ something, when everything is pretty much all digital these days.

Back in the good old days at a TV station, besides the video tape recorders (VTR’s), you had 16mm film projectors and 35mm slide projections, sometimes more than one of each, all pointing into a film chain box and outputting into a TV camera.

Inside this box is a set of mirrors that allow the director to switch between slides and film, usually for commercial breaks. Although back in the early 70’s, we would show afternoon TV shows like Green Acres, F Troop, Petticoat Junction, and others, all on 16mm film.

OK, probably (certainly?) more than you wanted to know.

Now as far as I knew, most films at most theaters these days are on digital video, not actual film. So that’s why I was surprised to see the mirror flopping back and forth between each preview (You can see it too if you know what to look for) And the reason every other preview was black, with just audio, was that the bulb in that projector was bad.

But that shouldn’t have happened either, since even back in the 70’s the film and slide projectors all had backup bulbs that switched over automatically when the first one burned out. The only time you would have a dead bulb on-air is if the main bulb died, the unit switched to a good one, someone didn’t replace the dead bulb, and then the new one died.

And as far as on-air mistakes, it’s a little after midnight right now, and I was watching a Law & Order from 2007. First off, although it was scheduled to start right at midnight, it actually started early at 11:55pm. Then about 12:05am it suddenly switched over to about 5 minutes of Conan, before finally switching back to Law & Order.

Even stranger, Conan is shown on TBS, and not on TNT. So I figure someone at DirecTV hit the wrong switch. So it looks like they used the 5 minutes of Conan to make up for the early start, so the program would end at the correct time. Of course that’s not as bad as years ago when a broadcast engineer hit the wrong switch.

Back then local cable companies showed old movies on one of their channels. Late one night while the engineer was showing the movie, he was watching a porno on the other projector. Coming back from a commercial break, he mistakenly punched up the porno rather than the movie, putting it out on the air. And it was about 30 minutes before he realized his mistake.

The story goes, that the next day no one called in to complain, but six viewers did want to know when it was going to be shown again.

Leaving the theater and walking across the parking lot, we had dinner once again at Red Robin. Jan did a repeat, with a cup of clam chowder and a Mushroom Cheddar Burger, just like our last visit.

And unlike the Clam Chowder she recently had at The Sparrow Bakery, where she was pretty sure she got the Creamy Chicken instead, this cup had actual clams in it.

I tried something different this time, although I did start out with a cup of chili just like before.

But rather than my usual Burnin’ Love burger, I got the Smoke and Pepper Burger, with a half pound of Angus Beef, Black Pepper Smoked Bacon, Extra Sharp Cheddar, and thin sliced dills, with made-in-house Smoke & Pepper Ketchup, all on a toasted ciabatta bun.

Good, but not near as flavorful as the Burnin’ Love, so I guess I’ll go back to it next time.

Tomorrow, maybe another movie. We’ll see.

Thought for the Day:

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.” ― Terry Pratchett

ghbdghd