Our RV Adventures

It seems like the Jetson’s automated kitchen is getting closer. Well, maybe except for Rosie, the robot maid.

Miele, a major European appliance company has announced the Dialog Oven, to go on sale in Europe starting in 2018. Another article can be found here.

Cooking  with electromagnetic waves, the frequency allows the cooking energy to be beamed more directly into the food, allowing you to put veal, tomatoes, and zucchini all in a pan, place it in the oven, and in just a few minutes, it all comes out perfectly done, all at the same time. This because the energy can be beamed in different directions, cooking some items more than others.

Or say for some reason, you need to cook a piece of cod frozen inside a block of ice.

And in just a few minutes, the cod is cooked perfectly, but the ice doesn’t melt.

Now I’m not sure why you’d want to do this, but it’s a neat trick.

The only party pooper on this new oven right now is the price . . .  about $9500.

Of course that’s less than the $54,000 (in 2016 dollars) that the first Amana Radarange cost in 1947. And it was almost 6 feet tall, weighed 750 pounds, and was water-cooled.

Things have come a long way. I saw one at Wal-Mart a while back that you could hold up with one hand, and only cost $49.

After a long nap-filled afternoon we met Ed and Debi Hurlburt over at the Fish Pond Restaurant at 5:45 for dinner.

Jan was really glad they suggested the Fish Pond because she’s really been wanting their Chicken Fried Steak again.

Normally it come with the gravy on it, but since one of us ordered theirs on the side, we all got it on the side.

Since we just had dinner with Ed and Debi this past Wednesday at China Delight, we were able to reduce our normal 3 hours dinners down to only two hours.

A real improvement.

Saying our goodbyes and heading back to the park, we made a quick stop at the Willis Walgreen’s for a few things.

As we left the park earlier we noticed that the Code3 Large Animal Rescue people had pulled out and moved on.

Probably moved over to the west side of Houston where it’s still flooding.

Tomorrow I’m going to get the ladder out of the truck and caulk a couple of small leaks around the top right windshield gasket. It didn’t lead all the time during Harvey, just when the wind was blowing from a certain direction.

“The power of government] covers the surface of so­ciety with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power… does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, until each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and hard-working animals, of which the government is the shepherd.” – Alexis De Tocqueville (1805-1859)

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Been wanting to open carry your foil or épée on the way home from fencing practice?

Or think you’d feel safer bar-hopping on Saturday night carrying your Texas Toothpick on your belt?

A Texas Toothpick. Also known as a Bowie Knife.

Well, as of today, September 1st, It’s now legal here in Texas to carry knives longer than 5.5 inches, the previously-legal length.

Don’t mess with Texas.

About 12:30 I drove out to the Ranger Station to re-up until next Wednesday, the 6th . . . when we’re supposed to be back here from Colorado River.

Yes, we’re actually supposed to be there, but they got flooded out and probably won’t be open until the middle of September. So we just stayed here, and since the park offices were all closed, there was no one to talk to. But we heard that corporate said it was OK, so we went with that.

So now we’re ‘legal’ here until the 6th, when we’ll check right back in here for another two weeks.

If we don’t go gate guarding.

With that straighten out I drove over into Willis to pick up a few things at Kroger’s. It was interesting to see that although their gas station was pretty busy, with two or three cars lined up at every pump, the price was still $1.99

The store was better stocked than our last  visit, but there were still some odd shortages. For instance, they were completely out of any type of Meow Mix cat foods (Karma’s favorite brand) both wet and dry. And they were fully stocked with Coffeemate Coffee Creamers, but were completely out of any International Delight flavors.

Leaving, I decided to take the back way out, which took me past the Whataburger . . . and found it now open. In fact they had just opened for the first time at 10:30 this morning, and were only serving a limited menu, drive through only  –

Burgers, Fries, and Drinks.

Well, what else do you need?

So I got a couple of #6’s to bring home for lunch. Nice!

Last June, our Sharp microwave malfunctioned and would not let the door open. So when I finally got it open I found that one of the interlocking door latches had broken, so I went online and ordered a new one. 

Here’s that blog.

So for $6.80 I was able to fix it. For a while at least.

A few months later it started acting up again, but with a different problem. When you started it up, the timer would count down, but sometimes the light would go off, and when that happened it would stop heating, but keep counting.

But if we pushed in on the control panel, the light would come back on and it would start heating again. It seemed to be heat-related somehow. It might work for the first 5 minutes cooking something. But if we then tried to cook something else, it would act up.

So yesterday I decided to take it all apart again and see what I could find. I used some silicone lube on the latch moving parts, and exercised the several microswitches.

And when I put it back together, it worked. But now the interior light, which should be on only when the door is open or you’re heating something, now stays on all the time. But it now cooks with no problem.

So I guess I could take it all apart again, but then something else might go wrong, so, since it’s only a light bulb staying on, I think I’ll leave well enough alone this time.

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