Our RV Adventures

Today was a pretty normal day for us, with Jan reading and me working on website stuff. I’m getting close on the knife website, with all the U.S.A Steel Knives in place.

I’ve now started programming the PayPal ‘Add To Cart’ buttons, one for each knife. Then I have to paste each individual code into the corresponding product block.

I’m still waiting for the text descriptions for a lot of the knives, but hopefully I’ll have everything done by this weekend. But we’ll see.

About 1:30 Jan and I drove into Webster to have lunch at the East Star Chinese Buffet once again. Always good.

Then I made a quick stop at my client’s to set up one of the computers to do a system image backup later tonight. I try to do a system image on all three computers at least once a month. That way it will be a lot easier to recover if I lose a hard drive.

On the way home we made a quick WalMart stop for a few things before getting back to the rig about 5pm.

Another nice day.

Since not much else happened today, I thought I’d repost another highlight from our 2009 East Coast/Newfoundland trip.

Climbing Mt. Washington and here a moose, there a moose

Originally posted August 18, 2009

We left Moose River Campground about 11 am and headed up US 2  toward Gorham, NH.

The road wasn’t too bad, a bit curvy, but OK,  and we pulled into the WalMart about 12:30 pm and set up house. We were WallyDocking because we couldn’t find any where else to stay. There was only a couple of RV parks in the area, and they were all full.

Actually, when we Wally-Dock,  there’s nothing to setup.  We don’t lower the jacks, or put out the slide.  The only thing we do is just unhook the truck so we can drive around.

We decided to try a place called Crabby Jack’s Mexican Cafe for lunch,  since we were hungry for Mexican.

Big Mistake!   The service was bad and food wasn’t any better. Maybe that’s why Jack is Crabby. I certainly would be. But maybe I was expecting too much from New Hampshire Mexican food.

After our so-called lunch,  we headed down to Gorham’s Visitor’s Information booth to check out the sign that got Jan all giddy.

It said “Moose Tours”

After signing up for the 6:30 pm tour that evening,  I noticed a brochure on Mt. Washington.  I knew it was in New Hampshire,  but I didn’t know it was close by.

Turns out that it’s right down the road.  It’s about 8 miles to the base of the mountain,  and then about 8 miles to the summit,  all 6288 feet of it.

We decided we had plenty of time to do the mountain before our moose tour,  so we headed out.

And it is a heck of a climb.  During the 8 miles, you climb over 5000 ft.  And it seems like it’s straight up at times.

But, although it was a little hazy,  the view was spectacular.

The Mt. Washington Auto Road gave birth to the oldest man-made tourist attraction in the US.  When it was built in the 1861  (Yes, 1861),  it was called the Mt. Washington Carriage Road.  And stagecoaches took visitors to the top.

It’s still the same road, and not much improved, it seems.

And then in 1869 they built the Cog Train.  It runs on a train track with a cog track in the center that lets the train climb the steep grades like a roller coaster does…clack, clack, clack.

That little yellow dot is the train coming up the mountain.  It takes about an hour to come up and an hour to go back down.

It only takes about 20 min in your car.

“I think I can, I think I can…”

This gift shop building dates from 1878.  Note that it is chained down!

And here’s why!

231 MPH !!!

I think they need more chains.

The new buildings are built to withstand 300 MPH winds.

And, of course, we got our official bumper sticker for our trip up.

I’ve seen these on cars before, and now I know how they got them.

After coming back down, about 6:30pm, we boarded our tour bus for our “moose tour”.

And we actually saw moose,  4 of them, to be exact.  2 sets of cows and calves.  No bulls, unfortunately.

These pictures were taken about 9:30 pm at night, lit by spotlight.

These moose were about 30 yards away at the time.

We also saw an osprey, 2 foxes,  a deer,  and 2 loons.

And some pretty scenery earlier in the evening.

Tomorrow morning we head out to Bangor, ME for a few days before we trek further north to Canada.

Thought for the Day: 

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First off, On this Memorial Day, Jan and I want to thank our good friend Nick Russell for his service to our country.  And of course, all the other veterans as well.

I spent most of the day slogging away on the knife website. We have over 50 new knives, and each photo has to be cropped to two different sizes, one for the regular display, and a larger size for the ‘Click To Enlarge” function. Then they have to be enhanced, sharpen, and in some cases, retouched.

Then each product block has to be assembled from six different pieces, and placed in position on the page. And it all has to line up.

Then the last thing I will do is go into PayPal and create each ‘Add To Cart’ button, and then each button’s code has to be inserted into the product block.

Whew!

It’s not hard, just time-consuming. And after a while, my eyes get tired and I have to take a break.

Brandi, Lowell, and Landon are up in Oklahoma visiting Lowell’s parents there. Sonja, Landon’s other grandmother, posted this photo of Landon showing off his latest artwork, the cover of a book of student poetry. He’s now a published artist.

And here’s a closer view.

And apparently this runs in the family. Landon’s Uncle Chris is also an excellent artist and when he was in elementary school, his sketch of the school building was selected to be on the cover of the school handbook. I guess it’s Like Uncle, Like Nephew.

As always seems to happen this time of year, some of our favorite TV shows start falling by the wayside, as in CANCELLED.

One long-time favorite of ours, Lucifer, which just wrapped up its 3rd season, was cancelled abruptly after being told they had been renewed. Because of this they had actually already filmed the first two episodes of Season 4.

There’s been a big outpouring of fan support hoping for another network to pick it up, as just happened with Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing. So we can always hope, I guess.

But at least we’re going to get to see those two Season 4 episodes which were shown tonight back to back. We DVR’d them and will watch them tomorrow.

The other show we lost was a new one, Deception, about a disgraced master magician and his identical twin brother, who help the FBI solve cases using magic tricks and illusions.

Although we haven’t watched the 2 hour finale yet, it’s said that it ends in a cliffhanger that changes everything we thought we knew about what was happening on the show.

@#$@&  I hate it when that happens.

Thought for the Day: 

Ever stop to think and forget to start again?

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