Monthly Archives: November 2020
Pass The Turkey,
and the Dressing, and the Green Beans, and the Mashed Potatoes, and the . . .(Insert Your Favorite Thanksgiving Dish Here)
About 12:30 I started putting out and heating up our Thanksgiving meal, mostly compliments of Cracker Barrel.
I mixed the chicken broth in with the Cornbread Dressing and put it in the convection/microwave for about 40 minutes while I was prepping everything. And a lot of the prepping consisted of taking the lids off the Green Beans, the Carrots, and the Mashed Potatoes, and putting a couple of big dollops of KerryGold Butter in each dish.
As well as drizzling melted KerryGold over the top on the Yeast Rolls, which went into the toaster/convection oven at 400° for about 15 minutes, coming out looking like this.
While this was going on I got out the Turkey Breast, cut open the sealed plastic bag, and started slicing.
And no, it’s not really greenish. It’s just the lighting.
Then after cycling all the Veggies and the Turkey Gravy through the microwave,
and laying everything else out,
we were ready to eat.
Really, really good. Thanks to Cracker Barrel.
And then for dessert, there was pie.
And yes, there’s a piece of Chocolate Pecan and a piece of Cream Cheese Pumpkin underneath all that Whipped Cream somewhere.
And the clean up consisted pretty much of just snapping the lids back on the serving dishes and putting them back in the fridge.
Nice!
The only downside to this very nice day, is that we lost the park WiFi Internet about 10:30 am, and as of 11 pm tonight we still don’t have it back. The WiFi signal is there, and we can connect to it and get an IP address, but it’s just not talking to anything.
Rob, the park owner who’s out of town, had his daughter come over and reboot everything here, but it didn’t help. And so far it’s been impossible to talk to anyone at Xfinity.
Nothing we have will get a signal. The TV, computer, tablets, Kindles, Echo’s, all zip. But I can connect to my Verizon MiFi or my phone hotspot, so I know it’s not me.
So later in the afternoon I turned our DirecTV DVR back on and we watched stuff we had recorded a while back.
Thought for the Day:
Cogito ergo sum. – Descartes
(I think, therefore I am)
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum. Cogito. – Ambrose Bierce
(I think I think, therefore I think I am. I think)
And I think I like the last one better.
I think. – Greg
November 26, 2011
Moving Day . . .
After our coffee and a quick drive past the site to be sure no one had come in and parked there overnight, we moved the rig a little before 11 and got settled in at our new home.
Hooking up backwards wasn’t as much a problem as I anticipated. I had thought I might need another length of sewer hose, but as it turns out my two pieces were just enough.
Power was no problem since whoever originally purchased our coach ordered the extra-long power cord, and that’s been a big help several times.
As it turns out, the only problem was with the water connection. The previous tenant had left one of those silver 2-way hose connectors like this.
The problem was the threads on both sides were so messed up that I couldn’t connect my hose to it. And worse, I couldn’t get the splitter off, either. It was stuck good.
The pipe is PVC and when I tried to use a wrench to twist it off, the PVC started to bend. Just what I want to do – break off the pipe.
My solution was to call the park office and let them fix it. We’ll just stay on internal water till they get it fixed.
Here’s a couple of views out our front window. As you can see we’re only about 20 feet from the water.
By the time we got parked the thunderstorms were rolling in and the formerly blue skies were turning gray and dreary.
This shot shows Jan’s favorite island. A lot of birds make this area home and it’s one of her favorite sights.
After we got settled in, a little after 12, we headed up to Seabrook to have lunch at Hooters, our (my) favorite hot-wing place. Really like their XXX hotter sauce.
After lunch our next stop was Wal-Mart for a few things. It looks like the Black Friday madness has subsided to a dull roar. They were busy, but not overly so. We didn’t even have to wait in line to check out.
Coming back into the park, we saw our newest resident, a Roseate Spoonbill, hanging around with a paddling of wild ducks.
When we first saw it a few days ago, it was resting on the bank, facing away from us, and we thought it was a Flamingo. But these shots proved different.
It was still pretty cloudy, so he looks a little colorless, but in the bright sun, the pink really stands out. A beautiful bird.
I’ll try to get some better shots later.
We still haven’t seen the Great Blue Heron that was here our past three winters. Hope he’s OK.
Getting back to the rig about 2, the rainy weather made a perfect setting for very nice nap. The rain on the roof of the rig made it very easy to fall asleep.
Supper was leftovers of Mexican and BBQ with cookies for dessert. Nice and simple.
Tomorrow I want to dig out my truck manual and see what I can do about the broken window lifter.
If the weather cooperates, that is.
Thought for the Day:
I’m working on my second million . . . I gave up on the first.
November 26, 2017
In An Instant . . .
We bought a 2+ pound eye of round roast a couple of weeks ago to try out in our Instant Pot, But we got so busy that we ended up freezing it.
So today we decided to try out our IP with Pot Roast and Veggies. We’d seen that we could do the roast frozen so that’s how we did it.
I put the roast in the IP and then added beef broth, water, salt, pepper, and heat.
Then I added some of the cut-up onions from our veggies,
locked the lid down and then set the the IP to Meat and 90 minutes, and off it went. It took about 15 to reach pressure and then the countdown began.
Per the instructions, 90 minutes later I did a quick release and here’s what we had.
Jan had already prepared the veggies, potatoes, carrots, and onions. The corn I was going to do separately.
So in the IP they went right into the leftover juices.
This time I set the IP to Manual and 10 minutes with a 10 minute natural release and then quick release.
As soon as they were done, I put the corn on the cob in our steamer basket, still using the original liquid, and set the IP for Manual and 3 minutes, and then did a quick release.
And about 10 minutes we were ready to eat. The roast sliced easily and was fall-apart tender.
It was delicious, but no heat. We’ll add more next time.
The veggies were a little over-cooked, but still delicious. Maybe 8 minutes next time and quick release.
I like my corn on the cob with some bite to it, but next time I’ll do it for 4 or 5 minutes, instead of 3.
All in all, it was a good first try with our Instant Pot. Looking forward to more great meals.
The Word of the Day is: Confabulate
Thought for the Day:
Pretty much sums it up.
Happy Thanksgiving Eve . . .
November 25, 2010
Happy Thanksgiving . . .
Today began early for Jan, but lucky me I got to sleep in until 9 am.
She had to get up and put her Squash Casserole in the oven. She had prepared it yesterday, but it needed to cook for about an hour. Everything else was done.
Then a little after 10 we headed out toward Shawna’s, a trip of about 70 miles out to the Katy area. We did a quick detour by Brandi’s to pick up the Honeybaked Ham and the two pumpkin pies we had stored in her fridge there.
We got to Shawna’s beautiful new house a little before noon and the first words we heard were “Where’s the Sausage Balls?”. Just like I said yesterday.
Jan, of course, immediately went for Landon.
And here’s Mr. Landon getting the giggles, bouncing on Lowell’s knee.
And here he is surrounded by his many female admirers.
As always, the meal was fantastic, with ham, turkey, cornbread dressing, corn casserole, squash casserole, green bean casserole, salad, rolls, and a number of great desserts.
After lunch, some people wandered off to watch the games, some of the kids went upstairs to watch movies in Shawna’s beautiful new theater room with a really big screen, and some people, like me, wandered off to take a nap, after that great meal.
A little after 4 we headed back home to the rig, getting back about 5:30 pm.
I mentioned yesterday about the changes in Direct TV’s Distant Network Service that let’s you get the East Coast and West Coast Network Stations.
Well, after reading about the changes in it, I checked my Direct TV service and found that I had lost the West Coast feed. I figured I would call them on Friday.
But getting back this evening, I found we had not only lost the West Coast, but now we had lost the East Coast feed, and the Houston local channel spotlight, as well.
It took almost 30 minutes on the phone to get things turned back on, but I still need to call them tomorrow to try and get our West Coast feed turned back on. The guy on the phone had no idea why I had lost the feeds as there was nothing in my records about them being turned off.
More tomorrow…
Thought for the Day:
“Last century over 170 million people were murdered by their own governments, and your government doesn’t want you to have a gun. Doesn’t that bother you just a little bit?”
November 25, 2011
Almost Home . . .
Once again I was up about 9am since we were suppose to move this morning , , , maybe. So about 10 I headed over to the office, with a detour by the site where we supposed to move today.
But as you can see it was still occupied
So I checked in with the office and they had no news except that the 5er was supposed to leave today.
We’ll see.
Since we couldn’t move yet, about 11 I headed off to see a client. I’m still working my way through all their computers, cleaning and tiding them up, doing updates on the OS and programs, and clean out the gunk.
About 3:30 the RV park called and said we could move anytime as the site was now empty. I told them we’d move tomorrow since I wasn’t at the park and they said no problem.
I headed back to the rig about 4, stopping by the newly vacated site to check out our view-to-be.
Looks pretty good.
The only downside is that since the site is set up for a 5th wheel, if we want to have our windshield looking out over the bay, (and isn’t that the whole point of parking on the water?) I’ll have to cross-connect the utilities under the rig.
No problem, but I’ll probably have to buy another length of sewer hose.
Jan and I then headed back up to Seabrook to have dinner at Chili’s, with Jan having the Baby Back Ribs, and I had my usual Grilled Chicken Caribbean Salad.
I’ve been eating this salad for years, but in 2008 they discontinued it. And we stopped eating at Chili’s for two years. When we finally went back it was back on the menu. The waitress said they’d had a lot of complaints and requests for it, so I guess our boycott worked.
We’ll probably try to move about 11 tomorrow, but it depends on the weather since we’re supposed to have heavy thunderstorms tomorrow. Just what you want on a moving day.
Thought for the Day;
“Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.” – James Madison
November 25, 2012
Back home again . . .
We left our Lake House Thanksgiving retreat about 8:30, but before we left Marble Falls we wanted to have breakfast at the Blue Bonnet Café.
First opened in 1929, it’s served the likes of President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush, Ethan Hawke, James Lovell, Lyle Lovett, Texas Governor Rick Perry and First Lady Anita Perry, Willie Nelson, Darrell Royal, Roger Staubach, and Chuck Woolery.
August company indeed.
We really lucked out getting there when we did, since we got seated immediately. By the time we left, the line was out the door.
Besides their delicious food, especially breakfast, they’re also well-known for their pies.
So yes, there’s about 9 inches of meringue on that pie.
After saying our goodbyes with Lowell and Brandi, and getting our Nana and Papa hugs from Landon, we all headed back home.
Our first stop was at our favorite Buc-ee’s on I-10 at Luling. Landon had enjoyed playing with some marbles in a game left at the lake house, so Jan got him a set while we were there.
After a second stop at the Flying J in Brookshire, we got back to the rig about 3pm and found that Laura Lee had done a great job taking care of Mister and Emma.
Tomorrow it’s back to the grind with clients and chores.
Thought for the Day:
“Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life.” — Herbert Henry Asquith
November 25, 2013
I Hear Bells . . .
or at least I think I do Every time I start to fall asleep, I keep thinking I’m hearing the ding,ding of the driveway bell on the gate. Same thing happened last year, too. And also just like last year, we both find ourselves looking at car tags to see if we recognize them. It’ll pass.
Well, if we thought the weather was bad last night, all we had to do was wait for today. It got colder and wetter. And of course I had to wait until this morning to hook up water and sewer. Doing it this morning meant I had to get down on my hands and knees in the cold water so I could run the hoses under the rig to the pedestal on the wrong side.
Fun.
But the first thing I did after getting up was to start checking on rental cars since I’m going to have to have the truck towed into the shop. And I quickly ran into a problem.
There are pretty much no cars to be had, especially from Enterprise, the ‘we’ll pick you up’ people, which is what I need. Apparently everyone rents cars to travel for Thanksgiving. Although this year it was worse because of the bad weather. They’re supposed to be bringing in more vehicles tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll luck up.
I also talked to Brock’s Automotive, the car repair shop I’ve used for years. Turns out my Dodge Dakota doesn’t have conventional front wheel bearings. Instead it has an integrated hub-bearing assembly like this.
If I I had a 2WD, it would be a quick and simple repair. Just remove the tire/wheel and then remove the 3 bolts, and then remove the old hub and reinstall the new one.
Unfortunately the 4WD repair is a little more involved.
About noon I walked up to the office to pay for the month and also get the park WiFi code. They have a very good system here with good coverage, and excellent speed. Here’s the SpeedTest results from earlier this evening.
During the day when the load is lighter, I’ve seen 20Mbps download speed. Very nice
Although it was overcast and rainy all day, we still got to enjoy the view out our windshield.
One of many reasons why we like this park so much.
Thought for the Day:
“Nothing needs reforming nearly as much as other people’s habits.” – Mark Twain
November 25, 2015
Just Puttering . . .
Today ended up being a nice ‘just putter around the rig’ day.
After coffee in our repaired Mr. Coffee (it’s still working fine) and a couple of slices of pumpkin bread, I started going through some bins looking for a couple of things I need for projects.
Once we move over to Colorado River TT in a couple of weeks, I’ve got a extended plumbing project planned. And since I’ll have the water shut off for a while, I’ll send Jan off to stay with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon for a day or so.
First I want to replace the flush ball mechanism in our Sealand Traveler toilet. Since while we were on the gate, we’ve actually been flushing it with a pair of locking pliers. The plastic shaft finally rounded off and the spring cartridge and the foot pedal would no longer flush it.
And while I’ve got it apart, I want to replace the seal kit, and that’s one of the things I’m looking for in the bins. I bought a seal kit a while back as a spare, but so far it isn’t where I thought it should be, so today I’ll be looking in places it’s not supposed to be.
My second project is to replace the lavatory faucet. I’ve got all the parts, so it’s just a matter of taking care of it when the water is off.
But the last one is probably going to be the tricky one. For a while now we’ve had a small leak in our shower, apparently at the back of the shower faucet itself. I’m assuming it’s on the input side to the faucet since it seems to leak whether we actually use the shower or not.
The real complication is that fact that there’s no access panel to the rear of the faucet from the bedroom. There’s supposed to be one. American Coach said so.
When I called them, they said the access panel was right behind the mirror on that wall. I said there wasn’t a mirror on that wall, and there wasn’t any access panel, either.
Their answer to this, “Well,there should be.”
Thanks for your help.
So this means I’m going to have to cut my own access panel, and then come up with some sort of cover for the hole. Presently we have a large picture hung there, but right now it’s hung too high to cover the area where the hole will have to be, and it wouldn’t look right if we hung it lower.
But the important thing is to first fix the leak.
Next chore was to install my new vehicle tags. My present ones run out the end of November so I wanted to get them on before I forget about them. Normally I just get the stickers, but my tags are 8 years old, and are getting pretty beat up, especially the one on the front of the rig which is mounted down fairly low. So this year I paid the extra $10 each and got new tags, and of course new numbers.
Another thing on my list was to install some cable clamps in my electrical bay. Unlike newer rigs that control the engine block heater with a switch, mine has to be plugged in. And it seems like the cord is always hidden away behind the coils of my shore power cord.
So I installed some cable clamps to hold the block heater cord up out of the way.
Sometimes the easy chores are good too.
About 4 Jan and I went into Conroe to have dinner at the local Culver’s. While Jan had a burger and fries, I guess I finally burned out on all the Whataburgers we had on the gate, so I went the soup and salad route, with their Cranberry Bacon Bleu Cheese Salad and a cup of Cheesy Tortilla Soup.
I don’t normally care for Bleu Cheese, but the crumbles in this salad add a nice touch of tartness against he sweetness of the cranberries. Very good.
Tomorrow we’ll head down to Chris and Linda’s in Friendswood to have Thanksgiving dinner. With Brandi, Lowell, and Landon in Oklahoma for the week, we debated what to do for Thanksgiving.
No one really wanted to cook, and no one really wanted to fight the crowds at a restaurant, so we compromised and did a little of both. On our way down to Chris’, we’ll stop off at the Conroe Cracker Barrel to pick up their Thanksgiving To-Go meal for six.
It comes Turkey and Dressing, Ham, Three Quarts of Sides (for us it was Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, Green Beans, and Mac & Cheese), Cranberry Relish, Biscuits, and Corn Muffins.
Linda has fixed some of her delicious Cranberry Salad and a Pumpkin Pie, and we’re also bringing a homemade Coconut Cream Pie from yesterday’s visit to the Fish Pond Restaurant.
So no crowds and easy cleanup.
Happy Thanksgiving!
_______________________________________________
Thought for the Day:
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence therefore is not an act but a habit. – Aristotle
November 25, 2016
Black Friday . . . NOT!
Thanksgiving morning, our ‘Up at 6 and on the road by 7’ turned out to be more like ‘Up at 6:30 and on the road by by 7:40’. But finally we were headed for the Cuero McDonald’s for breakfast about 40 miles away.
Then our next stop was the Valero in Schulenburg another 45 miles for a potty break right before we got on I-10E for the 90 mile run to Brandi’s. One thing that makes these trips like a lot nicer . . . and faster, is that Texas doesn’t fool around with wimpy speed limits.
With 75 mph on regular Interstates, and up to 85 mph on others, they don’t mess around on other roads either. Most rural two lane roads are 70, or 65 mph at the slowest, which made the trip a lot more fun.
And though you would think these higher speed limits, pretty much the fastest in the nation, would lead to more high deaths, that’s not true. Texas is pretty much in the middle, 23 from the top, in per capita deaths.
So in this case Speed Doesn’t Kill.
Right before we got to Brandi’s we stopped for a few last minute items at the nearby Krogers, including several bags of our favorite coffees. Since there’s no Krogers anywhere near us here, we stock up when we can.
When we got to Brandi’s about 11:15 she had things well in hand. She already had the house decorated for Christmas and it really looked great.
Later, Brand’s friends, Eric, Chantelle, and Max showed up. Eric brought his turkey fryer and got it set up on the patio.
Over the next several hours, he did two large chickens and then a turkey. One of the chickens had been injected with Jalapeno Butter, and other one with Garlic Butter. The turkey however was more traditional, and just injected with butter.
All three were delicious, moist and juicy inside, especially the Jalapeno Butter one.
As the afternoon progressed more and more friends showed up and the food started being laid out. Unfortunately, our son and his family all had to work. Chris with his Haz-Mat job for GE, Linda who manages a CVS, and our granddaughter Piper who pulled a double in the hospital ER in Galveston.
Then friends, Doug and Christi showed up, along with Christi’s brother and parents.
The girls took over the kitchen as dinner got closer.
As is usually at these things, everyone ate until they were stuffed and then some, ending up with a lot of sleepy people sitting around.
Jan and I finally headed home about 20 to 7 and arrived back at the rig at 20 to 10, good time for the 160 miles with a couple of potty stops.
Today was just a stay home day, eating leftovers and staying as far away from Black Friday shopping as possible, although I did buy something on Amazon.
That was close enough.
Thought for the Day:
“It’s not true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on.” ― Marilyn Monroe
November 25, 2017
Great Friends and Good Food . . .
Janice and Dave Evans invited us over for lunch today, so we walked over about 11:45 for a great meal of Red Beans and Rice, and Jalapeno Cornbread with brownies for dessert.
We also got to meet their son John, as well as Dave’s brother John, and his wife Lisa, Then later their friend’s Joe and Joanna, so a big, fun group.
We stayed for several hours before coming home, after setting up a rendezvous for later this afternoon.
We met Janice and Dave down at Pho 20 about 4:30 and were greeted by our favorite waitress, Mariah. (Named for the singer, not the wind. We asked.)
Everyone got something new, except me. Of course since Janice and Dave hadn’t been here before, it was all new to them.
Dave got the General Tso’s Chicken,
while Janice got the Chicken Pho.
Both Janice and Dave said it was really good.
This time my Jan went with the Orange Chicken,
while I stayed put with my Jalapeno Chicken.
As with our other visits, Jan and I started off splitting the House Crunch Salad with Miso Dressing. Really good. Going to have to get some of this dressing.
Tomorrow looks to be another quiet day around the rig, with not a lot going on.
So nice.
The Word of the Day is: Mucilaginous
Thought for the Day:
To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman. – Mark Twain
