Our RV Adventures

Between PayPal, Tesla, The Boring Company, and of course, SpaceX, Elon Musk is known for thinking outside the box, even to coming up with another whole box altogether.

For years now, SpaceX has been landing and reusing Falcon 9 boosters on barges positioned out in the ocean, because some launch paths don’t allow the boosters to return to the Cape or Boca Chica down in Texas.

But now Musk has purchased two almost new ocean-going oil rigs at a bargain basement price, not to go into the drilling business, but to use as launch and landing platforms for his Super Heavy Moon and Mars Missions, like shown in this graphic below.

Here’s the first one being retrofitted now down in Brownsville.

It’s called Deimos, and that almost certainly means that the other one is going to be called Phobos. That’s because Phobos and Deimos are the two Martian moons, Musk’s ultimate goal.

What will he think of next?

I went outside this morning to pull out the solar screens out of the back of the Dakota and lay them out to reinstall tomorrow. We took some of them down last fall to take advantage of the sun warming up the rig on cold days.

I also configured the timer to keep the hibiscus watering system bucket filled. It will come on once a week and run for 1 minute, which testing shows me it will completely fill the bucket in that time.

Then the computer-controlled pump will water the hibiscus every day at 9am for two minutes without my worrying about the water bucket going empty.

Later, about 2pm we headed over to Gator’s Bar & Grill for lunch. Jan was happy to find out they again had the Blackened Redfish back on the menu, since the last time she wanted to try it, they were out.

It normally comes on a bed of rice with an Andouille Sausage Cream Sauce. Jan didn’t get the rice, and she said next time she won’t get the cream sauce either. Though it was good, it kind of overwhelmed the delicate taste of the fish.

But other than that, she said it was delicious, get-again delicious.

I went right back to my usual Blackened Chicken Breast Sandwich with Bacon and Texas Toothpicks, and Sweet Potato Waffle Fries.

The owner and our old friend, Margie, to say Hi and talk for a while. She said they planned on having their Grand Opening next Saturday, so we’ll plan on being there for it before we leave a couple of days later.

Coming home we made a quick stop by Walmart to pick up some more concrete pavers for our walkway.

The six on the left are the new ones that I just sat into place for now. I’ll straighten them out and bed them in sand after we get back from vacation.

We also made a Cowboy Coffee stop and then sat out on the patio with our cold coffees and just enjoyed the view.

Not sure what’s on the schedule for tomorrow yet, but I’m sure it will be fun, interesting, or both.

Thought For The Day:

Everybody lies.
Don’t think so?

“By clicking the ‘I Accept’ button, I acknowledge that I have read, and do hereby accept all the terms and conditions contained in this Software Consent Agreement.”

Jan had been jonsin’ for a Chili Dog, so about 1pm we drove to the Sonic over in Dickinson to partake of Chili Cheese Coneys and Corn Dogs. Kind of a retro day remembering drive-ins back in the good old days.

After the young man brought our food, I mentioned pretty carhops in tight shorts and roller skates delivering our food back then, but as I said, “At least we still have Twin Peaks.”

Silence.

Then we made a quick run-through at WalMart for a few things. We’re being careful to use up any thing that would spoil during the two weeks we’ll be gone on our trip.

All the recent rains have made the ground under Jan’s Flamingo Flamboyance kind of soggy, so I spent some time this afternoon straightening up some of the occupants. And I also temporarily installed one of the other nozzles on the solar-powered fountain to see what it looked like.

But as I figured yesterday it scatters the spray so much that it loses a lot of water, and the bird bath doesn’t hold a lot as it is. So I think I’ll just stick with the regular one.

Of course we’re not as bad off as our daughter-in-law Linda’s plight. As she said, her backyard has become a ‘Water Hazard.”

Yikes!

I’m gradually getting the apps I want moved over or installed onto my new Galaxy S21 Ultra. And I think I’ve pretty much got a handle on how the 5 different cameras work, although I’m not really sure how usefully some of the options will be, like super slo-mo and hyperlapse. But they’ll at least be fun to play with.

And it looks like Jan’s new-to-her S8+ is going to need a new battery soon. When the young lady at the Verizon store took it out of its Otterbox case, I could see that the battery had swollen and was starting to open up the edge of the case along the seam.

Unlike my old S5 where you can just pop off the back and install a new battery, the S8+ has to be heated up with a heat gun to melt the adhesive and then pried apart. Then a bunch of tiny screws have to be removed so you can get the battery cover off. Finally battery has to be heated to melt the adhesive holding it in place. Then you can replace the battery.

Then everything has to be glued back together. Sounds like fun.

Looks to be a quiet Memorial Day for Jan and I tomorrow.

Thought For The Day:

Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively. – Dalai Lama XIV