Monthly Archives: April 2022
Next Time I’ll Look More Closely . . .
Or Hot, Swollen, and Itchy!
I saw on Facebook last night that we were coming to the end of the line to see the Ramses exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the end of the line being May 23rd. So with our busy schedule, I decided to get us booked now.
We’re now scheduled for Tuesday, May 10th at 1:30 pm, with lunch beforehand at the Katz’s Deli up in Montrose, which is only about 10 minutes away.
Looking forward to it.
We would have gone next week but Jan is Landon/Dog sitting up in Katy at Brandi’s during that time. Brandi is having a girl’s week out up her long-time friend Shawna’s lake house with a bevy of other friends. So Karma and I will be batching for that week.
Jan and I headed out for lunch about 1pm, with lunch being at Los Ramirez once again,with Jan getting her Pechuga Rellena,
and for me, my usual Beef Fajita Taco Salad.
Then after our really good meal, we drove down FM517 to get gas at the Shell. GasBuddy showed it was the cheapest place nearby, except for the Sam’s and the Buc-ee’s on down the Interstate.
So parking at the pump, I opened the filler door and stuck my hand in to twist off the gas cap. And got what I initially thought was a bad shock on my right hand. But when I yanked my hand back out, a wasp came out with it and flew off.
Stung on my forefinger knuckle, my hand quickly started to swell up, heat up, and start to itch.
A lot!
The pain quickly faded, but the itching just got worse. And the swelling/heat started to extend up my forearm.
Jan quickly started asking me if I was having trouble swallowing/breathing, signs of a severe allergic reaction, I.e. anaphylactic shock. Which starts with severe itching. And can end with your tongue swelling up and your throat closing off. As well as a number of other symptoms.
None of which I had.
When I got home, I took a couple of allergy pills and Jan rolled on some anesthetic cream, which did help the itching a lot. Right now it’s not itching much, but it’s still hot, red and swollen all the way up to my elbow. And I can’t make a fist again yet.
Next time I’ll check carefully before I reach in for the gas cap.
Next up is our first visit to the Park of the Sierras at the base of Yosemite National Park.
April 26, 2010
Park of the Sierras
We left the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds about 9:30 am heading for the Park of the Sierras Escapees RV Park right outside Coarsegold, CA.
Our first leg was about 35 miles west on SR138 to hit I-5. That part of the trip went fine. Although the road was two lane, it was smooth and straight with no stoplights or stop signs, with just a few hills right before it joined I-5. And we were treated to more poppy fields along the way.
But it was a whole different story when we got on I-5 N. We immediately ran into a 5 mile long 6% downgrade. Normally that’s not a problem, but the road surface was awful. It was like driving thru a minefield and we had stuff falling everywhere.
In fact my laser printer was feeling so upset that it decided to “end it all” by leaping off the table to the floor below. In hindsight, it had been feeling depressed lately. The prognosis is unsure at this point.
But once we got to the bottom of the hill it was smooth sailing. And we had some more great scenery, including hillsides covered in purple flowers.
We stayed on I-5 until about 30 miles out of Bakersfield, when we got on SR99 heading toward Fresno.
99 turned out to be a really good road, four lane all the way to Fresno. Along the way we started seeing signs for Apple Annie’s Restaurant in Tulare, and thought we would check it out. And we were in luck, as they had a large enough parking lot to accommodate us.
The food was good and we were on our way in about 45 minutes.
Unfortunately, it would have been better if we had been on our way in 35 minutes.
Coming into Fresno we split off onto SR41. SR41 is a good two lane road that got a little more hilly as we went along, but no real problems.
Until we got to the park.
We pulled in behind a 5th wheeler.and went in. And discovered that I been lied to.
I called the park earlier this week to see if they had an open site for us. They told me they had plenty of room and that I could make a reservation, but really didn’t need to.
And I believed them.
And then I found out that the 5th wheel in front of us had gotten the last site. They had had a lot of RV’s show up and there were was ‘no room at the inn” for us. If we had only spent 10 minutes less at lunch. Ah well.
They said they would have a site for us tomorrow and we could boondock in their dry camping area until then.
So here we are.
The park is really nice, with hills and trees, something we have not seen since February in Texas. Everything since then have basically been parking lots.
Here’s our most recent site in Lancaster..
And here’s our site in Las Vegas.
And here’s our site in Laughlin.
And here’s our site in Tucson.
So hills and trees are nice…as long as they don’t block the satellite dish, of course.
Anyway, here’s some pictures of here.
Not sure what we’re doing tomorrow yet. It depends on how early we can get into our full hookup site.
More later.
Today in 2015 we were in Las Vegas visiting the Lion Habitat Ranch,
April 26, 2015
Leo The Lion . . .
Jan and I left out on our latest lion safari about 10am this morning, heading for the The Lion Habitat Ranch down in Henderson at the bottom of the Strip.
The park doesn’t open until 11am, in fact, it’s only open from 11 to 3 Friday thru Monday, but we wanted to have enough time to grab a breakfast sandwich somewhere beforehand.
Getting down to the area, we double-checked the Ranch location and then drove another couple of miles down the St,. Rose Pkwy to the Jack in the Box located in the M Spa & Casino there.
Ironically, the location of the M Spa & Casino was what led me to the Lion Habitat Ranch in the first place.. While we were still down at the Verde Valley TT, I read an article online about a guy who had killed himself at the M Spa on Easter Sunday.
A guy named John Noble won a lifetime of free daily buffet meals from the M Casino in 2010, but then in 2013 was banned from the casino because he kept hitting on some of the waitresses and showering them with gifts.
So to get back at the casino, on April 5th, 2015, Easter Sunday, the Casino buffet’s biggest day, John Noble went into the buffet area and blew his brains out all over the buffet, and I mean ALL OVER the buffet.
So after reading the article and wondering where the M Casino was, I found it on Google. But I also notice a place called The Lion Habitat Ranch nearby, and made note to check it out when we were in Las Vegas.
And today was that day.
We got back to the park a little after 11am and found visitors already lining up. Our admission was $20 each with the $5 senior discount, about in line with other small family zoos.
Our first stop was at a picture area. Visitors can sit in a jeep mockup and have their picture taken in front of a glass wall with a large lion right behind you. The lion is up there because a guy is off to the side throwing little chunks of meat to him.
I guess this is the main reason to never tailgate a lion.
Later we saw an example of this when one male decided he wasn’t getting his share of the meat chunks so he whirled around and sprayed. Luckily we were all able to scatter.
This young lady had a lot of good information about the facility and the lions. All the 40 something lions are descendants of Leo, the original MGM lion whose roar you still hear in movie theaters to this day.
In fact, up until a few years ago, the MGM Grand Casino here in Vegas had a lion exhibit, using some of the lions from the ranch here. They actually were transported back and forth every day.
Recently they’ve started adding other animals, including giraffes, ostriches, emus, and a number of parrots, macaws, and cockatoos.
The handler here said that a giraffe’s tongue grows an inch for every foot of height, so a 20 foot tall giraffe will have a 20 inch long tongue. Yikes!
I was able to get a lot of good shots of these big cats.
Back in the corner of this den box, are 5 of the 6 lion cubs born 23 days ago. Unfortunately, the 6th cub died a couple of weeks ago. These six cubs are only the 3rd documented time that 6 cubs have been born alive.
About 12:30 the owners came out and personally fed many of the cats, including the mother of the cubs shown here.
These cub shots were take through a thick pane of glass and were heavily shaded so I had to enhance them somewhat.
Notice how the cubs at this age still have spots, for the same reason that fawns and other animals have them: camouflage in the brush.
Every cat knew what they needed to do to get their meat snacks and were happy to perform.
This is Angel, a 7 month old lion, who only wanted to play. She was just all over the owner
Having visited a lot of small zoos, we were both impressed with the cleanliness of the place and how good all the animals looked. So if zoos and like-places are your thing, the Lion Habitat Ranch should be on your list.
Leaving the area, we headed over to the Sunset Station area to have lunch at an El Pollo Loco, another of our favorite places. We love their marinated grilled chicken, and often buy extra to have later. And we plan on coming back later this week to do that before we leave here next Sunday.
This was my 3 piece meal that was enough to have half to take home for dinner tonight. Yum!
Coming home, we stopped off for some Wal-Mart stuff, and then getting back to the park area, we stopped in at the Roadrunner RV Park right down the road to drop off some Gypsy Journals.
Tomorrow looks to be another nice stay-at-the-rig day.
Looking forward to it.
Finally, our last visit to LA.
April 26, 2017
This Date In History . . .
This morning we were once again out the door and on the road by10:15 heading down to LA for another day of eating and shopping, this time heading down the 405.
So what else is new?
Jan has always been a big fan of the reality show ‘Sweetie Pie’s. Robbie Montgomery had a long career as a backup singer with groups from Ike and Tina Turner to the Beatles. But after a long illness and asthma forced her to quit as a singer, she open a restaurant in St. Louis in 1998 called Sweetie Pies.
Rated the #1 Soul Food Restaurant in St. Louis for years, Sweetie Pie’s became a reality TV show on OWN TV in 2011, and quickly became a hit. And recently Sweetie Pie’s started spreading out with other locations, including two in LA, and one in Houston.
We didn’t find out about the one in Houston until we were leaving last month, so Jan was determined to eat at the one down in Inglewood, so today was the day.
We got to the restaurant about 11:30 and found a corner location with plenty of on-street parking.
Inside it was high ceilings, a bright, open interior
and a delicious-looking cafeteria line.
Jan and I both went with the Fried Chicken and three sides.
We both doubled up with the Green Beans and Miss Robbie’s fabled Mac N Cheese, while we differed with Jan getting the Cornbread Dressing and Gravy, while I got the Collard Greens.
Everything was delicious, the service was great, and everyone was friendly, patiently answering Jan’s many questions about the show and Miss Robbie and her extended family.
This was great Soul Food, and Miss Robbie’s Mac N Cheese is fabled for a good reason.
Leaving Sweetie Pie’s we headed north on La Brea for about 10 miles to Larchmont Village, a shopping area near Beverly Hills where Landis General Store supposedly stocked Beekman Boys soaps and lotions.
Well, they used to, but that was before the store was flooded and closed by a plumbing problem and hasn’t yet reopened. But she did find several other things she liked, and we got Starbuck’s Cinnamon Dolce Lattes so it wasn’t all bad.
Heading back to the rig, we got on the 101N this time, and had a smooth trip back up to Acton with no real slowdowns. And being back by 3pm we had time for a nap.
Getting back, Jan took this shot of the view from near our site.
Until you’re actually out here, most people don’t realize how hilly the LA area actually is.
And today, this day in history, April 26th, 2008, is the day we arrived in Fairbanks, AK during our 1st year on the road.
Leaving Tok that morning this is the view out the windshield.
Jan said, “OMG we don’t have to drive OVER those, do we?”
Thankfully, No.
Two days after we got to Chena Marina RV Park in Fairbanks we had this.
And it was starting to snow again when we left on September 20th, five months later, chasing us all the way back to the US where we entered on Oct. 8th at Sweet Grass, MT. Jan said she wanted to get out and kiss the ground.
And then two days, in Billings, MT, the snow again caught up with us.
Tomorrow we’re once again heading back to the Hollywood area to take the TMZ Celebrity Tour that originates from the Hard Rock Café located next to the TCL, nee Grauman’s, Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd.
Thought for the Day:
Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel. – Leonardo da Vinci
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More Cows . . .
A pretty quiet day at work today, especially for a Monday.
The only thing interesting was that I saw one of Google Street View cars driving in the parking lot next to the feeder near FM517 and I-45.
But that’s about all.
So some more reminiscing for all of us.
April 25, 2014
Needed: 60,000 cows . . . A Day!
An update on the Industrial County Market mentioned below:
It closed in October 2018 when it was purchased by the nearby Frebo Ranch. It’s all gone now.
Today, while we were staying at the Colorado River Thousand Trails near Columbus, TX, it was time for another daytrip so we headed out a little before10 am, but didn’t go far, only a few miles north on US71 to our first stop, the Industrial Country Market. We’ve passed this place a bunch of times, but never stopped. But blog reader Rob Nixon said we really needed to check the place out. And he was right.
Take a hardware store, a toy store, a gadget store, a solar power supply store, and an ammo store, then throw in water and hydroponic vegetable gardens, add a lot of garden art and solar panels, run the whole thing completely off the grid, and you’ve got the Industrial Country Market.
You could actually spend hours walking up and down the aisles of the ‘non-general, general store’.
Toys, clothing, jewelry. ammo.
Spices, electronics, tools, puppets, 1500 Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverters. and more.
And outside you find all sorts of gardens and plants.
As well as a forest of Bottle Trees.
Water gardens with fountains and waterfalls.
And ingenious art gardens made from a little bit of everything.
Even a number of hydroponic gardens growing vegetables and ornamental plants.
And it’s all run completely off the electrical grid.
These 24 volt batteries come from telephone company Central Offices, which is why your landline phone keeps working even when the power is out. It’s all powered from the phone office.
These and other solar panels provide an amazing 25KW of both 120VAC and 240VAC electrical power
Jan and I really enjoyed our visit and we’ll probably go back again the next time we’re in the area.
Our next stop was a few more miles up the road at Hruska’s.
We’ve been stopping here for a long time and have watched the place grow into what it is today, a major operation. The place started out as general store/market in 1912 and has been in the family ever since. And they still have the best kolaches around.
Jan and I stopped for a couple of kolaches, but we noticed a lot of locals having their double-cheeseburgers, and it turns out that Texas Monthly Magazine says they have one of the best burgers in the state. Hopefully we can check them out before we leave.
Then it was back on the road, heading up to Brenham and the Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory Tour. We’ve been trying to take this tour for almost 35 years and we finally made it.
The problem was that the tour is only given Monday through Friday, and it seems we were always up that way on the weekend.
Unfortunately I can’t show you any pictures because they don’t allow photos on the tour, but they do give you free ice cream at the end, so no pictures for you, but free ice cream for us.
That sound fair.
One of the most interesting facts given on the tour is that this one plant (they have two more. one in Sylacauga, AL, and one in Broken Arrow, OK) uses the milk from 60,000 cows . . . a day. Now that’s squeezing a lot of cows.
After finishing up our ice cream (Jan had Rocky Mountain Road and I had Salted Caramel Vanilla) we head back toward home, but in a roundabout way, via Giddings, rather than the most direct way.
But going this way let us stop off at the Buc-ee’s there for a bathroom break and some of their Cranberry Nut muffins to bring home.
But the day wasn’t over yet. We had timed things so that we would be back at Peter’s BBQ in Ellinger about 4:30. Just in time for our last shot at their great Friday Night BBQ and Seafood Buffet. As always, really, really good.
Tomorrow looks to be a work-around-the-rig day.
Another day during one of our many stays in Las Vegas.
April 25, 2015
Back to Basics . . .
After coffee and taking care of some chores, I got back on my PacBrake problem. I had gone online and found the lubrication instructions on the PacBrake website.
The first thing was to get access to the PacBrake under the bed, and that means removing a lot of our stored stuff out of the way.
So after lifting the bed, and then lifting the engine access cover, I could now get to the PacBrake itself.
The unit is just to the right of the engine and fairly accessible. Here it is from the side.
I started lubing all the points listed in the docs. There was a problem matching up the actual lube points on paper with the actual unit since I’m looking at it from the top, but the docs show it from the side.
There are two lube sites that I’m still unsure about that, which means I’ll have to put in a call to PacBrake on Monday.
I also need to figure out how to manually trigger the PacBrake, first, because I also need to lube the air cylinder’s shaft, and second, to be sure it’s actually working. I think I have a good idea how to trigger the air solenoid manually, or electrically, actually, but I want to be sure.
But however I do it, I know I’ll have to crank up the engine, since the valve itself is air operated. More later.
For dinner, Jan and I had been talking about a good hamburger, and after talking over the obvious, McD, Wendy’s, Five Guy’s, or Smashburger, we decided to give In N Out Burger a try. It also helped that there was one pretty close.
The last (and only) time we ate at one was in February 2008 when we were in San Diego during our first month of RV’ing. We remember liking the burgers, but it was Friday night and the place was full of screaming teenagers. Don’t know if that’s only reason, but whatever the reason, we’ve never been back to one. Until now.
Originally they were only located in California, but in the last few years, they’ve been spreading east. They’re even in Houston now.
We got there a little after 4:30 and found the place pretty busy. Getting in line, the first thing we noticed was the simplified menu board, harking back to the old days of McDonald’s.
Just cheeseburgers, hamburger, fries and drinks. Just how McD started out.
Of course you do apparently have a lot options, with their Secret Menu, and a Super Secret Menu. We both got the Double-Double (two patties, two slices of cheese) from the regular menu, but they also have a 3 x 3, and a 4 x 4 on the Secret Menu if you’re really hungry. We both got the #1 Combo which included fries and a drink.
But one bite told me why In N Out has the reputation it has. This has to be one of the best ‘inexpensive’ burgers I’ve ever tasted. And by ‘inexpensive’ I mean not one of those $7-9 or higher burgers. The Double-Double is only $3.50
And the fries were delicious too. A little research tells the story. They do pretty much everything in-house, or at least in-company.
They have their own meat companies that that fresh grind the patties and deliver them fresh, not frozen, to every location. The same goes for their buns. And like Five Guy’s and others, they do their own fries in-house, starting with the raw potatoes
They also make every burger to order. They say they don’t have microwaves or heat lamps in their locations. And it shows.
The other thing I noticed was how clean the dining area was. They had 3 people running around, wiping things down and cleaning up. In fact within seconds of someone leaving a table, it was cleaned off, wiped down, and ready to go again.
And their drive-thru shows how popular they are.
They have to rope off the area because it winds around through parking lot of the shopping area.
We’ll definitely go back. Often.
Tomorrow we’re going to drive down to Henderson at the bottom of the Strip to visit the The Lion Habitat Ranch. Originally it was the off-duty home of the MGM Grand lions. But when that exhibit was shut down a few years ago, it became their full-time home, along with giraffes and other animals. And they have a bunch of lion cubs just born earlier this month. Sounds like fun.
On our way to the Medina Lake Thousand Trails near Bourne, TX
April 25, 2016
Kluging It . . .
Recapping yesterday’s trip, we were hooked up and on our way by
9:50am. We made our first stop at the Luling Buc-ee’s for diesel, $1.79, the cheapest we’ve seen in the area.
And we’ve never seen Buc-ee’s this busy. It took a while to thread our way through the cars to get around to the larger pumps in the back. But we were able to pull right up to a end pump and fill up. Then it was another obstacle course to get out, but we were in and out in about 25 minutes, so it wasn’t too bad.
Then it was another 120 miles, and about 2 and a half hours to Medina Lake, the time mostly due the hilly, curvy road from Boerne to the park.
We got in to the park about 4pm and headed in to find a spot. We knew our friends, Dave and Lynn Cross, were back in the ‘F’ section so we headed that way. And then as we were meandering around, looking for a site, who popped out to flag us down, but Dave,who directed us to a 50 amp site two away from he and Lynn.
And as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, Lynn Cross had prepared us a delicious spaghetti dinner and we spent several hours talking, having a great time.
When we got back to the rig, I tried to get the satellite system up and running, but without any luck. Our site is pretty heavily treed so I knew it was going to take some fiddling. But the first problem I had was getting power to the dome. I have about 75 feet of coax that lets me move the dome out into the open, but I only have 50 feet of 12 volt power cable.
The 12 volts is only needed to power the motors that aim the dome. Once that’s done, the 12 volts can be disconnected. But now I needed to get power to the dome, so since I didn’t have a 12 volt extension cable, I decided to take the power supply to the dome.
So I used my 12 volt power supply on an extension cord to power the dome
I’d modified it to add a 12 volt socket just for needs like this.
But it still didn’t work. Although my voltmeter showed the power supply was putting out 12 volts, it wasn’t getting to the dome for some reason. But by this this time it was dark, so I called it a night, and we just watched stuff we’d recorded earlier.
Then this morning, I went down to the guard shack to let them know what site we were in and pay for our 50 amp electric. Or at least I tried.
When I tried to start the truck, I found the battery dead. I had left a accessory switch on, and had run it down. So I dug out my battery charger to fix the problem. But then I ran into another problem.
The charger I have does auto 6 volt/12volt selection, and since the battery was down to about 5 volts, the charger kept treating it as 6 volt battery. Not good.
So now what to do? I have 2 sets of battery cables that I can chain together to let me charge the truck from the rig batteries when it’s hitched up, but that’s still not long enough. I could take the battery out of the truck and take it back to the rig batteries, or take out a rig battery and use that to start the truck.
But that seemed like too much work. There’s got to be a simpler kludge.
And then I realized I already had the solution at hand – the 12 volt power supply that I had tried to use for the satellite. It puts out a current-limited 6 amps steady, 8 amps surge. So I used it to charge the battery up to about 9 volts, and then let the big charger take over. It’s 3/5/20/75 amp model, so at 20 amps, it didn’t take long to top off the battery. So about 30 minutes later I was on my way to the gate.
And while I was there, I also wanted to get my driver’s license back. They recently started holding your Thousand Trails membership card until you come back and settle up.
But I no longer have a TT membership card, since the last place that held my card, the Bend/Sunriver TT in Bend, OR, lost my card and couldn’t give it back to me. And since I know my membership number by heart, I never needed it again.
Until today. So instead, they held my driver’s license.
I guess this will finally get me to call TT and get another one.
This morning our friend’s Brett and Frankie got in touch to tell us that they were also here at Medina Lake and wanted to get together. But it had to be today, since they’re leaving for Conroe tomorrow.
So, about 3:30, Brett showed up at our rig in his golf cart to Uber us back over to their rig. Frankie had coffee and cake waiting for us, and we had a great time talking over their recent travels all the way down to Key West and back to Texas.
Too bad they’re leaving tomorrow, since we would have liked to spend more time with them. But I’m sure we’ll catch up with them down the road.
Getting back to the rig, I got back on my satellite problem. And when I hooked up the power this afternoon, suddenly the dome was getting power and scanning for the satellites. Not sure why it suddenly started working, but gift horses, and all that.
But it took trying 3 different locations to find one that worked. And unfortunately, the one that works is on the picnic table of the site next to ours, about 60 feet away..
But this is a 30 amp site, and since the temps are edging in the 90’s now, and there are a lot of empty sites, hopefully we want have a problem.
Hopefully.
Thought for the Day:
Physics is what we humans call the part of the God code that we can understand.
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