A Busy Three Days . . .
It’s been a busy three days.
Wednesday we were in Birmingham getting together with old friends, Bill and Carol Alverson.
Bill and I worked as Broadcast Engineers at several radio and TV stations here in Birmingham back in the mid-70’s, and we always get together when we’re back in the area. And it’s always fun.
Then yesterday, we moved down to Montgomery and get together with Fred and Susan Springall
About 6pm we headed over to the home of our long-time friends Fred and Susan Springall. Fred and I worked together in the mid-70’s when we were both with Storer Cable here in Montgomery, which later became TCI, which later became 3 or 4 other companies along the way.
Susan prepared a delicious Lasagna dinner with salad and garlic bread, one of our favorites. And we spent the rest of the evening talking about anything and everything.
Fun!
Then today we met one of Jan’s former co-workers, Kathy Wilkes, also from when we lived here in Montgomery, until we moved out to Houston in December 1978.
And as in the past we met at the Longhorn Steakhouse up in Prattville, near where Kathy lives.
As I just reminded Jan the other day, it’s been almost 44 years since we moved out to Houston, and we’re still getting together with friends from back in the day.
Tomorrow we head down to Gulf Shores to meet up with the rest of the family, Jan’s sister’s group coming down from Illinois, and our group coming over from Texas.
Really looking forward to it.
I’ve got some more things to post that went on the last few days, but it’s getting late so I’ll catch up later.
June 3, 2009
Last Day in Titusville…
Today was our last full day in Titusville.
Tomorrow morning we’ll head about 100 miles north to St. Augustine, spending 3-4 days there. Then it’s on to Savannah, GA.
Today we went to lunch at the New Peking Buffet with our new friends, Allen and Jan. After that, Allen and I worked on my engine AC belt problem.
I’m going to try leaving the engine AC off on the trip to St. Augustine tomorrow to see if the belt stays on when it is not powering the AC. I may do this for the trip to Savannah too.
We will still have AC on the trip. I just start up the diesel generator before we leave and run the two rooftop ACs just like we were plugged in. The generator only uses about a gallon an hour so it’s not a big additional cost.
Luckily, the fix I did to the rear rooftop AC a couple of days ago is still working fine.
Well, I almost washed Mister again in the clothes washer. I don’t know what he sees in it, but every time I turn my back with the washer door open, in he goes.
Mister in Washer…Again
We’ve been getting a number of comments about our Roller Coaster picture being spread across the Internet, as I mentioned yesterday. I guess this is our 15 minutes of fame.
More from St. Augustine tomorrow…
June 3, 2010
Poison Spiders and a broken record…
Well, today started out less than spectacularly, but it got better fairly soon.
We left Fort Caspar Campground in Casper WY a little before 9 am heading for Rock Springs, WY about 230 miles away. And then it went downhill very quickly.
We should have known something was wrong when we ended up on Poison Spider Rd.
No, really.
Due to a map glitch, Margaret, our GPS system, could not route us on SR 220 like she should have. Instead she routed us on CR 201 and then on CR 319 which is also known as the Oregon Trail Rd.
And, yes, CR 201 is also called Poison Spider Rd as it leaves town. And it runs right by Poison Spider High School. Whose motto according the sign out front is” Caught in a Web of Learning”.
You can’t make this stuff up!
After starting out OK, CR 201 became a gravel road. But before we could get too worried, it became pavement again, and all was well with the world.
Until it skipped gravel road this time and went straight to dirt.
But I rationalized that in only two miles we would be turning onto CR 319, which just HAD to be a better road, right?
I mean, it’s also called Oregon Trail Rd. It’s got two names, it’s got to be a good road, right?
Of course, when we got there, that’s not what we found. What we found was an even narrower, even rougher dirt road.
I think it was called the Oregon Trail because it was the original one, complete with wagon ruts.
No way was I going any further. I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure what went wrong. Turns out that the GPS program wouldn’t route me on the right road, SR 220, because it couldn’t. No matter what I did, the program would not allow any route on SR 220.
I ran into this once before, when coming back from Memphis to north Alabama on US 72. No matter what I did the program would not let us on US 72.
Once I figured out what was wrong, the solution was simple. Turn around and go back to Casper and then back out on SR 220.
Easier said than done, however. I needed to turn around, but there was no room. And I couldn’t back up because, unlike towing a trailer, you can’t back up while towing a vehicle with a tow bar, at least very far.
So, I had to break my perfect record. I had to unhitch the truck so I could turn the rig around in the opposite direction. It’s been a point of pride that I’ve never got in a situation where I had to unhitch to get out of it.
Until today.
After unhitching, it took about 30 seconds to get turned around. After hitching back up we drove back into Casper and out of town on 220. Then, once I was past the dead spot on the map, everything went smoothly.
Leaving Casper, we started climbing up into the beginning of the Rockies, finally peaking out above 7300 feet. We crossed the Continental Divide 4 times today and saw some spectacular scenery.
We’ve seen a lot of these open fences along the roads in Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming. They’re snow fences, set up to keep the blowing snow drifts off the highways as much as possible.
We also see these crossing gates with no train tracks around. They’re set up to keep cars off the highways after they close the roads for bad weather, usually snow or ice, or both. They’re normally near exits so you have a place to go to get off the road, but I did see one out in the middle of nowhere.
About noon we stopped in Rawlins, WY to have lunch. We had planned to eat at another Sanford’s Grub and Pub like we did in Casper. And we even found a parking place right downtown only a block away from the restaurant.
But when we got to Sanford’s, it was closed. We asked a trio of Wyoming Highway Patrol officers, who also found the place closed, where they suggested and they said Square Shooters Eating House, right up the street. So that’s where we went.
The place is decorated in Western Dead Animal motif, and the salad bar is a chuck wagon, so we weren’t sure what to expect. But it turned out to be very good.
Jan had the Roast Turkey and Dressing with Mashed Potatoes, and I had the Chicken Fried Chicken with Fries, and we both had the homemade Chicken Noodle Soup. All of it really good.
Leaving town we came across another one of the painted mascots that we’ve seen in other towns, a Pronghorn Antelope.
We have seen a lot of others, like bears, moose, pelicans, and mermaids.
We got into the KOA in Rock Springs, WY about 3:30 pm and got set up. About 4:30 we headed out to get some supper and pick up some fuses. We ended up at Village Inn, a family restaurant chain we’ve eaten at several times before. Their Wisconsin Cheese soup is delicious.
Tomorrow we’re headed for Draper UT to visit some friends.
More then…
BTW our GPS system is called Margaret after the little girl in the Dennis the Menace comics. Whenever you take a turn she doesn’t like, she just nags and nags, and won’t shut up.
June 3, 2011
There’s Much Rejoicing in the Land . . .
We’re leaving here tomorrow ourselves, heading about 236 miles north along I-5 to Weed, CA. We’ll be there for 3 nights checking out the Mt. Shasta area, and getting into worse weather.
We’ll start to run into colder, wetter weather as we head north. The Crater Lake, OR area where we’ll be later next week is still having temps in the 20’s and 30’s so we’ll have to break out the winter clothes.
The Thousand Trails park here at Lake Minden is scenic with lots of trees and grass which makes Mister happy. but unfortunately, no sewer hookups, which makes me unhappy. It also had a lot of rabbits and squirrels, which makes Jan happy. So it’s easy to see who loses here.
Oh yeah, there’s a lake too.
Jan and I had talked about going to a movie this afternoon but that lost out to a nap. What started out as a nice sunny day gradually clouded over and started threatening rain, so a nap was well in order.
Finally about 4:30 we drove into Yuba City for dinner and a Wal-Mart run. But I did take a quick detour to look at the shortest route my mapping program found to get me to I-5 tomorrow. I’m glad I did.
Because of a couple of climbing turns over a high dike separating the rice fields, and a narrow paved road that suddenly degenerated into an even narrower gravel one, I decided to drive an extra 14 miles of better road.
Since it was about 5 pm when we got into Yuba City, we decided to go ahead and eat dinner at, where else, but Lumberjack’s Restaurant, the same place we ate last night, and the same place we’ve eaten 3 of the last 4 nights here. And we had the same Chicken Fried Steak we had before.
What can I say? It’s really good.
After dinner we headed over to the Wal-Mart Supercenter a couple of miles away. Jan had a small list of things she hadn’t been able to find during our last two Wal-Mart visits because they weren’t Supercenters.
Coming home and getting near the park, we again saw these strange-looking trees we had wondered about. I thought that maybe they were grafted, and at the park guard house I found out I was right.
It turns out the trees are English Walnuts, but the lower trunks are Black Walnuts. The English Walnut has a milder taste and is more popular, but the Black Walnut has a stronger root system. So they graft English Walnuts on Black Walnuts for the best of both. So now we know.
We’ll probably pull out of our site tomorrow morning about 9:30, dump and hook up, and try to be on the road by 10. We’ll see.
June 3, 2012
A lot of fun, but not very relaxing . . .
Well, trip day started off with a bang, or maybe just a ssssss! When the sun came up Wednesday morning, I found I had a flat tire on our truck. Bummer! It had been fine when I drove to the rig at midnight to turn in the logs, and my tire pressure alarm had never gone off, but flat it was. So after Jan came on duty at 7am I got it changed before getting a few hours of sleep before we left.
Our replacement gate guard, Kay Runyon, showed up right on time at 2pm, and after getting her briefed, Jan and I headed for Houston about 2:45pm. We were going back to our old home for a couple of days for our granddaughter Piper’s High School Graduation Thursday night.
Since we knew we wouldn’t be eating supper until about 8pm, we stopped off at the McDonald’s in Pleasanton for a quick bite, and then it was back on the road. Our first bathroom break was at the Buc-ee’s at the Luling exit on I-10, one of our favorite stops. This place just keeps getting bigger. To give you some idea how big, they’re installing ANOTHER 40 gas pumps to keep up with demand. And this Buc-ee’s is not the biggest one.
We got into Webster, TX about 8pm just in time to meet Chris, Linda, Piper, and Linda’s sister Ingrid for dinner at Mario’s Flying Pizza. It was really good to see everyone again, and after a good meal and great company, Jan and I headed down the road a few blocks to check into our room at the Comfort Suites Hotel. Our son-in-law Lowell’s mother, Sonja, works for Choice Hotels in Oklahoma and was nice enough to get us a Friends and Family Discount there. Thanks, Sonja.
Jan and I were up early the next morning for another busy day. I dropped off my flat tire at a nearby Discount Tires, and then Brandi picked us up at 9am for Landon’s first trip to the Houston Zoo.
He’s all ready to go.
He really liked the giraffes.
So much so, that he tried to ride this one.
And of course, what’s a day at the zoo without ice cream?
After a fun, but exhausting time for all concerned, and right before the rain started, we headed back down to the Clear Lake area for a late lunch at one of our favorite places, Monterey’s Little Mexico, for some of their great Chicken Tortilla Soup.
It was pouring down rain when we left the restaurant which didn’t bode well for tonight’s graduation ceremony, which was supposed to be outside in the football stadium. Hopefully it will work out.
Getting back to our room, Jan and I both had showers, and then luckily, had time for a nap, before meeting everyone at Clear Springs High School to catch a shuttle bus to Clear Creek High School for Piper’s graduation. And Clear Creek High is where Piper’s father, Chris, graduated from too.
Luckily the weather had cleared up and the graduation went off outside as scheduled.
Piper swore later she wasn’t crying, but there seemed to be an awful lot of tearing up, like here,
and here.
Finally the big moment.
And then it’s over.
The proud graduate.
After hugs all around, Piper headed out to party with some friends, and the rest of us headed out to Denny’s for a late supper.
Finally it was back to the hotel before another early morning the next day. I dropped the truck off at Discount Tires to get the repaired tire mounted while we met everyone for breakfast at the Egg and I, one of our favorite breakfast places. They have a great hazelnut coffee.
Here’s Landon clowning around with Uncle Chris.
And whatever’s going on here between Landon and Jan, Landon’s not having any part of it.
And it was good to see that Miss Piper hadn’t partied so hardy that she wasn’t bright-eyed and ready to go the next morning.
And after a great breakfast together, we said our goodbyes and got in our last hugs, Jan and I got ready to head back to gate guarding. We had a few errands, and then a couple of stops for food to take back with us. BBQ from Rudy’s and Chinese food from King Food, and then it was back on the road.
We got back to our gate about 5:30, and after giving our thanks to Kay, got back into the routine, with Jan taking her usual 6-11pm shift, while I went to bed for a few hours before coming on from 11pm to 7am.
We had a great time, but in a way it was good to be back here just to get some rest. We were certainly on the go there.
June 3, 2013
It’s Always Something . . .
I had planned to work on my water filter / drinking fountain replacement project today, but another project came to the forefront.
When I was getting us ready for our trip from Likely, CA to Bend,OR last Friday, I noticed a problem. After I had disconnected the shore water and turned on the water pump. I noticed the pump was pulsing on and off, and water was running back out of the shore water inlet connector. Turning off the pump stopped the water running out, so I put it on my mental list to look at later.
Getting into Bend and getting set up, I turned on the water pump again before I hooked up the shore water, and this time the pump did not run and no water ran out. So I finished setting up with no other problems.
But later that night when I took my shower, the water pressure was really sucky. So the next morning I took a look at the problem. Although the pressure coming out of the faucet didn’t seem too bad, it did seem better at the neighboring sites.
I then called the park ranger and ask him to send someone out to take a look at the problem. A maintenance guy showed up a little while later and found that the underground valve wasn’t turned on all the way. So I was hoping that this would fix the problem. But my late night shower told me different. So I was thinking I had a coach problem, but I would have to wait until today to call American Coach.
Calling them this morning, the support guy confirmed what I had wondered about, the check valve on the water input. If it’s not working right, it can let water leak back out, and restrict the water coming in. He told me the check valve is actually part of the inlet connector itself, and is easily replaced.
It only took me about 5 minutes to get the old valve out, but before I worried about replacing it I wanted to be sure it was the problem. So I headed down to the local hardware store and got an adapter that would let me hook up the water back into the coach. Here’s what I got.
The one on the left is the test adapter without a check valve, and the one on the right is the old one.
I quickly installed the new one and went back inside to check the shower flow, and bask in the glory of a job well-done.
Oops!
Although the shower flow might be marginally better, it’s still not as good as when I’m using the pump, and in fact, even when using shore water, turning on the pump makes it better.
So it’s back to square one. I had good water pressure in Likely, so whatever happened, happened in between here and there. Tomorrow it’s back on the phone to American Coach.
Also tomorrow, a movie and dinner are on the horizon. We’ll see.
June 3, 2015
The Rest Of The Story . . .
as Paul Harvey would say.
After being told by the service manager yesterday that the insurance company was dragging their feet in approving the last couple of items on our repair, I found out that wasn’t the case. As it turns out, everything had already been approved. But apparently it just hadn’t filtered down to the people that needed to know here.
So it looks like we’re on track with the repairs, and just waiting for the airbag and windshield to come in. The only problem that might come up is if they want to start working on it Friday. We’ve already been told that they will have to pull our rig into the shop to replace the windshield and the airbag. I figure the service department doesn’t work on the weekends, and we’ve spent enough time in motel rooms lately without adding a couple of extra days. So hopefully they’ll wait to start on Monday.
They said it would take a couple of days to replace the windshield, and that’s about what it took to replace one last year in Elkhart. But then I remember when I had one replaced in 2009 after we got back from Alaska. The guy came out to our RV site, and with two helpers, had the old one out and the new one installed in about 20 minutes.
I mentioned a couple of days ago that after they had repaired the shredded wiring while we were gone to Illinois, that the grab bar didn’t light up. Although it was working before we left Las Vegas, I figured it was probably a bad bulb.
But when I tried to check it out, I found the top screw on the bracket was stuck and when I tried to remove it, it just wallowed out the slot. So I picked up a screw extractor at True Value and got it out.
And I found that the bulb was bad. But so was the socket. When I hooked up my voltmeter to the connector, I got no voltage reading as I toggled the switch. So today I took the panel off and found the problem.
There was only one wire going to the center switch. So it’s not going to work very well. I then used my ohmmeter function to determine that the remaining wire ran from the switch to the center contact on the bulb socket. So I’ll have to get the repair place to take a look at it.
For dinner tonight we had Tomato and Sweet Basil Bisque and Grilled Cheese. For the bisque, we tried a couple of cans of this Campbell’s Slow Kettle soups.
When we were at Sam’s Club the other day we came across a 4 pack of these and for $3.91, decided to give them a try.
And they were really, really good. As good as anything I’ve ever had in a restaurant. Well worth the 98 cents each. We’ll pick up more when we go back to pick up our prescriptions tomorrow.
June 3, 2018
Fremont Street and A Heart Attack . . .
Since Jan and I just stayed home today, and not much happened, I thought I’d repost a compilation of several of our visits to Las Vegas and Fremont Street.
We drove over to the north end of the Strip to Fremont Street to take in The FremontStreet Experience.
Fremont Street is really what’s left of Old Vegas, before casinos started expanding down the Strip. In the mid 90’s the local merchants and casinos looked for a way to revitalize the area and bring the tourists back.
What they come up with, was a canopy 90 feet high and 1500 feet long, spanning 4 city blocks, Fremont Street became a pedestrian mall with a movie screen / light show overhead.
The canopy / screen is what you see held up by the tree-looking supports.
And this is what it looks like in action.
Along with the video show is a sound system pumping out 550,000 watts of music.
Although the original version used colored incandescent light bulbs, in 2004 the system was upgraded to a display consisting of 12.5 million LED’s.
They have a different show every hour for about 10 minutes. Right now they are running shows with tributes to Don McLean, the Doors, Queen, KISS, and others.
We all agreed that this was the best thing we’d seen in Vegas so far.
Out of the 4 shown every night, our favorite is the one set to Don McLean’s American Pie.
And something new this year is a Zipline Ride running almost 700 feet along under the screen.
You can even ride it during the show. You’re about 80 feet off the ground, traveling about 30 mph.
Jan had decided that despite her somewhat fear of heights she was going to do the zip line that runs down through Fremont Street.
So we got her ticket at the FlightLinez Zip Line store and then took the elevator up to the 5th floor.
That lets you walk directly out on the platform. The smaller tower in the front here is the one presently in use. The taller one in the back is the new one coming on line soon. It will be higher, faster, and longer.
Some of you may be wondering why I’m not doing this.
Well, someone has to take the pictures, right. But the real reason is the weight limit of 250 pounds. I could probably squeak by on the limit, but I would have to do it in the nude, and I don’t think that would be an option.
Or a pretty sight for anyone looking up. Just saying.
The present zip line stops at the platform at the lower side of this photo. The new one will be higher and go all the way to the end of the covered area.
Here they’re getting Jan and her flight buddy strapped in and ready to go.
Ready, set, GO.
And a safe touchdown at the other end.
Jan said she enjoyed it, but that her knees were still shaking a half-hour later.
It will be interesting to see if she will do the higher, faster, longer version next time.
The next item on our agenda was a little scary too. The Heart Attack Grill. It’s located at the front of the Fremont Street Experience, right on the Strip. It’s a place we had to try at least once.
They do have a lot of fun with the concept.
From the disclaimers,
to the hospital gowns everyone has to wear,
to the ID bracelets everyone is given. The white one is for the Heart Attack Grill, the blue one is for the Zip Line. Actually, I think the gowns would be a good idea at some BBQ rib places I’ve been to.
Jan got the Single Bypass Burger and the Flatline Fries. I got the Double Bypass with Bacon, but without fries because we were going to share Jan’s order.
The Flatline Fries were really good. They’re sliced and then fried to order. IN LARD.
HMMM! LARD!
Besides their large selection of alcoholic drinks, the only others are water and Cokes. But the Cokes are the ones from Mexico made with real sugar, and not corn syrup.
Here’s the burger menu, with one to eight patties, and 5 to 40 strips of bacon (5 per patty).
And here’s the Octuple Bypass Burger. How do you even eat something like that?
Even my Double I ended up eating with a fork. If I went here again I’d have them leave off the Chili. It’s good but it makes it too messy
Oh, and if you weigh over 350 pounds you can eat here free. Or just eat here a few times until you then weigh over 350, and then eat free from then on.
Thought for the Day:
“Rome remained great as long as she had enemies who forced her to unity, vision, and heroism. When she had overcome them all she flourished for a moment and then began to die.” – Will Durant – Historian
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