Monthly Archives: July 2022
Well, At Least We Tried . . .
Knowing they closed at 2pm, Jan and I got to Joe Fat’s Eatshop about 1pm, only to find them closed. Or at least dark, since as I said it’s actually inside the convenience store. We knew they had said that they were closing early yesterday for a catering job, so I guess that applied to today too. We’ll go back soon.
So our backup plan (we always have a backup plan) was right down the road a couple of hundred yards to Los Ramirez Mexican.
Our meals was as delicious as usual, and a lot of other people agreed with us, since they do a steady take-out business. But we’ve never seen one as large as this.
That’s the six big trays on the cart, four big trays on the table, everything in the box, and the three 5 gallon buckets on the counter. That’s a lot of food.
Sorry we weren’t invited.
Brandi and Lowell are having a pool party this weekend at their home up in Katy for Brandi’s coworkers and their kids.
Even a water slide for the kids. Looks like fun.
I’m sure most of you have seen or read something about the recent mall shooting in Indianapolis, IN. The shooter came out of the food court restroom where he had been hiding, and started firing into the crowd with an AR-15, killing three and injuring two more.
But 15 seconds after he fired the first shot, a 22 year-old bystander pushed his girlfriend to the floor, and using the Glock 9mm he was carrying, hit the shooter with his first shot. From 40 yards away!
See the small red X in the center of the photo.
That’s where the shooter was standing when he was first hit.
Then advancing on the shooter, firing as he went, Elisjsha Dicken hit the shooter 7 more times, so 8 times total out of the 10 shots he fired. Weapons experts are pretty much roundly amazed at this accuracy.
It has been reported that he was taught to shoot by his grandfather, starting when he was a little boy. Looks like his grandpa taught him well.
Too bad Elisjsha wasn’t at the Uvalde school a few weeks ago. Things might have turned out differently.
It’s also been noted that his girlfriend was a nurse and immediately started helping the wounded.
I have seen various reports about whether or not he had a concealed carry permit, but actually he didn’t need one. Starting this past July 1st, Indiana became what’s known as a Constitutional Carry State, which says that anyone who can legally own a gun can legally carry it concealed.
I’ve also seen comments that Elisjsha broke the ‘law’ because the shopping mall had signs saying no guns allowed. Well, he didn’t break the law because that’s not a law. All the mall can legally do was to ask him to leave. If he doesn’t, he could then be arrested for trespassing. That’s it.
And of course the signs didn’t stop the shooter from bringing guns in either.
Which makes the Thought For The Day below very apropos.
Thought For The Day:
July 23, 2010
We’re 3 out of 4, but the iced tea was good…
Today started out at 10 am with Jan attending the Dog Talent Show and I hit the vendors area again. I bought a couple of things, and I’m looking at a few more, including a new PacBrake.
At noon Jan and I met for a lunch of corn dogs and French fries at the Food Court. What we didn’t realize at the time is that this would be the best meal of the day.
Then at 1 pm Jan caught a seminar on RV’ing the Pacific Northwest by Mike and Terri Church. A little late since this is where we were earlier this year.
I checked out a talk on RV Refrigerators, which I hoped would help with a problem I’m having with mine. No luck. But it was interesting.
About 2:30 pm we headed north into Indiana to Sam’s Club to pick up a prescription and some other stuff. Then it was off to the low point of the day.
Since we’ve been in Louisville, we’ve eaten 2 places that were on the Rally Tours: Mark’s Feed Store, and Joe Huber’s Family Farm and Restaurant. We also discovered Cottage Inn, a nearby local favorite. All three were excellent.
The 3rd restaurant on the Rally Tours was Kingfish Seafood. In finding the directions online, I also read a few reviews. Some liked it, but others said it had gone downhill, and wasn’t as good as it used to be. Another said the food was “Bland, bland, bland”.
And boy, was he right.
Jan had a Shrimp and Oyster Platter with a Baked Potato and Glazed Carrots, and I had the Seafood Feast, with Tilapia, Catfish, & Shrimp, with Corn on the Cob and Onion Rings. Believe me, bland, bland, bland certainly described the meal.
Nothing had any taste or seasoning. Red Lobster is much better, and I really don’t like Red Lobster.
But as Jan said, “The iced tea is good, though”. A ringing endorsement, indeed!
The view of the Ohio River was pretty, but it didn’t make up for the meal
On our travels we collected photos of a number of city mascots in last few years, including pelicans, mermaids, bears, bison, and now horses. We’ve seen a number of these around town, all with different paint schemes.
Getting back to the rig, we rested up and tried to keep cool for about a hour and then headed out for the high point of the day.
Tanya Tucker !
And just as a teaser here she is singing “Delta Dawn”.
And she was fantastic.
During the first part of the concert, I was impressed by the voice of the backup singer in the band. Turns out she comes by that voice naturally. She’s Tanya’s 21 year old daughter, Presley.
And boy, can she sing, too.
Tanya ended the show with the first big hit she had, Delta Dawn. When she was 13!
We got back to the rig about 8:30 after a long day. It’s nice to be home.
July 23, 2011
Dinosaurus . . .
After coffee and bagels we headed over to Al and Adrienne’s a little before 10 am to pick them up at their rig. Then it was off for the 85 mile trip south to Thermopolis, WY.
Arriving there, our first stop was lunch at Lil’ Wrangler Family Restaurant. Al and Adrienne had eaten here a while back and said it was really good. And they were right. Hamburgers made with 1/2 pound hand-formed patties of fresh ground beef.
Really good.
After lunch we headed over to the object of our trip, The Wyoming Dinosaur Center, the largest privately-funded dinosaur research center in the world. And the only one to have excavations in progress on their own property.
This is a cast of an ocean bottom containing hundreds of echinoderms, relatives to today’s sea stars and sand dollars. This fossil is about 300 million years old.
This is a pterosaur, one of the earliest flying dinosaurs. Although this one is about the size of crow, other species had wingspans as large as 30 feet.
A Dimetrodon.
Archaeopteryx is considered the first bird, since it had feathers. There are only ten specimens of this dinosaur in the world, and this is the only one in America.
A cousin to the Stegosaurus.
Two meat eaters in combat.
A Protoceratops.
A type of Ankylosaurus.
Triceratops.
Allosaurus, cousin of T’Rex.
A nest of baby duckbills,
And their mama.
Albertaceratops.
An Ichthyosaur, the ‘fish lizard’.
This is Jimbo, so big I couldn’t get him all in one photo. A 106 foot long Supersaurus, he’s one of the largest fossils in existence.
At 2 pm we all loaded in a tour bus and were taken about 5 miles out in the country to an active dig site. In the last 20 years 17 dinosaur skeletons have been excavated from here.
These next two photos show the remains of an Allosaurus that they have been working on for 5 years, and it may take them another 15 years to remove it completely.
In the wintertime, this large excavation pit is completely filled in with dirt to protect the dinosaur bones from freezing and cracking.
Next we were taken over to a large open excavation under the shed. The bones, mostly of plant-eaters, are lying around on the surface.
Because of the jumble of chewed-on bones, they think this was a kill-site where baby meat-eaters were fed.
Outlined in red paint, this is the footprint of a large Allosaurus.
And this is the footprint of a large plant-eating dinosaur. This is the only known location where both dinosaur footprints and fossils are found in the same area.
We really enjoyed our time at the Dinosaur Center, and it’s well-recommended. The displays are all top-notch, and very well done.
Leaving the Center, we drove up into the country behind the Hot Springs State Park just admiring the many unique rock formations, and rich colors.
The many hot springs in the area have been a tourist attraction since the late 1800’s, and are considered the largest mineral hot springs in the world.
Just how mineralized the water is can be shown by these ‘travertine beehives’.
A 8 foot pipe is stuck in the ground over a hot spring. The mineral-laden water flows out the top of the pipe and down the side, leaving the mineral deposits behind on the pipe. It slowly builds up and expands, creating these rock-hard ‘domes’. As the dome grows, more pipe is installed on top as necessary.
After another great day of exploring, we got back to Cody a little before 6, and after dropping off Al and Adrienne at their rig, we came back home, tired but having had a great time.
A little before 7 pm, we walked a few rows over to Lu and Larry Tillotson’s, readers of our blog who discovered we were in the same park and wanted to meet us.
We had a great time getting to know them and talking over some of our experiences in traveling fulltime. They’ve been on the road for 8 years now, still enjoying the RV life. Hopefully we’ll cross paths again soon.
And tomorrow . . . ?
Nothing, I hope. It’s time for a rest-up day.
July 23, 2013
When the gales of November . . .
Since we had a lot of things to cram into today, we headed for Whitefish Point about 8:15. But our first stops were at McDonald’s for Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Biscuits and a Holiday station for gas.
Gas prices here in Michigan are a little strange. Diesel is pretty much the same price that we’ve paid for the last several months, about $3.80 a gallon. But unleaded is through the roof. The last time we filled up the truck was in Sioux Falls, SD, and we paid $3.16 a gallon. Here it’s anywhere from $3.90 to $4.00 a gallon. They were even complaining about it on the radio today.
Our 70 mile trip to the Great Lake Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point took about 90 minutes with a lot of nice scenery, but no moose.
After getting parked we started our visit at the main museum building. I was very interested in these lighthouse Fresnel lens. They’re able to take a relatively small light source and turn it into a beam that can be seen for miles.
In fact this 9 ft. tall, 3500 pound lens could throw a beam over 28 miles. Made up of 344 leaded crystal prisms, it floated on a pool of mercury allowing for near friction-less rotation. In use before electricity, a grandfather clock-like mechanism with a 44 ft. long pendulum turned the lens, sweeping the beam across the horizon every 7-1/2 seconds. And the clockwork had to be wound every 2 hours and 18 minutes throughout the night to keep the light rotating.
No wonder lighthouse keepers had a reputation for being so grumpy. They were sleep deprived.
The first commercial ship to sink on Lake Superior was the HMS Invincible in 1816, with over 300 more vessels to follow in the next almost 200 years. But of course the one that every one is most interested in is the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.
Launched in 1958, at 728 ft. it was the biggest ship on the Great Lakes. And to this day is the largest ship to ever sink on the Lakes.
In 1995 a dive team recovered the Fitzgerald’s bell which now resides here in the Museum. At the same time, a replacement bell inscribed with the names of the 29 crewmembers, was mounted on the wreck in its place.
In a nearby building another replica of the Fitzgerald can be found. This 1:60 scale model is made from over 18,000 Legos and has taken 9 years so far. “So far”, because it’s not quite finished yet.
Looks pretty good to me. I’m convinced you can build just about anything with Legos.
One of the things that fascinates people about the Fitzgerald is that to this day they still don’t know what happened on that November day in 1975. Did it capsize, take on water through broken hatch covers, or break in half straddling two large waves?
No one knows for sure.
One thing that seemed very apropos for our visit today is that when we left the rig in Sault Ste. Marie it was bright and sunny. But the closer we got to Whitefish Point the worse the weather got, ending with heavy clouds, high, gusty winds, spitting rain, and whitecaps on the Lake.
Just like it was on the Fitzgerald’s last voyage, bright and sunny when it left port, and then a unexpected storm rolling in.
After spending about two hours at the Museum, we headed over to Tahquamenon Falls State Park. At least we tried to.
Heading to the Museum earlier, and passing though the small town of Paradise, MI, we had to go through a construction zone where the road was down to one lane because they had dug out a deep trench in the other lane.
But coming back they now had both lanes of the pavement trenched out and were directing traffic across a temporary roadway that they had created by piling the dirt removed from the trenching into the deep ditch at the side of the road. What they apparently didn’t think about was how this big tour bus was going to navigate this.
The answer is, not very well.
Although OK for cars and trucks, the unpacked dirt was just a sand trap for the bus, which promptly sunk up to its axles as you can see in the pics.
After about 30 minutes or so, they finally dragged him out with a front loader. Later, when we were at the Bear Ranch, I saw the tour bus and asked the driver about it. He said they told him it was well-packed and he wouldn’t get stuck.
He laughed and said, “It wasn’t and I did”. Glad I wasn’t trying to take the rig through there.
We got to Tahquamenon Falls State Park about 12:30 and made the 1/2 mile walk down to the Upper Falls to take a look. We noticed that the water is the same brown color as the Wisconsin River in the Dells, for the same reason.
The many swamps and decaying hardwood trees further north of here produce tannic acid that colors the waters downstream, though the acid level is not enough to hurt fish or other animals.
Since it was now after 1pm we decided to have lunch at the Pub restaurant there. Turned out to be very, very good. I had the Beer Cheese Soup and a fresh Whitefish sandwich, and Jan had the Broccoli Cheese Soup and a Mushroom Pesto over Linguini. Made with fresh wild mushrooms, she raved about it the rest of the afternoon.
She even got her one and only moose sighting there.
On a weirder note, they even had this Moose Nativity scene for sale in their gift shop.
For some reason, there’s something a little unsettling about this. They also had a Bear version, if you’re of that bent. Not that there’s any thing wrong with that.
Finishing up a delicious lunch, we headed for Oswald’s Bear Ranch, about 20 miles away.
Although it was OK, I think Jan and I were both a little disappointed, especially for the $20 a car that we paid to get in.
All of the bears are either rescues, or are born there. And they have four large fence-in areas for them. One for the adult males, one for the adult females, one for the yearlings, and one for the cubs.
It’s hard to get a lot of decent pictures because in most cases you’re shooting through a double layer of chain-link fence. They did have access holes in some areas, and observation towers in others, but the bears were always somewhere else, so you still couldn’t get many good shots.
They did have have this area where, for $10, you and your family could have your picture taken with a bear cub. They give you a large spoon with Fruit Loops in it (apparently bear cubs love Fruit Loops) and one of you holds the spoon and distracts the cub with the Fruit Loops while you all smile and one of the employees takes several pictures with your camera.
I tried to get Jan to do it, but she smartly said, “What if they run out of Fruit Loops, or the cub decides he’s full? What am I going to do with an empty spoon?”
I thought maybe she could whack it on the nose while I ran away, but I wisely didn’t say that. I can see her point though. I wouldn’t want to fight off a snarling little fuzzball full of teeth and claws with a spoon either.
Our last stop was the Visitor’s Center in Newberry, the so-called “Official Moose Capital of Michigan” (Jan says, “Yeah, right”) to pick up our Moose Guidebook and find out the best areas to look for moose.
Jan says, “Yeah, right.
So after checking out some of the spots and remaining mooseless, we headed home, finally getting back about 6:30 after a really great day of exploring the UP.
Tomorrow, Canada, Oh Canada!
July 23, 2014
What is it about Ohio and Big Chairs ?
Is it something in the water?
This afternoon as Jan and I drove into Wilmington, we saw this.
And not to be outdone, Jan found her own version, albeit a little smaller.
We could have each had our own chairs like these two guys
Or we could have gone a little more modern.
Or even to the beach.
This one’s on Bournemouth Beach in the U.K. It’s over 25 feet high and weighs about 6 tons.
Must be a B*t*h to fold up.
I recently came across some good info for cell phones.
About 2pm Jan and I headed out for some errands. Our first stop was the Great Clips next to the Wal-Mart to get our hair cut. And Yes, I got both of mine cut.
Next up was a trip to the Wally World next door for a few things. Then heading home a little after 4pm, we decided to have dinner at Taco Bell. We were glad to see that they still have the Quesarito. Supposedly it’s a limited time product.
The Quesarito is a burrito wrapped up inside a cheesy quesadilla. As before, Jan got hers with ground beef and I got mine with steak. And since we got the box, we got two tacos and a drink with it. Not bad for about $13.
Several blog readers had questions about Jan’s Hot Dog Casserole last night. This was Jan’s first time making the dish this way, and she says now she’ll do it a little different next time.
This time she used a tube can of pizza dough, but that turned out to be a pain getting the big mass of dough separated into 8 pieces and flattened out. So she says next time she’ll use a tube can of the crescent rolls that comes already separated and rolled out.
Then she just mixed the Wolf Brand Hot Chili, Bush’s Hot Chili Beans, and the Habanero Rotel in a 9 x 13 pan, placed the wrapped hot dogs on top, and baked it for 20 minutes at 375°. Since she used our convection oven, you may need a little more time in a conventional one.
Jan also said that next time she will brown the wrapped hot dogs on one side under the broiler and then put that side down on top of the chili before cooking it. That way both sides will be brown and crusty. A very good dish. Try it for yourself.
July 23, 2015
ThunderBoomers . . .
The weather really turned nice today, or at least in the comparison to the previous day’s of high 90’s. At 6am this morning a big line of thunderboomers moved through and combined with the pouring rain, shook the coach for about an hour.
Because of all this, it barely made it into the 80’s today with pretty much the same tomorrow. And tomorrow night supposed to be in the 60’s. Very Nice.
I did get a few things done on my chore list today, but pretty much had to stick with inside stuff due to all the rain. I’m still trying to get my transfer switch replaced, not I’m not sure if I have time to have it shipped here, or at our next stop.
After a few days of 3 bars of 3G, my Verizon service here now officially sucks. For some reason my 3G just goes away and I’m stuck with a couple of bars of 1X, just pitiful. But sometimes late at night all of a sudden the 3G just pops back in. It’s going to be a real pain in the rear if this continues our entire time here.
For dinner Jan fixed up one the Crusty’s Pizza Baked Spaghetti meals we vacuum-sealed and froze before we left Cottonwood, AZ and the Verde Valley Thousand Trails. Done with some garlic bread, it’s a really good meal.
Tomorrow we’re going to drive into the Memphis suburbs on this side of town to see a movie, probably Jurassic World, and then have dinner at Jim & Nick’s BBQ once again. Then on the way home we’ll make a Wal-Mart stop for a few things.
July 23, 2016
Been There!
Another hot day here in Texas.
In fact, as far as we’re concerned, it’s the hottest one so far. We have a remote digital thermometer outside in the shade, and today was the first day it’s hit 100°. And tomorrow’s supposed to be a couple of degrees hotter.
Oh well, that’s Texas in the summertime. One thing that’s funny though, is that when I check the temps along our upcoming route when we leave here next Sunday, I.e. Breaux Bridge, LA, Biloxi, MS, and Gulf Shores, AL all the temps for the next week are in the mid to high 80’s, not the high 90’s like here.
Sounds like a good time to be moving on down the road.
We had originally thought about doing the park Potluck this afternoon, but decided it was cooler to just stay home, and also because then Jan wouldn’t have to heat up the coach preparing something.
Maybe next Saturday night right before we leave.
A few days ago I posted a time-lapse photo of the recent SpaceX Falcon 9 Take-off and the landing of the 1st stage back at the Cape.
But the Falcon 9 is just the start. Next up is the Falcon Heavy, basically 3 Falcon 9’s tied together, making it the most powerful rocket since Apollo’s Saturn V. That’s 27 engines firing at once.
It even does mid-air refueling of a sort. All 3 engines are firing at lift-off, but the two side rockets are also pumping their excess fuel in the main rocket. So that when the side rockets shut down and fall away to land back on earth, the main rocket is left with a full tank of fuel to continue on into orbit. Then when the payload is ejected into orbit, the main engine then deorbits and also lands back at the Cape.
Its first launch is scheduled for this December.
In fact, the Falcon Heavy could launch a new moon mission in only two launches. And since all three rockets are recoverable, it would be at a fraction of the cost of a Apollo mission.
And according to SpaceX, the next stop is Mars.
I mentioned a few days ago that Jan and I sometimes go through old photos of our trips and play ‘Name The Site’, trying to figure out where we were parked in that particular photo.
Well, we also play ‘Been There’, The winner is the first one to yell out ‘Been There!” when they mention a place on TV that we’ve been to on our travels.
Today they were talking about Harrisburg, PA. ‘Been There’. A few days ago, the Statue of Liberty. ‘Been There’.
Even a few years ago when CSI was still on the air, and they visited a gun store in Las Vegas, and although they called it by a different name, it was obvious it was The Gun Store where Jan found a new favorite toy.
I guess this would make a good drinking game, but since Jan and I really don’t drink, you’re on your own.
July 23, 2017
Stumped, Baffled, and Confused . . .
Sounds like a good name for a law firm.
Up about 7am, with everything pretty much ready to roll by 8, we headed out for breakfast at Cracker Barrel, kind of a ‘leaving Lake Conroe’ ritual of ours.
Jan went with the Maine Blueberry Pancakes with Bacon,
while I got the Fresh Strawberry Sourdough French Toast with Over Medium Eggs and Bacon.
And of course, coffee, lots of coffee.
Back at the rig we were hitched up and pulling out of Lake Conroe Thousand Trails by 10:15, heading for Colorado River TT about 120 miles away.
After a nice trip, but seemingly more traffic than usual, we pulled into Colorado River about 12:30 and got set up in A28, a new site for us, but with a nice big shade tree.
About 10 minutes out we lost the generator when the fuel level dropped to about 25%, which of course still leaves us almost 40 gallons, so no problem. We plan on fueling up at Colorado County Oil when we leave for Alabama on Wednesday.
Unfortunately the generator shutting off early didn’t make a difference in cooling the coach, since despite my airflow baffle modification yesterday, we couldn’t tell any difference in cooling from the front AC. Bummer!
I thought that it would at least do something. Actually my big worry was whether or not it would survive the trip, and not get ripped off in the wind stream.
I was able to install the panels without making any holes in the cover by utilizing pre-existing holes and slats.
For the top panels, I drilled holes that matched the mounting bolts holding on the cover,
while for the side panels I used 1/8” toggle bolts poking through the side slats
Then I taped it all together with Heavy Duty Packing Tape, especially along the front edges where it might catch the wind and be ripped off.
So, basically what I have here is a good solid installation of something that just doesn’t work. And that’s why I’m –
Stumped, Baffled, and Confused . . .
I really don’t have anywhere else to go on this right now. The only two variables here are AC Voltage on the generator and airflow. And the generator voltage stays at 118VAC whether we’re moving or sitting still.
And when we’re parked and using the generator, the AC works great.
So for right now, I’m stuck. Back to the drawing board.
July 23, 2018
Can’t Trust That Day . . .
Unfortunately I’m pretty sure that the new power cord that I ordered for my Garmin GPS will probably fix my problem with the unit constantly shutting off and turning back on, all by itself.
I knew it wasn’t a bad connection or loose wire since shaking or wiggling it makes no difference. So what I did was bring the unit in the rig last night and plug it into my computer using another cord to charge up the internal battery in it.
Then this morning I put it back in the truck and used it going into my client’s, just running on the unit’s battery. And it worked perfectly, with no shutdown/reboots. And it worked coming home too.
I said, “unfortunately” because I already have the replacement GPS picked out. And I copied all my favorites off the old unit, ready to transfer to the new one.
BUT . . . I’m too cheap to discard a perfectly good GPS that’s still working fine, or at least will be when my new $6.89 cord comes in.
I’ve got three more buyers coming to see the house tomorrow, and a fourth one hopefully scheduled for Thursday, but I haven’t heard back from him about a time yet.
The first guy from the Ugly Houses people called back this afternoon, just ‘checking in’. When he finally came out and asked me if I’d made a decision, I said I had 4 more people coming out in the next few days and that we would probably be making a decision by this weekend.
So far our Splendide washer/dryer is working fine after my repair, so with that out of the way, and hopefully with the house out of the way after this weekend, I’ll be able to get back on rig stuff.
First up I going to use a garden sprayer filled with a mixture of water, Awesome, and Dawn to hose down the general area of rig engine’s oil leak and then hose it off. Hopefully then I’ll be able to get some idea where the leak is coming from using my new WiFi Endoscope Inspection Camera. I’ll probably will have to run the engine for a while before I can see the problem.
Then I want to get back on my Onan Generator problem. Since our recent Illinois/Alabama trip, I’ve come up with some ideas and some more things to check, so maybe I can get a handle on it soon.
Wrapping up, the micro 32GB SD memory card in my Samsung Galaxy S8+ appears to have died. I noticed yesterday that the photos I had on it had disappeared. So this evening I took the phone out of its Otterbox case and pulled the SD card out and reseated it. No luck.
Tomorrow I’ll dig out one of those postage-stamp sized SD adapters and try it in my computer, then I’ll know more.
July 23, 2019
Catching A Snooze . . .
Well, the brakes didn’t get done, and for a good reason. I really didn’t want to. But the excuse I’m going with was that Jan had a lot of stuff she wanted to do this afternoon and I didn’t want to have a problem and mess up what she wanted to do.
And I really didn’t want to.
So we headed out a little after 1pm with our first stop at Snooze AM for a late breakfast. While Jan went with her usual Bravocado Toast,
I detoured from my usual 3 eggs, 3 bacon, English Muffin, and Fruit and went with the Shrimp & Grits.
And fruit.
Then it was on over to the nearby HEB for a refill on our favorite Lola Savannah coffees, their Texas Pecan and Vanilla Cinnamon Pecan. It only comes in Whole Bean and it’s easy to see that it’s really ‘Pecan’ since there are pieces of pecan right in with the beans.
And the cashiers at the checkout always comments on how good it smells.
Then it was on to WalMart for some more stocking up for her upcoming pet-sitting job up at Brandi’s starting this coming Thursday.
Done there we drove over to her favorite nail place to get her tootsies done, before we headed home about 5pm.
I recently saw another T-Shirt I just had to have.
For some reason Jan says it’s typecasting.
Now that’s just mean.
Probably true. But still just mean.
But the T-Shirt I get the most comments on from people is this one.
Some people think it’s from Game of Thrones, but having never watched GoT, I don’t know.
July 23, 2021
Keep ‘Em Coming . . .
Thanks for all the suggestions we received about things to see/do in Branson this December.
So far we’ve gotten the most recommendations for Sight and Sound, but keep ‘em coming.
Tomorrow we’re meeting friend’s Janice and Dave Evans for lunch, but closer to home this time. They’re going to be down in this area visiting relatives, so we’re meeting at the Floyd’s Cajun Seafood up in Webster.
It’s been a while since we’ve been there so we’re looking forward to it.
I forgot to mention in yesterday’s blog that we had lunch once again at Snooze yesterday. It’s been a while since we’ve been there, maybe not since we came back from our trip. But everyone seemed happy to see us.
And as usual, we both got our usuals. Jan with her Bravocado Toast,
and my 3 Egg Classic with fruit.
I asked for crispy bacon, but they went a little past that, into ‘glass bacon’ territory. You know, when you touch it, it shatters. But it was still good.
And their fruit dish is always great too.
Someone asked if we were still liking YouTubeTV as our main streaming service, and we really do. And we really appreciate the feature to start a show at the beginning, no matter when you start watching it.
For example, if you started watching The Good Fight about 10 minutes into the latest episode, it asked you if you want to join it Live or Start From The Beginning. So you don’t have to worry about missing the first few minutes of a show.
In fact this works up to the very last minute the show is on.
Neat!
Thought for the Day:
Ignorance is not bliss, it’s, well, ignorance. Don’t be ignorant.
Joe Fat’s . . .
With my client out of town, it was pretty quiet at work and I was able to catch up on scanning a lot of old machine manuals into computer form.
We did have about 30 minutes of really heavy rain, but none down in our area down here in Santa Fe, unfortunately.
Yesterday, coming home, we made another run down our street to check out the Down South RV Park about 3 miles south of us. We had tried to find it the other day but we had the address wrong.
But we found it today.
It’s a very nice park, with 14 concrete pads on 3 acres of land.
It’s nicely laid out with 25’ x 50’ pads so you’re not bumping into your neighbor.
And of course the laundry room.
Tomorrow we plan on having lunch at a gas station. Well, at a restaurant that’s inside a gas station/convenience store.
It’s called Joe Fat’s Eatshop. (my kind of name) and the reviews, and the photos, are really good.
The Fried Catfish Dinner
The MOTU Cheeseburger
Two 1/4 lb. ground chuck beef patties Semi-smashed to cook fast and develop a nice crust on the griddle, seasoned well and topped with 2 slices American. Placed on a buttery toasted brioche bun made by Colosseum bakery, topped with roasted garlic aioli, mustard, ketchup, shredded lettuce, tomato, pickles and chopped onion all wrapped tight in a tissue and foil to retain heat.
And of course, my favorite to come, the PB&J and Banana French Toast.
Thought for the Day:
In 1776 the Sioux defeated the Cheyenne in war and took the Black Hills from them.
About 100 years later the US did the same to the Sioux.
Why does the first conquest confer legitimate title and the second doesn’t?
July 22, 2010
The Rally – Day 1…
First off, some background information. ‘The Rally’ is/was Good Sam’s big yearly rally, this year in Louisville, KY. And by ‘big’, there were almost 3000 RV’s here. And it looked like this.
After we got parked here on Tuesday, I was curious how they were supplying us with power. It turns out that rather than powering us directly from the mains, they’re using portable generators set up around the park.
These diesel generators put out 240V at 240 Amps. There’s also another generator behind this one.
They then split the 2 phases into 2 – 120 V lines at 240 Amps each.
This means that each generator can power 16 coaches with 30 amps each.
Really neat setup.
About 10 am we headed over to the Expo Hall to start making our way thru the vendor area. They have several hundred vendors here, with a lot that I haven’t seen before at other rallies.
One of the vendors was from the Province of Saskatchewan, and was giving out tourist info on the area. Saskatchewan is one of the provinces we haven’t visited yet, so we picked up some booklets.
Here’s Jan chatting up a handsome Mountie.
About noon we took a break and grabbed a lunch of hot dogs and a pretzel from one of the vendors.
Then at 1 pm Jan attended a seminar on Velcro. I went back to the rig and took a nap. I think I probably had the best time. Velcro? Really?
At 3pm I met back up with Jan and we went to Mike and Terri Church’s talk on RVing in Alaska. Ninety minutes later we were homesick for the place and ready to hit the AlCan heading north again. It was nice to see so many of the places we’d been, and to see all the places we’d missed.
Maybe in a couple of years.
At 4:30 pm we drove over to the nearby Cottage Inn, a restaurant that we passed the other night and noticed how busy it was. It’s a small place, very popular with the locals, and has been owned by the same family since 1929. And the food was excellent!
Home cooking at its best.
Getting back to the fairground, we ran into Lynn and Dave Cross that we had last seen at a rally in Yuma, AZ this past March. Lynn and Jan worked the registration table together.
We asked where they were going next, and they said they were going to be taking a TRACKS RV caravan tour of National Parks. Sounds like fun.
Tonight’s entertainment was Bob Newhart, but first we started off with some rousing songs from a local choir, Master’s Men.
And then it was time for Bob. And he was hilarious! He started off telling a story about how in the ‘60’s he decided to take his family along in an RV as he crossed the country to perform a concert. It sounded like a combination of “RV” the movie,and “The Long, Long Trailer” with Lucy and Desi, and ended with him scraping the air conditioner off the roof as he arrived at the hotel where he was performing.
He finished up with one of his famous routines about a driving instructor with a really bad student. He mentioned in the setup that it was a woman driver, and got some boos from women in the audience.
So he said “OK. How about we made it a Chinese driver. Will that make you happy?” So he sat down and started the routine…in Chinese!
After about 30 seconds of incomprehensible dialog, he looked at the audience and said ”OK. We can go on like this for another 8 minutes, or it can be a woman driver. You chose.”
The audience roared. And it was now a woman driver.
Bob put on a great show. It’s hard to believe he’s almost 81.
Leaving the concert hall, I got this shot of the former Six Flags – Kentucky Kingdom amusement park that is part of the fairgrounds. But it didn’t seem to be open.
A little Googling told me that back in February of this year, Six Flags and the Expo had been negotiating a new lease, and Six Flags had wanted some better terms because with the bad economy they were losing money on the park. Apparently this is the only park where they lease the property and don’t own it outright.
So when the Expo dug in their heels and refused to renegotiate the terms, Six Flags called their bluff and did not open the park this year. They just shut it down and left the Expo holding the bag.
And now the Expo is really hurting, because they not only don’t get the lease money, they also have lost the parking fees which they got. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Tomorrow it’s more seminars, more vendors, and Tanya Tucker for entertainment. Sounds great!
It’s also supposed to be 98 degrees here tomorrow, so we’ll see how the 30 amps and one A/C works out.
July 22, 2011
Yellowstone–Bears or Bust . . .
After getting up at 6 am (OMG!) we met Al and Adrienne at their rig at 7, and packing their two dogs into the truck with us, we headed out of town toward Yellowstone.
We planned on making what’s known as the Grand Loop, a 260 mile drive from Cody to the east park entrance, to Old Faithful, on up to Madison Junction, over to Canyon Village, and then back down along the Yellowstone River to the Fishing Bridge where we came in.
We did make a quick stop at Peter’s Coffee for coffee and scones of course. Can’t start the day without coffee.
We brought the dogs, Banjo and Abby, along in case we needed bear bait. I mean we definitely want to see bears, and who knows, we might need bait.
About 15 miles before the entrance to the park, we came across this very unusual house sitting high on a hill overlooking the Wapiti Valley.
Nicknamed the Pagoda House, it is actually known as the Smith Mansion. The designer / builder was Francis Lee Smith, who started construction in 1973. An architect/engineer, Smith, using mostly hand tools and homemade pulley systems, worked on the house for almost 3 decades before dying in 1992. Still unfinished, it stands over 75 feet high and is made from timbers cut on nearby Rattlesnake Mountain. Smith’s daughter is presently heading a project to restore and preserve the mansion.
Leaving the Wapiti Valley, we were already encountering great scenery, and we were still several miles from the park. Sure bodes well for the rest of the trip.
A few minutes later we entered Yellowstone National Park, and I was once again glad we had the National Park Senior Pass that lets us into all National Parks for free. Costing only a one-time $10 fee, it has saved us a lot of money over the last few years, including the $25 it would have cost us to get into Yellowstone.
We very quickly started seeing even more impressive vistas, including snow-capped mountains,
and beautiful Yellowstone Lake.
And all along the roadway, you find steam and sulfur vents jetting up, reminding you that you’re traveling over an underground caldron of molten lava, just waiting to escape. Oh Boy!
A few minutes later we saw our first wildlife, this bison sunning himself out in a meadow.
Wonder if he knew I was going to have bison chili for lunch?
A few minutes later we saw a big gray wolf go running across the highway about 100 yards ahead. He was chasing something that we could see zipping though the trees, but we couldn’t tell what it was. Another check on our wildlife scorecard.
After a 115 mile trip we pulled in to Old Faithful Village. It sure had changed since I was here as a kid in 1964, a lot more buildings and a lot less trees.
After parking, and getting our National Park Passports stamped at the Visitors Center we headed out to Old Faithful. A sign said the next eruption would be in about 20 minutes, plus or minus 10 minutes. When we got out to the geyser, we found it doing its usual pre-eruption smoking and spitting.
And a lot of people were already there ahead of us. But luckily we were able to find a seat.
Old Faithful wasn’t quite as prompt as he should have been. About 5 minutes late, off he went.
It’s a really impressive sight, going on for over 2 minutes, before settling down to its normal steamy spitting and spurting.
Old Faithful Spouting Off Video
As soon as Old Faithful had settled back down, we walked over to the Old Faithful Inn to have lunch in the dining room. The buffet looked really good with pan-seared trout, BBQ chicken, and of course, bison chili, among other items.
And it was really good.
After lunch in the beautiful dining room we went back to the car, and while Al and Adrienne walked Abby and Banjo, I tried to figure out where we stayed 47 years ago. (And before anyone says anything, the high temp in Yellowstone today was 66 and partly cloudy. The dogs were just fine in the truck with the windows cracked, and pretty much slept the whole time. I mean, why would we want to damage our potential bear bait.)
Anyway, I remembered where our cabin was in relation to Old Faithful, right across the way from it, and by looking a park map I figured it out.
What was then the main lodge has been replaced by a new one, and the old one is a cafeteria and storage warehouse.
And right next door were the old cabins we had stayed in, still in use and rented out today. I’m not sure exactly which one it was, but almost certainly one of the first two.
And I think they were already old when we stayed in them.
A little while after leaving Old Faithful, we saw our first elk, or at least the bottom half of an elk. He was so busy eating, he never put his head up.
Next we came across several more bison.
Then we saw this male elk sound asleep in the middle of a grassy meadow. I’ll leave it to the reader to put the two parts together in their mind.
Our next stop was what is known as the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
The falls in the photo are known as the Lower Falls, and at 308 feet are the highest falls in the park. If you look carefully in the photo below you can see people on the viewing area just to the right of the top of the falls. This is called the Brink.
A lot of really colorful rock formations in this area.
Finally we reached the Fishing Bridge and started retracing our route back to Cody, once again traveling along Yellowstone Lake.
And finally, the Holy Grail of Yellowstone wildlife, a big grizzly. He was ambling along the shoreline, seemingly just taking in the sights.
This is what’s known as a ‘Bear Jam’, when all the cars come to a screeching halt to get a picture of the bear.
Still ignoring all the gawkers, the bear crossed the highway and scampered up the hill and into the trees.
So we got to see a bear and didn’t even need our ‘bear bait’. I’m sure Abby and Banjo were relieved.
We got back to Cody about 5:45, and after stopping off at our respective rigs, we met back at Sunset House, a local restaurant, for dinner.
Today was a very long, but VERY fun day . . . and tomorrow –
Dinosaurs!
Winding Down On Our First Year of Gate Guarding
July 22, 2012
Never Kill A White-Headed Fly . . .
Especially one that says “Help Me. Help Meeeeeee” in a high, squeaky voice.
(Obscure Movie Reference)
The last few days we’ve had a fly invasion here at the gate. One of the things we’ve liked about this gate over our last one near Charlotte is the distinct lack of insects. No mosquitoes, no katydids in my pants, no tarantulas (not really an insect, but still under the generic ‘bug’ category). But now we have flies. Lots and lots of flies. They started out just a few, but now we get 6 or 8 at a time.
This afternoon Jan did the ‘water in the clear plastic bag’ thing, and no, Jan doesn’t watch “Mythbusters”. So I guess tomorrow we’ll see how that works.
My question is this. Why only 6 or 8 flies at a time? You kill the 6 or 8, and then a few minutes later, 6 or 8 more show up.
Why don’t they all show up at once? Do they queue up someplace nearby? Is there some sort of allocation system so you don’t have ‘fly overcrowding’ in any one area, and everyone gets their ‘fly quota’?
Or is there a fly dispatcher? “Here’s your next assignment. Sign here, and we’ll notify your next of kin, all 27 million of them.”
And are you as disappointed as I am that Raid “Flying Insect” spray doesn’t kill flies like it does on TV? You know, there’s a big BOOM!, and when the smoke clears, the fly is lying there on his back with his little fly feet up in the air.
I want the BOOM!
And did you ever notice that his little fly feet have little tiny shoes on them? Couldn’t they fly better without the shoes?
Inquiring minds, and all that.
Well, we’ve got less than a month to go on our gate guarding experience. We plan on leaving the gate on Monday, August 20th. As it stands now, we’ll first head down the road about 5 miles and spend the night at the Gate Guard Services yard while we get the rig set to travel. We’ve been parked either at the yard or on a gate since April 5th, and it always takes awhile to get everything tucked away when we’ve been off the road that long. Then that night we’ll drive into San Antonio for one last Mexican meal, probably at La Fonda on Main.
Heading north we’ll try to hit a couple of Thousand Trails parks along the way, but don’t quite know yet how that’ll work out. We’ll see. I know we’ll spend one night in southern IL with Jan’s sister Debbie, but after that it’s all up in the air.’
Just the way we like it.
My Android Free App of the Day is ListNote. Apparently using the same technology as Google’s Voice Search, it does an excellent job of turning voice dictation in text files that can be exported into other software. Pretty neat.
July 22, 2013
Bears and Elks . . .
Today was a designated “Goof Off Day”, consisting of reading, computers, and TV. It is kind of nice to just do nothing once in a while. And we did it very well.
As great as our site is here at the Elk’s Lodge, it’s got one problem. That’s keeping the coach leveled. This close to the water the ground is so soft that even using my 16” x 16” pads they just slowly sink into the ground. And not evenly, either. So now we have enough tilt to make it noticeable when we walk around. If it doesn’t get any worse, it may have bottomed out and I’ll re-level, maybe tomorrow.
The weather has been really nice since we got here, much cooler than our time down in the Wisconsin Dells. Yesterday the high was about 70, and tomorrow it’s supposed to be 69 and sunny. Very Nice.
For dinner we had our left-over Chinese from our meal at China Cate this past Saturday night. Chinese is one of those left-overs that just gets better with age. Very good.
Then for dessert we had the free Bread Pudding we got at Famous Dave’s BBQ last Thursday night in the Dells. Bread Pudding also ages well.
Tomorrow we’ll make up the difference from today, with a very busy day planned. First we’ll head up to Whitefish Point and The Shipwreck Museum. Then coming back down we’re going to check out Tahquamenon Falls State Park. Then it’s down toward Newberry to visit Oswald’s Bear Ranch.
Then comes Jan’s favorite part. We’ll head down to Newberry to the Visitor’s Center to pick up a copy of their Moose Guide. Turns out there’s a lot of moose up here and Jan wants one. Well, she wants to see one, anyway.
Thursday we plan on driving across the bridge into Canada and maybe check our the Bushplane Museum.
July 22, 2015
We Took A Chance . . .
I realized this morning that I didn’t have the pronoun correct in yesterday’s blog title. Kitty, Landon’s Black Lab, is a girl, not a boy. So it should be “A Dog and Her Boy”, not “A Dog and His Boy”.
About 4pm Jan and I headed out to see some of the area and see if we could find a place to eat. Our first destination was Walnut, MS about 12 miles away, where two places come up on Yelp, a pizza place and a diner called Camo, both with good ratings.
But getting there, we decided we didn’t really want pizza tonight, and as it turned out, Camo was only open from 5am to 1pm, or 2pm on Saturdays. So we decided to go ahead and drive into Corinth, MS, about 25 miles east.
Turns out that Corinth has pretty much everything as far as restaurants go, from a Ruby Tuesday, to a Cracker Barrel, and a Ryan’s. But as we drove around for a while, we came across Mi Toro, a Mexican Restaurant with an almost full parking lot. Now we’ve been burned before with some really bad Mexican food, but this place looked nice, and as busy as it was, we decided to take a chance.
With us and new Mexican places, it’s a three step process.
1. First try a tortilla chip by itself.
2. Next try a chip in the salsa.
3. Then taste the ice tea.
And happily for us, Mi Toro passed all three taste tests with flying colors. And I don’t think we’ve ever been to a place that passed all three of these tests that didn’t have good food as well. And today was no exception.
Jan ordered the #3 Combo, with a Beef Enchilada, a Beef Taco, and a Chile Relleno.
I got one of my favorites, Carnitas, which are chunks of slow-cooked pork, that are grilled again right before they’re served.
Both of us agreed that we’ll try to eat here again before we leave the area.
July 22, 2016
The End Of An Era . . .
As I said yesterday, today was a ‘rest up’ day from my rooftop AC coil cleaning. And it was definitely needed, since I woke pretty sore this morning. Mostly I think from getting down on my knees and back up several times as I was working around all sides of the AC unit.
One blog reader ask why I didn’t use something stronger to clean the coil, something stronger like Greased Lightning, or our favorite strong cleaner, Awesome.
Awesome certainly has its uses. In fact it’s the best thing I’ve found for getting dead, stuck bugs off the front cap of the rig. Just spray it on, leave it for a few minutes, and then spray it off.
But be sure to get it all completely off, because it will start to eat your paint. In fact, Awesome recommends you don’t use it full strength at all, but dilute it first.
The reason I didn’t want to use it for cleaning the AC coil, is that all these cleaners are highly alkaline, and if you don’t get every last drop out of every nook and cranny, it will start eating the thin aluminum fins, just dissolving them away.
I’ve seen this happen before on a home AC unit. The homeowner had put in a new underground sprinkler system where one sprinkler head sprayed slightly on the outside unit.
But he also had a setup that automatically added liquid fertilizer to the spray. And that fertilizer was alkaline, as most are.
After a couple of months his AC just quit working. When they had it checked out, a large section of the coil fins had just disappeared, and if you rubbed your finger over the rest, they just disintegrated at your touch.
But the 409 I used is perfect for breaking loose the dirt and gunk without harming the coil.
Wrapping up, it’s the end of an era. The last VHS VCR will roll off the assembly line the end of this month. Funai, known as Sanyo in the US, is still selling about 750,000 units a year, but that’s dropping steadily, and they’re having more and more problems getting parts.
The last VHS tapes were made in 2008, but the supply stored away in warehouses has kept them on the market for years after. And the last movie on VHs was The History of Violence, and was released in 2006. So it’s been all downhill since then.
We got our first VHS recorder, a Panasonic, in 1980, paying, I think, around $900 for it.
It looked just like this one.
Of course I couldn’t keep my hands out of it.
These units only had a fast forward/rewind mode that didn’t let you see the picture as you were using it. But within a couple of months I had come up with a way to add a wired control box with an on/off switch and variable speed knob.
With the 20-30 foot cable stretched across your living room, it would let you fast forward through commercials as you watched the picture in fast mode. The knob let you speed up or slow down the mode.
I was working at JSC-NASA at the time, and after word got around, I installed these on a lot of other people’s machines, making enough to more than pay for our VCR.
Nice.
July 22, 2017
Now We’ll See How It Works . . .
Today I finished mapping out our upcoming Alabama trip, and making the reservations that we’ll need.
We’re leaving from Colorado River on Wednesday with a stopover in Breaux Bridge, LA and Theodore, AL. Then we’ll spend two nights in Montgomery, AL visiting old friends from when we moved from there to Houston in 1978.
Then it’s on up to our relative’s RV park up in Athens, Al for five days or so, visiting relatives. And while we’ll there, we’ll make a day trip down to Birmingham to visit friends from when we lived there too.
Then on the 4th of August we’ll head back home by a different route, through Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Meridian, Breaux Bridge again, and then back to Lake Conroe on the 6th of August.
About 4pm today Jan and I drove into Conroe to have dinner at El Bosque, probably our favorite local Mexican place, although Mama Juanita’s is pretty good, too.
Jan got her favorite Pollo a la Parrilla,
while I got my usual Fajitas a la Diabla.
Both delicious as always, with plenty left over for dinner tomorrow night.
Then it was next door to the Home Depot to get the last few things I needed for my AC Baffle project up on the roof,
Coming home I waited until a little after 7pm, hoping it had cooled off, and with the overcast it really had.
It only took me about 45 minutes to mount the Plexiglass sheets on the top and sides of the AC cover.
I used heavy duty packing tape to seal the edges and lock the pieces together. In hindsight I should have used a rod or something to bridge across the two top sheets, but that’s for next time. If it works this time, of course.
So tomorrow we’ll see how it’s going to work on our trip back to the Colorado River Thousand Trails.
July 22, 2019
Top This . . .
Work was finally back to normal today, since Jennifer was back on duty. Of course it took most of the morning for Dr. Heimlich and myself to try to explain all the weird stuff we had left for her to try and straighten out.
But by the afternoon she had it all sorted out and was back on track.
I meant to post a photo of the old spark plug that I finally got out yesterday, but here it is now.
I’m not really sure what happened here but the first two or three threads are just gone. It sure doesn’t look like it’s cross-threaded, at least not in a way I’ve seen before. So maybe one of our intrepid readers has an idea.
The new plug went back in just about as hard as the old one came out. But when I drove it back and forth to work today it was running a lot better. Not perfectly, still a little rough, but much better.
It’s been a good while since I shot a heli-coil, but I’m going to see how the truck runs over the next few weeks before I go that far.
So tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain, it’s on to the brakes.
Looks like starting this Thursday Karma and I are going to be on our own for about 10 days. Thursday afternoon I’m taking Jan up to Brandi’s for about 10 days so she doggie/kitty-sit while Brandi, Lowell, and Landon are down in Costa Rica.
It’s Landon’s first trip out of the country so he’s excited to have his own passport now.
Jan and I are in the market for a new 4” Foam Mattress Topper for our Queen size bed. We’ve had this one for about 5 years and it’s showing its age.
But the main reason I want to change out is that I’m looking for something cooler, and I’d prefer something I can get from Amazon. Easier to return if I don’t like it.
July 22, 2020
Comet NEOWISE . . .
Some more Comet NEOWISE photos.
The comet over Windsor Castle
The Comet over Wyoming
July 22, 2021
Taking Suggestions . . .
Jan has been scouring YouTube videos for ideas about what to do and see in Branson this December. Besides Yakov Smirnoff and SIX, we had also wanted to see Jim Stafford, but it looks like he’s taking Christmas.
We want to see the Toy Museum and the Dinosaur Museum, and also do a Dinner Cruise on the Branson Belle. We already did the Dolly Parton Stampede in Pigeon Forge, plus Jan’s not real big on the whole rodeo thing, so that’s out.
We’ve done Duck tours all over the country, so despite the tragic occurrence back in 2018, we wanted to do one here. And we had heard that the tours had been resumed with new boats, but it turns out that they’ve now been delayed and won’t start up until March 2022.
According to the web, when they do start back up they’ll be using this new ducks.
Called Hydra-Terra’s, they’re so filled with foam that the Coast Guard rates them as unsinkable. Of course I seem to remember another boat described that way.
I kind of wonder though about how well this thing will move through the water with all that undercarriage hanging down under there, compared with the original ones like this.
So anyway, we looking for suggestions for shows, attractions, etc., I.e. your favorite must-see’s.
Yesterday I posted my new new ‘Make Texas A Country Again’ shirt. Well Jan has a new one too. And it combines two of her favorite things.
Her love of flamingos and her survival of breast cancer in 2014. A really bright and colorful shirt. Jan loves it.
Our friend Barbara Cutsinger told us that there’s actually a “The Catch” restaurant up in the Almeda Mall area, not too far from us. So we’ll have to check it out soon.
One thing I forgot to mention about our meal at the one up in Conroe when we met up with Debi and Ed, was that they have free frozen margaritas, in 4 different flavors. And unlike most of these slushie machine margaritas, these actually had alcohol in them. And not just the usual ‘few’ drops. But enough to give you a definite ‘buzz’.
I mentioned yesterday that our old Alvin Opry friend Leighan Cortes was killed in a traffic accident while vacationing in Germany with her father.
Well, even sadder, it turns out that her father, shown with her here, was also killed in the same accident.
Our prayers and sympathy’s go out to the family.
Thought For The Day:
