Monthly Archives: September 2022
Outback . . .
Jan and I were on our way up to the Woodlands about 10:30 this morning. We were heading for the Outback there to make our monthly get-together with Debi and Ed Hurlburt once again.
The last time we ate at an Outback was in May 2018 for our son Chris’ birthday at the location across from Baybrook Mall in Webster. Then before that it was in Palmdale, CA in April 2017.
After we started with salads,
Jan got her usual Alice Spring’s Chicken with double Veggies.
I went with my usual Ribeye, pretty much my go-to steakhouse steak, along with the Steamed Broccoli.
Jan and I both agreed the food was really good, almost as good as the company.
Since as usual, we were having so much I forgot to get a photo, I’ll just post this rerun.
We were back on the road south by about 3pm, with a pretty smooth drive along the way, and finally getting home about 4:45 after a Kroger stop in Dickinson.
A nice day with great company.
Already looking forward to next month.
Thought For The Day:
The sheep spend their whole lives fearing the wolf, only to be eaten by the shepherd.
Once you understand this statement, the game changes and you start to understand politics.
September 20, 2009
Back in the USA…Again!
Today we finally get back to the USA…at least for this year.
The Grenville RV Park where we’ve been staying is right on the St. Lawrence River and it’s really nice.
Even Mister approves.
We left the park about 9:45 am, heading about 7 miles back in the wrong direction so we could have breakfast at the 730 Truck Stop Restaurant where we ate dinner last night. It was that good!
We normally don’t eat breakfast when we’re on the road, but this place was too good to pass up. And after a great breakfast, we finally hit the road about 11 am for the 165 mile trip to the Rome, NY area.
We went thru Customs into the US a little after noon. It was good to be back.
We did have a small problem in that I got yelled at by the Border Agent for going the wrong way.
As we approached the border crossing the signs said Autos to the left and Trucks to the right. Now, when we came back into the US at Houlton, ME last week, the signs said Autos/RV to the left and Trucks to the right, so no problem.
But when we got to the crossing here, there were no other RVs so I didn’t have an example to follow. In the past, when I have had to go thru toll booths and crossings that weren’t really meant for RVs, it was a very tight squeeze, in some cases my mirrors cleared the pillars with about an inch on each side.
So I took the safe approach and went thru the truck side. Wrong.
After the yelling was over, they made us wait for about 30 minutes, though there were no other trucks coming passed. But finally they waved us through.
We did have to go thru the VACIS gamma ray scanner on our way out. This scanner X-rays the vehicle looking for hidden compartments and contraband. I guess they didn’t find anything because they eventually let us go.
All in all, waiting in line and the inspection/scan only took about 45 minutes.
We arrived at The Landing Campground about 2:30pm and got set up. Even though there are a lot of trees in the park, I was still able to get a good satellite signal.
A couple of hours later we went to supper at Gary’s restaurant on Lake Oneida. Very good, and the lake view was great.
After we got back, we set outside out with Mister for a while so he could check out the area.
Then it was in for the night.
Tomorrow we’ll drive over to Rome to try and find where Jan and her family lived when her father was stationed at Griffiss AFB here.
September 20, 2010
Happy Birthday to Landon. . .
He’s one month old today.
About 10 am Jan drove over to Kemah to get her cute little toes painted while I puttered around the rig. When she got back around 11:30 I made coffee and we just enjoyed the view.
About 2:15 pm we headed over to Webster to have Linner again at King Food. I’ve been fighting off a cold for the last few days, so I figured a batch of Extra Spicy Chicken with Hot Garlic Sauce, and Hot & Sour Soup might help burn it out.
Well, it couldn’t hurt.
We got back to the rig about 4 and that was it for the day.
September 20, 2011
The Little Cart . . .
Was up about 10 am this morning to a bright sunny day, much better than yesterday’s pouring rain.
After coffee and cinnamon bagels for breakfast, I spent the rest of the morning working on client Internet stuff.
Later while I was out and about, I stopped by a local O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to see if they had some #53 bulbs. These are used in the floor lights in our rig, and they are apparently hard to find, since I had tried 3 or 4 other places with no luck. But when I checked online, O’Reilly’s had them in their catalog, so I was hoping the store would too. And they did, so I bought all 4 they had.
I hit about 8 places, got gift coupons from 1, and ‘Come back in the next couple of days” at the others.
Got home about 5 and about 5:30, Jan and I, and Chris Yust headed into town to have dinner at La Carreta, a favorite local Mexican place of ours. Charles, Chris’ husband was a little under weather so he stayed home. He missed a great time. Jan and I both enjoyed our meal as before.
And as usual, we sat there for over an hour just talking and laughing, and having a good time.
We got home about 7:30, just in time for more TV premieres.
September 20, 2012
Trains and Pla . . . well, just Trains . . .
Today was another fun day and we hit the ground running . . . well, walking briskly anyway. Our first stop was back at Jungle Jim’s Market, so Jan could run and grab something she decided she wanted.
On the spur of the moment we saw a Jack in the Box and decided to grab a quick breakfast sandwich. But when we started to pull in we noticed police cars and policemen directing traffic into the parking lot, with a double line of cars going into the two drive-thru’s.
What’s up with that?
It turns out that this was the grand opening of the very FIRST Jack in the Box in the entire state of Ohio. I guess they don’t get out much here.
After we finished, we headed around the corner to our destination, EnterTrainMent Junction.
EnterTrainMent Junction is the largest indoor train display in the world. With two actual miles of track, 90 locomotives, and 1000 cars, the layout covers 25,000 sq. ft. in an 80,000 sq. ft. building.
The dream of Don Oeters, a Cincinnati entrepreneur and model railroad hobbyist, EnterTrainMent Junction is a family entertainment center focusing on trains, with something for everyone.
Although EJ (EnterTrainMent Junction) is laid out using ‘G’ Scale equipment, most home layouts use one of the 3 sizes shown below. ‘HO’ scale is on the left, ‘N’ scale in the middle, and ‘Z’ scale is on the left. To give you some idea of the actual size, the ‘Z’ locomotive is only about 2 inches long.
The ‘G’ in ‘G’ scale stands for Garden, because this scale is normally used outside in a garden or backyard.
The display is divided into 3 main areas, the early days of railroading, starting in the Civil War era, the Golden Age, centering around the 1940’s and 50’s, and the Modern Era. And the detail is just amazing.
Another thing that’s unusual is that they use real water on the layout.
The detail even extends to the lighted insides of the buildings.
The lighting cycles through periods of daytime and night, showing off the many lit interiors, but others are visible even in the ‘daytime’.
The night time scenes are amazing.
There’s even a very realistic forest fire with dancing flames.
The downtown area of the Modern City is fantastic. Most of the buildings are based on real structures, but from many different cities, like the Space Needle from Seattle,
and this office building in New Zealand,
complete with occupied offices.
And of course, what’s a railroad without someone spray painting graffiti on a railcar.
This was our 2nd visit here at EJ. And it was still fun to wander the aisles trying to take it all in.
If you’re in the Cincinnati area and have kids, or you act like a kid like Jan’s says I often do, this is a must see.
By now it was almost 5pm, so it was off to a nearby Red Robin for our burger fix. A really great place.
Food was involved, after all.
Our last stop of the day was The Container Store. Jan was looking for some storage items, so I napped in the truck.
We finally got home about 8:30pm after another long but very fun day. Tomorrow will be a stay-at-home before we make a day trip to Dayton on Saturday.
September 20, 2014
A Scary Night . . .
Or To Skid or Not To Skid . . .
Or The Cow Strikes Again . . .
Our son Chris called about 6 this evening with some scary news. We were expecting to hear from him because he and Linda were planning on coming up tomorrow to visit and pick up our granddaughter Piper’s laptop that I had been cleaning up.
But he said they were on their way up in this direction now because Piper was up kind of near here ATV’ing with some friends and there had been a accident and they were all being taken to the hospital in Crockett, TX, about 55 miles away, and on the east side of I-45. He said all he knew is that Piper was the least injured, but he didn’t know to what extent.
When he called I was just getting ready to go to bed, and since I knew it would take them at least 2 hours or more to get up to Crockett, I went ahead and tried to sleep, but without a lot of luck. I finally got up around 9:30 just as Chris called.
He said Piper was basically OK, just banged up, but she did have a hole in her wrist all the way to the bone. He said they were going to keep her overnight to be sure there was no damage to the tendons and ligaments and that they got everything cleaned out.
So I guess we’ll know more tomorrow.
As I mentioned a few days ago, they were originally supposed to skid our rig over to the new drill hole today, but I didn’t see any sign of that happening. Turns out it’s now scheduled for Wednesday. But we’ll see.
What I’m not quite sure about is how they’re going to do it. I was surprised to find out today that they’re skidding the rig closer to us and not away. It doesn’t look like there’s enough room between the rig and the edge of the pad to get the two cranes in place. But since we’re kind of looking uphill at the rig, the lack of room may be an optical illusion.
And of course they might plan on having the cranes down here on the road and doing it that way. I guess we’ll know on Wednesday. Or not.
Well, the cow(s) struck again this evening. When Jan went in at 11pm to go to bed, she stuck her head back out and said DirecTV was down again. So I went around the front of the rig to check it out, expecting to find the sat dome on the ground again. But this time the stand was just tilted over and the wires jerked around.
I just wish the cows would pick up their feet (hooves), and stop tripping over the wires. This time I moved the sat stand up against the sewer trailer and then routed the wires up in the air through the trees. So unless some really tall cows come by, I should be OK.
Hopefully we’ll know more about Piper’s condition tomorrow.
September 20, 2015
It’s Back!
Well, the package I sent off via USPS Priority Mail last week finally showed up in north Houston today, five days after it left Shreveport last Tuesday. So hopefully it will be delivered tomorrow down in Friendswood, but you never know.
At least it’s not still lost.
I ordered my second Mighty Mule Driveway Alarm about 11:30 last night. What’s kind of strange is that I ordered the first one last week on Sunday and it got here Tuesday. I ordered this one on Saturday and it’s coming in on Wednesday.
So the later I order, the earlier it gets here? Does that mean that if I keep going, it will get here before I even order it.
If so, that’s got drone delivery beat all to hell.
The other thing I ordered was this.
KJL Cree LED 900 lumens Flashlight
Right now Jan and I are using an UltraFire 300 lumen flashlight to check tags as vehicles come in at night, but sometimes it’s just not enough. With all the bad roads these guys travel on, the tags get really chewed up.
Yes, literally, some of them look like they’ve been chewed on. Plus in many cases, most or all of the reflective stuff has been worn off, so you need a lot of light. And hopefully this will do it.
It also may help me give some of these guys a brief lesson in ‘bright’ lights. There always few that leave their high beams on, no matter what, so maybe now I can give them a little taste of their own medicine.
Of course it may blind them and then they run me over, so I’ll have to think about it a little more.
A neat thing about this order is how I did it. I normally just stick things in my Amazon cart, and then at some point I place the order. But this time I told my Amazon Echo to place the order from me. And she did it perfectly.
I’ll have more info on the Echo soon, but I will say it’s one of my favorite gadgets of all time.
September 20, 2016
Going Back to Kansas City . . .
Well, Amber, our PO mail carrier showed up right on time today, with our Amazon order, but tomorrow may be the real test.
Last night I ordered this Yagi directional Wi-Fi antenna to try and resolve my Internet problems.
If I can get a consistently good signal from the Company Man’s system, then I’ll be OK. The problem right now is that sometimes I’ve got 1 – 2 bars, and sometimes I’ve got 4 bars, and the desktop in the rig can’t even see the signal. So this antenna, along with a 10 ft. cable will hopefully do the trick.
Anyway, because I ordered the antenna Next Day, it’s coming by FedEx, not the PO, so we’ll see what happens. Tony, the landowner here, says UPS and FedEx have both delivered to his house at this address, and his house is about a mile down the road past us. So hopefully it will work out. But you never know.
On the same subject, I’m beginning to think that the 3G problem here is not with my Wilson system but with the Verizon 3G signal. And if that’s true, it explains a lot about all the squirrely problems I’ve had.
I have always used the Open Signal App on my phone to point me in right direction of the closest Verizon cell tower. And that’s how I knew in 2012, the last time we used the Wilson system, that we were hitting a tower over on I-37, 19.5 miles away. Open Signal even showed me the Lat/Long coordinates of the tower itself.
But things got strange when I did the same thing this year. First off, although OS showed me the direction of the nearest Verizon tower, it also said there were NO towers nearby. And although it gave me Lat/Long coordinates, it did not give me a distance.
Hmm!
But where it really gets strange is where OS thinks the cell tower actually is. Since it wasn’t telling me the distance to the tower, I thought I’d just type the coordinates into Google Maps and see where it was really located.
And suddenly the weak signal made sense, because according to OS, we hitting a cell tower about 80 miles SW of Kansas City, MO. Now that’s a long distance phone call. Something is screwy somewhere.
OS also gives me both the actual and the relative signal strength, which in this case was –111 dbm and 56%, not a good signal at all. I had been messing with the Wilson system, but at this point it was turned off, and I’m just staring at the OS display while I’m running through ideas about what the problem was, and what else could I check.
Suddenly the signal strength readings jumped to – 93 dbm and 100%, a good signal.
WTH?
Looking up at the top of my phone display, I noticed that it had dropped back to 3G mode instead of the normal 4G. And it stayed like that for a couple of minutes, when it then jumped back to 4G and –111 dbm.
WTH?
And as of right now, a little after midnight, I have no 3G or 4G,data at all, even on my Galaxy S5 phone. And when I try to Hotspot it, I get either ‘Fatal Error: No Connection’ or “No Data Connection’. And it’s been that way for a couple of hours. But the phone call part still works just fine. So this may all be Verizon’s fault.
But as they always say when you call them, they’re working on it.
I still haven’t heard back from Colaw RV Salvage since my phone call last week about a replacement screen door latch, so I’ll try to give them a call again tomorrow.
September 20, 2017
It Was A ‘1’ . . .
Today was moving day for us, for the first time in 34 days, a new record for us at a Thousand Trails park.
But since we only had a 26 mile trip, we took our time. Though Jan was up at her usual 7am or so, I managed to sleep in until about 10.
About 10:45 we drove into Conroe to have breakfast at the local Cracker Barrel, something that’s become kind of a tradition for us. And after a nice leisurely meal, we were back at the rig and on our way about 1:15 with Jan following me in the truck. Didn’t seem worthwhile to hook up for this short a distance.
We pulled into the Hillcrest RV Park in beautiful downtown Punkin about 2pm and found the small office locked, but this note on the door.
At this point the discussion started. Is that site 2J, or site 27, or even site 25?
I quickly figured out that they didn’t have any ‘J’ sites, and this was parked in Site 27.
So what about site 25?
Well, 25 was vacant, but it was only 30 amp and we had asked for 50amp. But we decided to park there temporarily until the owner’s came back from shopping. I tried to go ahead and at least hook up to the 30 amp so we could shut the generator off, but the main breaker to the pedestal blew. The local 30 amp breaker was just fine, thought.
So it was back to the generator to keep cool. When no one had showed up after an hour or so, I started walking around the park looking for 50 amp sites.
After checking out about about 6 sites toward the back, I headed back up front and found the elusive prize, a 50 amp site.
It was a “1”, not a ‘J’, and not a ‘5’, and not a ‘7’.
It was a ‘1’.
I mean, does that look like a ‘1’ to you.
So here we are, happily ensconced in site #21.
When I was down in Clear Lake yesterday, I picked up my new HP 4650 printer that had come in on Monday, but I didn’t set it up until this evening.
Although it’s noticeably bigger it still fits in place of my old one.
And it was really easy to set up too.
One thing kind of neat is the swing arm that comes out to catch the paper as it is printing.
Unlike most printers where you have to move it out yourself, this printer swings it out automatically when you start to print. Neat!
Tomorrow it’s back down to Clear Lake for the last time this week.
Hopefully.
September 20, 2018
Dodged A Bullet . . .
I mentioned yesterday that I had a dermatologist appointment this morning, and as it turns out, I’m really glad I did.
It seems that the scaliness on my head and nose that I thought might be eczema or psoriasis is actually actinic keratosis, a pre-pre-cursor for Squamous Cell Carcinomas.
And long-time readers will remember that back in July 2014 I had a Squamous Cell removed from my head while we were up in Elkhart, IN. So it fits, I guess.
Once thing kind of interesting is that, although I could feel the scaliness, it wasn’t really visible on my scalp, so it tended to mask the problem.
The doctor used a canister of liquid nitrogen to burn off about a dozen or so ‘hot spots’ on my head and nose that he saw today. But this doesn’t get rid of the real problem. So in November, after we’re back from Florida, I’ll have a procedure called PDT (Photodynamic Therapy) to head off any further complications.
They’ll coat my head with a chemical in the form of a liquid or cream, let it dry for 30 to 60 minutes, and then expose the area to a special wavelength blue light. The pre-pre-cancerous areas absorb the chemical more than the non-cancerous areas, and when the light is used, the chemical activates and burns the selected areas out, leaving me with a somewhat severe sunburn for a few days. And I will have to wear sunscreen and a hat (which I already do) for a few weeks.
Then in another month, I’ll have to do it again. And hopefully that will be the end of it.
Afterwards Jan and I stopped off at the BayBrook Mall-area Starbucks. It’s Fall and her favorite Pumpkin Spice Latte’s are back, so it was a must-stop. Then we made a stop by Fry’s Electronics so I could look for a replacement connector for the foot pedal for Jan’s Viking sewing machine.
I didn’t find what I needed, but I did come across something that would certainly be useful during the coming Zombie Apocalypse.
And this Gerber set can be yours for only $300.
So Be Prepared!
After Fry’s we headed over to East Star Chinese Buffet for lunch, and then on to Sam’s and WalMart for a few things, and then it was home for the day.
Wrapping up, Brandi posted photos of this visitor to her backyard this afternoon.
Looks like somebody’s pet got loose. Or maybe there’s a colony of them roaming around Cinco Ranch.
Of course, big green iguanas kind of run in the family.
Here’s Jan and her new green friends when we were in Puerto Vallarta in 1997.
I’ve heard they taste like chicken. Sounds like a perfect way for Lowell to try out that new big grill they’ve got.
September 20, 2019
Stirring The Pot . . .
On ‘Climate Change’
This being ‘Global Climate Strike Day’, whatever that is. I thought I’d jump in and stir the pot a little. Or a lot, depending on your point of view, I guess.
First off, NOAA, you know the US Government’s Weather Bureau, says that their new system of remote weather stations shows no warming since 2005
“In January 2005, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began recording temperatures at its newly built U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN). USCRN includes 114 pristinely maintained temperature stations spaced relatively uniformly across the lower 48 states. NOAA selected locations that were far away from urban and land-development impacts that might artificially taint temperature readings.”
These new sensing locations were necessary because most of the old ones, some dating from the 1930’s and originally sited out in the open countryside, were now in built-up areas, next to office buildings, factories, and highways. All sources of localized heat. So NOAA decided to build a completely new system.
And that new system shows NO WARMING since 2005. So no warming in the last 14 years, and probably no real warming since the 1930’s. And this lack of warming matches up pretty well with the global satellite readings.
Or how about these Global Warming ‘Facts’
Or how about the fact that ice cores going back 150,000 years show that CO2 levels lag temperature rise, and don’t lead it.
Carbon dioxide increases historically lag temperature increases. “In 1985, ice cores extracted from Greenland revealed temperatures and CO2 levels going back 150,000 years,” . . . in 1999 it became clear that carbon dioxide rose and fell after temperatures did. By 2003, we had better data showing the lag was 800 ± 200 years. CO2 was in the back seat.”
Or how about the fact that 95% of carbon dioxide emissions come from natural sources, and not man.
Less than 5% of carbon dioxide emissions are produced by man. Web searches turn up what seems like an endless list of stories and blog posts reporting that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have reached or exceeded 415 parts per million. This has been almost universally treated as the tip of an imminent disaster, as man has pushed greenhouse gas emissions beyond a dangerous threshold.
Or there’s a study by NASA almost 20 years ago details how the main reason for cyclic climate change is the SUN. You know that big ball of flaming gas around 93 million miles away.
The sun’s rotation, orbit, and tilt, along with the earth’s rotation, orbit, and tilt says this:
If we had to sum the whole thing up in one simple phrase, it would be this: The biggest factor influencing weather and climate patterns on earth is the sun, period. Depending on the earth’s position to the sun at any given time, climate conditions are going to vary dramatically, and even create drastic abnormalities that defy everything that humans thought they knew about how the earth worked.
For more on this idea, think about it like this.
What would happen if the sun suddenly DOUBLED its output? Think it would get hotter on the earth?
What would happen if the sun suddenly HALVED its output? Think it would get colder on the earth?
What do you think?
Earth’s climate has always cyclical. Scientist have confirmed that over the 600 million year or so the earth had been almost completely covered in ice and snow at least twice, and maybe more. Called the Snowball Earth effect, these periods lasted at least 10 million years.
So what caused these?
On a most recent time scale, we know the last Ice Age ended around 10,000 years ago. During that one almost half of the US was covered in mile-deep sheets of ice.
So what causes these repeated Ice Ages, and what causes them to go away?
Maybe the sun’s orbit moving further from the earth due to these orbital variations?
And then moving back closer thousands of years later?
For more info about these orbital variations, check out this about Milankovitch Cycles
On an even more recent time scale, we have the Medieval Warming, the Little Ice Age, and even the Dust Bowl. The last one is a little controversial, but many scientists think that this is a possibility, and not the fact that farmers suddenly weren’t plowing the right way.
And recently, the ‘settled scientists’ can’t seem to keep their stories straight.
Back in the 1920’s it was Global Cooling.
Then in the 1930’s, it was Global Warming (i.e. the Dust Bowl, remember)
Next up, in the 1970’s, they ‘settled’ on Global Cooling again.
And of course, now we’ve circled back around to Global Warming again.
For more info on this, check out this article from 2006 called Fire and Ice.
Or this one entitled Climate Change Has Been A Routine Scare Tactic Since the 1930’s
Complete with newspaper headlines.
And of course there are the ‘predictions’. Thought ‘wild-ass guesses’ might be a better description.
How about these?
1967 — Stanford University expert Paul Erlich predicted “time of famines” by 1975.
1971 — A top NASA expert predicted an “ice age” by 2021.
1988 — It was predicted that the Maldives would be under water by last year.
2008 — Gore said the Arctic would be free of ice by 2013.
2009 — Prince Charles said there was just 96 months left to save the world. That would be 2017.
For some more detail on this, check out this article, complete with newspaper articles. Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions
And finishing up, here’s the first 20 predictions from a list of 41 failed predictions.
- 1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975
- 1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)
- 1970: Ice Age By 2000
- 1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980
- 1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030
- 1972: New Ice Age By 2070
- 1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast
- 1974: Another Ice Age?
- 1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life
- 1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent
- 1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes
- 1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend
- 1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s
- 1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs
- 1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)
- 1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000
- 1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)
- 2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is
- 2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy
- 2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024
In fact, not one of these 41 predictions, made by these ‘leading Climate Changers’ has come true.
0 for 41 is not a good record.
OK, I’m off my soapbox. Feel free to jump in.
September 20, 2020
Been There, Done That . . .
Jan and I have been watching a CuriosityStream show called The History of Home. And starting with Neanderthal caves, mud huts, and Indian pueblos, it segued to Versailles, King Henry VIII’s Hampton Court, and on to Hearst Castle and The Biltmore. All four of which we’ve been to.
But as we were watching the segment on Hampton Court, Jan mentioned that our visit there was at the top of her Bucket List. I asked her if she’d like to go back, reminding her that during our grueling 13+ hour flight home from London, she told me that if I ever took her on a flight like this again, she’d rip my arm off and beat me to death with it, she looked at me for a long time, like she had to think about it, and then finally said “No. Been there, done that.”
So I guess I get to keep my arm(s) for a while longer.
Steak And Steak . . .
Rob, our park owner, texted us last week saying that the park WiFi would be down for a while today due to Comcast doing some upgrades in the area. And when I got up this morning I saw the park WiFi had gone down about 7:30am.
Then when I left for work about 10 I saw Comcast trucks along the road, replacing the system amps on the light poles. Later Jan texted me about 1:30 saying it was back up.
And boy! was it. When I came home I checked our WiFi speed using Speedtest.net and found that our normal 8-10 Mbps had jumped up to a little over 36 Mbps.
WOW! Nice.
Tomorrow we’re heading up to the Woodlands area for our monthly meet-up with Debi and Ed Hurlburt, this time at the Outback Steakhouse up there. Looking forward to it.
Then next Thursday we’re meeting up with our Alvin Opry group, this time back at the Saltgrass Steakhouse down in Webster. Looking forward to it too.
Thought For The Day:
There are millions of paranoid people in the world and they are all out to get me.
September 19, 2009
Quebec
Today was our day to see the city of Quebec.
We started out with breakfast at our new favorite breakfast/lunch place, Cora. Hopefully these will show up in the US soon.
We drove around Quebec, finally ending up in Vieux Quebec, or Old Quebec where we found a Tourist Information Center.
We found that there was going to be a 2 hour bus tour at 2:30 pm and signed up for it. Luckily for us, today was the last day for this tour, and, even luckier, it was all in English.
We’ve noticed a lot of touristy things are starting to shut down, or reduce their hours, due to winter coming on, and the tourist trade is dropping off.
We had some time to kill before the tour started so we drove to a Glass Shop on St. Jean street that Jan wanted to visit.
Finally we headed back to rendezvous with our tour bus. Our driver, a Quebec City native named Francois, spoke very good English, luckily for us. But Jan said he sounded like Inspector Clouseau of Pink Panther fame.
Our tour gave us a look at the major sites in Quebec, in both the old and new sections.
Here is the Simons fountain in front of the Provincial Capitol of Quebec.
,
Here is the view from the Plains of Abraham battlefield site overlooking the St. Lawrence river.
The battle of Plains of Abraham, also known as the Battle of Quebec, took place during the French and Indian War in September 1759, and the British victory over the French led to France relinguishing all claims to Canada.
Here’s Jan with another view from the battlefield.
And here is the Chateau Frontenac Hotel, one of the most magnificent sites in Quebec. Built in 1893, the Frontenac is one of the premiere hotels in North America.
Here’s one of the many pedestrian-only streets in Vieux (Old) Quebec.
This church, the L Eglise Notre Dame Des Victoires (The Church of Our Lady of Victories) , is the oldest stone church in North America.
Another view.
And this building, built in 1675, is the oldest one in Quebec City.
After our tour was over, we drove over to Tomas Tam’s, a Chinese buffet restaurant we’d seen advertised. And it was very good.
On our way back to the rig, we drove pass everyone’s favorite chicken place, PFK.
PFK???
Leave it to Quebec to put their own stamp on things.
PFK in French stands for ‘Poulet Frit Kentucky’, or Kentucky Fried Chicken to us.
Getting back to the rig, we got ready to head out early tomorrow on a long travel day.
September 19, 2010
“Lupper” or “Linner”
Today started off with a cool, rainy, overcast morning, and some great pecan praline coffee. We just sat around and enjoyed the view out the front window, watching this heron trying to dry his wings, even while it was raining.
And even Emma sought refuge from the dreary day in a warm, fuzzy blanket.
About 1:30 we left for Brandi’s. Lowell and Brandi were going out for their own private celebration of Brandi’s birthday, while Jan and I Landon sat. But since we weren’t supposed to be there until 3 pm we first stopped off at our favorite Chinese restaurant, King Food for “Linner” or ‘Lupper”, take your pick. (Hey, if you can have Brunch, we can have Lupper.) We’ve been eating there for over 30 years and are on our 4th owner.
We both had the same thing. Hot & Sour Soup, and Chicken with Hot Garlic Sauce. Of course, that’s not hot enough for us, so I add a big spoonful of the roasted chili flakes to my soup, and we both order the Chicken in Hot Garlic Sauce, Extra, Extra, Extra, Extra Spicy, and then add Jalapenos. Hey, this is Texas. We put Jalapenos in everything. And what we don’t put Jalapenos in, we add some Habanero peppers to.
The way I tell if it’s hot enough is that if my bald head starts sweating and my nose starts running, then it’s just about perfect.
Leaving King Food, we still had some time left so we stopped off at Half Price Books, a great chain of used book stores. Most of their locations are in Texas, but they have stores in 15 other states as far west as California and Washington, and as far east as Pennsylvania.
Getting to Brandi’s, she and Lowell headed out for their date, and Jan and I Landon sat. Or, at least, Jan Landon sat and I napped. Once she has Landon in her arms, she doesn’t like to give him up.
About 5 pm I drove over to Fry’s Electronics to look for a 1.5 TB backup drive they had on sale, but I was too late, and they were sold out. So I came home with a new LED keychain flashlight instead. Bummer!
Getting home a little after 7 pm, I made some coffee and we settled in to watch some TV.
September 18, 2011
Blueberry Muffins and Chinese Food . . .
Our day started a little later than a normal travel day, so, since we didn’t plan on leaving until around 11, Jan and I didn’t get up until about 8 am. I fixed coffee and Jan heated up some of the delicious bread and blueberry muffins we had.
Since I wanted to top off with propane, I pulled out of our site about 10:30. It took a little longer than usual because the guy had problems getting the hose hooked up to my tank so it wouldn’t leak as he filled the tank.
He finally got it to work and I ended up taking on 18 gallons. The tank holds 32, so my gauge was pretty accurate, saying I had between 1/2 and 1/4 tank of LP. Not bad for two years use.
After going back to our sites and hitching up the toads, we pulled out about 11:30 on our way to Celina.
We arrived at the Mercer County Fairgrounds a little after 2:30, and after unhitching the toads and driving around, we found our site, and got parked and set up.
About 5:15 we headed over to China Wok Buffet, which very possibly may be the best Chinese buffet we’ve had.
September 18, 2012
Darth Vader and Dilbert . . .
Despite the overcast, spitting rain, weather today was another day trip day. We headed at about 11am, first over to Batesville to check out Weberding’s Carving Shop.
Celebrating their 70th anniversary, they’re one of the largest suppliers of custom church furniture in the US. They even have a display of miniature versions of some of their offerings.
Need a finely detailed camel? This one is only $6500.00!
They even have a line of all-wood furniture made with a tree limb frame.
Our next stop was a few miles up the road at Metamora, IN. Metamora is the home of one of the last visible sections of the Whitewater Canal. Built between 1836 and 1847, the seventy-six mile canal, ran between Lawrenceburg, IN on the Ohio River and Hagerstown, IN.
Developed after the opening and immediate financial success of the Erie Canal, the State of Indiana financed the building of the Whitewater. But the steep route, twice as steep as the Erie Canal, required 56 locks, seven dams, and even 4 aqueducts to carry it over other rivers.
The high cost of this route, plus the damages caused by heavy rains, delayed construction several times, and even led to the State of Indiana going bankrupt in 1839.
The canal was only open along its entire length for a few months before severe flooding took parts out of commission. It never was completely open after 1847.
The Benjamin Franklin III is a replica of the boats that actually plied the canal, and you can take a ride on it today.
This grist mill opened in 1845 and is still in operation grinding corn and wheat.
This 12 foot waterwheel powers the mill through an underground shaft.
After getting to Metamora we found that most of the many shops were closed on Monday and Tuesdays, but the Canal House was open.
Home to over 2600 cookie jars and a thousand salt and pepper shakers, the jars range from Darth Vader and Batman to Hopalong Cassidy and Dilbert.
But now they have one less cookie jar since I brought home this moose jar for Jan.
Leaving Metamora, we headed up the road about 50 miles to Greenville, OH, home of the KitchenAid appliance company, where Jan was looking for a new hand mixer.
And while we were there we saw this KitchenAid mixer that used to belong to Julia Child.
It’s late and I’m tired, so I’ll finish up tomorrow
September 18, 2014
It’s The Cow’s Fault . . .
Yesterday, (Wednesday) was grocery shopping/prescription day, so about 11am I headed over to the Bryan/College Station area, about 30 miles away. My first stop was the Home Depot to pick up a few things. I’m going to replace the lavatory faucet in the next few days and I needed a can of plumber’s putty for the base. I had some, but found it had dried out.
The handle broke on the old faucet and, although I tried to repair it, the fix just wouldn’t hold. So a new one it is. I picked one up last week so I’ll try and get it done in the next couple of days. Right now the handle is a pair of Vicegrips.
Whatever works.
My next stop was the Sam’s Club to pick up the prescriptions that didn’t go through last week. When we filled some prescriptions at the Sam’s in Mishawaka, IN this past June, for some reason, after filling them, they cancelled them. So the pharmacist here had to get things straightened out. Turns out that nobody at the Mishawaka store had any idea what had happened. They said it was probably a ‘computer error.’
Yeah, right. Somebody had to press that key. The computer didn’t do it by itself.
One thing at Sam’s took me by surprise though.
This is just ridiculous. They actually have Halloween stuff, Thanksgiving stuff, and Christmas stuff all there together. And there’s probably some New Year’s hats and horns in there somewhere.
After stopping at Wal-Mart for groceries, and to return the ‘Octopus’ shower hose from last week, I headed over by Texas A&M to pick up lunch.
Yelp had really good things to say about Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers, so we thought we’d give it a try. Turns out it’s right across the street from the A&M campus and it’s a pretty big place.
With a very small menu.
Chicken Fingers. That’s pretty much it.
They have a 3 piece box, a 4 piece box, a 6 piece family box, and a Chicken Finger Sandwich. That’s it, except for Tailgater boxes of 50 or 100 pieces.
For drinks, they’ve got the usually soft drinks, sweet tea, unsweet tea, and their fresh-squeezed lemonade.
Their sweet and unsweet teas are in those dispensers with the big clear domes on top. One of them is labeled ‘UnSweet Tea’, one of them is labeled ‘Sweet Tea’, and the 3rd one is labeled ‘Sweetness’. ‘Sweetness’ was a light brown liquid that looked like very weak tea, and after a few seconds, I realized what it was.
Real sweet tea is not sweetened with sugar, but with simple syrup. Simple syrup is made by boiling one part water and one part sugar until it’s clear and then letting it cool.
You might not think that tea sweetened with simple syrup would taste different than tea sweetened directly with sugar, but it does. It probably has something to do with the slight caramelization that occurs with the boiling. Or maybe not. But it does taste different. And better.
So what was in the ‘Sweetness’ dispenser was tea-flavored simple syrup, for those who like a little extra ‘sugar rush’ with their sweet tea.
Looking over the menu, I ordered two of the Caniac Combo’s, the 6 piece dinners, since we always like to have leftovers for another meal. And for our drinks that were included, I got their fresh-squeezed lemonade for both of us.
Getting back to the gate, we found the chicken fingers and sides really, really good. But for what it’s worth, the pieces we got weren’t quite as big as the ones in the picture, but they were delicious. And 3 pieces was plenty, leaving us another meal for later.
Back to today. When I got up this morning about 11:30, I noticed DirecTV was down, saying it had lost the signal. But it was raining a little and the radar showed a lot of thunderstorms to our south, so I figured that was the problem.
But later in the afternoon after I was outside and Jan had gone in, it still wasn’t working. So I went around the front of the rig to check out our Winegard dome, and the first thing I saw was the empty stand that the dome sits on.
“Crap, somebody stole my dome,” was my first thought. But getting closer, this is what I found.
Now I knew it hadn’t been windy enough to do this, but what the heck? And then getting closer explained it all.
The power and signal cables were all dragged back toward the rig, pulling the dome with it. Looking at the prints in the mud told me a cow had walked through on his way to the small pond behind us and had gotten tangled in the wires laying on the ground.
I was a little worried about the dome still working after all that, but apparently it’s pretty tough. I put it back on the stand, rebooted it, and a few minutes later we had pictures again.
Later, Jan said that a cow had come around the the front of the rig earlier in the morning, stopped and then, looking at Jan, mooed and walked off. I guess the moo meant “I think I just broke something.”
Tomorrow it looks like more rain is in the forecast. Oh Boy!
September 18, 2015
A Tale of Two Packages . . .
Last Tuesday, the 15th, I mailed off two packages via the USPS’ Priority Mail. One of them went to a friend. The other one went to my daughter-in-law Linda, who’s down south of Houston, in Friendswood, TX. Both of them were supposed to arrive yesterday, Thursday.
But only one of them did, the one to my friend. The tracking on both showed them leaving Carthage for Shreveport, La Tuesday night, but after that, the paths differ. My friend’s package went right to him and and was picked it up today. And the tracking showed all that, including what time he picked it up at the Post Office today.
However, Linda’s package went to Shreveport and then disappeared, at least according to the tracking. According to that, it’s still sitting in Shreveport. So if it doesn’t show up by Monday, I’ll have to call them.
Nothing’s ever easy. But then if it was, life would be really boring.
Today was grocery day/errand day so I headed into Carthage about 11am. And after my Wal-Mart stop and before my Chicken stop, I stopped in at Tractor Supply. I wanted to pick up a couple of electric fence posts to mount my Mighty Mule Driveway Monitor transmitters on.
The higher I can get the transmitter, the further away I can receive the signal. And these 4 ft plastic electric fence posts are perfect.
The Mighty Mule works by sensing large pieces of metal moving by, i.e., cars and trucks. Which means it’s not affected by wind, light, pets, etc., just metal. But this also means that it doesn’t like any metal nearby, because it reduces the sensitivity of the system. So these plastic ones are perfect for that.
I think I mentioned that I was going to order another Mighty Mule to cover trucks leaving the pad, so I was happy to see that Tractor Supply had one in stock, and I probably would have gotten it, but the box had been opened, as well as the fact that it was $10 more than on Amazon, so I took a pass on it.
Used and more expensive is a bad combination.
Coming home, I made a stop at our new favorite place, Chicken Express. And this time I was in and out pretty quickly since I didn’t let anyone in line ahead of me who ordered 250 chicken tenders.
I only fall for that once.
Well, maybe twice if she was cute!
September 18, 2016
What Happened to Fall?
It was right there, just over the horizon, all those nice temps in the low 80’s and high 60’s, right there on the forecast, just a week off. And then they all went away. Just ‘POOF!, and they were gone, leaving leaving us with both temps and humidity in the 90’s.
Right now at almost midnight, it’s still 80 degrees and 90% humidity. This is not what I signed up for in the middle of September. I don’t like this.
Fix it!
A few days ago I put out a request on the Facebook Gate Guard Blogs for a relief guard for Sept. 28th, for about 10 hours, with no luck so far, so I thought I’d try here.
This September 28th will be our 49th Wedding Anniversary, and in the last 4 years of gate guarding we’ve always had it off, either with a relief guard, or been just lucky and the rig was moving so we had the day off.
But so far this year, nothing. I asked Jamie, our Gate Guard Services supervisor if he knew of anyone, and he said No. In fact he said that right now Jan and I are the ‘lone survivors’ here in east Texas, the only gate he has.
So I’m still looking and hoping.
I’ve got a couple of Amazon orders coming in tomorrow, so hopefully the whole address thing will still work with our PO carrier. She said she’d be on the lookout for orders with our name and address, so we’ll see.
I’ve also got a couple of more Amazon orders coming on Tuesday, but with a better address. Originally when I set up the address for here on Amazon, I tried to use:
Greg White
19413 Street Name
c/o RV at Drill Site
Hearne, TX 77859
But Amazon wouldn’t let me do it. It would take the street address, but if I put anything else, even a period in the 2nd address line, it would flag the 1st line as ‘Bad Address’. And if I tried to change the name from Greg White to Greg White – RV at Drill Site, it would also flag the 1st address line as bad. In fact, if I just tried to change the name to Gregory White, it would flag the 1st address line as bad.
I even tried deleting the address completely, and then logging out of Amazon and back in, again with no luck. But if I put the same street address in BOTH address lines, it liked that just fine.
WTH?
I had already sent in the first order with just the single street address, but decided to try again before I sent in the second one. So this time I ended up in an online chat with ‘Roshni’ at Amazon, who was able to enter the correct address for me with no problem. When I ask her if she knew why she could enter it and I couldn’t, she said I must have been doing it wrong.
WELL! I guess she told me.
I never had any trouble entering the OTHER 76 addresses in my Amazon account, just this one. But it’s my fault.
One of the things that in this first order is a second remote for our new Samsung TV, so that Jan has one on her side at the sofa, and I have one at my computer desk. Normally the only thing the TV remote gets used for is to change the source from HDMI-1, the DirecTV DVR, to HDMI-2 which is the feed from the desktop computer. That way we can both see things on the computer on the TV screen when I want to show Jan a cute moose video.
In addition to my peevishness about the small size of the new remote, I’m not really happy with the volume level that the TV puts out. It maxes out at 100, as shown on the screen, and 100 is where we have to set it for comfortable hearing. But we find a lot of variation in the volume level of shows we DVR and play back, and sometimes we would have to crank the volume up to hear them comfortably. And our old RCA TV had plenty of extra volume to do this. The Samsung, not so much.
It may be that I have to add a sound bar, or the like to boost the volume. We’ll see.
Today was a little busier than yesterday’s 23 vehicles, with 34 coming through the gate. Still not bad. But strangely enough, you don’t want it too slow. Or at least I don’t.
There were a couple of times on last year’s gate up by Carthage, TX, when although there were crew working at the rig, nobody came or left during a shift, and this was a day shift. Makes you feel kind of useless that you sat outside all day for nothing. Then you start wanting someone to come through the gate just to break the boredom.
Of course then you think back to two years ago when we were doing 500 vehicles a day, and a little boredom sounds awfully nice.
Today for dinner, we had leftover Blue Moon BBQ, still delicious, and because I had gotten us 1/4 wedge of Cowboy Country to add to today’s leftovers,
after I was done I still had two slices of pork loin and two slices of brisket leftover for a nice thick sandwich tomorrow.
So leftover leftovers. YUMMM!
September 18, 2017
Sunday/Monday Redux . . .
After the long day yesterday and then doing the blog last night/this morning, I slept in until almost noon.
About 1:30 I went down to the Ranger Station to check out of the park and then right back in. As I recounted before, the TT system would not let me extend our stay here, adding 3 days for a total of 14 days, a regular stay.
And even the main office couldn’t fix it. So the solution was to just check me out and then right back in again for another 3 days. I suspect that the the problem has something to do the fact that between Hurricane Harvey and the Colorado River TT not reopening until something in October, we will have been here 34 straight days by the time we leave here on Wednesday.
Then leaving the office I made a short trip over to Kroger’s for a few things before heading back home.
A little later in the afternoon our long-time friend’s Chis and Charles Yust showed up for a stay here at the park. Then about 6pm we all headed back down to El Bosque Mexican Restaurant.
Chris said she’s been jonsin’ for good Mexican since they just got back from a months-long trip to Alaska, and then a quick dash down to Fort Myers, FL to rescue their Class A right ahead of Irma.
And as usual, El Bosque came through with a delicious meal for all four of us.
Good food and great company!
One of our blog commenters recently ask why my photo never shows up on our blog. Well, beyond the obvious, not wanting to scare off our readers, I’m usually the one taking the photos.
So be careful what you wish for. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you’re smart you’ll cover the left side of the screen and check out the beautiful blonde on the right.
Now on to today, Monday:
Our friend Chris Yust came over this morning to bring Jan a gift of 4 pair of Alaska/Moose socks that she got on her and Charles’ recent trip up to the Land of the Northern Lights. And more great conversation.
I was able to finish up my porch light remote control setup. It’s now all wired up and working, but I still need to put it all back together inside the pedestal at the entry way. But checking it out, I did notice that the rear porch light is not working, neither with remote nor the manual switch. So I’ll have to get up on the ladder and check out the light itself.
As usual I have two more projects in the pipeline. First up is to rewire the toad light connection between the RV and our truck. The 4 pin connector has started to come apart and I’ve now got it patched with Gorilla Tape.
Actually I have two connectors for the toad, a 4 pin one for the lights and another, smaller one for the charge wire to keep the toad battery charged while we’re on the road. But looking for a replacement 4 pin connector at Wal-Mart, I found this one, a similar, but 5 pin one.
This will allow me to eliminate the extra connector. Nice.
Next up is to restring 3 of our rig’s Day/Night shades, using this kit from Amazon.
I did repair them about 5 years ago by just restringing them. But this kit will allow me to replace the cord bushing, springs, and cord retainers if I need to.
Both of these projects will probably get done after we move over to the Hillcrest RV Park in Punkin, TX this coming Wednesday. We’ll be for 11 days before coming back to the Lake Conroe TT on October 1st.
We had a lot of rain today, actually heavy rain with a lot of thunder and lightning, our first since all the Harvey-related stuff, and it did cool things off a little. It was a pleasant change with the sound of the rain on the rig roof.
Tomorrow and Thursday I’ll be back down in Clear Lake doing more client stuff. Then coming back home tomorrow I’ll be meeting Jan, Chris, and Charles down at the Rudy’s BBQ in the Spring area.
Really looking forward to it.
September 18, 2018
Dry As A Bone . . .
With our upcoming test drive this morning, Jan and I were up a little after 7am, and pulling out of our site about 9:30.
Since we still don’t have our generator working, I had switched the fridge over to propane, and was happy to see that the gas level was still showing full, so we hadn’t leaked any since we filled it up back in June.
Heading east on FM 646, we got on I-45S and then got back off 3 miles south on Exit 17 for our diesel top-off at the La Marque Buc-ee’s.
We got about 93 gallons at $2.799. We did about 805 miles since our last fill-up, for an average 8.6 MPG. Not bad.
I did learn something about using a credit card to get a large amount of diesel. Like many places, Buc-ee’s pumps shut off at $100. But unlike some places, Buc-ee’s doesn’t let you go inside and have them turn the pumps on. They have no control over them.
The problem is that when you’re doing this, you can normally only run a credit card through twice, before it’s refused. Normally I just use another card for the 3rd (or 4th) time. But this time I tried something different just to see if it would work, and it did.
The first two times I ran it through, I did it as a debit card. Then the next time, when it ask if this was a debit or credit card, I selected credit, and it went through. Nice to know.
Finishing up at Buc-ee’s, we drove right next door to the Tanger Outlets so Jan could check out the Vera Bradley factory store looking for a shoulder bag she had her eye.on. Turns out they didn’t stock that one, but she found another one she liked even better.
Actually, she found 3 bags and two lanyards. Yikes!
But it turned out to be not as I bad as I feared. Every thing in the store was 50% off, with most things another 20% off. Very Nice!
So the 3 bags and 2 lanyards totaled more than $10 LESS than the retail price of the one bag.
I can live with that. And even better, it made Jan happy.
When we came out of the Outlet Mall, I checked under the rig for any sign of my recent engine oil leak. And it was dry as a bone. Not a drop.
We completed our test drive by continuing on down I-45 and then coming back up on Hwy 6, and back to the park.
Everything else also worked fine on the test drive, so we’re good to go on our upcoming Florida trip in a couple of weeks.
September 18, 2020
Family Memories . . .
Well, it doesn’t look like the new gaskets and bolts for my oil filter adapter will come in until Monday, but I’m thinking that I might go ahead and install the Helicoils this weekend, and then finish up later in the week when the other stuff comes in.
I will need to pick up a spray can of cutting oil tomorrow for drilling out the old threads and cutting the new ones.
Jan has been going through some old photos and came across this photo taken at my parent’s wedding May 20, 1946.
Really brought back a lot of memories.
And she also found this newspaper clipping from 1966 concerning my nomination to the US Air Force Academy.
I was accepted, but my mother’s handwriting relates how I turned it down because my eyes would not let me fly. But then 3 years later I was working for a DOD contractor on military aircraft.
And as usual, they added an extra ‘G’ to my name. ‘Gregg’ is just that, but ‘Greg’ is short for ‘Gregory’, which is actually my name.
September 18, 2021
Wayward Flamingos . . .
The weather was nice this morning so after our coffee, we were outside working. While I replace all of Jan’s wayward flamingos in the garden, Jan cleaned up some of the debris and limbs left over from the storm last week.
Later, a little after 1pm, Jan and I drove up to Clear Lake to have lunch again at The Cookshack. I was hoping that the owner would be there this time so I could try to two levels hotter than AMF Chicken Tenders that he told me about on our first visit.
He was surprised that I was able handle the standard AMF version, but when we went back for our 2nd visit, he wasn’t there, and no one knew anything about a hotter version of AMF. However he was there today, but I still didn’t get the two-levels hotter version, just 1 level hotter.
I think I may have called his bluff, because when I asked him for the two-level version, he said he only had the one-level available, since it took him a MONTH to make up the even hotter stuff.
So what, he mixes it up in a big cauldron during the full moon, with eye of newt, puppy dog tails, lizard tongues, etc.
Yeah, right!
I’m not sure I could tell that today’s version was any hotter than the original one, but it was hot. However I told Jan I probably won’t order it again, since it was just the challenge more than anything.
So I got the 5 Chicken Tenders, one AMF+1, and the other 4 Texas Hot, the next level down, with Texas Caviar,
while Jan got the CookShack Salad and a side Tender.
After lunch I went by the office for a bit, while Jan read in the car, and then it was home by about 4pm.
A very nice day!
