Monthly Archives: November 2022
When New Friends Are Like Old Friends . . .
It pretty much rained all day today, but that didn’t stop us missing our 4:30 get-together with Ron and Anne at our local Jimmy Changas.
Ron has been a long-time blog reader and we’ve corresponded several times over the years, but this was the first we’ve met in person.
From Canada, they now live in the Ontario area and are down here in the States to visit their kids out west. And to get away from the cold weather up that way.
It was noticeable that where Jan and I were both wearing heavy long-shirts in our 45° weather, they were both in short sleeves.
Must be like a heat-wave to them.
And this was one of those rare occasions when you meet someone for the first time, and it seems like you’ve known them forever. Like we just picked up where we left off the last time we were together.
We both drive Jeep Liberty’s and Ron and I both like Science Fiction, and on and on. And I think we set a new record.
We got the restaurant a little before 4:30 and left a little after 8pm, so also 4 hours. In fact we were there so long that that I tipped our waitress a good bit extra because we hogged her table while they were busy. But she said no problem.
The Whole Motley Bunch.
Thursday I’m picking them up at their RV park and taking them up to Brandi’s in Katy where Jan is dog-sitting for a big Thanksgiving dinner. We got one of those Cracker Barrel Heat N Serve complete meals, from Turkey and Dressing to Pumpkin and Pecan Pies.
Already looking forward to seeing them again on Thursday.
November 19, 2009
Beach Party…
Since we wanted to get an early start this morning, I got the toad hooked up last night, and everything else stowed away.
We pulled out of my relative’s RV park about 8 am and headed down I-65 toward Gulf Shores about 380 miles away.
I-65 is in good shape and it was a smooth trip.
Jan hasn’t driven at all this year so she decided she wanted to drive for awhile. So a little south of Montgomery she took over. She drove about 125 mile until right before we got off the Interstate. At that point we were a little over 55 miles from our park.
We pulled into the Gulf State RV Park about 3:30, got parked and set up.
Getting to our site we passed one of my favorite signs.
What exactly ‘aggravates’ a gator? I would prefer to know.
We’re back in our favorite area along the bayou.
And of course Mister had to start checking things out. I think he’s hoping to catch himself a gator.
November 19, 2010
BBQ and DVD’s . . .
First off, Jan and I want to give our condolences to our good friend Gina Ellis on the death of her sister Bobbie Slayton. Bobbie was married to Deke Slayton, one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, who died in 1993.
We didn’t walk this morning because Jan woke up with a neck and back ache. She figured she just slept on it wrong. But we still had coffee, of course. Can’t go without coffee.
About 1:30 we headed up the road to have lunch at Spring Creek BBQ, and had our usual great meal of BBQ ribs and fixings.
Next it was on to the Post Office to mail a couple of letters, one of which was to South Dakota to renew our coach and toad tags.
After that it was off to a client’s to take a look at their malfunctioning CD/DVD Duplicator. This machine can make up to 100 copies of a CD or DVD automatically. This client sets up training courses for large corporations and often needs to make dozens of copies at a time. So rather than have someone set there and make one copy at a time, you just place your master disc in one slot and a stack of blanks in the other slot, and press START. Then come back later and they’re all done.
Anyway, this one is getting balky, and sometimes either slows down, or just stops all together.
But, as it turns out, they had to leave early, and the office was closed when I got there. I used to have a key since they are a long-time client, but I always give it back to them before we start traveling. So I’ll check back Monday.
Heading back toward the rig, we stopped off at Wal-Mart for gas and birdseed.
Then it was home for the night, but with one last chore. I needed to dump the waste tanks.
Luckily, I didn’t have the leak problem I had last time, so it didn’t take long.
November 19, 2011
Mulate’s is no more . . .
I was up about 5:45 this morning because I didn’t know how long it was going to take me to get the trailer hooked up and the truck up on the trailer and lashed down. But when I went outside I found that it’s not nice to mess with Mother Nature, because she turned on me this morning.
The Partly Cloudy forecast had become Liquid Sunshine.
Getting the trailer hooked up ended up being easier than I expected. Since it weighs 2200 pounds the rig had to come the trailer, not the other way around. There was no pushing it into place.
But with Jan guiding me, I had no trouble getting it lined up and cranked down on the ball hitch.
Luckily I already had a draw bar ball hitch to replace my Blue Ox tow bar system, so everything hooked right up, including the lights.
Next I pulled out the ramps and drove the truck up on the trailer, again with no problems. This thing just barely fits.
The trailer is equipped with straps that wrap around the front tires kind of like snow chains. Plus it also has a safety chain that hooks to the front axle.
Then I took the safety chains from my tow bar and ran them from the tow bar attachment points down to the trailer.
This thing isn’t going anywhere.
The trailer has surge brakes and a breakaway chain in case it gets loose, so that helps.
We headed out about 9:30 with Jan driving the rent car. She stopped and fill it up, and then we dropped it off at the rental place a few minutes later with no problems.
About 30 miles into the trip the rain disappeared and we had nice weather the rest of the day. And except for a couple of rough pavement areas, the ride was pretty smooth.
We go into Breaux Bridge, LA about 4 pm and drove straight over to Mulate’s, our favorite Cajun place and parked the rig in their lot. And came to find out that Mulate’s, a place we eaten at for more than 20 years, is now Pont Breaux.
But we were told it’s the same staff and the same menu, just different owners. Apparently the restaurant manager bought them out.
And luckily for us, the food is just as good as always. We’ll be back.
We got parked at the Breaux Bridge Wal-Mart a little after 5 and went inside to get some stuff for breakfast, and double-check it was OK to spend the night, since we didn’t see any other rigs.
I normally don’t ask if it’s OK if I see several other rigs already parked. Just what the manager needs is 5 or 10 people bothering him every night.
Tomorrow we have a 225 mile run to our park in Dickinson, TX, and then dinner with the kids and grandkids at our favorite Chinese restaurant.
YEAH!
November 19, 2012
1st Day Back in Texas . . .
Today is our first full day back in Texas, and it’s been interesting to see all the new restaurants that are opening in this area. We’ve got a P.F. Chang’s, a Cheesecake Factory, and a Longhorn Steakhouse, just to start. So it’s looking like some good eatin’s in store.
Getting back here reminds us how much we enjoy being here. And one of the many reasons is this view out the front of our coach.
Jan and I headed out on some errands about 10:30, but our first stop was one of our local favorites, King Food. We been eating here for more than 30 years, and we’re actually on our 4th owner. But they still have some of the best Chinese food around, and in fact this past year, they were selected one of the top 100 Chinese restaurants in the U.S.
After a great lunch, we headed over to the Honey-Baked Ham store to pick up a ham and a roasted turkey breast for our Thanksgiving meal up in Marble Falls. Luckily for us the line getting into the store was only about 15 minutes so we were on our way again pretty quick.
After dropping the ham and turkey at our daughter Brandi’s, our next stop was Kroger’s to pick up a couple of things. Then it was on to our storage room at Challenger Storage to pick up Jan’s bird feeder. She really enjoys watching all the many types of birds we have in this area.
As you can see Jan has a very popular bird feeder.
Our next stop was at one of my clients to check in and see what he broke while I was gone, and how hard it’s going to be to fix.
Then it was back home for the rest of the afternoon, which let us just relax and enjoy being back in Texas. Then after a nice afternoon, and an even better nap, we headed out about 5:45 to first have supper at another local favorite of ours, Monterey’s Little Mexico, for what’s pretty much the best Chicken Tortilla Soup around.
Then it was on to our ultimate goal for the evening, our first chance to see our grandson Landon (and Brandi and Lowell,of course) in about six months. The last time was the end of May when we came back to Houston for our granddaughter Piper’s high school graduation.
We did get to Skype with them occasionally, but it’s not like being there.
When we got to Brandi and Lowell’s, Landon was a little shy at first, but quickly warmed up to us, and started calling us Nana and PaPa. We stayed about an hour before it was time for his bath and bed.
A visit with Landon, a great way to round out the day.
November 19, 2014
A FixIt Day . . .
And a somewhat expensive lesson.
As soon as I got up this morning I called Bob Parker to pass on some info I found out last night about his Intellitec 900 system. I came across several posts about this system, and they said that when these systems start acting funny, to completely reboot it. You do this by removing shore power and then disconnecting the coach battery for about 10 minutes. You want absolutely no power coming to the unit, and using the coach battery disconnect won’t always disconnect every last thing in the coach. I know it doesn’t on our coach. When I talked to Bob, he and Donna were in Livingston, but he said he would try it when they got back. While I had him on the phone, I also told Bob I had his Wi-Fi router fixed and would drop it off when we got back to the park.
Next up was a couple of my own problems. I finally had the time and the decent weather to let me get back on my turn signal problem. And now I had a new problem to work on. Yesterday I noticed my brake lights weren’t working. So as a workaround, when we went out I would just turn on and off the headlights/taillights to simulate brake lights.
I decided the brake light problem was the most urgent so I started out at the brake light switch attached to the brake pedal under the dash. And I found no voltage there, so it was back to the fuse panel on the driver’s side edge of the dash. But there was no fuse for the brake lights here. And the owner’s manual was no help either.
So I was back to my Haynes manual, and that told me about a brake light fuse in the power distribution panel under the hood. Up till then I had always thought that everything in there was engine/transmission related. And most of it is. What I found it there was a bunch of these 1″ long cartridge fuses, a type I had never seen before.
Checking the specified fuse with an ohmmeter I found it was open. Eureka!
But what’s this? Five spaces down from the brake light fuse is one labeled ‘Turn Sig/Haz”. Could it be this simple for that problem too?
And that fuse was bad too. Just to be sure, I went back through all my books and manuals and nowhere was it mentioned that there was a fuse for the turn signals under the hood. They only mentioned the one in the dash fuse panel, and I had checked that one with no luck.
Blog readers will remember that a couple of weeks ago when I was working on this problem, I bought a $70 flasher control module to fix this problem because all the online stuff said this was the fix. But I was not able to pull the old one out from under the dash. I couldn’t get a grip on it, so I thought I’d let my son Chris try it when we get together Friday night.
Since I had never seen fuses like this before, I went back online for a little research. Found I could order the fuses online, but locally the Dodge dealer seem to be the only place that carried them. No luck with AutoZone, CarQuest, etc.
So, since it was now after 3pm Jan and I headed out for a couple of errands and then dinner. And my first stop was the Chrysler dealer in Conroe to get two of the fuses.
Coming back out to the truck with my $13 worth of fuses, I plugged them both in and, VOILA!, I had turn signals and brake lights again.
Of course I also have a $70 flasher control module just waiting to be used if my original one ever does go out. OUCH!
With that fixed, we were on our way to have dinner at Applebee’s, one of our favorite chains. And no matter what we order as an entrée, we always get the Green Bean Crispers appetizers.
These are lightly-breaded green beans, flash fried, and served with smoky bacon ranch and creamy horseradish dips. Really good, and well recommended.
Somewhere in here, I talked to Bob Parker who said that rebooting his panel fixed the problem with his Intellitec system. Great!
I love it when a plan comes together.
Finishing up our meal, our next stop was the Academy Sports & Outdoors for a bottle of the diesel biocide to be sure that the colder, wetter temps don’t cause algae growth and clogged fuel filters in our coach.
Next up was a quick stop at the Wal-Mart before we headed back to the park, and along the way I dropped off the router at Bob and Donna’s rig.
Some readers may wonder about the two fuses and why they would blow, and why I wasn’t worried about a short in the system causing the problem. And why I wasn’t too worried about the fact that I had two fuses blow.
Well, when I closely examined the fuses, there was no indication of a ‘hard’ blow. No burnt, smoky areas inside, no melted plastic. etc. In fact it was hard to tell the fuse WAS blown without testing it.
Fuses age, especially in an automotive environment with the heat and the vibration, so sometimes they just up and quit. And that seems to be what happened this time. And the coincidence of two fuses dying in a relative short time, well, as Sigmund Freud is reputed to have said,
“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
November 19, 2015
Sometimes A Coincidence . . .
is just a coincidence.
First up, a correction.
Yesterday I talked about the Power Tank Tire Inflator that I use, and I gave you an Amazon link and picture.. But blog reader Len Coffelt pointed out that that one probably wasn’t the one I was thinking about. And he’s right. That one now only goes to 60psi, not exactly useful for large RV tires.
The funny thing is that listing came directly from my past orders list on Amazon. And my Power Tank Inflator is labeled an TI-8200.
So I guess that sometime since 2009 when I bought mine, Power Tank changed the specifications on the 8200.
The one that you probably want is this one.
Power Tank TIG-8170 Tire Inflator
This one, like my old 8200, goes to 160psi. and should do the job.
Sorry about that.
The last couple of days we’ve had an invasion of the Asian Ladybugs, or Lady Beetles as they’re also called. And unlike our native species, the Asian ones bite.
And the other way to tell the difference is that the Asian ones are not just red, but a lot of different colors. And the Asian one s have more spots.
It’s been a real pain keeping them out of the rig when they’re swarming everywhere.
The next thing up on my chore list this morning was swap out my old, defective transfer switch for the new one I just received a few days ago. I didn’t expect it to be a big hassle, and it wasn’t.
It was an uber-hassle. But not really because of the transfer switcher
Over the surface it looked simple, and it was. Turn off the rig power at the 50 amp breaker on the generator and unplug the shore power cable, remove the 9 color-coded power wires and the 3 bare ground wires, pick up the old unit, put the new one in its place and reverse the wiring procedure.
Then came the test.
Regular readers will remember that my problem was that my transfer switch would only switch over to the rig’s generator as long as we were still running on shore power. But if we wanted to use the generator on the road, then I had to start the generator, go back and lift the bed, remove the compartment cover, and then use a large screwdriver to push down on the contactor until it locks in.
A real pain in the rear if you’re doing this on the side of the road because you decided you wanted run the house AC’s.
So after I got everything swapped out, the next thing was to start up the rig generator and see if it works. And it did.
Twenty seconds after I started it up, the new transfer switch clunked, and we had AC power in the rig.
The green LED shows that the switch is in generator mode.
Thinking the problem was fixed, I shut off the rig generator and went outside to plug back in and flip the breaker on. Note that I don’t depend on just the breaker to protect me.
I came back in the rig expecting power to be on, but had nothing. And back at the transfer switch with my voltmeter, I had nothing coming in there either. So at least it wasn’t another bad switch.
Back outside, there’s no way to measure or see the voltage at the generator while you’re plugged into it, so I again flipped the breaker, unplugged the power cable, flipped the breaker back on, and checked the voltage at the socket.
I had 122 volts on both legs. So plugging back in, I went over to my electrical bay and checked my Progressive EMS.
Aha!
I had 122 volts on L1 and 15 volts on L2. And with that low a voltage on L2, my EMS was not letting power into the coach.
Cycling the breaker again, I watch the EMS display as it went through its testing before putting power to the rig, and saw L1 at 122V and L2 at 122V
But as soon as the EMS tried to put power to the rig, it dropped right back out, showing 15 volts on L2.
WTH?
At this point the first I thought was that something was wrong in the coach, and it was pulling the L2 voltage down. But then everything was fine in the coach because the rig generator didn’t have any problems.
Again, WTH?
So turning the breaker back off, I unplugged the output of the EMS system from the coach at the main power feed.
And powering up, the EMS still showed L2 at 15volts.
So now it was a generator problem.
3 years ago when we were gate guarding down in south Texas, we had generator do something similar where one leg dropped to 75 volts. But it stayed at 75 volts. But here we were seeing 122 volts until we put a load on it, and then it dropped to 15 volts.
And that indicates a bad connection somewhere.
I put a call into Todd, our GGS service guy, and he said it was probably the 50 amp breaker, and that he’d already replaced two others this week. He said he was the other side of Bryan/College Station and it would between 7 and 8 pm before he could get here.
I told him no problem, and that we’d just run our rig generator if we needed.
Especially now that our transfer switch works.
We found out this afternoon that we don’t have a 12 hour gate. We have a 10 hour gate, with everyone coming in between 6:30 and 7am, and they’re all gone by 4:30pm. In fact they couldn’t work at night if they wanted to, because they no longer have any light towers. They took them all out today, I guess to save money on the rentals.
So Jan and I headed out about 5pm for one last steak dinner at Longhorn Grille, and it was as good as last time.
Todd showed up about 7:45pm and 15 minutes later we were back on shore power.
Great job, Todd.
This lesson here is that it’s easy to get led down the wrong path when you’re troubleshooting something. Most of the time it’s the last thing you fooled with that’s causing your new problem, but then other times, just enough to keep you on your toes, it’s just a coincidence.
November 19, 2016
What If We Erase Our Past?
George Santayana famously said,“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Or maybe you like Mark Twain’s version better when he said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
But you can’t remember the past if it’s disappearing right before your eyes.
Stalin’s Communist regime was probably the first modern government to make a consistent effort to erase the photographic past, as seen in this famous comparison.
Makes you really appreciate how much harder this was in the pre-Photoshop days.
In Stalin’s case, whole Cabinets, as well as top generals, would just disappear from history. I guess this is what they mean by “Out of sight. Out of mind.” Poof! You’re gone.
And it wasn’t just the Russian Communists, but the Chinese Communists too.
Bo Gu, a protégé and senior adviser to Mao Tse-Tung, apparently got on Mao’s bad side, and Bo and bunch of other senior leaders died in a plane ‘crash’ in 1946. Almost immediately, Bo and the others, AND the plane crash pretty much disappeared from history.
Even Hitler got in on the act when he was mad at Joseph Goebbels about something. Goebbels also disappeared from official photographs for a while until he got the message.
At least Goebbels only disappeared from photographs, and not permanently as most did.
Even the ancient Egyptians were not above erasing a Pharaoh from history. Akhenaten, son of Amenhotep III, husband of Nefertiti, and father to King Tutankhamun, or King Tut, as Steve Martin calls him, tried to move the populous away from the many different gods they worshiped to a belief in only one supreme god, Aten, the sun god.
Akhenaten even built a great new city dedicated to Aten called Amarna. But it only lasted about 10 years until Akhenaten’s death. Then the people and the priests revolted, reinstalled their pantheon of gods, and did their best to rid history of any mention of Akhenaten and Aten. They tore down the temples to Aten, destroyed Amarna, and even removed Akhenaten from all official king lists, even going so far as to chisel his name from all monuments and stonework.
And we see the same thing happening in the same area today with ISIS, the Taliban, etc., destroying ancient Mesopotamian relics because they’re not mentioned in the Koran, so they can’t be allowed to exist.
And now we see this happening in America today.
There seems to be a concerted effort to erase the Confederacy, the South, and even the Civil War from present day knowledge, to the point of pulling down mountains. Or at least mountainsides.
There has been a call to remove this sculpture from the side of Stone Mountain outside Atlanta.
Depicting Confederate President Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee and General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, at three acres it’s the largest high-relief sculpture in the world, even larger than Mount Rushmore. And some people want it dynamited or sandblasted to get rid of it.
And all over the South flags are coming down, and streets, parks, buildings, and even high school football teams are being renamed.
And on a somewhat more personal note, Vanderbilt University is spending $1.2 million to remove the word “Confederate” from “Confederate Memorial Hall” that’s on one of its buildings on the Peabody campus. I say ‘personal’, because I actually lived there for about six months.
In 1957 my mother went back to college to get her teaching degree, at the then Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville, TN, one of the best schools in the south. At the time we lived down in Gulf Shores, AL, where my father was in the commercial shrimping business with seven of the big ocean-going shrimp boats. So my mother and I moved to Nashville for her school. We were supposed to be in family housing, but there was a delay due to new construction. So my mother, with the help of some college friends, snuck me into Confederate Hall.
I say ‘snuck’ because I wasn’t supposed to be there. You see, Confederate Hall was the women’s dorm – single female coed women. I kind of became a mascot, and the girls would help sneak me in and out to avoid being seen by the resident dorm ‘mothers’. And yes, I do remember seeing coeds in the hall in various states of undress.
Unfortunately I was NINE!
But I digress. Confederate Memorial Hall was built in 1933 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and donated to Peabody with the stipulation that it always bear the name “Confederate Memorial Hall”. In fact early on it was reserved for the female descendants of Confederate veterans who were able to live there free.
Well, some years later Vanderbilt University took over Peabody, and since 2002 has been trying to change the name of Confederate Hall but that pesky ‘stipulation’ kept getting in the way. But finally this past August Vanderbilt paid the United Daughters of the Confederacy $1.2 million (the equivalent of the $50,000 the UDC paid for its construction in 1933) and gained the right to remove the word ‘Confederate’ from the building and just call it ‘Memorial Hall’. Ironically they had already been calling it that in all their literature for years. So they paid $1.2 million to chisel some stone off a building that didn’t really change anything.
Is it just me, or would it not have made more sense to use the $1.2 million for minority scholarships? Did they ask anybody, “Do you not want to see the word “Confederate” or would you like a free scholarship?” Seems a pretty easy choice to me.
Finally I’m now waiting for someone to call for the renaming of Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. You see, the name Arlington comes from the ‘Arlington House’ estate which passed down from George Washington’s family to the wife of Robert E. Lee. Yeah, that one.
So at the beginning of the Civil War, the estate of Arlington House, and the present location of Arlington National Cemetery, was owned by Robert E. Lee.
Rename it quick before it offends.
So, are we becoming too Politically Correct? If we erase all the bad things from our past, how will we know what to avoid next time.
Time will tell, I guess.
November 19, 2017
Fun On Ice . . .
After a quiet Sunday morning, Jan and I were on our way up to Sugar Land Ice a little before 12:30.
We were meeting Brandi, Lowell, and Landon at the rink for Landon’s Ice Hockey practice. Due to all the family stuff going on, he missed the first couple of practices, but he’s back on the ice, and you can certainly see the improvement from last year.
Landon and the girl on the team were two of the most aggressive players and often found themselves facing off over the puck.
And there they are again going after the puck in the corner.
And of course you know it’s all over when the Zamboni comes out.
After practice was over we all headed down to the nearby Floyd’s Cajun Seafood. It doesn’t make any difference which Floyd’s we go to, it’s always delicious.
Jan had her usual Chicken Fried Chicken with Sweet Potato Fries, while I got my usual bowl of Shrimp Gumbo, this time with a side of Fried Okra.
I don’t think you could cram any more shrimp in there if you tried.
Brandi says that Landon has gotten hooked on those brain teaser sites like Luminosity, and plays them all the time now.
She also says he’s better at them then she is.
Finishing up, I gave Jan a kiss and send her home with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon where she’ll be Landon-sitting until I pick her up Tuesday afternoon.
I mentioned yesterday all the old photos and slides we’d come across. Here’s one of Chris and Brandi with Jan’s father, probably at Disney World in about 1976-1977.
Finishing up, Brandi posted this photo of Landon in his elf costume.
She said this is probably the last year she’ll be able to get him in that outfit.
November 19, 2018
Now I’m Worried . . .
Work was pretty much as usual today, changed a few prices online and in the catalog, fixed a few machines, and monkeyed around with the Shipping program some more.
The only thing different was that I left about work about 2pm to head back to the rig. I was going to pick up Jan and then take her up to Brandi’s to Landon-sit for a few days until Thanksgiving.
Since it was on the way, I pulled into the new Costco to fill up my tank. Last time I was here, regular was $1.99, so I was curious to see if that price was just a grand opening special, or what.
So it was even a little cheaper now. Nice.
And saving about 20 cents a gallon would pretty quickly cover the $60 cost of a Costco membership
I got back to the rig about 2:45, and loading up the bags and stuff Jan was taking with her up to Brand’s, all I can say is Now I’m Worried.
Jan had 4 large bags and some hang-up stuff . . . for a two day/three night stay. So how much is she going to have on our 4 week European Cruise Tour?
Since Brandi called on the way and said Landon wasn’t feeling well, Jan and I decided to stop off at La Finca Mexican Restaurant for dinner and then take something for them. Later at the house I helped Landon get his Xbox and Nintendo Retro video games hooked up and working on the upstairs TV.
I waited for the traffic to die down before heading back to the rig about 7:30.
So now it’s just Karma and me for a couple of days.
November 19, 2019
Nothing New Here in Luling . . .
Well, maybe a little.
Earlier, about 8:30 Jan and I had gone down to have the free breakfast which turned out to be pretty good. Then we just lounged around the room for the rest of the day, which was really nice for a change. While Jan read her Kindles (she has 4, 2 Paperwhites and 2 Fires, with one or two always charging.),
Since we had to either check-out or re-up by noon here at the Luling La Quinta, I put in a call to Dix’s Diesel Center about 11:45 to see if there was any news. I was told that they were working on it, but that’s all they knew. Which was about what I expected this early.
When I called down to re-up, I was told that since I had reserved our room through Trivago and Booking.com, I would need to come by the front desk and fill out new paper work, so I told them I’d come by on our way out to dinner around 4pm.
When I did go by, I was surprised to find a big difference in the price of our room. When I went through Trivago, 4 or 5 services, including Booking.com, listed our King room for $79 a night. I went with Booking since I had used them before.
When we checked in yesterday, the total, including about $10 for taxes, was $89. But when we re-upped today, the room was only $80.35, $9 cheaper.
So what’s up with that? I thought Trivago et.al. were supposed to be cheaper, not more expensive. More research is needed on this, so I’ll ask the front desk tomorrow.
On our way to dinner, we stopped off at Dix’s to pick up a few things from the rig and check in at the office. While in the rig, I was happy to see that our Dometic refrigerator was still refrigerating along just fine on propane. And since they’re working on it out in the yard, there’s no way to plug it in anyway.
When I checked with the office, they said they were waiting for parts, but that the mechanic had to go help his wife who was stranded when she broke down. But looking at what they had pulled off the engine, I’m assuming it was a new air compressor they’re waiting on. They didn’t know if anyone had looked at the oil leak problem yet, so I reiterated that I did want it looked at even after the air compressor was fixed.
After we got home I Googled air compressor prices, and though it was hard to tell exactly which one I needed (I call Cummins tomorrow), it looks like the price should be between $600-800, about what I expected. But of course there’ll be labor on top of that.
Karma is really enjoying herself and spends most of the day laying dead center in the middle of the king size bed.
She may not want to go back to the rig after this.
November 19, 2020
No Car Licking Allowed . . .
.Jan and I headed up to Webster about 2:30, first for lunch at East Star China Buffet once again.
Just as good as always.
Then it was on over to Sam’s Club to pick up a couple of prescriptions before we headed back down toward Santa Fe, with a stop at the local Jack’s to pick up some Christmas Antenna Balls for our truck and our Jeep. But we were quickly informed that they no longer do antenna balls, and haven’t for a while.
In fact, it looks like the last time they did any may have been back in 2014. At least that’s the last year shown for any at the AntennaBallStore website.
Oh, well.
Then we stopped off at the PO and found that the South Dakota tag renewal stickers for our truck and rig had come in. Now hopefully our new Jeep tags will come in next week some time.
Apparently, up in Alaska right now, car licking is a big problem. Well, a moose licking your car is the problem.
So much so that they’re even posting signs about it.
it seems the moose really like the taste of the road salt used to de-ice the highways up there. So to them your pickup is just one big salt lick.
Supposedly it draws the moose out into traffic where they get hit. But they already get hit a lot anyway.
Or maybe the moose get their tongue stuck to your car and can’t get loose.
Like in “A Christmas Story”.
November 19, 2021
A Quickie . . . Blog
I have my follow-up appointment with my neurosurgeon this coming Monday afternoon, about 11 days after my surgery. Hopefully he will allow me to remove the ‘collar of shame’ a few days early so Jan won’t have keep driving me into work next week.
But we’ll see.
Tomorrow we’re meeting our long-time friend Tricia at Gator’s for lunch. Then it’s on up to the Staples in Webster to look at orthopedic business chairs. The captains chair at my computer desk is pretty much worn out.
And since we don’t really plan on traveling in the rig anymore, we figured a recliner would work fine and and give me a lot more support.
But I’ll have to get someone to help me get the old chair out, and then remove the base plate from the floor. I’ve seen an RV Handyman van around so I’ll try to track him down.
But before that I want to actually test-sit in potential candidates before I order something. Then I’ll probably order it online and have it delivered so I don’t have to try and wrestle it in and out of the Jeep.
If I even could.
I hit another recovery goal today, by opening a Coke can pop tab with my bare fingers, instead of having to use a fork.
Next up, wearing jeans again. About 3 weeks ago I had to switch over to sweats because I could no longer button/unbutton them, and even worse, I couldn’t zip/unzip them either.
The Ninth Time’s The Charm . . .
Getting into work today, I first found that my computer had rebooked, probably due to Microsoft’s monthly Tuesday updates. But everything seemed to be working OK until I started trying to scan some invoices that needed to be emailed.
But when I started the Scan app it said it couldn’t connect the the scanner. So haven’t seen this before after previous updates, I just unplugged the printer/scanner power and plugged it back in.
No joy.
So next time I went whole-hog and powered off and repowered the computer and the scanner.
Again, the same.
So even though the printer part worked OK, I next replaced the printer cable.
Still nothing.
And running the HP Troubleshooter was no help either, just telling me it couldn’t talk with the scanner either, and to try all the stuff I had already tried.
I knew the scanner itself worked since I could manually scan from the printer’s control panel, and even use the Scan to Email function, which is what I did to take care of the scans I was trying to make to start with.
So then I starting working my way through all the multiple ways you can install the drivers and software – USB, Ethernet, Wireless, and combinations of all of them. And nothing worked.
I knew the USB port was good, though I did swap them around, so I started looking at new printers from Amazon, thinking that was about the only solution to the problem.
But not ready to give up, I tried one more iteration. And suddenly it worked, the ninth time I tried.
I guess the threat of being replaced scared the old printer into working.
Hopefully that’s it, at least until the next Microsoft update.
Tomorrow we get to meet some old/new friends.
Ron and Anne, long-time blog readers are snow-birding down from New Brunswick, Canada and are staying in the area and wanted to get together. So we’re taking them out for Mexican at Jimmy Changas tomorrow afternoon, and then we invited them to have Thanksgiving dinner with us up at Brandi’s in Katy.
We’ve reserved one of those Cracker Barrel Heat N Serve complete Thanksgiving Dinners so we’ll have plenty to go around.
Really looking forward to meeting them in person for the first time.
Well, on the 5G front we have a new record.
On our way up to Conroe yesterday I saw they had 5G at the Flying J north of Houston, and checked it out.]
Yes, that’s 304 Mbps! the fastest I seen yet.
But still only 4G here at the rig.
Bummer!
Thought for the Day:
“Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.” – Hedy Lamarr, co-inventor of the spread spectrum, frequency-hopping technique used in today’s cell phone system and Bluetooth technology.
November 18, 2009
Stars fell on Alabama…
Today is our last full day here in Athens, AL. Tomorrow we will head south about 380 miles to spend a few days at Gulf Shores, AL before heading back to Houston next Monday.
We started off by having lunch at Dub’s Burgers, a place that I use to eat at over 40 years ago, And it’s still great!
After lunch we took care of some errands, stopping off at Tractor Supply Store, U. G. White’s, a great old time hardware store in downtown Athens, and the Post Office.
Leaving there we drove by our old house here in Athens that we lived in starting in 1963 when we moved back from Colombia, South America. The house and the subdivision still look good.
About 4:30 pm we picked up Glee, Dave, and Joy and drove over to Huntsville to have dinner at Rosie’s Cantina, the same place where we ate lunch a couple of days ago.
And again we had a great time. Hopefully it won’t be another 40+ years until we get together again.
November 18, 2010
Up Late and Falling Behind . . .
Today got started before I even got up. Some days are just like that. The day just takes off and leaves you behind.
I had calls from two clients waiting for me when I got up.
After talking to the two clients, setting up appointments, and catching up on my email and computer stuff, Jan and I headed out for our walk. We’re up to a mile and half now, and hopefully we can get back up to the 3 miles we were walking before. We’ll see.
Later in the afternoon we headed up to League City to have lunch at Cracker Barrel. Once again it’s Turkey and Dressing day, Jan’s favorite.
Then it was time for a special treat. We went by Landon’s day care and picked him up early to get some time with him.
And of course we had to show him off, so we took him by our friend’s Bob & Maria’s house for a while.
Next it was on to Sam’s Club to pick up some things. Then we went by Brandi and Lowell’s to get some Amazon packages that we knew had come in. Found Lowell already there, but told him we were keeping Landon . . . at least until we met him, Brandi, and our Chris at Café Adobe for supper. Unfortunately, Linda, Chris’ wife was working, but we did get to see our granddaughter Piper, since she works there as a hostess now.
The food was good, and getting together with the family was even better. Too bad Linda couldn’t be there, but we’ll see her soon.
Finally got home about 7:30 after a busy day.
Hopefully I won’t start out behind tomorrow.
November 18, 2011
Last Day in Gulf Shores . . .
Today was our last day here in Gulf Shores so after coffee we headed out to visit some of our favorite places in the area.
Our first stop was Tallulah’s Treasures, a really neat gift shop that used to be known as Tootie’s Yellow Broom. This is probably the most unique gift shop I’ve ever seen, and believe me, we’ve visited a lot of them over the years. They have some really neat stuff.
When we were here in March of 2009 this really high-end RV Resort was going up in Orange Beach right across the road from the ocean.
And when I say high-end, I mean the lots started at $500,000 and went to over $1,000,000. The sites were nice, and although not very large, they did include a small house or casita on the lot as you can see in this photo.
Well, this is what it looks like now. Overgrown and out of business.
Guess those million dollar lots didn’t move as well as they thought.
Our next stop was in the Romar Beach area where my parents had two beach houses. At one time they owned all the property from about 100 feet behind me over to the big condo building on the right, 300 front feet on the Gulf.
And, before September 2004, both sides of the road here was filled with houses, but after Hurricane Ivan hit in September 2004, this is what’s left. The storm scoured the beach clean. The pink cottage on the left is one of my parent’s houses, and the only one to survive Ivan.
Originally there were two of them, and they were side by side on the right side next to the condo. But over the years they sold both of them. One was torn down and replaced by something bigger, a 3 story brick house. The one now on the left was moved there and also replaced by a bigger brick house of the beach side.
And I’m sure if the other hadn’t been torn down it would have survived too. My father knew how to build for the beach and it showed.
Below is the beautiful ocean view from our beach houses.
Later we drove down the west beach to the bridge where we always see a lot of Jan’s favorite pelicans. There is a large water main along the bridge and the pelicans really like to rest there.
It’s a lot of fun to watch them jockey for position and push each other off the pipe.
While waiting to hear from the U-Haul trailer guy we drove over to the beach and took the walkway out to the ocean.
I’ve visited beaches all over the continental US and I still think Gulf Shores beaches are pretty much the most beautiful around. These sugar sand beaches can’t be beat.
About 3:30 we headed over to pick up the car trailer we were renting to tow our truck home. Normally we would have to pick it up ourselves by taking the rig over there, but I offered the guy $20 if he would deliver it. So after signing the paperwork, the guy followed us back over to our site and dropped it off.
One thing I was surprised to learn is how heavy this thing is.
I had hoped to be able to push it the last 15 feet to hitch it to the back of the rig tomorrow morning, but this sucker weighs 2200 POUNDS. So I’m going to have to back the rig up to it, and hope to get it aligned. We’ll see how it works out.
About 4:30, after getting the trailer delivered, we picked up Eldy and Jeanne and headed up toward Foley to Lambert’s Throwed Rolls. They had never eaten there so we wanted them to give it a try.
This time I just the veggie plate, which along with the pass-arounds, was a great meal. Jan had her usual Fried Chicken, as did Jeanne, while Eldy had the Fried Catfish, which he thought was delicious.
Eldy and Jeanne are staying in the area for another week or so, so we gave them a number of other places to eat and visit. Hopefully they’ll enjoy the area as much as we do.
Tomorrow night we’ll Wally-Dock in Breaux Bridge, LA before arriving in Houston on Sunday. We’re really looking forward to seeing everyone.
November 18, 2012
The Last Day of 2012 . . .
or Shake, Rattle & Roll.
Yes, this is our last day of travel for 2012. We ended traveling 7151 miles this year, quite a bit less than our usual 10 to 12 thousand or so. But we might make it up next year. Who knows?
After yesterday’s sunset picture, I got this sunrise with the fog floating over the lake.
We left Poche’s RV Park a little before 8am, heading for the Galveston Bay RV Park about 230 miles away, which will be our home for the next two or three months.
We stopped to top off our diesel tank right before we got back on I-10W. We had planned to grab a breakfast sandwich from the Quiznos Subs at the service station, but it turns out Quiznos doesn’t do breakfast like Subway so that was out.
Instead we ended up at the Cracker Barrel about 8 miles away in Lafayette. Love their RV parking.
Our trip was mostly fairly smooth with some intermixed Shake, Rattle & Roll. Since we no longer had the rear airbags, the ride was a rougher than normal with a lot of vibration. We kept our speed at 55, but even so, we’d hit rough patches that caused the rig to start porpoising and bouncing.
But we survived and pulled into the park about 3:30. On our way we stopped right up the road and topped our diesel off again. I also added a dose of algicide to the tank before I filled up to forestall any problems with condensation in the tank.
And on a pleasant note, diesel was only $3.53, a nice change from the $3.81 in Breaux Bridge this morning. I love Texas.
About 5:30 we headed up to the park clubhouse for Thanksgiving dinner. Jan made a batch of her Heavenly Hash last night in Breaux Bridge so it would be all ready to go this afternoon. We had a great meal, and a fun time meeting old friends and making new ones.
We even found some French Canadians that were nice. The couple were from Quebec and said they were heading to Mission, TX for the winter. Jan asked if they’d been to Florida, and the husband said he didn’t like Florida in the winter. When Jan asked him why not, he said there were too many French Canadians down there.
Tomorrow will be a busy day, checking in with a couple of clients, picking up food for our Thanksgiving, and get ready for our trip to Marble Falls on Wednesday.
Busy, busy, busy.
November 18, 2013
. . . before the storm !
Well, we had gotten the idea that our gate would pretty much shut down after we left on Saturday and everyone would have to unlock and relock the gate behind them as they come and go.
But that calm came to a screeching halt this morning when we found out that starting today a new rig is coming in, but not a full drilling rig, but a work-over rig. It looks like they’re still working on problems at the frack site.
And our vehicle count jumped up from the 25-30 we had been having, to almost 75 today. Hope we can stand the pressure.
Question: What is 62 °?
Answer: That’s the temperature range we’ve had here in the last couple of days.
A few nights ago it got down to 35° here at the gate, and then yesterday it got up to 97°. Quite a spread, and keeps things interesting on how to dress.
Then last night it was so foggy and humid that water was dripping off the edge of the canopy like it was raining. But it did make for a real nice light with the flare going all night. It was just a large orange ball in the fog that lit up the whole area like a big light bulb.
Of course the flare been pretty active in the daytime too, with this going on a few days ago.
This one came with a big “WHOOMP”. It’s always nice to have sound effects with your light show, but I’m glad we’re not any closer.
Right now it looks like a 70% chance of thunderstorms on Friday, and since where the rig is parked gets really muddy, I don’t want to take any chances on not being able to pull out on Saturday morning. Jan would either be homicidal or suicidal, or a little of both. (Actually, probably a lot of both.) So Wednesday or Thursday I’m going to back up the rig about 10 feet which will put the rear wheels firmly on the gravel area where we park the toad
I had planned on cranking up the rig anyway on Friday just to be sure everything’s working, the levelers come up, etc. This way I’ll just do it a little early, won’t even unhook the power or bring the slide in. Easy Peazy.
After a long dry spell, we got another free meal today, this time from Choke Canyon BBQ right down road. We get BBQ there every other week or so, so we know it’s good. Really looking forward to having it for dinner tomorrow night.
Wrapping up, I came across a neat website today that solves a regular problem. Of course I may be the only one who didn’t know about it, but it’s called PrintFriendly.
Ever try to print a webpage and it comes out all scrunchy and unreadable? Well, PrintFriendly does a real good job of fixing that for you. You can even set it up as a PRINT button on your blog or website so visitors can easily print something. Neat!
Check it out.
November 18, 2014
Lost Puppies . . .
Today started with hot coffee and a plea for help on Facebook. Donna Huffer and Bob Parker were having electrical problems with their Discovery so I went over about 12:30 to see if I could help.
At first we thought it was a problem with the transfer switch since everything worked OK with the inverter on, but on shore power, nothing was getting through to the coach from Line 2.
But tracing it out finally led us to the output relay board on the circuit breaker panel. Power was coming in to the panel, through the circuit breaker, going into what I think is the EMS (Electrical Management System) board, and then not coming out.
I tried to find a copy of the manual for this Intellitec Model 900 system Bob has, but every link I found online was dead. So no help there. I finally headed back to our rig about 2pm because I told Jan we’d go out shopping about then. Bob was going to follow up with the Intellitec people to see what they said.
Jan and I headed out a little after 2pm with our first stop right down the road at Omega Farm’s RV Park. We have to be out of here at the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails on Friday before we head over to Escapee’s Park in Livingston on Saturday. We can only stay here for 5 days if we want to be able to come back here on the 26th for a two week stay. I had hoped to be able to ‘buy’ a day here, but found out that it still counts against your in/out days. And complicating things is the fact that we need to be down in the Clear Lake area for Jan’s oncologist appointment Friday afternoon. So it’ll be easier to just move a couple of miles down the road for one night.
Next up we stopped at the Love’s Truck Stop one exit up north on I-45 because I need another bottle of Diesel Biocide to prevent algae growth in our fuel tank with all the cold, wet weather we’re having. But no luck.
Last time we bought some, it was at an Academy Sporting Goods in their boating department, so I’ll try there tomorrow.
By this time Jan was getting hungry so we made another run at El Bosque, tracking down their new location. We had tried to eat there Sunday night but found they had moved to the new location, so we ended up at the Ryan’s across the street.
The food was just as good as we remembered it, the new location is very nice,
much larger and brighter with a lot of windows. But as one reviewer wrote on Yelp about the new location, the wait staff wandered around like ‘lost puppies’. We would ask our waiter for something and he would disappear for several minutes, then come back out of the kitchen, see us, and suddenly remember what he was supposed to do for us, and then scurry off to get it. Like he said, “Lost Puppies”.
Our last stop for the day was the really nice Kroger’s over in Willis for a few things before we finally headed home.
Thursday night we’re driving down to Katy to have dinner with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon at Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro, one of our all time favorite places. And hopefully we’ll be able to have dinner Friday night with Chris, Linda, and Piper when we’re down in Clear Lake for Jan’s doctor’s appointment.
And even better, no bells.
November 18, 2015
Raw, Not Grilled.
Well, after being told that they were finishing up the Flowback & Testing tomorrow (Thursday) and then we’d be down for 4 or 5 days before the Workover rig moved in, it all changed.
About 6am this morning, the Workover rig crew started streaming in. And our vehicle count went from about 35 a day to 60 vehicles today. Relatively a big jump, but still not real busy.
I went in to go to bed at 7am, and when I came back out about 11:30, the workover rig was up and a lot of the setup crew had started leaving.
About then I headed into Carthage to pick up lunch at Sonic. Jan wanted, as usual, one of their Regular Chile Cheese Coney’s, and I went with my usual, the New York Dog, but this time I asked for raw onions and not grilled like I got last time. I thought that maybe it was a mistake, but when I checked their website, Yep, they now put grilled onions on it.
In the past when I’ve gotten one it’s always had raw onions, and I don’t know why they changed. I’ve had New York Dogs IN New York, and never came with the onions grilled. The raw ones provide the perfect little bit of crunch to go with the sauerkraut and the spicy mustard.
I will say this is one of the busiest Sonic’s I’ve seen, especially for a small town. They have a total of 36 stalls, and I had to drive all the way around to find an open one. And that 36 includes 6 new ones that they recently added off to the side. I’m assuming they’re new due to the cleanness of the concrete pad.
But even as busy as they were, they still got me my order faster than either Whataburger or Chicken Express, and I didn’t have to tell them 3 times, “No! I don’t want any lettuce.” In fact, from the time the speaker clicked off after taking my order, it was 5 and a half minutes until the car hop was at my window.
Now that’s fast.
After lunch I got out my Sear’s 150 psi Air Compressor to top off all my tires, the rig and the truck.
PORTER-CABLE 150 PSI Air Compressor
I bought mine from Sears, but they no longer sell them. They were apparently made for Sears by Porter-Cable, who now sells them under their own name. The only difference seems to be that my Sears’ one is red.
For the first year of our RV life, I aired up the coach tires by dragging out a 75’ air hose and plugging it into the coach air compressor connector. Then I would to start up the rig engine to get the job done. A real pain in the rear.
I don’t know about most other rigs, but we have an air connection in the front bay under the driver’s seat. It’s so that if the rig is being towed wheels down, the tow driver can hook his tow truck air system into the our rig’s to release the air brakes. There’s also one back in the engine compartment.
I knew that our tires would all be low because the last time they were aired up was in Prescott, AZ back in July, and the temps were running between 95 and 100°.
But now it was in the 40’s last night and the 50’s today, and every tire was 10 to 15 psi low, the difference being whether the tire was in the direct sun or not.
But rather than the usual 20 minutes it normally takes to air up all ten tires, it took off and on all afternoon. Because I could only be hunched over for so long before my back started screaming, and then it would take about 30 seconds before I could stand all the way up straight again.
I didn’t realize that getting old would be so painful.
Anyway, the reason I had to hunch over was so that I could hold the air chuck on the tire valve while I was adding air. And the reason I had to HOLD the air chuck on the valve was because my locking air chuck, the one on my Power Tank Tire Inflator decided that today was the day to quit working.
After 8 years, now it quits?
About the same time I bought the air compressor, I also purchased this Power Tank Heavy Duty Tire Inflator system.
And like the air compressor, it’s also been a real workhorse. Just lock the chuck on the valve stem, stand up, and add air by squeezing lever. Then when you release it, you can read the pressure on the very accurate gauge. Easy Peazy.
And quick. And no hunching over.
But now the locking air chuck on the inflator just would not lock. Hence the ‘hunching over’. If I’d known this this morning I could have picked one up in Carthage.
Oh well. It’s done and another thing checked off my ‘Leaving The Gate’ list.
So far tonight, it’s beginning to look like we may be back to a 12 hour gate again for a while. At least we were tonight.
The last vehicle out was the Company Man, who left a little after 6pm. Unfortunately he didn’t stop and tell Jan they were done for the day. So poor thing, she sat outside until about 8pm before giving up and coming inside.
The pad is completely dark with no activity at all. Our logs show five vehicles still in, but those are probably just big rigs with equipment (pumps, filters, separators, etc.) that will stay here the entire time.
So if this schedule holds for tomorrow night, Jan and I may get another night on the town in Carthage.
Hope so.
November 18, 2016
More Stuff We Use and Abuse . .
Here’s some more things that Jan and I use in our RV life.
The FoodSaver Vacuum Sealer is on of her favorites. She regularly cooks up a big batch of ground beef in her electric skillet, and then seals and freezes it in 1 pound bags. She also does the same after poaching a bunch of chicken breasts to use later for soup.
FoodSaver Vacuum Sealing System
I always keep both of these replacement fuel filters on hand for the Cummins 350 ISC diesel in our coach. And I’ve had to replace the 1022 fine particle filter twice while we’ve been on the road.
Fleetguard Fuel/Water Sep FS1242
For the first several years we were on the road I went through several different brands of dually valve stem extensions with little luck. They would last for a couple of months and then start leaking. But I put a set of these on 4 years ago and not a leak since.
Pacific Dualies 7″ Braided Stainless Steel Valve Stem Extensions
Seems like where ever we park I need to hook up a second hose to use the pressure washer or do something else. So I always install one of these before I hook up shore water. That way I’m always prepared.
Nelson High Flow Dual Outlet Kink-Free Flex Hose Adapter
Jan and I each have one of these LED rechargeable Book Lights. I use one on my laptop to see the keyboard at night.
Book Light Clip on Table Light
I have this as a standby waste tank valve. If either my Black or Gray tank valves malfunctions and stays open, this one connects to the waste tank output between the rig and your sewer hose.
Valterra 3″ Waste Valve Twist On
Everyone should have one of these Kill A Watt Electrical Monitors. It lets you check you voltage, line frequency, amps, or watts used. Know much power every appliance in your rig consumes.
P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor
Well, I was up at 4am this morning, out the door at 4:30 and on the gate by 4:50. This gate doesn’t require any logging at all. I just stop each vehicle, be sure they’re where they’re supposed to be, give them the rules, and send them on their way. So not bad.
But tomorrow back up at 4am.
November 18, 2017
It’s Frilled!
Jan and I left the rig about 11:45, heading up to the Clear Lake area for lunch and new brakes.
But our first stop was at our old favorite, King Food. So good that after almost 40 years we still love it.
I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of photos of our fav Chicken with Hot Garlic Sauce and Jalapenos, XXXXX Spicy, so I’ll spare you this time. But it was as delicious as usual. Especially with the Hot and Sour Soup.
Then it was on over to our son Chris’ for our scheduled brake job. As usual Chris was well prepared with his floor jack and jack stands at the ready. And once he got started it only took him about 45 minutes per wheel, replacing both the rotors and the disc pads.
In between Jan and I started going through stuff from the attic, especially a bunch of old slides and photos from over 50 years ago.
Here’s one of me and my little sister Beth in 1965-66. I was probably 16 or so.
Brake job finished, we drove over to the nearby SuperCuts so Jan could get her hair cut. Jan still uses the same lady that’s been cutting her hair for about 15 years, as well as her mother’s when she lived with us.
Then after a quick stop at Kroger’s for a few things, our last stop was at Tuesday Morning for Christmas cards. Jan likes the high end, expensive cards she finds there for very cheap prices. Apparently they’re last year’s cards, but with no dates on them, who knows, or cares.
This is a Frilled Shark.
Supposedly it died out about 80 million years ago. Or maybe not. Last week scientists caught one of them off the coast of Portugal.
With over 300 teeth arranged in 25 rows it makes short work of its prey. However like a snake, it can open its mouth wide enough to swallow prey whole.
Tomorrow Jan and I are meeting Brandi, Lowell, and Landon at Sugar Land Ice, the rink where Landon does his ice hockey. It’s starting up again so we’re going to be at his first practice this year.
Then we’ll have a late lunch at the nearby Floyd’s Cajun Seafood where we eaten several times before. Always good.
Then Jan will go back home with Brandi, et. all, while I’ll come back to the rig. Jan’s going to be Landon-sitting until Tuesday since Landon’s out of school all this week.
I’ll go back and pick her up around Tuesday noon and drop Landon off at Brandi’s work.
Really looking forward to it.
November 18, 2018
Finally . . .
Although Jan really enjoyed her Pumpkin Pancakes at Snooze yesterday, she was still jonsin’ for her fav Avocado Toast, and since we both like breakfast any time of the day, any day of the week, we left the rig about 12:45 to have brunch at The Egg and I once again.
We were hoping that with Snooze open right down the street, we were hoping the Egg wouldn’t be as busy as usual, and though they were busy we got seated in just a few minutes.
After a delicious as usual breakfast, we drove by our old house to check it out. We found the sidewalk still ripped up just as it was a couple of weeks ago.
Looks like this had something to do with replacing the water meter box, which is new. Though now it looks like someone is living there. Also there’s now a big dent in the left side garage door, to match the one on the right side that Jan put in it about 20 years ago.
Our next stop was the Oasis Car Wash over on Bay Area Blvd for a rainy car wash. We were trying to get the last of the rig oil leak residue off the Dakota. And because it was raining we’ll get two washes for the price of one, since if it’s raining, or rains in the next 48 hours, you can get a 2nd wash free.
Then it was on down the Interstate to League City Cracker Barrel to order a big pan of their Cornbread Dressing, or as Jan calls it, the only ‘real’ dressing. Jan says CB’s is ‘almost’ as good as hers, and she doesn’t have to fix it, so it’s a win-win.
I’ll pick it up Wednesday afternoon to take up to Brandi’s on Thursday morning.
Our last stop was the Victory Lakes Marble Slab for a couple of small Coffee ice creams, the perfect to finish off a rainy, cold, overcast day.
Updates:
The truck is still running fine, with no problems. I do hear a slight high-pitched whine that I assume will go away as all the new gears settle in. We’ll see.
The new Lasko heater is working well with the recent 30’s weather we’ve had. And the old Lasko is also hanging in there, maybe because I threatened to rip its guts out to try and fix it.
Finally:
Yesterday afternoon I noticed that my head has finally started to peel after my recent Photo Dynamic Therapy.
It’s about time.
Tomorrow afternoon I’m taking Jan up to Brandi’s to Landon-sit while he’s out of school this week. Then I’ll go up on Thursday (with the Cornbread Dressing) for Thanksgiving Dinner and then bring her back Thursday evening.
Really looking forward to it.
November 18, 2019
We’re Not Home Yet . . .
But I guess the good news is that the rig is in the shop getting the oil leak problem looked at.
However that’s not the main reason the rig is in the shop.
After a nice smooth trip from Kingsland, through Austin, and on down US183 to I-10, we made a coffee/kolache stop at the Buc-ee’s there.
However when we came back out and I cranked up, we had no air pressure coming up to either the brakes or the airbags. Walking around the rig, I couldn’t hear any air leaking anywhere which probably meant that the air compressor itself was not compressing air.
So about an hour after calling Good Sam Roadside Assistance we were on our way 3 miles back up US183 to Dix’s Diesel Center in Luling.
So we’re staying the night in the nearby La Quinta, right off the Interstate. And since it’s in the shop for the air compressor, I gave them the history of the oil leak problem and told them to take a look at it too.
So we’ll see.
November 18, 2020
The End To Fun and Frivolity . . .
Yesterday’s short blog didn’t actually get posted until this morning due to a wide-spread Internet outage, effectively shutting off access to large numbers of sites. Including mine. But everything was fine this morning.
Later in the afternoon we headed into the Houston Medical Center area to meet up with our long-time friend, Chris Yust, who had come up from Florida to visit family and catch up on a couple of doctor appointments.
And to see us, of course.
So we met up at her hotel, and after some catching up, we headed out to have dinner at Pappadeaux’s Seafood Kitchen down on the 610 Loop a few miles away. It’s probably been about 20+ years since we’ve eaten here since we don’t get up this way very often. But it was as good as our somewhat dim memories recalled.
Chris and I started out with the House Salad, with a really good home-made Ranch dressing.
Then Jan had the Redfish with Butternut Squash,
while I had the Blackened Catfish with Green Beans Almandine.
Chris, however, took a somewhat simpler route with a Shrimp Cocktail.
Everything was really delicious, and really pricey, too.
My Blackened Catfish wasn’t really any better than what Jan and I get locally at Dickinson Seafood, and it was more than twice as expensive. And Jan felt the same way about her Redfish.
I guess that’s we haven’t been back for 20+ years.
But being able get together with Chris more than made up for it.
Hopefully it won’t be as long before we see her again as it was this time.
Got an email from Dakota Post this morning saying they had received my Jeep registration paperwork and would get them in process today.
Tomorrow is the end of all my fun and frivolity. I pretty much took a week off from working on the rig, but tomorrow it’s back at it, trying to get the bad Helicoil out.
ovember 18, 2021
Well, I Guess This Is My Fault Too . . .
Jan and I were on the way up the Spring area about 9:30 this morning, to meet up with long-time RV friends, Debi and Ed Hurlburt, at the El Palenque Mexican Restaurant there, Jan driving of course.
So we would have more time to talk, we there at 11 this time instead of our usual Noon.
And after our usual great time, as well as setting the time/date/location for next month’s get-together, we were on our way back home by about 2:30, luckily still ahead of the drive-time traffic.
Getting back into our area a little before 4pm, we made a Cowboy Coffee stop before settling in back at the rig.
A really nice day.
Our granddaughter Piper sent over this photo of her and her SO Derek spending time in the Big Bend area this past weekend.
A really nice guy.
And on the subject of grandkids, here’s on Piper and Landon from two years ago.
A couple of really cute kids. Love them both.
Finally I guess it runs in the family.
After suffering for a couple of years from neck/arm/back pains, and trying yoga, massage, etc., and now seeing what I have been going through, our daughter Brandi finally went to see an Orthopedist today.
After getting X-Rays, her doctor said he does not usually see a neck this bad in someone her age.
The 4 & 5 disc have no space between the bones and one bone is a little out of place. He said the degeneration is pretty bad. Need to do an MRI to look at the nerves.
So I guess it begins now for her.
They say it can be genetic. Sorry, Brandi.
