Our RV Adventures

Lunch today was our favorite Chinese Buffet, Yummy Yummy. Always delicious.

Then it was on to HEB, and then a stop at the Santa Fe PO and our park mailbox before getting home.

Nice!

One thing interesting about Yummy Yummy is what they have on the buffet and the price, in our case the Senior price of $13.49 each.

Pook’s Crawfish Hole right up the road from us charges $8.99/pound for Boiled Crawfish, and $16.99/pound for Boiled Shrimp. But for your $13.49 at Yummy’s you can have all the Boiled Crawfish and Boiled Shrimp you can eat. And some people get plates piled up so high with Crawfish that it’s a balancing act getting their plate back to the table.

And then they go back and do it again.

And again.

All for $13.49.

Tomorrow I’ve got my yearly head freezing at my dermatologist. He goes over my head with a squirt bottle of liquid nitrogen, freezing off anything that looks suspicious. And he must be very well paid for it too.

A couple of years ago when I was trying to park before my visit, and got turned around, I ended up in a little dead end alcove all the way around in the back. And parked in said alcove was a shiny red Porsche 911 Carrera GTS.

A Porsche that starts at over $140,000.

And when I asked him later if that was his Porsche 911 around back, he sheepishly said, “Yes”, and quickly changed the subject.

Like I said, very well paid.

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Things you never seem to have enough of:

• Sleep
• Money
• USB Ports

And not necessarily in that order, either.

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Hooter’s has calendars, and firemen have calendars. But the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers?

And apparently who ever put it together really likes cats.

U.S. Army Corp of Engineers 2023 Calendar

Who knew?

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Thought For The Day:

I am not crazy. My mother had me tested. I prefer the term “Mentally hilarious”

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January 29, 2013

Blindsided . . .

I finally got a chance to call Fan-tastic Vent and they pointed me in the direction of the wiring going to the reversing switch, which makes sense since I was using the reversing switch when the fan motor quit.

So I took out the screws and dropped the bottom of the fan so I could get to the switch contacts. My first thought was to unplug and replug the wires on the switch several times to clean the contacts. After this I tried the fan once more and, it now worked. Another thing fixed.

One down, a bunch still to go.

Jan spent the morning and afternoon catching up on “Downton Abbey”, the PBS series about the lives of the residents and the staff of Downton Abbey, a large manor house in England. Kind of an updated “Upstairs, Downstairs”. The story starts in April 1912 with the sinking of the Titanic, and the loss of the family heir.

After hearing a lot about the show Jan starting watching the other day. PBS has already shown the first 4 episodes of this, the third season. But we found out that PBS is streaming the past episodes on their website, so she spent part of yesterday and today catching up on those 4 episodes. Then, looking on Amazon to see about buying the first two season on DVD, we were happy to discover that for Amazon Prime members, we can stream all the episodes of the first two seasons for FREE. And even better, it’s available in HD.

So Jan watched episode 1 of season 1 this afternoon and will continue watching them until she’s caught up.

For my part this afternoon, I finally got a chance to rehang my restrung day/shade that I had finished last week.

Here’s what it looked like after I removed the valance.

I laid the valance down on the bed and then screwed the shade to it. And here’s what it looked like with the valance and shade reinstalled.

I did have to fiddle with the string tension a bit where it ties off at the bottom of the valance. Too tight and the added effort to lower the shade may wear and break the strings. Too loose and the shade may not stay up.

And here’s how it look after I was done.

One down, 2 to go.

Later, Jan and I headed out about 5:15 for errands and dinner. Our first stop was at the Dickinson Police Department to get Jan’s fingerprint cards redone. Hopefully this set will take, and she’ll be ready to go if we gate guard again later this year.

Then heading up to the Baybrook Mall area, we made a stop at Charming Charlie, a place that sells beautiful costume jewelry on the cheap. Most bracelets are $10, with some a little more, but all very nice quality.

Jan’s first visit to Charming Charlie was when we were up at The Woodlands with Brandi and Lowell this past Saturday, but it didn’t end well.

She bought a couple of bracelets, including a red beaded one she really liked. However the next morning when she was cutting the price tags off, she accidently cut the elastic cord that the large beads were strung on, and suddenly, no bracelet. Just a lot of beads bouncing around the rig.

So tonight she wanted to get a replacement, and wouldn’t you know it, she found another one she liked too, and just had to have.

Funny how that worked out, isn’t it.

We met Chris, Linda, and Piper at Chili’s about 6:45pm for dinner, and had our usual great time, and a good meal.

It was really windy on the way home, and we got back just ahead of the rain. There’s a cold front coming through and it’s supposed to be down the low 50’s tonight. Much better than the recent nighttime temps of high 60’s, low 70’s.

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January 29, 2014

Hitting the Road and Flooring it . . .

Today was another day filled with client stuff so I headed out about 10 AM, finally getting back to the rig about 3:30. I did stop off at our storeroom to pick up our big 10’ x 20’ tarp and our chop saw. I also got Powerball tickets on the way home.

Shortly after I got home Jan and I headed back out to have dinner at Hooter’s since we both needed a hot wing fix, and their new ‘Triple Dog Dare” sauce, their hottest, really hits the spot.

After that it was a quick stop at Wal-Mart so Jan could pick up the ingredients for her world famous spaghetti sauce. The it was home just in time for another great Galveston Bay RV Resort sunset.

Later, about 8 PM I fixed us K-Cup Hazelnut Cappuccino which we had along with some of the Nestles’ Toll House cookies Jan made this weekend, as we caught up on ‘Person of Interest’ episodes on the DVR.

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Now, as far as ‘hitting the road’, Jan is. Tomorrow afternoon I’m taking he up to Brandi and Lowell’s to spend the weekend. While she’s there, she’s going to make her spaghetti, which is why the Wal-Mart stop.

As for why she’s going up there, it’s to get her out of my hair. Well, maybe a hair reference is not the best one in my case, so let’s just say it’s to get her out of the rig for a few days.

And that brings us to the ‘flooring it’ part of the title. Friday morning my son Chris is coming over and we’re finally going to install the Allure vinyl laminate flooring in the rig. Yes the same flooring I’ve been threatening to install for about 3 years now.

Allure seems to be perfect for RV’s. It’s actually a rubber-based product that looks and feels like wood laminate. But because it’s rubber, it’s completely waterproof. Great for when your slide seal springs a leak. And also, the planks are very flexible, at least compared to wood laminate. Again perfect for driving your floor down the road at 60 mph.

We chose a lighter color, Oak, because our cabinetry is also light, and a dark color would tend to make the space seem smaller.

With Chris here, and Jan gone, we’ll be able to pull all three Captain’s chairs out and then pull the base mounts up which will make it much easier to lay the flooring with less measuring and cutting. We are only replacing the carpet in the front of the rig, leaving the tile flooring in the rest of the rig, as it is.

Hopefully we can finish it off Friday and Saturday because Chris doesn’t want the project to cut into his Super Bowl time on Sunday. To me that just gives him more incentive to work faster.

It’s a win, win.

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January 29, 2015

Finally. It’s About Time . . .

Jan and I really like being back at Colorado River. Although we like Lake Conroe for all the shopping and places to eat, we like the park itself better here. It’s not as busy, the sites are bigger and there’s not as much traffic.

Well, it finally happened today. The new sites are open at Galveston Bay RV Resort, and we will be heading down there on Wednesday, the 4th of February. Since we plan on heading for Tucson and the Escapade on March 1st, we’ll have not quite a month there. But it will make things more convenient for our doctor’s appointments next month, instead of having to drive down from Conroe or Columbus.

Several people asked me about my air compressor after I mentioned replacing the hose the other day. Mine came from Sears, but they no longer sell it. But apparently it was made by Porter-Cable and it’s still sold on Amazon for about $105.

I bought mine in 2010 and, except for the hose, it’s still going strong. And it has no problem taking rig tires up to 120psi in just a few minutes.

PORTER-CABLE 150 PSI Air Compressor

For dinner tonight, Jan used the convection over to heat our leftover Grimaldi’s Pizza from the other night. We always get the Large (18”) one, and take home half of it for later. And it’s still delicious heated up.

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January 29, 2016

Potatoes and Mushrooms . . .

This morning started off with short quarter mile walk . . . just over to Janice and Dave Evans for delicious cinnamon rolls. So that kind of cancelled out the walk.

We sat around for a while, talking and then made plans to get together tomorrow afternoon to have lunch at the Potatoe Patch. Supposedly it’s a lot like Lambert’s, at least they throw rolls at you like Lambert’s does. The menu doesn’t look as extensive, but it does look good. So we’ll see. (And yes, that’s the way they spell Potato.)

After we made the quarter mile walk back to the rig, (still probably not far enough to walk off the cinnamon rolls though) we left the rig about 12:30 heading for the Escapees Park over in Livingston. We were going over to see Ben and June Tyer. I’ve known Ben since the 1990’s since he was my Air Conditioning instructor at San Jacinto Community College.

You all know how much I like to work on stuff. Well, I knew electrical and electronic stuff, carpentry and construction stuff, and a bunch of other things. But I didn’t know much about the compressor side of AC stuff. The electrical side, yes, but not the Freon side.

So I started taking night classes working toward an Associate Degree in Air Conditioning Technology, and Ben was one of my main instructors.

Ben had been having trouble setting up his email under Windows 10 on his new laptop, and though I had tried to help him out over the phone, he still couldn’t get it working. So I thought we’d drive over there today before we head back to the Colorado River TT on Sunday.

Getting to Ben and June’s about 2pm, it only took me about 30 minutes to get his computer straightened out and then I ran a couple of ‘cleaner’ programs, CCleaner and Glary Utilities, on his laptop to speed things up. We then spent the rest of the time talking about RV’ing and traveling, pretty much what all RV’ers talk about when they get together. Finally, a little after 4pm we said our goodbyes and headed out to visit some more nearby friends.

Back in 2014, when we were staying at the Wilmington OH Thousand Trails, we met up with the Boggs Family, Davy, Kelly, and their daughter, Odie, of the Boggs Family Ministries. We got together at a good Mexican restaurant in Lebanon, OH and had a really fun time getting to know one another.

The Boggs travel around the country in their beautiful Prevost Bus holding revivals at local churches. They even have their own tent if need be.

And this is Davy, Kelly, and Odie.

                                                     

                                                      Davy                   Kelly                               Odie

We had a great time catching up on the last couple of years, but finally had to part company a little after 5pm so they could get ready for tonight’s service. Then on Sunday they’re heading down to Sweeney, TX for another revival there.

Really nice people doing great things. Hopefully our paths will cross again soon.

For dinner, we decided to head over the Florida’s Kitchen, a downhome, catfish and BBQ type place that Chris and Charles Yust of C and C RV Insurance fame, had introduced us to a couple of years ago.

Jan loves mushrooms, so we started off with a small basket of their fried ones.

That’s Small?

Then we both got the Small Catfish Dinner.

I’m starting to detect a pattern here. I’m sorry, but four big pieces of catfish does not a small dinner make.

In fact, because I was getting the SMALL dinner, I also ordered BBQ sausage link so I wouldn’t be hungry.

So, how big is the BIG catfish dinner?

But after the Fried Mushrooms, (and the salad that came with the dinner) I only ate 1 piece of fish, about half the fries, and 1 piece of sausage. And with Jan about the same, we had three take-home boxes to go with us.

But boy, was it good!

Heading back through Livingston on the way home, I stopped at the RaceWay and got gas at $1.46⁹ a gallon, the cheapest I’ve seen so far without some sort of discount.

We got back to the rig about 8pm after a fun day. Then tomorrow it’s more fun all over again.

Isn’t RV’ing the life!

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January 29, 2017

Sheer Perfection!

Today was grocery shopping day, and our first chance to check out what turned out to be a very nice HEB.

But our first stop was Whataburger of course, for lunch.

Sheer Perfection!

A #6 Double Meat Whataburger Jr. with cheese, bacon, tomato, mayo, mustard, pickles, and onions.

Jan’s #6 is a little different, with cheese, tomato, ketchup, mustard, and grilled onions.

Note: No ketchup on mine. I’m a purist. Ketchup belongs on French Fries, not on hamburgers or hotdogs.

After leaving Whataburger our next stop was the Donut Palace for a couple of their Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Croissants. These make a perfect meal for dinner on the gate.

And their Twists and other donuts are delicious too.

I got to the gate about 5:15 expecting to find it very busy, but found that it had been pretty dead all day.

Apparently they broke the frack.

Or at least they broke something on the frack. We seen it take hours or sometimes even days to get running again so we’ll see how it goes.

Yesterday we had ask a company man to bring us a light tower down here to this gate. The actual gate entrance isn’t real wide and a lot of the big trucks were worried about coming through at night since it was so dark in that area.

But the lights really brighten up the gate entrance now.

I’m still having weird problems with the phone service here. It varies all over the place, but no matter what I still can’t make or receive phone calls. However I can get the Voice Mail for a call I never received.

Plus I can usually send email and text, but not always. Sometimes I have absolutely no service whatsoever, sometimes I have 1x, sometimes 3G, and sometimes 4G.

And sometimes it says “Emergency Calls Only”. So who knows.

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January 29, 2018

Soup and Soup . . .

Back at work today, I spent the first part updating the paper catalogs with all of last week’s many changes. Then I spent pretty much the rest of the afternoon setting up the website so that at 12:01 am Thursday morning the sales banner and all the sale prices will become active on the site. At least I hope so.

If not, I’ll still be up so I can do it manually if need be.

Right before I headed home we got the proofs from the mailing list company for me to approve. I double-checked everything and then sent back the approval. Still don’t know yet exactly when they’ll go out though. Hopefully soon.

On the way home I stopped off at the Jason’s Deli on Bay Area Blvd to pick up Jan one of their Nutty Mixed-Up Salads.With chicken breast, organic field greens, grapes, feta, nuts, dried cranberries, raisins, pumpkin seeds, organic apples, we both have had this salad in the past, and it’s really delicious.

But this time I had still had a bowl of El Pollo Loco’s Chicken Tortilla  Soup left from our last visit so that was my dinner tonight.

It’s amazing how loaded with chicken this is. And really good, too.

As it stands right now, tomorrow we’ll head up to Pasadena to have lunch with our friend Julie a the Monterey’s Little Mexico there. Can’t wait to have some of their great Chicken Tortilla Soup.

Yep. That’s Chicken Tortilla Soup two days in a row. What’s your point?

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January 29, 2019

That’s Going The Wrong Way . . .

Jan and I headed out for lunch et al. about 1:30, with our first stop at the Cheddar’s up in Clear Lake. Cheddar’s is one of our go-to places, no matter where we are in the country, and we’ve eaten at them all over too. And as usual at places we frequent, we both have our favorites.

Jan got her usual Key West Chicken and Shrimp with Green Beans and Carrots  as well as some of their Bourbon Sauce.

My fav is their Vegetable Plate, which comes with a Bowl of the Chicken Tortilla Soup,

as well as 4 veggies and a croissant . All for $7.99. Obviously I like the Green Beans and Carrots, just like Jan.

A really great deal.

Finishing up, we stopped off at my client’s to pick up my saline eye drops that I left there yesterday. While I was there I noticed that the ‘95 Mustang Front Passenger Window glass I had ordered off eBay for my client, had arrived. My client wasn’t there, but when I mentioned it to Jennifer, the office manager, she said, “But isn’t that a Thunderbird, and not a Mustang?” And when I walked over to the corner of the parking lot, she was right.

In my defense, I didn’t know what vehicle he was ordering the window for. And in his defense, he owns over 20 vehicles, including two Studebaker Avanti’s. I guess it’s easy to lose track.

Our next stop at the El Dorado WalMart for a few things, including 3 gallons of Shell Rotella 15W-40 oil for the rig. I’ll need two gallons to top off my oil level, and then one gallon to fill the new LF9009 filter after I drop the old one to get a better look at the problem area.

Then it was on toward home, with a stop at the Costco on the way to fill up the truck.

When I last got gas a week or so ago, the price was at a low point of $1.67. But as I mentioned in the blog a couple days ago, when I saw the increases at HEB and WalMart, I checked Costco’s price in GasBuddy and found it had jumped 2¢ to $1.69. But by today, it had jumped another 5¢ up to $1.74. This is going the wrong direction.

Don’t know if this is due to the turmoil in Venezuela, or what. But I have a bad feeling about this.

Then after a stop for lottery tickets, and then the PO, we got home a little after 5pm.

As I mentioned yesterday, the oil filter and wrench I ordered from Amazon, was delivered via Amazon themselves. And the order that came in today was also via Amazon.

And according to the tracking, the hard drive coming into tomorrow is also coming by them.

I don’t know yet if this constitutes a long-term pattern, but I do like the Real Time Tracking that Amazon gives you.

Anybody want to buy a used 1995 Mustang Front Passenger Window?

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January 29, 2020

DUNS . . .

Yesterday it was eBay. Today it was Dun & Bradstreet.

We’re in the process of having some topical anesthetic solutions made up by a chemical company that we haven’t dealt with before, and they want a Dun & Bradstreet DUNS number to check us out.

So we gave them our DUNS number to check us and the company came back with a lot of questions, because the information they were seeing did not match what we had told them.

And when I went online to the Dun & Bradstreet and entered our DUNS number, I immediately saw what they were talking about. Much of our info looked to be mixed in with another company’s, and what there was of ours was corrupted, with typos and misspellings.

In fact it was so screwed up that when I tried to get authenticated so I could log in and correct the info, we couldn’t  answer their questions because we didn’t know the ‘correct’ incorrect answers.

So I spent most the day on and off the phone with the D&B people trying to get this straighten our. And with no luck so far.

A couple of days ago I saw that Amazon was having a nice sale on their Amazon Firesticks, both the regular and the 4K versions. And since we’re doing more and more streaming of TV and movies, I thought I’d take advantage of the sale.

Amazon Firestick 4K

The regular version, normally $40 is now going for $25. But I went with the 4K version, which is usually $50, but was on sale for $35, a $15 savings. And even better for my renowned cheapness, this is one of those Amazon products that allows you to pay for it with no-interest payments, so $7 a month for 5 months in this case.

No, I don’t really save any money, but the longer I can delay giving people my money, the better I like it.

Although the Firestick duplicates many services that we already have on the SmartHub on our Samsung 43” TV, we do get some extra stuff, the thing I’m most interested in is the voice remote feature.

Rather than click a lot of keypresses using the TV remote on the SmartHub, Jan can just say, “Show me CuriosityStream”, and it will go straight to it.

Neat.

I also signed us up for the free Pluto TV streaming service. And although it also duplicates at lot of the SmartHub and Firestick channels, what I’m interested in are the many dedicated channels, especially long-running TV shows. There is a Leverage channel, a This Old House channel, a Dog The Bounty Hunter channel, and what will probably be our favorite, a Classic Dr. Who channel.

And it all free!

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January 29, 2021

Miss Karma Update . . .

Miss Karma seems to be doing pretty well. She’s eating some and not throwing up, so that’s big improvement. But right now the only thing she seems to like is some of the shredded chicken that Jan gets from HEB. But it’s a start, I guess.

The only real problem is that twice a day I have to give her an antibiotic by squirting it in her mouth with a syringe. She doesn’t not like that.

But she’s only gotten one claw in me so far.

Jan and I watched the pilot episode of Resident Alien last night and really liked it.

Dark in some places, and hilariously funny in others. Think Robin William’s Mork, if Mork came to Earth to wipe out mankind.

Or think ‘Fish Out Of Water’ if the fish is the shark from ‘Jaws’. Check it out.

We’re still waiting to see what Holland American is going to do about our Alaskan Cruise that’s supposed to start May 18. Right now all of their Alaskan cruises are cancelled through ‘mid-May’. So we’re checking every day to see about any changes.

We’re supposed to make the final payment by Feb. 17th, so we’re just holding our breath.