Our RV Adventures

This morning I was out the door a little after 10am, heading up to the Webster area for my Dermatology appointment. It was for my second PDT (Photo Dynamic Therapy) treatment.

Jan stays at home for these treatments since most of the time is spent waiting for the photoreactive cream on my head to dry, which takes about two hours.

I still don’t know why they’re so insistent on my being there at 10:55 for my 11am appointment (I was there at 10:45), when they didn’t call me in until noon. And this was after 4 text messages over the last 5 days reminding me of the appointment.

And after all that then it only takes about 10 minutes to prep my head. And then two hours waiting for the cream to dry.

Unlike my last series of PDT 5 years ago, which look like this.

It’s now done using a red light.

But it doesn’t hurt any less, believe me.

Like a thousand angry killer bees taking it out on my head. But luckily it only last for 10 minutes.

Finished up and back in the truck, I rubbed some lidocaine cream on my head which really knocked down the burning.

On the home I stopped by the office for a few minutes to drop off some Amazon stuff that had come in, and then on down to Santa Fe and home.

When we were together last Thursday up in Conroe with Ed and Debi Hurlburt, and Dave and Janice Evans, Janice said that with all the food photos we post, she thought we ate out every day.

We don’t.

We have a schedule. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday we eat out. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, days I’m at my consulting job, we eat at home.

So she wondered why we never posted any photos of that.

Well, because it’s pretty boring, but here you go for tonight.

Jan fixed her a Keto Pizza Bowl.

Broccoli, Cauliflower, Mushrooms, Chicken Sausage, Pepperoni, Rao Pizza Sauce, and Mozzarella Cheese.

She says it’s delicious. I’ll take her word for it.

Of I just had Veggies too, a steam-in-the-package of HEB’s Baby Normandy Blend, with Broccoli, Cauliflower, and Carrots.

I’ll still don’t know how they grow round carrots, but it is good. And yes, I use a lot of pepper.

So.

‘Old Faithful’, our 2004 Dodge Dakota, just turned 313,000 miles the other day. Still going strong, if not a little smoky.

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Thought For The Day:

My Kind Of Place.

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March 20, 2009

Palm trees and AC’s and rope lights, Oh My!

Today was my day to work on one of our coach’s air conditioning systems.  We actually have 3 AC systems.

Coleman Rooftop AC Unit

Two of them are the rooftop units that cool the coach when we are stationary and plugged into shore power, although we can run them on our Onan 7.5 KW diesel generator if we were say, parked at a rest area having lunch.

The 3rd AC system that I’m working on is pretty much like the one on your car. It cools the coach while we are traveling down the highway and runs only when our diesel engine is running.

When we were looking at our coach before we bought it, I noticed the belt that drives the engine AC was shredded and lying on the ground under the engine compartment.  The salesman assured me it would be fixed.

And it was.  At least for a while.

Somewhere between Houston, TX and Fairbanks, AK,  the new belt disappeared.  Since we were traveling in February, March, and April on our round-about trip to Alaska, we only used it a few times and it worked every time.

Since we were coming back to Houston in the Fall/Winter timeframe, we also didn’t need it.

But this year we are going to traveling in Florida and then up the East Coast, and we’re probably going to need our AC.

I believe the problem is with the idler/tensioner pulley that keeps the AC belt tight.  But I’m having a problem getting any info on it.

Cummins Diesel, the company that built our engine says they did not install the AC assembly on the engine.

Spartan Chassis, the company that built our chassis and installed the engine in it, also doesn’t seem to know anything about it.

That only leaves American Coach, the company that took the chassis/engine combo and built our coach on top of it.  It seems to me that the AC would have been installed before they got it.

So I guess I’ll have to wait until Monday to follow up on this.

Around 4:30pm Jan and I headed out to Franco’s Italian Restaurant in Orange Beach.  Jan and I shared a large pepperoni/mushroom pizza and it was one of the best we’ve had in a long time.  And the tiramisu we shared for desert wasn’t half bad either!

After dark we drove around the park to look at how RV’ers decorate their coaches and sites.

Palm trees and rope lights are very popular as well as Christmas lights and outdoor lamps.

Jan now wants her own palm tree.

I just have to find a place to stow it onboard.  Oh, well.

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March 20, 2010

Pawn Stars…Not!

First a correction. We have been told that the birds, that yesterday we thought were Cactus Wrens, are actually House Finches in the their mating plumage. Thanks for the update, Al.

Today we lounged around at the rig for a while before getting a late start doing the Las Vegas tourist thing.

Later, we got gas and headed over toward the Vegas Strip.  We’re big fans of the TV show ‘Pawn Stars” and wanted to see the real thing.

But when we got there we decided to try again later. There was a line out the door and down the street.

Somehow it looks fancier on TV.

We’ll try again later during the week when, hopefully, it won’t be so busy.

So we headed on down the Strip, doing a lot of people-watching.

Thank goodness, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, because some of these people shouldn’t be allowed out.

We were actually heading back to Fry’s Electronics. Jan had some more things she wanted to look at.

Fry’s is a great place to just wander around looking at all the neat toys. But after a couple of hours everyone was getting hungry so we starting looking for a place to eat.

We talked about the buffet at the Rio but neither of us was hungry enough to eat $25 of food. We used my GPS to look up a Chinese Buffet, but when we got there, it was no longer in business.

I had printed out a list of the best buffets in Las Vegas and looking over the list we decided to try the buffet at Boulder Station Casino, which, ironically, was only about six blocks from where we’re parked, so we headed back across town.

And it was certainly worth the trip. After getting our free Player Cards that saved us $2 each, we sat down to a great meal. Much better than the buffet in Laughlin Tuesday night.

After dinner we hit the slots. Jan started with $20 and ran it up to $46.50. I told her to cash out, but she said she was on a roll.

And she was. A downward roll. She rolled the $46.50 down to $0.01. So now she cashes out?

I took $10, ran it up to $15, and cashed out.

Hey, $5 profit is $5. What can I say.

About 7:30pm we headed back to the rigs and settled in for the night.

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March 20, 2011

“Good News, I found Grandmother! ” . . .

First off, Happy 7th Month Birthday to our grandson, Landon Thomas Morrison.

I got up about 9:45, got the coffee started, and then at Jan’s insistence, set out one of our small electric heaters. It got down to 44 degrees last night, really cooling things off, and the coach was pretty chilly.

We’ve got a cold front coming thru, with highs in the high 60’s and low 70’s, and lows in the low 40’s for the next several days. We may even get some rain tomorrow afternoon.

While we had our coffee, we watched the winds come up, the dust devils roam the fairgrounds, and the sand clouds obscure the horizon.

Around 2:30 we heard from both our son Chris and our daughter Brandi.

Chris, his wife Linda, and our granddaughter Piper were on their way to one of our favorite seafood places in Seabrook, TX called “Outriggers Seafood Grill & Oyster Bar”.

Located underneath the Kemah Bridge,

Outrigger’s has the best shrimp tacos around, as well as big trays of raw oysters. Very tasty!

Our daughter Brandi called us with “Good News, I found Grandmother”.  It wasn’t like she wandered off, or was really missing, she was just misplaced.

You see this ginger jar cookie jar contains my mother’s ‘cremains’.

I bought this cookie jar for my mother for Mother’s Day when I was ten years old with money I earned mowing lawns. So I figured that it was a fitting place for my mother to reside.

But somehow, between our remodeling our house, our moving out, and our daughter moving in, then getting married and having a baby, my mother’s jar was placed inside a box and moved to the garage for safekeeping while the bedroom was being remodeled.

And when I went to look for jar this past winter, she was nowhere to be found. But now she’s back safe and sound.

When we started talking about dinner this evening, we had planned to go to Poco & Mom’s, but, checking their website we found they closed at 2pm today. Bummer!

Our next choice was Guadalajara Grill. We had passed this place several times and noticed the crowded parking lot, and in some cases, people waiting outside for a table.

Too Busy.

Needless to say, we went elsewhere and had a great meal at Marie Callendar’s. And of course delicious pie for dessert. The place wasn’t really busy, so we sat around talking for a couple of hours, finally getting home about 8pm.

Tomorrow I’m going to try to get the last of the carpet up, and figure out how I want to do the trim and the joint between the laminate, ceramic tile, and the carpet under the driver’s feet.

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March 20, 2012

One mousy mousy, two mousy mousy . . .

or

Another One Bites the Dust.

Well, when I got up this morning I found another toes-up mousy residing in one of my traps. The two traps in the slide-out pantry area were still baited and set, but the two in the area behind the cabinets had been hit.

One trap had been stripped of peanut butter, but was still set. The other one had also been emptied, but was now occupied. So I rebaited them both and put them back in place. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

It did get down to about 30 degrees here last night, but no problems came with it. It’s supposed to be in the high 30’s tonight, and then start gradually warming up through the rest of the week. Looks like it should be pretty nice with no rain before we leave on Sunday.

Hope so.

Later in the afternoon, I pulled everything out from under the sink and installed the new water filter that I bought in Yuma. The water flow is much better now, thought it doesn’t seem to taste any better or worse.

Jan had been under the weather the last couple of days with one of her migraine clusters. They normally run for about 3 days, and she discovered this morning that she was out of her Sumatriptan migraine medicine, so, about 4:30, and feeling better, Jan and I headed out to pick up the prescription I had called into a Wal-Mart Pharmacy earlier.

On the way, we first stopped off for dinner at Poco & Mom’s with some Hatch Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas for me and Ground Beef Nachos for Jan. And as usual we had plenty of leftovers for later lunches.  Hmmm Good!

After dinner, and picking up Jan’s prescription, we headed home with a quick stop at DQ for dessert.

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March 20, 2013

Pizza and Bracelets . . .

This morning  was pretty much up and out the door, since we were meeting our long-time friends Al and Adrienne for lunch at Grimaldi’s Pizzeria at 11:30am. They said they’d been passing it by and wanting to eat there so this was the perfect time for them to try it. And of course Jan and I certainly wouldn’t turn  down a chance to eat at one of these restaurants again.

And as it turns out, Al and Adrienne liked it as much as we did. While we were there I was able to get a photo of the hand-built coal-fired pizza oven they use. As it turns out, the oven door is kind of small, but the oven interior is pretty big and extends to the sides.

We had a great time catching up with Al and Adrienne, and are going to try to get together again next week.

Saying our goodbyes, Jan and I headed out for some shopping before going home. Our first stop was a nearby Target where Jan was looking for a bracelet that she’d seen advertised, but they didn’t have them in stock, so we’ll try another one.

One thing kind of unusual was that as we were leaving Target’s parking lot, we heard a radio ad for Timekeepers. What made this unusual is that they are one of the big Gate Guard companies that hire RV’ers as oil rig gate guards, like we did last year. They didn’t give a lot of details, just said they were looking for RV’ers, paid $135 a day, furnished full hookups, and then a phone number to call. They really must be desperate for gate guards if they’re advertising on the radio. I guess they’re trying to attract some of the snowbirds before they leave Tucson.

Our next stops were an Ace Hardware and then Fry’s Foods for a few things before grabbing a couple of Cinnamon Dolce Lattes at the in-store Starbuck’s on our way out.

Finishing up, and under the heading of Never Throw Anything Away, You Might Need It, Jan had been looking for a way to keep her bracelets safe and sound while we travel. So I dug out an empty DVD case that I had been saving.

It holds her bracelets while sitting on the bathroom cabinet like this,

and then when you screw the cover on, they can be packed away for travel without damaging them.

Don’t really have anything scheduled for tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes.

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March 20, 2014

Rockin’ Out . . .

I forgot to post this pic of Landon on yesterday’s blog. After all it’s not a real blog if it doesn’t have a Landon photo.

One of the packages we picked up at Brandi’s yesterday had this wine glass rack that I mounted over the sink.

10-Inch Long, Wine Glass Rack

Most of  the ones I found were too long to fit, but I finally this one on Amazon that fit perfectly in the space.

Later in the afternoon, I drove over to the rock pile behind the Activity Center to get more rocks to fill in the muddy ruts in front of our rig.

I ended up with 3 kitty litter buckets full of rocks, each weighing about 60#.

This is what the ruts looked like after the two buckets that I did the other day.

And here it is after I dumped today’s 3 buckets in

We’re supposed to get more rain on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning before we leave here for the Colorado River Thousand Trails. So hopefully this will keep the ruts from filling up with water like they were when we got here two weeks ago.

About 5 pm we picked up Don and Darlene Couvillion and headed out for dinner.

Our first stop was the Sam’s Club in Conroe to pick up a prescription for Jan that they were out of yesterday down in Webster. Then it was right across the street to have dinner at El Bosque Mexican Restaurant. None of us had eaten there before, but it had 4-1/2 stars on Yelp, and it turned out to be really good.

Good chips, good salsa, and good iced tea, and it just got better from there. Don had a Chicken Stuffed Avocado, while Jan had the Pollo a la Parrilla. I had a Combo plate with an enchilada, taco, taquito, and a chili poblano. All really good, especially the taquito.

Don and Darlene are leaving tomorrow morning so hopefully we’ll be able to catch up with them again.

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March 20, 2015

No Pulp vs. Pulp Free . . .

Since Jan and I are both coming off colds, we didn’t do much of anything but goof off and read this morning. We’ve been taking Cold-Eze Zinc lozenges which works for us to cut down the severity of the symptoms, as well as the duration, so that helps.

Later in the morning I put in a call to a client to see if they want to keep their domain name now that they’ve closed down the company. Hopefully I’ll hear back soon.

Then I was on the phone with American Coach and Spartan about a problem I’m having recently with my air compressor/airbags. When we got ready to leave the Galveston Bay RV Resort the morning of March 1st, I started the engine, engaged high idle, and brought the levelers up. But rather than coming up on the airbags in 5 minutes or so, as usual, the air pressure needles came up to about 80 pounds and then didn’t move anymore. And the airbags didn’t inflate either.

I thought maybe the cold, wet weather might be the problem, so after about 15 minutes, we headed out anyway to see what was going to happen. It was a little rough for a while, but about a quarter mile along the way, like a switch had been flipped, the air pressure and the airbags came up within about 30 seconds. And with very little change, it’s done this every time we’ve traveled since we’ve left Houston.

I don’t thing it’s an air compressor problem because the pressure initially comes up quickly, and once it is up, it stays up. Even when we are parked for a little while with the engine idling, the pressure doesn’t drop back down. And if we shut the engine off for 10 or 15 minutes, everything is still fine when we start up again.

American Coach referred me to Spartan who manufactured our chassis, and they gave me some things to look at, including a ‘Norgen’ valve, that apparently is supposed to allow air into the air bags, and perhaps a problem with our Manual Air Dump valve. So it’s another thing for my list.

Later we ended up at the nearby Los Gringos Locos about 5pm. We’ve eaten here a number of times, and it’s always been good. And tonight was no exception. It’s a popular place and we got there just in time since we were seated immediately at 5pm, but by 5:30, there were people inside and outside waiting for tables.

Finishing up after a good meal and heading out, Jan and I stopped off at the nearby Fry’s for some Orange Juice. We like lots of pulp, and apparently so do a lot of other people because they didn’t have much of a selection. They had plenty of ‘Some Pulp, “A Little Pulp’, and even “No Pulp” and “Pulp-Free”,  but only in one brand did they have ‘Lots of Pulp”.

But what I’m confused about is why, within the same brand, they have both “No Pulp” and “Pulp-Free”. What’s the difference between none and not any, anyway?

Coming out of the store, we could see a storm coming from the northeast, near Superstition Mountain. And it must have been really raining over there, because we got not one, but two rainbows. But it was still really only one, because we were just seeing the two bottoms of a single arc.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get it all in one shot, so here’s two.

Finally on our way home, we drove through a Chase ATM so I could activate my new VISA Debit Card. After having cards wear out and die when we’re traveling, and all the trouble getting them replaced on the road, for the last several years, I just order a new VISA Debit Card right before we head out for the year, and that seems to take care of the problem.

Tomorrow: Probably still more coughing.

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March 20, 2016

Where’s Al Hesselbart When I Need Him . . .

We got in a walk today. With all our early morning trips and bad weather last week, it was our first one since we left Colorado River last Sunday. And the weather was just perfect . . .  well, except for the wind.

But with 58 degrees and sunny, that part was really nice. And even the wind wasn’t bad when we were walking, but when we sat outside for awhile it got to be a little much, so we didn’t stay out as long as we might have. After we went in I took my wind speed meter back outside,

Digital Anemometer

and found the wind was blowing steady between 20 and 25 mph, a pretty stiff breeze. And more than enough to make sitting outside uncomfortable.

While Jan and I were out on our walk, we passed this unusual-looking 5th wheel, which turned out to be a Silver Streak Sterling, also nicknamed a “SquareStream” for obvious reasons.

Like many early RV companies, Silver Streak went through several iterations, starting with an early Wally Byam pre-Airstream design while he was at Curtis Wright. Curtis Wright then sold the design to Silver Streak, who started producing RV’s in 1949. Then in 1957 a partner spun off a new company called Streamline.

Silver Streak was in business until the 1996-1997 timeframe when it faded away.

Of course the one guy who would probably know every detail about Silver Streak is famed RV Historian Al Hesselbart, formerly of the RV/MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart, IN. But the last I heard he’s on a permanent fishing trip down in Florida.

A little later in the afternoon I walked the garbage over to the dumpster and noticed that with the end of Spring Break the park has really cleared out, leaving a lot of nice empty sites. Hopefully things will quiet down now.

For dinner tonight we resurrected our beef stew from a couple of nights ago by adding some more veggies and extra broth to give us enough for a couple of servings. Along with some toasted Hawaiian Bread rolls, it was a great meal.

Wrapping up with Landon, apparently one Zootopia was not enough, so this afternoon, Landon and his parents were back at the theater to see it one more time.

In fact he like it so much he even took a ride on the Zootopia Metro Train.

And he also looking forward to his favorite game characters coming out in their own movie.

You’d be an Angry Bird too if the pigs were stealing all your eggs.

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March 20, 2018

And The Winner Is . . .

About noon I decided it was time to replace the bad battery in my Garmin Nuvi 1490 LMT. The new battery I ordered came with a toolkit that was really nice on its own.

So, after checking out a couple of YouTube videos I dove in. First up, I used the green pry bar to remove the thin outer bezel. It took a little work to get it started but then it popped loose pretty quickly.

Next, using the small Torx driver I removed the 4 screws on that bezel and carefully pulled it loose.

Then I gently lifted off the screen so I could get to the circuit board and battery hiding underneath.

This let me remove these two screws, again using the same Torx driver.

Then I was able to remove the small electrical plug that connected the battery to the system and then pry it out.

I used self-stick tape to fasten the new battery in place and started to put it all back together.

Reversing all my steps, I snapped the case back together. But before I reinstalled the 4 screws and put the outer bezel back on, I gave it the ultimate test.

And it passed!

Hopefully this one will last another 7 years like the first one.

Jan and I headed out about 3:30 for my big awards steak dinner at the Saltgrass Steakhouse in Webster. Along with Longhorn, SG is one of our favorites. Always good.

One of the reasons I go there is their great Wedge Salad. And this time Jan decided to give it a try too.

The Saltgrass version starts with a 1/4 head of lettuce drizzled with their homemade Bleu Cheese Dressing, and then covered  with tomatoes, red onions, bacon, and feta cheese. Jan said it was probably the best salad she’s ever had.

For our entrées, Jan had her usual Top Sirloin and Baked Potato.

She always cuts her steaks in half the first thing to be sure it’s cooked like she wants it.

Being a Ribeye guy, I got my usual with a side of Green Beans.

Although the beans weren’t on the Sides menu, I noticed them shown on several of their seafood dishes, so I asked for them. And it was a good choice. Perfectly Al Dente and Seasoned.

Finishing up, I came across a new Windows app that you might be interested in. Every time I use Windows built-in Snipping Tool, it seems like I really just want to print the ‘snip’. But I first have to save it to a jpg file and THEN I can print from a file viewer.

But Greenshot, a free Windows download, takes care of that problem. You can save your snip to a file, print it, copy it to the clipboard, or even directly email it. A neat program. And it’s free.

Tomorrow it’s back to work.

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March 20, 2019

She Can Laugh About It Now . . .

Today was a pretty straight forward day at work, with just the same old, same old. But I did leave a couple of hours early.

We did find another replacement front passenger window for my client’s ‘95 Thunderbird on eBay, and I ordered it for him. It should be here next Tuesday, the 26th, and hopefully this one won’t get broken when they remove it from the vehicle like the last one was.

I did go ahead and order our suitcases and walking sticks from Amazon today.  We each got a set of these US Traveler Rio models, one orange and one green

I guess we’ll argue about who gets which color later.

These are the walking sticks we got also.

Some people said we really wouldn’t need them, but reviews on our particular cruise said that there are steps everywhere in these old cities, and recommended them.

I realized today that I need to dig out the license tag stickers for our RV before our test drive this weekend. The tags renewed back in November, and I put the new ones on the truck then. But it was raining that day, so I put off doing the rig’s. At least that’s my story and . . . you know how it goes.

She can laugh about it now.

When I got home about 3:30 Monday afternoon all ready for us to head up to Sugarland/Stafford for our dinner/Puddles Pity Party concert, Jan was nowhere to be found. She should have been dressed and ready to walk out the door.

Then I heard a voice from the bathroom, the shower enclosure to be specific. It was Jan telling me that the shower door latch had broken and she couldn’t get out. And had been stuck in there for over an hour.

And she was right. She was stuck good. I had to actually use a large screwdriver to carefully pry apart the door frame and the door jam until it came free. Without breaking the glass, of course.

She was actually a lot less upset than I expected, and we still made it to dinner in plenty of time, so no problem.

And she was really, really clean, too.

Luckily  the last time, about 6 years ago, that I replaced the latch, I bought two. So I replaced it after we got home from the concert.

But this afternoon when I called Jan about 1pm, she didn’t answer. Ok, no problem. But she didn’t answer at 1:15, 1:30, and 1:45. So at 1:46 I was on my way home to check on her.

I knew she wouldn’t be quite so forgiving if she got trapped twice in three days. And I doubt the shower would survive, either.

But luckily for me, and the enclosure, it was a false alarm. After she muted her phone yesterday while getting her mammogram, she forgot to turn it back on.

Better safe than sorry.

Tomorrow, starting at 8am for Jan, and 9 for me, we have our yearly physicals. Hopefully they’ll be as good as last year’s.

Whatever the outcome, we promised ourselves big burgers from Stomp’s over in Kemah for lunch, our first ones in about a year.

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March 20, 2021

Something Right . . .

Earlier last night, before I posted the blog, I checked the IRS’ Get My Payment website to see if there was any update on our Flu checks, and found the site down for updating.

So I checked again right after I posted the blog, and finding the site back up, I entered my info and found that now we were in the system. And not only was we there, but were now scheduled to get our money on this coming Wednesday, the 24th. And finally they got it right, and we’re getting the money by direct deposit.

It’s about time.

After having a nice quiet morning,  getting reacquainted over coffee after being apart for a week, Jan and I headed out about 2:30 first for a late lunch/breakfast at our local Denny’s.

We both had our favorite Ultimate Omelet, with bacon, sausage, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, onions, and Cheddar cheese. As well as fruit instead of the hashbrowns, and a grilled English muffin.

Always delicious.

Then it was right next door to the WalMart to stock up on stuff for next week.