Our RV Adventures

I was finally able to complete  the Census Bureau’s Economic Census form that’s due next Wednesday, by Law. It’s 51 pages of data, the vast majority of which does not apply to our one owner, one employee, and one consultant (me) firm. But every question must be answered, even if it’s NO. But what took so much time was actually waiting for our accountant to get me the financial part of the info.

But it’s done now, though I won’t submit it until Friday after I give it one last read-through.]

A reader recently asked me about the big jump in the number of subscribers to this blog as shown on the top left of the blog page. What apparently happened was that at some point during a Jetpack update, the subscriber list numbers got reset back to baseline number of subscribers. These are people who come directly to the blog and subscribed from here.

Jetpack is a very powerful WordPress add-on that provides a lot of extras. It handles some security tasks, site backups, and also tracks visitors to the site, including sending out the daily email blogs to people.

But it needs to be set to track external subscribers, coming in from Facebook and other blogs, and that’s what got turned off. So now it’s turned back on.

After talking about adding a Roku Streaming device to our system, another reader wondered if it was going to replace our Firestick. The answer is NO. It plugs into our Samsung TV in place of our DVD player that we almost never use. So both will be hooked up and online, but the Firestick will continue to be our primary streaming device. But the baseline Roku has some shows and movies available that we would have to pay extra for on the Firestick.

Tomorrow’s going to be Saltgrass Steakhouse at 2pm with our Alvin Opry Group. Then afterwards it’s on down to WalMart for some more WalMart stuff.

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Thought for the Day:
“I don’t know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn’t be a feasible business by itself.” — the head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found Xerox.

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March 8, 2009

Pensacola…

Today we took a roadtrip over to Pensacola, FL about 25 miles away.

Heading out we went over the Alabama Point bridge, passing by the front of SanRoc Cay, the shopping/lodging/entertainment area built on property that my parents once owned.

Diagonally across the street is a large hotel/restaurant complex we ate at with the entire family about 5 years ago.

Oops!… Sorry about that.

It’s not there anymore. In fact, it’s totally gone.

The entire family ate dinner here in June 2004 at a large seafood restaurant that was part of the hotel.  Then in September 2004 Hurricane Ivan roared thru Gulf Shores as a Cat 3 storm.

These buildings and many more at Gulf Shores just disappeared.  There are still many blank spaces along the beach where the buildings still haven’t been rebuilt.

Another casualty was the row of beach houses built where my parents also owned property and houses.

The pink cottage on the left used to be one of two on the right that were all the way down next to the condo in the background. They were called ‘Sea Fever’ and ‘Sandpiper’.

My parents once owned all the property that you see on both sides of the road.  They gradually sold off parts and then built the two cottages on the two lots that were left.  They used them as rental units intermixed with family vacations for many years.

They sold off the ‘Sea Fever’ in the mid ’80’s and then my mother sold the ‘Sandpiper’ in 1993 after my father died.

The dentist who bought the ‘Sandpiper’ moved it from the beach side of the access road to where you see it now.  He then built a very ugly 3 story house on the beach lot.  Somewhere along the way, the owner of the ‘Sea Fever’ tore it down and built something else.  And other cottages lined both sides of the road.

Then Hurricane Ivan swept thru and everything was washed away except for the ‘SandPiper’.  It was my father’s design and he knew how to built things to survive Gulf storms.

We later spent the day driving around Pensacola, eating lunch at another Sonny’s BBQ,  stopping by a Sam’s Club to pick up a new color backup camera for the rig, and looking up old haunts.

Just another day in paradise…

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March 8, 2011

Coffee, Nectar of the gods . . .

Thank goodness for coffee!

I’m not sure Jan and I could have gotten moving this early this morning without it. Jan had front gate duty starting at 8am so once again we were up before 7 to get ready. The front gate is where the local people get their day passes to visit the rally, and Jan had the first shift.

Luckily they had donuts at in the Vendor building so we had that final sugar rush to put us over the top. And after getting Jan set up at the gate, I made a circuit of the vendor booths to get a first look at the new products offered, and seeing where some of my money will be going in the next few days.

No new rigs came in today so it looks like that part of the rally is over for me. Which was good because it left me time to go back to the rig and work on my seminar outline.

I wanted to fine-tune it some more and then print 40 copies to hand out to the attendees. I was hoping for maybe 20-25 people if I was lucky, so I figured 40 would be plenty.

As it turns out, my calculations were a little off.

This seminar, “10 Things to Never Do With Your Computer”, was kind of put together at the last moment to fill in a hole in the schedule. So I figured I’d just take each point, talk about why it was important, and take questions.

Around noon I was satisfied with the handout so I printed them out and Jan stapled the two pages together for me. Then a little before 1pm we walked over to the Fine Arts Building where I was speaking.

When we got there I was happy to see there was already 5 or 6 people inside, meaning I wouldn’t be talking just to Jan. I went up front to set up my laptop and check the mic system. Then, a couple of minutes later I looked up and the room was half full. Wow!

Right about then Jan comes up that says she’s out of the 40 handouts. Oops!

Since it’s still about 5 minutes before 1, I ran back to the rig and print 30 more copies.

Still not enough. As it turns out, we had 117 people show up. Very gratifying.

The class seem to go well and we had a lot of good questions. In fact a number of people stayed around afterwards, still talking. Jan finally had to drag me out so the next seminar could start.

I told everyone that didn’t get a copy that I would print some more handouts up and leave them at the registration table later this afternoon. And a lot of people did just that.

Tomorrow I have another seminar entitled “Do’s and Don’ts of Computer Security”. Hopefully it will go as well as today’s.

With the nice weather, and since we’re parked grass, Mister really loves to get out on his lease. However the dead grass gets all over him and he’s a real mess. If he wasn’t so afraid of vacuum cleaners, I’d try to just vacuum him. Because it’s so dry here, if you try to brush him off with your hand, you just build up a static charge on his fur and start drawing sparks, which he doesn’t like either. You just can’t win.

Finally, a little after 5, the four of us headed out for dinner at a nearby Golden Corral, and while we were in line, we ran into Mike and Linda, RV newbies who’ve only been on the road since last October. But Linda’s not new to driving big rigs since she’s a former truck driver, and she kept us all laughing with her tales of the road, and what a trucker sees from their cab high off the ground.

Getting back about 7pm, we had a great Country/Swing concert from a duo called “Ea$y Money”. They were really good and got the crowd on their feet, with even some line dancing going on. A really great time.

Then, about 8pm it was back to the rig to work on tomorrow’s seminar.

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March 8, 2012

Last Full Yuma Rally Day . . .

Today was the last full day of the 2012 rally in Yuma, AZ, and also the time for my last seminar of the rally called “10 Things Every RV’er Needs”. Running from 10:30 to 11:30, I guess it went well because we had people still hanging around asking questions up until noon when I had to go out front and man the front gate so Jan could attend a Pet First Aid seminar.

Then after Jan’s class was over, she came out to join me on the gate while I went back and brought us out hot dogs for lunch. When we got off at 2pm, we had planned to check out the Yuma Indoor Flea Market down the road, but decided to wait until Saturday.

We spent the rest of the afternoon back at the coach, with Jan reading on her Kindle while I took a nap. Then about 5 pm we met up with Al and Adrienne and drove over to have dinner at Mi Rancho, another very good local Mexican restaurant that they had found.

This is Al and Adrienne’s first RV rally and they’re really excited with everything they’ve learned the last few days, so we spent the entire meal just talking RV’ing.

We finally got back to the fairgrounds a little before 7pm, just in time for the final round of door prizes, including a Sea Eagle Inflatable Kayak, and a Kindle. Then, with everything over, people pitched in to put away all the tables and chairs, leaving just enough out for the final coffee and donuts get-together tomorrow morning before everyone starts heading.

As usual at a rally, we all had a great time and are certainly looking forward to the next one.

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March 8, 2013

Still Not Much . . .

going on here with Jan gone.

In between rain showers I did get outside  and installed the Wiper Huggies I mentioned yesterday. I may have a better understanding on why they don’t work very well for some users.

It’s very easy to install them upside down as the instructions are somewhat confusing. And of course if they’re upside down, they’re pulling the wiper blades away from the windshield, not toward it. Which kind of defeats the whole purpose. I’ll let you know how they work out.

I got my toad tow light test box working and it shows that there’s definitely a problem with my lights. And it’s an intermittent problem since they worked before we left Canyon Lake.

So now I’ll have to get under the truck and trace the wire harness from front to back to see where the problem is. More fun!

Tomorrow I’ll drive back over to Gina’s and pick up Jan. Then Sunday we’ll do some last minute grocery shopping, and then get ready to travel on Monday.

We’ll be heading about 350 miles out I-10 to Saddleback Mountain RV Park in Balmorhea, TX. There we’ll wait for a couple of days before we head further west.

Jan’s coming home tomorrow.

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March 8, 2014

On The Road . . .

Somehow I left out of yesterday’s blog that last night we had dinner at Los Cabos Mexican Grill with Lynette and Gregg McHenry. With all of us having done the gate guard thing, that was pretty much the entire conversation. But’s it always a lot of fun to hear other guard’s trials and tribulations.

And the food was really good too.

As far as today, it was a road trip day. We were heading down to our house in Friendswood to get together with Chris, Linda, and Piper, and to drop some stuff off at our storeroom that I had cleaned out of the rig.

We left the rig about 10 with our first stop at Schobels’ Restaurant in Columbus, TX for another of their great omelet breakfasts. We both got the same ones as last time, with Jan getting her Veggie Omelet, and of course, my Spanish Omelet. With the excellent biscuits and the grits (hashbrowns for Jan) it’s a great meal for the price. And although we haven’t tried it, their breakfast buffet looks really good, too.

Back on the road by 11, we made a pit stop / shopping stop at the Tractor Supply Store in Katy about an hour later, where Jan was looking for her favorite magazine, Countryside & Small Stock Journal.

Now I can’t explain why her favorite mag is about raising chickens and planting truck gardens, just as I can’t explain why one of my favorites is Model Railroader.

But Jan struck out this time because the March issue wasn’t out yet. So we’ll check back again.

We got to Chris’ about 1pm, and then split up. Jan and Piper headed off to get Mani-Pedi’s while I stopped off at the storeroom, and then took care of some other errands like a much-needed car wash and a stop at the nearby Kroger’s for gas. And once again I was happy to see that my Fred Meyer’s (Kroger’s) card is still giving me the $.10 a gallon discount no matter how much I buy each month. I just have to buy something.

My next stop was Home Depot to pick up a 2’ x 2’ piece of 1/2” plywood to put a new top on our entry step. That took me right up to 3pm when we all met at the Longhorn Steakhouse near our house. Longhorn has become our favorite steakhouse chain and we’ve never been disappointed. And this time was no exception.

By 4:30 we were on the road headed home, with a pit stop at the Flying J in Brookshire. While there I took a look at their selection of Lug Nut Covers.

I’m missing several on the rig and wanted to replace them, but after looking at what they had, I realized I wasn’t sure of the correct size. So I’ll try again later when I know the size for sure.

Of course, since I got the truck washed today, it poured down rain all the way from the Flying J to the rig with no let up. But we finally made it home about 6:15 and settled in for the night.

About 8pm we had coffee and some of  the delicious Blueberry Coffee Cake that our daughter-in-law Linda had baked and sent home with us. Really, really good.

What I get done tomorrow depends on how this weather turns out.

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March 8, 2015

From Donut’s To Ribeye’s

Today was the first ‘real’ day of the Escapade. Thursday (when we arrived) and Friday are considered ‘Early Bird’ days for those who want to come in a couple of days ahead.

It was also the first day that the vendors were open, so about 10am Jan and I walked over to Old Pueblo Hall to check things out. They have coffee and donuts available, and lucky for us, we got the last two donuts from Dennis Hill. Then we spent some time walking around the Market, checking out the new stuff and saying ‘Hi’ to a lot of old friends from over the years.

A little later I walked over to the other side of the building to check out the facilities of the room where Jan and I will be giving our Gate Guarding Seminar this coming Wednesday at 11:30. Later we came back to the rig and Jan heated up last night’s Luckie’s Thai leftovers. Still delicious.

While Jan read, I went back over to the hall about 1pm for the Seminar Presenter’s Meeting so that all of us could get familiar with the equipment we’ll be using, like the sound system, wireless mics, and the video projector. Looks pretty much the same as what I used for other rally’s so it shouldn’t be a problem.

About 3pm Jan and I walked over to Thurber Hall for the Escapade Opening Ceremonies.

There are almost 900 RV’s here, so we probably had 1600 – 1700 people there, a pretty good size crowd. The first thing they did was to draw tickets for the 4 $200 door prizes to open the show. And No, Jan and I didn’t win.

Later, after the ceremony was over, we connected up with Bob Parker and Donna Huffer, and we all headed in toward Tucson for have dinner at the Silver Saddle Steakhouse, one of our favorite local places.

They grill their steaks right in front of you, on a open pit, my favorite way of doing a steak.

But one thing that has always disappointed me about the place is the lack of a Ribeye on the menu. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another steak place that didn’t serve a Ribeye. But tonight we were in luck.

They had a 17 oz. Bone-In Ribeye on special, and boy, was it good.

Tomorrow starts the first day of seminars so Jan and I will be checking out the many choices. Really looking forward to it.

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March 8, 2016

Photos and Fideo . . .

Our weather today alternated between bright, sunny skies and heavy rain with a lot of wind filling the gaps in-between. And it looks like it’s going to be the same over the next few days.

But based on state weather reports, we came off pretty easy, all things considered. I saw articles about bad storms hitting RV parks around the state, with some damage shown.

Brandi send over a couple of Landon’s school photos this afternoon, and although it’s only been a couple of weeks since we last saw, it looks like he’s grown even more.

Now that we’ve got our pantry in order and know more about what we have, I decided to do some baking, so Jan picked out a package of Bruce’s Sweet Potato Biscuit Mix.

Although there is no use-by date on the package, I pretty sure we bought them in 2008 in either Montana or Alaska, so there was some question about their viability. But we won’t know until we tear the package open, right?

So opening the bag, I gave it the smell test. And so far, so good, it smelled like sweet potatoes and cinnamon.

So I dumped it a large bowl, added the called-for amount of milk (strangely enough, it called for 2%, which is what we had) and mixed it up. I did end up adding some more milk to thin it out a bit, and then dropped the clumps on a greased cookie sheet.

I laid out eight biscuits before I noticed in the small print that the package was supposed to make 5, so I guess they’re a little smaller than what they’re supposed to be.

And after 15 minutes in the convection oven, and a brush with melted butter, this is what I ended up with. They look more like scones than biscuits, but they do smell good.

For dinner tonight I fleshed out my leftover Chicken Tortilla Soup with cans of black beans and Ro-Tel Habanero Tomatoes, and then made up a batch of Fideo noodles to put the now-thickened soup over.

With melted cheese on top, and some tortilla chips for crunch, it was maybe better than the first iteration two nights ago. And then for dessert a little later, we had a couple of the biscuits(scones?) each, heated up and buttered. Really, really good, especially for 8 year old biscuits.

When I opened the black beans tonight I saved the empty to try and use for a slobber tube collector on my rig engine. If the weather isn’t too bad tomorrow, I’ll give it a try.

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March 8, 2017

Propane and Crème Brûlée . . .

Since we were going out for breakfast at Cracker Barrel this morning, we slept in a little, not getting up until about 7:30, but were still hitched up and on our way by 10am.

Getting out onto I-45 I was happy to see that replacing the rig’s fuel filter the other day took card of our ‘lack of power’ problem, so we were easily cruising along at 60mph and had no trouble climbing some of the steep ramps.

About 10 minutes before we arrived at Colorado River TT, I called the office to ask that that the propane guy meet us at the fill station so I could top off our tank before we got parked.

The last time we got propane was December 24, 2014 right here at Colorado River. We were down a little below 1/4 of the tank and it took 24.4 gallons to fill us up.

Since we usually only use propane for running the fridge when we’re on the road in the non-summer travels, we normally wouldn’t need it this quickly, but back in 2015 when we were gate guarding up near Carthage, TX, the electric side of our water heater died, so we used the propane side for a month or so until I could fix it.

The reason I said the “non-summer’ months is that during the summer we run the generator to keep the AC’s going.

About 3:45 we headed into Katy to our daughter Brandi’s. But on the way we made a couple of stops, first at the park office to settle up for our propane and two days of 50amp. Then it was on to the hardware in downtown Columbus where I was able to find the small vinyl tubing I was looking for.

We got to Brandi’s about 5:30 and waited to hear from them. Brandi and Lowell were off with Landon getting him fitted out for his ice hockey gear for the lessons he’s going to be taking the next couple of months,

Finally we all met up at Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro, one of our all-time favorite restaurants anywhere.

We started off with an order of Pork Spring Rolls, everyone’s favorite.

While Jan and Brandi shared the Chicken Curry, and Lowell got his Little V Pho, I went with my usual Shaking Beef Vermicelli.

And of course we finished up with Crème Brûlée spoons, just the right amount of dessert to end the night.

Saying our goodbyes for the next 3+ months we headed back to Columbus.

Tomorrow it’s back down to the Clear Lake area for our last two doctor’s appointments, which hopefully will finish us up for this year.

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March 8, 2018

Nomads and Castaways . . .

.Now that I’ve gotten root access to our webserver I spend most of the day SSH’ing into work working my way through the server’s many misnamed folders trying to get a handle on where everything is located.

The previous guy had a bad habit  of giving folders names that have nothing to do with the contents. So I figure he was either very paranoid or very high, or very probably both, since the two go together

While we were at Pho 20 with Rudy and Caroline Legett last night, Sherri, the owner, knowing how I like hot peppers gave me a whole bag of these Thai Peppers.

Even knowing my love of heat, she was horrified when I took one out of the bag and started eating it. Thai peppers are around 20X hotter than jalapenos, and have less heat than most habaneros.

Sherri is always giving us something extra, and/or fixes us something special, as she did last night. This time it was a shrimp/mango/cucumber spring roll that we shared with Rudy and Caroline. Very good.

My number finally came up and I got my copy of Nomadland downloaded from the library to read.

The way the reviews read it was about RV’ers/Workampers and how bad their lives are, working for Amazon, harvesting beets, or selling Christmas trees or fireworks.

But it’s really a story of people, who down on their luck through a myriad of different reasons, are just one step above homeless. Referring to themselves as ‘houseless’, they travel from one low-paying job to another, trying to stay one repair ahead of breaking down along the way in their rag-tag campers, trailers, and vans. It is an interesting read so far,

On a similar subject the LA Times recently had an article entitled ‘Castaways’ in motor homes feel stranded on society’s fringe. In this case it seems these people are maybe a half step below the folks in Nomadland. living in barely-functional RV’s parked often illegally on California streets, trying to survive day to day. Also an interesting, though sad read.

Tomorrow it’s back to work on the webserver  and  then dinner once again at Floyd’s Cajun Seafood up in Webster.

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March 8, 2019

Lend Me Your Ear . . .

It looks like the blog is pretty much back to normal, and everyone who’s signed up should be getting their email copies. Let me know in a couple of days if yours hasn’t started back up by then.

I finally made the last big breakthrough I needed at work today. I was able to get into the phpmyadmin function and get it to work.

This means I now should be able to start moving the website off our in-house server and up to Godaddy. I really want to get this done before we head off to Europe.

Although the server is backed up daily, it would be just my luck if the server itself cratered while I was gone, with no one around to get it going again. Now I’ll be able to blame it all of Godaddy.

I’ve been checking back on eBay every day recently and today I struck gold. Or at least the 1995 Ford Thunderbird front passenger window that my client had been looking for. Not bad at only $85, and it’s on its way.

Jan and I were happy to see that there’s a big Van Gogh exhibit coming to Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, starting this coming Sunday and running through June 27.

Vincent van Gogh: His Life in Art

A must-see for Jan and I. And we’re also going to be checking out his works on display in Amsterdam, Paris, and London.

And like a guy online, we’ll be looking for a picture of a Sunflower with “To Amy” on it.

I mentioned last week about the possibility of us expanding our stays in the Paris and London a few days, but it’s beginning to look like it won’t work out. The big problem seems to be the hotel in Paris. We can’t extend our stay at the one we’re already booked into, and the only alternative is MUCH more expensive.

I just heard back from our travel agent, Chantelle Nugent, and because of the cancellation charges and extra fees, more expensive hotels, etc., it would increase the cost of our Paris/London tour by about 50%, rather than than the $300-$400 I had hoped, so we’re just going to go with what we have now.

Last up, I want to pass on my new favorite tech website. It’s called NewAtlas and it covers everything from computers to medical to autos, and more. Check it out.

I’m still hoping the weather will cooperate this weekend so I can maybe get some stuff done on the rig.

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March 8, 2020

Missing Their Best Friend . . .

Jan and I met Brandi, Lowell, and Landon up at King Food this morning, where apparently I traded my wife off for a plate of their delicious Honey-Glazed Chicken Wings with Garlic and French Butter.

Better than a bag of magic beans, I guess. And anyway it was more of a rental since I’ll get her back on Thursday.

Both Landon and Baxter are missing their best friend.

Baxter watched them take Kitty to the vet for the last time this past Thursday, and was waiting at the window for her when they got home.

And even today, she’s still waiting at the window. Both of them still missing their best friend.

Yesterday we were out and about, first eating lunch at Los Ramirez, and then doing some grocery shopping for Jan’s stay at Brandi’s. She wanted to get the ingredients for her world-famous spaghetti sauce, which everyone wants when she’s up there.

She also want to get few things for her lunches, so our first stop was the local HEB. And I was curious to see how much, if any, panic shopping was going on. And if looks like they were doing a good job keeping everything stocked.

Though the shelves were a little thin, they had plenty of toilet paper, water, bleach, etc., all the things that people seem to be looking for. The only thing I noticed out of stock were those Lysol or Clorox Wipes.

Next up it was across the Interstate to WalMart, and things were a little more hectic there. The toilet paper aisle was much barer, thought still stocked, as was the water and bleach supplies. But once again, the Lysol/Clorox Wipes were AWOL. Hopefully things will settle down and the panic will subside.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been anticipating a new piece of software coming out, especially something from Microsoft. Probably the last time was waiting for Windows 7 to replace the Windows Vista abomination.

And before that it was probably the original DOOM,

pretty much the only video game I’ve ever really played for any period of time.

Even Miss Piper got in on the action.

She would pound the mouse on the table, yelling “DOOM!, DOOM!”, as she fired her gun and killed the demons. And she was pretty good at it too.

Of course then she grew up and got a real gun.

But I’m really looking forward to the latest version of Microsoft Flight Simulator, and it really looks fantastic.

It’s just about like watching a movie, or seeing it in real life.

They say that all 37,000+ airports in the world are in the program, utilizing high resolution satellite and ground photos. And if you turn the Weather option on, it will display the actual weather in that place at that time, whether it is rain, snow, lightning or sun.

Check this out.

At least now I’ve got a new computer that should fast enough to run it.

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March 8, 2021

Another Monday, Another Problem . . .

I’ve been running through my head what to check next on my AC problem. But my first question is why the control box shorted out when it did. All I had done was take the inside cover off of the unit, and I was just looking up at the box when it Snap-Crackle-Popped right in front of me.

I knew that this was the first time it had happened since once it burned through, it wasn’t doing it again.

Jan and I have been planning our upcoming trip in June. All of the Texas family are meeting up in Vandalia, IL with Jan’s sister, Debbie and all her bunch. And it takes a lot more planning going by Jeep rather than in our RV.

First off, fuel. With the 150 gallons of diesel in the rig, we could go about 1200 miles. So  this 950 mile trip wouldn’t have involved any fuel stops.

But with the Jeep, the 18 gallon tank gets us about 250 miles, so that’s a data point.

And then there’s potty breaks. With the rig, our potty traveled with us, so all we needed was a wide shoulder on the side of the road. Of course fuel stops are also potty breaks, but they don’t always match up.

We plan to spend the night in Jackson, MS going up to Illinois, where, coincidentally a Sonny’s BBQ is located about two miles from Red Roof Inn where we plan to stay.

Then coming home we’ll loop back down through Alabama to catch up with family and friends before finally making our way back to Santa Fe.

Really looking forward to the trip.

Recently the long-awaited trailer for the long-delayed new Top Gun movie with Tom Cruise reprising his role as Maverick.

And what could be better than this trailer?

How about the same trailer, done in Legos?

And even better, how about a comparison of the two trailers.

Really neat, but do you ever get the feeling that some people have too much time on their hands?

And here’s a really amazing video of an artist who paints 3D illusions, on trees. .

Almost unbelievable