Our RV Adventures

Just the Retro-Blogs tonight, since we’re getting ready to travel up to the Fredericksburg/Kingsland area for our family get-together. Jan and I are going up a day early to spend Thursday night in Fredericksburg before heading over to Kingsland to meet up with everyone else, before we all head home on Sunday afternoon.

Really looking forward to it all.

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Thought for the Day:

I want a closed casket funeral. However, towards the end of the service, I want the organist to play “Pop Goes The Weasel” over and over until everyone in attendance is staring at my coffin with horrified anticipation.

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March 22, 2009

Par dee! Par dee!

We had our first real RV get-together this afternoon.  As I mentioned yesterday we were invited by the couple next door to a Potluck/White Elephant. It was a good turnout with about 30 people and quite a spread.

Besides our Big Daddy’s beans (which went over great!) we had ribs, Swedish meatballs, several kinds of chicken, multiple veggies, different salads, and a lot of deserts.

Mm Mm Good!

After the meal, they started calling out the numbers we had been given when we turned in the White Elephant gift we brought.  We brought a bottle of sparkling red wine we got in Florida a few years ago and it was a big hit.  It quickly got traded around the maximum three times.

Jan got a candle-burning hurricane lamp that clamps to the side of a picnic table.  Jan was really happy with it, so happy we had to go buy candles for it later in the afternoon.

Most of the people at the Potluck seemed to be Canadian snowbirds. The ones we talked to have been here since October and will be leaving in the next week or so.  As will we.

Another example of how long-termers here make themselves at home is this pic.

Just like home.

Some people have so much stuff it looks like they brought their backyard with them.

As we were driving down to Orange Beach to get Jan’s candles, I noticed the red surf warning flags were posted up and down the beach.  I was curious to see what they considered dangerous surf so coming back from buying candles, we drove out to where our beach property used to be.

And I couldn’t believe what I saw.

They’ve turned into a bunch of wussies down here.

This is what I saw!

Dangerous Surf?

When I was growing up down here we would have considered this moderately good surfing waves, and I certainly surfed in much bigger.

But according to the signs in Gulf Shores proper, you can be fined for swimming when the red flags are out.  I don’t know what the State Park says yet.  I will be interested to find out.

But while we were checking the surf out I did get some nice sunset shots, so enjoy and I will see you tomorrow.

Nice!

Condos, Condos, Condos

One of our old beach cottages.

Beautiful End to a Great Day!

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March 22, 2010

Eau de Toilette…

I spent most of the day working on the toilet in our rig.

Apparently to no avail. It works OK, but the water that is supposed to stay in the bowl leaks out down into the holding tank.

But probably more than you wanted to know.

Later, we went to supper at New China Buffet. Not great, but we’ve had worse.

We’ve got another Chinese buffet to try tomorrow night that had a really crowded parking lot.

A little before 9pm we headed back to our rig.

Tomorrow we plan on taking a chocolate factory tour, and trying to visit the Pawn Stars shop again.

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March 22, 2011

Trains and Tombstones . . .

First off we have a new Landon photo taken while he was Skyping with his other grandmother in OK.

This morning started really early, (Hey, for me, 7am is EARLY) but at least we had time for coffee.

It was really nice outside this morning since the winds had died down, and the light, but steady, rain all night had finally settled the dust. And it looks to be nice for the next several days with highs in the low 70’s and lows in the low 40’s.

Really nice.

About 9am Jan and I headed out to Tombstone, AZ, “The Town Too Tough To Die”, about 55 miles away.

The first 25 took us east on I-10 to Benson where we got on State Road 80, toward Tombstone.

Passing through Benson, we took a loop around the Escapees SKP park located on the outskirts of the town. This park is a co-op park that allows the owners to build structures on their lots next to their RV pads. And some get even more involved.

This owner build his own outdoor western-themed train layout. I told Jan this makes me want to reconsider buying a lot in a park somewhere. If I weren’t RVing fulltime I’d have a big train layout like I did as a kid.

Nearing Tombstone, we took a tour of an Arizona ghost town called Fairbank. Founded in 1881, it prospered from being the nearest railroad station to the bustling city of Tombstone, one of the largest cities in the western US at the time.

But a combination of floods and droughts gradually killed off the town, although there were a few remaining residents until the 1970’s when the last of the buildings were condemned.

Today the area is owned by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and is open to the public.

Leaving Fairbank, it was only a few minutes further down the road to Tombstone. And just about the first thing you see coming into town is Tombstone’s legendary Boot Hill. And it was our first place to stop.

Apparently only about 200 of the 300 graves here are identified, due to some buried without grave markers, and some markers lost. But the ones that remain are very interesting.

Some of the first graves you find are the result of the (in)famous Gunfight at the OK Corral.

Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury, and Frank McLaury were killed in a shootout with Wyatt Earp, his brothers Virgil and Morgan, and Doc Holliday. The two other initial participants, Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne ran when the shooting started.

The feud between the Earps and the Clanton gang continued for another six months, resulting in the death of Morgan Earp and the severe wounding of Virgil. Finally in April 1882 the Earps left the Arizona Territory for Colorado.

Later, after serving as a film consultant for silent cowboy moves, and also as a deputy sheriff, Wyatt Earp died in January 1929 at the age of 80 in his small apartment in Los Angeles.

On a Trivial Pursuit note, his friend Bat Masterson, died in New York City at his desk at the New York Morning Telegraph newspaper where he was head sports editor. A big change from a gunfighter/lawman in the Old West.

The gallows still stand at the old Cochise County Courthouse, and some days they got a real workout.

In this case, 5 in one day.

It’s good that they clarified they hung these guys ‘legally’, caused this guy was just lynched outright.

And in one of those ‘Oops. Sorry ‘bout that’ moments, this poor soul was done in by mistake.

Oh, well.

After driving around Tombstone, and deciding that the place had been turned into a complete tourist trap, we pressed on to Bisbee, AZ.

Our first stop was lunch at the Bisbee Grille, a place that got great reviews, but we weren’t as enamored of it as the reviews were.

Bisbee is a quaint little town scattered up and down the mountain side, with a lot of neat shops and stores. It has a real artist’s colony feel to it.

This post is starting to run long so I’ll finish up the rest of our trip tomorrow.

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March 22, 2012

Two More Down . . .

+ one.

When I got up about 10 this morning I found two more mice in my traps. But they’re getting smaller, so maybe I’m working my way thru the herd.

About 10:30 our friend (and GMAC Insurance Agent) called with a computer problem. This was the first day of the big Good Sam RV Rally up in Phoenix and she was having a problem with printing from their 2nd computer. Luckily I was able to get her problem fixed over the phone and get her going again.

I headed out a little after 1pm to get gas, make an Ace Hardware run, and then a stop at Fry’s Market for some groceries, and some Mega-Millions lottery tickets for tomorrow night’s $290 million dollar drawing. (crossing my fingers . . . and toes, and eyes . . . and . . . )

Getting back to the rig, I decided to take a nap before we headed out for supper.

We picked up our friend’s Al & Adrienne at their home in Voyager RV Resort and headed over to the Silver Saddle Steakhouse for dinner. This will be our last get-together for a while until maybe later this year.

Silver Saddle has been voted the Best Steakhouse in Tucson a number of times, and after eating there again, it’s easy to see why.

You can watch your steak being flame broiled over the open-pit mesquite grill that sits off to the side of the dining room. The steaks come out perfectly done, with that slightly-burnt crispy edge that meat get when its cooked over an open fire. Really, really good.

We’ve known Al and Adrienne since we met in Fairbanks, AK in 2008, and have been good friends ever since.

When we got back to the rig, we found an email from our daughter Brandi showing our grandson Landon helping daddy mow the grass. Very cute.

When I checked my mouse trapline about 9pm I found a third mouse in my traps. I can’t believe all these have been living in our rig. I’m beginning to wonder if maybe they’re coming in from the outside.

I think I’ll put a trap out in our water bay tonight, since it’s the only place they could be getting in the rig.

We’ll see.

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March 22, 2013

Rib Fix . . .

I called the Blue Ox guy about 11 and they put me on the standby list to get my Blue Ox tow bar serviced. So hopefully they’ll be able to fit me in tomorrow.

Otherwise I’ll try to catch them at another rally, or, if necessary, we’ll make a detour by their factory in Pender, NE. This would work out well because Nebraska, along with Kansas and Oklahoma, are the only three states we haven’t RV’d in yet. So it might all work out anyway.

About 3:30 our power went off. At first I thought we had popped the breaker since we’re on 30 amps and both the AC and dryer were running. But when I checked the breaker, it wasn’t blown. I reset it anyway, but no luck.

My next thought was that the power to the whole park had gone off, but I seemed to be the only one out looking around, so maybe not. My next try was to move the plug to the other box on the pole. And that worked.

It could have been that the power came back on right when I moved to the new box. But for right now I left it like that since we were getting ready to leave in a few minutes for dinner. I’ll check it out later.

About 3:45pm Jan and I headed up to north Tucson to have dinner at Famous Dave’s BBQ, one of our two favorite BBQ chains, (the other being Sonny’s BBQ). We were both going into rib withdrawal and needed our fix.

Jan had a Half Rack of ribs, while I had my usual Rib and Brisket Plate. Along with their Devil’s Spit sauce, it’s a meal that’s hard to beat.

Leaving Famous Dave’s, we first headed a few miles north to an El Pollo Loco so we could pick up some of their delicious marinated grilled chicken to have for meals here at the rig.

Then finally heading home, and after we stopped to fill up the truck, we made a quick stop by Sam’s Club for a couple of things. It was kind of ironic that, after having BBQ for supper, we encountered a large BBQ Cookoff being held in the Sam’s Club parking lot. If we’d known beforehand, it might have been interesting to check it out. But we were so full we didn’t even want to think about more BBQ.

By the time we got home, it was dark and the drag strip right down the road was in high gear. And like last year, they obviously had a jet-powered dragster there.

I say ‘obviously’, because you can tell by the sound even if you can’t see it. And I’d be willing to bet that the jet engine they were using was a GE J-79, Used in the F-104 Starfighter, the F-4 Phantom, the A-5 Vigilante. and even the B-58 Hustler.

The J-79 was noted for making a particular ‘howling’ noise at different thrust settings, especially when it was throttled back on approach and landing. And the jet dragster tonight was howling up a storm when they shut down at the end of their run.

In fact the howl was one of the things that led to the F-4 being called the “Phantom”, and when I used to do DOD work at airbases around the country, even Jan knew when an F-4 went over.

And since we got home after dark, I didn’t get a chance to check further on the power problem. But there’s always tomorrow.

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March 22, 2014

Now It’s Three in a Row . . .

I was up about 10am and kind of moped around, delaying going outside and working on the slide, and then I was saved by the bell, or at least by the phone call.

Our son and daughter-in-law, Chris & Linda were in the area checking out the bluebonnets, and looking at some property, and were going to come by and visit for a while.

Wow, dodged a bullet.

We had a great time, and even better, by the time they left, I could justify it being too late to start on the slide before we headed out for dinner.

A good visit, and a good excuse. It’s a Two’fer!

About 4 pm we drove over to Jan and Dave Evans’ site to pick them up for dinner, and then we went by Lynette and Gregg McHenry’s so they could follow us.

We were heading to Cilantro’s Mexican Grill, a Mexican (obviously) restaurant over in Willis, right off the Interstate, and near the Kroger Marketplace that I mentioned the other day.

And, yes, that means we’ve had Mexican food three days in a row. Not really a record for us, though. When our kids were young, we once had dinner at the same Mexican restaurant 7 days in a row. It was that good.

Jan had the Cilantro Jalapeno Chicken,

and I had the Combo Fajitas once again.

I lost track of what the other couples had, but we had a good time, and spent almost 3 hours talking and laughing.

Later, Jan and I both agreed that had we not had dinner the two previous nights at El Bosque, we would have been really impressed with Cilantro’s. But in comparison, it wasn’t quite up to snuff. It was good, just not as good as El Bosque.

Tomorrow I’ll take another look at the slide, and start getting ready to travel on Monday.

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March 22, 2015

Fooled Us Again . . .

We pulled out of the Santa Fe RV Park a little after noon, heading 4.4 miles away to the Countryside RV Park where we’ll be for the next two weeks. And at this point I’m not sure if I really did anything to make a difference, but I had no problem with the rig’s air compressor/airbags this morning.

But unfortunately, I did TWO things differently, not just one. First, right after I cranked up, went to high idle, and brought the levelers up, I cycled the Manual Air Dump switch 3 or 4 times to see if that would make any difference, and second, I walked over to talk to the park manager for a couple of minutes. When I came back to the rig about 10 minutes later, we were up on the airbags and ready to roll.

So I don’t know what made the difference. I’m pretty sure that I had let it idle this long before, so I don’t know. Maybe it was cycling the dump switch. I guess I’ll find out in two weeks when we head up to Verde Valley.

Jan and I headed out about 3pm on our way over to SanTan Village, and the Grimaldi’s Pizzeria there. Along the way though, we stopped off at a Michael’s so I could picked up some heavy-duty sewing needles to use on my magnetic windshield shade project.  I was hoping to also find some heavy black thread to go along with my new needles, but they don’t really carry sewing stuff, just larger yarns for knitting. So I’ll have to find a JoAnn’s or a Hancock’s to pick some up.

We thought we had it scheduled out. Every Grimaldi’s we’ve ever eaten at restokes their coal-fired ovens from 3 to 4pm, so by getting there about 4:15, we should have been all set, with no delay. But maybe because Arizona isn’t on Daylight Savings Time, or something else, the Grimaldi’s at SanTan restokes between 4 and 5. Bummer. Fooled again.

But we weren’t in any hurry, so we got our salad, and just sat and talked, and people-watched, one of our favorite pastimes

Then, a few minutes after 5, our pizza, a large with Pepperoni, Mushrooms, Meatballs, Italian Sausage, and extra Mozzarella. showed up at our table and was just as delicious as always.

Since we brought home some of the salad, and half the pizza, we decided we had room for dessert, so we split a piece of their really delicious Bailey’s Irish Crème, Oreo Crust Cheesecake. Well worth the splurge, believe me.

The other day after Jan and I had dinner at Dry River Co. in Tucson, I wondered if the fact that Grimaldi’s pizza was always crispier than others was due to their coal-fired ovens. And according to their menu, the coal-fired ones run hotter than either, gas, electric, or wood-fired ones. So now we know.

And it looks like Jan and I will be right back at SanTan Village tomorrow evening to have dinner at a group favorite, Famous Dave’s BBQ. Really looking forward to it.

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March 22, 2016

Slobberless . . .

We again did our 1 mile (actually 1.12 miles) walk this morning and then sat outside holding Karma while we drank our coffee. She seems to like it better being held rather than on the ground and on her leash.

At least until a couple walking their dog passed by about 25 yards away. The small white dog wasn’t much bigger than Karma and never paid any attention to her, but Karma freaked and started scratching to get down and away.

Luckily I was able to keep ahold of her as she tried to claw her way to freedom, and I was able to get her back in the rig. Of course five minutes later she was at screen door meowing to get back out.

I’m not falling for that again.

When we were back inside, I gathered up the garbage and walked it back over to the dumpster. I also took my camera along to get some photos of a really neat 5th wheel we saw on our walk.

It’s painted up as a computer motherboard, complete with case cooling fan.

And a really neat circuit pattern on the front.

On this slide they’ve started painting computer components like capacitors, transistors, and other parts.

Even better, the white circuit traces are covered with glow-in-the-dark strips, so the whole thing lights up at night.

The rig is owned by Oran and Angie, who travel with their two kids, selling TV Boxes and providing remote desktop and website support to clients. You can find him here at TechEvolution.info.

Later in the afternoon I crawled back under the rig to check the contents of my recently-installed slobber can.

When we traveled from Lake Conroe to Colorado River about three weeks ago I found our truck with a good cover of engine oil when we arrived. I had seen this to a much lesser extent when we used the PacBrake a lot in the mountains out west. But this was a good bit more oil.

While we were there I researched possible causes of this problem and came up with idea that the oil spray was coming from the ‘slobber tube’, also known as a breather tube.

So before we left Colorado River I hung an extension tube and a soup can from the slobber tube to see what was happening.

But although I confirmed the can was still there when we got here, I didn’t get under the rig until today.

And I found an almost empty can with just a little bit of sludge at the bottom.

So was this just a one-time problem, or what?

I’ll leave the can on for now, and if I don’t get any oil collected on our trip to Colorado River next Sunday, then I’ll remove it and see what happens on the next trip.

Last Tuesday coming back from our our daughter Brandi’s in Katy, we decided to try out the newly-opened Grand Parkway Tollway section between I-10 in Katy and I-45 north near The Woodlands. Our friends Jim and Peri Dean had tried it and liked it, so now it was our turn. And after giving it a try, we found we both liked it and didn’t like it.

We liked it because we were coming home during the afternoon rush, and it was 75mph the entire way, only slowing down to a crawl once we were back on I-45 N.

But for what it’s worth, it’s 5 miles longer than taking Beltway 8 like we usually do, and it’s more expensive – $7.62 vs. $3.00 for the Beltway.

I also mentioned at the time the weird pricing at the six toll spots along the way, and today I finally logged into my EZ Tag account to double check the amounts. And they are weird.

1. $1.98
2. $1.03
3. $1.35
4. $0.95
5. $1.20
6. $1.11

What kind of toll is $1.03?

So we’ll probably just reserve this route for rush hour travel.

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March 22, 2018

Almost, But Not Yet . . .

I got a call from my doctor’s office a little before 11 this morning, giving me the results of the lab tests from our visit this past Monday.

And overall, they were really good. Most importantly I’m off Metformin. My A1c was 5.7, which is great, and a good drop from last year. The only real downside was my calcium level was a little low so they changed my blood pressure meds to drop the diuretic.

Jan and I headed up to Webster about 11:30 to meet with her oncologist as a follow-up to her recent lab tests and mammogram. And Jan also got some good news.

All her lab tests came back normal, as well as her mammogram as I had already mentioned. AND her doctor also said that if she’s still problem-free this time next year, Jan can stop taking her Anastrozole. It’s not expensive, and it doesn’t seem to have any side effects for her, but the less stuff you take, the better. At least that’s always been my view.

Finishing up, the doctor told her that it was 4 years ago today that she was first diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Ironic.

With this good news we headed right down the street to have lunch at King Food. Next it was on out to Friendswood to our GP’s office to pick up the changed prescriptions for both Jan and I. Then it was on over to Brock’s Car Care with a stopover at the Kroger’s on the way to fill up Chris’ truck before we returned it.

But at Brock’s, our-so-far-great day skidded to a halt. After paying the bill and picking up the key, the first thing I did was to try to put the truck into tow mode, since it involves the transfer case that was replaced.

And it didn’t work.

The procedure is to turn the key to the ON unlocked position, put your foot on the brake, and then put the gearshift in Neutral. At this point you press a ballpoint pen into a depression at the bottom left of the 4WD switch.

The lights on the switch flash and there’s a Click-Clunk and the transfer case is now in tow mode. If the truck is not already hitched up or the parking braking is not on, the truck will roll away. In fact the truck is towed in Park.

When we get to our destination, I just reverse the procedure before unhitching.

But now nothing happened – No lights, no Click-Clunk, no nothing. Plus the Service 4WD light was now on. Going inside I told Dennis about the problem and gave him the key back. He said he’d be in touch.

Putting in a call to Chris to tell him we’d have his truck a little longer, we drove over to the nearby Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart to drop off our new prescriptions and pick up a few things.

Finishing up about 4pm we sat out in the parking lot for a while thinking maybe we’d hear from Brock’s before we headed back down to Santa Fe, but no luck. So about 5pm we started toward home, going down Hwy 3 to avoid all the going-home traffic on I-45. I did make a stopover at Fry’s Electronics for a few minutes before we got home about 6pm.

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March 22, 2019

Booting Up . . .

Finishing up on yesterday’s fun and folic, our next stop was for some WalMart shopping. And after all that food at Stomp’s Burger Joint we really needed a walk, so I parked at the far end of the parking lot, We could almost see the store from there.

Between football-ravaged ankles, as well as knees and ankles banged up from jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, I’ve usually worn boots most of my adult life, normally what I always called ‘Engineer’ boots, the short ones. Otherwise my ankles get sore very quickly walking any distance.

And I’d been talking about getting some new boots for our Europe trip, so I decided to see what WalMart had, based on my good experience with a pair of their Brahma boots that I bought back in 2014.

For the last umpteen years I’ve usually got my boots at Red Wing Shoes, mainly because that was the only place I could consistently find boots in my size. Which for me is around a 9 EEE or EEEE.

So yes, I have snowshoes for feet. I got these from my father, who said that he never had shoes that fit him until he enlisted in the Navy during WWII.

But Red Wing boots are very expensive, about $200 a pair, and it seems like the soles only lasted a few years before they would start coming apart.

But back in 2014 when we were gate guarding, I suddenly needed a pair of steel-toed boots so I grabbed a pair at WalMart for about $50. And five years later they’re still going strong with little or no wear on the tread.

But the tops are a little scuffed so I wanted some new ones, And this time I ended up with two pair, one black and one brown.

For a total of $55.

So I thought I’d start the break-in by wearing the black ones to work, and out and about. And I discovered that they apparently don’t really need any break-in period. They were just as comfortable as my 5 year old ones. And without the steel toes, much lighter too.

Finishing up at WM, it was on next door to Sam’s for gas. And a big shock. Since I filled up about a week and a half ago, the price jumped from $2.08 to $2.28.

Yikes!

When we got home, I dug out my Porter-Cable air compressor from the truck and started to check the rig’s tire pressures in prep for our test drive on Sunday.

And found out it wasn’t needed. The pressures were right where I set  them back last October before we left for Florida.

I’ve really been happy with these Ironman tires that I got back in 2015. I chose them because of all the big rigs in the oil field that were running them. And because these are truck tires, there’s a fast turnover, so these tires that I had install the first part of July 2015 have a date code of 0615.

Now that’s fresh.

Today was a big milestone for me at work. I was finally able to get a clean copy of our in-house Zen Cart shopping cart database transferred over and working on a new installation up on Godaddy. A big step toward my goal of getting our company shopping cart website up into the cloud and off my desk at work.

So to celebrate we went out for dinner tonight at a local fav, Los Ramirez Mexican Restaurant, where Jan got her usual Grilled Chicken Breast stuffed with Shrimp and Broccoli, while I got  the Beef Fajita Taco Salad.

A  delicious way to celebrate.

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March 22, 2020

Worse Than The Disease?

Later this afternoon Jan and I went outside, and with her help, we laid the shed box down on its side and pulled the top off.

Since it was still sprinkling, all I really wanted to do was pull out the instruction manual since I didn’t want it to get wet. I do have a downloaded copy, but sometimes there are updates in the box, as there was this time, a change in the number of several parts.

We hope to get started in the next few days while we’re in quarantine. Though it’s hard to tell since I will be going into work tomorrow as usual.

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March 22, 2022

Live Long and Prosper!

And A Nice Surprise!

We were on our way up to Conroe a little after 10am to meet up with the Conroe Bunch at the Golden Corral there. Jan and I got there about 11:35 with Janice and Dave Evans showing up a few minutes later, followed by Debi and Ed Hurlburt.

When we got there, Janice said we needed a table for 8, not for just the 6 of us.

???

And that was the surprise. A few minutes later long-time friends Eldy Tompkins and Jeannie Sparks walked in.

We first met them at a rally in 2010 and have met up a number of other times around the country, as far off as Oregon. So it was good to catch up.

They full-timed for 3 years in a motorhome, then sold their rig, and bought a house in Florida where they lived for 7 years. But then they were re-infected with Hitch-Itch, sold their house, bought a 5th wheel and hit the road again.

From left to right: Ed, Debi, Jeannie, Jan, Janice, Dave, and Eldy.

We were all talking about the bad weather and heavy rain . . . and hail last night. Though we only got about an inch of rain, and a lot of thunder and lightning this morning, up north in the Conroe area, they got it a lot worse.

We said our goodbyes about 2 and were back on the road towards home. And just like our trip up, there was a minimal amount of traffic and we had a smooth trip home, getting there about 3:30. After a stop at Cowboy Coffee for Sugar-Free Hazelnut Lattes, of course.

Live Long and Prosper –

Today is William Shatner’s Birthday. He’s 91.

Looks really good for 91. Of course people lived longer in the 25th century.