The 6th And Final Leg . . .

May 26, 2023 Uncategorized

The 6th And Final Leg . . .

We were on our way home this morning a little after 11am, heading for Baton Rouge, about 225 miles away.

The worst slowdown was actually right after we got back on I-10 leaving Fairhope and crossing the Mobile Causeway leading to the tunnel. Traffic was pretty much bumper to bumper 10 mph for about 10 miles. You do the math.

Getting into Baton Rouge, our first stop was at the Sonny’s BBQ here, the sixth and final leg of our Southern BBQ Tour.

If you’re keeping count, it’s been:

Sonny’s BBQ
Big Bob Gibson’s BBQ
Jim ‘N Nick’s BBQ
Golden Rule BBQ
Sonny’s BBQ
Sonny’s BBQ

Finishing up another delicious meal, we drove over to our nearby Sleep Inn Hotel, the same place we stayed last year.

Tomorrow we’ve got a last leg of about 300 miles to get back to Santa Fe and home.

Much as we’ve enjoyed this trip, we’re both looking forward to getting back to our own bed.

Thought For The Day:

Never Question Authority. They Don’t Know Either.

Since I know a few of you don’t make it all the way down through the Retro-Blogs™,
I thought I’d repost up here our time on our European Viking River Cruise today in 2019.

May 26, 2019

Homeward Bound . . .

Before our trip home today we spent several hours last night carefully weighing our luggage over and over.

Did you know a single sox weighs 3 oz.?

We were trying to max our two large checked bags right up to the 50 # limit, finally getting one of them up to 49.9 and the other one right on 50# by using the digital scale we had brought with us.

Then I got my carry-on right up to the 17# limit allowed for them. So then leaving out of travel clothes, I wedged all the rest into Jan’s carry-on, and, holding my breath, weighed it.

25.8 pounds!

Yikes!

Ok, if we each wear 4 shirts, 3 pair of pants, 6 pair of underwear, and 2 pair of shoes, we might get in under the wire. But somehow I don’t think that’s going to work either. Then Jan remembered that when we were checking in at the gate to our Lufthansa flight from Houston to Frankfurt last month they offered to also check in our carry-on’s as well as our big bags.

So Jan had the idea to just check in her carry-on along with her big bag, which means the 25# wouldn’t matter. So with a plan in hand, we were up at 7am, downstairs for breakfast at 8, and sitting in the lobby waiting for our ride by 9:30am.

Advised that we should be at Heathrow Airport 4 hours before our scheduled flight at 14:10, we were there a little before 10. Only to find out that our flight was going to be delayed, but only for about 10 minutes. So no problem.

But after we got through TSA (no cavity’s searched) and were at our gate, we were told the flight had slipped 45 minutes. Then we were told that our plane was late coming in from the States, and we were pushed back an hour. And that caused all the dominos to fall, further screwing over our schedule.

Gates are booked for a flight at a specific time, so if a plane is too early or too late arriving there may be another plane at that gate. Which is why as our flight got pushed back later and later, our specific gate number became ‘iffy’. But finally about an hour and 15 minutes late, we were boarded on our Boeing 787-9 and waiting for push back from the gate.

But that didn’t happen. As our departure got pushed back later and later, we also lost our slot in the flight path that we were scheduled to take home. So a new flight plan had to be calculated and then approved. But that resulted in a longer path home, so we had to take on another 10,000 pounds of jet fuel.

So finally, two hours and 10 minutes late, we were rotating and in the air for a now-10 hour flight.

They were able to make up some time by pushing the speed, staying at 34,000 feet and almost 600 mph for most of the flight, leaving us with views like this.

We finally got into Houston about an hour and 10 minutes late. And after getting through Customs, we met our driver and were on our way back to Santa Fe, getting back to the rig about 10pm.

Safe, sound, and with a lot of really great memories. And totally exhausted.

Now, after we get unpacked and settled in, I’ll start going back and filling in the missing days on our trip of a lifetime.

Stay tuned.

May 26, 2009

Two Georges on the Waterway…

Jan and I spent all day hunkered down in the coach riding out some really bad weather coming thru.

About 5 pm we headed over to our friend’s house and then went to Two George’s Restaurant for supper. This is a really great place right on the Intercoastal Waterway.

We made a big meal of it since this will be our last time to get together.

May 26, 2010

So far, no snow…yet

We left Riverfront RV Park in Garrison, MT about 8:45 am heading for Billings, MT about 270 miles away. We had planned to leave about 8 but it was in the mid 30’s outside, and the bed was warm, and we overslept. What can I say.

This park had some really nice views. Here’s a close-up of the mountain I showed you yesterday.

And here’s the view in the other direction. You just can’t beat views like this.

But before we left I wanted to put some air in one of my tires, so I started up the coach engine and went outside to air up the tire. All of a sudden I hear the engine accelerate to what sounded like wide open throttle. Running around to the door I looked in and saw Mister standing on the left hand control panel looking out the window at what I had been doing. Unfortunately, this meant he was standing on the cruise control switch. When you’re idling, the cruise control allows you to set the engine speed.

Mister set it to wide open!

But luckily there didn’t seem to be any damage done.

Anyway, about an hour after we left, and after a long slow climb, we crossed the Continental Divide at 6393 ft. and started back down. There was still a lot a snow along the road up there.

About 11:30 am we stopped at a rest area and Jan fixed sandwiches for lunch. Then it was back on the road.

Then, about 1:30 we stopped in Big Timber to take on diesel. The last time I got diesel in Washington state, it cost $3.70 a gallon. Today it was $3.04.

A big difference!

We got into Billings about 3 pm and got parked at the Billings’ Trailer Village. It was certainly nice to have better weather than the last time we were in Billings.

Here’s how it looked today.

When we first came thru on our way to Alaska the end of March of 2008, we had only planned to stay a couple of days to visit a friend of Jan’s. However the weather didn’t cooperate.

We ended up staying a week due to heavy snow. Here’s how it looked then. Here’s my beautiful wife taking in the snow.

And here’s Mister first encounter with snow. He put one foot down on the step and reconsidered going outside.

Then he just sat in the door and looked around. He absolutely refused to go outside. After all, he’s a Texas cat. He doesn’t do snow.

Then, coming back from Alaska the first part of October 2008, we again stopped in Billings for a couple of days, And again we got snowed in for a week. With even more snow this time.

14 inches!

But this time we broke the jinx. But as Jan said, “the day’s not over yet.” We’ll see.

About 4 pm we headed out for some errands and dinner. We first stopped by Sam’s and picked up some kitty litter, then it was on to Great Clips to get my bi-annual haircut.

Which took about 5 minutes. Hah!

Then it was off to Famous Dave’s, one of our favorite BBQ places, for dinner. They have a great new BBQ sauce called “80 Proof” made with Jack Daniels. And it is good!

We got home about 5:30 and Jan went across the street to do some laundry. She likes to do our throw rugs in the bigger commercial machines. It’s quicker.

While she was gone, I vacuumed the rugs and floors, and cleaned some spots on the rug.

Then it was in for the night.

Tomorrow we head for Gillette, WY, about 238 miles away, for 4 days of the American Coach Rally.

May 26, 2011

Sugar Pine Choo Choo . . .

We were up early this morning (well, 9 am is early for me) because I was going to get to play choo choo.

Well, they probably won’t let me play with it, so I’ll just have to settle for riding on it.

We headed out about 10 am to ride the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad located about 25 miles north of the park, on the way to Yosemite National Park.

The YMSP railroad is laid out on some of the old routes of the Madera Sugar Pine Lumber Company that ran from 1899 to 1931. When the company closed down, they pulled up all the track and sold off the rolling stock.

But then in 1961 Rudy Stauffer started rebuilding the railroad, laying down some of the old track along a 4 mile loop following the old roadbed, to create an excursion railroad.

The reconstituted railroad began service with the purchase of a Shay locomotive from the West Side Lumber Company railway of Tuolumne, California. Built in 1928, No. 10 is recognized as the largest ‘narrow gauge’ Shay locomotive ever constructed.

Narrow gauge means that the tracks are closer together than on a standard gauge railroad, in this case 3 feet vs. 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches. Narrow gauge track was used in locations like this because it was cheaper to build where the clearances and the curves are tighter.

Shays were known for their pulling power and were used in many logging and mining situations. What gave them their strength was their unique way of getting power to the driving wheels.

Unlike conventional steam locomotives like this 4-8-4 below that uses side rods that only power the large center wheels,

the Shays have gears and drive shafts that power all 12 wheels giving superior traction and power

They also had on display this center cab yard switcher that I think is a GE 50 or 55 ton model from the late 1950’s, but I’m not sure. It is apparently not operational.

In the engine house I also found Shay No. 15, the second engine on the railroad, though it looks like it’s under repair.

The rolling stock consists of two types of cars, a covered coach,

and these open-air versions, made from very large logs.

About 11:15 the conductor called “All Aboard” and we headed out on our 1 hour trip.

At the half-way point the train stopped to take on water and give the passengers a chance to stretch their legs.

It also gave me a chance to check out the cab of the locomotive. That mess looks worse than working on an RV.

Here you can see the firebox that makes the 200 psi of superheated steam that powers No. 10. The locomotive originally burned wood, but was later converted to burn fuel oil, also known as bunker oil. However now, they burn used motor oil, which doesn’t give them as much power, but is much cheaper.

Finishing up our ride, we checked out the museum, bookstore and gift shop, along with their gold panning instruction and demonstration.

After a great day on the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad, we headed back into Oakhurst about 1:15 pm. We had a really good time and highly recommend this to anyone in the area.

In the summertime they even have a Moonlight Special on Wednesday and Saturday nights complete with a BBQ steak dinner, entertainment, and a moonlight train ride (well, if the moon is out, otherwise it’s just a train ride in the dark, which can be fun too.)

Heading back into Oakhurst we decided to have a late lunch at Todd’s Cookhouse BBQ, our favorite local BBQ joint. It seems like this place just gets better and better every time we go.

Coming back to the park, we stopped off at the PO for our mail and some stamps, and then the NAPA Auto Parts store in Coarsegold for diesel antifreeze.

Our final stop was of course, for cappuccinos. I think we’re hooked now.

That’s about it for today.

There’s always tomorrow.

May 26, 2013

Wheeeeeee!

They just opened the new Texas SkyScreamer at the Six Flags over Texas in Arlington. And at 400 feet, this one of seven in the US is the tallest. The next runner-up tops out at 242 feet at Six Flags over Georgia in Atlanta.

At the top you’re whirling in a 124 foot circle at about 35 mph. The shorter towers rotate you at 43 mph, I guess due to less stress on the towers.

My kind of ride.

This might be worth a trip to Dallas when we’re back in Houston, just to give it a try. Now Jan might be a whole ‘nother story.

What about you? Wanna join me?

Aunt Sherry posted this photo of Master Landon enjoying himself at Chuck E. Cheese. Our daughter Brandi said they’re supposed to have the house closing on Thursday, and then the moving company comes Friday to start the move to their new house.

Jan and I were both a little under the weather this morning so we decided to postpone our movie. We had planned to try the buffet at the Horizon Casino after the movie, but with no movie, we decided to just do the buffet. But about 5 minutes before we were ready to leave, I decided to check Yelp for reviews on the place. And I’m glad I did.

There are 4 casinos here in the area. Two of them have $13-15 buffets and two have $30 buffets. And according to Yelp, the two cheaper ones are really, really bad. I mean, how many reviews do you see that say they gave the buffet one star because you’re not allowed to give no stars, Or that everyone in another group got food poisoning. Another group took a couple of bites and then asked for their money back.

So those places were out, and neither one of us wanted to pay $60 for dinner, so the other two were out. After a quick discussion, we decided to go back to Passaretti’s Italian Restaurant, the place we first ate at a couple of days after we got here. And even better it’s right outside the park.

Jan had her Meat Ravioli and I had the Spaghetti Marinara with Meatballs, exactly what we had the first time. Just as good as the first time. And just like last time, there were a number of large parties there, but our food still came promptly.

After dinner we drove down the road to Raley’s for some groceries, and an after-dinner coffee at the Peet’s located inside the store. This was our second time there, and it has been our new favorite coffee place. At least to us, the coffee is better than what we’ve had at Starbuck’s. Just saying.

As far as the movie thing, we’ll see about tomorrow.

May 26, 2014

Dogs And Brats . . .

After talking we decided to do hot dogs and brats on the grill this evening, so we will pick up some stuff for this.

About 1pm Jan and I drove over to the nearby Wal-Mart for groceries and stuff. And one of the ‘stuffs’ we picked up was a new Farberware Countertop Convection Oven like this one, except ours is black.

And it even has a rotisserie. Not that I ever think we’ll use it.

We tend not to do a lot of rotisseriering. But Jan is giddy over her new toy.

It’s also NOT digital which has caused us problems on the last two toaster ovens we’ve had.

Leaving Wal-Mart we stopped off at Martin’s Grocery to pick some other things. From there we got a couple of fresh salad items, I.e. Steakhouse Potato Salad and Broccoli and Cheese Salad. We also picked up a Coconut Cream Pie for dessert.

And we got some of their fresh muffins for breakfast the rest of the week.

About 5:30 we headed next door and got the hot dogs and brats on the grill. It was a perfect evening for it, with most of the holiday rigs having left the park for parts unknown.

The food was great, and the dessert a little later inside, was really good too. All in all, a very nice day.

Here’s a video thought y’all might enjoy.

Salut Salon. A really great quartet. And funny too.

May 26, 2016

It Only Took Eight Hours . . .

I finished up the Dell laptop repair/OS-reinstall last night, after getting the last of the Win10 updates downloaded. After replacing the hard drive, I had to first reinstall Win7 since that’s what was on the computer originally. Next using the Product Key on the bottom tag, I activated Win7 and downloaded 1.2 GB of updates. FWIW you can not install Win10 over a non-activated Win7, 8, or 8.1. It just won’t let you do it.

Next up, because the client wanted Win10, I installed it and then downloaded 500 Mb of Win10 updates, and that finally wrapped it up. I’ll drop it off while we’re down in Clear Lake tomorrow afternoon.

On the subject of Windows 10, for those of you still resisting Microsoft forcing it down your throat, or in your computer anyway, just remember Windows 10 upgrades are essentially the date rape of the computer world. You wake up and realize what has happened when you were asleep.

Many people have reported stepping away from their computer for a few minutes only to come back to find it in the middle of a Win10 install.

If this happens to you, after it’s finished installing, it asks you to agree to the Terms and Conditions. If you click “don’t agree”, it undoes the install, putting everything back the way it was.

But if you want to put a stop to this before it all starts, here’s some help. Check out Never10.

It blocks any further attempts to install Win10, and if the files have already been download to your computer, it will delete them. And if you ever decide you do want to install Win10, just run the program again. So check it out. Never10

What’s up with the commercials when we’re streaming network TV shows?

Occasionally we will stream a network show that we missed for some reason, either bad weather knocking out the satellite, or we can only record two shows at a time, so couldn’t record the third one, etc.

Last night we were catching on an episode of Once Upon A Time that we missed a while back. We have three later episodes on the DVR, so we needed to watch this one first to keep them in order. But as happened previously when we’ve streamed network shows, the commercials are unwatchable.

The show itself streams without a glitch, but when the commercial break starts it all grinds to a halt. First there’s 15-20 seconds of just black, then the ad starts, but usually stutters, starting and stopping, and usually freezing at some point. Then another 10-15 seconds of black, and it all starts over again. For 6 long commercials.

And 10 minutes later, it does it all over again. And again.

So if they can stream the show with no problems, why not the commercials?

Last night I finally remembered to bring my Garmin GPS in from the truck so I could update the maps and software to the latest versions. It seems like I always think about doing this when we’re in Conroe, but the speed and reliability of the 3G (or 4G, for that matter) there just isn’t up to downloading 2+ GB of data.

But with the 2.75 – 3.00 Mbps I’m getting on 3G (and 25 Mbps on 4G) here at Colorado River, this is the time to do it. So I got out my laptop, hooked up the GPS to it, and started the download. And eight hours later, at 3am when I went to bed, it had just finished up. So now I’m good for another year.

Recently while I looking for something on the Home Depot site I can across a post about a couple’s DIY paint job on their 1992 camper.

They started out with this:

And ended up with this.

You can check it here at DIY Camper Paint Job. And if you keep scrolling down, they detail the interior upgrades they did. Nice.

May 26, 2017

Moose and Mines . . .

We had a visitor this morning a little before I got up. Bob Fitz, a blog reader, came by to say HI, and let us know he and his wife were in Keystone yesterday when we were. They’re visiting Rapid City for a few days, and invited us to stop by and visit when we’re again in the Sioux Falls area.

It’s still going down into the high 30’s/low 40’s every night, but it’s supposed to start warming up a little in the next couple of weeks.

And speaking of a ‘couple of weeks, after we had been here a couple of days, we started talking about staying a few extra days past our one week stay. But when it all boiled down, we reupped for a second week. Which means we won’t leave here until June 6th.

Unless we decide to stay longer.

Elk Creek is unlimited PassPort America, so we can linger pretty much as long as we like. And one reason for us to stay longer is that Jan used to live here.

She was here when she was in 2nd grade while her father was stationed at Ellsworth AFB. So she remembers places around here that she would like to revisit. And at least one of them is still around.

That one is the Dinosaur Park, a group of dino statues built on top of a hill near downtown Rapid City. Constructed in the mid-1930’s to capitalize on tourists visiting nearby Mt. Rushmore, the city hoped to keep some of the tourist’s dollars in town.

And while we were at the Safeway, I looked up on top of the nearby hill and saw one of the reptiles on the loose.

Finishing up on yesterday’s 1880 Train, trip we were surprised at how many large homes were located out in the Black Hills National Forest.

Don’t know if this guy had a lot of firewood left over from this past winter, but he’s certainly ready for next winter.

Turns out that there were about 60+ mining claims that predated the 1897 creation of the Black Hills NF, and today many of those claims are now the location of family homes.

But some of the mine facilities can still be found along the route, mostly in the Addie Camp area. This was the Addie Camp tin mine.

Or at least it was supposed to be. Although they went down over 800 feet, they never found much tin and the mine was closed down.

This is the remains of the Good Luck Tungsten Mine, which was much more successful than the tin mine, but it finally closed down in the 1950’s.

The 1880 Train ride turned out to one of our favorites, and is much recommended.

Later, while we walking around Hill City waiting for our not-to-be Alpine Inn dinner, we came across this two amazing horse sculptures along the sidewalk.

Both done by the same artist, they’re made from junk, springs, tools, even other horses, and faces.

and there was also a smaller one.

Really amazing.

Jan had a good time exploring The Farmer’s Daughter shop right across the street.

And even found her a new moose to add to her collection

Cute.

We’re trying to keep our heads down during the holiday weekend, but we may run into RC to grab a burger at Fuddruckers, and maybe a trip to Home Depot or Lowe’s.

May 26, 2018

Another Day . . .

Going To The Sun.

I just saw an article online about the ongoing plowing of the Going To The Sun Highway in Glacier National Park.

Some years the snow is so heavy that they don’t get the road completely open until July, and this year looks like another one. So I guess we lucked out on our visit in July 2011.

May 26, 2019