Our RV Adventures

Jan and I were on our way up to Conroe about 9:30 this morning, stopping only for gas right down the road from the rig. The trip went really smoothly, with only a couple of slow-downs along the way.

Debi and Ed got there just a few minutes after we did and we got our orders in.

And of course, what’s any visit to Outback without a Blooming Onion? Just as good as when we first started having them 30+ years ago.

I started out with a Side Salad as my second side,

while Jan got double Veggies to go with her Alice Springs Chicken and Sirloin Steak.

She had thought on the way up there that she would have her long-time favorite Alice Springs Chicken, but after getting there, thought she really might want a steak.

So she got the best of both worlds. In other words, Both.

I did stick to my guns and got my long-time fav, the 2 8oz. Pork Chops with a Caramel Mustard Sauce, also with the Mixed Veggies.

We had our usual great time with Debi and Ed, but unfortunately, we won’t be able to get together next month since we’ll be back in Alabama for 2+ weeks.

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Thought for the Day:

Humans share 50% of their DNA with bananas. Well, that certainly explains a lot about some people I’ve met.

Your Retro-Preview Highlights –

2011 – Montezuma and Tuzigoot Monuments

2012 – More On Our First Days Of Gate-Guarding

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

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April 18, 2010

IHOP and WalMart…

We decided we wanted breakfast this morning so about 10 am we drove over to the IHOP in Lancaster about 3 miles away. The place was busy, but we only had to wait about 15 minutes so it wasn’t too bad.

But before we left the park we stopped by the office to pay for the next four days, thinking we would leave on Thursday. However, as usual, our plans are written in Jell-O, because after talking at breakfast we decided we’ll stay an extra 3 days which will be a full 2nd week here. We’ll see.

One thing we’ve noticed out here in CA is that most restaurant menus have the calorie count on them. And it’s interesting to see that things aren’t always what they seem. For instance, a Garden Omelet has about 1050 calories, but a Belgian waffle with two eggs and two strips of bacon has only about 790 calories. Who knew?

After breakfast, we went by WalMart and stocked up on ‘stuff’. Funny how we never seem to have enough ‘stuff’.

Leaving WalMart, we stopped off at the Sam’s Club gas station next door, since it was 27 cents a gallon cheaper than we had paid in LA.

Then it was home for the day.

Later in the afternoon, I put up our solar shades to help keep the coach cool, since without any shade here, the AC was really working to keep us cool.

Tomorrow we’re going back into LA to visit the La Brea Tar Pits and then drive around some more.

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April 18, 2011

Montezuma and Tuzigoot . . .

Today was our last chance to see some of the other sights in the Verde Valley, so we decided to drive a big loop around the area to see the Indian ruins.

But our first stop after the Post Office to drop the tax forms in the mail, was to have breakfast at the Denny’s in Camp Verde.

Important stuff first.

Then it was on to Montezuma Castle National Monument, featuring some of the best preserved cliff dwellings in North America. Only inhabited from the 1100’s to the 1400’s, they actually have nothing to do with Montezuma, the Aztec leader. The ruins were wrongly attributed to him by the first American settlers to discover the ruins in the 1860’s, as the dwellings were abandoned more than a hundred years before Montezuma was born.

The five-story dwelling had more than 20 rooms and housed about 50 people, and was accessed by tall ladders. This made the dwelling safe from most attacks.

It is unknown why the area was abandoned, but warfare, disease, or drought have been suggested.

About a hundred yards down the cliff are the remains of what is known as Castle A. It was larger and more elaborate than the original, but almost nothing is left of it except the foundation.

While we were sitting on a bench gazing up at the ruins, our daughter Brandi called to say how much she enjoyed the pictures I had posted of Landon from yesterday’s Skype session.

The 1/4 mile walk around the loop and along the river was beautiful and relaxing, and worth the trip just for that.

Our next stop was about 15 miles up the Interstate at the Montezuma Well National Monument.

This hike was a little more work, with a climb of several hundred feet to the top of the ridge.

But it’s well (no pun intended) worth the climb. Walking out on the edge reveals a beautiful blue-green pool almost 400 feet across. The Well was created by the collapse of a limestone cavern eons ago, probably eaten away by the two underground springs that feed almost 1.5 million gallons of water a day into the pool.

And talk about your waterfront condo, there are several cliff dwellings underneath the rim. The Well has been in use for irrigating the surrounding fields since the 8th century.

Here’s my sweetie showing off some of the interestingly gnarled trees growing around the top of the Well.

The tree behind her has really been working hard to grow out of these rocks.

Down the east side of the Well are the remains of a 20 to 30 room pueblo, overlooking the irrigated fields below. Dating from the 1300’s it was probably one of the last major structures built before the area was abandoned.

The beauty of this place certainly makes it worth the trip.

Leaving the Well, we next headed about 20 miles back around on the other side of Cottonwood, to the Tuzigoot National Monument.

But since it was on the way we also stopped by Fry’s to pick up some bread, and also scout their gas station access for getting diesel Wednesday morning before we leave for Show Low. Looks like we should have no problem.

Unlike the cliff dwelling at the Castle and the Well, the Tuzigoot pueblo is visible from a long way off.

After parking and making another long climb of several hundred feet (sightseeing can be hard work), we came on these amazing ruins.

At its peak in the late 1300’s, the pueblo consisted of 86 ground-floor rooms, and possibly 15 second-story rooms, with a population of over 200 people.

But life was hard, and the inhabitants seldom lived past 40. Over 400 graves have been found around the site.

A number of the tools they used have been found in the area, including these stones used to grind corn.

I wonder if a thousand years from now, someone will be excavating our ‘cliff dwellings’, trying to make sense of a Mr. Coffee and an Xbox?

I’m always fascinated with the beauty of the many flowers and shrubs found in the areas we visit. Some of the most striking are actually cactus blooms or fruit.

This is a Banana Yucca, and it’s easy to see why it’s called that.

While I was getting this shot of these Penstemons,

I noticed a visitor sampling some of the flowers. Apparently, these are a hummingbird favorite.

And these are Globemallows, used by the Indians in many medicines and treatments.

This is the Arizona Sycamore, that along with Mimosas, Acacias, and Mesquite, grows in abundance in the area.

We finally got back to the rig a little after 3 pm, and while Jan caught up on some recorded shows, I decided a nap was in order.

For dinner we checked out Crusty’s Pizza over in Camp Verde, and boy, was it good. Much better than Stromboli’s in Cottonwood. In fact, it was almost ‘Da Boyz’ in Yuma good.

And that’s good.

After leaving Crusty’s we walked next door to Basha’s to pick up some groceries before heading back to the rig.

Tomorrow is mostly a ‘get ready to travel’ day, as Wednesday morning we leave for Show Low.

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April 18, 2012

So Far, So Good . . .

Monday, April 16th

I was up at 5:30 and opened the gate at 5:45 just to be sure that I was ready to go for the first visitor. We’re really lucky that our first gate job is effectively only a 12hr gate, from about 6am to 6pm.

Jan was up about 7, and after puttering in the rig for a while, came out about 8 and we just enjoyed the view. We’ve got roadrunners, quail, doves, and a lot of other birds that we can’t identify yet, but Jan has her Petersen’s guidebook and is working on it.

Finally, about 12:30pm I headed over to Pearsall, TX, to the closest Wal-Mart to pick up some things, but it turns out that it’s not a SuperCenter, so I had to go to HEB for the groceries.

I was looking for a cheapy AT&T cellphone but no luck. The only place in town that sold cell phones was a Tax Preparation office ?? that was closed.

Bummer!

We still don’t have cell or Internet service out here, which is the only downside to the job site.

I finally got back at 5, and after putting things away, I pulled out our Weber Q Grill to do hot dogs. It’s been a while since we used it, so I was afraid we might be out of propane, but the bottle ran out just as the dogs were done, so it was all good.

More propane goes on the list.

The last truck out left about 6:30, so I locked the gate and we were done for the day.

We only had about 22 vehicles come through today, which was nice.

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Tuesday, April 17th

Our first truck didn’t come through until about 6:15, but a little before that, the coyotes woke up and started yipping and howling at each other. Thought they were supposed to howl at the moon, not the sun.

About 10:45am I headed about 50 miles north to Pleasanton, the closest Wal-Mart SuperCenter to check for AT&T phones, and they had what I needed. The two GoPhones were $15 a piece and then you buy time as you need it.

Hopefully, this will work for us.

My next stop was the Verizon store across the street to see where the closest cell tower was to our job site, and how far away it was. I want to see about getting an amplifier so we can use our Verizon cell/Internet service that we already have.

And it looks like it can be done. I’ll have to order it from Amazon tomorrow.

My last stop was China Garden to pick up some more of their great food to take back to the rig for dinner.

And apparently, I’m not the only one who likes their food. It was 1pm and the place was jam-packed. The parking lot was full and I had to park on the edge of the street. And there was a line out the door that I thought was to get in to eat.

No. The line was to either to pick up a call-in order, or place a take-out order. So it took me almost 30 minutes to get my food and get back on the road.

Getting home, I got a Big Bummer. The new AT&T cell phones don’t work. I was told AT&T would work out here but I don’t have a signal.

Now I just hope the amplifier idea will work. We’ll see. As it is, I have to drive about 20 miles one-way to get a signal to post this from my laptop and check our phone messages.

That’s about for today. I’ll try to have some photos tomorrow.

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April 18, 2013

See. I Told You So . . .

Things have really sped up for Brandi, Lowell, and Landon on the new home front.

Originally they thought they would have to wait until the end of the year before they could get their house built.

But as it turned out, someone else’s deal for the same model fell through and they were able to take it over early enough so that they could still make the design choices.

And it’s coming right along.

As it stands now they should be able to move in sometime in June.

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I’ve been checking the temps in places like Cody, WY, Billings, MT, and Gillette, WY. All places that we plan to be in the next couple of months, and all places that I really hope warm up by the time we get there. Last night the temps there were in the teens and low 20’s.

More Global Warming Please!

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Tale of Two Cities Chart

I found this chart on Facebook recently and it settles the question once and for all about what causes gun violence.

Based on the chart, the real cause of gun violence is Cold Weather.

More Global Warming Please!

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When  I heard about the explosion in West, TX I knew we’d been through there at some point in our travels and it turns out it was just last summer.

We left our Gate Guarding job in late August and headed north on I-35 on our way to Celina, OH. We stayed just north of there at the Lake Whitney Thousand Trails park our first night on the road. So I’m sure we would have heard and felt the blast.

In fact, according to an online diagram, if we’d been unlucky enough to have been passing through on I-35 at the wrong time, we would been within the blast radius.

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Today was a pretty quiet, slow day, and we didn’t do much of anything.

Jan and I headed out for dinner about 4:30 and ended up at an Outback Steakhouse.

And, as I mentioned the other day, we went to a steak house and Jan had CHICKEN. Told ya.

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April 18, 2014

Two Weeks from Today . . .

Our son Chris and his wife Linda posted this selfie from the Burnet / Inks Lake area today.

Smile, Chris.

And our niece Christina sent over this photo of her older brother Jason and our daughter Brandi with Santa. We’re pretty sure this was Christmas 1976 when we lived in Montgomery, AL.

Then everybody went and grew up. Here’s Brandi with her husband Lowell.

And here’s Jason with his wife Laura, along with Avery Jane, Ella, and Annisten.

Around 3:30 Jan and I drove down to the Woodland’s to have dinner at Grimaldi’s Pizzeria. On the way we dropped off a prescription at Sam’s Club that we’ll pick up on the way home.

This is the 2nd time we’ve eaten at this Grimaldi’s, as well as the Grimaldi’s in Katy, TX, San Antonio, Tucson, Apache Junction, and probably several others we’ve forgotten. And we also ate at the original one in New York in 2009. And it’s always great.

I’ve already talked about how they duplicate New York City water, and use the same Pennsylvania coal in all their coal-fired pizza ovens. In fact the same guy goes around the country to build the brick ovens in every store.

And it shows in the quality of the pizza.

Unlike many of their shopping center locations, the Woodland’s Grimaldi’s is really picturesque.

One thing to remember at Grimaldi’s is that the small $6 house salad is enough for 2 or 3 people. Jan and I shared one and couldn’t finish it all.

After all, we had to save room for this: A large (18”) with mushrooms, pepperoni, Italian sausage, and meatballs.

Jan and I can only eat half of a large one, so we always have plenty to take home for later. After our meal, we talked to the manager, Keith, and he said this location is the busiest one in the country.

Leaving Grimaldi’s we drove over to a nearby Randall’s to pick up one of their fantastic fresh-baked coconut cream pies. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any, so we got a couple of slices of their Tres Leches, as well as a few other things before heading toward Sam’s. Stopping there, we picked up the prescription as well as a couple of other things, before heading back to the rig.

Passing through the gate, I asked the guard on what site Wednesday night’s shooting took place. She just smiled and said they weren’t able to discuss that.

Oh well.

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Our hitch itch needs scratching, so two weeks from today we’ll finally be heading north, planning to be up in Goshen, IN for the 54th Escapade that starts the12th of May, where Jan and I will be giving our Gate Guarding for Fun? and Profit seminar.

See you there.

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April 18, 2015

Wrapping Up In Verde Valley . . .

After our morning coffee, we heard from blog reader Judy Hughes who’s parked right down the road at the Camp Verde RV Resort. We wanted to get together, and since we leave tomorrow, and and she leaves Monday, today was the day.

Since it was close to both of us, we decided on La Fonda for lunch at 12 noon.

We had a great time getting to know Judy and hearing about her solo adventures in her Winnebago Brave. In fact, we didn’t leave La Fonda until after 3pm, which seems about normal for RV’ers getting together.

Finally saying our goodbyes and making a date to get together again next week in Las Vegas, Jan and I headed on into Camp Verde to pick up a couple of orders of the Baked Spaghetti from the Crusty’s Pizza. We’ll divide them up and freeze them and then be able to have them later as a meal.

Then it was back into Cottonwood to pick up a couple of breakfast sandwiches at the Jack in the Box. Since we plan on leaving for Las Vegas by 8am, we won’t really have time for a real breakfast, so coffee and these sandwiches will be it.

Getting back to the rig about 5pm I spent some time getting everything ready to go outside. So tomorrow morning I’ll just have to let in the awnings, unhooked shore power, bring up the levelers, and we’ll be ready to go.

While I was putting away the water filter, I opened it up to take a look at the filter cartridge inside to see what it looked like after two weeks.

It started like this.

And now looks like this.

Not too bad, I guess, and the water definitely tastes better than with the old little one.

Tomorrow we’ve got a 305 mile trip over to the Las Vegas Thousand Trails where we’ll be for another two weeks before coming back here.

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April 18, 2016

Right Story, Wrong Company . . .

Well, it looks like that even when I’m wrong, sometimes I’m right.

After the recent hoax about the guy who supposedly erased over 1500 of his client’s websites, this past Friday it came true for real.

A London, England webhosting company, 123-reg.com was running a maintenance script that went rogue, (sound familiar?) and managed to delete (123 says hundreds, other sources say thousands, or tens of thousands) of customer’s websites. They actually host over 800,000 sites, so it’s hard to tell.

You can read about it here – 123-reg.com problems and check out the 123-req Twitter feed about it here.

As far as the original story, it turned out to be viral marketing hoax by someone who posted the story online to get publicity.

Well, the rains finally showed up – with a vengeance. The Houston area got over 17 inches of rain in the past 24 hours, with 6 people confirmed dead,  mostly it seems, from driving into high water in underpasses and never coming back out.

Here are a few online shots.

In the above photo, those couple of dark lumps in the center left of the photo are car roofs.

Of course the Houston area is no stranger to heavy rains. In July 1979, Alvin, TX, about 30 miles south of Houston, received over 43 inches of rain in a 24 hour period. And 37 years later, it still holds the record as the most 24 hour rainfall in US history. And with Alvin only about 9 miles away, we saw our share of rain in Friendswood.

We had just moved to Houston from Montgomery, AL the previous December so I could go to work at Johnson Space Center on the Space Shuttle project. Our kids, Chris, 12, and Brandi, almost 6, were spending the summer with Jan’s parents down in Titusville, FL, while Jan and I had just moved into our brand-new house a week or so earlier.

I was working the night shift at JSC, but found I could not leave the subdivision to get to work. And when I called to tell them that I wouldn’t be coming in, they said no problem, cause they couldn’t leave.

So Jan and I spent the night watching the water flood the street in front of the house, come up over the curb, and then creep up the yard, finally stopping only about 5 feet from the house, and only about 6 inches below floor level.

Locally here at the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails, I don’t think there were any flooding problems, except to the dock area. But at our other home, the Colorado River Thousand Trails, it was a whole ‘nuther story.

I talked to Marty, the head guy there, this afternoon, and he said they had closed down and turned off power in the ‘C’ & ‘D’ sections near the Colorado river. But that wasn’t all.

Here’s what the bridge looked like back in December 2015, when we were there during the last heavy rains.

But today, Marty said the water was over 4 feet deep here this time, and the railings had been severely damaged, and even ripped away in places.

Glad we weren’t there, but then we don’t know if we’ll be able to get in there this coming Sunday when we’re supposed to head that way. Marty said to call Saturday to check things out.

For dinner tonight, we scratched our Whataburger itch, with double-meat Whataburger Jr’s. Then it was on to the Kroger’s right next door for a few things, and then home.

Unfortunately, the weather people are saying we’re going to get more rain tomorrow, but supposedly, and hopefully, not as much as today.

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April 18, 2017

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five . . .

Two hundred forty-two years ago, Paul Revere, along with William Dawes, Israel Bissell, and Samuel Prescott, and a week later, Sybil Ludington, headed out across Massachusetts to warn the colonists that the British troops were on the move.

And contrary to popular lore, he did not ride along shouting, “The British Are Coming”. First off it wouldn’t have made much sense because at that time everybody was British. Plus Paul Revere and others were riding in secret so they wouldn’t be stopped by the British troops.

Dispatched by Joseph Warren, a physician and early leader in American Patriot organizations at the beginning of the American Revolution, he used four riders to ensure that at least one would get through to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that the British troops were coming to arrest them.

And ironically, Revere didn’t even complete the ride but was arrested by the British between Lexington and Concord, a total ride of about 18 miles.

Although the facts of her ride are blurry, Sybil Ludington supposedly outdid them all, when two years later, she rode over 40 miles in the rain to warn militiamen that the British troops were on their way to attack the Continental Army’s supply depot at Danbury, CT.

And she was only 16 years old.

A little after 1pm I turned off all the rig stuff, and then went outside and killed shore power to the coach so I could install the new transfer switch. After I removed the old one, I moved the grommets that protect the wires entering the box to the new one.

One thing nice was that even though it was an 85° day, we still had the front AC to keep things cool since it’s running separately on my AC bypass.

It only took me about 10 minutes to get the new one in, and up and running. So no more popsicle sticks.

Next, I was back under the front of the rig to mount the new exhaust pipe on my generator and it turned out to be pretty easy, everything just sliding together.

While I was under there I noticed a missing hanger strap that should be supporting the pipe, so it’s something else to fix.

Getting out from under the generator, I looked at what I had.

It was a little long, which I expected. So now I marked it with a Sharpie and then cut it to the correct length, ending up with this.

It actually sticks out a little more, but the bin door is partially open because the satellite cables come out from there. I may look into getting a chrome exhaust tip to put on the end.

About 4:30 Jan and I head down to Sunset Dr. in Henderson for another run at Buffalo Wild Wings, Tuesday being their Half Price Wings Day. And this time I managed to get a photo before we dug in.

Once again I went with the Mango Habanero while Jan stayed with the Bourbon Honey Mustard sauce.

Finally heading back to the rig I made a stop at an O’Reilly Auto Parts and found an exhaust hanger strap that should fit the bill. But no luck with an exhaust tip that would fit.

Wrapping up, as I was going over tax stuff today, I found this noticed on one of the IRS forms.

Really glad to know this ahead of time. Otherwise, I might have gotten in trouble.

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April 18, 2018

On The eighteenth of April,

in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is still alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

Work today was another dip into the repair pool again with a dead machine. In this case, it was completely dead. It didn’t even turn on.

In many cases, dead units like this are often easier to repair than something intermittent, or just not working right. So the first thing you check is for a blown fuse. In this case, the fuse is contained within the AC power cord receptacle.

Normally there is a fuse and a spare one inside the little door on the receptacle, but on this one, there are two fuses, one in the hot leg and one in the neutral leg. Usually, there is just one fuse in the hot leg.

But since this unit is wired to also work on 220vac, controlled by a small switch on the rear panel, it has to be wired with a fuse in both legs. And in this case, both 1 amp fuses were blown. Not a good sign.

But that was where it all stopped because we didn’t have any spare fuses. So I’ll pick some up tomorrow and we’ll give it a try again Friday.

Some follow-up on our trip up to Baytown yesterday. The client has a really nice area along the side of a lake.

And even a nice pond.

But the pièce de résistance is his garage.

And this is not even all of it. I couldn’t get far enough back. On the right is his Monaco Dynasty RV, and on the left is a big Harley and a large ATV. And the whole place is covered in antiques, curios, and memorabilia.

Really neat!

We had several comments about our trip over the Fred Hartman Bridge yesterday, with questions about the old Baytown Tunnel it replaced. The Tunnel opened in 1953 and had already exceeded its designed traffic capacity by the 1970’s. So it was ripe for replacement.

But it was another 25 years, 1995, before the new bridge opened. And just in time too, since the Houston Ship Channel needed to be made wider and deeper. But the deeper part was a problem because the tunnel was in the way.

So in early 1997 they started digging it up, finishing in late 1997.

Wrapping up, so I didn’t get a single comment about this in yesterday’s blog?

And besides Wayne, the film also starred Jim Hutton and my former next-door neighbor, Katherine Ross.

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April 18, 2019

I’m 0 for 2 . . .

I spent most of this morning on the phone with success in some things and not much in others.

While I was doing that, Jan was going through our DirecTV DVR deleting stuff to be sure that we have enough room to record all the shows that will wrap up their seasons, and in some cases, the series (Big Bang Theory), while we’re gone.

My first call was to first one and then the other, of my two banks. Though both had notaries and witnesses available, neither one will do wills. They both said that their ‘bonds’ don’t allow it.

So when I Googled ‘Notaries in Webster, TX’,  one the places that came up was the trophy place right next door to my IT client. But when I called, she was out of town and probably won’t be back until this weekend. But they didn’t think she’d have a problem doing our wills.

But my backup is the local UPS store, where Jennifer, our office manager, said her husband had his will signed. So I guess we’ll see on Tuesday.

Last night I logged into Houston’s EZ-Tag Toll Pass website to temporarily add our rental car to our account. And it seemed to go fine, and I got an email acknowledging the addition.

Until I checked back this morning, and the car was missing. So I called them to look into it. And was told that the problem was that our rental car had 100’s of dollars of toll violations listed for the license plate.

But after a little back and forth, the young lady over-rode the system and manually entered the car and it now showed up on our account. But then I noticed another problem.

Our RV’s EZ-Tag was showing up as ‘Inactive’, and not ‘Active’ like our truck. So I sicced her on this problem. Turns that someone (not me) came into my account on 2 April 2018 and inactivated the rig’s tag.

So my question was, why didn’t anything show up when we’ve used the rig on the toll roads since then.  We used the toll road in both June and July 2018 , then again twice in October. And of course, our trip up to Kingsland a couple of weeks ago.

So it looks like I got some free tolls.

Next up I called Enterprise to let them know about the toll violations on that tag, and also to ask them what the WiFi password was for the car. According to the dashboard display, it has a 4G signal and a WiFi signal available, but when I checked the WiFi settings on the display, it showed the WiFi password as just  **********.

But they said they had no idea about it or if it even worked, or could be used. So it was time to ask Google. And, as usual, Google knew.

Turns out that the password can be accessed from the OnStar function. Why there, I don’t know. But when I went to the WiFi settings there it showed me the password. And it did work and flowed data.

Today I also took care of setting up my quintuple backup system for the photos of our upcoming Europe trip. I ordered two 128GB USB3.0 Flash Drives for that purpose.

My idea is that first I will have the photos stored on my Samsung phone and my Panasonic Lumix camera. Then every night I will upload the day’s photos to my Asus laptop. Finally, I will save it all off onto the two flash drives, one for Jan to keep with her, and one for me to keep.

In addition, if the ship’s WiFi is good enough (doubtful??) I will also upload stuff to the cloud. But I’m not counting on that.

Looks like I’m 0 for 2 on rig repairs. First, the continuing saga of my engine oil leak, and now my recent supposed-windshield leak repair.

I was looking forward to this morning’s forecasted rain, but when it came I found I still had my leak, though somewhat less. So I’ll have to look at it again, A.C. (After Cruise).

Tomorrow we’re taking in another Alvin Opry show, this time at the American Legion Hall, with a larger venue,  much better parking, and one of our favorite performers, John Mark Davis.

So, since we won’t be home until around 11pm, there probably be a short blog tomorrow.

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April 18, 2021

It’s A Flamboyance . . .

With the weather better than yesterday’s rainy overcast, I went outside, determined to finish up Jan’s patio area. So, of course, Jan had to come outside to supervise, I.e. watch, to be sure that everything was being done to her satisfaction.

One thing Jan had wanted for a while was to put out all of the flamingos that she’s collected over the years of our travels. So while she was house/pet sitting for Brandi a few weeks ago, I set them out around our oak tree, and added a couple of new ones  for her.

But as soon as I saw it I thought it looked kind of ‘blah’, and needed some pizazz, something to make it pop.

So this was the next step.

And then over the last couple of days, I ended up with this today.

So once it was repopulated, Jan finally had her Flamboyance.

You know, how it’s a Parliament of Owls, a Murder of Crows, a Murmuration of Starlings, and a Pitying of Turtledoves?

Well, it’s a Flamboyance of Flamingos.

So of course we had to christen the area by doing hot dogs and sausages on our new George Foreman Grill.

And with this, Jan’s patio area is pretty much finished up.

Now to enjoy it all this summer.

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April 18, 2022

On The 18th Of April in ‘75 . . .

Hardly A Man Is Now Alive.

Two things of note that happened today. One was that I stopped off at Due’s RV on my way to work this morning and picked up a new latch for our shower door. The latch itself is cast aluminum, which doesn’t rust. But there is a steel spring inside the handle, the part that’s inside the shower, that only lasts about 5 years or so before it rusts out, and the latch doesn’t latch anymore.

Then getting home this afternoon I had it changed out in about 5 minutes. With Jan’s help, of course.

The second one, and the best one, was that while we were defrosting the freezer this past weekend, we discovered a large bag of Jan’s World-Famous Chili tucked away. So it was a delicious supper tonight.

Yumm!

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April 18, 2023

The Girls Are Fine!

SpaceX Update!

SpaceX has said that their next Starship Heavy launch attempt is now scheduled for this Thursday, April 20th, starting at 8:28am CDT.

Jan had her yearly mammogram/ultrasound this afternoon, and got a clean bill of health.

So The Girls Are Fine!

And Jan wants to remind you, Do Not Skip Your Yearly Mammogram!

Since she spent her entire career in the medical field, she always got one every year. But after she retired in 2007 and we started RV’ing, by the time 2014 came around, she kind of thought about skipping it that year since she’d never had any problems. But then at the last minute, she decided to get it done.

And that was the year they found a lump.

But they found it so early that it was a Stage 0 carcinoma, and a simple outpatient lumpectomy took care of it. No chemo, no radiation. Just a few stitches and she was done.

Even today she said she still shivers when she thinks about what would have happened if she had actually skipped that year, giving the cancer another year to grow.

Tomorrow Jan has her follow-up with her oncologist, which should just be a formality since her mammogram today came back clean.

Lunch today was at Torchy’s Tacos once again, after her Mammogram, so not until about 2:30pm. Jan said she was just too nervous to eat beforehand.

Jan got her usual Chicken Fajita Taco’s,

while I got my usual,

The Brushfire, with Jamaican Jerked Chicken, and the Cheese Jalapeno Sausage.

One thing we always laugh about is how my sausage has shrunk over the last six years.

Note how the one from today just barely reaches the edge of the tortilla.

Then here’s the one from 2016.

Quite a difference.

When we were last at Torchy’s a couple of weeks ago, I noted they now had these Table-Trackers

that lets them bring your food directly to your table, rather than wandering around the restaurant looking for the hanging tag on your table. Now that I knew how they operated, I checked under the table and found the RFID coils glued to the underside, covering the surface.

Each one is about the size of 3’ x 5’ file card and gives off a code that corresponds to a particular table.

This way only the Table-Tracker itself has to be powered.

Neat!

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We’re possibly related.

Yeah, I know. It scares the hell out of me too.

But only if you have blue eyes.

Every blue eyed person on the planet is a descendant of one single person

Every blue eyed person is descended from a single European who lived around 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, according to scientists.

Luckily, since Jan has green eyes, we’re not related.

Maybe?

Though since we both have ancestors from the Virginia/West Virginia area over the last few hundred years, it’s still possible, I guess.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I’ve mentioned before, Tuesday has become a Stay At The Rig Day for us, a day to just do pretty much nothing. But as Jan says, “I don’t do ‘nothing’ well”, so I usually have some chores lined up.

So yesterday, I wanted to take a look at the front window on Jan’s side of the Jeep. A while back it started making funny sounds when I tried to lower it, and what looked like a snake came up from inside the window.

So here’s what I started with.

Moving on to this. I removed the two screws and then used a big screwdriver to pop loose the connectors.

Pulling loose the covering from the sealant, I had this.

And after I tried to lower the window, the ‘snake’ appeared, and I figured out what it was.

The ‘snake’ was the drive cable that moved the window up and down.

The two white pieces shown above should be one piece. It’s the covering for the drive cable.

It should look like this, with the covering in one continuous piece.

I thought about pulling the window regulator out to see if I could join the two pieces back together somehow, glue, Gorilla Tape, etc.

But if it didn’t hold, I’d just have to do it again. So I decided to just order a new one and be done with it. So that’s on for next week.

Something else I replaced yesterday was the Otterbox protective cover on my S21 Ultra phone. It stood me well for the last 3 years, and has protected me from a number of drops, falls, and spills. But it become a little frayed around the edges as you can see on the right.

A great product, and the 3rd phone I’ve used one on.

Tomorrow we’re heading up to Conroe to meet up with Debi and Ed Hurlburt for our monthly get-together, this time at the Outback Steakhouse there.

Yummm!

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Thought For The Day:

They’ve got the right idea.

But This Seems To Be A Better Idea!

Your Retro-Preview Highlights –

2010 – Poppies, Poppies, Poppies

2017 – Lunch At Margaritaville

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

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April 17, 2010

Poppies, poppies, poppies…

Jan and I had a craving for Chinese for lunch, so after Googling ‘Best Chinese Buffet Lancaster CA and coming up with the Super King Buffet right down the road from us, we headed out about 11 am. Turns out it was really good. Better than the place in Las Vegas. Great Hot & Sour Soup. We’ll go back.

Coming back to the fairgrounds about 12:15, we drove over to the Good Sam Rally area to get a day pass. And a lot of good it did us.

After they took our $20 ($10 each) we found out that the rally was over at noon. Seems like they could have told us that ahead of time. The schedule online said that the rally was taking place on Friday and Saturday. Bummer.

Leaving the rally we drove over to the Antelope Valley California Poppy Preserve. It was about 15 miles out in the country. As we got closer we realized that this was the orange hills we had seen in the distance. The California Poppy is the state flower of California and Lancaster is the best place in the state to see them. And the view was really spectacular.

Note the poppies up the hillside.

Almost as pretty as the bluebonnets in the Texas Hill County.

After making the drive we headed back home about 2:30 pm.

Then about 6 Jan fixed her world-famous tuna noodle casserole and we settled in to watch the new Dr. Who.

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April 17, 2011

More Landon Skyping . . .

This morning got off to a great start. First with good coffee, but more importantly, with Landon Skyping. We spent almost 20 minutes online with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon, having a great time. It was obvious that Landon could see and respond to us, as he would giggle and squeal when we called out and waved to him.

He spent some time playing with his favorite toy, a wooden spoon, that he loves to beat on the floor.

Toward the end, he started to show off his ‘almost crawling’ ability. He’s just about got it down. He just needs better traction.

These last two photos were taken from the videos that Brandi sent later in the morning.

These three videos show that Landon has also got a great butterfly stroke for swimming. He just needs a pool to try it.

Landon Almost Crawling 1

Landon Almost Crawling 2

Landon Almost Crawling 3

Later, after we said our goodbyes, for lunch Jan heated up some of the El Pollo Loco chicken, beans, rice, and soup that we brought back from Mesa the other day. And lucky for us, we have enough for another meal. Their marinated fire-grilled chicken is fantastic.

After lunch, Jan and I went outside to try and put the cargo bay door back on. We had removed it to take down to RV Renovators in Mesa to get an estimate on the repair for the damage that was done at the fairgrounds in Tucson.

I say ‘try’ to put it back on because we couldn’t get it to latch up. It’s always kind of picky.

I spent the afternoon working on client website stuff, then took a nap, while Jan read, watched TV, and took a nap.

Naps are nice!

A little before 5, after dropping the garbage off at the dumpster, Jan and I drove over to have dinner at the China Buffet. Pretty decent Chinese buffet for a small town.

Tomorrow Jan and I are going to drive a few miles up I-17 toward Flagstaff to check out the Montezuma Castle National Monument Indian cliff dwellings, and also the nearby Montezuma Well Oasis area.

We still plan on leaving here Wednesday morning to head over to the Elk’s Lodge in Show Low for several weeks before heading over to Coarsegold, CA, and the Yosemite area.

See you back here tomorrow.

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April 17, 2013

Here Comes Peter . . .

Really nice weather here in Apache Junction today. A cool front came through and took things from the low 80’s to the high 60’s. Really nice.

Jan and I left out a little after 12:30pm heading for the Sam’s Club at SanTan Village over in Gilbert. But we first took the next exit past SanTan to get a good shot of the new Mormon Temple that’s under construction there.

Very impressive.

Then after our stop at Sam’s Club, we came back a different way so we could stop at a nearby El Pollo Loco to pick up some of their delicious chicken to have for meals later this week.

For the last week or so we’ve noticed this nest built on the sign for our park exit.

Haven’t seen any sign of chicks yet, but maybe before we leave.

The stop to photograph the hawk also gave us a good view of Superstition Mountain, the supposed home of the fabled Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine.

Down at the base there, you can see our Countryside RV Resort.

Coming back past the park we made a quick run up to Fry’s to pick up some groceries, and finished up our trip with a couple of Cinnamon Dolce Lattes at the store’s Starbuck’s

For dinner Jan fixed a couple of her delicious Chili Taco Salads, using Skyline Chili. Really good as usual.

Later after dinner, we did a 1+ mile walk around the park, and as usual, encountered a number of these cottontails. We’ve seen as many 10 at one time roaming around the park, with probably a lot more that we don’t see.

Some people put out carrots, while Jan decided to try some of the leftover lettuce from our salads tonight.

Finally one he fits in:

While we were at Sam’s, Jan picked up a slightly larger box for Mister. It’s a tight squeeze, and the sides bulge, but he fits. Just barely.

 

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April 17, 2014

Too Close To Home . . .

or Do You Know What Your Neighbors Are Doing?

Apparently last night there was a murder/suicide right here at the Thousand Trails park in Lake Conroe.

Based on the photos, and the fact that I heard nothing, and had the windows open, it looks like it was on the other side of the park. You can read more about it here.

http://montgomerycountypolicereporter.com/murder-suicide-lake-conroe/

Although it wasn’t announced beforehand, the park water was off most of the afternoon, but we just turned the water pump on and went about our business. Guess they were working on something.

Later for dinner, I fixed us salads, and then we heated up some of the fantastic Chicken and Sausage Gumbo that Chris Yust sent us home with last Sunday after our get-together at their place at the Escapees Park over in Livingston. And I think it aged like a fine wine. It may have been even better than it was before.

Even better, we’ve got another batch in the freezer.

And to round out the meal, I made up some garlic French bread to go with the gumbo. All really good.

Thanks, Chris.

Yesterday, Jan and I had dinner at the Rudy’s BBQ down in Spring. One of our 3 favorite BBQ chains, Rudy’s does it all right. And as usual, I got enough for us to bring home for other meals. Although it’s not a chain, I pretty much have to add Peter’s BBQ over in Ellinger to our favorite list. We’ll definitely go back after we move back to the Colorado River TT this coming Monday.

Our daughter Brandi, and our granddaughter Piper should be very glad Jan and I didn’t come across this Easter (or Halloween) costume when they were this size.

On the other hand, a photo like this could traumatize a kid for years.

But, then, isn’t that a parent’s job?

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April 17, 2015

Cupcakes and Hippies . . .

After a nice quiet morning, Jan and I headed out about 3pm for some errands and dinner. Our first stop was right up the road heading into Cottonwood. I had left some keys at a locksmith on Tuesday to be duplicated, so we stopped off today to pick them up.

Then it was out on 89A to drop some mail off at the Cottonwood PO, before heading right down the road to visit the Clemenceau Heritage Museum. But we were 30 minutes too late. Despite the fact that the web said they were open until 5pm, they actually closed at 3pm. So maybe we’ll have a chance tomorrow.

When we were at the Escapade in Tucson last month, Jan asked a friend of ours, Barb Westerfield, where she got the shirt she was wearing. Barb said she got it at the Ye Old Hippie Emporium in Old Town Cottonwood,

so that was one of the places Jan wanted to be certain to visit, so we stopped off there next. Jan quickly found a couple of blouses that she really liked so she was very happy.

After that, it was right down the road a little ways to have dinner at Hog Wild BBQ.

This is our second visit here, and we already knew what we were going to have, Just pulling into the parking lot and smelling the smoke coming off the BBQ pit in the parking lot.

And this was what we ordered, the Sampler Platter.

It’s a 1/3 slab (4) of ribs, 1/2 pound brisket, 1/2 pound of pork, garlic fries, two sides (we got Cole slaw and BBQ beans), and Texas Toast. Really delicious.

Even their BBQ sauce is really good, except for the fact that it’s a little wussy. But then I have some of my ‘magic’ powders that takes care of that problem.

And we had enough brisket and pork to have sandwiches later at home, probably after we get to Las Vegas this Sunday.

Finishing up with dinner, and since Barb Westerfield had given us such a good tip on the Old Hippie Emporium, we decided to check out her other recommendation, Irish Rose Cupcakes.

And she hit a home run on this recommendation too. Here’s what we got.

On the top left is my Butterscotch, with my Salted Caramel underneath. On the top right is Jan’s Lemon with her White Chocolate Raspberry. One thing unusual about their cupcakes is that most of them are available in both vanilla and chocolate cakes. Needless to say, both of mine were vanilla. Later tonight we each had a cupcake for dessert, and Jan said her Lemon might just be the best cupcake she’s ever eaten.

Finishing up, here’s a photo of my Sweetie’s pretty painted toes that I did yesterday.

Tomorrow will be our last day here in Cottonwood, at least, for two weeks. We’re heading over to Las Vegas on Sunday. Then in two weeks, we’ll be back here for ten days or so, before we head out to Illinois for our big Memorial Day weekend family reunion. Really looking forward to it.

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April 17, 2016

Mea Culpa . . .

First up, blog reader Mike Rado alerted me to the fact that the story I related, about the guy destroying his company with one line of bad code, was a hoax.

When I looked at the story a few days ago when it first appeared, everyone assumed it was true. And I was in good company getting fooled, with company like Kim Komando, Popular Mechanics, and several other tech sites

However, for what it’s worth, in the same circumstances, the ‘rm –rf’ command will work exactly as described.

Mea Culpa.

The promised oncoming bad weather keeps dodging all around us, with only the windy part showing up. But they’ve issued flood warnings for the Conroe area, so maybe it’s still in the works. We’ll see.

Sometime later tonight or tomorrow, I’ll start posting Greg”s Favorite Apps to the blog. I’ve already created the pages for the 12  different categories I’ve come up with. and around 80 different apps.

In the past I’ve mentioned 3D printers and all the amazing things they’re doing with them, from printing working guns, to prosthetic limbs for injured soldiers, to replacement duck feet, and even printing food.

But now here’s a 3D printer that will print a house in just a day or so. Check it out.

And even more wonderful things are on the horizon, including the 3D printing of human organs. So no more transplants with all the inherent rejection problems. Instead they’ll just print you up a new heart, lung, liver, or kidney, from your own cells. So no more rejection problems. And no more people dying while waiting on the transplant list for a matching organ.

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April 17, 2017

There Was A Reason It Was Free . . .

First off, thanks to everyone for their kind comments and emails about yesterday’s post about the recent United kerfuffle. I’ll keep you updated if anything more substantial comes along.

Early in the afternoon, I headed down to the Home Depot to get a new exhaust pipe for my generator. I had called a nearby garage and a couple of auto parts places with no luck. It seems that no one really does exhaust system/muffler work anymore, except for custom work and special orders.

So at Home Depot, I found a 10’ section of 1-1/4” E.M.T. conduit

and an E.M.T. coupling in the Electrical area.

I only needed about 3’ but they only had the 1-1/4” stuff in 10’ sections. I asked them if they could cut it for me to make it easier to get it home. They said No. They don’t cut pipe for you at Home Depot.

Huh?

So I took my pipe down to the plumbing area where they cut it for me in about 30 seconds.

I’ll use the coupling to connect the present exhaust pipe to the new section after smearing the ends of the two pipes with high-temp sealant to seal from any exhaust flumes leaking out.

After talking with the company about my Transfer Switch problems about a month ago, to see if I had missed anything, I ordered a new one this weekend which arrived today. You can read about it here.

MacGyvering It

Turns out the coil that controls the main contactor had opened up.

I’ll probably replace the unit tomorrow.

About 4pm we headed over to the Strip to have dinner at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, located in the Flamingo.

And what do you have at Margaritaville?

Why, a Cheeseburger in Paradise, of course!

It was delicious, but it wasn’t a Cheeseburger in Paradise. At least based on the song lyrics. I’ve put the lines together that describe the burger.

But a big warm bun and a huge hunk of meat.
CHECK!

Heaven on earth with an onion slice
NO ONION SLICE!

Medium rare with Muenster’d be nice
AMERICAN CHEESE, NOT MUENSTER!

I like mine with lettuce and tomato,
CHECK!

Heinz Fifty-seven and French fried potatoes.
FRENCH FRIES – CHECK.
HEINZ 57 – NO  But I probably could have asked for it.

Big kosher pickle and a cold draft beer.
KOSHER PICKLES – CHECK
NO BEER   We had a Margarita, instead.

Now a lot of people think the line is
Medium rare with mustard’d be nice

and many lyric sites say the same thing. But if you notice the lyrics list all the ingredients EXCEPT cheese.

When Jimmy was asked about this, he said it was Muenster, not mustard. And then he said, “Who the hell puts mustard on a cheeseburger.”

A little disclaimer here: I put Mayo on mine.

As we were walking through the Margaritaville Casino on the way to the restaurant, we were given a coupon for a free Margarita if we spent $20 or more at dinner. Not a problem since our burgers were $15 each.

So, hey, a free Margarita.

But there was a reason it was free. There was absolutely no alcohol in this drink. At first, I questioned why they would give us a coupon for a free one anyway. But then I realized that most people who get a free Margarita are going to order paid ones for everyone else. At $10.75 ea.

But Jan and I only ordered one to split. Which probably explains why they didn’t put any alcohol in ours.

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April 17, 2018

John Wayne Ate Here . . .

Jan and I headed up to Baytown about 9:30, making the 1 hour trip going up Hwy 146 and crossing the Houston Ship Channel over Fred Hartman Bridge as we came into Baytown proper.

Jan calls this the Sail Bridge, for good reason as you can see. A very beautiful bridge.

We got to our destination a little after 10:30, and while Jan went down to get together with Rudy’s wife, Caroline, Rudy Leggett and I started looking at the problem.

The property owner has a remote-controlled gate, but he wanted to control it from further away, like anywhere in the world. So he purchased what he thought was a BFT cellular gate controller like this from a local fence company.

But after the owner had a friend install it, they could never get it to work right. It was supposed to have video from the gate with two-way audio, as well as remote gate control, all using a phone app. But the only that worked was the video, and only when standing right by the gate.

Rudy had texted me info on the whole layout last week and right off the bat I saw some problems, like this wasn’t actually a cellular-connected unit, just WiFi. The cell phone versions are completely different models.

Plus they wanted to hook it up to the router in their house about 600 feet away. They had trenched in conduit and pulled 3 CAT 5 Ethernet cables through it, one to use and two spares. Always a good idea.

However, 600 feet of CAT 5 does not a good signal make. At an absolute maximum, a CAT 5 ()or CAT 6 for that matter) is good for 100 meters, or about 328 feet. And that’s under perfect circumstances.

If you want to be sure you’re to have a good signal, 200 feet is a better, more realistic goal. But that would mean digging down to the conduit, cutting into it, cutting and re-connecting the cable, and then inserting two Ethernet switches as repeaters in the line every 200  feet.

And then you’ve got to get power to the switches. Now the obvious thing would be to use PoE (Power over Ethernet) switches, but the BFT manual says that’s a No-No.

They did all this because they didn’t think they could do a WiFi run, but it certainly looks doable to me . . . with the right equipment.

But all of this was moot since the gate controller didn’t work directly at the gate. And we spent several hours trying to get it set up, configured, and talking to the phone app. But nothing worked.

We even tried rebooting the box and starting over, but we were never able to even see the video. Nothing we did looked anything like what the manual said we should be seeing. So at this point, I’m pretty sure there is a problem with the unit. So now the owner needs to decide how he wants to proceed.

Giving up for now, we followed Rudy and Caroline into beautiful downtown Baytown to have lunch at a local landmark restaurant, Rooster’s Steakhouse & BBQ.

Besides the good food, Rooster’s was known as John Wayne’s favorite eatery when he was in the area filming Hellfighters in 1967-68,

R0oster’s even has ‘Wayne’s Wall’ commemorating Wayne’s visits.

Hellfighters was loosely based on the life of Red Adair, Adair, ‘Boots’ Hansen, and ‘Coots’ Mathews, all famous oil well firefighters, served as technical advisors on the film. And besides Wayne, the film also starred Jim Hutton and my former next-door neighbor, Katherine Ross.

Jan got the Grilled Chicken with Green Beans and Fried Okra, while I had the 2 Meat Combo BBQ Plate, with Brisket and Ribs, along with Green Beans and Fried Okra

The ribs and the sides were all delicious, as was the sauce. But we’ll have to agree to disagree about the brisket. In fact the only times I’ve had brisket like this was up North. Down here in Texas, it’s called ‘roast beef’.

Only about 1/8” thick, it was gray and kind of tasteless. Next time I will get the sausage. But we will go back.

After saying our goodbyes to Rudy and Caroline, Jan and I headed home with a stop-over at Kroger’s for a few things And that was it.

A very nice day.

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April 17, 2019

Wheeeee!

This morning I put in a call to the Enterprise office to schedule a pickup for 9:30 –10:30

Nirvana (her name) showed up about 10:20 to drive me back to the office in Dickinson. When I reserved the car last night, it said a ‘Ford Fusion or Equivalent’ so I was surprised to find that the Chevy Impala that I was picked up in was my rental car.

Neat!

When I last rented a vehicle last November while I was getting the transmission in our truck rebuilt, I had an Impala then too. And I was very impressed with it. Especially the pickup/acceleration.

The first time I was merging onto the Interstate I punched it and Woww!

I was suddenly doing 80!

Wheeeee!

We’ll keep it until either next Thursday afternoon or Friday morning before we leave. Our car service is supposed to be done about 10:30am, so if I wait until then I’ll have to drop it off early. But then it’s not like we’ll get much sleep Thursday night anyway.

I mentioned earlier that I was going to get a SIM card for my Verizon Galaxy S8+ for use on our European trip. But it turns out that I don’t need one.

When I called Verizon a couple of weeks ago to see if my phone was unlocked so I could use a SIM card, I found that I could sign up for Verizon’s TravelPass for free.

It gives me better access, cheaper rates, and higher data limits. So it looks like I’m good to go. I only have to configure my phone for WiFi Calling and set the Roaming conditions.

We attended the new Alvin Opry this past Friday and we’ll be going again this weekend. But at a different location.

Turns out after only two shows, they outgrew the facilities and have moved right down the street to the American Legion Hall, with a larger venue and much better parking. Looking forward to more great shows when we get back from our trip.

I had mentioned a while back that I was going to get a VPN for our trip, and had decided on ExpressVPN. However several readers thought I should be using NordVPN.

I did do a lot of research on this, especially concerning its use in Europe. So I thought I’d pass on this comparison that was part of my decision.  ExpressVPN vs NordVPN

Tomorrow we’re going to try and get our wills signed at one of our banks, and also get our pre-cruise haircuts. And probably lunch/breakfast in there somewhere.

Wrapping up, I’ve been using Runkeeper for several years, even upgrading to the paid version somewhere along the line. But recently it has been almost impossible to use.

Despite Google Maps and other location apps immediately getting a GPS lock, most of the time Runkeeper would keep telling me it didn’t have a lock. And a little Googling showed a lot of other people having the same problem. And a lot of different solutions.

For some people turning the GPS off and back on, others uninstalled and reinstalled the program, etc., but none of these worked for me.

So finally I just deleted Runkeeper and installed MapMyWalk, another walking/running app. And for the last two weeks, it has worked first time, every time, even tracking up inside WalMart and Sam’s.

Well Recommended.

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April 17, 2021

Gators And Rainbows . . .

Well, I think someone owes me a commission. Since last night when I posted about the $290,000 ‘box’ on sale right down the street from us, it looks like they’ve got an offer on it.

So now to figure out who I need to call about this.

I did work outside on the patio area for a while, but finally gave up with the rains coming in. Plus I need some black much.

About 2pm Jan and I headed out over to the Interstate to get our hair cut at the local TGF, though since the last time we were there, it’s now become a CostCutters, rather than a TGF.

We also hit up the HEB right next door for a few things while we were in the area. Then after we were done we stopped off at the Home Depot to get some more black much, and then a quick WalMart stop, before we drove down to Dickinson to have dinner at a brand-new place, Gator’s Bar & Grill. So brand-new, in fact, that today when we walked in at 5pm, they had just opened to the public for the very first time.

It was what they call a ‘soft’ opening in the restaurant business, where you don’t advertise that you’re open, you just let it out by word of mouth. And it seems that the word got out, because there was a crowd in the parking lot when they opened.

And the place started to fill up very quickly.

They’ve done a really good job resurrecting an old Pizza Inn.

Since we hadn’t had lunch, we decided to order an appetizer, the Soft Pretzel Bites with Shiner Bock Beer Cheese.

We ordered the small, but we got the large, so we had plenty to take home for later.

Jan had the Fried Chicken Sandwich with Sweet Potato Fries.

Jan said the sandwich was really good, thick and juicy, and she loved the Sweet Potato Waffle fries.

I went with the Cowboy Burgers, an Angus beef patty, with cheese, Texas Toothpicks, and BBQ sauce.

Also really good, especially the ‘beefy’ taste of the patty.

So how did we know about this unadvertised ‘soft’ opening? Well, as it turns out we’ve known the owner for a long time. She used to be the manager of the Monterey’s Little Mexico place right around the corner. And our waiter at the Monterey’s up in Alvin told us about the ‘soft’ opening this evening. So we were there when they opened the door.

And Margie, the owner, remembered us when she was out in the dining area and stopped by to talk for a while, checking up on people we all knew. And we also got to meet her husband Keith.

Really nice people, and really great food. We’ll definitely be back soon.

And to top off a really nice day, we had this coming home.

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April 17, 2022

Happy Easter To Everyone . . .

Jan and I were on our way up to Webster and the Saltgrass Steakhouse about 1:30 for our Easter dinner. And even though they were very busy with people waiting, our 2pm reservation got us seated immediately.

We both started off with our usual Wedge Salads, always delicious.

Next up, Jan got her usual Center Cut Filet with Grilled Green Beans,

while I got my fav 16oz Ribeye, again with the Green Beans.

And of course we had to close out the meal by sharing a piece of their Carrot Cake.

And here’s my favorite personal Easter Bunny.

Hippity Hop!

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April 17, 2023

Amazon’s Camperforce No More?

Well, this morning SpaceX’s Starship Heavy launch got done to the last 10 seconds before they scrubbed the launch. They had actually figured out they had a booster pressurization problem earlier in the countdown, but let it go down to the last few seconds, using it as a further test of the system.

The next possible launch window is this Wednesday.

Last week I was working on my client’s ‘95 T-Bird. Then today I was at his house trying to install and set up a new Xfinity Flex Voice-Controlled 4K Streaming system.

Consisting of a cable box with a WiFi Hotspot and a remote set-top box connecting to the TV via an HDMI Cable

I finally got it connected and set up, but I have an idea that I’m going to be over there a lot more trying to show him and his wife how to use it. This makes 4 remotes they’ve got to keep track of.

Well, it looks like Amazon’s Camperforce program is no more. According to this article, Amazon Cuts Ties With Campers, Amazon quietly ended the program at the end of 2022.

With no major announcement, Amazon quietly ended its popular seasonal employment program, Camperforce. They’ve scrubbed their website of any mention of the program and have deactivated links for the site. Some are experiencing shock that Amazon gave the program the ax. However, not everyone was caught off guard by the news.

One industry expert said, “the writing was on the wall.” Many felt it wasn’t a good sign when the company switched to the system. The program included Amazon providing additional money to employees for campsites. In exchange, the company no longer offered assistance securing spots or dealing with the logistics.

Well, I guess there’s always Gate Guarding.

And over at the Gulf State Park RV Park in Gulf Shores, AL, one of our favorite parks, high winds rolled over a small camper and smashed it into a 5th across the street, trapping a man underneath.

You never know.

And down in Titusville, FL, where Jan and I met almost 56 years ago, a man staying at the The Great Outdoors RV Park there got his leg bitten off by an alligator

Gator Attack At Titusville RV Park

You never know.