Daily Archives: September 12, 2024

Crossed Wires . . .

Jan and I were heading up to The Woodlands by a little before 10 to meet up with Debi and Ed Hurlburt for our monthly get-together. Our destination du jour was Amerigo’s Grill, a well-recommended Italian place.

Unfortunately, though the cuisine type was correct, the restaurant location was not.

It seems we got our wires crossed, and while we sat in Amerigo’s Grille waiting for Debi and Ed to arrive, Debi and Ed were sitting about 5 miles up the road waiting for us at the Adriatic Cafe Italian Grille.

But once we got together and tasted the food, we found the changeup was definitely worth it.

Jan got her long-time favorite, their Meat Ravioli. For Jan, her search for places that have Meat Ravioli, mirrors Ahab’s search for the large beige cetacean. But this dish was worth the chase.

I had my go-to Italian dish (besides Pizza), their Spaghetti The Works.

With Meat Sauce, Italian Sausage, Mushrooms, and Meatballs, it pretty much covers The Works.

And you can’t forget their great Garlic Bread Knots.

And the servings were so large that we all had leftovers to bring home.

We’ll go back. Maybe next month.

Assuming, of course, I am up and around by then, post-op.

I did experiment with a slightly new route going up to The Woodlands today, and I think it will be our regular route from now on.

Rather than take I-45 into Houston and then get on I-59 north up to I-610, and then over to the Hardy Toll Road, I just got on 610 directly from I-45, and saved the slowdown getting on to I-59.

Tomorrow after work, I’m making a stop-off to get fitted for the back brace I’ll be wearing for a while after the operation, though I don’t know for how long.

Then sometime this weekend we’ll go by our storeroom to pick up the walker that they gave me after my cervical fusion back in November 2021. If I don’t bring mine with me, they’ll just send me home with another one.

Counting Down.


Thought For The Day:

YUMMM!

Texas Food Pyramid

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™


September 12, 2009

Headin’ Home…

We left Wayside RV Park about 10:30 headed 180 miles to Moncton, NS on our way back to the States.

As I mentioned yesterday, we stopped and got diesel. Because the pump cut off at $150 I decided that would be enough to get us back to the US,  so I didn’t fill up.

We arrived at Moncton about 2:45pm and parked at Camper’s City RV Park. This is the same park we stopped at on our way into Canada, so it was easy to find.

We got set up,  and, after puttering around the coach for a while, we headed out to Boston’s Pizza for supper, one of our favorite places to eat.

Coming back to the coach, Jan sat outside with Mister while I got the satellite dish set up. After letting Mister roam around a bit,  we headed in for the night.

Tomorrow we’re going down to the Bay of Fundy area to see the 30-foot tides in the Bay.


September 12, 2010

Gumbo

We left Jackson, MS about 10:30 and headed south on I-55 toward Breaux Bridge, LA, and some of the best gumbo in Louisiana.

Most of the road was really crappy. A lot of the Interstates down here are the old concrete type with the expansion joints that go BANG…BANG…BANG.

Pretty soon your fillings start to get loose.

But finally, we were on I-12W and then picked up I-10W in Baton Rouge.

About the same time we also started picking rain, a lot of rain, and, of course, the winds to go along with it.

By the time we were coming up to the Breaux Bridge exit, I was really looking forward to registering and setting up in the pouring rain. But I really lucked out.

By the time we got to Poche’s RV Park about 5 miles north of I-10 and Breaux Bridge, the rain had stopped in that area.

By 3:15 pm we were set up and had a chance to look over the park.

Poches RV Park 1

Poche’s is not just an RV park, it’s also a fish camp with cabins, and 5 – 10 acre fish ponds.

Poches RV Park 2

Poches RV Park 3

It’s really a beautiful park, and it’s Passport América too, only $15.00 per night. The only downside is that Internet and cell phone service just sucks.

About 4:00 we drove over to our favorite Cajun restaurant, Mulate’s. I’ve been eating there for more than 15 years, including twice a month for 10 years when I would drive to Birmingham from Houston and back to visit my mother.

They have a Cajun band every night and a big dance floor that’s always crowded.

Mulates

Their gumbo is just about the best around, with shrimp, crab, and oysters, and a great roue. And it’s not a Mulate’s meal without a dessert of their bread pudding with bourbon sauce, and a cup of strong Cajun coffee. (BTW it’s pronounced ‘Mu lots’)

Getting back home about 5:30 I got the satellite dish set up and we settled in for the night.

Tomorrow we’ll make the 230-mile trip back to Houston and the Galveston Bay RV Park, where we’ll be for 4-5 months.

More from Houston…


September 12, 2011

Much, Much Better . . .

First off, I want to thank everyone who commented or emailed me while I was under the weather last week.

A few of you even hoped I’d get well soon. Angry smile (Sorry about that)

I’m pretty much back to normal, or at least as normal as I get.

A little after 1 pm we all headed over to Mishawaka for some shopping. On the way we took a detour through the construction mess in downtown Elkhart to drop off some mail at the Post Office. They’ve got most of Main St. torn up and it seemed like every street we tried to turn down was closed.

Our first stop in Mishawaka was at Sam’s Club. Jan and I needed to pick up our monthly prescriptions and we all did some shopping while we were there.

Our next stop was up the road at University Park Mall. While I hung out at Barnes & Noble, Jan headed out through the mall to the Bath & Body Works store to pick up some soaps.

Getting back home about 4:30 I did some client internet stuff and then around 5, Jan and I drove over to North China Buffet, to meet Al Hesselbart, Dennis and Carol Hill, and Larry & Marilyn Forbes. Dennis and Carol and Larry & Marilyn recently returned from an Alaska RV caravan trip and it was interesting to compare notes from our trip in 2008. As usual we spent a lot of time talking and didn’t get home until almost 8pm.

On the weather front, winter is coming in with a rush. By Thursday night we’re supposed to have temps in the 30’s.

Nice.


September 12, 2012

Oldenburg . . .

Jan was feeling a little better today so about 1:30 we headed over to Oldenburg for lunch and some sightseeing.

Oldenburg was founded by German settlers in the 1830’s, and because of its many church steeples, along with a convent, it is known as “The Village of the Spires”.

Unfortunately, in the summertime it’s hard to get a good photo of them because of all the trees. Locals say the best time is in the fall after all leaves have dropped.

Oldenburg 1

Oldenburg 2

But it’s also known for its many decorated fire hydrants as you can see.

Oldenburg 3

Oldenburg 4

Oldenburg 5

After driving around for a while we stopped at The Brau Haus for ‘lupper’. With a mixture of German and American dishes, there was something for both of us. And it was pretty good. Jan and I both wished they had had red cabbage, but it must be a regional thing since none of the German restaurants I’ve checked in this area seem to have it.

I mean what’s a German restaurant without red cabbage, right?

After ‘lupper’, we drove around for a while longer, this time looking for the fabled “Polka Dot Fire Plug”, but without any luck. When we asked some locals they said the city was in the process of repainting them, which explained why we saw a lot of plain white ones around town, and also why we couldn’t find the polka dot one.

Finally leaving Oldenburg, we drove back through Batesville and stopped at DQ for dessert.

I think tomorrow we’ll have another stay-home day so I can get some things fixed around the rig, and maybe I can fly my RC plane.


September 12, 2013

Guess What?

255 vehicles through the gate today.

That’s 510 separate log entries.

One every 3 minutes or so.

So guess what?

No Blog today, either.


September 12, 2014

A New Record!

A record low, that is. We had only 80 vehicles through the gate today. Now this I could get to like. But it probably won’t last, unfortunately.

About 11am I made a run over to Bryan to the Sam’s Club to pick up our prescriptions. And for the first time since we started RV’ing in 2008, Sam’s screwed them up.

Well, not Sam’s in general, but the Sam’s Club in Mishawaka, IN, the last place we had these particular ones filled back in June. For some unexplained reason, after they filled them, and we picked them up, the Mishawaka Sam’s canceled the prescriptions.

The Pharmacist here had no idea why they would do this, and had never heard of it happening before. So I took the 3 that were ready, and the Pharmacist said she’d get it fixed. And I guess she did, because later in the afternoon I got a text message saying that they were ready. I’ll pick them up early next week.

My next stop was Home Depot to pick up a new shower hose for our Oxygenics Hand Held Showerhead. The old one had started leaking so I picked up a new one at Wal-Mart earlier this week. But it turned out to be pretty useless.

The hose was so stiff that it was more like a piece of flexible copper tubing. Without the flex part. It wouldn’t just hang there, it stuck out sideways and resisted any effort to corral it. Jan said it was like wrestling an octopus.

Funny, that’s what she also said about me when we were dating.

Anyway, I found a much better one at Home Depot, and the other one will go back to Wal-Mart next week.

The Oxygenics Hand Held Showerhead is the best showerhead we’ve ever had. It gives a great shower no matter what the water pressure and has a bunch of different patterns.

Oxygenics Showerhead

Try one. You’ll love it.

On the way home I stopped off at a McDonald’s to pick up lunch for us. And this has to be one of the fastest McDonald’s I’ve ever been in. I ordered two burgers, a large fry, 4 apple pies, two iced coffees, and a Coke. When I finished paying, I took my cup and went over to the drink dispenser to fill it. And before I had the lid on the drink, they were calling my name that my order was ready. That’s fast.

And they didn’t screw it up either, Everything was exactly like I ordered it.

Getting home about 1:30, we sat out together and ate our burgers and fries before Jan went in. She said while I was gone one of the rig guys dropped off a steak dinner for us. A big rib-eye, potato salad and beans. Apparently the guy was apologetic that he only had one dinner. Jan assured him that it was big enough for the both of us.

Now we have dinner tomorrow.

About 6, when Jan came back out to relieve me, we had two of the apple pies for dinner. Made a nice snack.

It rained on and off for a good part of the afternoon, sometimes heavy, sometimes light. The biggest problem with rain here is keeping the log sheets dry. We’re always trying something different, plastic bags, Ziplock bags, etc., with only some success. Everything just gets damp.


September 12, 2015

Fixed!

Well, Kinda . . . Almost.

Well, our cooler weather has finally arrived. It made it up to a blistering 85 degrees today, and sunny with a light breeze. Couldn’t be much better. It’s supposed to stay like this for a few days before the temps creep back up into the low 90’s. Right now at midnight, it’s 60 degrees and I’ve got a long-sleeve shirt on. Nice.

Today’s count was 108, compared to yesterday’s 111, so maybe that’s what it will settle down to. Like I said yesterday, very doable.

I finally had a chance this morning to get back to my water heater problem, and finally got the access panel off so I could get to the electrical connections on the back.

The electrical side of the water heater died a couple of months ago, but with everything going on with the gate, I’m just now getting back on it. We’ve been using the propane side since then, but I didn’t want to have a problem running out of propane.

The first thing I did was to turn off the power to the unit using the switch on the side of the box. Well, I tried to, but the switch snapped and then went all spongy with no more clicky-clicky. But I don’t think that was the initial problem.

20150912_122759

So what I did was pull the wires on the switch, and after cutting off the old spade lugs, I stripped the ends and joined them with a wire nut. So now I was finally ready to troubleshoot the real problem. And a couple of minutes with the ohmmeter told me what it was.

20150912_122847

I used the ohmmeter to check the two thermostat units here, with one of them being the actual thermostat, and the other being the high-temp cutoff. The one on the left tested good with 0.0 ohms, but the right one showed open, or bad. They’re not marked, and I was hoping the bad one was the ECO cutoff, but after checking my Atwood manual, I found it was the thermostat.

Normally the power comes into the left unit, loops over the right unit, and then feeds power to the heating element.. So what I did was to move the wire going to the heating element over, bypassing the bad thermostat, so I could check the system.

At the lavatory, I measured the hot water temp at 96 degrees. Then I turned on the wall switch for the heater, waited 20 minutes, and measured again. This time it was 132 degrees, so I knew the bad thermostat was my problem. But of course the problem won’t really be fixed until I replace the thermostat itself. I probably won’t replace the power switch

Checking, I found one on Amazon (of course) for $12 and it will be here Tuesday. But for right now we’ll just turn it on 20 minutes before our showers, and then turn it off when we’re done.

The other thing I fixed recently was the AC blower in our truck. The airflow just wasn’t what it should be, and it was a struggle to get the cab cool in hotter weather. Back before we left the Houston area, I replaced the blower resistor pak and that helped somewhat, but it just didn’t seem to be as strong as it used to be.

So after doing some checking, I decided to go ahead and replace the blower motor itself. The reason I hesitated before is that changing one of these out can be a real pain in the rear. In some cases, you almost have to disassemble the dashboard to replace it.

20150909_144157

But this one was so easy it was almost ridiculous. Just reach under the dash, unclip the power connector, remove 3 – 8mm bolts, and the blower motor falls out in your hand. Then reverse the procedure and 5 minutes later you’re done. Easy Peazy.

And boy, did it make a difference. It’s back to cooling like it used to.


September 12, 2016

Well, Isn’t That Just Fine and Dandy . . .

The temp was a little hotter today, and the traffic a little heavier, but all in all, not a bad day. I guess except for the fact that when I get groceries this Thursday, it looks like I’ve got to buy a new front TV.

A few days ago, the 32” RCA we have in the front of the rig started losing video. The audio still works fine, but the screen goes black.

At first, it might do it once a day, and just turning the TV off and back on fixed the problem. For a while. But over the next few days, it got more and more frequent , until now it will only work for a few minutes before the video dies.

When the problem first appeared I thought it might the HDMI input itself, so I switched the cable over to HDMI-2, but the problem still occurred. So I dug out a 3-wire video cable, the one with the Yellow, Red, and White RCA phono connectors and tried that,

Again with the same result. So the problem seems to be in the actual video output stage, and not on the input side. And it doesn’t seem to be a loose connection, since rapping on it doesn’t fix the problem, even temporarily.

Now back in the day, when you could still fix things like this, I’d just order a Sam’s Photofact for the set and tear into it. Using my oscilloscope, I’d trace through the video section until I found the bad component, and then replace it.

Back in the early 90’s I used to contract out to several computer stores in the Houston area to do board-level repair on Commodore VIC-20’s, Commodore 64’s, Commodore Amiga’s and Radio Shack TRS-80’s. At that time you could get service info from the manufacturers, and even specific parts, like IC’s and transistors, and you could actually fix something.

But no more. In many cases, depending on the TV, there may be no real parts to replace anyway. Just a couple of large chips that do everything. And without very specialized equipment, it would be almost impossible to safely unsolder the chip and replace it.

And you probably couldn’t even get a replacement chip anyway, since the manufacturer won’t sell you one. So now it’s off to Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club for a new one.

We bought both of these TV’s from Sam’s Club when we were in Fairbanks, AK in 2008 to replace the old CRT models that came with the rig, and this is the first problem we’ve had with them, so I guess 8 years is a pretty good record.

After all of this, at least my problem with my DVR randomly rebooting turned out to be a simple fix. The DVR plugs into an AC receptacle on the underside of the cabinets over the dashboard, and I noticed that often the reboots happened as one of us came into the rig and shut the door. Turns out that the AC plug was a little loose in the socket, so I spread the prongs apart, sprayed a little Strike-Hold on it and problem solved.

At least that’s something I could fix.


September 12, 2017

The Critics Are Wrong!

When my WiFi adapters came in this past Monday at my client’s, also in the Amazon box was another Wireless 4 Channel Remote Control Unit like the ones that I did not use to control our rig’s slide and rear AC’s.

My next project was to remote our outside ‘porch lights’ so I can turn them on from the truck when we come home at night.

Remote Control for Slide and AC 2

Of course I only need to use one of the four relays for this, but when I checked the price on Amazon the single relay models were only a couple of bucks cheaper.

Using my 12v power supply I hooked it up using alligator clip leads and it worked perfectly. But when I tried to wire it into the 12v in the pedestal by the door I found that the 12v wasn’t consistent. It measured 12vdc on the meter but when I put the load of the module on it, the voltage dropped to about 7v. And although the unit lights up, that voltage is not enough to operate it. So I’ll have to find another 12-volt source in the pedestal.

The Critics Are Wrong!

The Orville, is a new science-fiction series from Seth MacFarlane, who both created the show and stars in it.

MacFarlane, better known for his other TV shows, the cartoon’s Family Guy and American Dad, stars as Captain Ed Mercer, new captain of the exploratory ship, The Orville.

I guess that’s a better name than The Wilbur, but not by much.

The Union (think Star Trek’s Federation) is short on XO’s (Executive Officers – think Commander Riker on Next Gen) and so Mercer is forced to accept his ex-wife who he caught cheating on him with a blue alien, who Mercer calls Papa Smurf.

TheOrville

The back and forth bickering between the two, even while under attack, is a refreshing change from the stiff attitudes of most similar shows.

Set in 2418, the crew is the usual ragtag combo of aliens, both organic and mechanical, including a gelatinous blog voiced by Norm MacDonald. In addition, the special effects are great, the equal to anything I’ve seen recently.

The critics are all over the map about the show. It’s too much like Star Trek or Galaxy Quest, or not enough like them, but they pretty much uniformly hate it.

Which right off the bat told me I was probably going to like it. And I did.

Sure, there were a few rough spots, pretty much standard in any new show, but I’m sure it will all gel down the road.

Well Recommended!

Tomorrow it’s back on the road down to Clear Lake for the day, and then coming home in the afternoon, I’ll detour over to Katy to get my wife back, and then it’s home, probably with dinner along the way.

Hopefully, I’ll get to keep her for a while this time.


September 12, 2018

A Two-Fer . . .

Today at work was another of those ‘firefighting’ days. The ones where you spend the day stomping out fires.

And sometimes it works, and sometimes you catch your feet on fire. Today was a  little of both.

Coming home I stopped by the Post Office to hand in our Change of Address form or forms, I guess, for our new South Dakota address with Dakota Post.

I said ‘forms’ because I had to turn in two separate ones for our one address. That’s because when we got our Driver’s Licenses renewed 5 years ago, they made a mistake on our address and put our Box # in the system as PMB 110.

That was actually the street number from 110 E Center St. Our real box number was #798, so we had to submit two different change notices, one for #110 and one for #798. Hopefully they don’t get confused again.

Last December 21st Jan and I went to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, one of our all-favorite shows, and really enjoyed it. So this year we had to make it a Two-fer, so I now have tickets to see their doppelganger competitor, Mannheim Steamroller on December 30th at the Smart Financial Centre in Sugarland.

Hopefully, I won’t have another attack of BPPV or Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo like I did last year. You can read about it here.

Self Diagnosing

So far I’ve never had it again since then. Fingers crossed.

I printed out the 98-page Service Manual for our Onan QD 7500 Generator and I’ve been poring over it trying to figure out what’s wrong with it.

To recap, we had it serviced last May when RV Mobile Lube serviced it with the rest of the rig, and when we left on our Illinois/Alabama trip in June, it worked perfectly . . . for the first day. Then it died ten minutes into the second day, just like I had shut it off. And it’s never started again since. It cranks just fine but just never catches. I’ve checked the fuel system and it’s working fine, so it’s something else.

Something that not only keeps it from starting,  but also stopped it when it was running. So this eliminates a few things like glow plugs and some others.

The last time I worked on it was when we were in Athens, AL before we headed back to Houston, and I was looking at the Governor Actuation system that controls the fuel injection, so that’s where I’ll start this time.

If it ever stops raining long enough, that is. So right now it’s just book work and talking to Onan Tech Support.

We’ll see how it goes tomorrow, but I’m not optimistic.


September 12, 2019

PB B & M . . .

Today was Black Bear Thursday so we were on our way by about 1pm where we both got hooked on their ‘Super’ salads.

This time Jan went with their Taco Salad, staying Keto by eliminating the taco shell and the refried beans.

Black Bear Taco Salad

But adding their delicious Bacon Ranch dressing.

I once again got the Bacon Cheeseburger Salad, also with the Bacon Ranch. But unlike last time, I asked to have the burger done medium. Last time it was so well done it was actually crunchy and hard to even cut. But they got it perfect this time.

Black Bear Bacon Cheeseburger Salad 2

But even well-done their hamburger meat is delicious, both mine and Jan’s taco meat.

Next up was a stop at the big Flagship HEB store over on Hwy 96. We’ve never been to this location before, but we were looking to bulk up our Lola Savannah coffee stocks. We were running low on our nightly Decaf ration, and also wanted to see if they had any additional flavors, and we hit the jackpot.

So besides the Decaf, we got a pound of Chocolate Crème, Almond Delight, and Cozy Winter Night.

The Chocolate Crème is pretty much self-explanatory, while the Almond Delight has a blend of almonds, coconuts, and dark chocolate, so pretty much a candy bar. And Cozy Winter Night has butterscotch and caramel flavors accentuated with flavors of cream, vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

One flavor we didn’t get was Lunch with Elvis, a blend of peanut butter and banana flavors, mimicking Elvis’ favorite sandwich. And one of mine too. Of course, to make it perfect you’d need to get some mayonnaise flavor in there somewhere.

You just can’t beat a PB B&M, a peanut butter, banana, and mayonnaise sandwich. On white bread, of course.

Found out this evening that Brandi, et. al., have a new dog.

New Dog Jack

Jack, a shelter pup, is part Doberman, part Rottweiler, and has made himself right at home with the two other dogs, and the cat.


September 12, 2020

Rethinking The Plan . . .

We now have a real, physical address. Rob, our park owner, put in mailboxes a few weeks ago, and a couple of days ago he dropped off our key.

Petticoat Junction RV Park Mailboxes

We also have a PO Box here in Santa Fe, but a lot of financial institutions won’t accept a PO Box, but require a physical address. Previously I’ve used either work, or Brandi’s up in Katy. So now we’re all set.

While I’m tracing out my lighting problems I’ve been rethinking my oil leak repair plan. Back in February after the repair place in Luling replaced the oil cooler gasket with no change in the leak problem, I got back under the rig to replace the single oil filter head adapter gasket with a double set. Several people, including a Cummins tech, recommended trying that before doing anything else.

But when I got under the rig I found that the Luling shop had apparently over-torqued two of the four bolts holding the adapter head on the oil cooler. They’re only supposed to be tightened down to 212-inch pounds, a little over 17-foot pounds. And unfortunately, the two stripped bolts are both on the same side, so I was wary about driving the rig anywhere, or even cranking up the engine.

So I was looking at having the rig towed up to the Channelview area to get the oil leak repaired once and for all. And that’s where things stood until the last couple of days. And then I had a thought. One word – Helicoil.

Thinking about how the stripped-out threaded holes would need to be fixed, I’m thinking about just doing this myself, which will probably save me several hundred dollars having the diesel shop do it in addition to fixing the leak problem.

That way I can just drive the rig up there rather than go through the hassle of getting it towed. But after I repair the bolt holes, I’ll go ahead and replace the gaskets. And then do an extended rig test drive while towing the truck.

Who knows? That might fix the problem anyway.

But I’m still thinking about it, while I’m working on the lights.


September 12, 2021

Where Everybody Knows Your Name . . .

First, a Jeep update.

When I went by our mechanic’s shop Thursday afternoon after he had closed, I was happy to see our Jeep in his lot where the tow truck driver had dropped it off. I left Joe a note telling him about the starter problem, and also asking him to take a look at a pesky oil leak around the engine that I’d known about since we bought the Jeep from our friends Debi and Ed Hurlburt last November. Well, when Joe called me back about 10:30 Friday morning, I found out the two problems were connected.

Turns out that the oil had been leaking down into the starter and had fried it. Now, since the starter is down on the bottom side of the engine, and is presumably waterproof, you would think it would be oil-proof too. But apparently not.

And it also turns out that both the leaking valve cover gaskets, the source of the oil leak, and the starter are known problems with the 6-cylinder version of this engine, but not the 8-cylinder version we have in Ole Smokey.

Joe also said that there is an aftermarket fix for the leaking gaskets that’s better than the ones from the dealer. So that’s what we went with.

He said he’d try to get it all down by that afternoon, but probably not, just because of the time it would take to get the parts delivered. I told him to take his time, and that we had Old Smokey as a backup. So it should be ready Monday afternoon.

Several readers have asked about Uber and how it works. Well, it works great and it’s easy to use.

Just download the Uber app on your phone, create an account, and enter your credit card info. BTW supposedly this info stays on your phone and is only sent to Uber when needed, just as if you entered it manually.

Then when you need a ride, just open the app, and enter the address where you want to go. In this case, since the app saves recent addresses, our RV Park address was already entered. And when I selected it, told me how much the ride would be, and how long it would take. Then once I gave it the OK, it told me our ride was 8 minutes away, and gave a map tracking our driver as he came to pick us up.

For safety purposes, the app also gives you the driver’s name, the type and color of his car, and the tag number. And since we were inside Costco when I booked the ride, it told us we had to meet him outside at the entrance. The app also told us that we would arrive at our destination at 5pm. It was wrong.

Our driver dropped us off at our rig at 4:59pm.

At that point the app asks you to rate your ride, 1 to 5 stars, and then asks if you’d like to leave a tip, all strictly voluntary.

So no cash is necessary, just click and go. Very nice!

On the TV front, you fans of Murdoch Mysteries will be happy to know that season 15 kicks off tomorrow night on Acorn TV. The first one of a full 24-episode season, a big jump from last year’s abbreviated 11-episode season.

Really looking forward to it starting up again.

Jan and I are also looking forward to “Only Murders In The Building”, a new series starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selma Gomez. The first 3 episodes showed up on Hulu August 31st, with the other 7 episodes in the series showing up every week afterwards.

We don’t have Hulu, so what we’ll probably do is to wait until the last episode drops and binge-watch all ten episodes during the 30-day free trial they offer.

And with Steve Martin and Martin Short, it should be hilarious. And seems so from the trailer below.

Apparently even the Cloud is a place Where Everyone Knows Your Name, even Alexa. At least she now knows my name.

Often, before I get out of bed in the morning, I’ll ask Alexa what the weather is. She always starts off with, “The temperature in Santa Fe is . . .” and moves on, and since last week, ending up with “Have a nice day, GREG.”, instead of just “Have a nice day.”

So sometime in the last week, Alexa had cross-referenced my accounts and now has a name for my account. Not sure if I sure be proud or scared.

Or both.


September 12, 2022

Well, That Answers That Question . . .

Looks like we’ve got another of our family excursions in the planning stage.

Lowell, Brandi, and Landon had such a good time staying at the Gaylord Texan Resort up in Grapevine, TX over the Labor Day weekend,

Gaylord Grapevine 2

that we’re thinking about us all going up there for their Christmas Celebration. But for the week after Christmas when it’s cheaper.

Gaylord Grapevine Christmas

We’ll check with the Kingsland/Austin part of the family to see if it will work out for them.

I had wondered the other day how Rob, our RV park owner, was going to get rid of this old house trailer that was left behind after he bought the property to add more sites to the park.

Petticoat Juncton Trailer

Was he going to have it towed off, or maybe bring in an excavator to break it up and haul it out in pieces?

Well, when I got home this afternoon, I found this in the yard.

Petticoat Junction Excavator

So tomorrow should be very entertaining. Glad it’s happening on an off day.


September 12, 2023

Busy As A Bee . . .

We normally stay home on Tuesdays, but today we had some errands to take care of.

First up was a blood draw at at nearby Quest Labs for some routine tests, then it was on up to Joe’s Hwy 6 Automotive to get my Jeep inspected, the first step in Jan and I becoming official Texas residents once again.

But we ran into a problem. Joe said the Jeep’s computer thought there MIGHT be a problem with something in the emissions system, but no codes showed up. So he will need to keep the Jeep overnight to check it out.

But first I either need to get a flat tire on the truck fixed or rent a car.

MIGHT?

Next up, we had planned to head on up Hwy 6 to have lunch at Kelley’s Country Kitchen once again, but found it closed until Friday because they’re doing some remodeling this week. So we headed back into Alvin to the next best thing.

Busy Bee Café.

It’s been a long time since we’ve eaten at one of these, but it was as good as we remember.

Jan said her Grilled Catfish was delicious,

and my Philly Steak Omelet was also good, though not ‘done by Hugo the cook at Denny’s’ good.

When we got to Brandi’s this past Saturday, we found that Chris & Linda had a new vehicle.

A 2022 Chevy Bolt EUV Premier

Looks like a very nice EV, and the Premier model has every option except the Super Cruise semi-autonomous Self-Driving feature.

Here at the park, it looks like Rob, the owner, is coming right along on the new sites.

Counting the utility risers that are in place, looks like he’s adding 12 new sites.

So when it’s done, he’ll have 29 sites here, a nice addition.