Our RV Adventures

After being up at 6:30 and finishing the last of our travel day prep, we headed for the Cracker Barrel in Conroe a little after 8am.

For us, it’s a travel day tradition before we leave Conroe, just as we have breakfast at Schobel’s in Columbus before we leave Colorado River. At first we were kind of surprised at how busy they were, much more than usual. Then we realized it was Father’s Day.

After our usual good breakfast , we got back to the park a little after 9. I had already raised the levelers and stowed away the pads, so after I let in the awnings, I cranked up the genset before I unhooked shore power.

Doing it this way, the transfer switch changes over to the genset so smoothly that the AC’s never notice the switchover and keep running.

We pulled out of our site a little before 10 and then stopped in front of the Activity Center to hook up. One of the few failings here at Conroe, besides the eternally bad roads, is that there is no place designated to hitch and unhitch.

We were told originally to use the secondary parking lot off to the side of the Center, and often that works, but other times, like this morning, there were already cars there. So all we could do was to pull over off to the side, partway on the grass and hitch up there. And by 10:15 we were pulling out of the park

Out on I-45 south, our son Chris called about 10:30 to wish me a Happy Father’s Day.  One down, one to go.

Hopefully we’ll get down to see everyone later this week.

The trip was about  as smooth as it could get. With the genset running the AC’s we were very comfortable all the way. Except for the last couple of miles.

I think when they replaced our diesel tank last year after our blowout, that maybe they didn’t get the genset diesel pickup in the right place. Twice now with more than half a tank of diesel, the genset has shut off during a slow, but sharp turn.

Today, turning off US-71 on to FM-1890, the genset quit immediately after the acute 80 degree turn. I held down the prime button for a few seconds and then restarted the genset. Not really a problem, but irritating anyway.

We got into the park about 12:30 and really lucked up. We definitely weren’t going back to the back ‘A’ ring with all the electrical problems, but we’re still in the ‘A’ section.

After we got backed in and parked, Jan looked around and said to me, “Can we just buy this site?”

It doesn’t get much better, with two big shade trees, a good satellite shot, a level pad, and a concrete patio with a picnic table.

And with the shaded picnic table I’ll be able to get on some of my outside projects like rebuilding my armrests.

Right after we got parked, our daughter Brandi also called to wish me Happy Father’s Day. So now it’s a two’fer.

We got set up pretty quickly, but by the time I was finished, I was drenched in sweat from all the humidity.

But a cool shower and a hour-long nap made it all better.

Thought for the Day:

Arriving at the mortuary about 30 minutes before the scheduled viewing of her dead husband, the grieving widow was horrified to discover that her husband was not dressed in his favorite expensive black suit, but a cheap blue one. She started screaming at the funeral director that he better have this fixed in time or she will sue him for every last cent he has.

The director and his assistant start looking for the missing suit, and found it on the body in the next viewing room, The director immediately tells his assistant to go calm the widow down and tell her the problem will be corrected in time for the viewing.

And right on schedule, the viewing takes place and the widow is relieved to find her husband in his favorite suit.

After everyone leaves, the assistant asks the funeral directory how he switched the suits so quickly, since it would normally take at least an hour to do that.

The funeral director smiles and says, “Switched the suits? No, I just switched the heads!”

I guess it’s just another way of handling my problem with switching heads in photographs. At least I generally use the same head, though.

adfadsfa

I mentioned yesterday about a story behind this photo that I took at Vernon’s Katfish last night.

I actually took two photos. This one where Jan looks like she would rather be somewhere else entirely.

And this one where Judy looks like she’s just fed up with the whole thing.

So I carefully selected Judy’s head from the ‘smiling photo’ and moved it over to the other photo. You can see it in progress here.

Luckily I didn’t have to do any resizing or other manipulations to make it work.

So again, here’s the final product.

Everybody’s smiling, even Dick.

About 3pm I drove into Conroe to pick up Jan’s prescriptions at Wal-Mart. According to the text message, they all should have been ready. But only two were.

And one of the two, Anastrozole, that Jan takes for her breast cancer had a 9X jump in price. When we last got it, at this same Wal-Mart pharmacy this past March, was $22.74. But this time it was $185.05.

WOW!

When I ask why the increase, the young lady said that my discount card was no longer covering it. I said that my present discount card is GoodRx, so did GoodRx drop Anastrozole, or did Wal-Mart drop GoodRx? She looked kind of sheepish, and then said Wal-Mart dropped GoodRx.

Thinking a second, I told we should still have other discount cards on file and she said yes. So I ask her to try the other cards. And after a couple of minutes running through the cards, she said she found one that would get it for $53.51 for a three-month supply.

Not $22.74, but a lot better than $185!

I mentioned before about these pharmacy discount cards that you find in doctor’s offices everywhere.

I’ve been amazed how much money these free cards have save me over the years.

Check it out.

A  little before 6 we drove over to the Activity Center to meet up with Judy and Dick Mott, and grandson Logan. I was a little worried about finding a parking space nearby, but we lucked up and didn’t have a problem.

When we go inside about 10 till, we found card games still going on, but people were already dropping off their dishes. We went ahead and staked out seats at a table, saving three for the Mott’s, et al.

The line started forming pretty quickly, so we queued up too.

Besides the BBQ, there were a lot of delicious dishes, veggies, salads, bread and dessert. Jan prepared a double batch of her Heavenly Hash, always a crowd pleaser.

In fact she’s learned to dish us out some ahead of time, before we leave the rig. Otherwise we often don’t get any if we’re not toward the front of the line. And as before, when Jan went to retrieve her bowl, it was completely empty.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have another Logan head with open eyes to swap out.

After we got our hugs, and said our goodbyes,  we called it a night.

Getting back to the rig a little before 8pm, I put away the hoses, both sewer and water, now that we have a working water pump. I also stowed the ladder and the outside chairs away in the truck, as well as everything else I could.

Tomorrow morning we’ll do our usual Cracker Barrel breakfast before we head for Columbus about 10am. I’ll also crank up the engine and raise the levelers before then so I can stow the pads away. So the more I have done before breakfast, the better.

Thought for the Day:

“I don’t know anything about music, In my line of work you don’t have to.” – Elvis Presley

asdfsdf