Our RV Adventures

Just a short blog tonight.

Jan came through her parathyroidectomy with no problems, but she ended up spending the night at the hospital.

Originally her operation was scheduled for 11:30am, but due to her surgeon having to do a couple of emergency procedures, hers got pushed back until about 2pm.

So they didn’t have time for all the test values to come back that they wanted to check.

So I’ll pick her up sometime late tomorrow morning or early afternoon.

More then.

And Now On To today’s Retro-Blogs.™

August 2, 2009

At Home in Buzzard Bay…

Today was a travel day.  We moved about 140 miles east to Buzzard’s Bay, MA on Cape Cod.

The trip was smooth and uneventful for a change.  Traffic was light and the roads were pretty good.

After we got settled in, we headed down the Cape toward East Falmouth where we used to live.

I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but Jan, Chris, and I lived here in 1972 while I worked for the Department of Defense at Otis Air Force Base.

We were really surprised that we were able to find one of the houses we lived in while we were here.  It’s still there, and I think it looks better now than it did then.

We also think we’ve found the McDonald’s that Jan worked at while we were here.  We’ll have to check it out further to be sure.

We’re still going to be looking for the efficiency apartment that we rented for a while.  It will be interesting to see if it still exists also.

After our little time trip back to 1972, we stopped off at Seafood Sam’s for supper.  I had the Lobster Bisque and the Lobster Salad Roll, and Jan had the Mac and Cheese with Lobster Chunks Casserole.  It all was good.

August 2, 2010

Like being back home…

We started out the day by hanging around the rig enjoying a quiet morning. For the first time since February we don’t have to be anywhere for over a month.

Fantastic!

About 11:15 we headed out to El Maguey, our favorite Elkhart Mexican restaurant. And we were happy to find that it was just as good as when we left here last November.

After a delicious lunch we drove over to a WalMart near Goshen. According to the Walmart website they were the only WalMart in the area to stock the cranberry oatmeal that she likes. Unfortunately the website was wrong and they didn’t have any. But amazingly, we found other stuff to buy. Who knew?

Parking at the WalMart we encountered this older American Tradition, from the same manufacturer as our Eagle. Based on the body style and the fact it doesn’t have any slides, I think it’s a ‘96 or ‘97. Still looks good, though.

Right next to the Tradition was something we had heard about last year. Many of the WalMart’s here in Amish country have covered areas for the horse and buggies.

Although I don’t think this one is an Amish buggy!

I found it really funny to see that an Amish mother and son, who were walking into the store after parking their buggy, were wearing bright pink Crocs.

Leaving the WalMart, we drove across the street to one of our favorite stores, Tractor Supply Company. Jan was looking for a magazine she likes called “Countryside”, but the new issue wasn’t out yet. I did find a neat Tractor Supply T-shirt, though.

Coming home, we decided to take the scenic route and avoid the Interstate/Toll Road.

Big Mistake!

It seems like every road around here is under construction, including ones that were under construction when we were here last October. It took us over an hour and 15 minutes just to drive the 20 miles back to the rig. I think we must have gone through at least 6 different construction zones/detours.

The Toll Road is looking better!

Getting back to near the park,  we noted how different this stand of trees looked from last October.

For supper we had left-over hot wings from Quaker Steak and Lube, and chips with a dip made with a mix Jan bought at the Rally in Louisville.

August 2, 2013

Missed it by that Much . . .

We woke up this morning to heavy rain and a lot of thunderboomers that lasted most of the morning, but by early afternoon it had all faded away to just a heavy overcast.

I’ve heard of houses on stilts, but RV’s?

He better hope a strong wind doesn’t come up.

Jan and I headed out to Mishawaka about 1:45pm. We were planning on seeing a movie, R.I.P.D., that started at 2:50, but we left earlier than normally necessary because there was a wreck at Exit 69 on the I-90 Toll Road that was blocking traffic in both directions. But since we were getting on at Exit 92 and off at Exit 93, I figured we should be OK. But I added extra time anyway. And I’m glad I did.

When came over the hill to our Mishawaka exit, the traffic was backed up as far as we could see, ending right after our exit. If we’d been 5 minutes later, we would have been blocked from our exit and stuck on the Interstate, behind 14 miles of backed-up traffic.

We really wanted to like R.I.P.D. (Rest In Peace Department). The concept of a Police Department that retrieves evil ‘deado’s from the earth and returns them to the afterlife is a fun concept. But it just didn’t click. We didn’t dislike it, but we wanted more. It was close.

Other movies like Ghost, Ghostbusters, Men in Black, and Betelgeuse took similar off-the-wall concepts and made them hits. But the common thread in all these movies was humor, a lot of humor. Don’t get me wrong, R.I.P.D. had humor. Jeff Bridges as an 1880’s Wild West U.S. Marshall was great. And Ryan Reynolds held his own as the “rookie”. But overall, it was a miss. A near miss, but a miss still.

Leaving the movie, we stopped off at Sam’s Club to pick up a prescription that wasn’t ready the other day. Then it was on to a nearby Famous Dave’s BBQ for probably the last time this year. They don’t have any down in our area, so we wanted to get in one more shot. Since we’d had popcorn at the movie, we weren’t super hungry so we split a rib platter along with an extra side. The ribs were delicious, and even after splitting the platter, we were too full for the Bread Pudding that we usually split.

Heading home, we saw that the Interstate was now clear, making a lot of drivers happy.

Tomorrow we’ll get ready to travel on Sunday, and maybe take in another movie, RED 2, at the local theater. Then El Maguey for dinner.

August 2, 2014

Told Ya!

Today is our last day here in Ohio for this year.

And after a nice, slow morning, we all headed back over to Lebanon, OH to check out some of the shops and old homes. But what we found was a large street fair and car show going on in the downtown.

So after avoiding the $5 and $10 parking lots, we finally found a parking spot and walked around for an hour or so, checking the shops, stands, and, especially, the cars.

This is one that I haven’t seen before. It’s a very nice 1929 Essex. Made between 1918 and 1932, Essex started out as a Hudson Automobile subsidiary, before becoming just another model in the Hudson line in 1922.

In fact, by 1929 Essex was third in sales behind Ford and Chevrolet.

When I caught a glimpse of this one as we drove by, I thought it was a Chevy, but when I got close, found it was a 1933 Plymouth.

This photo doesn’t do this 1939 Ford Coupe justice. It looks white in this photo, but it’s actually a deep lustrous pearl. Coats and coats of pearl lacquer.

This beauty is a 1948 Buick luxury touring model, and even has power windows.

In 1948!

This 1976 Stutz Blackhawk is the first one I’ve ever seen in person. Manufactured from 1971 to 1987 by the Stutz Motor Company, the body was handcrafted in Ghia in Italy and then shipped to the US where it was mated with a GM chassis and engine.

The body had 22 coats of hand-rubbed lacquer that took six weeks to apply. The Blackhawk was so prized that they were reserved years in advance. In fact, Elvis Presley outbid Frank Sinatra for the first one. And at one time Elvis owned 4 Blackhawks.

Other notable owners included Lucille Ball, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lewis, Liberace, and Willie Nelson. The Shah of Iran reportedly owned twelve of them.

Although very popular with the rich crowd, they were finally done in by changes in US auto safety laws.

This is a 1951 Chevrolet Coupe pulling a 1976 Jayco camper.

I like the period radio on the shelf.

After driving around a while longer, we stopped off at a nice used bookstore for a while, before ending up at the Acapulco Mexican Restaurant about 4pm. This is the same place we ate at this past Tuesday with the Boggs family of The Boggs Family Ministries, and it was so good we had to do it again.

Jan had her Pollo Loco and I had the Carnitas Acapulco, both the same as last time. And just as delicious.

Under the heading, See I Told You They Were Good For You, a recent study shows that the main ingredient in chili peppers, dietary capsaicin, significantly decreases the chance of colorectal and bowel cancer, lowers blood pressure, boosts memory, and increases longevity as much as 30%.

And all y’all thought I was just crazy. Not saying I’m not, but I was right about this.

August 2, 2015

A Trifecta of Bad . . .

Jan and I pulled out of our site here at Cherokee Landing Thousand Trails about 9:45, bidding a not-fond adieu to probably the nicest bad park we’ve ever stayed at, especially for two whole weeks.

We’ve certainly stayed in worse places, much worse in fact. But only for one night, not fourteen. But as nice as the basic park is, I.e. wooded sites, but still with satellite access, fairly level, quiet, and not much traffic, overall, it sucked.

But Cherokee Landing is a Trifecta of Bad. Bad power, bad water pressure, and bad Internet. I’ve already mentioned the ‘fake’ 50 amp pedestals, consisting of a 50 amp receptacle connected to a 30 amp, actually three 30 amp breakers in series between the main breaker panel, the ‘real’ 30 amp box, and the ‘fake’ 30 amp box.

And, believe it or not, some people actually end up paying an extra $3 per night for this ‘50’ amp service, though we didn’t have to.

As far as the water pressure, according to my pressure meter, we were getting between 15 and 20 psi, the lowest I’ve ever seen at a park. To be sure it wasn’t just our site, I tested the sites on either side of us with the same results.

The pressure was so low that if I turned our Oxygenic shower nozzle upside down, the water wouldn’t even fountain up, but just run down the sides. So after a day or so of this, we started just using our internal water and our pump. Much better. But it would take over an hour to refill the 100-gallon tank from the shore water because of the low pressure. Just pitiful.

I realized I can’t really blame the park for the bad Internet, but it was just one more thing that was a constant irritation.

OK, so I’m finished ranting now.

As we had planned, we pulled into the Cracker Barrel in Corinth, MS about 10:30 to have breakfast. Although they had RV spaces, they weren’t big enough for us to fit. So we parked across about 6-8 spaces along the very back of the lot. Luckily they have a really big parking lot, so we weren’t putting anyone out. We of course left the genset running to keep Mister comfortable while we were eating.

Finishing up, we were back on the road about 11:30 for the last  115 miles. I did get a chance to see my new AC voltmeter in action.

As I said, I can see whether or not the genset is running from the dashboard, but not that the transfer switch is putting power to the coach. So this lets me monitor that.

We pulled into the Northgate RV Travel Park about 1:45 and got set up. We plan on being here until Thursday visiting relatives. Then it’s on to Gulf Shores for a week.

Really looking forward to both visits.

August 2, 2016

Two Disappointments in a Row . . .

Finishing up on yesterday’s adventures, we pulled into Hollywood Casino RV Park a little after 1pm. And that was pretty much the high point of our entire visit.

Following the signs I parked in front of the office and went in to register. Or tried to. There was a small well-worn piece of paper on the door saying the office was closed, and to use the phone in the laundry room around the corner to call the casino hotel front desk to check in.

The phone was a direct line, so the first dozen or so times I tried, I just got a busy signal. But finally it rang through to the front desk, where I was told, “Front Desk. Please hold.”

And I did, for the next 10 minutes or so. Until I hung up and started over. And then just repeated the same scenario.

Finally giving up, we drove around to find an empty site. Which wasn’t a problem because it was only 25% full, if that.

Unlike last night at Poche’s, all the sites here are back-ins, so we found a nice site, got unhitched, and backed in. My plan was to hook up shore power so I could turn off the generator that was running the AC’s, and then drive over to the Casino and check in. But turns out the pedestals were padlocked.

So I drove over to the Casino, stood in line, a long line, and finally got checked in. Turns out that they didn’t even have my reservation correct. They had us coming in today, and not yesterday. Even though I made the reservation online and had my confirmation email on my phone.

But it didn’t matter since the park was pretty empty anyway. The only reason I even made a reservation was because they were so full when we were last here in 2009. But a lot has changed since then.

By the time I got back to the rig, the security guard had unlocked the pedestal so I got plugged in. Like last night, I didn’t hook up water or sewer. Just that much less to do tomorrow.

In fact, I didn’t even set up the satellite dish, since there was nothing we wanted to watch or record that night, so we just read and computered.

About 4:15 I called the shuttle to take us over to the Casino. But it turns out that there is no more shuttle. It’s now a security guard in a Chevy Malibu.

As we were on our way through the park, I noticed that the entire park had a slightly run-down look, with unmowed areas and little or no edging around the pads.

It was a really nice park, so it’s a shame to see it let go like this.

Once in the casino, our first stop was the Player’s Services desk to get our Rewards Cards. The last time we were here we each got $25 of slot cash on our cards, but not this time.

Zip, Zero, Nada!

Next we headed upstairs to eat at the Epic Buffet, a misnomer if there ever was one. We remembered this as being a good buffet, but no longer. It was now more on the level of a mediocre/bad Golden Corral. And the advertised Asian and Cajun food areas weren’t even open.

Monday night was supposed to Ribeye Steak night, but it was more like small, thin, end-pieces night. They were about 3” square, tough and chewy, and even Jan thought they were way overdone.

The one redeeming thing was the big pile of boiled shrimp. Very fresh and crisp. It was really good, and I ate more of that than anything else.

Butt the really bad part was the price – $20.99.

Our favorite casino buffet, at Boulder Station in Las Vegas, at $9.99, has much, much better food at less than half the price.

A real disappointment.

Coming back to the rig, in the Chevy Malibu again, the security guard mentioned how they had gotten rid of the shuttle, as well as a lot of other cutbacks. And it really shows.

Getting back to today, we were hitched up and on the road to Gulf Shores, AL by 10am. Rather than get back on I-10, we decided to take the scenic route by staying on US90 as it follows along the Gulf beach for about 35 miles. We stayed on this until we got to Ocean Springs, MS where US90 moves inland. Back on I-10 we passed through the Mobile tunnel, and getting across Mobile Bay, we got off at SR59 which took us all the way to Gulf Shores.

We pulled into the Gulf State Park a little before 1pm, and I went in to get registered. And got a big, big shock.

We stayed here last August, although in a different, slightly cheaper area, and we paid about $250 for the week. So I was really stunned to find a week this year was $380.00! That’s almost $60 a day.

Now I know they’ve added $35 a week ‘Resort Fee’, but where did the rest come from?

In contrast, Luxury RV Park, where we stayed in 2008, is just as close to the beach (a couple of blocks away) as Gulf State Park, and it’s only $240 a week.

So from now on, it’s Luxury RV for us.

But things got better when we headed out to have dinner at Desoto’s Seafood Kitchen. As usual we got the Seafood Platter, with Flounder, Shrimp, Oysters, and Crab Claws.

For sides, Jan got their delicious Sweet Potato Casserole with Pecan pieces and the Fried Green Tomatoes, while I got the Casserole and French Fries. It’s always great, and this time was no different.

It almost made up for the Gulf State Park.

August 2, 2017

The Great American BBQ Tour . . .

I spent a good part of the morning working on the mobile site for the new website, trying to get everything to line up correctly.

The Godaddy Website Builder program automagically generates a mobile site on its own, but it needs to be tweaked, sometimes a little, and sometimes a lot. But I can’t really finish it up until I get the last website corrections from the client. So it’s hurry up and wait. As usual.

Later I put in a call to my cousins Marjorie and Anna Jean to set up a get-together tomorrow afternoon.

About 3:30 Jan and I headed down to Decatur to have dinner at Big Bob Gibson’s BBQ. Often listed as one of the top 5 BBQ places in the US, several walls are covered with their awards and certificates.

And even their red BBQ sauce and their white BBQ (for chicken and turkey) are award winners too.

Jan got the BBQ Chicken with Mac N Cheese and Green Beans,

(No photo. Hers came out blurry)

while I had the 2 meat Combo with Ribs, Pulled Pork, BBQ Beans, and Potato Salad.

Very, very good, making it very obvious why they’ve won so many awards.

And of course we had to finish up with some of their famous pie. Jan got the Coconut Cream,

while I got the Lemon Cream

This makes the 3rd installment on our Great American BBQ Tour, with one more to go – the Sonny’s BBQ in Brandon, MS, where we’ll stop for lunch on Saturday on our way home.

Coming back to Athens we drove around for a while checking out places we used to live.

This is the house my parents bought when we moved back from Colombia, South America in 1963. It was brand new then, and it still looks pretty good.

I attended the 10th grade at Athens High while we lived here, and then the next year I went off to Columbia Military Academy for my Junior and Senior years.

See, I did have hair back in the day.

Jan and I, and our son Chris, lived here for a while before we moved to our own house (a duplex) nearby.

Again, it still looks pretty good.

After we’d been here a while I got on with a DOD contractor and we moved to Beaufort, SC where I worked at the MCAS (Marine Corp Air Station) at Parris Island. I was working on avionics and radar systems on F-4B, C, D, & S Phantoms.

In some cases we were stripping out all the avionics, electronics, and the engines, testing everything, and then putting it all back together again.

Getting back to the park, we went next door to visit my Aunt Janice and Uncle Ed. Their son Wes owns the RV Park here. And they have a lot to do with Jan and me getting together.

Ed was a veterinarian, and he and Janice lived in Sanford, FL in 1967 where he had his practice. I came down to visit for a while, and saw an ad for a job over in Titusville at Florida Wonderland, a local amusement park there. And that’s where Jan and I met.

Tomorrow will wrap up our last full day here in Athens before we head home on Friday.

August 2, 2018

And The Bidding Is On . . .

Tomorrow I’ll drive up to Katy to pick up Jan for the weekend, before Brandi, et. al. come back down and pick her up again for next week.

Then I should have her back for Good Friday week.

I don’t know what’s happened with the gas prices recently. The price has been jumping all over the place. When we left on our trip June 21st, the price of unleaded was around $2.95, and then when we got back 2-1/2 weeks later, it had dropped down to about $2.55. Then it dropped a few more cents a week, finally coming down to $2.47. Which it was when I went to work one morning,  planning on getting gas on the way home.

But by that afternoon it had popped up to $2.54 where it still is today. So who knows?

I mentioned last night that I was going to get with a real estate lawyer to go over some questions I had about a few sections of the Texas Real State Commission contract that I wasn’t clear on.

Well, it looks like I’ve saved myself several hundred dollars. I found a 2+ hour YouTube video that goes over the TREC contract in detail, paragraph by paragraph. And so far I’m about 45 minutes into it. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish it up tomorrow.

I just got off the phone with the guy I mentioned I was waiting for in last night’s blog. And we have a new high bid, higher by $1500, AND he said he’ll put down $5000 in earnest money, rather than the $200 the previous bidder had promised.

Keep those bids coming in, guys.

August 2, 2020

Well, That Was Easy . . .

Based on what I had heard I thought it was going to be a pain, but it turned out to be pretty easy.

The first thing I did was to unplug our DirecTV DVR from the satellite dish. And then I called DirecTV to have them suspend our service. I was expecting to be turned over to Account Retention or some such office. But I was able to do it all just by talking to the computer.

When I told them I wanted to suspend my account, they said I could suspend it for at least one month but no more than six months. So to make it nice and even I chose December 31, 2020. And that was it.

Easy Peazy!

And the reason I disconnected the satellite from the DVR first is that when they turn off or suspend your service, they also shut off your DVR so you can’t play back any of your previous recordings. So since we still have movies and old shows we might want to watch, this will keep it working.

Later Jan and I headed up to Clear Lake about 1pm to first have lunch at Snooze. Jan had her usual Bravocado Toast,

while I went with the Classic 3 egg breakfast.

Then it was over to WalMart for a prescription and some supplies before finally heading home about 4pm.

Yesterday we had a late lunch at Los Ramirez Mexico once again. Jan always gets the Pechuga Rellena, a grilled chicken breast over a bed of grilled shrimp and broccoli, and covered in cheese.

And I tried something a little different with the Spicy Beef Fajitas with Charro Beans.

August 2, 2021

A Cool Front . . .

Several readers wondered about how the new sprinklers worked on our hibiscus tree watering system.

The little red caps let you adjust how much water comes out, changing from just a slight drizzle to spreading out over a foot on each side. Perfect for this.

Readers will remember how I ordered these 24” and 30” high Flamingos from Facebook,

The ad said they were made in the USA and shipped from California.

What I got were these 8” tall, broken flamingos, shipped from China.

While I’m trying to get my money back through PayPal, I’ve been trying to at least salvage these by gluing them back together. But with no luck so far.

I’ve tried Super Glue, Gorilla Glue, Contact Cement, and several others. But so far I haven’t found anything that will stick to whatever resin these are made of. I guess next I’ll try to drill a small hole in each piece and try to piece them back together that way.

Looks like the I-40 bridge that crosses the Mississippi at Memphis, and was closed in May due to a major structural failure, has finally reopened.

Finally, looks like we may be getting a cold/cool? front coming through over the next couple of days. While our recent temps have in the low/mid 90’s, tomorrow’s high is supposed to be about 86° with a low in the mid-70’s. Nice.

Of course it sure seems like we’ve had cooler summer than normal anyway. So far we’ve not had a single temp in the 100’s, or even the high 90’s. And that’s reflected in our power bills this year vs last year. Maybe our usual summer temps moved out west for this year

August 2, 2022

Bridges And Caviar . . .

We were going into Webster this morning for my Physical Therapy, but ended up going in about 30 minutes due to a ‘perceived’ problem at work. I say ‘perceived’, because it wasn’t really a problem. My client just wasn’t doing it like I told him.

And wrote down for him.

Today was my 4th Physical Therapy training session, again with Jennifer, the same trainer I had last time. We ran through my standard set that I’ve been doing at home, and then added a couple of more short ones.

Finishing up a little before 2pm, we drove over to The CookShack for lunch. It’s been a few months since we’ve been here, and we’ve been missing their chicken.

Jan had the Shack Salad, with Grilled Chicken, Avocado, Dates, Almonds, Goat Cheese, Cherry Tomatoes, Corn and Champagne Vinaigrette, and a separate Chicken Tender.

I took the simple route with 5 Tenders, Texas Hot, of course, and a side of Texas Caviar.

Texas Hot is their hottest standard version, with AMF their super-duper, sign-a-waiver version. I’ve done AMF twice, both versions, 1 & 2, but it was more for the challenge, not for a really good meal.

What they call Texas Caviar is made up of Black Beans, Corn, Red Peppers, Purple Onions, Tomatoes, and Cilantro.

All really good as before.

Finally we headed home for the night.

In one of yesterday’s past blogs, I mentioned my past troubles on the Atchafalaya Basin River Bridge over in Louisiana, on I-10 between Breaux Bridge and Baton Rouge. 18.2 miles long, it spans the Atchafalaya Basin, the nation’s largest river swamp, containing almost one million acres of America’s most significant bottomland hardwoods, swamps, bayous, and backwater lakes.

And gators. Lots and lots of gators.

Originally the speed limit on the bridge was 55mph, but somewhere along the line, they increased the auto speed limit to 60, while keeping the truck limit at 55mph. And supposedly making them stay in the right lane.

Of course like most speed limits, the bridge limits are mostly ignored, by both cars and trucks.

But since there were 269 crashes on the bridge in 2021, with 2 deaths and 89 injuries, authorities have decided to crack down on speeders.

By timing you crossing the bridge with cameras at each end.

If you make the 18 mile trip in less than 18 minutes, you get a ticket.

An expensive ticket.

Effective August 1, 2022, the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge carrying I-10 is now a “highway safety corridor,” per a recently signed law. As a “highway safety corridor,” the standard fine for speeding of $175 would double to $350 following a one-time warning. Subsequent speeding violations would result in $1000 fines.

Anyone who makes it across the 18-mile-long bridge in under 18 minutes would been in violation of the 60 m.p.h. speed limit for passenger vehicles and the 55 m.p.h. speed limit for trucks.

So no more doing 70+.

August 2, 2023

I’m Happy . . .

First off, I’m happy because it’s a Twin Peaks two-fer this week and next. Tomorrow Jan’s taking me to our local Twin Peaks for lunch, and then next Thursday we’re meeting friends at the Twin Peaks up in The Woodlands.

This last week or so has been pretty typical for this job, and not having a lot to do with the IT consulting I was hired for.

1. I filed to get my client out of jury duty. Not really hard since my client is 82 and the cut-off age is 70. But still a lot of online forms.

2. Spent a couple of days translating a new epilator manual from Pol-English to American English.

3. Found a trick on YouTube to get my client’s wife’s 2017 Nissan Altima’s stuck hood unlatched. This is so I could then check the A/C system for Freon level, because it didn’t seem to be cooling very well.

And as it turned out, it’s not low on Freon, but filled right up to the tippy-top.

And after asking some questions, I figured out what the problem was.

Her Nissan is black, not the best vehicle color to have in Texas in the summer. And she mostly just drives around the Clear Lake area, seldom getting above 40-50 mph. So when she leaves home, she just turns on the A/C and goes.

Now a black auto in the Texas summer is probably 140° inside, and it takes a good while for the A/C to cool that down. So I explained to her that when she leaves home she needs to roll all 4 windows as she drives to get all that hot 140-degree air out. Then once she feels it start to cool down inside, she can raise the windows.

Then at some point she can set the A/C to Recirculate to cool it down even further. Turns out that she had no idea what Recirculate was and had never used it.

When she came back today she said now that she knows what to do, she’s much more comfortable.

So if she’s happy, then my client’s happy. So I’m happy, again.

After a quiet morning going over the pre-op info concerning Jan’s Parathyroidectomy tomorrow morning. We finally got a call letting us know that Jan should be at the Methodist Hospital complex tomorrow morning at 9:30 am for a scheduled operation time of 11:30, with the operation supposed to take about 90 minutes.

So we’ll leave here about 8:15 to allow for parking and making the trek to the op area.

Lunch today was Jan’s choice, Kelley’s Country Kitchen. Of course, it’s one of my favorites too.

I got the same thing I got a couple of weeks ago, the Country Fried Chicken Breast with Red Beans and Rice, Fried Okra, and Green Beans.

Delicious, and plenty for leftovers.

Jan went with something new, the Stuffed Chicken Breast, which is stuffed with Broccoli Cheese Casserole, along with some more Broccoli Cheese Casserole, Fried Okra, and Buttered Carrots.

Also with leftovers.

We also got to catch up with Stacy, a long-time server friend of ours. We’ve missed her the last few times when were here, so we got her phone number so we can text her before we visit next time.

Boeing has another problem.

Boeing has a problem — too many astronauts and not enough ISS parking spaces

That, in and of itself, is one issue. The new logistical issue is that there aren’t enough parking ports at the ISS to accommodate the USA. NASA and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom mission to the ISS with a four-person voyage will take place “no earlier than August 18.”

Here’s the problem for the ISS Meter Maid/Person, so to speak: the ISS has six docking ports, four on the Russian side and two on the U.S. side, and both U.S. ports are currently occupied and the Russian ports are not compatible.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour is occupying one spot that taxied the Crew-8 mission in March with four astronauts aboard that is not scheduled to return until sometime in the fall. The other parking slot is occupied by Boeing’s Starliner which is waylaid due to faulty thrusters. Therein lies the scrub.

So something’s got to go. Plus they’ve got a resupply capsule coming up soon and no place to park it.

Maybe they can valet.

Thought For The Day:

“It is not only that power corrupts. It’s also that power attracts the corruptible.”

Your Retro-Preview Highlights –

2009 – Old Saybrook

2010 – On To Elkhart And Amish Country

2011 – More Big Sky Country

2014 – A Man’s Gotta Know His Limitations

2016 – The Atchafalaya River Bridge And Me

2017 – Birmingham And More ‘Q’

2019 – Another Plumbing Repair

2023 – More Glacier Facts

And Now On To today’s Retro-Blogs.™

August 1, 2009

Old Saybrook . . .

Today is our last full day in Connecticut.

After lunch at Pat’s Kountry Kitchen, voted ‘Best Family Style Restaurant in Connecticut”,

we headed out to drive around the Old Saybrook seaport area.  It’s a very picturesque area, much of it dating from the 1700’s.

There’s a lot of history here as the Old Boston Post Road runs right through the town.  This would have been the route many of the Founding Fathers used to travel between New York and Boston.

I mentioned before how picturesque this area is. But I don’t have any pictures to show for it.  We drove what’s known as the Scenic Loop, but there’s no place to stop and take pictures. The road is a narrow two-lane road with no place to pull over and no stopping allowed.

So you’ll just have to imagine the shot of the swans feeding in the lake, the lighthouses on the point, the lovely view of the marina, etc.

Aren’t they just beautiful?

We had originally planned to head north to the Springfield/Chicopee, MA area to visit a high school friend of hers. Jan graduated from Chicopee Falls Comprehensive High School so she’s looking forward to visiting old friends and old haunts.

But her friend, Joan, has had a death in the family, so we will head over to Cape Cod for a few days and then up to see Joan next weekend.

The Cape Cod area is an old haunt for both of us as we lived in West Falmouth, MA in 1971 while I was working for the Dept. of Defense at Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod.

The park we’re staying at here in the Clinton, CT area is called Riverdale Farm Campground.  It’s a nice place, but the sites are kind of small and we’re really jammed in together.

We have a 140-mile trip tomorrow, which should take us about 3 hours.  But it might be longer due to the traffic we will encounter.

We’ll see.

August 1, 2010

On To Elkhart…

We left Mercer County Fairgrounds at the crack of 10:50 this morning, first for a short trip into town to have a final lunch at La Carreta, and then heading on to Elkhart.

Here we are parked right down the street.

About 20 miles down the road we entered Indiana, and almost immediately encountered a number of Amish buggies along the road.

When we were here last October all the buggies we saw had the enclosed cabins like in this photo below.

I guess now that it’s summer they put the top down and they look like this.

And of course, how can you tell if you’re in Amish country?

A little further down the road we passed through Decatur, IN, the birthplace of ‘Beauty’, our RV. Last year we took a factory tour of the plant, and also visited the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Museum in Auburn, IN.

You can see more about our trip here.  Auburn Cord Museum.

We got into the Elkhart Campground about 2 pm and got set up. We’ll be here for a month before heading back to Houston for the birth of 2nd grandchild, Landon Morrison.

The park is much fuller than it was last October when we were here.

Tomorrow we’ll continue to get settled in and I’ll start on some maintenance stuff that I’ve been waiting to do until we got here.

August 1, 2011

More Big Sky Country . . .

Jan and I were both up about 7:30 this morning. I think we were looking forward to getting back on the road and seeing new things and places

While we were having our coffee and bagels, our daughter Brandi called to say HI and talk about our upcoming family reunion in about 10 days.

A little after 9 I called the RV park in Dickinson, ND to be sure they’d have a spot for us for Tuesday and Wednesday night. And when I asked the lady if she would have room for us, I got my first “You Betcha”.

And going through North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin over the next week or so, it probably won’t be our last one, either.

We pulled out of our site about 9:45 and then stopped just long enough to hook up the toad, and then we were on our way by 10 am, heading northeast on I-94 to Miles City, MT, about 150 miles away.

We had a lot of pretty country along the way, with rolling hills, interspersed with level plains, and a lot of lakes and rivers. Not exactly what you think of in Montana.

We made one rest stop at about the halfway point, and then pulled into the Big Sky Campground about 1 pm.

This is probably the perfect one-night stay campground for us. Long pull-thrus where we don’t have to unhook the toad, pretty level sites. (to me, a site is pretty level if I can get the coach level. I’ve been in some that were so out-of-tilt that I couldn’t.)

We even have our own view of the mountains.

And best of all, it’s cheap. $18 a night for 30 amp and water. On one night stays like this we normally don’t even hook up sewer, and in this case, we saved $5 over a full hookup site.

Hey, $5 is $5!

Jan fixed a wonderful meal from our leftover Bubba’s BBQ, along with wild rice and baked beans, and even better, fresh chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

I love it when Jan gets domestic!

August 1, 2013

7 Days Makes One . . . Sad

That’s because we have only 7 days of RV travel left this year.

That gets us back to Houston, visiting two sets of relatives along the way, then out to south Texas for gate guarding, and then back to Houston the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Of course that doesn’t include any possible moves from gate to gate, but we’re thinking about trying to stay at just one gate this time,

The good news is that Two Weeks from Today! we get to see Landon again. And the rest of the family too, of course.

For the people who are looking for more info on gate guarding, you might want to start with our April 5, 2012 blogs. Also, you can check down the right side of our blog where you will find a number of other blogs by RV’ers that either are gate guarding now, or have gate guarded in the past. Check ‘em out.

After another nice, quiet morning, Jan and I headed out about 1pm to drive some of the countryside around Shipshewana. But our first stop was the RV/MH Hall of Fame again. But this time it was to look for a geocache located there. Barb Westerfield had asked us to check it out and see if the container needed to be repaired. But when I found where it was supposed to be, it wasn’t there. So I called Barb and found out that a local guy had picked it up and was taking care of it. No problem.

Then it was on to Shipshewana. We took a back road over that way, then took SR 5 through town and past all the Amish business. We saw one place that must have had 100 buggies parked all around with everyone dressed up. Figured it must be a wedding.

Cutting across through the mostly Amish farmland, we headed toward Millersburg. It’s easy to tell the Amish farms; very big, very neat, no power lines, and a little phone hut out front. It’s also strange to see a big combine being pulled by a team of four horses.

Looping back around and coming into Goshen from the south, we stopped at a Dunkin Donuts for coffee, and some donut holes to go. Apparently no one calls them ‘holes’ anymore. Dunkin calls them Munchkins, while Tim Horton’s calls them Timbits.

Finally coming back into Elkhart, we checked out a couple of RV parts stores before realizing it was about 4:30 and we were starting to get hungry. Since we hadn’t had steak for a while, the nearby Texas Roadhouse seemed to be in order. We always get a good steak there, and today was no exception.

Finally it was home for the night. Tomorrow it’s back to Mishawaka for some things and maybe a movie.

August 1, 2014

A Man’s Gotta Know His Limitations . . .

Some of you, or most of you, may have seen the gum commercial where the father uses the foil to make a little silver origami bird for his daughter. But a week or so ago I saw the longer, full version. But I’ve only seen it that one time. And I think it’s worth passing on.

After resting up from our busy day yesterday, Jan and I headed out about 2:30 for a couple of errands. Our first stop was the TireDiscounterz store in Wilmington to drop off my flat tire to be fixed. I came out one morning while we were at the Indian Lakes Thousand Trails in Batesville, OH and found I had a flat. But since we were almost ready to leave for Wilmington, I thought I’d just wait until then.

Leaving my tire, we headed down the road a bit to the Wal-Mart to stock up on some things. Then it was back to TireDiscounterz to check on my tire. And there I got some bad news. The tire is not repairable, or at least not worth repairing.

They found the leak using the water trough, but they also found a bunch of other small leaks coming from the dry rot. Of course, my first question is how did I get dry rot on a truck tire? Since we bought the Dakota in 2007, we’ve over 110,000 miles on it while driving, and another 60,000 plus miles towing it, when the odometer doesn’t register. So I know this wasn’t an original tire.

Plus I bought a new tire in Apache Junction in April of 2013, and another one before that in August of 2012 while we were gate guarding. And about 4 years ago I replaced two tires at the same time back in Houston. The only thing that makes sense is that this was the original spare that got swapped in when I had those 3 flats in one week while we were on our first gate in April 2012.  So it looks like there’s a new tire in my future and out of my wallet.

Getting back to the rig a little before 5pm, we headed back out to have dinner at Rod’s Capricorn Inn down in the Lake Cowan area. We had tried to eat here this past Monday, but they were closed. But the reviews were so good we had to give it a try before we all leave this coming Sunday.

This place is the poster child for the out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere dive burger joint.

The photo above I got from Google Street View and must have been taken on a day when they were closed because I gather the parking lot is normally pretty full morning, noon, and night, as It was when we got there today.

Many of the reviews had talked about the Double Rod’s Burger, and I made the mistake of ordering it without reading the menu closely enough. And this is what I got.

Yes, that’s a 1 pound fresh ground, hand-formed, Angus Beef patty, And about a quart of French Fries. Of course, you can only eat it with a fork. But, boy was it good..

When I gave up after eating about half of it, Jan wanted to know if I was feeling bad, since I didn’t finish it. I said, “No”. I had just eaten the equivalent of two Whoppers, and that was about all I could do. But I have leftovers.

Jan had the Boneless Chicken Strip Dinner and said it was delicious, and of course, more leftovers.

Even better in all this, were the excellent prices. My 1 lb. burger and fries was $9.89, and the Boneless Chicken Dinners were $8.49. That’s for a pound of Angus Beef, and about 6 chicken breasts.

Coming home, we made a detour into Wilmington to the Lowe’s so I could get a few feet of wire to make a new cable for my Brake Buddy alert transmitter. Then it was home for the night.

Tomorrow will be our last full day here in Wilmington, OH. Sunday we’ll start heading back to Texas by way of Alabama.

August 1, 2015

Not Bad, Not Great . . .

Well, it looks like the Verizon guys don’t work on weekends. As I mentioned before, during most of the day I have crappy 1X Internet here at Cherokee Landing. Then most nights suddenly I have 3 or 4 bars of 3G after 8pm.

But today I’ve had 4 bars of 3G all day and all night. So I’m glad they take weekends off, or at least Saturdays.

A little before 4pm Jan and I headed back over to Corinth for dinner. This time our destination was Mi Toro once again, the same Mexican restaurant we ate at last week. But things change, and we ended up at the Ryan’s right down the street.

And I guess we can be happy that it was not great, but not bad either. Just OK.

I will say the steaks were really good, but they weren’t really good about keeping some things stocked up, especially the fried chicken. They are set up with two pans, one for white, breast and wings, and one for dark, thighs and legs. But while we were there they pretty much just had two pans of thighs.

I don’t know if they figured people couldn’t tell the difference, or maybe the servers couldn’t tell the difference. Could be both, or either. But not good, anyway.

* * * * *

As soon as I get to somewhere with a better connection, I’m probably going to download Windows 10 on one of my machines, most likely my ASUS laptop.

The word so far seems to be pretty favorable. Which is not unexpected, since kind of like Star Trek movies, every other one seems to be a good one.  For example:

Windows 95 – Good

Windows 98 – Sucked

Windows 98SE – Good

Windows ME – Really Sucked

Windows XP – Good

Windows Vista – Sucked

Windows 7 – Good

Windows 8 – Sucked

Windows 10 – Good So Far

The Win 10 download is about 6 GB, so it’s going to take a while.

Tomorrow we’re going to head out about 9:30 on our 145 mile run to Athens, AL to spend some time catching up with my relatives. We’re going to stop for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in Corinth, MS about 35 miles along the way. At least as long as the parking lot isn’t too full.

August 1, 2016

Bridge Over Swampy Waters . . .

I had already hitched up last night so this morning all we had to do was stow the satellite dish, raise the levelers, unplug shore power, and go.

Every time we stop at Poche’s, we always wish we were staying longer.

Most of the sites are concrete pad back-ins, but they do have two long pull-thru transient sites, which is where we always stay.. Very nice park, especially for $20 a night Passport America.

We pulled out right at 10 heading for the Hollywood Casino in Bay St. Louis, about 165 miles away.

But before we could get there, we had to cross my nemesis, the Atchafalaya River Bridge, 18.2 miles long, through the Atchafalaya (Cha Fa La Ya, forget the AT) Swamp. When we first drove onto the bridge, Jan asked me if it still bothered me. I said no, but it’s not something I’ll forget.

In 1994, I was on my way to Birmingham to visit my mother, a trip I made every month from 1992, when my father died, until 2005, when I finally got her moved to Houston.

It was lightly raining and I had just gotten on the bridge when an old Lincoln Continental started passing me doing about a 1/2 mph faster than I was, just creeping past. He had a line of traffic right on his tail, as did I. So I couldn’t really slow down much either.

Then just as he barely got past, he cut over right in front of me, so close I could no longer see his taillights. And then he slowed down. So I instinctively took my foot off the gas, never touching the brake. But that didn’t help. Apparently just as I let off the pedal, I crossed one of those metal expansion joints with a bump. And then all hell broke loose.

As well as my tire’s grip on the pavement.

My Ford Ranger did a quick 360, and then added a 180 for good measure. Then my instincts kicked in and I managed to get my truck up against the rail, trying to scrub off speed by grinding off the driver’s side of the truck.

Of course a 360 and a 180 meant I was now going backwards, and watching people dodge the large pieces of my truck as they fell off. At this point, I was somewhat hopeful that the excitement was almost over.

But I was wrong!  Very wrong!

Apparently a wayward piece of my rear bumper snagged on one of the separations between the sections of the concrete bridge railing, slinging me back around into another set of 360° spins.

How many, you might ask?

Well, I lost count after 4. Mostly because the left side of my head slammed up against the metal shoulder harness bracket that Ford thoughtfully mounted just at head height, without any padding.

In the middle of all this, I was still trying to get control of the spins, but without much luck. Turning the steering wheel didn’t seem to have much, or any, effect. But finally I ended up along the railing again, this time going in the right direction, and finally came to a stop. I managed to get the door open and climbed out just as several motorists ran over to see if I was OK.

The first thing I noticed was that I no longer had a truck. It was more a pile of parts traveling in close proximity to each other, but now bent in a semi-circle.

The rear bumper and tailgate were gone, and the driver’s side rear tire was shredded due to the fact that the wheel well bulge was mashed flat against the tire. But as bad as that was, the front was worse.

The entire front bumper and trim panels were gone. And I now knew why my efforts to correct the spins were for naught. I had nothing left to correct with.

The driver’s side tire, wheel, shock, tie rods, etc., were all gone. Just a big empty hole where it all used to be. And the passenger side wasn’t much better. Although the tire and wheel were still there, they weren’t really connected to anything, but just hanging there at an angle.

By this time this adrenaline rush had kicked in, so I sat down on the railing ledge, before I fell down. As I waited for everyone to show up, I took stock of myself.

I had a splitting headache and a real egg-sized goose egg on the left side of my head. But other than that and some bruises on my chest from the shoulder harness, I seemed to be OK. My next thought was ‘concussion’, but I wasn’t showing any signs, at least yet.

BTW did you know you can check yourself for a concussion, at least one on the side of your head?

Close both eyes and then open one eye and then close it and open the other. If you see a difference in the brightness between the two eyes, there’s a good chance you have a concussion.

And the paramedic reluctantly agreed with my diagnosis, although he still wanted to take me to the hospital. I told him I would still be in the area for a while, and if I felt worse I’d have it checked out.

My idea was that after I got the remains of the truck towed in, and settled all the paperwork, I’d get a ride to the nearby Lafayette airport, rent a car, and continue on to Birmingham to my mother’s.

Getting to the airport, I called Jan, told her what happened, got her to stop crying, and told her to meet me at the airport on Sunday afternoon (this was Friday afternoon).

Then while they were getting my car ready, I went to the restroom to freshen up. I had some band-aids in my bag that I figured I put on the bump. It must have been pretty obvious since the car rental lady kept looking at me, and twice asked me if I was sure I was alright. And I noticed as I was crossing the concourse that other people were kind of staring too.

Getting inside the restroom, I went to the mirror to take a look.

Now you would think that somebody – the bystanders, the police officer, the paramedic, the tow truck driver who I rode with, or the cab driver who took me to the airport – that somebody would have told me that the entire side of my head, my shirt collar and sleeve, and the back of my shirt, were all caked in very red dried blood.

I looked like an extra from Night of the Living Dead.

Grabbing a bunch of paper towels, I got all the blood off the side of my head and put a couple of bandages on the lump. I couldn’t do much about my shirt, so I just got a windbreaker from my bag and put it on to cover my shirt.

The rest of my trip to Birmingham and back was uneventful. Thank goodness.

When Jan met me at the airport on Sunday we drove back over to the storage yard so I could get some things out of the truck.

Jan took one look at the pile of pieces and started crying again.

I almost did too.

I really liked that truck.

So that’s my saga of the Atchafalaya River Bridge.

But our trip today was much more uneventful. Even going through Baton Rouge was a breeze.

We got into the RV Park at the Hollywood Casino about 1pm, and after a lot of rigmarole, finally got parked and set up.

Since this blog ran so long, I’ll save the rest for tomorrow.

Tomorrow we’ve got a 145 mile trip to the Gulf Shores State Park in Gulf Shores, AL where we’ll be for the next week.

Really looking forward to it

August 1, 2017

More ‘Q’ . . .

Recapping yesterday.

We were out the door about 9:30 and heading about 100 miles south to Birmingham, with our first stop about 11:30 at the Golden Rule BBQ in Irondale.

We’ve been eating here for more than 45 years, but we’re still youngsters as far as the restaurant goes, since it opened in 1891, it’s been around for more than 125 years, the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Alabama.

It started out as a roadside stand selling BBQ to people on the way to Atlanta . . . by horse and buggy! And when automobiles came along, they did auto repairs on the side.

The roadside stand was replaced by an actual restaurant building in the late 30’s, and then the present building was erected in the 50’s when they widened the highway.

We both had a sliced pork sandwich, mine with a cup of their famous Brunswick Stew, and Jan’s with fries.

I  also got mine with half ‘Outside Cut’ or ‘Bark’. That’s the darker area of the meat on the sandwich. That gives it a bite, and a crunch, with the char really adding to the taste.

From 1993, after my father died the year earlier, I drove up from Houston to Birmingham every month for 12 years, to look in on my mother, getting her groceries, taking care of any repairs, etc.

And I always had lunch at Golden Rule while I was out shopping.

After lunch we drove around for a while, checking all the places we knew that weren’t there anymore. One thing we did do was to drive by my parent’s house in Mountain Brook.

My parents owned this place from 1972 until 2005, and it’s really a shame what the new owner(s) had done to the landscaping in the front yard.

Originally there were big tall oak and pine trees there, with a large flower garden underneath. Really beautiful in the spring. But now it’s just blah.

It’s about 3,000 sq. ft., with 5 bedrooms and 3 baths. The neat thing about the place is the garage on the bottom floor. Each side runs the entire length of the house, meaning that you could actually park 10 or 12 cars in there.

One thing I bet the new owners don’t know is that my father’s ashes were scattered in the rose garden there.

Our next stop was the McDonald’s behind what used to be Eastwood Mall.

At the time, in the early 70’s, this was the busiest McDonald’s in the country, believe it or not. They were one of the 3 test locations for the introduction of the 1/4 Pounder Hamburger, the first location to have Ronald McDonald Birthday Parties, and the first one to have a playground, in this case, outside, on the left of the building.

For about 18 months in the 72-73 time frame, Jan and I were the grill team here. I worked the grill and Jan did the buns and fish sandwiches. We got there at 11am after our classes and worked the lunch rush straight through until 1:30 or 2:00pm. Then we hung up our aprons and left. No mopping up, no cleaning. Just make a lot of hamburgers really, really fast, and then go home.

But just like my parent’s house, all the beautiful oaks and the garden/playground are gone. As is the original building, actually. Just stark and bare.

Later we drove out to the Center Point area where we lived two different times and also went to school. Then heading over to the nearby Trussville area and made a stop at a Books-A-Million so Jan could check on a couple of books.

While I was checking out the magazine section, I came across these two magazines telling you how you can start your own home business.

At least if you live in the right state.

Of course, that may or may not matter to you.

A little later we drove over to our friend’s Bill and Carol Alverson to get together for dinner. So after catching up for a while, Bill drove us over to the nearby Jim N Nick’s BBQ.

So yes, we had BBQ twice yesterday. It doesn’t get much better than that.

The last time we ate at a Jim N Nick’s was in the Memphis area in 2015, and this one was just as good.

Jan had a Pig in a Bun Sandwich with Coleslaw, and a side of Mac N Cheese.

I had the 2 meat Combo, with Ribs and Pulled Pork, along with BBQ Beans and Collard Greens.

Very, very good.

Afterward, we went back to their house and spent the next several hours catching up. Back in the 70’s, Bill and I were both Broadcast Engineers at WBIQ TV and WENN radio here in Birmingham, so it was great to talk over old times.

And Jan and Carol had a great time comparing booklists of their reading likes.

Finally about 10pm we said our goodbyes and made the two-hour trip back to Athens, finishing up a very nice day.

Now back to today.

After our long trip yesterday, we goofed off this morning, not doing much of anything.

I did bring my Garmin 1490LMT GPS in from the truck and tried to update it. And tried. And tried.

It got about halfway through the 2+ GB download and then died. When I tried to restart it, the program said that Garmin was having server problems. So I kept trying for the next several hours until it finally started back up again and I got the update completed.

About 4:15 we drove over to my Aunt Virginia’s house to take her out to dinner.  I’ve always called her ‘Ninny’, since when I was really little I couldn’t say Virginia, so I shortened it to Ninny.

We headed over to Rosie’s Cantina in Huntsville, another of our favorites, as well as Ninny’s.

Jan and Ninny both had the Pollo Loco Grilled Chicken Breast,

while I had the Spicy Beef and Cheese Stuffed Chile Relleno.

Both delicious as always.

Not sure what’s on tap for tomorrow, but we’ll figure something out, I’m sure.

August 1, 2018

Where’s My Beignets?

I’m still waiting for the last offer on the house. He was supposed to have it in to me today, but nothing so far.

If I don’t hear from him tomorrow, I’ll be ready to wrap this up fairly quickly. I’ve still got to track down a real state lawyer to look things over first, so hopefully tomorrow on that too.

Karma and I are doing OK with Jan gone, though for some reason Karma thinks I should be up and feeding her by 7am like Jan does.

Not gonna happen. She can wait for 8am, just like I do. it’s not like she’s going to waste away.

I spent most of the morning at work updating the catalogs and the website for all the new prices that came in. It seems like everyone raises their prices in August for some reason.

I’m going into my client’s office tomorrow to help out since he’ll be at the VA tomorrow for some tests. Not sure if I’ll be going in on Friday or not since I had some things I was going to do tomorrow while I was off.

While we were passing through the coffee section in WalMart yesterday, Jan and I spied a can of Café Du Monde coffee.

We’ve had hot coffee and warm, powdered sugar-covered beignets several times at the Café Du Monde on Jackson Square in New Orleans, so this can brought back memories. So I grabbed a can to bring home.

We used to always finish our meal with Café Du Monde coffee at the old Mulate’s in Breaux Bridge. But somewhere along the line, probably when the new owners took over and renamed it Pont Breaux, they switched brands, and it’s just not the same.

So this morning I brewed up a pot using the same proportions I always use for our regular brands. Wrong. This stuff is strong! Where my normal brew comes out a dark caramel color, this was BLACK. And STRONG.

So strong that I had to double up on my creamer. But it was good!

Now all I need are some beignets.

August 1, 2019

Drip, Drip, Drip . . .

Not much of a blog today, because I spent most of the day at Lowe’s and Home Depot.

When I got up about 7am and walk out of the bedroom, my feet went squish squish on the carpet. The area at the bottom of the bed was soaked. So after I fed a very demanding cat, I got my flashlight and went to look for the problem. And since this had happened before back in 2015, that’s where I started.

And it was the same fitting that was leaking last time.

Last time I disconnected the fitting and wrapped it with Teflon tape and tightened it down. And the leak was gone. But 4 years later, it was back.

But when I tried to tighten it some more I could feel the connector was cracked inside, and it started leaking a little more. At this point I slipped on some pants and went outside to turn off the park water. Coming back in, I opened the bathroom faucet to bleed off the water pressure.

During one trip to Lowe’s and two to Home Depot, trying different ideas to make a new connection without using the PEX tubing/connectors that required a special tool and crimps.

Finally I found some flexible vinyl tubing of the right size, capable of 225psi @ 150° so it should handle the water pressure and temps of the shower. So then I used 2 of these PEX connectors,

the tubing, and a couple of clamps to make up a new flexible connection, rather than the old rigid one.

Hooking it up, I turned on the RV water pump for a couple of minutes. And I did have a small leak on the upper connector, but after tightening it a couple of more turns took care of that.

I will leave the shore water off for a couple of days, using the rig water pump so it starts leaking in the middle of the night, I won’t have to get dressed to go outside and turn it off.

August 1, 2020

There’s Always A Way . . .

I was talking the other day about the new NBC Peacock streaming service which looked interesting, with some old TV shows we might be interested in binge-watching. But in looking further into the service, I found it was not available on either our Samsung Smart TV or our Amazon Fire Stick. and it’s also not available on the Roku unit, one of the most popular streaming devices.

Well, as it turns out, we’re all in the middle of a turf war between big corporate media giants, fighting over show rights.

But there’s always a way. And a little Googling showed me how to do it. Using a technique called side-loading, it just requires downloading a new app, which then lets you download a specially prepared Peacock apk file, which can then be installed.

And so now I have the Peacock app on our Firestick.

Right now we just using the free version, but after we check it out for a bit, we might upgrade to the $4.99 per month Premium version.

August 1, 2021

Re-Hosing?

After we sat outside with our coffee this morning I got started rewiring (rehosing?) our Hibiscus watering system. I’d been wanting to make it a little more automatic.

The first thing I did was to get rid of the old yellow kitty litter bucket and set up a 10 gallon garbage can with a plastic lid and a bigger pump. The previous version worked just fine for the two weeks we were gone on our Illinois/Alabama trip, but I wanted to upgrade it a bit.

The bucket gets refilled regularly by the timer and the submersible pump, controlled by a computer switch, feeds out to the system.

Then the first stop is a 3-Way ‘T’ that feeds up to the Flamingo Birdbath to keep it filled.

The last stop was a “Y” feeder to a pair of adjustable sprinklers for the Hibiscus Tree.

They’re adjusted so that between the two they completely cover the area of the pot, rather than just watering in one area.

Later in the afternoon Jan and I had a late brunch over at the Denny’s on I-45. As usual, we had Angie, our usual server, who has been our server for long enough that she knows exactly what we want without us having to actually order it. Our usual Ultimate Omelet with Fruit and a Grilled English Muffin.

A little bit of everything, with Cheese, Tomatoes, Onions, Roasted Red Peppers, Ham, Bacon, and Sausage. The cooks here really know how to make an omelet.

Then after a quick HEB stop we were back home by 4pm.

Lloyd, one of our local blog readers, commented to say that the nearby Tractor Supply’s have the Apple-Flavored Ivermectin Paste for $6.89 vs the $11.31 on Amazon link that I posted a few days. And in fact, they’ve sold out at that link on Amazon.

So head out to your nearby Tractor Supply and stock up before they run out too.

August 1, 2022

Chromebook . . .

Not much happened today at work. The only thing new was that I got to spend some more time fooling with my client’s wife’s new Samsung Chromebook.

I was asked to install some software on it this weekend, which was my first time getting my hands on one.

Chromebook is a generic name for any laptop that runs ChromeOS, a variant of the Android operating system found in many phones and tablets.

Chromebooks are made by many main-line computer makers like HP, Acer, ASUS, Samsung, Lenovo, and others, The chief advantage to them is that they’re relatively inexpensive. In fact you can get a decent one for $300 or less.

The downside to this is that they’re very dependent on being connected to the Internet. And they’re limited to either 4, 6, or 8GB of RAM, and either 32 or 64GB of HD, in this case, a Solid State one.

But I was surprised by how well they worked for things like word processing, web surfing, or watching YouTube cat videos.

And now Jan wants one.

Tomorrow I’ve got my 4th Physical Therapy appointment, and then on to CookShack for Chicken Tenders.

Texas Hot, of course.

August 1, 2023

This Should Be Interesting . . .

I spent about an hour today Gorilla-Taping our Sharp Convection/Microwave oven back together. It’s original to our rig so it’s 24 years old. And actually, it works fine. A few years ago I had to replace several of the internal switches that keep the MW off if the door isn’t latched, and the lever that opens the door.

But today’s repair was one that happens a lot with aging plastics. They start to get brittle, in this the plastic bezel that surrounds the control panel. But it’s got enough Gorilla Tape on it now that it should last another 24 years.

Last night, after Jan said she wanted to go again this year, I went online to get tickets to the upcoming Wings Over Houston Airshow this October. By purchasing the tickets before August 1st, and due to the fact that we attended both last year and the year before, we got extra-special pricing on our Family Chalet tickets.

The Family Chalet area comes with covered areas, tables and chairs, and more importantly, breakfast and lunch.

Nice!

But the interesting part of this showed up when I went to enter the date, October 14th, in my online and discovered a conflict with another important event on that date.

The Ring of Fire Annular Eclipse

The eclipse will start about 10:30 am, peak looking like the photo above about Noon, and then fade away about 1:30 pm.

Right in the middle of the Airshow.

Like I said, this should be interesting.

I mentioned yesterday about the problems that Amazon drivers are having with their new electric delivery trucks running out of charge during their routes, and having to plug in at customers’ locations along the way

Well, in another one of those unintended consequences things, the new LED traffic lights have a problem. At least in colder climes. Now on the surface, the LED lights are a good idea. The bulbs burn brighter, last longer, and use less power.

Win, win, right?

Well, see the old traffic lights that used incandescent bulbs gave off enough heat to melt any ice that formed on the lights. But the new LED versions don’t, so ice can form blocking the view of the traffic signals.

Energy-saving traffic lights blamed in crashes

Cities around the country that have installed energy-efficient traffic lights are discovering a hazardous downside: The bulbs don’t burn hot enough to melt snow and can become crusted over in a storm — a problem blamed for dozens of accidents and at least one death.

So now cities are having to go back and add heating elements, heating tape, etc., in many cases causing the LED lights to draw MORE power than their incandescent cousins. And some cities have to send crews out to spray de-icer fluid on the lights, like crews de-ice planes at the airport. So even more money than the old-style lights cost.

Today’s Rant: More Glacier Stuff

Finishing up with my glacier rant, this is Glacier Girl.

On 15 July 1942 she crash-landed on a Greenland icefield due to bad weather. 50 years later, in 1992, recovery experts dug down through 250! feet of glacial ice to recover the plane and ten years later it was flying again.

That’s 250! feet of glacier that accumulated in 50 years. But all the glaciers are fading away, right?

And then there’s Otzi the Iceman. His mummified body was discovered in the Alp range on the border between Austria and Italy in 1991. Living about 5000 years ago, his mummy was revealed by a melting glacier.

And of course, the back story was that his being found was due to global warming… er, climate change. But it’s glossed over that 5000 years ago the area was ice-free. Then it glaciered over, and now it’s glacier-free again.

What’s the problem?

And finally, when Jan and I were in Fairbanks, AK in 2008 we attended a lecture at the Museum of The North given by a glacier expert, and I’ve always remembered what he said.

“Glaciers are never steady-state. They’re either advancing or retreating. And overall, you don’t want them advancing. Think ‘Ice Age’.”