Our RV Adventures

Short Blog Tonight Because Of The Opry.

Tomorrow night, after dinner at the Saltgrass Steakhouse, we are seeing Bernadette Peters at The 1894 Grand Opera down in Galveston.

Thought for the Day:

My mother was an English teacher. So I’m always silently correcting your grammar and spelling.

For a Retro-Preview –

2009 – Jan And I On The Busch Gardens’ Rollercoaster. The Photo Went Viral!

2011 – Our Visit To Out Of Africa Wildlife Park

2015 – Our Ride On The Verde Canyon Railroad

2019 – Opening For The Mamas and Papas

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

April 13, 2009

Wheeeeeeeeeee……!

Jan and I drove down to Tampa’s Busch Gardens today.

And a fun time was had by all…

Well, maybe Jan didn’t have quite as much fun as I did.

In fact she used words I didn’t think she knew.

And this was on the family-friendly ‘baby’ roller coaster. I wasn’t able to get her on any of the bigger ones, like the SheiKra, which goes up 200ft and then hurls you straight down at 80mph, or the Mantu which has 3 consecutive 360-degree vertical loops in a row.

Note the difference in enjoyment levels in the pic below…

Wheeeeeeeeeee!

April 13, 2010

Another quiet day…

We started out by going to Shakey’s Pizza for their lunch buffet,

On the way home we stopped off at Sam’s Club for Kitty Litter and Clorox Wipes.

Then it was home for the night.

See I told you it was a quiet day.

Tomorrow we’re going into Los Angeles for some sightseeing.

April 13, 2011

Lions, and Tigers, and Bears, Oh, My . . .

Today got off to a little earlier start than usual, since we were going to the Out of Africa Wildlife Park, which, lucky for us, is just right down the road from here.

So, after a quick breakfast of homemade bread, toasted with butter, on our way out of the park, we stopped by the office to re-up here for 6 more days, leaving on the 20th.

It only took us about 15 minutes to get to the Wildlife Park and get parked.

After getting our tickets, and finding out we had a little while before our Safari Ride, we walked over to the Critter Feature to check out the Pacu lizard, baby python, and several other animals they had out for the guests to handle

A few minutes later we boarded our bus and headed out onto the Serengeti Plains, or at least what passes for them in Arizona.

One of the first animals we saw was this male African Lion sunning himself on top of his enclosure. Our guide Courtney said he’s a happy lion because he has his own little harem of 4 females. But us guys on the bus figured he was just hiding out on the roof to get some peace and quiet.

Our next stop was a tour favorite . . . giraffe feeding, using the carrot sticks we were given as we boarded the bus.

As you can see, it gets very up close and personal.

We were also told to NOT feed the carrot sticks to any of the many zebras around. Courtney said the zebras cannot tell the difference between a carrot stick and a finger.

And if they get a finger, they will not give it back.

Ever!

This is Courtney with Tika, a white tiger. She says that Tika has bonded with her and will come when she calls, and allows herself to be petted and groomed through the fence. But she pretty much ignores anyone else.

We also saw a number of different species of antelope.

Elands.

Oryx.

And a Sable Antelope.

And also some African Watusi cattle, kind of like Texas longhorns.

We also saw this nest of unfertilized ostrich eggs, which equals about two dozen chicken eggs. That would be a hell of an omelet.

Our guide Courtney went to get an egg for us to pass around and look at. About that time, Kristen, the guide for another tour bus also came over and got an egg for her group.

But she also took our ostrich with her. She just walked up behind her and started pushing her toward the other bus.

That was just rude.

After our Safari tour ended, and we had a really good lunch of grilled chicken sandwiches with green chilies and cheese, we headed over to what was probably the highlight of the day, the Tiger Splash pool.

There were seven people inside the pool area playing with the two tigers. And they emphasized they were ‘playing’ with the tigers, and that the tigers were not trained. But that they love to play.

They also said the tigers get to decide if they want to do Tiger Splash or not. They have 9 tigers they rotate through for the show. They open the cage door, say “Tiger Splash”, and if the big cat wants to participate, out he comes. And they usually do.

The guys, and one girl, spend some time hugging and roughhousing with the cats before they start the show.

They use sticks or ropes with bags of balloons on them to lure the tigers to run around and chase them. And as soon as the tigers catch the balloons, they seem to take great pleasure in popping them with their claws and teeth.

And somehow they have learned not to ‘pop’ the people they catch. And also not to lay on the people they catch with their full 500-pound weight.

I think this one is saying, “MINE!”

This tiger, ‘Liberty’ looks like he’s tasting this guy.

What was really amazing is how high the tigers can jump. We began to appreciate the 20 ft. high fence between us and them.

The cats also spent a lot of time swimming around the pool, jumping in and out.

In fact when the show was over, ‘Akasha’ the other tiger, refused to come out. So after spending some time trying to coax her out, they just left her there, saying she’ll come out when she’s ready.

After the Tiger Splash, we spent some time walking around some of the other enclosures. When I came around the corner and saw this, at first I didn’t know what it was.

Then I realized it was a Grizzly Bear spread out on a picnic table, just catching some rays.

This beautiful female white tiger is in the same enclosure with a female African lion.

Here they are together, nuzzling and licking one of the workers.

Here’s an African black leopard who is paired with a Bengal tiger. Apparently, the big cats get along better with other species of cats than their own.

These are Serval cats, that look like a small ocelot.

Our next treat was due to the fact that today, Wednesday, is Predator Feeding Day, along with Sunday and Friday. So we got to see them throwing big chunks of beef, whole turkeys, and chicken parts to the animals.

What really amazed me was how many of the large animals were being fed from INSIDE the enclosures, like these black bears.

Walking back to the entrance we stopped off at probably Jan’s favorite, the prairie dogs. They had a vending machine where you could buy food, and these guys were very well-fed. They would come waddling over to you as soon as you came up to the fence.

This guy was so fat and lazy, he wouldn’t even come all the way out of his burrow. He just waited for me to throw it to him.

Our last stop was to see “Boom Boom”, the white rhino, the ‘white’ part being relative I guess, compared to the black rhinos.

Rhinos are supposed to be pretty mean and ill-tempered, so I was surprised to see someone get right in the enclosure with him.

We certainly enjoyed our day at Out of Africa, and heartedly recommend it to anyone in the area. We’ve been to zoos and wildlife parks all over the country and have never seen one where the keepers so closely interact with the animals, especially the big, dangerous ones.

My only disappointment was the fact that I couldn’t get my Panasonic Lumix camera to go into Manual Focus, so my photos show a lot more chain-link fence than I would have liked, since the Auto Focus sometimes wanted to focus on the fence rather than what was behind it.

Leaving the park about 4:30 we drove over to La Fonda, which was really convenient since it’s right down the road.

Getting back to the rig about 7:30 we were down for the night, after a long, but fun day.

April 13, 2012

Next in Line?

Still no gate, but supposedly we’re next in line.

The couple next to us, who came off their gate due to a family death back in Tennessee, went back on a gate this afternoon. But before they left, they said they heard we were next in line.

Hope so.

About 2:30pm our Amazon order was delivered so I went over to the office to pick it up. One of the items I ordered was an additional 8GB of RAM to add to my Acer computer. It had 4GB, but I wanted to upgrade it to 12GB.

Adding RAM is usually the quickest, cheapest way to speed up a computer. And $45 for an additional 8GB is a good buy.

After removing the cover I could see the RAM sockets, but could tell I was going to have to remove the DVD/HD frame to get to the RAM.

Two screws took care of that and I was able to set aside the frame and expose the 4 sockets.

I removed the 2 – 2 GB sticks and replaced them with the 2 new 4 GB sticks. I then placed the 2 – 2 GB sticks in the 2 remaining sockets. You always want your larger RAM sticks first in line.

After checking that the RAM was firmly seated and locked into the sockets, I put everything back together, plugged it in, and turned it on.

I didn’t bother to hook up the monitor or keyboard/mouse at this point. All I wanted to do was hear the beep that told me the computer had completed P.O.S.T. (Power On Self Test) and was ready to boot up. This told me the new RAM was good and ready to go.

Hooking everything back up, I found the computer booted up and ran noticeably faster, and programs started up faster too..

Success!

Leaving for dinner a little after 6pm we met our next-door neighbors, Carol and Sam Davis. Like us, they’re waiting for their first gate. They had sent in their paperwork and tests back in February, hoping to get a leg up on getting started, but they said it didn’t seem to help much. They’re waiting just like we are.

Our dinner destination was Pepe Boudreaux’s, a TexMexCajun place right across the road from Choke Canyon Lake about 8 miles west of Three Rivers on Hwy 72. Several people had recommended it, and they were right.

Jan had the Fried Fish and Shrimp, saying it was the lightest, crispiest batter she’d ever had. I had the Blackened Pork Chop, stuffed with Boudin Sausage, and topped with Shrimp Étouffée. I also had a cup of Gumbo, very good, spicy with a lot of filé.

OMG, was this all good! My mouth was doing the happy dance. Hopefully, we’ll be able to go back. This place is good!

Landon had a girlfriend!

Brandi sent over these pics of Landon and his main squeeze at his daycare.

April 13, 2013

Snakehole and Steakhouse . . .

Just across Idaho Rd from our RV park there’s this sign out in the scrub brush.

I saw pathways and some benches along the way, and at first, I thought it was maybe just a walking path, and that the sign was a joke.

I mean, does this look like a golf course to you?

But looking closer I saw flags marking the holes. Except, aren’t the holes supposed to be located on things with grass called ‘greens’?

That looks more dirt-colored to me.

But as it turns out, the 20 acre – 9 hole course is located on land leased from the state of Arizona. Its origins are a little blurry, but the story goes it was developed about 30 years ago by a Countryside RV Resort resident whose wife said she would only live in the area if she could golf nearby.

Snakehole Golf Course and Resort

Currently, membership is restricted to Countryside RV Resort residents and the 125 members pay dues of $20 a year which goes toward the $1800 a year lease.

I mean, you’ve really got to want to play golf to end up here, don’t you.

After coffee, I spent the morning tackling a bunch of small repairs around the coach. It always seems easier to me to let these little things accumulate and then knock a bunch of them out at once. Seems like I’ve accomplished more.

About 4pm we headed over Los Gringos Locos once again.

I had the Carnitas Dinner and Jan had the Grilled Catch of the Day. I’m sorry, but who goes to a Mexican restaurant and orders fish. Fish Tacos, maybe, but Grilled Fish?

Of course, Jan sometimes orders the Alice Springs Chicken when we go to Outback STEAKhouse. So who knows?

Getting back to the rig, we headed out about 7:30pm for our 1 mile+ walk, the first time we’ve done one after dark.

It was nice and cool, but we had to be careful where we walked because the park roads are rough in some places.

Tomorrow – The Big Move!

April 13, 2014

Great Friends and good food, too . . .

Jan and I headed out a little before 11, on our way to visit our friends Chris and Charles Yust at their place at the Escapees Park in Livingston, TX.

But our first stop was at the Jack in the Box in Willis for a couple of Supreme Croissants, much better than a couple of weeks ago at the one in Columbus. Then it was on for our 1 hour trip.

We got there a little after noon, and first off got a tour of their new (to them) 23 foot Itasca kinda Class B, kinda Class C, nicknamed ‘Stubby’. Rather than take their 40 foot Winnebago, they’re going to take Stubby to Alaska this summer. Being smaller it will let them get into places that they can’t with their bigger rig.

We talked for a good while before finally chowing down on Chris’ delicious Chicken and Sausage Gumbo, along with Cornbread Muffins. Really, really good. Then after a lot more conversation, it was time for some of Jan’s Pound Cake, covered in fresh sliced strawberries and whipped cream.

We finally headed back to the rig, getting in about 8:45. I did stop for gas at the Kroger’s in Willis. At $3.29, it was the cheapest I’ve seen in a while.

Tomorrow we’ve got another early trip down to the Clear Lake area scheduled, so the blog’s a little short tonight.

April 13, 2015

Don’t Do What We Did . . .

Since this morning was our train ride day, we headed out about 10:45am for our 1pm trip. The reason for the early start was that we wanted to get some lunch first. Riding in Coach (we’re cheap, and First Class was $60 more), we would only have snacks and drinks available on the 4 hour trip.

So getting into Cottonwood proper, we stopped off at the Carl’s Jr. next to Wal-Mart. Although we may have eaten at a Carl’s more recently, the last time I really remember was at the one in Fairbanks, AK. We ate there a number of times when we spent five months up there in the summer of 2008.

Jan had a Cheeseburger with Jalapeno Poppers, and I had the El Diablo Burger with Fries. Really good burgers, both.

We arrived at the Verde Canyon Railroad depot about noon and picked up our tickets at Will Call. Of course, after being told to pick up our tickets before noon, we then had to wait 45 minutes before we could board for the 1pm departure.

Our coach was a Pullman passenger coach seating 74 people, and has snack bar at one end and a bathroom at the other.

In addition, each Coach and First Class car had access to an open air for better viewing

Inside the seating is two-by-two, and the seats were pretty comfortable.

We pulled out of the depot a couple of minutes after 1pm, and quickly headed into the Verde River Canyon. The 76 mile trip, 38 out and back, takes about 4 hours, including a 15 minute layover in Perkinsville.

We quickly began to encounter some amazing rock formations on the cliff sides.

Then there’s the tunnel.

At 680 feet long, this curved tunnel is unusual for two reasons. One, because it’s curved, it gets completely dark inside for a short period, especially because there are no lights on in the coach.  Two, is because the entire tunnel was completed in only one year, by only 25 Swedes. That’s a lot of blasting.

Arriving at Perkinsville, the halfway point, and the only time on the train you can smoke, and only on the open-air car. we waited for about 15 minutes so the engines could do a ‘runaround’ to get back in front of the train.

There is a side track next to the mainline that allows the two engines to move back to what is now the front for the trip home.

Note now that the caboose that was at the rear on the trip is now next to the engines. And as we’ve seen on other excursion trains like this, the seat backs flip over to the other side of the seat cushion, so you aren’t riding backward going home.

One thing I found interesting is all the cacti that manage to grow out of solid rock.

And of course, the continues great views

We really enjoyed the ride and the great views. The trip was well worth the cost. But don’t do what we did. Don’t sit on the left side of the coach. Sit on the right side. The right side has the best view of the canyon, and you’re not in the sun on the ride home.

We pulled back into the depot a little before 5pm and were quickly headed out. Since we had eaten about 11, and it was now after 5, we decided to continue down to Camp Verde and have dinner at Crusty’s Pizza.

We first ate here during our visit in 2011, and it was good enough to try again. And like last time, we both had the Baked Spaghetti. I got the large order,

while Jan got the 1/2 order.

And like last time, we had plenty of leftovers, since I only ate about 1/3 of mine, and Jan didn’t even get through 1/2 of hers. Part of the reason is that the meal also comes with a large salad, as well as the Cheesy Garlic Bread.

Jan said the sauce was almost as good as hers. I said it was nowhere near as good as hers.

After all, she knows where I sleep.

April 13, 2016

Hurry Up and Wait . . .

After dodging north and south of us the last few days, last night/this morning found us right in the bullseye of some really heavy thunderstorms coming through the area. In fact, they were heavy enough and loud enough that they really freaked Karma out. She would run up and down the coach, meowing and looking at the ceiling.

It stayed mostly overcast all day, but not much more in the way of rain. And the front dropped our temps back down to the 70’s and 50’s, which is nice. The Weather Channel says we’ve got another week or so of rain and nice temps, so that’s nice too.

After a nice, quiet afternoon, Jan and I headed out about 5pm on our way to Culver’s. But on the way we made a stop at a TruValue Hardware for some rubber washers to try and repair my leaky hose splitter.

I really like these, but after a year or so, the washers start leaking up in the hose extensions.

The hose extensions actually screw into the splitter body with standard hose couplings, but smaller. So the washers are smaller than standard hose washers too. The replacement ones are neoprene rubber so hopefully they’ll last longer than the original ones.

Then it was on the Conroe Culver’s, which for us is right up there with Whataburger. Really love their Butterburgers.

Then it was right across the street to the Wal-Mart for some groceries, and not a very nice time. As usual, I started Runkeeper as we left the truck to keep track of our walking in the store.

The shopping part of things went just fine, but ground to a halt during checkout. Literally. There were only two lanes open, and one of them was 20 items or less. So that was out for me.

The self-checkout was available, but I’ve found it doesn’t work very well with a full basket. The bagging area is not big enough to hold everything as you scan them and bag them. And if you try to take bags off and put them in your basket before you pay, the system starts yelling at you that “An item has been removed from the bagging area.” and shuts down until you replace the item. So that was out.

So I got in the line and waited . . . and waited . . . . and waited. There were two customers ahead of me. Only two. But the first one had three carts stacked high, and the lady had an inch-thick stack of coupons, and was apparently contesting every price she disagreed with. And that was a lot., believe me.

In fact, it took them almost 25 minutes to checkout, and it was 35 minutes until I was done. Turns out that they had a number of people out sick, and were short-handed on cashiers. And it was almost 8pm before we got home.

But we did walk almost a mile, so that was good.

April 13, 2017

Finally Had To Do It . . .

I mentioned before that due to the mild weather and the almost cold nights (high 40’s/ low 50’s) we haven’t needed to use our rig AC’s, which has been great since with only 30 amps, we can only use one at a time.

What we would do was set the fans to pull cold air into the coach all night so it was in the low 60’s. Then as the day warmed up to the high 70’s/low 80’s the coach stayed comfortable all day.

But last night the temp just barely made it into the 60’s, so inside the coach, it stayed in the 70’s. Which meant it warmed up pretty fast inside.

So around noon I finally had to do it. I deployed my AC AC Bypass. Several years ago I rewired one of the AC units at the circuit breaker panel under the bed, by adding a heavy-duty plug and socket inline with the circuit.

In regular use the plug is plugged into the socket and everything works just like normal. But when we’re stuck on 30amps and it gets too warm I can unplug from the socket and plug into a heavy-duty extension cord that runs out to the 110 VAC outlet on the pedestal.

And Voilà, I can run both AC’s at once.

About 3pm Jan and I headed down to Henderson to have an early dinner at our favorite local Mexican place, Lindo Michoacán.

And it’s not just us that thinks it’s great. It’s been selected as the Best Mexican Restaurant in Las Vegas by the Las Vegas Review Journal Poll for 11 years and rated “Excellent” by Zagat.

First up was their Chips and Dips, with not only a really good hot salsa, but a very tasty warm bean dip.

Then it was on to their really delicious Fideo Soup.

One thing is that between the Chips, Dips, and Soup, by the time your entrée gets here, you’re already kind of full.

Jan got the Grilled Shrimp Tacos with Avocado,

while I got a Coca Cola dish. Lindo is known for its famous Coca Cola sauce, but in the past, they usually have it with Carnitas. But this time it’s on a 24oz Bone-In Ribeye, and just fantastic.

And we both had plenty of leftovers.

Again, one of our absolute favorite places, and it never disappoints.

Besides the great food, we sat at a window table and had a nice, though hazy, view of the Vegas skyline.

Leaving Lindo, our next stop was the Sam’s Club where yesterday we dropped off prescriptions, and then it was on to the Wal-Mart next door for a few things before we finally got home around 6:30.

A very nice day.

April 13, 2018

Jennifer and Gio’s . . .

Work today was one of those days where I did a lot of different stuff, but didn’t seem to get a lot done. It was mostly just stomping out small fires.

About 6pm we picked up my client’s office manager, Jennifer, to take her out to dinner with us.

I’ve known Jennifer since I first started working for him in 1998 so we’ve been working together for a long time.

We asked her to suggest a place in this area that she liked and she picked Gio’s Flying Pizza right down the road on FM517 toward Dickinson. And a great choice it was.

She’s eaten here a number of times, but it was our first.

Jan and Jennifer both started off with a small salad, though they looked pretty big to me. And, of course, being an Italian restaurant, the salad had pepperoni on it.

While they went the salad route, I had a bowl of their Pasta E. Fagioli soup. Different from other places, like Olive Garden, for one. but delicious anyway.

Jennifer had said how good the Lasagna was, so Jan copied Jennifer’s choice with a big serving.

For my entrée, I got the Grilled Chicken with Sautéed Veggies. But since the Veggies consisted of Zucchini and Squash, not my favorites, I asked for the Sautéed Green Beans that I had seen go by on someone else’s plate. And it was a good choice.

Finishing dinner we hung around for a couple of hours just talking, especially Jan and Jennifer getting to know each other. We did talk some about RV’ing and some of our friends and some of the hobbies that people have,

Tomorrow, depending on the weather, I’ll do some more prep work for our RV trip that we’re planning for Sunday. I got distilled water last night so I’ll take care of the rig house batteries, and then take down our weather station’s anemometer that’s mounted on a pole tied off to the ladder at the back of the rig.

April 13, 2019

Less Than Two Weeks!

Yikes!

Two weeks from tonight we’ll probably be sleeping off our jet lag in Budapest, Hungry.

After leaving on IAH about 3:55 pm Friday afternoon, and a 9 hour and 45 minute flight to Frankfurt, Germany, a 3 hour and 30 minute layover, and then another 1 hour 30 minute flight, we’ll get into Budapest about 1:45 Saturday afternoon.

The next day, Sunday, is free, and then we board the Skirnir, our Viking River Cruise Ship, on Monday, the 29th. And it’s coming faster and faster.

Last night was our first visit to the recently-reconstituted Alvin Opry. We haven’t been since the original one closed in 2014, so it was good to be back. And really nice to see a lot of old friends.

And with performers like Arnold Carpenter,

Country Jim Sloan,

and Texas Express band members like Tommy Reed,

and Bobby Whitton,

you had a Who’s Who of country star’s band members. Names like Jack Greene, Jeannie Seely, Little Jimmy Dickens, Tammy Wynette, Dottie West, Mel Tillis, Reba McEntire.and many others,

And long-time friend’s, Miranda Diede

and Shalane Colston,

were both in great voice, so it made for a great evening.

I also really enjoyed getting a chance after the show to talk with Bobby Whitton about his Steinberger Headless guitar.

I had seen pictures of them, but this was my first time to see one up close, and Mr.Whitton was kind enough to spend a few minutes pointing out the special features.

Note there is no headstock on these, rather the tuning adjustments are on the tailpiece, and allow for much finer tuning.

The other advantage to the Steinberger design is the fact that the entire guitar is made from a graphite/carbon fiber composite, so it’s not affected by temperature/humidity changes like a conventional instrument and stays in tune better.

He had this one custom-made for him when he was playing with Mel Tillis for about 10 years in Branson.

In talking with him for a while, it turns out that we had something in common. ‘Back in the day’, as he put it, we both played Gretsch Country Gentleman guitars, known as the Chet Adkins model.

While I was in Nashville going to college in the mid 60’s, I played in a couple of bands, and was lucky enough to get Chet (he said I could call him ‘Chet’ since I owned one of his guitars. LOL) to autograph mine when he was playing at a small club down on Nashville’s Music Row.

Though I played the Country Gentleman a lot to start with, I later mostly played my friend’s Gretsch White Falcon after he decided he’d rather play bass.

I just liked the feel of the Falcon better. It had nothing to do with the fact that it attracted girls like crazy.

Nothing at all.

I also occasionally played keyboards, when we could borrow one, since the band didn’t have one of our own.

And I guess you could say that our one claim to fame was that my main band won a college Battle of the Bands contest and got to open for the Mamas & Papas when they performed at Vanderbilt.

But I don’t think anyone was really listening to us, since the Mamas & Papas, and most of the audience were stoned. And we were just trying not to inhale too deeply so we could remember what we were supposed to play.

Ahh! The Good Old Days.

As the saying goes, “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”

And believe me, it was touch and go there a number of times.

April 13, 2020

Blazing Hot . . . Not!

For dinner tonight we used our Ninja Foodie Air Fryer Grille to cook up a batch of these Pilgrim’s Blazing Wings. They’re pre-breaded and ready to pop in the grille.

And they turned out great, juicy and crispy. But Blazing Hot they were not. At least not for Jan and I. Mildly Warm would be more accurate.

But they were good, and we’ll get them again, if only just for the convenience.

Our park owner said he was fine with the shed’s location, so I’ll bolt it down to the base tomorrow and then we can start sorting stuff and moving things into it.

I’m also going to replace all the inside and outside RG-6 cables for our satellite system. They’re all about 10 years old, and it seems like some of the connectors have become kind of flakey. Though I could go through and replace all the F connectors, it’s just quicker and easier to replace the cables.

April 13, 2021

Another One Bites The Dust . . .

I forgot to mention last weekend that when we ate at the Monterey’s up in Alvin last Friday night, we got some more info about the reopening of the Monterey’s near us over in Dickinson. It’s been closed ever since it was flooded during Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, but we kept being told that it was going to reopen ‘soon’. And we have been hearing that for the last 3 years or so.

Until last month when a dumpster appeared out front and workers were swarming over the place. And now it looks like they’re adding on to the kitchen area on the north side of the building.

Turns out our waiter used to work at that location, though we didn’t remember him. Maybe because we were traveling, but it looks like it should be opened again in the next couple of months.

Really looking forward to it.

After getting somewhat coffeenated this morning, we went outside, and while Jan supervised (watched) I worked on some of the upgrades we’re doing in our patio area.

But the first thing I did was to check out my idea for a computer-controlled watering system for Jan’s hibiscus to keep it healthy while we’re gone for a couple of weeks this coming June.

I started with an empty kitty litter bucket, a submersible water pump like this,

and a computer-controlled plug, giving me this.

As a first test, I was able to use the Smart Life controller app to turn on the pump, and the water started flowing immediately. But too much, too fast.

The scheduler program for the computer plug will only let me turn the pump on and off in one-minute intervals, and even one minute was going to be too much water at once. But looking over the pump, I found an adjustment lever on the side that let me throttle down the flow until one or two minutes seemed to get me close to the correct amount of water.

So I set up a schedule in the Smart Life app that turns the pump on for one minute between 9:00 and 9:01 every morning. Now I’ll just have to monitor the plant to see how it does over the next week or so.

Another addition to our patio redo was to get a heavy base for our umbrella. Found one that I ordered from WalMart that’s made to self-support an umbrella, rather than support one under a patio table.

So I got this 30# one,

to go with this 80” tiltable patio umbrella.

Though we bought it in 2014 for a gate guarding location, we actually never used it, and it was still wrapped up and stored in the back of the truck, so it’s just like new.

And I did order some ping pong balls for our Sous Vide cooker. Actually, though, they’re Beer Pong balls.

At least the cooking process will be colorful.

April 13, 2022

Auto-ing It . . .

Spent most of the day at work writing a bunch of scripts in AutoIt to automate and speed up a bunch of tasks here at the office.

AutoIt is an easy to use, very powerful, FREE scripting language for Windows. Pretty much anything you can do manually on a Windows computer you can write an AutoIt script to do it for you, automatically.

In one case the script opens a program, waits a couple of seconds, then enters a username and password. Then after waiting another few seconds, it starts a sort of the customer database, backs it up, and then closes the program.

Tomorrow Jan and I are heading up to the Spring area to meet up with Debi and Ed Hurlburt at El Palenque for our monthly lunch once again. Really looking forward to it.

April 13, 2023

DO NOT DO THIS!

After coffee and a quiet morning we left about 1:30 heading down to the Gringo’s down in the Texas City area to meet up with our regular monthly Alvin Opry group get-together.

Gringo’s is a kind of a Jimmy Changas clone, with much the same menu, though actually Gringo’s came first.

Supposedly Jimmy Changas is more upscale and kid-friendly, though it would seem those two are directly opposite.

But as I said, the menu is pretty much the same. In fact Jan and I both had the same thing here at Gringo’s that we had our last two visits at Jimmy Changas.

Jan got the Pollo Marisco, a Grilled Chicken Breast covered with Shrimp and Crawfish in a White Wine Cream Sauce.

While I got the big bowl of Chicken Tortilla Soup once again

The food was delicious and the company was great as always. But when we went to schedule our next month’s to-do, we realized that Jan and I will be on our Alabama trip then, so we do have a June date instead, this time at the Texas Roadhouse in our area.

We haven’t gone there before for one of these because they’re not usually open until 5pm during the week, but it seems they’ve recently started opening at 11am on Thursdays, which will work out great for us.

My Eclipse T-Shirt came in today,

and Jan liked it so much that I had to order one for her.

America Totality Spring 4.08.24 Total Solar Eclipse 2024 T-Shirt

So now we’ve got matching outfits for the big day.

Again on the Eclipse, several readers asked about using a piece of glass smoked with a candle to view the Eclipse.

DO NOT DO THIS!

There are plenty of stories online about people getting severe eye damage, often permanent, by doing this.

Just be sure that whatever you buy has the NASA ISO 12312-2 certification on them.

Be safe out there.

Well, our planned Alvin Opry group get-together at Saltgrass Steakhouse kind of faded out last night with one participant pulling out due to a medical problem, and others tied up with some family stuff. So we decided to just skip Saltgrass today, especially since we’re eating at the one down in Galveston before our Bernadette Peters concert on Saturday night.

But first up was Jan’s blood draw at her oncologist’s office in prep for her office visit toward the end of the month.

Then it was on back down to our area to have lunch at Dickinson Seafood once again.

We always get the same thing here, starting with Salads with their house-made Bleu Cheese dressing.

Then we both get the Catfish with 3 Shrimp, Jan’s Grilled, and mine Blackened.

Really good.

Then it was on over to the HEB for a few things to tide us over until our regular Sunday visit.

Next week, starting on Monday, we’ve got our annual yearly physicals with our GP. Then Thursday it’s back up to Conroe for our monthly RV get-together with Debi and Ed Hurlburt, this time at the Outback Steakhouse.

I mentioned yesterday that Jan and I are looking at doing a cruise out of Galveston this coming December. Right now we’re looking at a 9-night cruise on Royal Caribbean Line’s Jewel Of The Seas, starting on Saturday, December 7th.

It docks in Progresso, (Merida), Cozumel, Roatan, Bay Islands, Belize City, and Costa Maya. That’s 7 days in ports, and 3 days at sea. And we can get a Balcony room for about $1000/per person.

One of the things we want to do is to take as many of the Mayan ruins tours as we can, Chichén Itzá, Tulum, Coba, etc.

But we’re still looking.

So stay tuned.

Thought for the Day:

This Thought for the Day has been formatted to fit the time slot available and the screen layout.

Some content has been edited for your convenience.

For a Retro-Preview –

2015 – I Eat Worms, BBQ’d of course.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

April 11, 2010

High Winds and Cat Barf…

We left Barstow Calico KOA about 10:45 am heading toward Lancaster, CA.

It’s only about a 100 mile trip so we didn’t have to get an early start, but the trip had a little more adventure than usual.

Adventure #1 Cat Barf!

Although the road wasn’t curvy or roller coastery (Is that a word? If not, it should be.), Emma got sick again, just like she did coming up from Yuma, AZ to Laughlin, NV.

But on that trip, the road was roller coastery (See I told you it should be a word) as we went up and down because the highway went through all the dry washes along the way.

But this time it was probably connected with –

Adventure #2: The Wind.

The wind we encountered along SR58 coming from Barstow was the worst since we were coming into Dawson Creek, BC, Canada in April 2008 on our way to Fairbanks, AK. On that trip, we ran into 60-70 mph winds that came close to blowing us off the highway several times. We even had a problem with our large awning starting to unfurl along the side of the coach.

My first thought was to pull over, but there was no place to pull over. The roads in this part of Canada are narrow two-landed, with no shoulders. So we just had to press on… slowly.

We found out later that the road had been closed right after we came through, after two 18-wheelers had been blown off the road. We ended up staying in Dawson Creek for three days due to the bad weather and low temps. It was in the mid-teens while we were there.

Anyway, I think the weaving back and forth due to the winds today got to Emma. But lucky for me, Emma was sitting in Jan’s lap, not mine.

We arrived at Antelope Valley Fairgrounds RV Park about 1:15 pm and got set up. There was no one at the office, but the sign said to just pick a site and check in with the office later.

Then it was off to have lunch. Our GPS said there was a Shakey’s Pizza nearby so we headed over there. We found the building but it was now something else, that had also gone out of business.

But on the way we passed a place called Crazy Otto’s that looked good, so we headed back there. We both had the soup and sandwich combo, a bowl of chicken tortilla soup, and half a chicken salad sandwich. Both were delicious, and the half sandwich was so thick that I ate mine with a fork. It was too big to hold.

Coming back we saw the office was open so I went in and paid up for a week.

Then it was time for a nap.

About 6 pm we headed out for dinner. After checking their website, we found a  Shakey’s Pizza over in Palmdale, about 10 miles away.

Shakey’s was a pizza place my family and I ate at on our big Western trip in the summer of 1964. It was near Disneyland where we were staying, and we thought the pizza, chicken, and fried potatoes were really good. Back then it was kind of a Vaudeville theme with a straw-hatted piano player doing sing-a-longs. They also had a worker spinning the pizza dough in the air and catching it.

It’s different now, but the food is still good.

April 11, 2011

Bagels and Stars . . .

Today was the day for our day trip down to Mesa to get an estimate on our cargo bay door damage and to pick up our prescriptions from Sam’s Club, so we were up at the awful hour of 7:30, a time of day that should be outlawed. The day should not start until 10 am.

Jan fixed us a great breakfast from Panera’s Asiago Cheese Bagels, and toasted them with butter. Fantastic.

Then, about 8:30 Jan and I went outside to remove the cargo bay door to take to RV Renovators to get ready to leave, not an easy task, believe me. But we got it done somehow.

After dropping off the garbage at the dumpster, we headed out about 9 am to make the 120-mile trip to Mesa.

We got there about 11, and were warmly greeted by ‘Cinda, who was all ready to take care of us. She turned us over to Levi, who looked over our door, and told us what else he needed to know to give us the estimate. He said he’ll email it when he’s done. RV Renovators certainly lived up to their reputation with us.

Leaving RV Renovators, we headed a couple of miles down the road to El Pollo Loco, our favorite grilled chicken place. Their chicken is fantastic and we always try to eat there when one is nearby.

After lunch, it was just another few miles to the Sam’s Club where we picked up our prescriptions, and a few other things. Between Wal-Mart and Sam’s we never have a problem with getting our prescriptions around the country.

Before heading back to Verde Valley, I decided to make a quick stopover at Roy’s Train World. Our faithful blog readers already know I’m crazy about model trains. (Of course, Jan says I’m just crazy, but that’s a topic for another blog.)

Ironically, I haven’t had a layout since I was 13 and we moved to Colombia, South America, but I still like to visit model train museums and train stores as we travel, and I read a couple of model train magazines each month.

As a side note, I’ve probably visited 20-30 train stores in the last 7- 8 years, and almost none of them had anything in the way of a decent train layout. And I think this is a big mistake. The layouts are what bring the young kids into the hobby. I know it was for me.

When I was a kid all the department stores had large layouts at Christmas time, just the thing to grab a kid’s interest. But now, nothing. Oh well, they didn’t ask me. As a matter of fact, no one asks me. Personally, I think that’s a big mistake of their part, as I always have plenty of advice on just about any subject.

Just ask Jan.

On our way home we stopped at DQ for a cone for Jan and a Moo-latte for me, and then hit the road. We got home about 4:30 and got all the stuff unloaded. Jan had been fighting a bad migraine on and off all day, so we decided to stay at the rig for dinner.

Later, my first job was to change out the 1003 bulb in one of our Smart Light’s. If you haven’t seen these, they’re great.

They replace your patio light with a motion-detecting version that turns on when you approach the rig. Perfect when you come back at night and didn’t leave a light on.

Another thing I did after I got home is look up the mileage we traveled last year, which was about 9800 miles.

This took us from Dickinson, TX to Yuma, AZ, Las Vegas, Lancaster, CA, San Francisco, and then up US 101 to Westport, WA. Then over to Gillette, WY for the American Coach Rally, down through Salt Lake City, to Show Low, AZ.

Next, we headed east through Amarillo and Abilene to Burnet, TX for our daughter’s wedding, down to San Marcos to visit a good friend, further east to Montgomery, AL, north to Louisville, KY for the big Good Sam Rally, then a zigzag northwest to Vandalia, IL to visit Jan’s sister and her family, then back east thru Cincinnati and Celina, OH to Elkhart, IN for another rally.

Our final leg took us from Elkhart to Dickinson, TX by way of Jackson, MS, and Baton Rouge, LA.

All in all a pretty busy year. But with all the talk about high fuel prices, I was curious to see what our numbers looked like.

With all the talk in the RV work about hanging up the keys if diesel goes up too high, just think about it this way.

We traveled for about 9 months, or 36 weeks. Boiling it down, if the price of gas jumped from $3 a gallon to $5 a gallon, our diesel cost would jump about $70 per week, or $10 a day.

Not enough for us to stop traveling.

Wallydock an extra night, don’t eat out, stay in an Elk’s or Moose lodge, it shouldn’t be enough to change your lifestyle for.

April 11, 2012

A Hidden Gem . . .

or No Gate Yet.

About 10 am I walked over to the office to pay the fingerprint fees that they forget to ask for down in Corpus yesterday, and also to see if anything was up on our gate. Was told it would be soon. Hope so.

Getting back to the rig, I caught up on some maintenance chores, cleaning AC and fan filters, stowing some stuff away, and just getting ready to travel on short notice.

For lunch, we had more leftover Rudy’s BBQ. I’m not sure we brought enough home. We might have to go back to Corpus for more.

Later in the afternoon, I took a nap, or tried to. I got two calls that woke me up, one a wrong number, the 3rd time in 3 days, and one a political call.

A little before 6 Jan and I headed about 25 miles north to Pleasanton to have dinner at China Garden. Right next door to the ill-fated Bill Miller BBQ, we noticed how busy it was then, and wanted to give it a try.

And it turned out to be a hidden gem.

Housed in a pretty nondescript building, the parking lot seems to be always crowded, certainly a good sign.

And waiting for our food after our order was taken, we noticed a steady stream of take-orders leaving the restaurant, again a good sign.

We ordered our usual Hot & Sour Soup, Chicken in Hot Garlic Sauce, Extra Spicy, and the House Special Fried Rice. And it was really good.

Good enough that hopefully we’ll be able to go back before we leave the area.

Our next stop was right across the street at the HEB for gas and a much-needed car wash. Then it was home for the night.

Here’s hoping for a gate tomorrow.

April 11, 2013

Wanted In Texas . . .

According to the State of Texas, my beautiful wife Jan is a scofflaw, a nefarious individual, a shady character, even a fugitive from justice. For the last 5 years, she’s been evading her civic duty.

She hasn’t been showing up for jury duty. For the last 5 years.

Of course, we no longer live in Texas. We’re South Dakota residents. We have SD Drivers Licenses, we vote in SD. we have SD carry permits, and we have SD tags on our vehicles. What part of this does Texas not understand?

I’ve called Harris County a number of times over the years when we got jury notices, but today was the first time they told me I was supposed to cancel our voter registrations. Huh? Who knew?

I didn’t have to cancel our Texas Drivers Licenses. Didn’t they notice we haven’t voted since 2006? If we die, are we supposed to cancel our voter registration first?

Even more importantly, has someone been voting in our place? I mean, if dead people apparently vote in Chicago, why not absent people in Texas?

Jan and I did another walk this morning, for 1.25 miles this time. Since the temp was still in the 60’s, it was a nice walk. And once again we used Runkeeper to track our progress. A really neat program for your smartphone.

We spent the afternoon doing pretty much nothing. Jan napped and read, while I worked on several projects, both physical and digital. But later in the afternoon, even I got in a short nap.

Nice!

Although we had all originally planned on eating at home this evening, Jan decided she had a hankering for Chili’s, so we headed out for the Chili’s a couple of exits west on the freeway.

As usual our food was good, but as usual, it seems, we got seated in the screaming/squalling baby section. The kids a couple of tables away behind me never stop fussing and whining.

Growing up, our kids (and our granddaughter Piper) got one, and only one, outcry. Then it was out the door. I spent a lot of time out in the parking lot with Piper, believe me.

Unfortunately, these parents weren’t as considerate.

After dinner, we made a stop at Home Depot for some screws I needed for a couple of projects, and then it was on to Fry’s for a few things, including finishing up with a Cinnamon Dolce Latte from the in-house Starbucks.

Getting back home, it was cooler, and since the sun hadn’t gone down yet, we decided to do another walk, but only a mile this time. But still a nice walk.

April 11, 2014

How Cold Can It Be . . .

After a nice, quiet morning, about 1:15 Jan and I headed out for the 1:45 showing of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The second movie in the Captain America franchise, this one continues the non-stop action of the first one, as well as the plot tie-ins with the other Marvel movies, like Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and The Avengers. And even better it also directly ties in with the Agents of SHIELD TV show. If you go for this sort of thing, don’t miss it. And lucky for me, I have a wife who likes these movies as much as I do. In fact, she even likes Dr. Who.

After the movie, we headed a couple of exits south on I-45 to have dinner at Ryan’s, one of our favorite buffet places. We both love their fried chicken.

But the first thing we noticed walking into the place, was how warm it was . . . no, not warm, HOT!  We assumed that maybe their AC was on the blink. But when we asked our waitress, a young lady named XXXX, she laughed and said, “Well, that’s the story they’re using today.”  When we inquired further, she said that starting a month or so ago, all Ryan’s restaurant thermostats are now controlled from the corporate offices . . . in Eagan, Minnesota!  Where it was 57 degrees today. Apparently, they’re only allowed to control the temp by 3 degrees at the restaurant.

Somebody needs to tell them this is Texas, not Minnesota.

Our waitress also said that over the last few weeks, a bunch of customers have asked for their money back and left because of the temperature.

On another note, ever taste or smell something and have it bring up an old memory? It’s happened to me before, and it did again today at Ryan’s. And strangely enough, it was caused by a Rice Krispies Treat, like the one below.

I’ve always liked them, and usually get one when we’re at Ryan’s. But these were different. When I saw the colored bits, I figured they were just Rice Krispies dyed with food coloring. But one taste told me differently and took me back.

They were not Rice Krispies, they were crushed TRIX cereal.

And suddenly, for a few seconds,  I was 10 years old, sitting at the breakfast table in our house on the Bon Secour River near Gulf Shores, AL.

Weird!

After Ryan’s, we hit the Wal-Mart next door for a few things, and also the 99cent Store across the street before getting home about 7pm.

BTW,  I XXXX’d the name of our Ryan’s waitress to keep her from getting in trouble. We’ve had a couple of cases where I’ve mentioned a place here on the blog and have been contacted by the company. Just being careful.

April 11, 2015

The Worms Crawl In . . .

Right before we left Apache Junction, we bought a new Memory Foam Gel-Filled Mattress Topper and installed it on our bed. And as much as we liked our old mattress Topper, we both agree that we sleep better on the new one.

Of course, to install the new topper we had to strip the bed all the way down to the bare mattress, which meant removing and re-installing our Touch of Class Dual Control Heated Mattress Pad. We haven’t needed it since we were in Houston back in February, but since we got to Cottonwood, we’ve had nighttime temps in the low 30’s. But when we tried to start using the heat again, only Jan’s side was working.

So after a few cold nights on my side of the bed, I decided to take a look at the problem. The first thing I did was to use my ohmmeter to check the resistance at the connectors on both sides of the blanket, and then compare them. As it turned out, both sides read the same 120 ohms. So it wasn’t the wiring in the pad itself, which was a good thing.

So next I swapped the controllers between the sides, and my controller worked on Jan’s side, but her controller didn’t work on mine. So it wasn’t the controller. And then swapping them back didn’t help either.

So it must be the connector at the bottom of the blanket, so I tried plugging and unplugging the connector a number of times, again with no luck. So now it was time to bring out the big guns, Strike-Hold.

So I sprayed both the connector and the plug and let them soak for a while. And plugging in the controller about 30 minutes later, I had heat on my side. Strike-Hold has resurrected a number of my devices, including a Kindle Fire, and a laptop.

As I’ve said before, Strike Hold, The Magic Fluid. Give it a try for what ails you.

I mentioned a while back that when we stopped at the Bowlin’s Picacho Peak on our way over to Yuma to visit our friends, Chris and Charles Yust, I bought a box of these Larvet’s.

Larvets Sampler Gift Pack- BBQ, Cheddar Cheese, & Mexican Spice

Yes, these are BBQ’d worm larvae.

Jan finally told me that she was tired of seeing them on the counter, and if I didn’t eat them, she was going to throw them out. So eat them I did.

Actually, they were kind of a letdown. There was no taste to the larva, not even of chicken. They were like a hollow crunchy straw that just melted away in your mouth. The BBQ taste was like a BBQ potato chip, but with more heat. I tried to get Jan to try one, but she just shuddered and looked away.

Wuss!

Remember, I do these things so you don’t have to. Or want to.

Later for dinner, after my worm appetizer, Jan fixed up some the Rudy’s BBQ that we bought before we left Houston and froze.

So we had Rudy’s Moist Brisket and Jalapeno Sausage, Broccoli Salad and Loaded Baked Potato Salad from Wal-Mart, and Firecracker (Hot) Sweet Pickles from Famous Dave’s BBQ. A very good dinner, believe me.

As it stands now, we’re going to do our Jerome trip tomorrow, but we’ll see how that turns out.

April 11, 2016

Passing The Torch…y

About 4pm Jan and I headed down to The Woodlands to have dinner at the new Torchy’s Tacos there. We’ve eaten at the one in Katy several times with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon, But it’s our first time for this one, since it only opened a couple of months ago.

And as usual, it was delicious.

Jan had the Trailer Park Taco with Fried Chicken strips, and the Jamaican Jerked Chicken Taco, both her favorites.

I had my usual Grilled Jalapeno Sausage and the Green Chile Pork, both really good.

Torchy’s actually started as a Food Truck operation, but now has grown to over 40 stores, and one visit will tell you why.

There’s also a new Torchy’s opening soon at the Baybrook Mall, down in our old stomping grounds, so we’ll have to try that one soon too. You can’t have too much Torchy’s.

As we were leaving, we noticed this motorcycle in the parking lot just as the owner came out. Jan asked him if the seat was comfortable, and he said it was. Also said it was a Franken-Bike. He started out with the engine from an old  Honda 750 and combined it with a bunch of junkyard parts from a lot of different bikes.

He described it as a “Work in Progress”, and it looks like it.

Getting back to the Conroe area we made a quick Wal-Mart stop to drop off some prescriptions, and pick up a couple of things from the grocery section.

Tomorrow, maybe a movie.

April 11, 2017

Up On The Roof, Again . . .

About 2pm Jan and I drove to the Buffalo Wild Wings down south on Sunset. We’ve eaten here a couple times before and it’s always been good.

Didn’t get any pics of the ‘Before’, but this is the ‘After’, the remains of 20 wings, (10 each), mine with Mango Habanero Sauce (Their 3rd Hottest) and a side of ‘Blazin’ (Their Hottest). and Jan got hers with Bourbon Honey Mustard and a side of Hot (The 4th Hottest).

Even better than the great wings, it was 1/2 price Wing Day.

On the way home we made a stop at an O’Reilly Auto Parts to get an air filter for our Dodge Dakota truck and then it was back to the rig.

We left the windows open and our Fantastic Vent Fans running when we headed out for lunch at BWW,  but when we got back around 4pm the kitchen fan was no longer running. The lid was still open and would close when I hit the button so I knew it had power.

My first thought was the plunger switch that keeps the fan from running until the lid is open, but normally it acts up by sticking close and not letting the fan start up went you open the lid, not while the fan is running.

I did try using a stick to hit the switch from inside, a ploy that’s worked in the past, but no luck this time. So it looks like tomorrow I’m up on the roof, again,

The last time we were in Las Vegas, in 2015, we discovered an abandoned RV park just south of the Vegas Thousand Trails. You can check out our visit at the link above.

It looked like it had been a really nice park in its prime, but the only thing it housed now was a bunch of vagrants living in lean-to and piles of boards.

Blog reader Reg commented on this:

We tried to stay at that park about 10 years ago but they only accepted class A less than 10 years old. It soon closed after that. The cost was too high for TTN at that time and the bulldozers leveled it. The car wash next door also went with it, and it had a bay to wash motor homes.

Looks like they got too uppity and too picky.

Now it looks like it’s going to be either high-end apartments or houses. I’ll try to get some photos tomorrow.

I was finally able to park across the road this afternoon when we got back from BWW.

The dolly just to the left of red trailer was gone so I fit in there. The guy in the rig next to us was hoping we could move tomorrow, in the morning at least, since he has a crew coming in to wash his rig.

So it all worked out.

April 11, 2018

Scoping It Out . . .

Work today was only about half-machine repair, so I guess I lucked out. I have come to the conclusion that these boards are not designed very well. There are two boards in this model of machine, a power supply board and an oscillator board. But every board will not work with every other board.

I started to notice that I would swap out what seemed to be a bad board with another one that would work. But the supposedly bad board would work in another machine with a different board. So each machine has to be ‘tuned’ by swapping out boards until you get a set that works.

This is a symptom of boards that are designed with sloppy tolerances, tolerances so wide, I.e. + or – 30 % instead of +- 5%. So that if the tolerances of a particular set of boards go the wrong way, they don’t work together. But each board might work with another one. It’s just the luck of the draw.

At some point, I’m probably going to have to start repairing the actual bad boards. And to do that I’m going to need an oscilloscope of some sort. I sold off mine a long time ago so I’ll have to get something new. Luckily digital scopes are a lot cheaper than they used to be, $100’s instead of $1000 of dollars.

Even Amazon has a nice selection of scopes, even some kits. Since I don’t have any schematics for most of these units, what I’ll do is to use the scope to start recording waveforms at key points on each board which I can then use to diagnose bad boards.

Tomorrow I’ll take care of some chores before our planned jaunt in the rig this weekend. I want to check the pressure in the rig’s tires, and the water in the house batteries. The engine batteries are sealed so I don’t have to worry about them. I’m also going to untie the anemometer pole from where it’s zip-tied to the ladder on the rear of the rig.

As it stands now we’ll probably do this on Sunday since it looks to be stormy all day Saturday. I’m thinking about just making a 40 mile loop, heading south on Hwy 6 down to where it joins up with I-45, then back up north to FM517 where we’ll take that back over to Alvin, and then back down Hwy 6 to Santa Fe and home.

We may make a stopover at the La Marque Buc-ee’s to top off on diesel, and then another stop along the way to fill up on propane. We’ll see.

I noticed yesterday that my Texas Lottery app had been updated, and I was happy to see that they’ve finally fixed the problem with the lottery ticket scanner function not working. That makes finding that winning ticket a lot easier.

As it stands right now we’re getting together with our son Chris and his family for dinner tomorrow night. Really looking forward to that..

April 11, 2019

We’re In B.C. – A.C. Mode . . .

I spent the morning working on a lot of cruise-related items, trying to cross off a bunch of things off our B.C list. That’s B.C., as in Before Cruise.

And of course, A.C. is for all the After Cruise things we’re putting off until we get back. Things like the rig’s oil leak, the rig’s generator problem, etc.

I first sent out quote requests to 3 car services for transportation to and from Houston Intercontinental for our flights. We want to leave the truck here, plus not having to worry with parking. And by the time I got all the quotes back in later in the day, I was surprised at the wide range of prices.

The highest one was $227.50 each way, for a total of $455. The middle one was $190 each way, for a total of $380. But the one we went with, and one that our daughter Brandi uses when she travels. came in at $166 for a total of $332.

This is for a Lincoln MKT SUV, taking us right to our terminal gate. Our flight on Lufthansa leaves at 3:55pm, and since it’s recommended that we get there 3 hours early, that would be 1pm, so I’m shooting for 12pm, to allow for traffic, etc., getting there. And considering what 31 days of long-time parking would cost, it’s a real bargain.

Next, I went online and booked the two additional London tours that we want to take on two of our extra 3 days, one a walking tour of Dr. Who Film Locations, and the second one, a visit to Hampton Court, Henry VIII’s residence. This will still leave us two free days for anything else that comes up.

Then I put in calls to Chase, Capital One, and PayPal to have them flag our card accounts for overseas travel, so we don’t have any nasty surprises. I’ve tried doing this online in the past but I found that it works much better talking to a real person, though it did sometimes take a bit to talk to someone.

Last up for the morning was to go online with LegalZoom and update our wills. Actually only took about 20 minutes to do mine, and I’ll finish up Jan’s this weekend.

Later, heading out for lunch and shopping, we stopped by the PO for our mail, and also to double check that they’ll just hold our mail until we get back. Turns out that when our box fills up it is automatically moved into an overflow box until we return.

After lunch at Cheddar’s, and shopping at WalMart, we got home just in time to watch the second launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. And it was amazing to watch not only the two boosters, but also the central core return to earth and stick the landings, the two boosters at the Cape, and the core on a droneship barge in the Atlantic.

Amazing!

Tomorrow it’s back to work, and then tomorrow night we’re attending the newly resurrected Alvin Opry for what’s sure to be a great show.

April 11, 2020

Bingeing . . .

Over the weekend Jan discovered that our CBS streaming service has every episode of Frasier available, so she’s been binge-streaming it, starting with the very first show. It’s amazing how well it’s held up, and how funny it is/was.

I went outside about 2pm to get our new shed installed on the plywood base I got at Home Depot on Thursday.

After getting the base into position, I used my RV leveler to level the board side to side, with a slight tilt to the rear for drainage. I did this by adding or removing larger rocks from underneath the board.

Then I used these 10” screw-in anchors and polypropylene strapping to fasten the base to the rock gravel.

And as hard as they were to screw into the dirt/gravel/rock mix, they’re not coming out any time soon.

So now I was ready to slide the shed off the patio and onto the base. I did have to use a large pipe to lever the shed up on the base, but then it just slid into place with no problems.

I still have to use these metal bars to fasten the shed to the base through the shed floor,

but I’m going to wait and hear from the park owner to be sure he’s happy with where it’s positioned. Hopefully, I should be able to screw it down tomorrow, and then we can get started sorting stuff in the bins and moving things out there.

For dinner tonight Jan rewarded me for all my hard work today by insisting I take her over to our nearby Whataburger for dinner. As before we did online ordering and then ate it in the WalMart parking lot across the street.

April 11, 2021

Two. Count’em. Two.

Today was a quiet one for a change, with lunch at Los Ramirez and then a quick stop at the nearby HEB.

Jan got her usual Pechuga Rellena, with a grilled chicken breast, grilled shrimp, and grilled broccoli,

while I got my usual Beef Fajita Taco Salad.

It’s easy to see why we both get our usual ‘usuals’.

You can now add O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to the list of companies that have made masks optional, at least here in Texas. No more masks signs when we stop off there on the way home.

And, although they still have the signs up, HEB didn’t seem to be policing the lack of masks at our local one this afternoon.

Well, after not grilling anything since about 2012, somehow, we’re now a two-grill family.

When we were getting ready to start RV’ing in 2007, our kids, Chris and Brandi, gave us a very nice Weber Q200 gas grill,

and we used it a lot as we traveled around the country the first 5 years or so. But the last time I can remember using it was while we were gate guarding in 2012, when we did hot dogs. And that was it.

Then a few years ago, we loaned it to Brandi and Lowell who’ve had it ever since. But since we’re redoing our patio area, we wanted to start grilling outside, so when we were up there visiting over Easter, we brought it back home with us. Their poolside area has a big built-in BBQ grill, so they hadn’t used ours in a while, anyway.

But while we were up there, we saw an ad on QVC for the new George Foreman Inside/Outside 15-serving electric grill.

So since Jan wanted something that would also let us grill inside as well as outside, so I put in an order for one. Which showed up this past Friday.

After I got it all put together out on the patio, I cleaned up the Weber, getting the dust, dirt, and a dirt dauber nest out of it, and then used a wire brush on the grill surface. And it came out looking really nice.

So my next step was to connect up a new propane tank, and hit the igniter button a couple of times. And amazingly, it fired right up.

So we’re now a two-grill family, I guess. Jan says the first thing we’re going to do is hot dogs, and then some ribs.

But with two grills I guess we could do both at the same time.

I mentioned a while back that all of the Texas Bunch is heading up to Illinois the 2nd week of June for a big family reunion with her sister Debbie and the rest of the Illinois Bunch. Then on our way back home, we plan on detouring down through Alabama to check in with family and friends.

But since we’ll be gone about a week and a half, Jan was worried about her patio hibiscus not getting enough, or any, water. So I came up with a computer-controlled watering system to keep it watered while we’re gone.

I’m going to use an empty kitty litter bucket for the water reservoir, a small submersible pump, some plastic tubing, and a smart plug like this to control it.

I can set it to automatically turn on for several minutes a day to keep it watered, or even control it manually from anywhere. I’m going to set it up in the next week or so, and let it keep the plant watered until we leave so I can get some idea how long it needs to run each day.

Hopefully, we won’t come back to a dead plant.

April 11, 2022

Finally, Something Drone-Worthy . . .

I finished booking all the hotels along our route on our upcoming Alabama vacation.

We’ll leave here the 26th of May, spend the night in Slidell, and arrive in Athens, AL on the 27th, where we’ll be for the next 5 days, catching up with relatives and friends.

Then it’s on down to Birmingham where we’ll stay for one night, again seeing long-time friends. And the next two nights after that, we’ll be in Montgomery seeing a couple of more old friends, before ending up down at Gulf Shores on the 4th for the next week.

We’ve got a 7-bedroom condo right on the Gulf, room enough for the 22 people that make up the Texas branch and the Illinois branch of Jan and her sister Debbie’s families.

We’ll be there for a week, with Jan and I finally getting home on Sunday, June 12th.

Really looking forward to it.

One thing about visiting Brandi is that the dogs, Jack and Baxter, are always happy to see us, and bring us toys to play with.

“Did someone say Treat?”

What’s unusual about this photo is that Baxter still has his kerchief on. For some reason, Jack doesn’t like Baxter to wear anything around his neck and does his best to pull it off.

And this is Landon and Jack checking in on his Zoom school class back in the day.

Linda Sand, a long-time blog reader, said that a few years ago when they were passing through Marathon the Buc-ee’s/Target mini-store there was a Prada store back then.

So what’s next? A Chick-fil-A?

It looks like that’s what happened up in Wharton, TX. Somebody got the whole town riled up by posting a Chick-fil-A Coming Soon sign.

Wharton police said they are looking for the “heartless individual” who placed a sign promising a Chick-fil-A coming soon at a major intersection. The issue with it is, it was done as a prank and there are no plans for the restaurant there.

“A witness said this act was ‘Udderly heinous and heartless,’”

I’m sure everyone’s heard about Amazon working on drone delivery of their products. And in fact they’re starting it up in places around the country with a $65 charge.

But finally, someone’s starting to deliver something’s that really drone-worthy.

Blue Bell, the Texas Ice Cream maker, is starting up ice cream deliveries by drone up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Now that’s something I’d pay extra for.

April 11, 2023

Got The Glasses . . . And The Shirt

With Jan’s two medical things today, brunch was at Snooze, since it was really close by both offices. And since the weather was so nice today, with partly cloudy, low 70’s, and a nice breeze, that we sat out on the patio for the first time this year.

We both got our usuals, Jan’s Bravocado Toast and my Shrimp and Grits, and shared an order of their Bacon, But Different. Always delicious.

Her first appointment was pretty quick, just a blood drawing at her oncologist’s office, but then things went off the rails.

When she got to her Mammogram appointment, they had her down for a standard mammogram, not the diagnostic one she’s supposed to get since she had breast cancer back in 2014. And for some reason, they couldn’t do a diagnostic one today.

So somewhere between her oncologist’s office sending over the order for the diagnostic mammogram and the mammogram receiving the correct order, someone dropped the ball.

So now she’s got a new mammogram appointment for next Tuesday. Hopefully, they’ll get this one right.

Coming home we made a quick HEB stop before getting back to the rig a little before 3pm.

Since I got my hotel reservations for the big total eclipse next April, I next decided to order the special glasses that you will need to safely observe the eclipse. And once again I’m glad I got ahead of the curve.

I first ordered a set of ten of these.

Solar Eclipse Glasses – CE and ISO Certified Safe Shades for Direct Sun Viewing – Made in the USA (10 Pack) by Soluna

I got the set of 10 for about $17, a good deal since according to the reviews back during the last big eclipse in 2017, this set of 10 was going for over $120. Supply and Demand, kind of like the hotel rooms in Waco that I talked about yesterday.

I got 10 which will let me give out 1 to everyone in the family.

If you buy any glasses for this purpose, be sure they have the NASA ISO certification number 12312-2 on them. This tells you that they are safe to use for eclipse viewing without blinding you.

Kind of an important thing, if you ask me.

And while I was looking at glasses, I came across the perfect apparel for Eclipse Day.

America Totality Spring 4.08.24 Total Solar Eclipse 2024 T-Shirt

I’ll probably end up getting Jan one too before the big day.

And speaking of the big day, if you miss this Total Eclipse next year, then you only have to wait until 2044 for the next one.

BUT you can see an Annular Eclipse passing through Texas this coming October 14, 2023.

An annular eclipse is when the moon and the sun line up, but the moon appears smaller than the sun.

This makes the sun appear like a bright ring.

Several of our readers wanted to know Brandi’s recipe for the Hatch Green Chile Beer Bread. Turns out that it was the one thing she did from a mix.

You can find it here at Soberdough.com. At least it’s sober dough until you add a can of beer.

They’ve got everything from Hatch Green Chile Cheese Beer Bread to Mimosa Muffins (with Champagne) to Cheesy Garlic or Cinnamon Swirl.

Check it out.