Steve's Blog

Another day prospecting

2010-11-08T15:05:00.002-06:00

I have decided that prospecting is a lot like computers. The more you do the more of the toys (I mean TOOLS) you need to play the game well. I guess I have bought about all the “tools” I need to make metal detecting fun, although I still have a ways to go before becoming productive.

I went out this morning and found what I thought looked like a good spot, lots of rock, lots of quartz and caliche. After 3 hours I found two tin cans, a couple of bullet casings and 3 non-descript hunks of metal, so decided to do a bit more scouting.

The “road” I was on did not show up on the GPS but looked to be headed further into the claim, so I followed. We went along fine for a short ways, but then the road headed for the ridge top. The further I went the more the “road” transformed into a quad trail.

It seems the more I drive the Jeep off-road the less inclined I am to turn around. I always want to see if we can make it through and also see what’s over the next ridge. Today the Jeep has a few more brush scrapes and the tires have some more rock scrubs, but we finally made it back to a real road without issue.

Here are a couple of pictures I took from the ridge top. Please don’t be too critical as they were taken with my phone and one was through the windshield.

I love my Jeep, BUT

2010-04-18T17:30:00.004-05:00

I really have to say I have never enjoyed a vehicle as much as I do our Jeep Wrangler. With that said I have to admit I am not real thrilled with the way Chrysler handles selling parts for these vehicles.

This tale starts a few months ago, we were driving along and suddenly the cruise control stopped working. Turns out the rubber elbow that connects the vacuum line to the intake manifold finally gave up the ghost. It was still there but heat had taken its toll and it would no longer seal to the nipple on the manifold. It so happens this same vacuum line runs not only to the cruise control but also over to the air conditioning to control the various doors controlling the air flow. I tried to get the elbow at the local auto parts stores but could never find the correct size. I did manage to stretch one enough to get things working until I could get to the dealer and get the correct part. So I head to the dealer and order the correct part, only problem is they only sell the whole vacuum line assembly that runs all the way across the firewall and connects to the AC controls. I bit the bullet and paid $12.90 plus tax to get the elbow.

This last weekend we went on one of our road trips to the Smokey Mountains in TN, hoping to get a little prospecting in. We were taking the back roads just looking and were hoping to find a stream that looked promising. We came to one of those places that required a pass, which we didn't have, so parked the Jeep and did the self registration thing so we could continue. I got back into the vehicle and started it, shifting into reverse to get back under way. When I shifted into reverse it felt a little too easy, like the shift cable had broken or come unhooked.

My first thought was hopefully it came apart inside the car where it connects to the shifter. I now know how to take the console apart and put it back together again. Now I am crawling under the vehicle to see if I can find the issue. There sitting on the skid plate I found what was left of a small nylon bushing/retainer that connects the shift cable to the lever on the transmission. Now I usually don't carry any tools in the Jeep but I was lazy when I was packing the coach and tossed in the tool box I used while on duty at the resort. It's by no means complete but it did have enough tools to allow the console tear down, and between the paper clip, electrical tape and screw I found, I was able to get us going again.

The nearest town (about 30 miles) had a Jeep dealer, so we headed there to see if we couldn't buy the 50 cent bushing/retainer needed. Well once again it seems you can only get the bushing by purchasing the entire shift cable assembly. They just happened to have one. It was a small dealer so it must be a good selling item so $30 later I had the 50 cent bushing we needed. We headed back to the coach where I had more tools to finalize the repair. Oh yeah, did I tell you that was another 100 miles away?

Since we had been on the road for better than half the day, one of us needed to go potty. Now you all know Bud and I can just go along side the road, so this may give you an idea who needed the pit stop. Since it was also past lunch time we stopped at a McDonalds. I parked in the back so I could get out without putting it in park and having to back up while we grabbed a quick bite and relived some inner pressure!

To make a long story short before we could leave I had to crawl back under the Jeep and get the trans back into drive to make the rest of the trip. Did I tell you we didn't have enough gas to make it all the way back? Well we didn't, but I was not going to take any more chances so we re-fueled with the engine running, the trans in gear and the parking brake set.

Once we made it back to the coach, I let the trans cool down while I worked at getting the little bushing out of the shift cable I had purchased. Two hours later I went out to get the job done. There was no way Bud was letting me out without him again so I hooked his leash on the front bumper tow hook, got my little carpet samples out to lay on and crawled back under for what I hopped would be the last time. Since I was on Buds level, and he could get to me from where he was staked out, I got a bath as soon as I was on my back. It only took a couple of minutes to snap the bushing on the shift lever pin and snap the cable onto the bushing. A job well done, hopefully it won't need to be done again for another 85,000 miles.

Wild Flowers Part: 3

2010-03-30T12:33:00.002-05:00

Still more flowers from the Falcon Dam State Park.

This is a grave yard below the dam, on Swordfish Dr. GPS Co-ordinates 26.5347 N 99.1498 W.

Wild Flowers Part: 2

2010-03-25T10:33:00.001-05:00

More of the flowers we found along the nature trail at Falcon State Park from last weekend. I did manage to find a couple of names but that's all.

I am hoping that when we head to Hill Country next weekend we will be treated to many more photo opportunities.

Evening Primrose

Lantana, Calico Bush

Wild Flowers Part 1

2010-03-24T15:13:00.001-05:00

This last weekend we could not make up our minds where to go and what to see. I remembered seeing tons of tiny little wild flowers on the nature trail at Falcon Dam a couple of years ago. With the wet weather we have had this winter, I was hopping we would be in for a treat, IF, our timing was right. Here a few of the flower we saw on our trip.

I have no idea what their names are, and most you would never see from your car as they are very tiny and easily passed over. I have more and will follow these up in a couple of days with the next installment.

La Sal Vieja or Old Salt

2010-03-23T15:06:00.003-05:00

"La Sal Vieja ("Old Salt") is the name given to two salt lakes six miles northwest of Raymondville in Willacy County (at 2632' N, 9753' W). The west lake has a surface area of 2,475 acres, and the east lake, 720 acres; they are separated by a natural isthmus. Coahuiltecan Indians are thought to have been among the first people to use salt from La Sal Vieja. In Spanish Texas these salt deposits were important items of trade between natives and the Spanish."
From The Handbook of Texas Online Click here for the full article.

So Linda and I have been trying, off and on, to see the salt lakes near Raymondville, Texas. Our first attempt was a total loss. All we knew was they were off hi-way 186 between 281 and 77. Since there weren't any signs pointing the way we basically saw nothing other than the scenery along 186.

For our next attempt I did a little research on Streets and Trips and found a couple of roads that I thought would get us close enough to check out the lakes. Since it's been raining quite a bit this winter, the little county roads near the lake were a bit wet to say the least. We really enjoy getting to see the fields and wildlife along little two track roads. Even though I get picked on because the jeep is usually covered in mud when we return to the RV park.

We followed one of the little two tracks along a wooded section and plowed through a number of muddy areas. We finally approached a feeder stream to the western salt lake. The road/trail we were on crosses over the stream, but the crossing wasn't much more than a mud bog. If we had been with another vehicle, or if I had a winch installed on the jeep, I would have tried to make it across. As it was it would have been a very long walk back to the nearest ranch for help. We backtracked to 186 and headed for Raymondville, picked up a little dinner, than headed home.

Our third attempt finally paid off, for me at least. We managed to come across an access site to the area surrounding the eastern salt lake. We left the jeep in the parking area and headed off into the preserve. There were two trails to choose from so Bud and I started down the southern two track followed for a short time by Linda. I'm not sure how far Linda made it, because Bud didn't want to wait for her. The trail eventually headed out of the preserve so we headed back to the parking area.

Bud, being the old man he is, was starting to get a bit warm and tired so I left him with Linda at the jeep before heading down the other trail. I hadn't gone more than 50 yards when I found another trail that split off, kind of running between the trail I was on and the other path we had followed earlier. I could see the main trail headed uphill, so followed it to the top. I couldn't see the lake or any clearing from the crest so headed back to try the other trail.

Well you know what they say about three times being the charm! Here are a few pictures of the smaller eastern lake. We will try one more time before we leave to see the western lake. Hopefully it will be close enough to the road that Linda will be able to see it.

You can click on the picture for a larger view.

Computer Safety Tips

2010-02-17T12:39:00.001-06:00

Malware hits all-time high in January

By Vivian Yeo ZDNet Asia
Posted on ZDNet News: Feb 10, 2010 5:33:13 AM

The amount of unique malware tracked by security vendor Fortinet, reached an all-time high in January.

Its distinct malware volume soared to over 9,000 last month, more than twice that in December, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Fortinet collects data from its FortiGate network security appliances and intelligence systems located globally, and compiles monthly threat statistics from the data. ( http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-392235.html)

Does this sound like it's getting tougher to keep your computer free of malware? You bet it is, and not only are there more things to attack you, but the bad guys have been putting a lot of effort into social engineering.

What's social engineering? Basically it's the crafting of a web site to get the innocent to click on a link that's been built to infect your computer with some kind of malware. It may do something a simple as changing your home page to some porn page, or as nasty as a link to install a Trojan horse that will download and install any number of nasty programs that can render your computer basically useless.

I worked on a computer earlier this year that was infected by malware named Additional Guard. It was installed when he was searching for information on a problem he was having with his refrigerator. It created a shortcut on the desktop and would pop-up whenever he opened a webpage, saying the machine was infected with x number of viruses and offered to clean things up for just $30 dollars.

We checked in control panel to see if it could be uninstalled with no luck. I ran a number of free spyware and virus scanners without any luck. I was able to find uninstall instructions but the problem was this malware uses a number of different hidden directories and registry keys to disguise and hide it self. After many hours of work and frustration we rebuilt the laptop to get things working again. Almost all viruses and malware can eventually be removed, but more times than not it is much quicker to rebuild and reload the machine. At some point you have to say enough is enough and just bit the bullet.

No software can protect you 100%. You may have the honor of being the first person to be infected by a particular virus. Current virus software looks for a virus signature to detect the virus, and until a signature can be created everyone is vulnerable. Here are some tips to minimize your exposure and pain when something does infect your machine.

Make sure you are at the minimum running virus software and keep the signatures updated.
Run a firewall, at least what comes with your OS, or better yet put a router between you and the internet.
Backup critical files regularly BEFORE you get infected.
Be sure all your OS's fixes and security updates are applied. Most of the updates are to correct security issues that have been identified. If you don't want to rely on windows update there are programs designed to check the software on your machine to make sure everything is up to date not just the operating system. Secunia PSI is a free and recommended application.
Never open an email attachment from someone you don't know.
Avoid opening attachments from someone you know unless you know exactly what the attachment is.
Use a standard user account unless you need to use an administrator account.
Whatever you do, please do not turn off UAC in Vista or Windows 7. That little popup that is so irritating could be your only clue that the web site you just visited is trying to silently install malware on your computer.

OS – Operating System

Malware – malicious software, anything from a key logger to spyware to a virus.

Router – a hardware firewall that goes between your computer and the internet.

UAC – User Account Control, notifies you when changes are being made to your computer, such as installing a program, changing registry keys or changes to your browser.

Were back in Texas

2009-11-11T14:06:00.001-06:00

We left Michigan Oct 19th, headed first for the Texas Hill Country then on to Bentsen Palm Village Resort for the winter.

Arrived at the Big Chief Resort on Buchanan Dam in the rain. We were lucky the rain let up a little so we could get set up but I was still plenty wet. Some of the locals said it rained 9 inches that night so we saw a different Hill Country than what we are used to. All the creeks were now rivers and the rivers tended to be torrents. I was kind of cool to ford the rivers in the Jeep.

Enchanted Rock was a whole new experience with parts of the trails under water and the Sandy Creek flowing over the walkway. I didn’t take the entire Loop Trail, since I know it crossed the creek just before the end. I crossed back on the Echo Canyon Trial and encountered a number of pools on the trail and lots of tiny trickles as I make my way back to the parking area. You might think I would have some really unusual pictures, but since I have been here so many times I didn’t take the camera and have been kicking myself since.

We stayed at Buchanan Lake for 9 days before heading to Mission and BPVR. As we were turning onto Old Military Road Linda and I look at each other and said “Were Home”.

Howell, Michigan

2009-05-09T08:27:00.002-05:00

After spending Thursday night at Interstate RV Park, in Davenport Iowa we arrived in Howell about 4PM on Friday. This is actually my mom's back yard, I sort of do another workamping stint as I do maintenance and lawn mowing in exchange for a place to park.

Really good to get back to the old stomping grounds, we got to spend some time with our oldest daughter, my Mom and Linda's parents last night. Today will be spent getting things set up again, doing laundry and just recovering from the ~2500 mile dash from Oregon.

We are just short of 20,000 miles on the coach and the motor seems to be loosening up a bit. The computer tracks mileage and we have gone up anther tenth on this leg of the trip, were now up to 8.2 MPG. I don't think that too bad for a 30,000 lb vehicle that 8 feet wide and 12.5 feet tall.

Omaha, NE

2009-05-06T17:12:00.003-05:00

Spent last night in North Platte, NE. Linda got to get her Walmart fix for the week.

Today we made a stop at the Great Platte River Road Archway. I was not sure about stopping but Linda has wanted to visit it since last year when we passed through moving Manda to Oregon. They do a nice job of telling the story of people passing through the area on their way to the west coast. Beginning with the Mormons, the Oregon Trail, and the Lincoln highway. Not a whole lot of depth to the story but I thought it was well worth the 1 1/2 hours we spent there.

We are spending tonight with Cabela's. It cost us more than if we had just gone to a campground but I guess that's why they let you hide out in the back parking lot.

We have gotten our best mileage ever, between going down hill through most of Nebraska, and a good tail wind out of the west, we managed to get 9.4 mpg for the last 650 miles.

Weather has been good today, I do see some thunderheads in the sky around us, but still sunny where we are. Temps in the 80's today, sure feels good to be able to run around in shorts and T-shirts again.

Rowlins, Wyoming

2009-05-04T18:01:00.002-05:00

No rain today! We did wake up to ice on the puddles on the slide toppers, but the sun has been shining pretty much all day. We are staying at RV World Campground, and can see snow on the hill side behind us. It's 52 degrees and the wind is blowing at 30 or some miles an hour so the wind chill felt like it was down around freezing while I was getting the water, electric and cable TV hooked up.

Made about 380 miles today and finally caught a tail wind. Crossed the continental divide a couple of times and saw elevation of 7500 feet. Saw lots of sheep, cattle, antilope and even a few Wyoming ground squirrels.

Snowville, Utah

2009-05-03T17:43:00.002-05:00

About 75 miles North-west of Ogden Utah. Kind of a different little campground, nobody in the office, you take the paper work, pick your site then fill out the paper work add your payment and drop it in the slot at the office. Lots of antiques, stuff hanging on the fence and on the porch. Old farm machinery and vehicles parked around the outside of the park.

We are still at 4600 feet, with hills and mountains all around us. At the high point for the day we saw a sign at one of the passes saying we were at 5630 feet.

This was another day of rain, saw a little lightning, a little hail and a lot of up hill. The forecast was for a 30% chance of rain along our route, but we ended up with 30% of the day without rain. The one really nice thing was the sun came out when we stopped for lunch so we had the chance to walk around the Devils Washbowl and get some nice pictures.

Huntington Oregon

2009-05-02T19:53:00.002-05:00

We did about 390 miles today, I was starting to get a bit tired and I had enough rain and drizzle for the day. We have stopped at Catfish Junction RV Park, a nice little campground on the Snake River. Inexpensive with very nice hosts and the view would be hard to beat. We are surrounded by mountains with the river in front of us and farm land to the south.

Linda HAD to stop at the gift shop at the Multnomah falls on the way up the Columbia Gorge. She did pretty good time wise and not buying too much, Bud ended up getting a stuffed beaver to play with. It was fun shaking it and tossing it out of his chair, then grabbing it and jumping back in. Only problem was he got tired of the jumping out and then back in so it didn't take long before he was staring at Linda to pick it up for him when he tossed it out. It sure seems like he want to rule our lives.

Woodburn, OR

2009-04-13T17:19:00.003-05:00

We have landed! Planning to stay at the Woodburn RV Park for the next three weeks. Linda has another week off then she plans to work two weeks before we head out again. She chose this park for it's location rather than it's charm, it's really a nice park. You see we are spending a little time with our youngest daughter who lives in Portland and currently works in Salem. This place is just off I-5, 20 miles north of Salem and 30 south of Portland so works out to be a good place for Amanda to stop off. As a side benefit it's fairly close to a lot of the stuff Linda and I want to visit while we are here.

I have to admit we have seen more sun so far (two days) than we did the entire week we were in Portland last year when we moved Amanda out here. Although there has been more rain than we saw all winter in Texas. Poor Bud has had to have his coat broken out, it makes him walk funny but I am not sure he would stay outside long enough to get his "jobs" done without it!

We are pretty much just rejuvenating for the day after the trip from Sacramento. It's good to be able to lay around and take a nap once in a while. I am sure Linda will keep us on the move for the rest of the week, she needs to get lots in before going back to work on Monday.

Phoenix, OR

2009-04-11T20:06:00.002-05:00

Spending the night at the American RV Resort outside of Medford, OR. Still about 250 miles from Salem where we plan to spend up to two weeks before heading east towards Michigan.

We caught I-5 in Sacramento with only one small moment of confusion on my part. The drive up the Sacramento Valley with the Coastal Range to the West and the Sierra Nevada to the East was really beautiful and relaxing. Beautiful snow capped mountains on both sides bordering flat farm land. We saw a number of big CAT tracked tractors.

Linda managed to pack her extra camera battery in the one closet that you can't get to while the slide is in, so after about 80 miles we found a rest area that was open. It was at the end of a 4 mile 6% grade and on the Klamath River, so I was ready for a little break. We had lunch, then opened the bedroom slide enough to get the closet door open and retrieved the battery. You know if she didn't take 200 or so pictures a day she could get by with just the one battery. Problem is you never know when you'll catch that perfect shot.

Sacramento, CA

2009-04-09T20:14:00.002-05:00

Mostly easy day, we had a few moments with the wind and the grades but the ole Dutch Star came through just fine and seems to be getting better mileage. I guess we are finally starting to get the engine broken in.

I was just blown away by the beauty and scale of some of the scenery on our way into Bakersfield. We found 99 to be a bit rough but a nice road with not too much traffic.

I found Linda a little piece of land in Mojave, 7.5 acres of un-improved property for the measly sum of $450,000. I guess we will have to win the lottery if we ever hope to buy anything in California.

We hope to get some laundry done in the morning then hook up with my uncle Jerry and his wife Barb around lunch time tomorrow, then spend the rest of day doing a little site seeing.

Amanda has been checking out where we are, we think she might be missing us just a little, or maybe it's just Bud she is missing.

California, Here we are!

2009-04-08T21:50:00.002-05:00

After spending most of the morning doing a little metal detecting (we found a Coke can, a bottle cap, a door striker, a 22 shell casing and another round metal disk) we packed up and left Quartzsite. Linda seems to like metal detecting and I am getting her to see a whole lot more of the outdoors while doing it. Funny how you can see flowers in the desert while walking that are too small to see from the coach or the Jeep.

Ran into some tough cross and head winds today, knocked the hell out of our fuel mileage. We saw some really beautiful country and a whole lot of traffic in California on our 300 miles for the day. More wind turbines in one spot then we have in pretty much all our travels.

We have stopped at a little campground, Sierra Trails RV Park in Mojave, CA. We managed to get a pull thru, with 30 amps and no sewer or cable, but it is a nice place and not far off the highway. Considering all we did today, it was a long day and we are really happy to get nice hot showers, watch a DVD and hit the sack.

Still have about 350 miles to do tomorrow to get to Sacramento to visit my Uncle but should not have any trouble making it.

Quartzsite AZ

2009-04-07T19:35:00.002-05:00

Short day today, somewhere around 200 miles, but the rig just would not go past Quartzsite. I have been dreaming of boon docking here ever since the full-timing bug bit me. Sure is nice to have 300 watts of solar panels, an inverter and a cellular modem! I can just imagine what this place is like in January when ALLLLLL the characters are here, partying and what ever!

I spent all the money I made this winter working on computers, and then some, on a White's TDI metal detector. Just learning how to use it but so far I have found 4 pieces of wire. I played around with some nuggets I have just to see what it is like to find real gold. Tomorrow we will go to a local claim and see what we can find.

Linda decided we needed a little break from driving so she had me get the Jeep around and go for a little 100 mile site seeing trek. Bud, as always, was very happy traveling anywhere.

Not sure if we will spend another night here or get back on the road when it starts getting hot. I guess we will just have to see how the mood strikes us.

Day 3 and things are improving

2009-04-06T17:53:00.002-05:00

We made it to Campground Buena Tierra in Casa Grande, Az today, around 350 miles. Things went well, breakfast at the Flying J west of El Paso, about a mile from the New Mexico border, lunch at a rest stop at Texas Canyon, Az. Easy to find campground and even the construction in Tucson was not bad.

I need to take a look at the tail light on the Jeep, that has been giving me a few problems, but that's the only thing out of the ordinary to do tonight. I think I will take a look after dinner then shower and turn in early (Bud and I are a bit messed up by the time change).

We have been running into a couple at a number of rest stops along the way and guess who is camped just two sites away tonight. They are from Bakersfield and suggested a route bypassing LA. Looks like it's about 830 miles to Sacramento (I have an uncle who lives there) so we are planning the next couple of legs to get us there.

Day 2

2009-04-05T19:10:00.002-05:00

Things went much better today. We got under way without a hitch, well actually the left tail light is not working all the time on the Jeep, temp is 49 and the wind is out of the west so I guess things could be better, but it's much better than yesterday morning.

We made good time today and I felt like doing some extra miles so we made it to El Paso (about 500 miles). First place we tried to stop for the night was full so we decided to go a little further. Well we missed the sign for I-10 and ended up down by the border in El Paso, then down town trying to get back on I-10. We finally made it out of town and back on the highway and stopped at Camping World for the night. I really do plan to pick up some parts in the morning before we leave.

First day back on the road.

2009-04-04T18:57:00.002-05:00

It's been a tough first day.

Dumped the TPMS sensors out of the egg carton so I didn't know which one went where, reinstall.

I have one that keeps dropping out and it ended up on the rear of the Jeep, after a hour of screwing around finally got it moved and replaced with a good one.

Hooked up the Jeep and again the tail lights didn't work. Sure enough it was a blown fuse, I thought I had the issue resolved but I guess it needs a bit more work. Then the first light I checked out was the left rear on the Jeep, guess what, the LED bulb I had there doesn't seem to be working, replaced it with a regular bulb and we were good to go.

Made it to Buckhorn Lake Resort in Kerrville, TX, really nice park.

Tried to deploy the jacks and guess what, nothing. Dumps the air bags but the jacks won't deploy. Messed around way too long and finally got them working. Even though the monitor said the jacks were fully retracted I think there may have been an issue so I cleaned them and sprayed them down with some silicone. Hopefully that's the problem and we will have no more issues with them.

Next we couldn't see any of the the WIFI spots in the park, tried Linda's Verizon cellular modem/access point, still no luck. Seems the WIFI switch on the laptop got bumped and turned off. Turned it back on and we are good to go.

Next RVer's notebook won't run. Still don't have that resolved.

Decided to use the park facilities for our showers, guess what my shower shoe fell apart on the way back to the campsite.

I think I should just go to bed and start anew in the morning. Hopefully we have gotten the problems out of the way for awhile.

Thanks for listening.

Summer coming to a close, projects and a new bike.

2008-09-08T13:01:00.005-05:00

It's been a busy summer, between getting Amanda moved, maintaining Mom's house and yard and trying to get a few upgrades to the coach and the annual maintenance completed, the summer is almost over! We had our annual Labor Day Picnic so you know the summer is winding down.

We didn't do any major projects at Mom's, just the normal fix ups plus cleaning and sealing 3 decks, and putting in a couple of raised beds in her garden. She seems to be happy with the way her root crops came out when using the raised beds. She has pretty heavy clay soil so carrots and beets always came out short and deformed. The compost/soil mix I filled the raised beds with sure seemed to make them happy.

Coach upgrades: We use a RV Sani-con macerator pump that I purchased from RVUpgrades to empty the holding tanks since the drain I dump into is about 50 feet away and slightly up hill. It has been leaking from the seal between the pump and the motor since the middle of last summer. It wasn't a big deal but sure make a distasteful job all the more nasty.

Earlier this summer I was able to find and purchase a repair kit for the pump so I gloved up and tore into it for a rebuild. I was quite surprised when I opened the pump housing to find a piece of rag wrapped around the blade used to chop everything up small enough to pumped through the impeller. I think this probably was left over from the coach build, since the first dump of the tanks was with the macerator pump. The cleaned and rebuilt pump sure cut down on the time required to pump 45 gallons out of the black water tank!

I was in a rush when we first got the macerator so my installation consisted of using a couple of alligator clips to make the power and ground connections. Since I only looked at it when doing the dumping I never got around to actually doing a nice clean install. Well I finally took care of it this year (this is only the third summer for using the temporary setup). I had some heavy wire left over from the solar panel install and purchased a connector designed for connecting the battery to a electric boat winch. Now the connection is easy to make and disconnect and the pump is running faster and cooler.

As part of our efforts to conserve we only start the water heater up when we are ready to do dishes and take our showers. As the water goes from cold to hot it expands and so builds a fair amount of pressure in the water lines of the coach. If you can keep a good sized air bubble in the water heater it lessens the effect but since water has a tendency to absorb that air bubble it eliminates that cushion fairly quickly. My solution was to install an expansion tank. I picked up a tank at Lowes and installed in under the sink in the kitchen. I originally thought I would install it in the storage area next to the water heater but realized there was a lot of unused space under the kitchen sink. I also figured it would get knocked around a lot less there than where I try to store the ladder, chairs and grill. I have really been surprised at how much better the water flow seems to be with the two gallon reserve we now have.

While I was at Lowes picking up the tank I also picked up a whole house water pressure reducer. I have been using a small adjustable Watts water pressure regulator but flow was substantially restricted due to the small size of the inlet, outlet and internal passages. I decided it was time to upgrade to something that would really flow some water. The new one has 3/4 inch inlet and outlet and is designed to supply a whole house so should have more than enough flow for our needs. I am not currently using it since I know the pressure at the Mom's is less than 50 pounds, I will let you know how it works once we are on our way again.

I also reorganized my storage area getting rid of some the the stuff I hadn't used in the last couple of years and just trying group like items together so I could find them when needed. I decided to move my air hoses and a heavy duty extension cord up to the generator compartment.

There is a nice open area between the generator and the square tubing used to support the front fiberglass shell. I took a couple of straps from Lowes that are normally used to tie walls together in house construction and bent them up to use as hooks to hang the hoses and cables. I don't use the air hoses and extension cord often and they were a pain to get to since the box they were in ended up buried in the lower storage area. Now the air hose is right next to the air connector in the front of the coach and much easier to get to when needed.

I go each year for a physical and this year the Dr wants me to work on lowering my LDL and to loose some weight. The only way to lower the LDL and raise the HDL is to do exercise. I have been walking but when I try to do more my knees and hips suffer from the impact so I have been trying to ride a bike. I've been using my sister's old Schwinn mountain bike, but that's pretty tough on the pelvic bone and puts a lot of pressure on my wrists. The pressure causes my hand to go to sleep, so I tend not to ride it as far as I should. The solution was to plunk down the money I have been earning from fixing computers for a new comfort bike. I couldn't believe the difference in the way this new bike rides compared to the old one.

The new bike (a TREK Navigator 3) shifts great, peddles easier and stops a whole lot better. In addition it has some suspension to smooth out the bumps! I have been trading off the walking and bike riding on a daily basis and am still getting 40 plus miles in a week. I think it was a good investment.

World of Outlaws, Kings Royal and RAIN

2008-07-15T13:44:00.003-05:00

For the last seven or so years my oldest daughter has given me tickets to World of Outlaws, Kings Royal sprint car races at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. What we do is take the motor home and then she and her husband meet us down there and spend the weekend in the coach with us.

This last weekend was race weekend, so we loaded up and headed out Friday morning about 11 AM. We normally stay at the Darke County Fairgrounds in Greenville, OH for the race weekend. The place is usually pretty deserted other than at fair time so we didn't bother to call and verify we would have a place to stay. Well, guess what! They were having an antique tractor show and the place was totally packed!

Thank God for mapping software and cell phones. We found another campground in the area, Wildcat Woods. It's a small campground with marginal 30 amp electrical service but has plenty of shade and friendly people.

Eldora puts on a race Friday night called the night before the King's Royal that gives the racers and chance to get somewhat dialed into the track. We ended up getting there just in time for the Dash and the feature races. It was a great night of racing with Joey Saldana winning the main event. There was a chance of rain so they made sure the delays were minimal so we were headed back to the coach by 10:30.

Saturday morning we got some rain so we ended up going into Greenville so the ladies could get a little shopping time in. The sun was back out by noon but the forecast was for more rain beginning about 5 PM. We stopped at CJ's for lunch before heading back for naps since we expected it to be a late night due to anticipated rain delays.

We ran into a little rain on the way to the track but they were out running hot laps when we got there. That was very short lived, by the time we got the coolers and seat cushion out of the car the rain had started, shutting everything down.

Once we got a break in the weather we grabbed our stuff and headed into the grand stands. Did I mention we have seats in the covered grand stand area? Well we do so we weren't worried about a little rain.

There was another break in the weather and the push trucks managed to get back out on the track to help dry and pack the dirt racing surface. By 8 PM the rain started again and a little after 9 they postponed the race until Sunday evening. Since 3 of us had to be back to work on Monday morning we ended up missing the race. We're disappointed we missed the race but had a really good time with the kids.

The really hard part of the whole trip was the stop at the gas station just before getting home. We had driven about 540 miles on that tank of fuel so I figured we would need about 60 gallons of diesel. We thought about just waiting to fill up when we pulled out in the fall, but figured it would have gone up a bunch more by then. We bit the bullet and pumped 62.5 gallons, at $4.79 a gallon, adding $300 to the credit card. We just keep telling ourselves if we didn't have the coach we would be spending all that money on heat. We would much rather send our winters where it's warm than watching the snow fall.

My Summer is Slipping Away!

2008-06-27T09:48:00.003-05:00

I have been working hard to get Mom's list of things that need fixing around the house completed and at this point appear to be down to the last two items on her list and 1 item I added. So far I have fixed a number of small things around the house, cleaned and sealed/painted 3 wood decks, replaced the back garage entry door and revived her riding lawn mower that has not run in 3 years. I still need to finish up the mower, paint the replacement door and do some mortar repair on the fireplace chimney.

Along with these tasks I keep the lawn mowed and try to keep up with the outside maintenance. Then the neighbor across the road always seems to have projects that need additional hands or muscle for me to get involved with.

Today I am waiting for a call from my son-in-law so I can go and let the plumbers in so they can finish up the basement bathroom in their new house.

My summer seems to be flying by and I have yet to get started on any of my projects/maintenance for the motor home and Jeep.

Last night we were having dinner with Mom and our two nieces. I was drafted to grill the steaks. I had left Bud in the back yard so he would not have to be couped up in his cage and decided to bring him out front to be with me while I was grilling. He was laying in the shade holding his left front paw in the air as I arrived to get him. I had to pick the poor boy up as he could not walk on the injury. I looked him over and did not see any real injury, but did see one of his pads would quite red. I am guessing he got stung by a wasp.

The was a very traumatic experience for the boy and he just kept looking at me saying help me. We held him for 15 minutes or so and then I took him back to the coach, gave him a baby Benadryl along with dinner and slipped him into his cage. I then returned to the house to dig into a well prepared steak (if I do say so myself). By the time I returned to the couch later that evening all the pain and suffering from our foot was over and we were back to normal. I tell you dogs are as bad as kids!

Hello Portland

2008-06-05T17:24:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we started the final leg of our depositing Manda in Portland. We were both awake so we got started at 5AM. We had about 160 miles to go so we arrived at the apartment about 8:30 in the morning, basically before Amanda and her friend got up! We unloaded the car, parked the tow dolly on the side of the street and backed the truck up the hill and into the parking lot of her apartment building. I am kind of a pain when it comes to getting all the junk moved in so everyone let me get things organized and we soon had the truck emptied. From there we headed for the Penske truck return which was across the Willamette river. As usual we managed to get turned around a couple of times before we actually made it, but it really wasn't that big a deal.

I really loved the scenery along the Columbia River Gorge, we had reasonably good weather and could see for a really long way. We manged to see a few water falls while traveling along I-84 and decided we needed to make a day trip back up the gorge once we traded the truck in for our rental car.

Next on the agenda was to pick up the rental car and get some lunch. Other than a few missed turns things went fairly well. Next Amanda needed to get the car's emissions checked prior to registering it in Oregon. From there we dropped the girls off and headed back to the east to check into our hotel. By this time Linda and I were ready for some dinner and since we were staying in an extended stay hotel we needed to stop at and pickup some groceries.

Today Linda and Amanda started the process of getting the car switched to Amanda's name and registered. Things went well until the DMV asked for proof of residency. Amanda was not quite prepared so they needed to return to the apartment and get proof of her address. The car now lives in Oregon and Amanda is studying for her written drivers test.

The girls and I took a took the Historic Columbia River Highway from Troutdale to Multnomah Falls and then crossed the Columbia River using the Bridge of the Gods into Washington. From there we headed back west on highway 14 to Vancouver, then took 205 back into Portland.

At this point the girls are cleaning up the apartment and I have been drafted to make Mexican Chicken for dinner. I am currently drinking beer to recover from the day and preparing to make tonight's dinner.

We are working on getting the hundreds of pictures Linda's has taken during our trip organized and will post a link as soon as we have them ready.

Day 3 of the move to Portland

2008-06-02T20:29:00.003-05:00

Yesterday we made it to Cheyenne, WY and had dinner with Robin, a friend we originally met in Texas. Mileage was much better on Sunday due in part to a tail wind instead of a head wind and I tried to keep the speed at 60. We managed a respectable 12+ MPG for the day.

Tonight we are in Ogden, UT. Our original plan was to stop here for the night but, I had hoped to make another 120 or so miles today. When we stopped at around 5PM for gas the Flying J computers were acting up, so we could not fuel up, which kind of told me we should just call it a day. The Comfort Suites was at the same exit just on the other side of the road, so we decided to just get fueled up in the morning and hit the road early. The scenery was really great today, Linda managed to fill the memory card in the camera before lunch! We had to offload the card at the rest area so she could take a bunch more. There were lots of prong horn antelope next to the the highway and there was a fair amount of snow next to the road where the snow fences had piled it up pretty deep over the winter.

We saw several wind farms in Wyoming & Utah today and they were pretty impressive.

On our way to Oregon

2008-05-31T20:31:00.002-05:00

We have begun Manda's migration to Oregon. Friday night we picked up a 16' cargo van and tow dolly from the Penske truck rental in Howell. From there we loaded Manda's stuff (mostly shoes and clothes) and loaded her 11 year old Grand Am up on the tow dolly.

Next it was Bud's turn to get farmed out for the almost two weeks we would be traveling. Since he does not get along with my mother's male Jack Russell we take him out to Linda's Mom and Dad's house. They have two female dogs so Bud just takes over the house and everyone gets along reasonably well. Linda and I both looked for him all evening and every time we have stopped today for gas or just a rest stop we kept thinking we needed to get him out so he could do his potty thing. Funny how we get so conditioned to things in our live and have trouble making the change.

We managed to make it to Des Moines, Iowa the first day, about 500 miles. The cargo van worked well although we were both hoping for a little better then the 10 miles per gallon we have been getting today. Of course since we are headed west we have had a pretty good head wind, hopefully the wind will let up from here on out and we can get a little better mileage, expecially since gas prices are running about $4 per gallon.

The only other complint I have with the van is it doesn't have cruise! I have been so dependent on cruise control I have been having a lot of trouble maintaining a steady speed. It's getting worse as we are driving through the rolling hills of Iowa.

One thing I have to tell you about is a little joke we played on Manda. You see when we got home from Texas I noticed that she was missing one of the mufflers on the car. When asked about it she said it fell off on the express way and she didn't notice because her music was too loud. So when we called tonight we told her that everything was going well but someplace along the way we lost her car off the tow dolly. We told her we were to busy talking and listening to the radio to notice it was gone until we stopped for the night. She is so gulible she actually believed us! What a goof!

A new Dell Laptop

2008-05-13T20:03:00.002-05:00

Amanda has managed to get about 6 years life out of the laptop we bought her while she was still in high school. She ran out of hard drive space a long time ago, just after she got into music downloads, and of course memory requirements are much greater now then they were six years ago. So to get by we invested in an external hard drive. By moving all the music and pictures to the external drive the built in drive had enough breathing space to actually function as work space for the operating system. As far as memory goes, I installed the memory I took out of my laptop when I moved to Vista into hers. Between those two changes she managed to get this last years use out of the old machine.

Graduation brought some money into her life and we decided to use part of it to purchase a replacement machine. We did a similar thing for Jamie when she graduated from Western Michigan but she decided she could get by with a desktop machine. You sure can purchase a lot more machine in a desktop configuration then you can as a laptop for the same amount of money.
We have had good luck purchasing refurbished machines from Dell, as a matter of fact the last three laptops we purchased have all been refurbished. You don't get to customize it but there is usually a good inventory of machines, so you can pretty much get whatever you are looking for. I have been looking into Dell's new Vestro line. These are geared to the business user so they aren't bleeding edge but are put together with good components and don't have all the "crapware" loaded like the normal consumer machines. I call all the trial applications that get loaded to most new machines "crapware". They are either only good for a short "trial" period or are partially crippled so you will shell out the money for the real product.

Other great thing about refurbished is it's ready to ship as soon as you decided on which one to purchase. I found and ordered it on Sunday and we received it on Thursday. The bad thing about that was now I needed to get busy transferring all the songs and pictures and other stuff she had accumulated over the past few years to the new machine.

Here is the rundown on the machine we purchased at $1,097 including a 3 year extended warranty, sales tax and shipping.
Vestro 1700 laptop
17" display
Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 (2.2GHz)
3 GB memory
160 gig hard drive
8X DVD writer
Nvidia 256meg graphics card

It actually took me a couple of days to do the transfers using Vista's included ‘Windows Easy Transfer’ utility, which included a failed first attempt. I am not sure what happened because I didn't do anything different with the second try than I did in the original attempt. All I know is when I went back to check on the progress the old machine had stalled with a write error.

Additional applications I loaded for her were Office XP and Trend Micro Internet Security. I figure any security suite that survived through 4 years at MSU with no infections was something we needed to stick with!

Under the weather and Graduation

2008-05-06T10:22:00.003-05:00

It's been a while since my last post, I have been a bit under the weather. I made it all winter without incident but then once we got back to Michigan and I was exposed to the Nieces and what ever I may have come in contact with when I went in for a physical was just more than my system could handle. It sort of knocked hell out of me for about 5 days but we are finally on our way to recovery.

Amanda our youngest graduated from Michigan State this last weekend with a Civil Engineering degree. The graduation ceremony went smoothly, then we met back at Mom's for a steak fry with some of the neighbors and a couple of Manda's long time school friends.

She has a job lined up with the Oregon Department of Transportation. Our next big project will be to get her focussed on finding a place a to live before we get her there, what she will be taking with her and the general logistics of getting her there and ready to go to work the beginning of June. Linda has pretty much everything lined up that she can but we still need to know how much we are taking and such so we can rent a truck for the move. She has a beater of a car (97 Pontiac Grand Am) that runs pretty good but sure looks like junk. It is hard to decide if we should just try to sell it here and get a new vehicle for her in Oregon or spend a little to fix this one up and transport it to Oregon. She has a lead on a room in a house that would be very close to work so maybe it would be better to let the raggedy car sit around rather than having a new vehicle getting the usual dings and dents with little usage.

The fish pond is up and running, clearing up nicely. Only have 1 fish left so we will need to pick up some replacements pretty soon. It was a really tough winter and our luck over-wintering fish didn't fair as well this year as it has in the past. I have had the usual repairs to the stream and bog areas to eliminate water leaks but nothing more than expected.

Vista SP1 Problems

2008-04-24T14:00:00.002-05:00

OK so here is a little rant for y'all. See my Texas accent? I have been a supporter of Vista and an early adopter. When people were complaining I just said this really isn't any different then what we have gone through with every major release of Windows. The real issue this time is other manufacturers have dropped the ball as far as supporting their old applications and hardware. In the old days you could go to the manufacturer's web site (or bulletin board for those of us who knew about computers before the web) and download updated drivers for your current hardware and fixes for your software. This time around a lot of companies, HP in particular have decided that it is time for you to purchase new hardware and/or software for the new OS and are not supplying drivers/updates for anything that is not currently in production. So in my opinion the big stink about in-compatibilities really isn't anything new. And yes every time we get a new release you have to spend some time figuring out how to get to all your old tools/utilities under the new interface.

So now to the rant part of this article. I recently installed SP1 which the world has been waiting for to fix all the Vista problems! Well guess what? It broke two Microsoft applications we run regularly on my laptop. The real issue is Microsoft has no fix at this point for the broken apps. The one I can almost understand, it's an older version of Encarta so I can't squawk too much about that but the other is Microsoft Streets and Trips version 2008! When I contacted Microsoft support their reply was yes that application is not compatible with SP1 and we suggest you uninstall SP1. Un-freeking believable! This is a company that has been getting all kinds of bad press about Vista, and they knowingly break their own applications without having a fix available.

I did some research on the net and was able to find a work around for the problem, you set the properties for the executable to run as administrator and Streets will run under SP1 but I was not able to get Encarta to run no matter what I tried.

Back in Michigan, Cook Duty and Identifying Stroke Symptoms

2008-04-23T21:01:00.004-05:00

We arrived back in Howell early Friday afternoon, April 18. We had good weather all the way home and it's hard to believe but we have even had good weather since we arrive. Word is it's not going to last but we have to be thankful for what we get.

It's been a busy week so far, the neighbors and family got together on Sunday for a steak fry. I got recruited to do the grilling. Then on Tuesdays the family gets together at Mom's for dinner. Jamie asked me to make her Mexican Chicken, so I have been pretty busy cooking!

Linda and I had dentist appointments on Tuesday and I had a Dr's appointment on Wednesday for my annual physical. Good news at the dentist both of us just had cleanings with no signs of problems. My physical went well until it was time to draw blood for cholesterol checks and such. At the end of the struggle I had three new holes in my arms and I still had all my blood. In the past, they have had trouble drawing blood but have always succeeded, but today I guess I just didn't co-operate! They decided to send me to the lab to have my blood drawn, and I decided to let my arms heal up a bit before I tried again.

We have added a new article to our web site outlining the STR hints for recognizing when someone's having a stroke. Please have a look, it could save a life.

Day 5, Sikeston, MO. Some flooding

2008-04-16T17:04:00.004-05:00

We are at the Hinton RV Park in Sikeston, MO. It's a great overnight stop and is close to Lambert's Cafe "The only Home of the throwed rolls". A great restaurant that calls to us every time we are through the area. I had the rib dinner and brought half a slab home for tomorrow nights dinner. Linda had the roast beef sandwich and she brought half that home as well as one of their cinnamon rolls for us to share!

We managed to get the wind behind us today so mileage was a bunch better than we got the first two and a half days of driving. We stopped at the Flying J, exit 57 on highway 55. As we exited the highway I looked to the east and saw part of the Mississippi a lot closer to the highway then I expected. Check out the two photos Linda managed to get. Click the image to see a larger version.

We saw a fair amount of flooding in Arkansas but nothing compared to the Mississippi, we are told it is at 41feet which is about 7 feet over flood stage! Linda usually wants to go to the New Marid river overlook but that wasn't going to be an option this trip.

We plan to be to Mom's early afternoon on Friday if all goes well. We will try to keep you informed!

We are licensed and in Arkadelphia Arkansas

2008-04-15T18:38:00.002-05:00

We checked out of the Escapees park when they opened this morning and headed for the Texas Department of Public Safety to finish up our drivers licenses. We got into the office about 9AM and had to wait in line a few minutes but things went smoothly. We had all the paper work done and since Linda was only getting a class C license she just had to sign her name, turn over her Michigan License and pay her money.

I had the opportunity to keep my motorcycle endorsement for a mere $15, no sense going through that process again if I ever win the lottery and can afford a Harley. From there I had to take a 20 question written test. As I was taking it I wondered why I needed to know the rules for a class A license when I was only trying to get a class B license (A is for someone driving a vehicle that weighs over 26,000 pounds and pulls a trailer that weighs more than 10,000 pounds).

I passed the written test than got scheduled for a driving test, another 30 minute wait. Things went well on the driving test and I was all done by 11AM. We headed to the WalMart again to hook the Jeep up (you have to park on the side of the highway at the DPS office). Since Taco Bell was right next door to the WalMart we had lunch before hitting the road.

We made pretty good time today and managed to get to the Arkadelphia Campground & RV Park in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. We had stopped here last year so were familiar with where it was and how to get there. There are new owners this year and they appear to be making a number of improvements. We are about half way to Michigan, so should be to Mom's on Friday without pushing it too hard.

No luck getting a license today!

2008-04-14T17:59:00.004-05:00

We kept checking with the Department of Public Safety throughout the day, the system was still down. About 2 we decided to take a tour of the area and go see Lake Livingston. I won't go into the details but let just say that my navigator had a few problems reading a paper map..... We finally managed to get around most of the lake and got to see some pretty scenery!

Once we were in cell phone range again we checked back on the camera/computer issues and they finally had the system back up. It was about 4PM and too late to do anything today, so we will have to make another attempt in the morning. The plan is to break camp and check out first thing in the morning and then drive to the office trying to be there as early as possible. With any luck I can get through the written and driving tests and we can get some mileage under our belts tomorrow.

Inspections and Registrations are complete

2008-04-14T12:23:00.003-05:00

Things went quite smoothly this morning. I was awake early so we got under way by 7:30. First stop was the RV Shack to get both vehicles inspected. We managed to be first in line, so they took the coach in first thing. As we were being inspected another guy came for an inspection but was turned away, seems we got the last two inspection stickers they had on hand. Everything went fine and we were on our way to the Polk County Tax Office by 9AM.

Since it is downtown and there is not a lot of parking we left the coach at the WalMart at the junction of 190 and 59. We thought we might have a problem at the tax office when we saw the sign that said no out of county checks. Apparently that is just an out if they have a suspicion about the customer. They were happy to take our out of state check.

From there it was back to WalMart to get the new plates on, then we headed for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Big snag here, seems the camera and computer were down and they were waiting for their tech support guy to show up and get things going again. So at lunch time we are waiting for the office to open back up from their lunch break so we can call to verify things are back up and running again. I am taking the time to study for the drivers test a bit more.

Livingston we have arrived!

2008-04-13T19:52:00.000-05:00

We made it to Livingston Texas today with no problems what so ever. Since it was Sunday we decided to run straight through down town Huston. There was a fair amount of traffic and we went by an accident that had traffic in the other direction backed up a bit.

Once we hit Livingston and started the trek to the campgrounds we managed to pick one of the more scenic routes (read narrow winding road). We made it without incident. The check in lady was friendly and very helpful, especially when she found out this was our first visit to an Escapees park and we were here to become Texans. She handed us a cheat sheet outlining what we will need to have with us, what order to do things in and giving locations of the three stops we need to make.

After getting settled we decided to drive around the town and layout our route for Monday. First we need to get a vehicle inspection for each vehicle. At this point we are not sure what is involved, the only thing I have a doubt about is a stone chip we have in the jeeps windshield. It's been injected with a stone chip kit from Permatex but you can still see the little star in the windshield. Tomorrow will tell. Next stop is the Tax office for vehicle registration and to pay the difference in sales tax between what we originally paid in sales tax on the amount required by Texas. Final stop will be the Department of Public Safety. I believe Linda will only have to hand her Michigan drivers license over and get a new Texas class C License. I will need to have a class B non-CDL license to drive the coach and that requires a written and driving test.

We'll let you know how we make out.

Were on our way, headed back to Michigan

2008-04-12T14:19:00.002-05:00

This is our first day of traveling after being holed up in south Texas since the last week in October. It takes a little getting used to herding this big box on wheels especially when heading into the wind for most of our travels today.

We got started right on time with only a small glitch with the lights on the Jeep. Seems ever since we had the safety recall done to correct a problem with the wiring for the exhaust brake and brake lights, we have been blowing the fuse for the trailer plug on the motor home. I thought I had it licked when I replaced the brake/turn signal bulbs with LED's on the Jeep. We made it all the way down here without an issue. This morning when checking to make sure the lights on the jeep were working I found the fuse was blown once again. I guess I will have to get in touch with Spartan to see if there is a fix for this issue.

We only put in about 250 miles today. We both figured that was enough for our first day. We want to be in Livingston, TX Sunday night which is only about 440 miles from Mission so we are better than half way there. Anyways it works well with my 230 plan, thats stop after 230 miles or 2:30 in the afternoon. Today we made our mileage by 1PM so I have some extra time for a nap.

We are staying at the Lazy Longhorn RV park in Victoria, Texas tonight. The have nice concrete roads and sites with a good cable lineup and free WiFi. Bud is enjoying having all the new smells to check out and Linda and I are looking forward to a nice nap this afternoon.

An empty park, cleaning and packing!

2008-04-10T16:20:00.003-05:00

Things are really getting quiet here in the park. I've only parked 1 rig in the last 3 days and have been having 6 to 8 rigs heading home each of those days. I am still opening the front gate in the morning, cleaning the pool and closing the gates in late afternoon. Along with any other odd jobs they need done in the park.

We are scheduled to leave on Saturday the 12th and are keeping a close eye on the weather. We seem to be okay for the trip to Escapees Rainbows End in Livingston but who knows what the trip from there to Michigan will bring. The big storms seem to be coming one after the other and really pounding the middle of the nation.

I have started getting our rig cleaned up and repacked. It's surprising how much work it takes to get all the stuff re-packed. I know I have added a couple of things, like the stand for the grill, but everything that I know I brought with us got bigger while we were here!

Our friends from Quebec are still holed up in Arkansas waiting for the weather to clear and the snow to clear out in I'lle Bizard. At one point there was 16 feet of snow piled up around their house.

Looking for beach gold combined with a road trip

2008-04-06T11:16:00.005-05:00

It's been a fairly cool weekend here in South Texas, at least for this area anyways. High in the 80s with cool nights that make for good sleeping weather.

Saturday we did another of our driving tours, my first intended stop was Boca Chica beach. There is usually a nice wide sandy beach but this weekend due to wind direction and tide levels there wasn't much beach to be driving on. In fact the usual hard pack just wasn't available for driving on. We probably would have turned around and headed for South Padre Island if it hadn't been for the fact I really wanted to collect some black sand to take home and run through my cleanup sluice. I know that south Texas is not known for gold but there have been some reports of gold on the beaches. We ended up using 4 wheel drive on the ole jeep to get down to where the black sand gets piled up. Once we get home and I have a chance to run the sand through the sluice I will let you know if we had any luck.

From there we headed over to South Padre Island. We visited the B & S Kite shop. I was proud of both of us because we didn't spend any money there even though we could easily have spent a lot. We then cruised along hotel row and managed to get on the beach for a bit. Linda tried to do a little shopping but didn't find what she was looking for (clothes for the little girls).

It seems one of Linda's favorite stops is Seven Seas in Los Fresnos, on Highway 100. She did manage to spend some money there but with what she has been saving most of the winter I guess I can't complain.

Bud and I figured this would be our last chance to hike in Bentsen RGV State Park so about 9AM we headed in to hike the Rio Grande Trail. It's a two mile trial but we had to hike into the trial head. So in total we must have hiked a bit over 4 miles round trip. Bud has not had the ambition to get off the couch since we got back. In previous years we have made this trip a number of times each season but due to my work camping job, this was the first time we have made the trip. Always an enjoyable hike!

Heat, Texas Drivers License and a few last jobs

2008-04-01T19:48:00.000-05:00

Well it's 77 degrees at 7AM, I think it might be a warm one today. Being the first of April we will be having a mass exodus today. There has been a small trickle of people leaving daily and the park is almost to the point of having more open sites then full ones, but that will change today. The winter work campers are pretty much done as of today. Rich and I are still going to be helping out with the gates, pool and occasional odd jobs but I should be able to start getting our stuff cleaned up and repacked in preparation for our leaving on the 12th.

We plan to head for Livingston, Texas, home of the Escapees organization. I for one would like to see their mail operation and take a look around the area. We also plan to become Texans while there. I bought a cowboy hat in preparation for the move! I have begun studying for the drivers license test, I will need to get a class B non-commercial license to be able to drive the coach since it's GVWR is over 26,001 pounds (actually 34,000 #). I have downloaded the DL manual from the Texas Department of Public Safety which also contains a list of 120 study questions. I am not sure if Linda is going to attempt it or just go with the standard class C license.

There are a several advantages to becoming Texans. One of the biggest is no state income tax and the other biggie is the cost of vehicle registration is a lot less compared to Michigan. In Michigan vehicle registration costs are based on the value of the unit being registered. In the case of the coach plates will be about $300 compared to $1,500 in Michigan. We also figure the state income tax elimination will help pay for the cost of fuel.

I have a couple of utility pedestals that the mice/rats got into last fall and basically destroyed the wiring for the control module. I figure I will tackle them once my co-worker goes on duty so I won't get interrupted while working. The other issue is when they did the supply wiring to the pedestals they didn't bother to mark the breaker so I have to guest which breaker is supplying power to the pedestal I need to work on. I will make sure to mark them as I figure out what’s tied to what. I will let you know how it goes.

Day Night Shade Repair and Work Camper Appreciation Dinner

2008-03-28T12:40:00.000-05:00

Linda was lucky enough to be messing with the day/night shade that sits behind my chair when one of the strings broke. I usually leave it closed because the sunlight shining on my laptop screen makes it impossible to read the screen. Consequently I am always giving her a hard time about messing with my window shade. So I had to give her a bad time about breaking my shade and now what was I going to do since I couldn't even read my laptop! The real issue here is now it's my responsibility to get the repair parts, take the blind down, restring it and get it re-installed. As you may be able to guess I have been teasing her about breaking it since it happened.

We found a fair about of information on the restringing process on the internet (what would we do without the internet!). I ordered a repair kit from the Dirty Blind Man, which arrived while I was working last go round. The kits are quite complete, including replacement string guides, tension springs, replacement string, string anchors for the bottom of the blind and a CD with pictures showing the restringing process. The only problem is our shades didn't exactly match up with the blinds shown on the CD.

I carefully disassembled the blind making a diagram of the string routing. I even took a couple of pictures of the end caps and how the tension springs connected to the end caps. The only place I had to work that was large enough to handle the 4 foot blind was on the floor. Bud was very curious as to what I was doing and how each and every part of the shade smelled. I guess everything was OK because he was finally able to get back up on the couch and watch my progress from there.

Reassembly went fairly smoothly, although it included putting the center rail on backwards. The other little problem I had was with the strings tangling when assembling the upper and lower shades to the center rail. By the time I was done I didn't feel like trying to get the shade re-hung with the valance and all so that waited until today. Re-hanging went smoother than anticipated and everything is back up and working. I left the extra string hanging below the anchors just in case I need to do some more adjustment. The excess string will be easy to trim off once we are confident things are working properly.

Last night we had a work camper appreciation dinner at the club house. The caterer brought in a rolling smoker/grill affair that turned out some really good beef, chicken and polish sausage. Along with the meat they served Spanish rice, beans and pico de gallo and of course tortillas. Excellent food and plenty of beer, wine and soft drinks to wash it all down. As usual when good food is involved I ate way too much!

An Evening with Friends and Morning Departures.

2008-03-25T13:08:00.000-05:00

03/25/08 - Last night Linda, I and six friends went out to Red Lobster for dinner. It's not one of my favorite places to eat but sharing a meal with good friends made it even better than I had hoped. Dinner ended with a little story from Mary Ann about a dinner adventure they had when she, Don, Reynoud and Gratia went to San Antonio to see the sites and lights of the city during last years Christmas season. Before Mary Ann got started Don, her husband, noted that she had never let the truth get in the way of a good story. I have to admit after that story I have to agree with him.

It all started when they decided to go out to dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse restaurant. Since it was close by where they were staying, they decided to walk. Reynoud had been there previously so he led the way. According to Mary Ann they walked at least 50 miles through the alleys and under the expressway all the while being followed by a bunch of menacing cats! Apparently when they had come to a Y in the road Reynoud chose the scenic route, when if he had taken the other route it would have been less than a mile to the restaurant. When she was done with the story my stomach muscle's hurt from laughing!

On a sad note Don, Mary Ann, Reynoud and Gratia pulled out this morning headed towards home. There were lots of hugs and well wishes. The really sad part is that of the four couples from last night's dinner Linda and I are the only ones that will be returning to Bentsen Palm Village next season. Two of the couples will be returning to the Valley but will be staying at a park in Alamo Texas. Lou and Sandy are not planning to return to the Valley next season. So the good-byes were especially emotional for all of us.

On a side note, the little gray cat has taken over Bud's water dish. This fact makes it extremely hard for the boy to pay attention to the job at hand when he is taken out to go potty. Bud has to be on alert to make sure that sinister cat doesn't sneak up and attack us.

Holding Tank Fun, Concrete Pads and Kitties.

2008-03-24T20:34:00.000-05:00

03/24/08 - We have finally noticed a gray cat that appears to be living under the porch of the front office. I say we meaning Linda and I because I believe Bud noticed a couple of weeks ago. Every once in a while when I took him out for his last evening potty break he would show a lot of interest in something behind the coach or once in a while under the coach. When our next door neighbors pulled out the other day I noticed the cat sitting on their patio and have since seen it a number of times around the first 3 or 4 sites in our row. I figure it will move on once most of the people have left.

The last couple of nights there has been a small RoadTrek parked next to us, piloted by an older lady and her two dogs. She was heading out this morning and was trying to get close enough to the sewer connection so she would not have to get her hose extension out. Only problem is these sites have about a six inch drop off at the back of the pad. Well guess what? She backed up just a little too far and dropped off the pad. Linda happened to see it occur and told me about it, so being a good neighbor I am dug through my boxes of stuff to find a couple of wood blocks left over from our 5th wheel and headed over to help.

She ended up being close enough to the drain as long as someone held onto the drain hose. I volunteered and let her run the drain controls. Once we had the tanks empty we started trying to get her back up on the pad so she was in a position to leave. It took a couple of tries but we were able to get her back up on the pad using our wooden blocks as a ramp.

I had left the door to the lower storage open while helping the lady next door and when I went to put my blocks away guess who I found checking out our basement? Yep, it was the cat. As soon as I showed up she decided to make a leisurely getaway. I will have to be a bit more careful about keeping the storage doors closed or we have one very upset kitty.

By the way I uploaded recipes again today, just check the dates for the latest additions.

2008-03-21T16:31:00.001-05:00

Wildfires, Friends heading home and New Internet Options

03/21/08 - We have added a number of new recipes to our site. Follow this link to the index page, I have tried to identify the latest additions with the date they were added. If you have a recipe you would like to see published here please send it to contact@westmorelandadventures.com and we will get it up with your name as contributor.

I was lucky enough to have high winds almost every day during my last shift. First they were out of the East South East shifting to the South East, then on the third day they stopped. That only lasted about an hour and they started back up only this time out of the North returning with a vengeance. I cleaned up a couple of branches that blew down and just pulled a few out of the way so the grounds people could take care of them the next morning. The winds were bad enough that a power line was blown down north of Edinburgh, which started a brush fire. The blaze managed to burn more than 50,000 acres and closed highway 281 which is one of the major north/south access roads for the Valley.

Our next door neighbors headed home to Illinois, on Wednesday. They consider all us young people their kids. Ernie is 86 and Lucile is 85 and both have a few health problems. They have been married 66 years! Most of the people around them try to help them out. We made sure we took their trash with us each day when we went and when I saw them trying to do maintenance around the trailer I would offer to help. They are very nice people and we hope to see them again next season.

We are hoping to make another one of our road trips this weekend, so should have something to write about in the next couple of days.

I am starting to look into using a Cellular Data Modem for our internet connection. We are hoping Linda can use this for work allowing us more freedom to travel. Currently she must use vacation time to travel between our summer and winter locations. What we would like to do is take our time going home so we can see more of this beautiful country of ours, which requires a reliable internet connection. We have not found reliable connections at most of the campgrounds we stop at so need to supply our own. We were looking at a tripod mounted satellite dish but have been holding off due to costs and the time and effort required to setup the equipment. The cellular modem would pretty much be just a plug and play solution after the initial setup process.

We are currently looking at a Verizon USB727 Modem tied to a CradlePoint MBR-1000 router, amplifier and external antenna. All available from the 3GStore.com. I know we wouldn't need the amp and external antenna all the time but it could make the difference in Linda being happy with her connection to work and all of us being unhappy. I will try to keep you informed of my progress.

Friday night was our last dinner & a movie night for the season with our friends from Quebec. A new Macaroni Grill opened up in McAllen so we tried it out. They just opened so were out of lasagna and Caesar salad. We had popcorn, Bud loved Gratia and we watched Employee of the Month. The movie is about employee competiveness at a warehouse super club. Now we need visit a Sam's Club or Costco to check things out.