Learning things...

 We got Ollie, our dog, almost a year ago.  In March we took him to Las Vegas with us in the trailer just for a couple of days.  In fact, the govenor declared a shut-down during the three days we were there!  So, he hasn't been in the trailer much; hell, neither have we!  So we decided we wanted to take him on a trailer trip just to see how he would act.  

My wife found a park she liked in Morro Bay, CA and called to ask about a reservation.  She was told that making a reservation a year in advance would be normal.  Well, that isn't our style for sure!  So we decided we'd just go over to the Las Vegas RV Resort, our go-to place in Sin City, and spend a few days.  It is a nice park and we had some nice sunsets.

 

 Hmmm.  Well, we did learn one thing.  When we are gone the dog howls!

We went out to breakfast at Blueberry Hill, our go-to breakfast restaurant, and about 3/4ths of the way through our meal my wife's phone rang.  Yep, someone had complained to the management that our dog was howling.  I can't blame them.  The park is an adult-only place and all those old folks seem to have dogs.  Actually the dog area is GREAT.  There are four separate fenced areas and one that is unfenced plus another unfenced area on the far side of the park.  It is really unusual to have so many places for the 4 legged ones.  

The park is basically paved with little graveled areas for the trees.  This was our site.

It was kind of funny.  It was a triangle with roads on all three sides.  There was noise from rigs going to and fro but the view out our windows was clear of other rigs.  We were at least 50 feet from any other rig and that is unusual!  Anyway, we really liked it. 

So, our dreams of wandering around and seeing some sights in Las Vegas were cancelled:  we'd be either at home with the dog or taking him with us.  So, we drove around Vegas seeing some new things & some old with the dog.  Hmm, a new definition of life in the fast lane!  Anyway, we ended up driving 145 miles around in the town.  We did stop a couple times and leave him alone in the truck & he seemed ok with that.  I'm not sure why but maybe it is just someplace he is more comfortable.  Or, there isn't anyone to complain about a howling dog in a store parking lot.  

Then, just to make our visit more memorable, there was a spike in corona virus cases and the govenor asked that everyone stay home as much as possible for the next couple of weeks.  Is there a curse about us visiting Las Vegas?  We did manage another breakfast out but mostly stayed in the rig and Saturday we came home.  

Since then my wife, who has had some minor lung issues, has stayed home while I do the shopping, etc.  The local VFW has a food bank that we like to contribute to so yesterday I went out and bought a few turkeys & stuff for them to distribute.  I even managed a couple of hams for those who can't manage a turkey.  We ordinarily get there when the distribution is almost over so we don't see many people; yesterday there were easily 7 or 8 times as many people there as I've ever seen.  I guess there are more people in need that I'd been thinking.  

So that's what is going on around here.  Staying home and washing hands a lot; now that is exciting!  Take care!

Cruising, kind of.....

Since returning from Washington we've been just catching our breath.  Between the 6,000 miles to and from Florida and the 2,500 to and from Washington; we're loving being stationary!

Somewhere along the line my neck and back started giving me trouble.  This crap comes and goes but it's kind of stuck around this time so I've gone to the doctor and had a few x-rays done.  They don't tell me much but I have an appointment with an orthopedic specialist coming up.  Maybe they can offer some good ideas.  I do know I don't want to be in pain forever and I don't want to be taking pain meds forever either.  There's gotta be a better way.

When we got home from Florida we had quite a few weeds in our yard.  During the trip to and from Washington it got kind of out of hand.

Happily we were able to engage a couple of young men to come and remove them.  Believe me, they earned their money pulling those weeds!  The small ones got sprayed.  Good bye weeds.  I'm sure they will return next year.


One of the things I love about living here is that there is such a diverse population.  Here is an RV I found in the Walmart parking lot.  I didn't want to approach too close; some folks really like their privacy.

It was built on a F-350 Ford chassis.  The only part I don't like is the lack of windows.  There wasn't even one.  However, maybe they have a cool sunroof.  The cover on the top would keep some of the sun out but who knows.  The guy sure likes his spare tires!

Gotta go.  I'll see if I can't do more of this updating thing. Ha!  Thanks for stopping by.

WOW!

Holy guacamole Bat Man!  Really, it's almost a month since I posted.  Who the heck wants to read something like that?  Well, sorry but I am a lousy correspondent via snail-mail so I guess expecting me to be a better blogger might be kind of wishful thinking.  So has anything been happening?

In a word, yes.  Most importantly my wife had some dental surgery planned IF this one blood test came back right.  As it turned out, the test suggested that the surgery should be put off so that got canceled.  Of course, having that sort of thing going on still involves trips to the lab, the dentist (in Vegas) and plenty of phone calls to the insurance people, etc.  It's not a minor deal even though the surgery was canceled.

So then there is the great bed purchase investigation.  We have had our bed for eight years and it is increasingly annoying.  It's not a standard size (2 inches too narrow er, 5 cm?) anyway that means sheets don't fit; it is foam so it is hot; it weighs a ton so can't be moved.  Ask my wife, I'm sure she has four or five other reasons to get rid of it.  Of course, shopping here is limited so after checking the local options, it's off to Vegas.  Off to Vegas five or six times that is!  Every bed place wants to sell you a Tempur-Pedic since they are two or three times the price of a regular mattress.  Happily for me, my wife really liked this one mattress that we saw early in our search.  Unhappily (in this case), she believes in investigating the market place so we had to hit six or eight other sales rooms.  FINALLY we got back to the first place and bought the darned thing!  Then, of course, it takes an act of Congress to the it delivered.  I love living out here but the once every 2 or 3 week delivery schedules are kind of 1870's.

Also on our list was our trailer.  Last time we used it we has a couple things that bothered us.  The big thing was that the linoleum in the main room was lifting up around the edges.  We loved the stuff when we had animals because it was so easy to clean.  But you've gotta agree that having it lift up is a bad thing.  Plus we had half a dozen other minor problems.  We scheduled a stop at the dealer so went over to Vegas a day early to get there at a reasonalble hour.  That was a happy thought.  We stayed, as usual, at the Las Vegas RV Resort on Nellis ave.  The spaces are kind of tight but it's all paved (level!), clean, 24 hour security, kind of every thing you would like in a city RV park and it was $30.  Can't beat it. We didn't have anything to eat so went out to a local place Aces and Ales.  It is a nice little sports bar-pub that has a huge selection of different beers and some not-bad food.  We each found a different porter to drink and some pub-grub to eat.  What's not to like?  To make it even better when my wife texted our daughter our whereabouts she responded "I'm on my way".  Well, I guess the way to the girl's heart is via a pub.  Who knew!  So we had a nice little visit with her.  Dropped off the rig then off home.

Of course we had to go get it a couple days later.  Back to the Resort for another night.  This time off to dinner at Casa Di Amore for an interesting experience.  The good:  the decor is 'classic Vegas' done well, the food is respectable.  The not good:  there was a huge birthday party of about 20 people making the place both really crowded and really loud.  We were lucky and got a booth on the edge of the room but it was still really loud.  And, of course, the service wasn't great since almost all the servers had some part of that huge party.  It's a place we might go back to but the clam linguine was kind of short on clams and whatever I had was forgetable since I've forgotten what it was! 

The good news about all this back and forth is that we got two breakfasts at Blueberry Hill.  We hit on this place years ago when we were visiting Vegas and it's still pretty good.  My wife loves the crepes and they have lots of other stuff.  Not cheap but it is Vegas!  There are several locations and I'm not enough of an expert to prefer one to the others.  Still, if you want breakfast that is good food and not on the strip; it would be my go-to place.

Having had the RV in the shop there are, of course, things we needed to do as well.  Highly technical stuff like putting Protect-All on the roof, replacing burned out light bulbs, replacing the anode in the water heater:  stuff like that.  It all takes time.  How did we do all this crap when we were working?  Oh yeah, we didn't have an RV.  Replacing the anode did have it's high point.  Ok, it's not tough, socket on the anode and unscrew, right?  Well, I kind of forgot that we'd used the trailer and there might be some pressure buildup in the water heater.  Result?

Yeah, I'm pretty covered in the crap that was in the water heater.  The impressive thing is that I'd taken the old anode out a few days earlier and had rinsed the heater.  Apparently I'd not done a very good job!  LOL  Anyway, it's cleaner now! 

On a less dramatic note I spent a day wandering around Nye County (here!) with some folks learning about testing our ground water for nuclear particles.  The Fed's had been doing it but now the county has taken it over so they wanted to show us all what a great job they are doing.  Actually it was kind of interesting.  The water testing itself is totally dull; it's the wells that are interesting. 

The photo is of our group checking out one of the wells supplying water to the town of Beatty, NV.  That little well house is really well insulated and from the parka in the foreground you can tell why.  It was darned cold up there!  That was a public well that is always in use so the water is always 'fresh' from the ground.  In other wells, it required hundreds of gallons of water to be pumped out before you could be sure that you were getting water from the groundwater source.  Apparently water in the pipe gets contaminated FROM the pipe so you have to pump it clear.  One of the wells being tested is in a place called Oasis Valley.  There is a spring nearby so it's relatively 'green'.  The unusual thing about that well is that some scientist from UNLV checked the water and there are elements in the water whose DNA is unknown.  Who knew water had DNA?  But apparently most water has stuff in it whose DNA is common; not like yours or mine but common for water.  Anyway, this place has DNA that just doesn't fit in with regular water.  The guy who noticed it will probably spend his career working on that little unknown thing.  Who knows what it might be!

Also on the naturalist side of things, our annual cowbird invasion has come and mostly gone.  I've no idea where they live in the winter or the summer but in the fall they come through here and pretty much take over!  They are late this year but there were plenty of them.

They are much more aggressive about the bird bath than our normal pigeons.  There would be a dozen standing on the lip of the bath and three or four more bathing.  They are the only birds other than pigeons that we've seen actually bathing.  Don't know what the deal is but if it works for them, ok.

Well, that's enough for this post.  I'll do another soon (I hope!) so until then, thanks for stopping by.  Take care.

Working ....

Who me?  Work?  Well, kinda.  We have high hopes of doing some traveling this summer so it is time to get the rig looking like someone cares.  Washing, waxing, doing some minor modifications; it sure FEELS like work.  The only thing I really dislike is trying to clean the silicone caulk that rv manufacturers put on the outside where trim pieces join.  That crap gets black then it's almost impossible to clean.  I've been looking for ideas on cleaning it but so far it seems like the only fix is to remove it and replace it.  Not the answer I was hoping to find!  Oh well, if that's all I've got to complain about.....

After working on the rig for a few days I thought my back would like a little time on the inversion table.  Well, I was wrong.  For the past three days I've been barely about to creep about and spending any time on the computer was out of the question.  I'm getting better though, sitting is easier.  Hopefully I can get on with things tomorrow but coughing is still extremely painful. 

Did you hear about the possible security breach at LinkedIn.com?   Some time ago I started using a separate password for every site that I visit.  It's a giant pain in the ass but better than having to worry about 'cross contamination'.  (Of course, Google has it's own ideas so blogger, Google and all it's affiliates are tied together which I do not like!)  I've loaded all these passwords on a thumb drive and keep that with my car keys.  It's one of the Sandisk ones that has it's own security system.  Hopefully if I'm ever stupid enough to lose the thing it will at least give me time to change major passwords. 

On the bad news front, our dog's chest wound from her cancer operation has started weeping fluid again.  She doesn't seem to be in pain or anything but we are taking her in to the vet again in the morning for a check.  We bandaged her up with neosporin, padding and a tee-shirt but she really ought to be over the healing period by now.  We are hoping that she simply injured the wound somehow, maybe lying on some rough rocks, but it's not looking good.

Well, that's most of the news that's fit to print.  Have a good one.

Diversity

One of the things I like about the RV community is the many different lifestyles in incorporates.  I had just written my previous post about the different parks we have stayed in when I went off to read the blogs of others.  It occurred to me that RV travel can be very different for different folks.  It's really a case of 'what ever works for you'.

Someone like Brian over at RV Boondocking is doing things totally different from us.  He drags his 30 foot 5er places I probably would hesitate to take my truck alone!  They have solar panels and hardly ever stay in a Forest Service campground much less a commercial one. 

Last night I was reading an article in a Trailer Life magazine that came while we were away.  It was about a guy's life long love affair with truck campers.  It's online here.  Again, someone doing things totally differently from me; also different from Brian but it's just another type of RV. 

Then there is Nick who writes the Gypsy Journal; a newspaper for the RV community.  They are full-timers who travel the country and write about it.  Sometimes I think he's got the greatest thing going; other times, when I can't even get a blog post done; well, I figure he's living is some kind of hell on earth!  Nick and his wife have a big motorhome but often stay at Elk's Lodges or the kind of campgrounds that my wife and I use. 

One of the key things though is that the experience is the same.  It's too hot or too cold or the road is bumpy or the scenery is amazing.  An 8 foot camper or a 40 foot motorhome is your own little palace and you get to do it your way.  I'm loving it!

Have a good one.

Happy 4th of July!!!

Thank you to all who are serving and those who have served before.  The military has always been the hard shell protecting our precious liberty.

We have been visiting friends here in Colorado Springs.  Lots of talking and eating; not so much sightseeing.  We did manage to get to the Air Force Academy.  Unfortunately there isn't a lot to see.  Since Osama was killed most of the base is off limits to casual visitors.  You can check out the visitor's center, gift shop and the chapel.  That's it.  Still, the chapel was very beautiful.

It's an interesting building.  The largest chapel is the non-denominational Protestant chapel upstairs.  This is the one where you see the soaring ceiling.  Directly below that chapel is a Catholic chapel; it is about two-thirds the size of the protestant chapel.  Finally, there is a small Jewish chapel and an even smaller Buddhist chapel behind the Catholic chapel.  It is a very interesting plan trying to make room for all faiths under the same roof.  We visited on a Friday and there were some people in both the Protestant and the Jewish chapels preparing for weddings.  Life goes on.

The weather has been extremely unusual.  There have been wind and rain storms almost every afternoon.  Saturday our friends came to show the RV to their grand-daughter.  She was interested in this combination of house and car and inspected it carefully!  While they were here a storm blew up.  Ordinary rain is noisy in the RV but today we got hail!  It was so loud you could hardly hear yourself think much less carry on a conversation.

Tomorrow we leave Colorado Springs and head towards home.  We are planning on going west to Gunnison, Durango and more.  We are planning on taking the Durango to Silverton Railway among other delights.  Then we'll try to see Monument Valley; John Ford made so many movies out there that we just have to check it out.  Finally, we'll head up north to pick up I-70 and go on home.  Should be fun.

Gotta go.  Hope you are having a good one.

Dog and cat days....

Having lots of fun getting ready for our trip.  Today was dog and cat maintenance day - brushing, trimming and washing all around.  Oh my aching back!  But everyone looks better (to human eyes anyway) and touching their coats is again a pleasure.  The dog was pretty cool with the whole thing.  The cat yowled a lot but at the end of the day, that's all he did and he's already been on my lap.  Can't be too pissed off!

We have piles of stuff around that are ready to be loaded into the trailer.  Cold weather clothes, blankets, extra water hoses, the bbq, there's just a ton of stuff that gets taken off the rig for one reason or another.  Tonight I'll start the refrigerator and in the a.m. start the a/c. 

I went to the store for a few things and it turned into one of those WTF moments.  It's Independence Day on Sunday so it's ok to expect the stores to be busy.  What I wasn't expecting was the general incompetence.  The kid behind the meat counter told me he had two days training; I'm surprised he could tell hamburger from ground pork.  What did they do?  Lay-off the butcher and hire this kid?  Heaven knows!  The ordinary check-out lanes were crowded with people with lots-o-stuff.  There are four self check-out lanes:  one was out of order.  A customer was on one and had fouled it up somehow so there were two left.  A family with two kids were fumbling with a third; that left one for the rest of us.  The idiot who oversees the self-checkouts even carded some guy buying a six-pack of beer - even I could see he was pushing 40!  Makes you glad you don't have to get anywhere in a hurry!

So, if I don't get to it tomorrow, Happy 4th of July everyone!


"Laws for the liberal education of the youth, especially of the lower class of the people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant." --John Adams

Long day

Had a long day today; well for us old retired farts it was long! Got up and had coffee, something to eat & all that then hitched the trailer to the truck and headed out to Vegas. The radio in the trailer sounded great except when we attached our iPod; then it sounded just screwed up. The dealer ordered a new radio & we needed to run the trailer over so they could install it.

Dropped the trailer off and went of for lunch and fun. We know almost nothing about Vegas so are planning on visiting as many casinos as we can. Today was the Cannery on Boulder Highway. MANY years ago we visited my wife's mom in Bullhead City, AZ. You'd get there by flying into Vegas and going south to Bullhead. Way out on the edge of town you'd see Sam's Town Casino. Now it's just another property on the Boulder Highway and the Cannery is somewhat south of it.

It was a nice enough place but nothing outstanding in our eyes. They did have a restaurant that had a $10 prime rib dinner - we might try that sometime. It's a small cut (I think 12 oz.) but who needs more than that? Being the big gamblers that we are; we each put $1 in a video poker machine. My wife lost hers; I was a big hero though and made $.30. Life in the fast lane!!!

Picked up the trailer, complete with new radio. Haven't tried it yet, like a couple of tree-stumps we didn't remember to bring the darned iPod! Anyway, brought the trailer home & parked it next to the house. Didn't get in the house until 16:45. We are talking about taking it over to Vegas in a few days to stay and see some of the sights and test out all the fixes that the dealer has made. Why live near Vegas and not visit? The trip was ok; wind is forecast for us tomorrow but we had plenty coming over the pass today. I always slow down in windy conditions; if you are going to get knocked around you have SOOOO much more time to respond. A couple of times I was very glad for our heavy pickup. Be safe!

"It never occurs to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united." Goethe

Unsolicited Testimonial

As I wrote in an earlier blog, we had a problem with the slideout in our trailer; a protruding bolt caught on the floor and ripped up the linoleum.  We took it back to our dealer, Johnnie Walker RV, they took photos of the damage and contacted the maker, Heartland.  Heartland sent new flooring and Johnnie Walker's folks installed it.  I have to say it looks great!  They sent the right stuff and the dealer's service department did a great job. 

You might think that's not so tough but remember, rv's are built from the bottom up.  First they build a platform then they lay the flooring and last they build all the walls, closets & everything.  This means that to replace the linoleum they had to carefully cut it to fit WITHIN all those walls & closets.  They even had to remove and replace the toilet (couldn't really trim around it).  Then they had to trim around about 75% of the trailer to make it look finished. And they had to remove the little carpet we have so the linoleum would be under that.  They did a great job.  They offered to give us carpet instead, carpet is much more forgiving to install, but we wanted the linoleum for the ease of cleaning.  Honestly, both the company and the dealer did everything they could to make the customer happy.  I don't find that everywhere I look!

Now we have to reload everything back into the rig.  That should be a full day's work but leaving the stuff in there while all the work was being done didn't seem very wise.  We would have had sawdust everywhere!

If we want more brotherhood and goodwill, more intelligence, more clear thinking, more honesty and sincerity, more tolerance and human understanding we must concentrate upon cultivating these qualities within ourselves.  - Howard W. Hintz, D.D.

I've been quiet again....

No particular reason but I just haven't been here. I'm reasonably certain that the pinched nerve in my neck has something to do with the amount of time I spend on the computer so I've been trying to cut that down to something 'normal'. Ha! Like I can ever be normal!

The only thing that's got my attention lately is Mr. Obama being given the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm not really against it; certainly he brought a whole new face to the way the U.S. is interacting with the rest of the world, but I'm not certain I like him being recognized at that level for what he has done. As many others have pointed out; it's an award based on his potential. At any rate, here's hoping he can earn the darned thing.

We took the trailer back to the dealer with a couple of warranty problems and I must say it was a great experience. They did the work promptly and without a bit of hassle. Of course, we are using the dealer who sold the unit. If it had been sold by someone in Florida, there might have been some paperwork foolishness. Still, full marks to Johnnie Walker RV in Las Vegas.

One of my favorite bloggers, lawyermom, points out that I might get into trouble for saying something nice about the rv dealer. Well, all I can say is that I didn't get any compensation for that plug. Thanks for the heads-up, lawyermom, if they ever offer me a cup of coffee while I'm waiting I'll know to just say 'no'.

Another favorite blogger, RandomRoger, who is supposed to be a financial guy, came up with a reference to a great article on Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer. We do watch his show all the time and pretty much drink his coolaid in regard to treatment of our dog. We are nowhere near consistent enough but we try. Turns out that Cesar is one of those illegal immigrants that we don't hear a lot about - a successful one! Go Cesar! And don't forget to pay your taxes, buddy!

Take it easy, it's dangerous out there!

Where am I???

Jeez, I don't know! Well, Mt. Shasta, CA - the city not on top of the mountain. Photo was taken from our campground about five minutes AFTER the optimal time for a mountain sunset. (Bah humbug!) We are on the second day of our trip to the Northwest and still haven't escaped the heat. Tonight, at least, we got to open up the windows by about 20:30. Last night we were in Fernley, NV - a little place outside of Reno - had the a/c on almost all night. Today we got to Northern California and the Interstate highway system. Interstates let you move around rather quickly but they are dull and always the same. Much of our trip so far has been on two lane roads; now we are on divided highway until we get well into Washington.

Things have gone well. A reasonable about of construction delay since this is the time to fix roads but otherwise things are cool. It is fun to be driving through all the trees in Northern CA. The new trailer tows nicely; isn't knocked about by passing trucks but it is susceptible to sidewinds. We can't find anything but that's because we threw things in here where ever it would fit. We'll get organized in another lifetime.

Take it easy; it's dangerous out there!

Where have I been?

Croft asked me where I've been. Well, here kind of. It's been a busy/anxious time. Let me start with last Thursday; that was the day we decided to buy the new trailer and agreed to close the deal on Tuesday.

Friday we made about twenty calls to our brokerage to transfer some money to our bank; get the bank to loan us the rest of the money for the RV; change the insurance and all the rest that goes on with a purchase like this. (It complicated things to borrow but the interest is tax deductible so we went for it.) The bank electronically transferred our down-payment money to the dealer and promised to overnight us a check for the loan amount(wouldn't use electronic transfer for some unknown reason). Of course Pahrump doesn't have overnight service on the weekend so that actually meant Monday afternoon. My wife is the worrier so she was having a fit all weekend; I supplied her with an unusually large quantity of alcohol to calm her.

All the time she was also worrying that the dealer would not accept our old rig in trade. I have no idea how many times I explained that the dealer was making a nice profit on both sides of this transaction and it would be ok. She was still worried when the dealer parked our old rig next to the new one so we could transfer our stuff. I think she was afraid they would let us move all the stuff THEN ask for more money. But no, there was no hitch at all.

The dealer encourages you to stay overnight in their lot just to try everything out so we took advantage of that and stayed Tuesday night. Actually, it was something like 110F (43C) in Vegas so by the time I'd gone back and forth between the two rigs I was pretty much a wreck. RV air conditioner units aren't all that great either so even though ours was running, it was still pretty warm in the rig. We went out looking for something to eat and then came back to the rig and drank two bottles of champagne to celebrate our purchase.

Got up Wednesday a.m. and slowly got ready to go. When we went to attach the trailer to the truck we discovered that the trailer hitch could not be raised high enough to get above the ball on the truck. It took a few more blocks of wood under the hitch to get us attached. Anyway we finally made it home about noon. Backed the new trailer into it's spot and came in to collapse!

This a.m. we hit the DMV to register the rig. It cost more than the truck! Over $300!

Now we are trying to get all our stuff organized so we can leave Monday a.m. for our first trip. As I said, we are headed for Washington state to visit family and see a few sights. Don't know when we'll be back; maybe three or four weeks. It will be nice to get out of the heat for a while. Heard on tv that this is traditionally the warmest week in Las Vegas. Next year I'm thinking we'll have to plan a trip for a little earlier! I don't know what the internet access will be while we are traveling but I'll do the best I can. Take it easy, it's dangerous out there!

A New RV!

Went into Vegas yesterday and decided that we do want one of the rv's we've been circling around. Here's the winner. It's a bit larger than our ideal size and the bedroom doesn't have flow through ventilation BUT in all our search we haven't found anything better. Plus, the price is acceptable so we went for it. My wife is on the phone with the bank arranging for a loan as I type.

It's odd how couples work out their finances. When we first got together we had separate accounts and took some care that if I signed up for the water bill, she would sign up for the newspaper and so on. Then after a few years, everything got merged together and, while we still have separate bank accounts, no one cares who pays for what or where the money comes from. Somewhere in there, I started doing all the bookwork and taking care of our investments. NOW she does all the everyday bills and the Quicken work and all I do is manage our investments. It works for us; might not for anyone else. I imagine everyone's situation is different.

One advantage for us is that we are both conversant with what's going on financially. We are getting to the age where we acknowledge that we might die unexpectedly and in that situation whoever survives needs to be able to manage things. Knowing your finances is critical. It's like being out in a boat; having just one captain is good but having only one person who can operate the boat is just plain dumb.

Take care, it's dangerous out there!

"You can never have a greater or a less dominion that over yourself." L. da Vinci

RSS - well, maybe!

OK, I've given it another shot at creating an RSS feed. Does it work; well, I guess I'll wait and see! As soon as I go find a feed reader, etc. Bah humbug! I read a LOT of blogs and just go visit them individually; I can see where going to one place would make life easier so it sounds like a good idea. What does Red Green say? "I'm a man, I can change, if I have to, I guess!"

Spent the day in Las Vegas looking at new trailers. Found a couple that might be interesting if they weren't quite so expensive. The dealers are letting their stock get down to nothing; who knows if the builder will be here in six months and you wouldn't want to be sitting on a bunch of orphans. Of course that means it's harder for the poor salesman who has nothing to show people but who cares about the salesperson? Guess we'll put a few more miles on our old rig.

Haven't given you a weather update lately - it's been hot! Over 100F (37C) is warm but it's been overcast as well with 20% humidity (a lot for here!). Everyone is complaining; especially the people who have evaporative coolers since they don't work will with this much humidity. It is also warmer in the night so we haven't been able to open up the house for the first time since we moved in. Outside the sun feels hot; hotter than in Florida but the lesser humidity means if feels more comfortable (at least to me!).

Well, gotta go. Be careful, it's dangerous out there!

Quiet times

Haven't blogged lately because I'm just plain dull. A very nice young woman named Rae has offered me advice about adding an RSS feed so I'm going to blow away the Atom feed and restart the whole process. I'm not entirely sure I need to do that but what I have now is clearly screwed up!

Went to Las Vegas last Saturday to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary with our kids (her kids - my step-children: a young woman of 39; a young man of 37 and his SO - youth is in the eye of the beholder). A good time was had by all. We dined at the Paris casino restaurant (steakhouse). We had a table upstairs on the balcony but traded it for one in a private room that was not being used. The view wasn't as good but we could be loud and not bother anyone or be bothered by them. Worked out great!

After dinner, my wife and I strolled the strip back to our hotel; just people watching. The kids took off and had their own fun. I'm certain all of us were in bed before midnight though the elder portion made it before 22:30! Watching the people on the street and in the casino it's hard to believe that the casinos are having a tough time. However I must say that when we left the restaurant at perhaps 20:30 the place was practically empty. THAT isn't normal I'm sure. There were a lot of people on the streets and they all seemed to be having a good time; maybe they just aren't throwing money at the casinos like in the old days.

Prostitution is legal in Pahrump but not in Las Vegas. (Rural county vs urban; don't ask how that came about!) Lately one of the bordello owners started a group urging the control illegal prostitution in Vegas. I thought it was just self-serving crap, NOW I'm in favor of his idea. On every corner there were six or eight guys handing out business cards for hookers! Not only does this add an awful lot of litter to the city but it doesn't do much for the town's image and they were annoying. Here I was walking hand-in-hand with my wife (I'm sixty; she's fifty-eight) and I was being offered hooker phone numbers. Bah, that's just beyond tacky.

Tomorrow is another trip over the hump; going to look at new trailers again. There are some we haven't seen so we have to check them out. We are planning a trip to the Pacific Northwest in late July and it would be fun to have a new rig. But if we can't find something we want; so be it. Even I can take a hint!

Be careful; it's dangerous out there!

More Pahrump

Ok, I thought it would be a good idea to pass on a few photos of the town and county around here. We are hanging around just relaxing. Later in the week we'll get really ambitious and get over the hill to Vegas.

Here is another shot of the mountains from the valley floor. They are at least 20 miles away.



Our park is a mile or so from Homestead Road. Here is where Homestead kind of changes character.



At the very end of the road is this place. It is one of the legal brothels here in Pahrump.

http://www.chickenranchbrothel.com/
http://www.sherisranch.net/




This is the "real" Pahrump. This is about as close to a downtown as Pahrump owns. Of course, the Walmart is down the road out of sight!



Talk about life in the fast lane! BTW, I forgot to list the Escapees website: http://www.escapees.com/ - it's a great organization for rv people. Have a good one!

Catchup....

Well, lots of shit has happened. For various reasons, I've fallen behind. Let's try to get it all in order. The 5th, we drove from Woodburn, Oregon to Weed, California. Went to Starbucks in Woodburn for coffee and a breakfast sandwich. Sandwich made me ill shortly after we got on the road. I wanted to stop driving but my wife didn't really want to drive in the mountains. SO I got to drive. Stopped once to see if I throw up but couldn't however, the attempt did seem to make me feel better. Found some mints and ate them all day. Did the Siskiyou mountain range - not much going on since it was a lovely fall day but you can see where lots of ice and snow would make it more interesting. Went to some park from the Escapees book - it was a hole next to the freeway but about 60 feet lower. No tv, cable, wifi, etc. I went to bed as soon as we landed.


The 6th was quite a day. Left Weed earlyish. Felt better; at least. Drove across one of the most lonely roads in California. The towns were population 200 size and there were only two of them in a 120 mile segment. Nice day though. We were uncertain about where to stop in the Reno, Nevada area. We were actually driving along looking at this rv park when someone flagged us down; we had smoke coming off the left rear wheel. One look told me 'wheelbearing' so we pulled into this park. Decided to stay a week. Anyway, it was only about 15:00 so I called around; made an appointment with a guy to fix it Tuesday a.m. Had dinner at the Boardertown casino; not awful but not memorable either.

Today I went over to the casino for breakie - finest piece of ham I've seen in quite a while. Only $8 too. Then I spent the morning watching a guy fix the trailer - $500 later things are cool, I think! Had to replace both bearings on the one wheel and another on the right side of the rig. Then he did grease all the rest of the bearings.

Wandered around Reno quite a bit yesterday. Got home 17:00 after lots of grocery shopping, etc. Went out to dinner. Looked for a place that the GPS knew about - it was some house out in Lemmon Valley; not a restaurant, for sure. So we tried another one; turned out to be another casino but at least they had a restaurant. Got home and watched 'In the Heat of the Night' on tv.

Now to see what kind of trouble we can get into today! I'll try to add some photos later. Have a good one.

Unusually nice!

We are having fantastic weather for this time of year and this place. It is in the 70's during the day; 50's in the night. It hasn't rained in at least five days. I've lived here; this is unusual!

A few photos seem to be in order. First, we traveled up US-101 highway to get here. Homes are situated along the edge of the road where there is space between it and the shore. These are typical; the water is the Hood Canal.



Our park is on the Olympic Peninsula. You can see across Puget Sound to Mount Baker northeast of Bellingham, WA. A reasonable guess is that it's about 75 miles away.



These characters are having an afternoon nap in a playground that the camp provides for kids. At this time of year, the kids are in school so guess who gets the playground.



In the midst of all this beauty, the stock market dumped almost 800 points today as the Congress expressed it's displeasure with the financial bailout plan proposed by the President and his advisors. I imagine that the plan will ultimately be passed but it is tough going through all this. We have substantial investments in the stock market so we are taking some large losses. Happily, we don't need the money 'today'. Every time I hear the idiots reporting the news talking about 'investors on Wall Street did such-and-so' I cringe. Most of those people on Wall Street are traders, not investors. Warren Buffett is an investor; in my own small way, I am an investor. We look carefully at a company before we buy into it and we keep it for a long time. Many, many of the mutual funds run by those Wall Street guys and gals have turnovers of 200% a year. That means they might buy a stock in January, sell it in May and buy it again in November. That just isn't investing; it's trading.

Hope you are all having a wonderful day. Take care.

Hello from Eastern Oregon

Hello!

We were camped in western Wyoming and were talking about this trailer we like: the Arctic Fox 29V. We have never even seen one but like the layout. We have also heard that you should visit the factory before buying something. SO, rather than continue on southwest to Reno, Nevada we came northwest to Le Grande, Oregon where the Arctic Fox rvs are made.

We went through the factory with one of their reps the other day. Typically factory tours are given once or twice a day; in our experience there will be six to twenty visitors. In this tour, it was me, my wife, the tour guy and a company salesman. Hmmm. Part of that is because it is late September and normal visitors aren't going to be here - it's cold. Unfortunately, the other reason is the economy/cost of fuel/lack of credit/etc. Want to know who's going to have a rough few years in the White House? Whoever wins! At this point they are both facing a lose-lose couple of years.

We liked the build quality so went to the local dealer. We don't know how closely connected they are to the factory but..... Anyway, they had 2 examples of the model we like - the 29V. So we checked them out pretty carefully. The first had a door that was sticking and a broken window. It also had a color scheme that we don't care about. The second had a color scheme that we actually like but had several options that we wouldn't ordinarily buy. Finally we discover that the factory is making some changes in the layout that we like for 2009. So we are faced with a trailer that we wouldn't buy; one we would buy if the price was right and some new ones that we like better.

In the end, we decided to ask about pricing on the 2008 that we thought was ok. Turns out that they liked it more than we did - couldn't come to an agreement on price! So I called them late this afternoon and said we were leaving town and thanked them for their time. Maybe they will figure out that they've pissed off a cash customer or maybe they won't. We are ok with either decision.

We would also have to purchase a truck to pull the trailer since our current truck is too small. We checked with the GM dealer (Chevy and GMC) - they don't have a truck available that meets our specs. The trailer dealer checked with the Ford dealer; there is one truck between here and Springfield, MO (1000 miles or so east) that is a good match though it is four wheel drive and we don't want that. Hmmm. We smell a rat or eight! Again, thanks for your time.

We are happy to leave with our current set up. We will go up into Washington to visit our family. They are out on the Olympic Peninsula so we don't have to worry about freezing. We should leave there in about a week and head south. When we are down there, we can order the truck we want. Dealers order an almost endless series of $300 options that inflate the price of a $35K truck to $45K. Ordering from the factory you order and pay for only what you want. THEN we can order the trailer we want - again, not something stuffed with options that inflate the price and give the user nothing. This could be good!

Hope you are having fun out there. It's sunny and warm but not hot here. I'm not saying anything about the drivers; no one's hit me yet! Take care.

Trucking West

We finally got out of Colorado Springs. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice town but we need to head west. So, of course, we went North. Wanted to catch I-80 for the trip west so.....

Denver was a breeze; went through mid-morning and didn't really slow down the entire way. Then Cheyenne, WY; there we just touched the city; saw the gleam of the capital. Now we are in Evanston, WY. Small town near the Utah border. Had some really LOUSY Mexican food for dinner; will not post the name of the resturant to protect the innocent but I will say it was a guy's name.

It occurred to me that you might not know about trucks & trailers. Here is a photo of our truck & trailer parked in Rawlings, WY. The truck is a 2000 GMC Sierra; what we call a half-ton pickup. The trailer is a 26 foot Cameo by Carriage; also manufactured in 2000.



The doors are open because it's time for the big fuzzy dog to get into her seat. Here she is looking somewhat odd. She is a mixed breed dog that we got from the Humane Society when she was about four months old. I always tell people she has a little of everything in her breeding. She is seven years old. The back seat of the truck is covered with an old blanket in an attempt to keep some of the dog hair off the actual seat.



So now you have an idea of the size of our trailer; truck & dog. Hope it all makes sense to you. Be careful out there; it's crazy!