Things are pretty quiet these days here in the desert. We are only looking at the low 90's (F) (32C) today so that's pretty comfortable; back to 100F (38C) in a week or so. We went into Vegas the other day to make our usual Sam's Club run; didn't buy a lot but somehow filled up the back of the car. We found a Costco in our travels and looked around it. There isn't a lot of difference and if the Costco were more convenient to reach I might think about switching but as it is, Sam's is very conveniently located and the Costco is a kind of pain to reach. We had lunch at Hooter's; it's a chain best known for the skimpy outfits the waitress' are required to wear. Our waitress happened to be really slow as was the kitchen in preparing our lunch: chicken wings. Not a success; we won't be back again.
We've been walking a couple miles out in the desert every morning, at 06:00 the sun feels warm but the temperature is still in the 70's (21C) so it's very comfortable. We take the dog & she can run off the lead for a while. It does us all good to see her enjoy a bit of freedom. This morning there wasn't much traffic (we are walking towards a highway that is a mile or so away) and it was SOOOOO quiet. We saw a bunny and a couple of jack rabbits but they were more alert than the dog so escaped her notice. She likes to chase them but has absolutely no chance of every catching one unless IT was abysmally unlucky.
I read differing opinions about our economy: it's recovering; it's recovering slowly; it's going to collapse; it's I-don't-know-what. Happily I know the future. Things will get better; things will get worse; things will recover; they will fail. I just don't know where we are in the cycle. LOL Good luck!
"Our civilization is still in a middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason." Theodore Dreiser
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
Weather or not....
Well, it was 66F (19C) this a.m. when I got up; 102F (39C) about 36 hours earlier. Needless to say we have wind; 20ish mph (maybe 40kph) with gusts to 45 (70kph). Love it. At least we get a couple cool days out of the deal.
Our primary elections are over and I'm fairly happy with the results though we can probably still find a way to screw things up in November. The Sheriff, who seems honest enough, was re-elected easily. The District Attorney got 404 votes out of over 7200 cast - obviously him wrecking both his county car and his personal car in one day didn't go over well with the electorate. There is also the small matter of an audit in a cash fund that found the county unknowingly paying for cheerleader outfits for the high school - just so happens his daughter was a cheerleader at the time. Otherwise, a couple of people with criminal records managed to get elected but since that isn't a requirement..... What can you say? Interesting question: should the leaders of our community be required to be - I don't know the term - non-felons? Or is non-major-misdemeanor enough? Or should we require never-been-found-guilty? I think I prefer the last.
Well, gotta go.
"Under every stone lurks a politician." Aristophanes
Our primary elections are over and I'm fairly happy with the results though we can probably still find a way to screw things up in November. The Sheriff, who seems honest enough, was re-elected easily. The District Attorney got 404 votes out of over 7200 cast - obviously him wrecking both his county car and his personal car in one day didn't go over well with the electorate. There is also the small matter of an audit in a cash fund that found the county unknowingly paying for cheerleader outfits for the high school - just so happens his daughter was a cheerleader at the time. Otherwise, a couple of people with criminal records managed to get elected but since that isn't a requirement..... What can you say? Interesting question: should the leaders of our community be required to be - I don't know the term - non-felons? Or is non-major-misdemeanor enough? Or should we require never-been-found-guilty? I think I prefer the last.
Well, gotta go.
"Under every stone lurks a politician." Aristophanes
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Primary Election Time
The primary election is over. The Republicans and Democrats have their candidates for the election in November. Here in the valley I'm not sure there was a lot of change. In the state Senate race there was a pretty interesting result.
To quote from Time (via Yahoo): "Reid couldn't have asked for a better candidate in Angle than if he'd picked her himself: the former State representative is a ultra-conservative who supports phasing out Social Security and Medicare; wants to abolish the EPA, and the Department of Energy and Education; and most recently got into trouble for supporting a prisoner drug rehab program that included massages."
You gotta wonder what this country is doing. On one hand you hear how much people want to change things in Washington, 'throw them all out'. Then you have some nutbag elected to face Harry Reid, the incumbent. Give me a break people. Apparently the voters have lost their minds; well at least the Republicans who all loved President Bush. Maybe I should be happy; this gives Harry a great chance.
Perhaps I should elaborate. Wikipedia tells us that in 2000 Las Vegas had almost 1.4 million of the 2 million people in Nevada. The numbers have probably grown but the proportion hasn't changed much. The people out in the rural areas might be Republican (they certainly are here!) but Las Vegas is where the action is. Harry Reid isn't stupid so he comes out here to ask for our vote but it is really Las Vegas where the election is won or lost. And Las Vegas is Democratic.
In other news, I took our truck in to Las Vegas to have the oil changed yesterday. It took 2.5 HOURS!!! Not that I was expecting anything else since I've been there before. Gotta find another dealer and see what they can do. I really like using the dealer while the vehicle is under warranty (just don't want to argue with some idiot about what was done or wasn't done) BUT this is totally stupid. I'm going to write to the service manager and unless they come up with something really special, it's the last time for Gauden Ford.
Summer is here; Vegas had a 110F (43C) day already but this weekend is supposed to be better like 85F (29C); a welcome break. But we all know it's coming; do you hear the theme from 'Jaws' in the background? We are now about three and a half weeks from heading north for a while. We'll visit relatives then trickle back down the Pacific coast for a couple weeks. Should be cool and refreshing to be so near the ocean for a while.
Have a good one.
"Liberty of thought is the life of the soul." --Voltaire
To quote from Time (via Yahoo): "Reid couldn't have asked for a better candidate in Angle than if he'd picked her himself: the former State representative is a ultra-conservative who supports phasing out Social Security and Medicare; wants to abolish the EPA, and the Department of Energy and Education; and most recently got into trouble for supporting a prisoner drug rehab program that included massages."
You gotta wonder what this country is doing. On one hand you hear how much people want to change things in Washington, 'throw them all out'. Then you have some nutbag elected to face Harry Reid, the incumbent. Give me a break people. Apparently the voters have lost their minds; well at least the Republicans who all loved President Bush. Maybe I should be happy; this gives Harry a great chance.
Perhaps I should elaborate. Wikipedia tells us that in 2000 Las Vegas had almost 1.4 million of the 2 million people in Nevada. The numbers have probably grown but the proportion hasn't changed much. The people out in the rural areas might be Republican (they certainly are here!) but Las Vegas is where the action is. Harry Reid isn't stupid so he comes out here to ask for our vote but it is really Las Vegas where the election is won or lost. And Las Vegas is Democratic.
In other news, I took our truck in to Las Vegas to have the oil changed yesterday. It took 2.5 HOURS!!! Not that I was expecting anything else since I've been there before. Gotta find another dealer and see what they can do. I really like using the dealer while the vehicle is under warranty (just don't want to argue with some idiot about what was done or wasn't done) BUT this is totally stupid. I'm going to write to the service manager and unless they come up with something really special, it's the last time for Gauden Ford.
Summer is here; Vegas had a 110F (43C) day already but this weekend is supposed to be better like 85F (29C); a welcome break. But we all know it's coming; do you hear the theme from 'Jaws' in the background? We are now about three and a half weeks from heading north for a while. We'll visit relatives then trickle back down the Pacific coast for a couple weeks. Should be cool and refreshing to be so near the ocean for a while.
Have a good one.
"Liberty of thought is the life of the soul." --Voltaire
Monday, May 31, 2010
Memorial Day
"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion." - John Adams 6th President (1767 - 1848)
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Home again.....
Home from our big trip to Vegas; all 140 miles of it! LOL But we got to find that all the stuff our dealer has had to do on the trailer works so now we can let the warranty expire knowing that we are on our own from here out. The list of fixes wasn't all that long; we just wanted to be sure things worked. Besides, it was a great opportunity to visit Las Vegas.
We stayed at the Las Vegas RV Resort on Nellis Ave. It was totally concreted and has quite a few people living there but it was clean, quiet and the people were nice. They even had a neat little double dog run so you didn't have to share the run with anyone else. It was about $35 a night which is lots more than we would usually pay but we did think we got a good value. The night we got there we went over to the Sam's Town Casino because it was only a block or so from our rv park. Found a steak house and decided to try it. Lousy food and worse service. I had to send my filet back since the cook couldn't tell the difference between med-rare and well done.
Tuesday morning we went out to breakfast at Blueberry Hill. It's a small local chain and my wife likes their blueberry crepes. I stuck to a traditional bacon & eggs thing but it was good. We spent the rest of the day just wandering around in four of the casinos: MGM Grand; New York, New York; Excalibur and Tropicana. They have a nice series of elevated walkways so you aren't trying to cross the strip in traffic. We had a nice time; nothing special but fun. Since we don't gamble to speak of, it was also pretty cheap. My wife had to try the NY,NY roller coaster. It was $14 and got her heart beating fast but she says she wouldn't go on it again. Too much whipsawing her head around. Went back to the rig and spent the evening eating some leftovers and harassing the animals.
Wednesday we again didn't do much during the day. We talked about hitting a few more casinos but were just too lazy. In the evening we went to the Fremont Street Experience. We'd read that it was in a lousy part of town and I have to say there were a certain number of questionable looking folks around there. We found a parking garage & roamed the 'experience'. It is about five blocks of the old Las Vegas casinos, strip clubs and trash-n-trinket stores that has been turned into a pedestrian. Since we don't gamble and it must be close to twenty years since I've been in a strip club; it didn't take long! Finally we went into the Nugget and found an Asian restaurant. My wife had Pad Thai and I had their stir-fry. The stir-fry had chicken and shrimp but I asked for chicken only as I have a shellfish allergy. Sure enough, I got all shrimp. Bah humbug! Sent it back and got barely cooked chicken but I ate it anyway. The Experience was starting to warm up a little when we left; mostly WAY too loud music and barricades that made it difficult to go anywhere. We left!
The wind had been blowing the whole week and it was supposed to get worse on Thursday afternoon. I don't like driving in gusty conditions. So when the cat got all weirded out about 05:00 on Thursday morning, we decided to pack up and hit the trail. The trip was fine, no problems, but being ahead of the commuter traffic may have had something to do with that. Between the truck and the trailer we are over fifty feet in length; not something I like to fool with on crowded on-ramps. Anyway, aside from a few nasty gusts on both sides of the pass it was a quiet trip.
Spent yesterday unloading a bunch of stuff from the trailer. It's only a couple days but there's a lot of unloading and cleaning that needs doing.
I enjoyed the couple days away from reading about whether or not this economy is dying. Also tried to ignore the oil well tragedy. Also the illegal immigration
situation in Arizona. Also the amazingly stupid politics of Nye County (where I live). Also anything else that wasn't glitzy, overpriced and tacky. It worked. I'm all better now. I'll pull my head out of the sand and do something next week. Until then, have a great Memorial Day weekend if you are here in the US; have a great weekend anyway if you aren't. Take care.
"The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes of fears or wishes rather than with their minds." - Walter Duranty
We stayed at the Las Vegas RV Resort on Nellis Ave. It was totally concreted and has quite a few people living there but it was clean, quiet and the people were nice. They even had a neat little double dog run so you didn't have to share the run with anyone else. It was about $35 a night which is lots more than we would usually pay but we did think we got a good value. The night we got there we went over to the Sam's Town Casino because it was only a block or so from our rv park. Found a steak house and decided to try it. Lousy food and worse service. I had to send my filet back since the cook couldn't tell the difference between med-rare and well done.
Tuesday morning we went out to breakfast at Blueberry Hill. It's a small local chain and my wife likes their blueberry crepes. I stuck to a traditional bacon & eggs thing but it was good. We spent the rest of the day just wandering around in four of the casinos: MGM Grand; New York, New York; Excalibur and Tropicana. They have a nice series of elevated walkways so you aren't trying to cross the strip in traffic. We had a nice time; nothing special but fun. Since we don't gamble to speak of, it was also pretty cheap. My wife had to try the NY,NY roller coaster. It was $14 and got her heart beating fast but she says she wouldn't go on it again. Too much whipsawing her head around. Went back to the rig and spent the evening eating some leftovers and harassing the animals.
Wednesday we again didn't do much during the day. We talked about hitting a few more casinos but were just too lazy. In the evening we went to the Fremont Street Experience. We'd read that it was in a lousy part of town and I have to say there were a certain number of questionable looking folks around there. We found a parking garage & roamed the 'experience'. It is about five blocks of the old Las Vegas casinos, strip clubs and trash-n-trinket stores that has been turned into a pedestrian. Since we don't gamble and it must be close to twenty years since I've been in a strip club; it didn't take long! Finally we went into the Nugget and found an Asian restaurant. My wife had Pad Thai and I had their stir-fry. The stir-fry had chicken and shrimp but I asked for chicken only as I have a shellfish allergy. Sure enough, I got all shrimp. Bah humbug! Sent it back and got barely cooked chicken but I ate it anyway. The Experience was starting to warm up a little when we left; mostly WAY too loud music and barricades that made it difficult to go anywhere. We left!
The wind had been blowing the whole week and it was supposed to get worse on Thursday afternoon. I don't like driving in gusty conditions. So when the cat got all weirded out about 05:00 on Thursday morning, we decided to pack up and hit the trail. The trip was fine, no problems, but being ahead of the commuter traffic may have had something to do with that. Between the truck and the trailer we are over fifty feet in length; not something I like to fool with on crowded on-ramps. Anyway, aside from a few nasty gusts on both sides of the pass it was a quiet trip.
Spent yesterday unloading a bunch of stuff from the trailer. It's only a couple days but there's a lot of unloading and cleaning that needs doing.
I enjoyed the couple days away from reading about whether or not this economy is dying. Also tried to ignore the oil well tragedy. Also the illegal immigration
situation in Arizona. Also the amazingly stupid politics of Nye County (where I live). Also anything else that wasn't glitzy, overpriced and tacky. It worked. I'm all better now. I'll pull my head out of the sand and do something next week. Until then, have a great Memorial Day weekend if you are here in the US; have a great weekend anyway if you aren't. Take care.
"The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes of fears or wishes rather than with their minds." - Walter Duranty
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Modification - sorry about that
I've just changed the blog so you have to do a word verification thing prior to commenting. I've been getting these comments in Chinese characters; I've no idea what they are saying or to whom but it's gonna stop. This is the first step; next we go to moderation if need be. Sorry to hassle the innocent but it's bugging me.
The market is bouncing around like the sick puppy it is. Wish I had some insight but all the news seems to be bad; can't expect the market to be happy. Hell, if BP could just cap that well in the Gulf I'll bet that would turn the market around. For now though, I don't see immediate return to the upside. Doesn't mean I'm going to sell everything; I'm just not a happy camper.
Going to hide my head in the sand and take our trailer over to Vegas for a couple days. Should get better wifi anyway! My ISP here is pretty low-tech. If I download something at 100Kb that's practically a record. We haven't seen many of the sights in Sin City so are looking forward to that. We also will be able to use a cab to get around and maybe have more than one drink; assuming we can afford it. Life in the fast lane, whoohoo! Gotta go load the trailer. Take care, y'all!
"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." R. L. Stevenson
The market is bouncing around like the sick puppy it is. Wish I had some insight but all the news seems to be bad; can't expect the market to be happy. Hell, if BP could just cap that well in the Gulf I'll bet that would turn the market around. For now though, I don't see immediate return to the upside. Doesn't mean I'm going to sell everything; I'm just not a happy camper.
Going to hide my head in the sand and take our trailer over to Vegas for a couple days. Should get better wifi anyway! My ISP here is pretty low-tech. If I download something at 100Kb that's practically a record. We haven't seen many of the sights in Sin City so are looking forward to that. We also will be able to use a cab to get around and maybe have more than one drink; assuming we can afford it. Life in the fast lane, whoohoo! Gotta go load the trailer. Take care, y'all!
"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." R. L. Stevenson
Thursday, May 13, 2010
One thing....
One thing about blogging: you meet some interesting people! Got a couple responses to my latest post about the market and moving into bonds.
First, Croft at Croft's Mexico mentioned his pension fund is into bonds - well, duh! They have a fiduciary responsibility to keep the money safe for the pensioners. Maybe they are trying to grow the amount so as to give increases but in a sideways market like we have in the U.S today they can't be looking for homerun stocks. (Don't have a clue what the Canadian markets are doing; I can barely keep track of the Dow.) I find it a scary time to move into bonds with Treasuries paying 1%. But that's why I'm not a professional money manager!
Then Dan, at The Art of Panic, came up with a attribution for one of my favorite quotes. The quote is "figures don't lie but liars figure" and he presents evidence that it was said by Mark Twain. Well, it sounds like Twain and the evidence sounds pretty impressive but I'm still not finding it in any standard reference. Odd that, say the Mark Twain web site, doesn't claim it. Anyway, who cares, it's a great line and an important point to remember whoever said it.
One more point about moving more into bonds. I don't do tectonic shifts to the old portfolio. When I talk about raising the percentage of bonds I'm talking steps of maybe 1%. Over a few years it will make a change but one trade every six or eight months as the interest rate modifications unfold is what we are talking about.
Have a good day and good luck!
"He is now fast rising from affluence to poverty." Mark Twain
First, Croft at Croft's Mexico mentioned his pension fund is into bonds - well, duh! They have a fiduciary responsibility to keep the money safe for the pensioners. Maybe they are trying to grow the amount so as to give increases but in a sideways market like we have in the U.S today they can't be looking for homerun stocks. (Don't have a clue what the Canadian markets are doing; I can barely keep track of the Dow.) I find it a scary time to move into bonds with Treasuries paying 1%. But that's why I'm not a professional money manager!
Then Dan, at The Art of Panic, came up with a attribution for one of my favorite quotes. The quote is "figures don't lie but liars figure" and he presents evidence that it was said by Mark Twain. Well, it sounds like Twain and the evidence sounds pretty impressive but I'm still not finding it in any standard reference. Odd that, say the Mark Twain web site, doesn't claim it. Anyway, who cares, it's a great line and an important point to remember whoever said it.
One more point about moving more into bonds. I don't do tectonic shifts to the old portfolio. When I talk about raising the percentage of bonds I'm talking steps of maybe 1%. Over a few years it will make a change but one trade every six or eight months as the interest rate modifications unfold is what we are talking about.
Have a good day and good luck!
"He is now fast rising from affluence to poverty." Mark Twain
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Computers!
Ok, now we are told that computerized trading is responsible for the almost 1,200 point drop last Thursday. Hmmm, well, it's a better story than the Greek riots but I'm still not too happy with it. I suppose the interplay between computerized trading in the various trading firms could have done something like that. Now do we call it a Black Swan event? And, could we have another event where the computers suddenly take the market UP 1,000 points? Certainly, the new rules that are being talked about that will restrain this type of trading are needed. Imagine if you had Stop Loss orders of maybe 15% on your entire portfolio you would have been stopped right out of the market. Amazing!
Last week I read something that I found almost equally amazing: that a portfolio of 80% bonds and 20% equities gave an Average Annual Nominal Return (AANR) that was 92% of that of a 100% equity portfolio. The AANR for the equity portfolio was 11.0%; that of the mostly bond portfolio was 10.2%. This was over the 60 years 12/31/49 to 12/21/09. Here is the link to the article (a pdf file) on the T. Rowe Price website. So; it sounds to me like I should be rebalancing to a more bond oriented stance. Right now may not be the time since coupon rates have to go up from here but at some point I'm definitely going for more bonds. I've been avoiding being too heavy in bonds because I expect to be retired for another 30 years and don't have much in the way of pension expectations. If bonds can perform like this though what's wrong with that picture?
I was trying to find the origin of the quote: Figures don't lie but liar's figure. I couldn't find it. I always thought it was Will Rogers but Bartlett's and a couple of web sites don't even mention it. I'm always skeptical of statistics like I just quoted so you can bet I won't go 80% bonds!
At any rate, have a good one.
"Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. It can't be done except by liars." Bernard Baruch
Last week I read something that I found almost equally amazing: that a portfolio of 80% bonds and 20% equities gave an Average Annual Nominal Return (AANR) that was 92% of that of a 100% equity portfolio. The AANR for the equity portfolio was 11.0%; that of the mostly bond portfolio was 10.2%. This was over the 60 years 12/31/49 to 12/21/09. Here is the link to the article (a pdf file) on the T. Rowe Price website. So; it sounds to me like I should be rebalancing to a more bond oriented stance. Right now may not be the time since coupon rates have to go up from here but at some point I'm definitely going for more bonds. I've been avoiding being too heavy in bonds because I expect to be retired for another 30 years and don't have much in the way of pension expectations. If bonds can perform like this though what's wrong with that picture?
I was trying to find the origin of the quote: Figures don't lie but liar's figure. I couldn't find it. I always thought it was Will Rogers but Bartlett's and a couple of web sites don't even mention it. I'm always skeptical of statistics like I just quoted so you can bet I won't go 80% bonds!
At any rate, have a good one.
"Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. It can't be done except by liars." Bernard Baruch
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Market Day
Whew! What a day for the US stock market. Of course it is all over the news. I was sitting here looking to buy a stock and couldn't believe my eyes. I look once and it's $21.97 then $19.00 then $22.91 all in the space of 20 minutes or so. Amazing! Sure glad I don't work in that industry. It might be a great place to make a lot of money but trying to make sense of it all would make me crazy. I read RandomRoger's blog; he's an investment adviser down in Arizona and has a lot of interesting thoughts about the stock market. He associated the day with an old Tom Petty song "Puke Down".
And why did it all happen? The only reason I've heard is the rioting in Greece over some of the changes the government is trying to make to fix their national debt problem. Well, maybe. I sincerely wonder what the market would do if our own lawmakers ever got off the dime and made some of the changes we need! Suppose someone fired 10% of the federal government employees - just the dumbest ones - to help balance the budget. The market would probably drop 5,000 points.
When we first retired, my wife would have gone into hysterics on a day like today. She'd be sure we'd be eating dog food before the week would be out. Now, thankfully, she is calmer and sees the market for the roller coaster it is. Like Roger says: "We have been through them before and you will go through them again."
I've been trying to reposition our investments to broaden our diversification. It's pretty good now but based on a lot of mutual funds that were good when we first bought them but have since declined in quality. I'm very much a buy and hold kind of investor and that's ok but not if you just never revisit your holdings. Like the famous Fidelity Magellan mutual fund(FMAGX). It was a real superstar of a fund years ago; now it's merely a proxy for the market as a whole so why not have an index fund that does the same thing (intentionally!) and is cheaper to own?
We also hold some individual stocks. Some, like Chevron, we've had for a long time, we bought it in 1997. As a "big oil", we might have done better or worse but at least it does give us that representation in the area. It pays a fair dividend as well. Of course, we also had Thornburg Mortgage(TMA) which was one of our financial stocks. It was in the $30 a share range now it's worth a penny or two a share. Ya can't win 'em all.
Hope your day was good and your tomorrow will be better.
Beware of him who promises something for nothing. Bernard M. Baruch
And why did it all happen? The only reason I've heard is the rioting in Greece over some of the changes the government is trying to make to fix their national debt problem. Well, maybe. I sincerely wonder what the market would do if our own lawmakers ever got off the dime and made some of the changes we need! Suppose someone fired 10% of the federal government employees - just the dumbest ones - to help balance the budget. The market would probably drop 5,000 points.
When we first retired, my wife would have gone into hysterics on a day like today. She'd be sure we'd be eating dog food before the week would be out. Now, thankfully, she is calmer and sees the market for the roller coaster it is. Like Roger says: "We have been through them before and you will go through them again."
I've been trying to reposition our investments to broaden our diversification. It's pretty good now but based on a lot of mutual funds that were good when we first bought them but have since declined in quality. I'm very much a buy and hold kind of investor and that's ok but not if you just never revisit your holdings. Like the famous Fidelity Magellan mutual fund(FMAGX). It was a real superstar of a fund years ago; now it's merely a proxy for the market as a whole so why not have an index fund that does the same thing (intentionally!) and is cheaper to own?
We also hold some individual stocks. Some, like Chevron, we've had for a long time, we bought it in 1997. As a "big oil", we might have done better or worse but at least it does give us that representation in the area. It pays a fair dividend as well. Of course, we also had Thornburg Mortgage(TMA) which was one of our financial stocks. It was in the $30 a share range now it's worth a penny or two a share. Ya can't win 'em all.
Hope your day was good and your tomorrow will be better.
Beware of him who promises something for nothing. Bernard M. Baruch
Monday, April 26, 2010
Guess I've been gone.....
Well, not really. I've been here; just feeling like crap! I've got another pinched nerve or something in the middle of my back that is just fine most of the time then pulls me up with a jerk every now and then. It is especially virulant when I am fairly close to horizontal - like when getting into or out of bed or moving towards one's partner! Yep, haven't been able to make love as usual these days. I mean, we are in our 60's; it's not like we are going to make the bed move! But it would be nice if we could just have our fun.
Aside from that, things are great. We are headed for Vegas next week to check out the work that was done on the trailer but we are pretty confident it will be ok. They have even replaced the radio-CD player because the AUX plug didn't work well with our iPod. Haven't spent nearly enough time in Vegas; people who live 3,000 miles away know more than we! Next week we'll get to visit a few of those famous places. BTW, remember we are not kids; you won't hear about the best topless pool here! Well, unless we happen upon it! LOL Highly unlikely I should think.
Have a good one!
"One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been" ~ Will Rogers, on growing older - Too bad he didn't make it!
Aside from that, things are great. We are headed for Vegas next week to check out the work that was done on the trailer but we are pretty confident it will be ok. They have even replaced the radio-CD player because the AUX plug didn't work well with our iPod. Haven't spent nearly enough time in Vegas; people who live 3,000 miles away know more than we! Next week we'll get to visit a few of those famous places. BTW, remember we are not kids; you won't hear about the best topless pool here! Well, unless we happen upon it! LOL Highly unlikely I should think.
Have a good one!
"One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been" ~ Will Rogers, on growing older - Too bad he didn't make it!
Monday, April 19, 2010
Five things I've never done...
Over at The Art of Panic, I found some lists; this one called to me!
Five things I've never done:
1. Made love with women of different races: when I was young, I wanted to sleep with women of many different nationalities and races. Black, yellow, red; I wanted them all. As it turns out, I've failed miserably at this.
2. Own fantastic cars. We had a BMW 325IS that was indeed fantastic. However, there are no Ferrari's, Rolls, Porsches and the ilk in my background - nor, I expect, in my future!
3. Live on a boat. We had thought we might move onto a boat for a couple of years but the economic times make it unlikely that we could re-sell any boat we purchased so we didn't do it. Do I regret it? Yes. Would I make the same decision again? Yes. We simply can't afford to have the odd $100K or $200K tied up in a boat that we can't sell.
4. Gone to war in Vietnam. This is a strange one. I was an Army 2nd Lt in the early 1970's when almost every 2nd Lt was off to Vietnam as soon as they got their bar. I was assigned to Ft. Bliss, TX and stayed there for my tour of duty. I have a vague sense of guilt that I never went; but, of course, that's silly. When in the Army, you go where you are told & do what you are told. Ft. Bliss was my karma.
5. Used my wife's name in this blog. I haven't shared the fact that I have a blog with her so using her name without her consent is just something I didn't want to do. It's not like it's unusual; probably one of the top 20 European/American names of all time but I just don't want to share it.
Guess that's it. Five things I've never done AND my feelings about it. Have a good one!
Five things I've never done:
1. Made love with women of different races: when I was young, I wanted to sleep with women of many different nationalities and races. Black, yellow, red; I wanted them all. As it turns out, I've failed miserably at this.
2. Own fantastic cars. We had a BMW 325IS that was indeed fantastic. However, there are no Ferrari's, Rolls, Porsches and the ilk in my background - nor, I expect, in my future!
3. Live on a boat. We had thought we might move onto a boat for a couple of years but the economic times make it unlikely that we could re-sell any boat we purchased so we didn't do it. Do I regret it? Yes. Would I make the same decision again? Yes. We simply can't afford to have the odd $100K or $200K tied up in a boat that we can't sell.
4. Gone to war in Vietnam. This is a strange one. I was an Army 2nd Lt in the early 1970's when almost every 2nd Lt was off to Vietnam as soon as they got their bar. I was assigned to Ft. Bliss, TX and stayed there for my tour of duty. I have a vague sense of guilt that I never went; but, of course, that's silly. When in the Army, you go where you are told & do what you are told. Ft. Bliss was my karma.
5. Used my wife's name in this blog. I haven't shared the fact that I have a blog with her so using her name without her consent is just something I didn't want to do. It's not like it's unusual; probably one of the top 20 European/American names of all time but I just don't want to share it.
Guess that's it. Five things I've never done AND my feelings about it. Have a good one!
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
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
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Love it!
I believe that deforestation of our planet is a problem. Haven't seen it demonstrated in quite this way before!
Friday, April 02, 2010
April???
Yep, it's April. Our local paper had practically the entire front page devoted to one joking article or another. Jeez, I wish they wouldn't do that. The news is so weird anyway that people are probably going to believe it to be true.
Here's a idea I'd support as the next amendment to our Constitution:
"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States ."
Right now Congress has it's own medical plan; retirement plan & a zillion other perks. Making that amendment retroactive would be even better but I doubt ANYONE in Congress would vote for that!
It's been windy here in the desert. Ordinarily I don't care but because of the rain we've gotten this year there weeds growing all over our rocked in yard. It looks pretty bad I must say. However, because of the wind you can't really apply the weed killer. Bah humbug! Today, it's fairly quiet so I'm off to kill weeds after I get done here. Life in the fast lane, huh.
I've been trying to do pizza on the bbq. There are plenty of recipes, even Epicurious has one but I'm having a terrible time. I keep burning the crap out of my dough. (Using store bought dough, btw, I'm lazy!) I'll keep on trying but have to let the laughter (from my wife) die down a bit. The idea is that you cook one side of the dough then flip it over and put on the toppings. I'm thinking I'll remove the thing from the grill while I'm loading on the ingredients. It will probably stick to the plate & never come off but I'll deal with that later! Of course not putting so much stuff on the pizza might also be an idea, LOL, but where's the fun in that?
"Cookery is become an art, a noble science; cooks are gentlemen." Robert Burton
Here's a idea I'd support as the next amendment to our Constitution:
"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States ."
Right now Congress has it's own medical plan; retirement plan & a zillion other perks. Making that amendment retroactive would be even better but I doubt ANYONE in Congress would vote for that!
It's been windy here in the desert. Ordinarily I don't care but because of the rain we've gotten this year there weeds growing all over our rocked in yard. It looks pretty bad I must say. However, because of the wind you can't really apply the weed killer. Bah humbug! Today, it's fairly quiet so I'm off to kill weeds after I get done here. Life in the fast lane, huh.
I've been trying to do pizza on the bbq. There are plenty of recipes, even Epicurious has one but I'm having a terrible time. I keep burning the crap out of my dough. (Using store bought dough, btw, I'm lazy!) I'll keep on trying but have to let the laughter (from my wife) die down a bit. The idea is that you cook one side of the dough then flip it over and put on the toppings. I'm thinking I'll remove the thing from the grill while I'm loading on the ingredients. It will probably stick to the plate & never come off but I'll deal with that later! Of course not putting so much stuff on the pizza might also be an idea, LOL, but where's the fun in that?
"Cookery is become an art, a noble science; cooks are gentlemen." Robert Burton
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Ahhhhhh........
We are relaxing after a visit from my wife's birth mother, her husband and our daughter. It's amazing how much tension and stress can be caused by a visit you want; by people you love. Guess that won't be news to anyone but jeez, it really is amazing!
We did to one thing that was really great; took the in-laws over to Red Rock Natl. Conservation Area. Here's a link. Actually I was amazed at the number of people but I guess a nice spring day was a big draw. Another thing I wasn't expecting was to be able to see climbers on the rock. I'll close with a couple of photos.
Here is a closeup of the dark rock in the center of the first picture - see the climber?
(Men, women and family) Can't live with them; can't live without them. Anon!
We did to one thing that was really great; took the in-laws over to Red Rock Natl. Conservation Area. Here's a link. Actually I was amazed at the number of people but I guess a nice spring day was a big draw. Another thing I wasn't expecting was to be able to see climbers on the rock. I'll close with a couple of photos.
A shot of some of the red rock; check out the dark rock in the middle of the frame.
(Men, women and family) Can't live with them; can't live without them. Anon!
Monday, March 15, 2010
Kinda normal stuff
Got the trailer back the other day; the dealer is waiting to get the new flooring so doesn't want our trailer sitting there for weeks on end. I can sympathize so brought it back. Was lucky and it was a nice day; not too windy and no snow.
It's pretty different hooking up by one's self. Almost makes you want a motorhome! LOL Well, it really wasn't that tough. From the time the guy got the trailer out where I could hook up until the time I left the lot was only 20 minutes; and that included me having to get him to raise the hitch. Let me explain. The trailer hitch has a motor to lift it but the leg isn't long enough to raise it to the height of the hitch ball unless it is supported by several inches of wood (one of the disadvantages of having a 4x4). The guy put 4 layers of 2x4 under the leg but it wasn't quite enough; the tow ball hit the hitch rather than going under it. So he came out again and raised the hitch with his tractor and added another layer of 2x4. Backed up and got hooked up. It really wasn't that tough; makes me wonder why my wife has such a problem backing me up but I guess that's another post!
Now we are preparing for a visit from my wife's birth mother & her husband. He's a fabulous guy; she's a ticking bomb; sometimes she's fine, sometimes she goes off on you. I'm sure most people know someone like that. Anyway, we are cleaning up things and getting prepared. The husband has diabetes (and other health problems) so we want to be careful about what we serve. We are still planning on corned beef & cabbage on St. Paddy's Day - not Catholic or even christian but we know a good meal when we hear it.
Hope things are good for you!
"You will be safest in the middle." Ovid
It's pretty different hooking up by one's self. Almost makes you want a motorhome! LOL Well, it really wasn't that tough. From the time the guy got the trailer out where I could hook up until the time I left the lot was only 20 minutes; and that included me having to get him to raise the hitch. Let me explain. The trailer hitch has a motor to lift it but the leg isn't long enough to raise it to the height of the hitch ball unless it is supported by several inches of wood (one of the disadvantages of having a 4x4). The guy put 4 layers of 2x4 under the leg but it wasn't quite enough; the tow ball hit the hitch rather than going under it. So he came out again and raised the hitch with his tractor and added another layer of 2x4. Backed up and got hooked up. It really wasn't that tough; makes me wonder why my wife has such a problem backing me up but I guess that's another post!
Now we are preparing for a visit from my wife's birth mother & her husband. He's a fabulous guy; she's a ticking bomb; sometimes she's fine, sometimes she goes off on you. I'm sure most people know someone like that. Anyway, we are cleaning up things and getting prepared. The husband has diabetes (and other health problems) so we want to be careful about what we serve. We are still planning on corned beef & cabbage on St. Paddy's Day - not Catholic or even christian but we know a good meal when we hear it.
Hope things are good for you!
"You will be safest in the middle." Ovid
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Good timing!
Yesterday we took the trailer over for service; it was a very sunny 60 degree day. The rig will need to stay there a while until the maker can tell the dealer what they intend to do about the damaged floor. They will either be able to patch it or they will have to replace the whole thing. Either way will work for us as long as it looks good when they are done.
This morning I woke to find snow here in the valley floor. Chains or snowtires were required for the pass between us and Vegas so I'm pretty happy about our trip being yesterday! My timing isn't always that good. I'm originally from Iowa so I can drive in the snow but the combination of the pass, the idiots driving the other cars and towing a big trailer would keep me home.
The photo is of the house across the street and was taken about 08:30 this morning. The snow sure looks nasty doesn't it. Of course, by noon the snow was all gone and now the sun is out warming things up. It will be muddy for a few days though. Hope you are having a good one.
"And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
This morning I woke to find snow here in the valley floor. Chains or snowtires were required for the pass between us and Vegas so I'm pretty happy about our trip being yesterday! My timing isn't always that good. I'm originally from Iowa so I can drive in the snow but the combination of the pass, the idiots driving the other cars and towing a big trailer would keep me home.
The photo is of the house across the street and was taken about 08:30 this morning. The snow sure looks nasty doesn't it. Of course, by noon the snow was all gone and now the sun is out warming things up. It will be muddy for a few days though. Hope you are having a good one.
"And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Monday, March 08, 2010
Nuttin Much
Got all cleaned up and dressed up for jury duty only to find that the person had plea-bargained and there wasn't going to be a trial. Oh well, it actually worked well for me. Got a few errands done early.
Have an appointment to take the trailer in (much later) for service. Have to get the slide fixed and we'll see what they propose for the floor. We are flexible but want the thing to look good. Heartland is supposed to be a good company and our dealer, Johnie Walker a good dealer, so we are hopeful.
It's been raining again in the desert; I fell asleep about 21:00 last night and my wife says it was really raining when she took the dog out. I've put two gallons of weedkiller down; probably only about 15 gallons to go! The clouds today were great. First they were in little layers around the mountains; then swooping down on the desert floor; then encompassing the mountain tops. Just nature putting on a show for us.
(Hmm, wanted to insert a photo here but Blogger has changed something. I'll have to figure that out again.) Have a good one!
"The only solid piece of scientific truth about which I feel totally confident is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature..." Lewis Thomas
Have an appointment to take the trailer in (much later) for service. Have to get the slide fixed and we'll see what they propose for the floor. We are flexible but want the thing to look good. Heartland is supposed to be a good company and our dealer, Johnie Walker a good dealer, so we are hopeful.
It's been raining again in the desert; I fell asleep about 21:00 last night and my wife says it was really raining when she took the dog out. I've put two gallons of weedkiller down; probably only about 15 gallons to go! The clouds today were great. First they were in little layers around the mountains; then swooping down on the desert floor; then encompassing the mountain tops. Just nature putting on a show for us.
(Hmm, wanted to insert a photo here but Blogger has changed something. I'll have to figure that out again.) Have a good one!
"The only solid piece of scientific truth about which I feel totally confident is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature..." Lewis Thomas
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Glad to be home...
We are both enjoying being home. Went to our favorite pizza place; went to the casino for breakfast and a little gambling; just doing all the usual stuff. My wife had the video recorder going while we were gone; recorded probably more than 20 hours a week so she's glued to the tv. I am catching up on all the blogs, etc. that I waste my day on. Then we got the mail....
There was a registered letter for me from the Sheriff: I've got jury duty starting tomorrow! It's only my second time, the last time was about 1985, so I guess it isn't that onerous. Besides, it's a good excuse to delay taking the trailer to be fixed. I'm enjoying driving something that's under 50 feet long.
Today I spent an hour or so out spraying weed killer on our rocks. All the rain this winter has brought out a fantastic crop of the little buggers and they are (wait for it...) growing like weeds! There are tons of them; I'll be headed off to the store for more weed killer after jury duty tomorrow. It's the nice season here in the desert, I did my spraying in my shirtsleeves. We are still wearing jeans but it's going to be shorts season soon.
Gotta go. Have a good one.
"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered." Ralph Waldo Emerson
There was a registered letter for me from the Sheriff: I've got jury duty starting tomorrow! It's only my second time, the last time was about 1985, so I guess it isn't that onerous. Besides, it's a good excuse to delay taking the trailer to be fixed. I'm enjoying driving something that's under 50 feet long.
Today I spent an hour or so out spraying weed killer on our rocks. All the rain this winter has brought out a fantastic crop of the little buggers and they are (wait for it...) growing like weeds! There are tons of them; I'll be headed off to the store for more weed killer after jury duty tomorrow. It's the nice season here in the desert, I did my spraying in my shirtsleeves. We are still wearing jeans but it's going to be shorts season soon.
Gotta go. Have a good one.
"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Home again....
25 Feb 2010
Up shortly before 07:00. Took Sammie for a long walk. We consider it her birthday as well so bought her a toy last night. We'll give it to her when we stop tonight.
Had a breakfast buritto with some of the last new tortillas - 09:00 - gotta dump the gray water & get on the road.
.
.
.
Had a long day to Fort Stockton, TX. The excitement was just before we got out of town. We were going along in the slow lane and came up an overpass to find a really mangled extension ladder in our lane! Happily there was no one directly next to us in the fast lane so I zipped over there; some guy had to wait a moment or two to pass us but I'm sure he understood. He certainly didn't try to pass us in our previous lane and drive over that ladder.
Stopped at the same PA park in Fort Stockton that we used on the way east. They still haven't fixed their internet; glad I don't have to hold my breath. To celebrate our 'special day' we had cheese and pate with some nice bread that we did in the convection oven; it worked pretty well but timing it was as much luck as planning. My wife fell asleep almost as soon as we stopped eating; went to bed about 19:30! I stayed up a bit more watching the Olympics but was in bed by 21:30.
3:31 PM 2/26/2010
Landed in Deming, NM about 20 minutes ago; we are in the Mountain Time Zone now. Fairly long day; some of the roads were pretty rough; especially the bridges. El Paso was as crapy as ever; too many people, cars & trucks on the one road through town. There was an accident that closed down part of the freeway but they had a radio announcement so we got in the far left lane and was just stop-and-go for 20 minutes or so.
We stayed in this park as well on the way east. That time they parked us in the middle of a big puddle; it's all dry this time but it isn't a lot better. The problem is that there isn't any real difference between the space and the roadway. It's a disappointment since this is an Escapees park and they are normally fantastic.
We are talking about making it a three day trip to get home. Stop in Casa Grande; then Congress, AZ; then Kingman, AZ, The first two are Escapees parks; the Kingman one is a PA park and is actually out in Green Valley (half way to Bullhead).
2/27/2010
Decided that making it a two day trip was what we wanted. It means we'll hit both Phoenix and Las Vegas on a weekend day; and it gets us home a day earlier important since we are getting a little travel-weary.
We wanted to get fuel before leaving Deming; across from the park was a gas station - diesel was $3.29 a gallon! We didn't think that was very good so spent a few minutes driving through Deming. Finally found a place with diesel for $2.79 a gallon - a $.50 difference! We wanted about 30 gallons so were pretty happy with finding the cheaper fuel.
Drove from Deming, NM to Congress, AZ - quite a long day but it's mostly freeway and we know the road so it wasn't too bad. Got into Congress just before the rain; got set up in record time. While I walked the dog it started raining. Had a quiet night watching the Olympics.
2/28/2010
Got up knowing we would be home tonight. Looking forward to that.
Had a rainy night but by 07:30 the next morning it was wet but at least not raining. Whew! Drained the blackwater (toilet stuff) then the graywater (showers & dishwashing stuff). All went smoothly; sometimes it's not that cool. Got hooked up and headed out. The trip from Congress north was very pretty. LOTS of great views; unfortunately lots of hills too. Glad we have that big diesel truck.
It was a nice trip though. Stopped at Kingman, AZ for fuel and lunch. Fuel is at least 10 cents a gallon more than on our trip east only a month ago. Lunch was Popeye's chicken: worked really well for me; not sure my wife was as happy. (She tries to stay away from fried foods.)
Had another almost-accident while driving through Las Vegas. We were going along in the slow lane where there was an exit lane next to us. Suddenly a little red car came around passing us on the right (the exit lane)! I had to slow but they made it. If they had mis-calculated just a bit, we'd have been driving home in a rental car.
Got home to find that the rain we'd had in AZ was here too. We have water sitting in the ditch in front of the house. I backed the trailer into the yard only to find that the rain made the ground really soft. It is the first time I've had to use the 4-wheel drive on the truck! It worked though; the trailer is installed next to the house where we can unload it over the next couple of days.
Unfortunately, that's not the end of the story! Yesterday, when we opened the slide there was kind of a 'sproing' that my wife says happened when the slide caught the carpeting inside the rig. I was outside and heard it but didn't see it. So when we got home I tried opening the slide with her watching inside. In a moment, she yelled 'stop!' - the slide was gouging a tear in the flooring! SOOO, I'm going to be calling the dealer tomorrow. Glad this didn't happen 2,000 miles away from a dealer.
The trip was great. We got to see even more of the family than we expected; we got to see our ex-neighbors; and we got to visit a few new places like the Space Center. Very successful. The truck performed perfectly; I'll be scheduling a service now that we are home. The trailer was also great. No problems until we made it home so who can complain about that?
Have a good day.
Up shortly before 07:00. Took Sammie for a long walk. We consider it her birthday as well so bought her a toy last night. We'll give it to her when we stop tonight.
Had a breakfast buritto with some of the last new tortillas - 09:00 - gotta dump the gray water & get on the road.
.
.
.
Had a long day to Fort Stockton, TX. The excitement was just before we got out of town. We were going along in the slow lane and came up an overpass to find a really mangled extension ladder in our lane! Happily there was no one directly next to us in the fast lane so I zipped over there; some guy had to wait a moment or two to pass us but I'm sure he understood. He certainly didn't try to pass us in our previous lane and drive over that ladder.
Stopped at the same PA park in Fort Stockton that we used on the way east. They still haven't fixed their internet; glad I don't have to hold my breath. To celebrate our 'special day' we had cheese and pate with some nice bread that we did in the convection oven; it worked pretty well but timing it was as much luck as planning. My wife fell asleep almost as soon as we stopped eating; went to bed about 19:30! I stayed up a bit more watching the Olympics but was in bed by 21:30.
3:31 PM 2/26/2010
Landed in Deming, NM about 20 minutes ago; we are in the Mountain Time Zone now. Fairly long day; some of the roads were pretty rough; especially the bridges. El Paso was as crapy as ever; too many people, cars & trucks on the one road through town. There was an accident that closed down part of the freeway but they had a radio announcement so we got in the far left lane and was just stop-and-go for 20 minutes or so.
We stayed in this park as well on the way east. That time they parked us in the middle of a big puddle; it's all dry this time but it isn't a lot better. The problem is that there isn't any real difference between the space and the roadway. It's a disappointment since this is an Escapees park and they are normally fantastic.
We are talking about making it a three day trip to get home. Stop in Casa Grande; then Congress, AZ; then Kingman, AZ, The first two are Escapees parks; the Kingman one is a PA park and is actually out in Green Valley (half way to Bullhead).
2/27/2010
Decided that making it a two day trip was what we wanted. It means we'll hit both Phoenix and Las Vegas on a weekend day; and it gets us home a day earlier important since we are getting a little travel-weary.
We wanted to get fuel before leaving Deming; across from the park was a gas station - diesel was $3.29 a gallon! We didn't think that was very good so spent a few minutes driving through Deming. Finally found a place with diesel for $2.79 a gallon - a $.50 difference! We wanted about 30 gallons so were pretty happy with finding the cheaper fuel.
Drove from Deming, NM to Congress, AZ - quite a long day but it's mostly freeway and we know the road so it wasn't too bad. Got into Congress just before the rain; got set up in record time. While I walked the dog it started raining. Had a quiet night watching the Olympics.
2/28/2010
Got up knowing we would be home tonight. Looking forward to that.
Had a rainy night but by 07:30 the next morning it was wet but at least not raining. Whew! Drained the blackwater (toilet stuff) then the graywater (showers & dishwashing stuff). All went smoothly; sometimes it's not that cool. Got hooked up and headed out. The trip from Congress north was very pretty. LOTS of great views; unfortunately lots of hills too. Glad we have that big diesel truck.
It was a nice trip though. Stopped at Kingman, AZ for fuel and lunch. Fuel is at least 10 cents a gallon more than on our trip east only a month ago. Lunch was Popeye's chicken: worked really well for me; not sure my wife was as happy. (She tries to stay away from fried foods.)
Had another almost-accident while driving through Las Vegas. We were going along in the slow lane where there was an exit lane next to us. Suddenly a little red car came around passing us on the right (the exit lane)! I had to slow but they made it. If they had mis-calculated just a bit, we'd have been driving home in a rental car.
Got home to find that the rain we'd had in AZ was here too. We have water sitting in the ditch in front of the house. I backed the trailer into the yard only to find that the rain made the ground really soft. It is the first time I've had to use the 4-wheel drive on the truck! It worked though; the trailer is installed next to the house where we can unload it over the next couple of days.
Unfortunately, that's not the end of the story! Yesterday, when we opened the slide there was kind of a 'sproing' that my wife says happened when the slide caught the carpeting inside the rig. I was outside and heard it but didn't see it. So when we got home I tried opening the slide with her watching inside. In a moment, she yelled 'stop!' - the slide was gouging a tear in the flooring! SOOO, I'm going to be calling the dealer tomorrow. Glad this didn't happen 2,000 miles away from a dealer.
The trip was great. We got to see even more of the family than we expected; we got to see our ex-neighbors; and we got to visit a few new places like the Space Center. Very successful. The truck performed perfectly; I'll be scheduling a service now that we are home. The trailer was also great. No problems until we made it home so who can complain about that?
Have a good day.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Traveling across Texas
22 Feb 2010
Headed to Houston. It was a pretty short day but full of drama. Well, at least for a minute. We were in Houston headed for the park. We were going along behind a woman in a mini-van; she was going a bit slow so I pulled out to pass her; there were four lanes and I moved into the third lane to pass. There was someone in the fourth and the mini-van was in the second. Suddenly we the guy in the first lane pulled in front of the mini-van; she thought about coming over into my lane but saw us at the last moment and jammed on her brakes. I was already on mine so we both slowed and let the idiot go ahead. We haven't been in such a tight spot in a long while.
Stayed in the Safari Mobile Home and RV Park; it's a PA park we we paid half price. It's a nice little place; back behind some kind of baseball practice place but close to the Johnson Space Center which we wanted to visit. The lady at the park told us we could get a coupon for half off admission to the Space Center at McDonalds so that kind of planned our next day.
23 Feb 2010
Went to McDonald's for breakfast and found our coupon. Entry into JSC is $20 so the coupon was saving us $10 each; not a bad deal! The breakfast was pretty good too. We also did a little checking around for our way out of Houston tomorrow.
The Space Center was pretty good. It was colder than hell riding around on the little tram but we really wanted to visit so managed it. Got to see Mission Control; the building where they house all the training modules and one of the original Saturn rockets. We'd seen the rocket before at Cape Canaveral but it was nice to have it explained by one of the guys who originally worked on them. Mission Control was great; just like it was way back when! The training modules were interesting but there wasn't anyone doing anything there so it was kind of boring.
We had lunch there; it was downright awful. They have a food court kind of thing that had 2 of 5 places open. We opted for a $8 chicken finger thing and a couple of $2 Cokes. Crap food at it's best. There were quite a number of foreign visitors; it's got to make an awful impression on people.
24 Feb 2010
Drove to San Antonio today. Short day but it's a good place to stop and sets up for easy days heading west. We are back in Stone Creek RV Park; it's PA so it's cheap and has free wifi included. What's not to like? We stopped in Schulenburg, Texas for lunch. There is a bbq place there that we really like. We've stopped there for years going back and forth on I-10. Express BBQ is our favorite but there are several and I imagine others would prefer them.
Landed here about 14:30; I did laundry while my wife cleaned the trailer. We both felt better when we got that done. Went to H.E.B. for some food - they have fresh tortilla's in their stores. Great! That's dinner. Got a some nice cheese and stuff as well. We don't celebrate Valentine's Day but we do celebrate our relationship on February 25th.
Now we have the goodies to enjoy tomorrow; whereever that is. Right now we are thinking it will be either Fort Stockton, TX or Pecos, TX. That's for tomorrow. Have a good one.
Headed to Houston. It was a pretty short day but full of drama. Well, at least for a minute. We were in Houston headed for the park. We were going along behind a woman in a mini-van; she was going a bit slow so I pulled out to pass her; there were four lanes and I moved into the third lane to pass. There was someone in the fourth and the mini-van was in the second. Suddenly we the guy in the first lane pulled in front of the mini-van; she thought about coming over into my lane but saw us at the last moment and jammed on her brakes. I was already on mine so we both slowed and let the idiot go ahead. We haven't been in such a tight spot in a long while.
Stayed in the Safari Mobile Home and RV Park; it's a PA park we we paid half price. It's a nice little place; back behind some kind of baseball practice place but close to the Johnson Space Center which we wanted to visit. The lady at the park told us we could get a coupon for half off admission to the Space Center at McDonalds so that kind of planned our next day.
23 Feb 2010
Went to McDonald's for breakfast and found our coupon. Entry into JSC is $20 so the coupon was saving us $10 each; not a bad deal! The breakfast was pretty good too. We also did a little checking around for our way out of Houston tomorrow.
The Space Center was pretty good. It was colder than hell riding around on the little tram but we really wanted to visit so managed it. Got to see Mission Control; the building where they house all the training modules and one of the original Saturn rockets. We'd seen the rocket before at Cape Canaveral but it was nice to have it explained by one of the guys who originally worked on them. Mission Control was great; just like it was way back when! The training modules were interesting but there wasn't anyone doing anything there so it was kind of boring.
We had lunch there; it was downright awful. They have a food court kind of thing that had 2 of 5 places open. We opted for a $8 chicken finger thing and a couple of $2 Cokes. Crap food at it's best. There were quite a number of foreign visitors; it's got to make an awful impression on people.
24 Feb 2010
Drove to San Antonio today. Short day but it's a good place to stop and sets up for easy days heading west. We are back in Stone Creek RV Park; it's PA so it's cheap and has free wifi included. What's not to like? We stopped in Schulenburg, Texas for lunch. There is a bbq place there that we really like. We've stopped there for years going back and forth on I-10. Express BBQ is our favorite but there are several and I imagine others would prefer them.
Landed here about 14:30; I did laundry while my wife cleaned the trailer. We both felt better when we got that done. Went to H.E.B. for some food - they have fresh tortilla's in their stores. Great! That's dinner. Got a some nice cheese and stuff as well. We don't celebrate Valentine's Day but we do celebrate our relationship on February 25th.
Now we have the goodies to enjoy tomorrow; whereever that is. Right now we are thinking it will be either Fort Stockton, TX or Pecos, TX. That's for tomorrow. Have a good one.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Back home-through the South
20 Feb 2010
Had a good day yesterday. Hit the road by 07:45 which is almost a new record for us. Drove up Highway 19 to I-10 then headed West. Got in to the Escapees park in Sumerdale, Alabama about 14:30 Central time (got an extra hour there). That's almost exactly what the GPS was estimating so we are liking the time estimate feature. Saw a few cops on the Interstate (5 or 6); most of them writing tickets for people. There were a couple Sheriff's deputies on 19 but they were just watching for people.
We talk big about slowing down and smelling the roses but don't usually manage it. We are staying here another day (tonight that is) but that's just to do some shopping and a little deep breathing after too many days with other people. I've always thought about visiting the aircraft museum at Pensacola but we've never done it. Maybe next trip! (Isn't that what I'm supposed to say?)
It's still chilly around here but sunny today and the weatherman seems to think the weekend will be good. Makes me happy anyway, I don't really like setting up and tearing down in the rain. I haven't figured out a rain outfit that I can do what I need to do and not get wet somewhere.
We dumped our tanks when we got here; they don't have a dump station but all the sites are full hookups. Anyway our hose-to-sewer connector leaked; lost maybe a pint or so of effulent - not a lot but kind of distressing. There is a Camping World just down the road so we'll get a new one.
21 Feb 2010
Went to a wonderful lunch at Le Roux in Foley, AL. It was kind of expensive but great! We'll be back again for dinner on our next trip. ALMOST made up for the shit we got at Lambert's! Went on to Walmart - got a new sewer connector so we'll see if that fixes our problem.
Landed at Duston, LA today. Had a good day in spite of the lousy roads in Louisana. Had do drive under 55 for part of the time; if we went faster it just rocked our guts out. Got on the road about 09:30 so it was a six hour day. Drove through a lot of clouds and some light rain but nothing serious.
Bad news is that I lost my cell phone. We think it got lost at a rest area just over the state line in Mississippi but who knows. Called AT&T to shut it off. Guess I'll be geting something new. Oh well, not a big deal I guess but what a pain in the ass.
Raining here now; hail in the area so we hope we don't get any of that. Haven't had to hook up in the rain yet on this trip and I hope the luck holds. It's no one's favorite thing. We chose this park for it's wifi; it's ok but nothing to write home about. Watching the Olympics on tv; tonight is ice dancing. Not my favorite but they are pretty great athletes!
"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well." - Pierre de Coubertin, The Olympic Creed Inspired by Bishop Ethelbert Talbot, speech, Olympic Games 1908
Had a good day yesterday. Hit the road by 07:45 which is almost a new record for us. Drove up Highway 19 to I-10 then headed West. Got in to the Escapees park in Sumerdale, Alabama about 14:30 Central time (got an extra hour there). That's almost exactly what the GPS was estimating so we are liking the time estimate feature. Saw a few cops on the Interstate (5 or 6); most of them writing tickets for people. There were a couple Sheriff's deputies on 19 but they were just watching for people.
We talk big about slowing down and smelling the roses but don't usually manage it. We are staying here another day (tonight that is) but that's just to do some shopping and a little deep breathing after too many days with other people. I've always thought about visiting the aircraft museum at Pensacola but we've never done it. Maybe next trip! (Isn't that what I'm supposed to say?)
It's still chilly around here but sunny today and the weatherman seems to think the weekend will be good. Makes me happy anyway, I don't really like setting up and tearing down in the rain. I haven't figured out a rain outfit that I can do what I need to do and not get wet somewhere.
We dumped our tanks when we got here; they don't have a dump station but all the sites are full hookups. Anyway our hose-to-sewer connector leaked; lost maybe a pint or so of effulent - not a lot but kind of distressing. There is a Camping World just down the road so we'll get a new one.
21 Feb 2010
Went to a wonderful lunch at Le Roux in Foley, AL. It was kind of expensive but great! We'll be back again for dinner on our next trip. ALMOST made up for the shit we got at Lambert's! Went on to Walmart - got a new sewer connector so we'll see if that fixes our problem.
Landed at Duston, LA today. Had a good day in spite of the lousy roads in Louisana. Had do drive under 55 for part of the time; if we went faster it just rocked our guts out. Got on the road about 09:30 so it was a six hour day. Drove through a lot of clouds and some light rain but nothing serious.
Bad news is that I lost my cell phone. We think it got lost at a rest area just over the state line in Mississippi but who knows. Called AT&T to shut it off. Guess I'll be geting something new. Oh well, not a big deal I guess but what a pain in the ass.
Raining here now; hail in the area so we hope we don't get any of that. Haven't had to hook up in the rain yet on this trip and I hope the luck holds. It's no one's favorite thing. We chose this park for it's wifi; it's ok but nothing to write home about. Watching the Olympics on tv; tonight is ice dancing. Not my favorite but they are pretty great athletes!
"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well." - Pierre de Coubertin, The Olympic Creed Inspired by Bishop Ethelbert Talbot, speech, Olympic Games 1908
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Trip report continued...
08 Feb 2010
Had a fairly nasty day yesterday but managed it. The Louisanna roads had some awful stretches; they have blocks of concrete that aren't leveled up to the next block so you hit these joints for miles at a time - bang bang bang. Then we were out in the middle of nowhere and they closed 2 of the three lanes of I-10 - wasted at least half an hour getting through that; there were people who must have lost over 2 hours but we were lucky. The bridges were bad too; one was so rough that I slowed to 50 mph and it was still rough. It was a long day; didn't arrive until almost 17:00. THEN, we found that the park we hoped to stay at was full. Boo, hiss! Started looking at the books and found another park about 15 miles away. Called them & said we'd be right over. Found this nice little place; it's on a major road but nothing compared to an Interstate! LOL Spent a quiet night watching the Superbowl (American football championship).
I don't think we saw a cop crossing all 900 miles of Texas, saw a bunch in Louisanna.
This a.m. we need to hit the road; it's likely to rain later.
09 Feb 2010
Drove across Mississippi and into Alabama. Saw 13 cops in the first 13 miles of Alabama; then another five before we stopped for the night at the Escapees park. Glad we were just poking along with the trailer.
10 Feb 2010
Spent a quiet day at the Rainbow Plantation (another Escapees park) - I did laundry for the high point. Rained like the devil last night but there are low drains to carry off the water. Went into town and had dinner at Lambert's Cafe - the ThrowedRolls place - had chicken & dumplings - little chicken and a kind of home made noodle - no dumpling at all - no vegie in the dish either. My wife had ham and beans - ok but for $27 plus tip it was crap. Oh and $2.19 cokes for drinks!
Off tomorrow for Florida. Plan on staying somewhere up near I-10 so it will be a short day. I'll dump the tanks and we'll be good to stay with our relatives for a few days. We will also have a short day to get to their house on Thursday; don't want to arrive and have to back into their space in the dark!
11 Feb 2010
Drove down to the relatives house near Crystal River. Got in quite early, maybe 14:00, so we could enjoy some time with the family after getting set up. They had lots of stone crab for everyone else & a very nice t-bone for me(shellfish allergy). Came back to the rig fairly early and let the wife have some family time.
12 Feb 2010
Spent the day with the family; a couple of friends showed up before noon then a couple more (from South Carolina) just before dinner. Had KFC and some pulled pork from SC for dinner. That pulled pork was a nice surprise. We both came to the rig & let the relatives have the evening with their friends.
13 Feb 2010
This is the day of the party; actual birthday is tomorrow but this is better for people to attend the party. My wife's uncle must be the most popular guy in town; there were are least twenty people at the party. Eight had come from out of state! Lots of food and talk. It started at 14:00 and we came back to the rig about 18:00; read a bit then early to bed.
14 Feb 2010
Another relative day. Started with the friends leaving then about 14:00 some more relatives showed up. My wife hasn't seen her cousin in 30 years; her great-aunt was present when her mom died 4 years ago. Now they are talking politics at the top of their lungs; I don't get paid enough to stick around. Heading to Palm Harbor tomorrow to see our ex-neighbors. Should be fun; also a good place to buy booze!
18 Feb 2010
Back with the relatives. Had fun seeing our friends. They seem pretty much the same. We never spent mornings with them; turns out they are as addicted to "Imus In the Morning" and Fox news as our relatives. Looking forward to moving on just to avoid that shit!
One of our friends has diabetes and is having trouble with it. He's lost like 30 lb that he couldn't really afford. Hope he manages to get it under control.
Went shopping at some of the Florida stores we knew. Bought new tennis shoes AND crocs at our favorite shoe store. Don't suppose we'll keep on traveling 2,500 miles to go shopping but it worked for us this trip. Bought booze for the return trip; it's cheaper in Florida than Nevada by 12-15 percent.
Taking everyone out to dinner tonight at their favorite resturant; we think it's awful but they like it so away we go. Can't rain on their parade ALL the time. Tomorrow morning we'll hit the road back to Nevada. We plan on stopping at a few places along the way. Hopefully we'll find some wifi so I can update this thing too!
Have a good one.
"Happiness is not a state to arrive at, rather, a manner of traveling." - Samuel Johnson
Had a fairly nasty day yesterday but managed it. The Louisanna roads had some awful stretches; they have blocks of concrete that aren't leveled up to the next block so you hit these joints for miles at a time - bang bang bang. Then we were out in the middle of nowhere and they closed 2 of the three lanes of I-10 - wasted at least half an hour getting through that; there were people who must have lost over 2 hours but we were lucky. The bridges were bad too; one was so rough that I slowed to 50 mph and it was still rough. It was a long day; didn't arrive until almost 17:00. THEN, we found that the park we hoped to stay at was full. Boo, hiss! Started looking at the books and found another park about 15 miles away. Called them & said we'd be right over. Found this nice little place; it's on a major road but nothing compared to an Interstate! LOL Spent a quiet night watching the Superbowl (American football championship).
I don't think we saw a cop crossing all 900 miles of Texas, saw a bunch in Louisanna.
This a.m. we need to hit the road; it's likely to rain later.
09 Feb 2010
Drove across Mississippi and into Alabama. Saw 13 cops in the first 13 miles of Alabama; then another five before we stopped for the night at the Escapees park. Glad we were just poking along with the trailer.
10 Feb 2010
Spent a quiet day at the Rainbow Plantation (another Escapees park) - I did laundry for the high point. Rained like the devil last night but there are low drains to carry off the water. Went into town and had dinner at Lambert's Cafe - the ThrowedRolls place - had chicken & dumplings - little chicken and a kind of home made noodle - no dumpling at all - no vegie in the dish either. My wife had ham and beans - ok but for $27 plus tip it was crap. Oh and $2.19 cokes for drinks!
Off tomorrow for Florida. Plan on staying somewhere up near I-10 so it will be a short day. I'll dump the tanks and we'll be good to stay with our relatives for a few days. We will also have a short day to get to their house on Thursday; don't want to arrive and have to back into their space in the dark!
11 Feb 2010
Drove down to the relatives house near Crystal River. Got in quite early, maybe 14:00, so we could enjoy some time with the family after getting set up. They had lots of stone crab for everyone else & a very nice t-bone for me(shellfish allergy). Came back to the rig fairly early and let the wife have some family time.
12 Feb 2010
Spent the day with the family; a couple of friends showed up before noon then a couple more (from South Carolina) just before dinner. Had KFC and some pulled pork from SC for dinner. That pulled pork was a nice surprise. We both came to the rig & let the relatives have the evening with their friends.
13 Feb 2010
This is the day of the party; actual birthday is tomorrow but this is better for people to attend the party. My wife's uncle must be the most popular guy in town; there were are least twenty people at the party. Eight had come from out of state! Lots of food and talk. It started at 14:00 and we came back to the rig about 18:00; read a bit then early to bed.
14 Feb 2010
Another relative day. Started with the friends leaving then about 14:00 some more relatives showed up. My wife hasn't seen her cousin in 30 years; her great-aunt was present when her mom died 4 years ago. Now they are talking politics at the top of their lungs; I don't get paid enough to stick around. Heading to Palm Harbor tomorrow to see our ex-neighbors. Should be fun; also a good place to buy booze!
18 Feb 2010
Back with the relatives. Had fun seeing our friends. They seem pretty much the same. We never spent mornings with them; turns out they are as addicted to "Imus In the Morning" and Fox news as our relatives. Looking forward to moving on just to avoid that shit!
One of our friends has diabetes and is having trouble with it. He's lost like 30 lb that he couldn't really afford. Hope he manages to get it under control.
Went shopping at some of the Florida stores we knew. Bought new tennis shoes AND crocs at our favorite shoe store. Don't suppose we'll keep on traveling 2,500 miles to go shopping but it worked for us this trip. Bought booze for the return trip; it's cheaper in Florida than Nevada by 12-15 percent.
Taking everyone out to dinner tonight at their favorite resturant; we think it's awful but they like it so away we go. Can't rain on their parade ALL the time. Tomorrow morning we'll hit the road back to Nevada. We plan on stopping at a few places along the way. Hopefully we'll find some wifi so I can update this thing too!
Have a good one.
"Happiness is not a state to arrive at, rather, a manner of traveling." - Samuel Johnson
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Finally - we're traveling
Traveling is something both my wife and I love but in the past year all we managed was a trip up to Washington state. However, that is changing! Actually, we are a thousand miles and three states away from home right now. We are headed for a family birthday celebration back in our old home state of Florida. We also hope to see a few of the sights on the way home. First we are beating feet for Florida; the trip home should be more relaxing. We are spending our days in the truck; our nights in our travel trailer. The dog gets the back seat in the truck and the cat has his catbed in the rear footwell. Most often I'm driving and my wife is navigating. She has 2 atlases and two GPS units. The first day we called ahead to say we were coming and the GPS estimated we'd arrive at 17:08 - the guy had to give me a hard time because we arrived at 17:10. That's the kind of navigator I married!
Here's a shot of the trailer in our yard. Living area is in the back; the bedroom is in the front. Bath in between.
Here's a shot of the living-dining area in the trailer.
Here's the first installment of our trip log.
03 Feb 2010
Left Pahrump at about 10:30 on Wednesday. Took longer than anyone would expect to load our food and clothes but we finally got out. It was a nice day but we had a long trip planned; down highway 95 to Laughlin then East towards Kingman, AZ then South again to Congress, AZ and the Escappees park there. "The Ranch" was open until 17:30 fortunately because it was after 17:00 when we arrived; thanks partially to Arizona being in the Mountain time zone! We both had forgotten that again!
There is a forest of Saguaro cactus on the way south. Very interesting; at one point they were interspersed with Joshua trees. Quite an interesting drive.
Parked in a nice level spot and hooked things up. It wasn't fancy but wasn't bad either; there was a nice dog run anyway. Had some dinner and to bed. No internet because they have a contract with someone called Tengo - the cost is excessive for us.
04 Feb 2010
Got out about 09:30; not bad for us. Had a drive to another Escapees' park: Dream Catcher in Deming, New Mexico.
Before leaving Congress we checked the Phoenix traffic; there was a 3 vehicle wreck that almost closed I-10 and I-17 in both directions. A truck hit a car which hit a Class A motorhome; the motorhome tipped on it's side and that closed 2 lanes about 06:45 - when we went through town at 10:30 it was finally clear but only just! Fortunately the only injuries were minor; the rv'ers weren't scratched, even their dogs were fine.
Lots of traffic on I-10 especially a lot of trucks. Amazing that this is in a tough economic time; doesn't look like it from the highway! Dream Catcher was a disappointment. Spaces were fairly tight; it had rained and there was standing water everywhere. It was just off the highway and on the other side was the railway line; trains all night long! We also had a leak in the water filter that I'd installed just before we left. It didn't leak at home but tonight I found it by the simple expedient of stepping in water. Bah humbug! Worked on it and got it to a very small drip but still a pain.
05 Feb 2010
Hit the road quite early, before 09:00! We discovered that the water pump in the rig doesn't put out as much
pressure as the park water does and the leak in the water filter is much slighter. We decided we can just use the rig water pump until we make it to San Antonio or somewhere where we can get parts easier.
We planned on driving to Ozona, TX today. Nice weather so headed East on I-10. Somewhere during the day, my wife came up with the novel thought that we really didn't need to kill ourselves getting to Florida; we have plenty of time. So our first move was to cut the day's driving by about a hour and a half and stopped at a Passport America park in Fort Stockton, TX. We'd stayed in the park before some years ago; it is kind of ugly but had drainage so was dry and quiet.
We had stopped at a rest area during the day and a trucker's refer unit caught on fire! There was lots of smoke but another trucker noticed what was happening and banged on the guy's door to wake him. As soon as he shut if off, the smoke stopped. He had to call for instructions though; that cold cargo couldn't just sit there getting warm. He was lucky the other trucker noticed the problem before the fire got really out of hand!
06 Feb 2010
My wife woke at 03:30 or something like that; she was showering about 05:30! Not like her but at least she got her shower. I was afraid she might run out of water. By the time she got out of the shower I was ready to go turn on the park water but she had finished. I was back asleep before she turned on her hair dryer and didn't wake until 08:30. So it was almost 10:00 before we got on the road.
Last night I tried tightening the clamps on the water filter again. Must have done something right because it's
almost completely gone. It's small enough that it doesn't reach the floor before it evaporates. Cool!
Rather than go all the way to Houston, which was our original target for today, we stopped outside San Antonio. Things were quiet until we got on the road that circles around the northern part of town. Those people were crazy! Eight or ten cars would merge into traffic without bothering to worry about the people already on the road. We were following a big truck; how he managed to avoid killing about a dozen people I'll never know. They certainly made life tough for that driver.
Our park today is Stone Creek RV Park in Schertz, TX. It's a Passport America park so was only $15.50. This is another place we've been before; they have nice sized spaces that each has an outside table and a little shade. Unfortunately, the spaces aren't totally level but every rv'er has to deal with that from time to time. We carry both 2x8s and 4x4s to prop up the low side of the trailer. This is a 2x8 place. We especially like staying here because there is a supermarket here (HUB) that has freshly made tortillas. Yum! Those nice warm tortillas filled with spiced hamburger, cheese and salsa - we had a great dinner! And we have free wifi!!! First internet time since we left Pahrump. Doubt if it will be a late night; this traveling is tiring!
Here's a shot of the trailer in our yard. Living area is in the back; the bedroom is in the front. Bath in between.
Here's a shot of the living-dining area in the trailer.
Here's the first installment of our trip log.
03 Feb 2010
Left Pahrump at about 10:30 on Wednesday. Took longer than anyone would expect to load our food and clothes but we finally got out. It was a nice day but we had a long trip planned; down highway 95 to Laughlin then East towards Kingman, AZ then South again to Congress, AZ and the Escappees park there. "The Ranch" was open until 17:30 fortunately because it was after 17:00 when we arrived; thanks partially to Arizona being in the Mountain time zone! We both had forgotten that again!
There is a forest of Saguaro cactus on the way south. Very interesting; at one point they were interspersed with Joshua trees. Quite an interesting drive.
Parked in a nice level spot and hooked things up. It wasn't fancy but wasn't bad either; there was a nice dog run anyway. Had some dinner and to bed. No internet because they have a contract with someone called Tengo - the cost is excessive for us.
04 Feb 2010
Got out about 09:30; not bad for us. Had a drive to another Escapees' park: Dream Catcher in Deming, New Mexico.
Before leaving Congress we checked the Phoenix traffic; there was a 3 vehicle wreck that almost closed I-10 and I-17 in both directions. A truck hit a car which hit a Class A motorhome; the motorhome tipped on it's side and that closed 2 lanes about 06:45 - when we went through town at 10:30 it was finally clear but only just! Fortunately the only injuries were minor; the rv'ers weren't scratched, even their dogs were fine.
Lots of traffic on I-10 especially a lot of trucks. Amazing that this is in a tough economic time; doesn't look like it from the highway! Dream Catcher was a disappointment. Spaces were fairly tight; it had rained and there was standing water everywhere. It was just off the highway and on the other side was the railway line; trains all night long! We also had a leak in the water filter that I'd installed just before we left. It didn't leak at home but tonight I found it by the simple expedient of stepping in water. Bah humbug! Worked on it and got it to a very small drip but still a pain.
05 Feb 2010
Hit the road quite early, before 09:00! We discovered that the water pump in the rig doesn't put out as much
pressure as the park water does and the leak in the water filter is much slighter. We decided we can just use the rig water pump until we make it to San Antonio or somewhere where we can get parts easier.
We planned on driving to Ozona, TX today. Nice weather so headed East on I-10. Somewhere during the day, my wife came up with the novel thought that we really didn't need to kill ourselves getting to Florida; we have plenty of time. So our first move was to cut the day's driving by about a hour and a half and stopped at a Passport America park in Fort Stockton, TX. We'd stayed in the park before some years ago; it is kind of ugly but had drainage so was dry and quiet.
We had stopped at a rest area during the day and a trucker's refer unit caught on fire! There was lots of smoke but another trucker noticed what was happening and banged on the guy's door to wake him. As soon as he shut if off, the smoke stopped. He had to call for instructions though; that cold cargo couldn't just sit there getting warm. He was lucky the other trucker noticed the problem before the fire got really out of hand!
06 Feb 2010
My wife woke at 03:30 or something like that; she was showering about 05:30! Not like her but at least she got her shower. I was afraid she might run out of water. By the time she got out of the shower I was ready to go turn on the park water but she had finished. I was back asleep before she turned on her hair dryer and didn't wake until 08:30. So it was almost 10:00 before we got on the road.
Last night I tried tightening the clamps on the water filter again. Must have done something right because it's
almost completely gone. It's small enough that it doesn't reach the floor before it evaporates. Cool!
Rather than go all the way to Houston, which was our original target for today, we stopped outside San Antonio. Things were quiet until we got on the road that circles around the northern part of town. Those people were crazy! Eight or ten cars would merge into traffic without bothering to worry about the people already on the road. We were following a big truck; how he managed to avoid killing about a dozen people I'll never know. They certainly made life tough for that driver.
Our park today is Stone Creek RV Park in Schertz, TX. It's a Passport America park so was only $15.50. This is another place we've been before; they have nice sized spaces that each has an outside table and a little shade. Unfortunately, the spaces aren't totally level but every rv'er has to deal with that from time to time. We carry both 2x8s and 4x4s to prop up the low side of the trailer. This is a 2x8 place. We especially like staying here because there is a supermarket here (HUB) that has freshly made tortillas. Yum! Those nice warm tortillas filled with spiced hamburger, cheese and salsa - we had a great dinner! And we have free wifi!!! First internet time since we left Pahrump. Doubt if it will be a late night; this traveling is tiring!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Vegas Baby!
Went over the hump to the big city today. Nothing very important, just getting some supplies for our trip to Florida next month. We are probably kind of weird travellers; we start late in the day and stop early so don't make a lot of miles per day. It's 2,500 miles (4000+ km) to our Florida destination and should take us 6 to 8 days. After we've been traveling for a few days, we need a break so we stay a couple nights. We are also pretty lazy after being in the truck all day so we like to have something for dinner that's not difficult. A big tupperware of chili and some salad stuff springs to mind. We also eat a lot more Pizza Hut when we are on the road!
In actuality, we were making our usual monthly run to Sam's Club - buying kitty litter, dog biscuits & stuff like that. We also read of an antenna you can make with a wifi adapter that is supposed to improve your reception in rv parks (Escapee's magazine): needed a long USB cable and don't have time to get one from the internet. We can also check out the big city supermarkets where the cheese selection is better; the liquor stores, etc. I'm hardly surprised about the lack of fine cheeses & meats here; after all, I was born in Iowa where pepper jack cheese is considered kind of out there! I do find it slightly odd that we don't have a real liquor store here in town; the supermarkets & one of the drug stores sell liquor but it's a sideline. When the new beaujolais nouveau came out this year we had to go to Vegas to get a couple of bottles.
The remainder of the week will be more trip prep. We need to get the trailer out of it's nice new shed and get it cleaned and prepped. It's too cold to fill the water tank; we'll save that for the last moment but getting a nice coat of Protectall on the poor thing will save us lots of trouble down the road. So, I'm slated for a bunch of "trailer housework". It's late and I've gotta go. I hope you are all having a good 2010; it's almost a twelve'th gone!
"I were it were bed-time, Hal, and all well." Shakespeare Henry Iv, Part I
In actuality, we were making our usual monthly run to Sam's Club - buying kitty litter, dog biscuits & stuff like that. We also read of an antenna you can make with a wifi adapter that is supposed to improve your reception in rv parks (Escapee's magazine): needed a long USB cable and don't have time to get one from the internet. We can also check out the big city supermarkets where the cheese selection is better; the liquor stores, etc. I'm hardly surprised about the lack of fine cheeses & meats here; after all, I was born in Iowa where pepper jack cheese is considered kind of out there! I do find it slightly odd that we don't have a real liquor store here in town; the supermarkets & one of the drug stores sell liquor but it's a sideline. When the new beaujolais nouveau came out this year we had to go to Vegas to get a couple of bottles.
The remainder of the week will be more trip prep. We need to get the trailer out of it's nice new shed and get it cleaned and prepped. It's too cold to fill the water tank; we'll save that for the last moment but getting a nice coat of Protectall on the poor thing will save us lots of trouble down the road. So, I'm slated for a bunch of "trailer housework". It's late and I've gotta go. I hope you are all having a good 2010; it's almost a twelve'th gone!
"I were it were bed-time, Hal, and all well." Shakespeare Henry Iv, Part I
Monday, January 18, 2010
Rain???
Yep, it's raining in Pahrump. We are much too small to get careful attention from the weather officials but in Las Vegas they are saying that parts of the valley will get as much as .25 inches today - what, half a centimeter? Guess I'm not looking forward to the rest of the week either - more of the same is forecast. Cloudy days for not much rain. Here's what The Weather Channel says for my zip code today:
My wife has become addicted to the Wii. Have you tried one? It's an interesting way to get people to exercise. There are lots of different things you can do on it: yoga stances; games like bowling and tennis; aerobic and strength training exercises. I've done a little of it but I can't get by the fact that I'm playing with a video game. Somehow that makes the whole experience less satisfying. But if it gets her into exercise I'm all for it.
We bought a surround sound system for the tv as and Xmas present to us both. We got it installed ok but had to recess the speakers into the ceiling - didn't want them hanging down like I don't know what. Anyway, my job for this week is to cut the molding to go around the speakers. Not a big job for someone who knows what he or she is doing but for me... I've already used 8 feet (2.4m) of molding to go around a rectangular speaker that is just over 3 feet (1m) in diameter. Do you get the idea there is a little wastage? Only three more speakers to finish! But I enjoy doing stuff like this so that's my excuse. One year I spent all my spare time, when I didn't have very much, rebuilding the fence in our back yard. My wife was pissed but I was having fun. She forgave me, finally, because the fence really did look super AND I finally got some time off and we spent three weeks in England.
Have a good one!
Near this spot are deposited the remains of one who possessed beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage witout ferocity, and all the virtues of Man, without his vices. This praise, which would be unmeaning flattery if inscribed over human sahes, is but a just tribute to the memory of Boatswain, a dog. (Inscription on the monument of a Newfoundland dog (1808).) Lord Byron
| Monday Jan 18 | ||||
 | Rain/Wind, 90% chance of precipitation. Winds 19mph from SE. Humidity 60% Sunrise: 6:53 AM | |||
| Rain/Wind, 70% chance of precipitation. Winds 21mph from S. Humidity 80% Sunset: 4:56 PM | |||
My wife has become addicted to the Wii. Have you tried one? It's an interesting way to get people to exercise. There are lots of different things you can do on it: yoga stances; games like bowling and tennis; aerobic and strength training exercises. I've done a little of it but I can't get by the fact that I'm playing with a video game. Somehow that makes the whole experience less satisfying. But if it gets her into exercise I'm all for it.
We bought a surround sound system for the tv as and Xmas present to us both. We got it installed ok but had to recess the speakers into the ceiling - didn't want them hanging down like I don't know what. Anyway, my job for this week is to cut the molding to go around the speakers. Not a big job for someone who knows what he or she is doing but for me... I've already used 8 feet (2.4m) of molding to go around a rectangular speaker that is just over 3 feet (1m) in diameter. Do you get the idea there is a little wastage? Only three more speakers to finish! But I enjoy doing stuff like this so that's my excuse. One year I spent all my spare time, when I didn't have very much, rebuilding the fence in our back yard. My wife was pissed but I was having fun. She forgave me, finally, because the fence really did look super AND I finally got some time off and we spent three weeks in England.
Have a good one!
Near this spot are deposited the remains of one who possessed beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage witout ferocity, and all the virtues of Man, without his vices. This praise, which would be unmeaning flattery if inscribed over human sahes, is but a just tribute to the memory of Boatswain, a dog. (Inscription on the monument of a Newfoundland dog (1808).) Lord Byron
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Wow, already the 10th!
Here we go on another year; hell, it will be November before we know it! Anyway, let's enjoy the ride!
Our daughter gave us a present of "The Lion King" in Vegas for Xmas and yesterday was the day. It is a GREAT show; excellent presentation of a difficult story. The people responsible for the presentation deserve all the kudos they've received and the actors were wonderful. The people watching was certainly up to Vegas Style; very amazing! Even driving up Las Vegas Boulevard was good; that's where the famous sign is and there were plenty of folks there having their photos taken.
Otherwise we are quiet in Pahrump. There is some desire to remove our senator and I'm of two minds. Having a senator with seniority is good for his state BUT I'm not all that sure what he is doing is the best for the country. I think term limits sounds good but limiting the benefits of those serving is more important! Less likely too! Life in the fast lane, huh.
The town is more crowded than usual but it's because of all the tourists. The rv parks associated with the casinos are almost full so the casinos should be happy. There are often a few folks parked overnight in the Walmart lot; it's ok here especially since it's 2 blocks to the desert where everything is free. As you know, the town has quite a few streets platted out that are no more than gravel trails in the desert; people own lots out there and why shouldn't they park their rv there? It's hard to tell who is on a lot they own and who is just hunkered down and who the hell cares anyway!
Gotta admit, I gave away our snow shovel when we left Florida. Hope you don't really need one wherever you are! Happy days!
There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life. Arthur Schopenauer
Our daughter gave us a present of "The Lion King" in Vegas for Xmas and yesterday was the day. It is a GREAT show; excellent presentation of a difficult story. The people responsible for the presentation deserve all the kudos they've received and the actors were wonderful. The people watching was certainly up to Vegas Style; very amazing! Even driving up Las Vegas Boulevard was good; that's where the famous sign is and there were plenty of folks there having their photos taken.
Otherwise we are quiet in Pahrump. There is some desire to remove our senator and I'm of two minds. Having a senator with seniority is good for his state BUT I'm not all that sure what he is doing is the best for the country. I think term limits sounds good but limiting the benefits of those serving is more important! Less likely too! Life in the fast lane, huh.
The town is more crowded than usual but it's because of all the tourists. The rv parks associated with the casinos are almost full so the casinos should be happy. There are often a few folks parked overnight in the Walmart lot; it's ok here especially since it's 2 blocks to the desert where everything is free. As you know, the town has quite a few streets platted out that are no more than gravel trails in the desert; people own lots out there and why shouldn't they park their rv there? It's hard to tell who is on a lot they own and who is just hunkered down and who the hell cares anyway!
Gotta admit, I gave away our snow shovel when we left Florida. Hope you don't really need one wherever you are! Happy days!
There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life. Arthur Schopenauer
Friday, January 01, 2010
Happy New Year!
Hope everyone is doing well today; I'm sure some are recovering slowly from last night. I'm doing ok actually but my wife is a bit under the weather. We always stay at home and have a slightly luxurious meal and talk. Making it to midnight isn't high on the hit parade and, sure enough, we didn't make it last night either. Had a lot of good talk though.
We are both getting excited about our trip to Florida in February. We'll get to see family and friends that we haven't seen since we left in 2008. We'll pretty much drop straight south and pick up I-10 and stay on it for 2,000 miles or so. Navigation isn't too tough! The other east-west interstate highways have too great a probability of bad weather to fool with. Right now we are thinking the trip will be a month long; not a lot when you remember that the trip there will take probably five days & five days back. We could make it in less time if we were willing to drive farther each day but life's too short for that. Five or six hour days is our usual plan; gives us time to see a few sights, walk the dog and generally enjoy life a bit.
I did get one surprise last night. My wife asked me to cook her steak a little more! Now some people like a well-done steak but my wife has always gone for rare. On the bbq I do hers 1.5 minutes on a side; now it comes out that they've been coming out a bit too rare. Hmmm. Wonder when she was planning on telling me? Oh well, tastes change.
Speaking of tastes changing, I'm going to attack our portfolio beginning next week. We've got way too much overlap in various mutual funds. I'm looking for index funds that we can spread to get even more diversification. In the last week I've read that the market is oversold and that it is fine; that there is a new housing bubble and housing is slowly recovering. Who knows, but what are you going to do, you can't stand on the sidelines forever.
Fear is an acid which is pumped into one's atmosphere. It causes mental, moral and spiritual asphyxiation, and sometimes death; death to energy and all growth. - Horace Fletcher
We are both getting excited about our trip to Florida in February. We'll get to see family and friends that we haven't seen since we left in 2008. We'll pretty much drop straight south and pick up I-10 and stay on it for 2,000 miles or so. Navigation isn't too tough! The other east-west interstate highways have too great a probability of bad weather to fool with. Right now we are thinking the trip will be a month long; not a lot when you remember that the trip there will take probably five days & five days back. We could make it in less time if we were willing to drive farther each day but life's too short for that. Five or six hour days is our usual plan; gives us time to see a few sights, walk the dog and generally enjoy life a bit.
I did get one surprise last night. My wife asked me to cook her steak a little more! Now some people like a well-done steak but my wife has always gone for rare. On the bbq I do hers 1.5 minutes on a side; now it comes out that they've been coming out a bit too rare. Hmmm. Wonder when she was planning on telling me? Oh well, tastes change.
Speaking of tastes changing, I'm going to attack our portfolio beginning next week. We've got way too much overlap in various mutual funds. I'm looking for index funds that we can spread to get even more diversification. In the last week I've read that the market is oversold and that it is fine; that there is a new housing bubble and housing is slowly recovering. Who knows, but what are you going to do, you can't stand on the sidelines forever.
Fear is an acid which is pumped into one's atmosphere. It causes mental, moral and spiritual asphyxiation, and sometimes death; death to energy and all growth. - Horace Fletcher
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Happy New Year!!!
Being a child of a Christian household, even if I don't believe, I'd like to wish each and every person in the world a Happy New Year. It's the way we count solar rotations, so get over it!!!!!
Actually, this is my second favorite holiday of the year; Thanksgiving being the favorite. Thinking about it; they should be co-favorites: Thanksgiving is just about realizing how lucky we've been and the New Year is a combination of "we made it this year" and "gee, I hope we can make it next year".
Think about what the first people who celebrated Thanksgiving were faced with; and the first persons who celebrated a 'new year'. Both celebrations are about a successful result over whatever period. The New Year is looking forward; new hopes, new dreams, new days.
Happy New Year to you all. I hope 2010 turns into a wonderful year for the entire world!
Actually, this is my second favorite holiday of the year; Thanksgiving being the favorite. Thinking about it; they should be co-favorites: Thanksgiving is just about realizing how lucky we've been and the New Year is a combination of "we made it this year" and "gee, I hope we can make it next year".
Think about what the first people who celebrated Thanksgiving were faced with; and the first persons who celebrated a 'new year'. Both celebrations are about a successful result over whatever period. The New Year is looking forward; new hopes, new dreams, new days.
Happy New Year to you all. I hope 2010 turns into a wonderful year for the entire world!
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Almost the new year...
It's late in the evening of 29 December 2009. Not the greatest of years but certainly not the worst.
Thankfully we now have a President who seems to cherish peace above war; now he just needs to figure out how to make that happen. I'm not very realistic; I'd just tell everyone that we were leaving and about a week later it would be a fact. Can't do that in the real world, I know, but I'd sure like to try it. Blow up about $10B worth of shit so it would only be good for scrap metal and "see ya".
Actually, I think that would be almost the best thing we could do. Over on Lee's religious blog he talked about why he wasn't surprised about the guy who tried to blow up a plane on Xmas. It really made sense to me - check it out: http://theeggbox.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-am-i-not-surprised.html
We, I mean the U.S., are treating this like a 'police action' but that's not what the Arabs think it is, they think it's a Christian invasion of their lands. Isn't that obvious to anyone open to a thought? Jesus A Fucking Christ, that asshole fundamentalist Christian G. W. Bush has gotten us into one war that has, to almost anyone, limited viability; one war that has none at all; and has us on the edge of invading yet another Arab country - this time for no reason whatsover except that they might actually use nuclear energy for... electricity! When are we going to be rid of the legacy of GWB? My guess is in about 150 years. What an asshole. I only hope that he goes out and digs a big hole in the Texas dirt and holding Dick Chaney in his arms, is struck by lightning and they fall into the hole, dead, becoming part of our nation physically! After all, isn't "dirt to dirt" part of their belief system? And if they are right and there is a God, I'm pretty sure they'll both be shoveling coal for a LONG TIME.
Yah, I'm gonna quit this joyous if unlikely line. Have a wonderful New Year if I don't get back.
I have seen war.... I hate war. Sam Rayburn
Thankfully we now have a President who seems to cherish peace above war; now he just needs to figure out how to make that happen. I'm not very realistic; I'd just tell everyone that we were leaving and about a week later it would be a fact. Can't do that in the real world, I know, but I'd sure like to try it. Blow up about $10B worth of shit so it would only be good for scrap metal and "see ya".
Actually, I think that would be almost the best thing we could do. Over on Lee's religious blog he talked about why he wasn't surprised about the guy who tried to blow up a plane on Xmas. It really made sense to me - check it out: http://theeggbox.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-am-i-not-surprised.html
We, I mean the U.S., are treating this like a 'police action' but that's not what the Arabs think it is, they think it's a Christian invasion of their lands. Isn't that obvious to anyone open to a thought? Jesus A Fucking Christ, that asshole fundamentalist Christian G. W. Bush has gotten us into one war that has, to almost anyone, limited viability; one war that has none at all; and has us on the edge of invading yet another Arab country - this time for no reason whatsover except that they might actually use nuclear energy for... electricity! When are we going to be rid of the legacy of GWB? My guess is in about 150 years. What an asshole. I only hope that he goes out and digs a big hole in the Texas dirt and holding Dick Chaney in his arms, is struck by lightning and they fall into the hole, dead, becoming part of our nation physically! After all, isn't "dirt to dirt" part of their belief system? And if they are right and there is a God, I'm pretty sure they'll both be shoveling coal for a LONG TIME.
Yah, I'm gonna quit this joyous if unlikely line. Have a wonderful New Year if I don't get back.
I have seen war.... I hate war. Sam Rayburn
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Merry Christmas and all that jazz.....
Haven't blogged in a while; not because nothing happened but because I was a lazy sod. Yeah, I know, what's new about that! We've been having weather in the valley. It has rained a couple of days; we are probably well on our way to that 4 inches (10 cm) that we are supposed to get. There were snow flurries one day as well but nothing else that stuck.
Went to Vegas a couple of times doing the Xmas present thing. I do like buying things for people; maybe I should just start doing it because I like it. It would certainly make people wonder what I was up to! The pass was clear both times but the sanding trucks were out so I need to get the car washed. Don't you just love a white car?
My wife and I agreed that we've been spending money like drunken sailors so we'd take it easy on Xmas. We went out together and bought each other a couple of things to put under the tree - useful stuff, like shirts that we actually like. LOL It worked pretty well I think so maybe we'll have to try it again next year. I did sneak in a surprise present for her but that's just for fun.
Our daughter will be here (from Vegas) but that's the Xmas party. Son & his lady can't make it; maybe next year but I'm not holding my breath. They seem to have a good relationship and enjoy being alone. If that works for them, that's all that is important. Daughter doesn't have a guy in her life right now so being with us works for her. Therefore, it works for us all. She is planning on staying two nights; we'll see if she can stand being with us that long!
Xmas eve is Mexican night (in honor of my father-in-law) around here. Enchiladas and margaritas will be the order of the day. Xmas is ham. Bought a nice pinot noir to go with it. We looked around for a prime rib but finding prime is difficult. The markets have choice grade but not prime so we decided to skip it. We have a good recipe for the ham, it's easy to find and reliable. Who needs more stress at this time of year.
Next week it a time to do some rebalancing in the portfolio. It's been quite a year for the markets. I'm thinking of shifting a bit more into bonds if I can find a good fund. Some of the fund managers seem to be even more inept than I am! I'm keeping more money in stocks than most advisors would suggest but I think that I'm looking at a 30 year retirement (ok, I'm being optimistic about living that long but why not?) and going into fixed income is just a recipe for being really poor when I'm over 80. Who wants that?
Gotta go. Have a Merry Christmas and try to stay out of trouble!
"At Christmas play and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year."
Thomas Tusser
Went to Vegas a couple of times doing the Xmas present thing. I do like buying things for people; maybe I should just start doing it because I like it. It would certainly make people wonder what I was up to! The pass was clear both times but the sanding trucks were out so I need to get the car washed. Don't you just love a white car?
My wife and I agreed that we've been spending money like drunken sailors so we'd take it easy on Xmas. We went out together and bought each other a couple of things to put under the tree - useful stuff, like shirts that we actually like. LOL It worked pretty well I think so maybe we'll have to try it again next year. I did sneak in a surprise present for her but that's just for fun.
Our daughter will be here (from Vegas) but that's the Xmas party. Son & his lady can't make it; maybe next year but I'm not holding my breath. They seem to have a good relationship and enjoy being alone. If that works for them, that's all that is important. Daughter doesn't have a guy in her life right now so being with us works for her. Therefore, it works for us all. She is planning on staying two nights; we'll see if she can stand being with us that long!
Xmas eve is Mexican night (in honor of my father-in-law) around here. Enchiladas and margaritas will be the order of the day. Xmas is ham. Bought a nice pinot noir to go with it. We looked around for a prime rib but finding prime is difficult. The markets have choice grade but not prime so we decided to skip it. We have a good recipe for the ham, it's easy to find and reliable. Who needs more stress at this time of year.
Next week it a time to do some rebalancing in the portfolio. It's been quite a year for the markets. I'm thinking of shifting a bit more into bonds if I can find a good fund. Some of the fund managers seem to be even more inept than I am! I'm keeping more money in stocks than most advisors would suggest but I think that I'm looking at a 30 year retirement (ok, I'm being optimistic about living that long but why not?) and going into fixed income is just a recipe for being really poor when I'm over 80. Who wants that?
Gotta go. Have a Merry Christmas and try to stay out of trouble!
"At Christmas play and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year."
Thomas Tusser
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Monday, December 07, 2009
Found a list I like!
Seven things that are hard to do:
1) Not to post really rude comment on the blogs of all these idiots who have an 'imaginary friend' in Jesus - or whoever!
2) Not to point out that some idiot blogger is being ripped-off/taken-advantage-of/made-a-fool-of.
3) Remember the basic rules of English - it's not easy to write correctly - much less well(!) and I'm sure I make many mistakes.
4) I'm trying hard not to go nutso about all the assholes, media 'artists' and companies who think Spanish is a second language here. I wish I was multi-lingual, honestly, but it's not about that.
5) The 2nd Amendment is important to me and I support it totally but it really isn't about full-automatic 50 cal. weapons.
6) The people writing the constitution were all mostly Christian but they intended this country to be open to all religions or to people of no religion at all. So shut the F&*K up about "under God"!
7) The news media is so full of idiots! I'd love to dump them all in the ocean except that the oceans would probably overflow the land masses to about the 2000 foot level! Could I at least throw Rupert Murdock in? Pretty please!
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" (As recorded by Janis Joplin)
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON & FRED FOSTER
1) Not to post really rude comment on the blogs of all these idiots who have an 'imaginary friend' in Jesus - or whoever!
2) Not to point out that some idiot blogger is being ripped-off/taken-advantage-of/made-a-fool-of.
3) Remember the basic rules of English - it's not easy to write correctly - much less well(!) and I'm sure I make many mistakes.
4) I'm trying hard not to go nutso about all the assholes, media 'artists' and companies who think Spanish is a second language here. I wish I was multi-lingual, honestly, but it's not about that.
5) The 2nd Amendment is important to me and I support it totally but it really isn't about full-automatic 50 cal. weapons.
6) The people writing the constitution were all mostly Christian but they intended this country to be open to all religions or to people of no religion at all. So shut the F&*K up about "under God"!
7) The news media is so full of idiots! I'd love to dump them all in the ocean except that the oceans would probably overflow the land masses to about the 2000 foot level! Could I at least throw Rupert Murdock in? Pretty please!
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" (As recorded by Janis Joplin)
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON & FRED FOSTER
An amazing place
A week ago or so I finished reading Bill Bryson's book 'In a Sunburned Country' about his love for and travels in Australia. Bill is a cross between a travel writer and a humorist and if you haven't tried his books I can recommend them. Here's his Random House site. He spent a lot of time and money visiting down under and seems to have really enjoyed his stay. Only in one city did he find people he didn't like! (Refreshing because the only person I know who's been there thought the people were awful but then again I think the guy who told me that is an idiot.) Bryson is an interesting guy: born in the US, spent most of his adult life in England. I found him originally when he wrote a sort of travel-log of the US from his peculiarly US-English background. The thing that he keeps repeating about Australia is what I keep noticing about Nevada - there's a lot of not much out here. Only in Australia, there is more of less - if you know what I mean.
People are getting ready for Christmas, Kwanzaa, Chanukah, and probably other holidays all over the world. Leaves me a bit cold as an atheist but I do like a party. We send Christmas cards to the older relatives and we have a special dinner and even a tree. The tree, of course, predates Christianity and we skip all the angels but it certainly does have Christian connotations these days. We exchange gifts; after one's childhood I expect most of us prefer to give than to receive. Certainly I do. Every year I give either money or food to the food bank; this year I think I'll have to find a few toys as well. There are plenty of poor people in our valley. So following on the Thanksgiving holiday, let's all be as generous as we can for this special time of year.
Come, yea thankful people, come
Raise the song of Harvest-home;
All is safely gathered in,
Ere the winter storms begin.
Henry Alford
People are getting ready for Christmas, Kwanzaa, Chanukah, and probably other holidays all over the world. Leaves me a bit cold as an atheist but I do like a party. We send Christmas cards to the older relatives and we have a special dinner and even a tree. The tree, of course, predates Christianity and we skip all the angels but it certainly does have Christian connotations these days. We exchange gifts; after one's childhood I expect most of us prefer to give than to receive. Certainly I do. Every year I give either money or food to the food bank; this year I think I'll have to find a few toys as well. There are plenty of poor people in our valley. So following on the Thanksgiving holiday, let's all be as generous as we can for this special time of year.
Come, yea thankful people, come
Raise the song of Harvest-home;
All is safely gathered in,
Ere the winter storms begin.
Henry Alford
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Help for the confused.
Here's a roadmap just in case you don't know what church you should be attending.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
It almost makes me believe.....
It's a glorious morning in the desert! Woke about 06:30 and took the dog out. The sun was not yet up; hidden by the mountains to the east. In the west, above the rocky mountain, there was a layer of deep blue with a layer of pink above it. Most unusual. In the eastern sky light, whispy clouds formed a shape kind of like a human hand in an even lighter shade of pink. Gradually, as the sun rose, the clouds became white. The very top peaks of the rocky western mountains became pink; then, slowly, the color seeped down their slopes until they were totally pink. Finally, the sun rose in the eastern sky turning the pink mountains into yellow ones. In an hour, they will return to their brown, rocky state but in the morning they are magical.
"The sunshine is a glorious birth" William Wordsworth
"The sunshine is a glorious birth" William Wordsworth
Thursday, November 26, 2009
My Ignorance
A couple days ago someone sent me a link to some photographs of an amazing place: the caves of Ajanta in India. Here is a link. They aren't really caves as much as buildings carved out of rock. The amount of work done to create these building and statues is just mind boggling. Religion has been responsible for much pain and suffering but it has also been the catalyst for some magnificent art.
The whole web site, http://www.shunya.net/ is amazing. I know so little of this part of the world. The internet can be instructive as well as magical. Have a good one!
"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." Arthur Schopenhauer
The whole web site, http://www.shunya.net/ is amazing. I know so little of this part of the world. The internet can be instructive as well as magical. Have a good one!
"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." Arthur Schopenhauer
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Thanksgiving
The American holiday of Thanksgiving is Thursday. It's always been my wife's favorite holiday so we are preparing; perhaps it is my favorite as well. Agnostics don't really have a lot of holidays! Religion seems to bring with it excuses for parties, we just don't have that. I love my country but the 4th of July just brings memories of idiots with fireworks. The 1st of the year is ok, I like the 'summing up' aspect of that day; the year is gone, what can we do with the new year.
Anyway, I'm in the mood for being thankful. And I have a lot to be thankful about. What's the old saying about being "healthy, wealthy and wise"? I'm 61 and need take no medications to keep me going; we have enough money to live comfortably, and, though I babble at times, I can actually carry on a conversation with people. So I guess I'm making it. My wife takes a couple of pills a day but not for anything really life threatening. Our relationship is great; hopefully better than ever. Our son & daughter are both employed; making their ways in life. They have trials and tribulations but isn't that what life is about? So life is not simply good, it's GREAT!
There is a primal part of me that is almost afraid to say how wonderful life is. I'm simply afraid that it will end if I mention it. I know it's BS but... it's there. I think a lot of people feel it but don't want to admit it; certainly I don't like admitting it! I think about years gone by; when I was laid off from work or one of us was acting badly or we were worried about something one of the kids was doing. There were still many things to be thankful about; and I knew it. Actually, getting laid off was one of the best things that ever happened to me; it got me started in a whole new field. Hell, I might still be working at Sears if things had gone differently.
The photo is of a sunset last May; the wonders of nature never fail to amaze.
So, I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving even if you don't celebrate it. Take a moment to find a few things to be thankful about and I assure you, your time will be well spent. Take care!
"Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks" William Shakespeare
Anyway, I'm in the mood for being thankful. And I have a lot to be thankful about. What's the old saying about being "healthy, wealthy and wise"? I'm 61 and need take no medications to keep me going; we have enough money to live comfortably, and, though I babble at times, I can actually carry on a conversation with people. So I guess I'm making it. My wife takes a couple of pills a day but not for anything really life threatening. Our relationship is great; hopefully better than ever. Our son & daughter are both employed; making their ways in life. They have trials and tribulations but isn't that what life is about? So life is not simply good, it's GREAT!
There is a primal part of me that is almost afraid to say how wonderful life is. I'm simply afraid that it will end if I mention it. I know it's BS but... it's there. I think a lot of people feel it but don't want to admit it; certainly I don't like admitting it! I think about years gone by; when I was laid off from work or one of us was acting badly or we were worried about something one of the kids was doing. There were still many things to be thankful about; and I knew it. Actually, getting laid off was one of the best things that ever happened to me; it got me started in a whole new field. Hell, I might still be working at Sears if things had gone differently.
So, I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving even if you don't celebrate it. Take a moment to find a few things to be thankful about and I assure you, your time will be well spent. Take care!
"Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks" William Shakespeare
Saturday, November 21, 2009
ETFs - maybe
Back to ETFs, that is Exchange-Traded Funds in English. Yahoo Finance has a nice write up about them here.
I won't repeat the points made in the Yahoo article but I would like to point out that traditional mutual funds and individual stocks also have some advantages. Good management in either a mutual fund or in a single company can cause their fund or company to do better than an ETF. I've heard that some ETFs may be coming out that are managed ETFs (rather than the index type that we mostly see now). Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing must depend on the expertise of the manager.
One of the things that I personally like about ETFs is that there are many with a very narrow focus. I don't care for something like Standard & Poor's 500 Index Depository Receipts (SPY:AMEX) which tracks the S&P 500; going along with the crowd just isn't much fun. I much prefer somthing like SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) which attempts to track the price of gold or iShares MSCI Japan Index (EWJ) that tracks the MSCI Japan stock market index. That sort of focus is very difficult to find outside the ETF market.
One type of ETF that especially don't like (for me!) is the type that trys to double or even triple what the market does. One such ETF is UltraShort S&P500 ProShares (SDS). "The investment seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, which correspond to twice the inverse of the daily performance of the S&P 500 index." is a quote from the writeup for SDS in Yahoo. That means that if the market goes down 10%; SDS trys to go up 20%. Unfortunately it also means that if the market goes up 10%; SDS will try to go down 20%. This sort of investment may work for investing professionals but for those of us who don't watch the markets minute-by-minute I think it is downright dangerous.
Do I own ETFs? Yes. I've got a couple that focus on certain parts of the market. Will I ever go 100% ETF; of course not but I may get up to 25%. I always follow what I wanted to attribute to Ben Franklin but apparently I was wrong.
"Moderation in all things." Terence c190-159BC in Andria(The Lady of Andros)
I won't repeat the points made in the Yahoo article but I would like to point out that traditional mutual funds and individual stocks also have some advantages. Good management in either a mutual fund or in a single company can cause their fund or company to do better than an ETF. I've heard that some ETFs may be coming out that are managed ETFs (rather than the index type that we mostly see now). Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing must depend on the expertise of the manager.
One of the things that I personally like about ETFs is that there are many with a very narrow focus. I don't care for something like Standard & Poor's 500 Index Depository Receipts (SPY:AMEX) which tracks the S&P 500; going along with the crowd just isn't much fun. I much prefer somthing like SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) which attempts to track the price of gold or iShares MSCI Japan Index (EWJ) that tracks the MSCI Japan stock market index. That sort of focus is very difficult to find outside the ETF market.
One type of ETF that especially don't like (for me!) is the type that trys to double or even triple what the market does. One such ETF is UltraShort S&P500 ProShares (SDS). "The investment seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, which correspond to twice the inverse of the daily performance of the S&P 500 index." is a quote from the writeup for SDS in Yahoo. That means that if the market goes down 10%; SDS trys to go up 20%. Unfortunately it also means that if the market goes up 10%; SDS will try to go down 20%. This sort of investment may work for investing professionals but for those of us who don't watch the markets minute-by-minute I think it is downright dangerous.
Do I own ETFs? Yes. I've got a couple that focus on certain parts of the market. Will I ever go 100% ETF; of course not but I may get up to 25%. I always follow what I wanted to attribute to Ben Franklin but apparently I was wrong.
"Moderation in all things." Terence c190-159BC in Andria(The Lady of Andros)
Friday, November 20, 2009
ETF madness
We've had money in traditional mutual funds for a long time. For example, when I started working for a new company in 1988, one of the funds available in their 401k was Fidelity's Contra (FCNTX) and I still own those shares. It's not like I intentionally invest for the long term but 20 years certainly isn't short term!
My basic philosophy is to save as much as you can then invest in something that you expect to be more valuable in the future. I figured that whatever I bought at forty would be more valuable when I was sixty. (Of course I'm not talking about a six-pack of beer that didn't make it past my fortith birthday!) It isn't really a difficult thought! So I bought some stocks and some mutual funds and we did ok. Let's face it, folks, this isn't rocket science.
The folk who are objecting at this point are the ones who just started investing about two years ago. You can hear the howls "I bought XXX in 07; look how I'm doing!" Well, I feel for you. I bought Armstrong Flooring not long before the company went under due to asbestos claims. I bought Thornburg Mortgage before the mortgage debacle. Back in 1974 I bought IBM just before the market crashed. Trust me; worse things will happen to you.
Invest in the market; invest broadly; read about the companies; then read the papers & pay attention: you will be fine. If I'd read about the asbestos claims; I could have gotten out of Armstrong. I drank the coolaid about Thornburg being a 'different' company. More fool me!
So now we have ETF's. You can buy small sectors of the market or large ones via these products. Some are managed; some are indexes. There are a lot of new ways to invest here. We can talk about them later.
"The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds." - Walter Duranty
My basic philosophy is to save as much as you can then invest in something that you expect to be more valuable in the future. I figured that whatever I bought at forty would be more valuable when I was sixty. (Of course I'm not talking about a six-pack of beer that didn't make it past my fortith birthday!) It isn't really a difficult thought! So I bought some stocks and some mutual funds and we did ok. Let's face it, folks, this isn't rocket science.
The folk who are objecting at this point are the ones who just started investing about two years ago. You can hear the howls "I bought XXX in 07; look how I'm doing!" Well, I feel for you. I bought Armstrong Flooring not long before the company went under due to asbestos claims. I bought Thornburg Mortgage before the mortgage debacle. Back in 1974 I bought IBM just before the market crashed. Trust me; worse things will happen to you.
Invest in the market; invest broadly; read about the companies; then read the papers & pay attention: you will be fine. If I'd read about the asbestos claims; I could have gotten out of Armstrong. I drank the coolaid about Thornburg being a 'different' company. More fool me!
So now we have ETF's. You can buy small sectors of the market or large ones via these products. Some are managed; some are indexes. There are a lot of new ways to invest here. We can talk about them later.
"The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds." - Walter Duranty
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Getting chilly in the desert
All of a sudden it seems it's cold - a few degrees of frost every night and we had fairly heavy snow on the mountain a couple days ago. It's mostly melted by now but it'll be back.
About this time we all start thinking about the holidays. For us in the U.S. Thanksgiving is coming up. It's my wife's favorite holiday; nothing religious but simply family and realizing how lucky we have been. Today was a minor addition to that luck; our daughter had a colonoscopy and was declared ok. Even a minor test brings some fear of failure. I have the results from the MRI on my neck; nothing unusual wrong but it's not like I'm twenty-five any more!
From Thanksgiving to Xmas seems like only a moment. Not true for children, of course, but it sure goes fast for me! We don't do much to celebrate (being athiests!); I can only imagine all the pressure that is on the truly Christian among us. We are continuing our support of the local economy by ordering a cover for our rv. That sun in the summer is just amazing; leaving the rv out just isn't an option. Next year we may even leave Pahrump for a while during the worst of the summer but this will protect the rv during the other ten or eleven months.
I've been thinking about changing the tenor of my blog. What I do every day is think about our investments and how they are working in the current environment. I'm thinking about talking a lot more about that process. Anyone have any comments?
"Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; days of joy, but not peace or happiness." Henrik Ibsen
About this time we all start thinking about the holidays. For us in the U.S. Thanksgiving is coming up. It's my wife's favorite holiday; nothing religious but simply family and realizing how lucky we have been. Today was a minor addition to that luck; our daughter had a colonoscopy and was declared ok. Even a minor test brings some fear of failure. I have the results from the MRI on my neck; nothing unusual wrong but it's not like I'm twenty-five any more!
From Thanksgiving to Xmas seems like only a moment. Not true for children, of course, but it sure goes fast for me! We don't do much to celebrate (being athiests!); I can only imagine all the pressure that is on the truly Christian among us. We are continuing our support of the local economy by ordering a cover for our rv. That sun in the summer is just amazing; leaving the rv out just isn't an option. Next year we may even leave Pahrump for a while during the worst of the summer but this will protect the rv during the other ten or eleven months.
I've been thinking about changing the tenor of my blog. What I do every day is think about our investments and how they are working in the current environment. I'm thinking about talking a lot more about that process. Anyone have any comments?
"Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; days of joy, but not peace or happiness." Henrik Ibsen
Friday, November 13, 2009
Not going hungry anyway....
Opened the fridge this a.m. and realized that I've been on a cooking spree. The oldest thing is the tail end of a charcroute garni - sour kraut with potatoes, pork chops and sausage. Then there is beef barley soup and finally, yesterday, I did carnitas. Lots of leftovers!
Don't know how Mexican's do carnitas but mine is from a comment left on Epicurious. The writer was chastising the writer of a recipe and I liked what he said so tried it. I take a big piece of pork shoulder, cut it up roughly and brown it a bit. Then add a can of Rotel, a can of chicken broth, a diced onion, several cloves of garlic and seasonings: ground cumin, chili powder, oregano and curry powder. I let it cook for a couple hours then remove the meat and shred it, then put it back in the pot. About this time I tasted it and added a teaspoon of salt and one of red pepper flakes. Another 10 minutes or so and we had dinner. You are supposed to dry it out by frying it then eat it in a tortilla. We just eat it with spoons from a bowl.
The beef barley soup came about because the store had a special on a large package of sirloin. We had steak on the barbie one night then had about a pound that we hadn't cooked. Hmmmm. Diced it, browned it and cooked it in some beef broth and red wine. Added some barley and a big bunch of diced vegies. Yum!
Hmmm, think I'll go have some soup for breakfast! Have a good one.
"Our country is the world - our countrymen are all mankind." William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879)
Don't know how Mexican's do carnitas but mine is from a comment left on Epicurious. The writer was chastising the writer of a recipe and I liked what he said so tried it. I take a big piece of pork shoulder, cut it up roughly and brown it a bit. Then add a can of Rotel, a can of chicken broth, a diced onion, several cloves of garlic and seasonings: ground cumin, chili powder, oregano and curry powder. I let it cook for a couple hours then remove the meat and shred it, then put it back in the pot. About this time I tasted it and added a teaspoon of salt and one of red pepper flakes. Another 10 minutes or so and we had dinner. You are supposed to dry it out by frying it then eat it in a tortilla. We just eat it with spoons from a bowl.
The beef barley soup came about because the store had a special on a large package of sirloin. We had steak on the barbie one night then had about a pound that we hadn't cooked. Hmmmm. Diced it, browned it and cooked it in some beef broth and red wine. Added some barley and a big bunch of diced vegies. Yum!
Hmmm, think I'll go have some soup for breakfast! Have a good one.
"Our country is the world - our countrymen are all mankind." William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879)
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Travel!
Finally got to go somewhere - only San Diego, CA but it's not bad. It was a week long trip and will end tomorrow; tonight I'm writing from an rv resort in 29 Palms, CA.
The first two nights of our trip we spent in the Jojoba Hills SKP park not far outside of San Diego. We love the organization and thought it would be nice to visit the park. It was ok; much larger than some of the other parks and more elaborate; for example, they have a woodshop for the residents. It is also out in the middle of nowhere; at least they have a jojoba bush there!
Went on to San Diego. Visited our son, his significant other (wife in all but name), and the zoo. Guess that's what we like about San Diego. Not really, there is a lot more to see but that's all we saw this trip. We are just getting used to the fact that we can get there in a day; even towing the trailer. We did enjoy the zoo. So much so that we are talking about getting season tickets. They are $129 for a couple not living in San Diego and a daily ticket is $35 for a single person so, why not. Two visits a year would pay for it; especially since we'd rather be there for two hours a day two days running than four hours on a single day. That's what we did this time and it was pretty tiring.
We did a certain amount of driving in the California hills. It was pretty but not always pleasant. Saturday there were a lot of motorcycles out. One heading up a pack of perhaps twenty wasn't completely on his side of the road. If I can keep my truck in one lane I'd like to think that dipshit could keep his bike in the other! Today we were towing the trailer on a similar road. I pulled over six or eight times to let people pass. There is a law saying you must but it's only common sense to let people go; they just get crazy if you don't and that's when the accidents happen.
Also today we visited the Joshua Tree National Park. Pretty cool! There are lots of joshua trees (of course) and larger ones than I have seen elsewhere. There are also just amazing rock formations. We are ready to come back some time. It isn't the easiest place to find but it's certainly worth it for us!
Gotta go. Tomorrow we should make it home. It's always good to get home. Take care, y'all!
CYNIC n. A blackguard whose faulty vision causes him to see things as they are, not as they ought to be. Ambrose Bierce
The first two nights of our trip we spent in the Jojoba Hills SKP park not far outside of San Diego. We love the organization and thought it would be nice to visit the park. It was ok; much larger than some of the other parks and more elaborate; for example, they have a woodshop for the residents. It is also out in the middle of nowhere; at least they have a jojoba bush there!
Went on to San Diego. Visited our son, his significant other (wife in all but name), and the zoo. Guess that's what we like about San Diego. Not really, there is a lot more to see but that's all we saw this trip. We are just getting used to the fact that we can get there in a day; even towing the trailer. We did enjoy the zoo. So much so that we are talking about getting season tickets. They are $129 for a couple not living in San Diego and a daily ticket is $35 for a single person so, why not. Two visits a year would pay for it; especially since we'd rather be there for two hours a day two days running than four hours on a single day. That's what we did this time and it was pretty tiring.
We did a certain amount of driving in the California hills. It was pretty but not always pleasant. Saturday there were a lot of motorcycles out. One heading up a pack of perhaps twenty wasn't completely on his side of the road. If I can keep my truck in one lane I'd like to think that dipshit could keep his bike in the other! Today we were towing the trailer on a similar road. I pulled over six or eight times to let people pass. There is a law saying you must but it's only common sense to let people go; they just get crazy if you don't and that's when the accidents happen.
Also today we visited the Joshua Tree National Park. Pretty cool! There are lots of joshua trees (of course) and larger ones than I have seen elsewhere. There are also just amazing rock formations. We are ready to come back some time. It isn't the easiest place to find but it's certainly worth it for us!
Gotta go. Tomorrow we should make it home. It's always good to get home. Take care, y'all!
CYNIC n. A blackguard whose faulty vision causes him to see things as they are, not as they ought to be. Ambrose Bierce
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