Well, it's gone Thanksgiving!

 Yes, I know it's been a while since I posted but I've got a great excuse:  travel!  Yep, we've been off to see the family.  Our daughter is stop one in Oklahoma; our son is stop two in Arkansas and my wife's uncle is stop three in Florida.  No, we don't party for days and days with them.  We stop for a couple of days then head on.  It's still a 3 week trip!  OMG!  Our 16 year old truck is getting close to 100,000 miles!  In addition, my wife was on one of the DNA sites and discovered she has two half brothers who are living in Florida!  So we got to meet them and their wives; they are all very nice people.  One of the half brothers is a couple years younger than my wife (early 70's); the other is about the same as our son (early 50's).  Talk about different lives!

We have been talking about moving back to Florida; this right-wing rural Nevada gets kind of old.  We'd been talking about St. Petersburg, FL.  Well, that's a wash!  I was looking at places on Zillow and the prices were just crazy; not to mention nasty looking.  And the traffic was on the other side of awful.  Ok, maybe we'll be looking elsewhere or even staying around here.  Who knows? 

My wife was talking about going down the Texas coast and checking out Brownsville.  I just couldn't do it.  We'd just been in too many motel rooms and the thought of adding three or four more to the list was just more than I could do.  5,600 miles in 3 weeks is a lot for this old geezer.  And, of course, there are the rest of the world's problems going on.

I'm confident that all those Trump supporters are going to figure out what a bad decision they made.  And those idiots who didn't vote; what can you say about them?  I mean I already started with the word 'idiot'!  It's got to go downhill from there.  Already one of Mr. Trump's cabinet possibles has dropped out:  I mean Mr. Trump knows how to molest women, does he need instruction on molesting underage women?  Gaetz could do the job, of course, but, well, who thinks Mr. Trump need instruction in that area?  But, really, putting a tariff on imported goods will just raise prices:  Walmart has already suggested that prices will rise with the tariffs.  Don't worry, it will be Biden's fault!  And listen to Mr. Vance about women and children! 

I cannot understand a lot of the people who are supposed to have voted for Mr. Trump.  I mean why would Latino people vote for someone who wants to eject immigrants?  Why would ANY woman vote for a molester?  Or someone who supports a ban on abortion?  Why would any law abiding person vote for a felon?  I guess I could go on but you get the idea:  WTF is with the American public?  I'm an Army vet.  One of my First Sergeants was of Mexican extraction:  he was great!  My wife was molested by her stepfather as a child; why would anyone vote for a molester?  I'm thinking using a gun on them would be too easy.  Using a whip or just a stick would be lots better especially if it was more painful and took longer.  No, I'm not threatening Mr. Trump but if someone else were do do so.....

I have one final excuse for not posting anything lately:  I bought a new computer and getting the thing to work is driving me crazy!  First of all it's got all kinds of new software that I've never even heard of.  Then it's got Windows 11.  Between all the weird software and the new operating system; well, I may as well be using a machine using Chinese!  Maybe one of these days I'll get some new photos loaded but don't hold your breath!  Take care & keep washing those hands.

Nope, not dead quite yet!

Ok, it's been a long while since I've managed a post.  Some things have been happening but then again I'm being kind of lazy too.  In early March we managed a 4 balloon morning.  That's always special.

 

Then our daughter was diagnosed with a growth on her liver that needed surgery.  Hmmm, not good huh.  She isn't married so her mom and I headed off to Oklahoma to be with her while she was going through all that.  Our first night was spent in Flagstaff, AZ then a night in Santa Rosa, NM finally ending up in a suburb of Oklahoma City, OK.  There are some really pretty areas along I-40 but we were kind of intent on getting there.

We were going to be there for about a week so our daughter rented us an AirBnB that was in her neighborhood!  That was different!  For example, here were some of the neighbors.

Yep, looking outside there were goats and cattle in fields right by these homes!  The house was really quite nice.  It had a weird flooring but three nice bedrooms, a huge closet and all the comforts of home. 

The other neighbors were a bit more normal but they did have something to celebrate.

Well, as it turns out our daughter's liver was fine and the tumor was benign but they removed her gall bladder just in case.  We stayed there a total of a week to see her through the start of her recovery.  She should be just fine and back to her usual running around in a month or so.  And then we managed three days driving to get home.

 

 

It was a bit cool but we didn't have any nasty weather so that worked out ok.  Then we got home and I've started a new phase in my life.  I've got Invisalign braces on my teeth!

 

 

Do I have to mention that the darned things are expensive?  Jeez!  But I'm at a point now where I cannot eat a chicken sandwich.  I can eat ground meat but I just cannot bite through a piece of meat.  One of the things we liked about these were that an orthodontist is actually overseeing the process.  Some competing braces are 'do it yourself'.  We'll see.  It should be better in a couple of years!  In the mean time I've got these things to wear all the time I'm not actually eating.  Life in the fast lane. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Take care and keep washing those hands.

Another month absence!

At least this time I kind of have an excuse.  We took a trip!  It was kind of a combination of good and not so good.  But it was certainly interesting.  It was another Viking cruise; this time around southern South America.

We took a flight from Las Vegas to Houston and then to Santiago, Chile.  We got on the plane just before 2 pm local time and it was 08:30 the next day when we landed.  Usually Viking does ok with the airport transition, this time is was AFU!  We got to stand in this huge line of passengers then wander around the parking lot in groups of 30 or so to find a bus to take us to the ship.  That was a 2+ hour bus ride to the port of Valparaizo.  All of that was ok but tiring, of course. The port in Valparaizo isn't small by any stretch so when you got off the bus at the port entrance you got to get on another bus to take you over to the ship.  What a deal.  Anyway, we finally made it on and our luggage arrived only a couple hours behind us.  

Viking ocean ships are all the same so even though we'd never been on the Viking Jupiter, it was exactly like the Viking Sea or any other.  The expedition ships are probably different and, of course, the river ships are very different.  Anyway, we wandered around, got comfortable and had a nice night.  

The next day we had signed up for a visit to Santiago.  At the time we signed up we either didn't realize it was a 2 hour bus ride there and 2 hours back or we didn't realize how dumb we were being.  There are mainly small towns and agriculture between Valparaizo and Santiago; our guide talked about all the grapes that are grown along the route.  That's when he wasn't talking about how the upper classes take total advantage of the poor.  Anyway, let me just say that it takes a lot to make up for 4+ hours on a bus and the Santiago tour didn't provide it!  I don't even have a photo to share that is worth the pixels.

Of course having spent the whole day busing around we didn't see much of Valparaizo.  This would be the view from our balcony.

I think it is really interesting that there are a few high rise buildings down near the water then it turns instantly into much smaller buildings.  Valparaizo is one of several cities around this part of the coast.  We missed out on them as well! 

The map up above shows the route of the ship going out into the Pacific Ocean and, yep, it was fairly rough going.  Especially where you have a whole shipload of people who just got on board.  The crew must get a few laughs at the clumsy old folks who don't have their sea legs yet.  But it didn't last long, only about a day.  Then we were sliding into Puerto Montt.  There wasn't much in the town (well, no tours anyway) so we went up to Puerto Varas where we were supposed to check out the lake and and the volcano on the other side of it.  Happily this bus trip was only 12 miles so it didn't take long at all.  We got to see the lake but the volcano was kind of a no-show.  It was just cloud covered.  The town was kind of cute but small and filled with tourists.  Our guide on this trip was an older lady who thought things were going pretty well in Chile so that was a nice counterpoint to the previous guide.  

We had a good helping of more rough seas the next day but then somehow the ship found calm water heading for the fjords.  The weather started to get a bit gray and moist though and that would follow us the rest of the journey through Chile.  The fjords are amazing though!

We have lots of photos of  this sort of world.  No tours but amazing views.  That photo shows the snow/ice on the mountain tops but there were plenty of places where it was right down to the edge of the fjord.  

The star of the show is supposed to be Amalia Glacier.  And what you could see of it was pretty impressive.  

The ship has a little putt-putt golf area on the top deck and this photo shows people lining the fore area to check out the glacier.  The ship just stayed there for maybe half an hour so people could get some photos.  Then we saw this little boat out there next to us.  It was from the ship!  The guys on the little boat were trying to get some ice that had broken off the glacier so passengers could see it.  Later it was on display in a public room.

Of course the lighting was a little on the dramatic side but I do believe that it was actual glacier ice that we were admiring.  

The next day we were headed for Punta Arenas, Chile.  It is a fairly large city for being so far south!  Here we managed a guide who was an idiot.  He started out walking us around the port so we could admire the bird life.

Yep, the birds like it here.  And, of course they have some statuary to honor those folks who founded the area.

Then the stupidity started.  First he kept getting his centuries wrong; like the city was founded in 1848 and he said 1948.  Then he started crossing streets against the traffic lights!  Jeez!  He started us on a march at top speed up a hill so we could see the entire city.  Nah!  My wife especially wasn't feeling like it so we turned around and found our way back to the ship.  

I'm going to stop for today.  There is plenty more of our trip.  Thanks for stopping by and keep washing those hands!

Change

I said something in my last post about 90F (32C) days being comfortable; well, we don't have to worry about that any more!  Today we are talking 65F (18C).  Oh well.  At least it is sunny outside.

This was taken out the window on Friday.

It was just an odd day.  It wasn't windy but there was just tons of dust in the air.  We couldn't see the mountains or any blue sky all day.  Then came Saturday.

Same window, same corner of the garage but sunshine and mountains.  What a difference a day makes, huh.  Then on Sunday we were looking at winds mostly around 15 mph (24 kph) but, thankfully, no flying dust.  

I keep reading about iOverlander.com.  It is a site that people update when they have camped in a place and want to let others know about their experience.  So, of course, I had to look up our town.  Two of the local RV parks were listed.  We must have 20 spread around but only two made the grade.  What I really wanted to see was the free camping out on BLM land (Bureau of Land Management - public land).  There were a couple of places that were described as nice but the ones closest to town were described as trashy and I would have to agree.  We have a fair number of people living out here more or less permanently.  Every now and then there is trouble but not too often.

Hmmm.  Well, today it is November 8.  I started this post on October 24!  Nothing like letting thing go crazy.  Well, my excuse is, at least, different:  we took a trip to Colorado Springs, CO.  We have friends who live there and we wanted to stop by when we were coming back from visiting the kids but my wife's foot injuries just made her want to get home.  She was feeling better so we thought we'd hit the road again.  

This time we took the car.  We go up I-15 into Utah then pick up I-70 and head for Denver.  Just before Denver we cut down to Colorado Springs.  The drive is just nice.  I-15 does about 30 miles in Arizona going through a canyon formed by the Virgin River.  It is spectacular!  Then you get to Utah which is pretty nice and finally across Colorado which is just amazing.  We stopped both ways at the Super 8 motel in Green River, Utah.  It is a town of about 900 inhabitants and probably 900 hotel rooms!  This was the view from a gas station where I stopped.

When we got into the higher elevations there was snow on the side of the road but none on the road itself and none coming down.  Actually that's a large part of the reason we took the trip when we did because in a few weeks there will be plenty of that white stuff coming down.  

Our friends met while he was serving in the Air Force in Germany and she still brings a lot of Germany to their lives.  Like the dinner she served us where you got to cook your own meal at the dinner table.

And that was for just four people!  How I didn't gain 10 lb is beyond me.  They have a lovely home with a little lake/stream behind them.  I liked getting photos of the ducks and geese.

In the distance you can even see the Air Force Acadamy!

So after a good visit we came back home.  We'd considered going south on I-25 and then west on I-40 but that is a longer drive and I wanted to get back so I could attend a meeting.  But we did get to check out those beautiful mountains in Colorado from the opposite direction!  

So that's what I've been up to.  Fun stuff for sure!  Thanks for stopping by.  Keep washing those hands!

OK, it's over a month now!

Jeez, I just keep getting worse and worse at this blogging thing.  Well, this time my excuse is that we went on a little trip.  It was a family visit trip.  We started with John in Citrus Springs, FL.  John's wife was my wife's aunt so the family relationship is pretty distant but we both really like John so we are willing to drive 2,000+ miles to visit him.  He is in kind of a high point in Florida's geography so the hurricanes kind of give him a miss.  He got some rain from Ian but that was about it.  Of course we'd gone on before all that.  

Our second stop was on the outskirts of Little Rock, AR.  Our son left his long time home in San Diego and moved to Little Rock.  Yeah, seems kind of strange to us too but they seem to be happy there.  It was certainly financially a good deal:  they sold their small house outside of San Diego and were able to pay cash for a larger and nicer place in Little Rock so no mortgage payments for them!  Not only that but they are on a little private lake.  What's not to like?

So, having stopped at one child's new house (well, if a 50 year old can be called a child!), of course our next stop would be his sister's new house outside of Oklahoma City.  Yep, both kids decided to move in the same year!  Well, anyway, they are both just off I-40!  

Number 1 daughter had lived in Las Vegas for a number of years but decided to move to Austin, TX a couple years ago.  She finally figured out that she had moved into basically a retirement community and wasn't happy.  She works for a company that supplies equipment to the building industry and has several customers in the Oklahoma City area and decided that she liked the area and moved there.  So we went to OKC.  Again she found a nice little house.  It is small but plenty big for her and her cat.  

So that was about 3 weeks of September and almost 5,000 miles on our 2008 F250.  The truck is really a pleasure to drive and cruising at something just under 70 mph gives us just under 20mpg.  The downside would be that it is diesel which was somewhere between $4.20 and $5.00 all across the country.  And those were the cheaper place; no big truck stops for us!  

We took the dog so were looking for dog-friendly motels.  We like a king-sized bed and my wife prefers a large room so finding places to stay was always fun but she does it all so I can't really complain.  There would be a problem with cleaning sometimes.  She showered one morning then just wandered  around barefoot in the room for a couple of hours.  This is what her feet looked like after just hanging around in the room.  Not good!

Dog-friendly often means a hard surface floor rather than carpet.  Apparently the cleaning staff doesn't always know about mopping floors.  

We also managed to find a couple of places with rooms on the second floor.  In one of those places my wife was going up the stairs (outside) with the dog and the dog managed to trip her and make her fall.  So she got a huge bruise on her butt AND hurt her right foot.  Well, since she had that operation on her left foot, having the right foot injured as well did not make for speedy walking.  She is ok and both feet are healing but it didn't make life any happier.  

We had hoped to visit friends in Colorado Springs on the way home but with the foot injury we decided we just needed to get home.  I must say we were both really happy to get home.  It seemed like a much longer trip than it really was!

So that's what I've been up to for the last month.  I hope you were having fun as well.   Take care and keep washing those hands.

Back to the quiet times for the moment

Well, Number One Son and his females have gone; headed to their new home in Arkansas.  That should be interesting and we certainly wish them the best of luck.  Our dog is still running around the back yard sniffing for evidence of that intruder dog.  I never even saw the two cats.  Apparently they were happy enough with the sister in whose room they got to stay.  

The intruder dog is a bulldog.  He is really quite friendly; almost too friendly.  He likes biting games with peoples hands so he needs to be corrected from time to time and isn't getting that correction.  When he is calm, he's a great guy.

That's him relaxing after I'd been scratching his belly.  He even raised his leg to give me better access.
 

So now we are back to exciting stuff like doctor's visits and vet visits for our dog.  Yep, three doctor's visits and two vet visits scheduled for the next week!  Of course one doctor visit is with my wife's surgeon and we are thinking he will be pretty satisfied with her recovery.

He gave her instructions to leave that tape on and just let it fall off naturally.  Well, it's covering the stitches so tearing it off doesn't sound that smart even to me!  She's also got a visit with her regular doctor; just a regular thing.  My visit will be with the dermatologist; a checkup on a thing they removed a few weeks ago.  Aging does bring these not so wonderful side effects.

Our son asked if we had any trips planned and the answer was basically 'no'.  Right now we don't want to put the dog in a kennel so that takes international travel or cruises off the table.  We have had people visit just a month or two after we moved somewhere and we won't do that to them.  So that leaves us a choice between a little trip over to California or maybe the other way to Arizona.  We might do something like that.  There are plenty of places we haven't visited in both states and it would get the dog used to traveling.  So far the farthest he's been in our vehicles is Las Vegas. Since 3 or 4 thousand mile trips are our norm, he may as well get used to days in the truck!

Gotta go.  The dog just came in to point out to me that I'm late with his breakfast.  Take care.  Thanks for stopping by and keep washing those hands!

Oops! It's been a while!

 It has been a month and a half since I updated the blog and, as usual, I have an excuse or three.  This time it is travel:  yep, we've been off traveling again.  Yep, another cruise on Viking.  This time we hit ports in Italy, Malta, Crete, Turkey and Greece.  In two weeks!  Yeah, you get only the slightest taste of these countries but it is an introduction. 

Actually, now, because of the whole COVID thing there is a lot less contact with the places you are visiting than there used to be.  And the whole thing was a paperwork nightmare.  Let's start with the PCR test within 48 hours of your flight.  Of course that's in Las Vegas and cost $250 each.  But we passed!  So it was hop on a flight to London; leaving at 5 in the morning.  

 

If you were staying in the UK you'd need to do paperwork for them but we were just passing through so no problem.  But we did have to do paperwork for Italy.  Of course it was close to 9 p.m. local time when we landed in Rome.  However Viking had 2 people waiting to greet us; and a driver to drive the 40 minutes to the ship; and an officer to check our documentation prior to boarding the ship; and a ship's officer to escort us to our cabin and get the first of our DAILY PCR tests.  Wow.  And the whole thing, all 5 people, was just for the two of us.

There were new rules about being on board the ship.  First was that daily PCR test:  before eating or drinking anything you had to spit into a tube.  I never thought I had a dry mouth but I sure think that now!  Filling the tube to the little line was difficult every morning.  But it was just something you needed to do.  You would get a message overnight that you had passed the previous day's test and if you were going ashore somewhere that required it you would get a paper copy that said you passed..  Of course masks were required at all times except when eating or drinking.  Well, I'm pretty overweight so that gave me quite a bit of mask-less time.  LOL  Still, the staff would stop people who'd forgotten the rule.  The final rule was that you couldn't go anywhere on your own.  When you got off the ship, you were with a tour or you didn't get off.  In the past most tours would have time for you to shop in the local businesses:  not this time.  If you were really lucky you might shop in a museum shop but that was it.  In actual fact, most businesses were closed anyway.

So we get onboard the ship.  We have been on the Viking Sky before so the ship was familiar to us.  In the morning we went up to the Explorer's Lounge on the 7th deck at the bow of the ship.  It has a great view of course but what blew us away was that there was only one other couple in the room!  There was the guy handing out rolls and such, there was the waitress ready to bring you anything from water to wine but there were only 2 other customers.  That was weird and it was our introduction to the fact that the ship was perhaps 25% full.  The ship normally carries 930 passengers; for this cruise it was in the 250 range.  They had the full staff; just not many guests!  It was something we eventually got used to but it was certainly weird.  Let's just say that a dirty dinner plate didn't spend much time on the table!

It was kind of chilly for sunbathing but the lounges were set up with towels and all but no takers.

The ship had stops in Rome, Naples and Messina in Italy.  Then we had a couple days in Valletta, Malta.   The we got to visit Heraklion, Crete for a day followed by two days in Rhodes, Greece.  A day in Kusadasi, Turkey followed by a day in Santorini, Greece and a day in Athens.  Clearly you are getting only the faintest whiff of what these cities are like.  Indeed, we didn't get to see so much that it is just painful however it does give us ideas for future independent travel.  

I must admit that we just didn't tour Rome at all.  We have been there before and after the previous day's travel we wanted some quiet time.  So our first stop was Naples.  Again we've been in Naples so we took a tour that just took us out into the countryside around the city.  Pompei would be the other choice but again we've been there. 

The photo of the Tirrenia is our only photo from Rome!

Here is a view of Naples.  From the fortification on the top of the hill you get the impression of ancient wealth in the area.

Another of Naples.  Imagine all those apartments! 

This is from the far side of the bay.  When I took the picture I thought that it was the Viking Sky way over there but it isn't.  And that was our trip around Naples.

Messina was our third port and it was the first time either of us has been in Sicily.  On this trip the ship tried to come into port early in the morning and Messina was quite lovely in the early morning light.

 

We took a tour that primarily focused on the cathedral and it's amazing astronomical clock.  It really is quite amazing with moving statuary and a perpetual calendar.  

Valletta is the capital of Malta and quite rightly is very proud of it's heritage.  We took a walking tour of the old part of the city then got on a bus that showed us some of the outlying areas.  The second day we took another bus tour just checking out some of the ancient ruins and modern buildings.

The harbor has fortificationson both sides.  There were even some where the ship was berthed.

Also right next to the ship was this tiny church.

We took a walking tour of the town.  There were lots of references to the Knights of Malta.  They began as a medical support organization and ended up governing a lot of places.  There were nice buildings and Tritons' Fountain is really very nice I must admit.  

Well, that's half our trip so I'm going to give it a break and come back with the rest of the trip in a day or so.  Have a good one and keep washing those hands!

What's happening? We had MORE of a good time!

 My wife and I decided that we needed a little time out; this hanging around home all the time is so exhausting!  So we decided to check out the area around St. George, Utah.  St. George is slightly under 200 miles away so it's not a tremendous journey.  We've driven through St. George many times since it is on the I-15 but we had never stayed there.  It is also of interest because it is fairly close to Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park and even the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  So, off we went!

We took the dog mostly because we haven't found a kennel for him yet.  He spent some nasty time in the local animal shelter and we don't want to make him think those days are returning.  So we had to find a pet friendly motel and, because he is a nitwit and barks when he is left alone, we got to eat more take-out food.  Hmmm, sounds a lot like home!  Anyway, we drove up on Tuesday being careful to stop in Las Vegas at a restaurant that has some outdoor seating where we could eat with the dog by our side.  Driving up through Nevada is a lot like home except that the elevations are higher.  

Then I-15 cuts through a corner of Arizona.  This is stolen from Google Maps.  It gives you a hint of the Virgin River Gorge in Arizona.

It is a short part of the journey but very nice.  Unfortunately there are few places to stop along side the road.  There is actually a Virgin River that is running next to the highway; down maybe 100 feet but it's there.  

So we got to St. George and spent a quiet night having Thai takeout for dinner.  Tuesday we wanted to make a loop through Zion and on to Kanab, UT which we were hoping to use sometime in the future as a place to park the trailer while visiting the North Rim.  Zion was crowded!  I wasn't expecting crowds in the middle of the week; maybe they were Spring Break people but it was busy.  The roads were clean but there was snow on the mountain sides.

We just drove through the park.  We aren't really back country hikers and the dog certainly isn't!  Anyway, we got to see a bit of that beautiful park then went on to Kanab which wasn't quite as wonderful as we'd hoped but it will probably do for a couple nights.  We ended up back in St. George in time for some takeout Mexican food from a nearby restaurant.  

Thursday we found our way back home; amazingly enough timing it so we got lunch in Las Vegas again.  That night I noticed that our heatpump was cycling on and off a lot.  So Friday we got to have a visit from a local repair person.  He spent a LOT of time checking things then, hoping he found the problem, he recharged the system and we'll just see how that works.  So far it is working but if there is a very small leak I'm sure we'll find it given a bit of time!

I can certainly recommend spending some time in Zion even if it is full of people.  St. George seemed like a nice little town.  So we had fun.  I hope you did as well.  Take care and keep washing those hands!

Back home again

 I've been AWOL for a bit but this time I've got a really good excuse.  My wife has an aunt who is ill with dementia and we wanted to visit her before it was too late.  The only thing is that the aunt lives in Florida; so we headed off to Florida.  We wanted to take the trailer for a trip so, of course, here are a few thousand more tow miles.  It was a very weird trip.  

Let's start with the first night when we hooked up the water and the toilet started leaking.  Hmmm.  Maybe we should have taken it as a hint and changed the trip to a plane trip!  The second day we didn't really have a problem except that the left front stabilizer didn't work quite right.  I lubed it but it is still only working with lots of effort.  Our daughter moved to a suburb of Austin, TX a few months ago.  Since we were making the trip on I-10, it was pretty much a no-brainer that we would stop and see her on both sides of the trip.  In Texas we were seeing dead deer on the side of the road at least 3 or 4 times a day.  Sometimes there would be two together.  We got off I-10 at Junction, TX so we could check out some of the famous Texas Hill Country.  Unfortunately, it was about that time that we got an error message on the dash:  Engine output reduced.  We were running in the hills and going uphill we were lucky to be doing 45 mph.  There didn't seem to be anything wrong; the engine temp was just fine; the transmission temp was fine; we just didn't know what was going on.  I was thinking that there must be a computer chip in the system that had died.  However, we made it to our daughter's.  We had a couple days with her and the truck ran just perfectly!  So we headed on East.  That didn't work long!  A 100 miles or so away and the problem started all over again.  We got the same Engine output reduced message and we also got one that said there was a problem with the trailer lights.  Grrr!  This time we stopped in East Houston, it was Sunday so I knew I'd be headed for the Ford dealer the next morning.  

I got to the Ford dealer by 07:15.  I went in to talk to a service advisor.  The guy came out and plugged his code reader in:  in a couple minutes he said "You need antifreeze".  Huh?  So I went over to the parts counter and bought 2 gallons of Ford's wonderful antifreeze.  (I say wonderful because it was $20 a gallon.)  I went out to the truck and the service advisor had already opened the cap where you add fluid to the cooling system.  I poured a gallon of antifreeze in and he said it should be mixed with distilled water!  So he went and got a gallon of Ford distilled water!  (For free!)  And he gave it to me to pour in with the antifreeze!  OMG, the cooling system was 2 gallons low?  How the devil does that happen and the truck doesn't overheat or anything?  However, that was the problem because it's been fine ever since!  

So we wandered off the next morning.  We got the trailer light message again but since we do a light check when we hook up the trailer we knew it was in error.  (That night I sprayed the trailer light plug with silicone spray.)  But the big news was that the truck ran like a top all day - no Engine output problem.  So we finally made it to Florida.  

We pulled up and my wife's uncle was standing there in the driveway waiting for us!  He has room on his property to park the rv so we stayed with him.  He is a great host and we had a great time visiting with him.  We visited my wife's aunt at the nursing home; he is going over there every other day but cannot visit her because of covid-19 so he goes to the window of her room and talks on the phone with her.  Unfortunately, her phone went missing so all we could do was wave and yell 'Hello'.  As it turns out, our visit was too late.  She showed no response at all to any of us.  It has to be just killing him to see the woman he loves turn into a non-person.  

However, we had visited her so now it was time to head back home.  This time I noticed that in Alabama and Mississippi there were parts of cars on the side of the road.  One time I saw the front bumper of a car with the license plate still attached on the side of the road.  We drove rather steadily and got back to the Austin area without really any trouble.  Again we had a good visit and headed out west.  We were nearing Deming, NM when the wind started hitting us hard.  It turns out there was a storm earlier today that was still with us with gusts up to 50 mph!  Let's just say we were really happy to make it to our rv park!

Our next night was to be in Phoenix.  As we got to Phoenix the rain started and, of course, the traffic became awful.  The rain was nasty and the fact that 4 cars were involved in a fender-bender made traffic just creep along.  We finally got past all that and were almost up to speed when something else happened.  I didn't see it along the side of the road but it must have been there because we had another long slowdown.  Finally we found our rv park about an hour later than we'd been expecting.  It is a huge park with mostly park model homes but they had 15 or 20 spaces for travelers.  It was ok but had no internet connection at all.  Well, we won't be stopping there again!  However the weather forecasts were scary.  They were talking about snow and a lot of it where we were headed.

In the morning the news was full of I-40 accidents and views of other roads that were simply covered with snow.  I started talking about going on I-10 to California then working our way north to Nevada.  In the end, that's pretty much what we did.  It wasn't the route I'd have chosen but it worked out just fine.  We got home Tuesday afternoon having not seen a single snow flake.  There was snow on the ground and it made the mountains even more beautiful than usual but no flying snow flakes.  Now that was just luck but I'll take it.  Now we have to adjust to living in a house again.  It's amazing but in less than a month I've forgotten where to find things.  I actually have to think about where the cutting board lives or where the coffee grinder stays.  Oh well, if that's the worse thing in my life it's ok.

Happily we have a new President who seems to be reversing many of the orders that Mr. Trump had made over the last four years.  I'm unsure about the legality of all these Presidential Orders but since they have been allowed to function as laws I guess it is just my ignorance.  I would just as soon that there was no more impeachment proceedings against Mr. Trump but that is just part of my desire for him to disappear from the headlines.  Let him just be the lying golfer that he's always been and not the headline grabbing right wing idiot that we've had for the last four years.  

Well, that's the story of the last month in my life.  I hope everyone had a great January.  We'll be working on February soon enough.  Take care & keep washing those hands.

Life in the REALLY fast lane

 It's been a bit since I updated the old blog but at least this time I have an excuse:  we went to Texas!  Yep, movement is possible in the good old USA these days.  The thing is that our daughter moved to the Austin, Texas area and we wanted to check out the house she has been renovating and the area in general.  We did visit Austin a few years back but we were more interested in the Presidential Libraries and stuff than the town itself.  Besides, she doesn't live in the city but out a bit.  The other thing we wanted to learn about was taking our 'new' dog for a long journey.  

Ollie, the dog, is a rescue; probably 8-10 years old.  He has trouble moving and has had more than his share of bad treatment by humans.  Even the rescue shelter managed to shave his fur off so closely that the hair folicles were damaged and some places may never grow back!  Anyway, we wanted to know what his reactions would be to traveling all day in the back seat of the truck.  Also, how would he deal with motel living?  And what about stopping in rest areas?  I can lift him in and out but neither of us likes it much and my wife cannot.  Therefore because he has trouble moving, I built a little stair for him to use to get into and out of the truck.  He had used it once or twice but a trip would give it a real workout.

So off we went.  It turns out Ollie did very well.  We had his dog bed and he slept on it every night.  He had some trouble with the stair but by the return side of the trip he was just fine with it.  He loved our daughter's back yard which is fenced and has grass which our's does not.  She has a swimming pool and I was thinking he might fall in because he was so interested in the water but he managed to not do that.  He even managed rest areas and such well.

The trip was actually very good.  The 'Really fast lane' I refered to in the title is the fact that the speed limits on the highways were usually 75 or 80mph(120-130kph).  I haven't driven that fast in a while!  Weather was great.  We did get to drive through a rain storm that was heavier than anything I've seen in a long time.  We also got to drive some of the Texas Hill Country which was very pretty.  Then on the way home we went north from I-10 to I-40 via the Salt River Canyon and  Show Low, AZ.  The canyon was spectacular.  I took a few photos but nothing that really reflects the place.  I've always wanted to go see Show Low; no real reason just that it has a neat name!  It seemed like a nice enough town and they have real trees!  We don't get a lot of real trees here in the desert.  

Anyway we had a great trip and are now primed for staying home a bit.  The California fires are still covering us with smoke usually at a high enough level that you don't really smell it.  This morning we can smell it; it isn't pleasant at all.  I feel for all those folks who are losing their homes and livelyhoods and sometimes even lives.  

Of course this morning I get to read about Mr. Trump telling the folks in Minnesota that they have 'good genes'; meaning basically that they are white.  What an a$$!  How the devil people can vote for that idiot is beyond me.  Especially, black, Hispanic, Asian and female people:  what the hell can he be doing to earn their votes?  It just doesn't make sense to me but he's doing something right or this election would be a shoo-in for Biden.  Don't get me wrong; I'm not really crazed about Biden but at least he's not a closet Nazi.

Gotta go.  Have a good one and thanks for stopping by.

Coming on home...

So last time I left you we were having an 'at sea' day to get to Greenland.  I was looking forward to Greenland just because the place seems pretty difficult to reach.  On Viking ships, and I believe most, you get a little 4 or 5 page news release every night.  On this night we received one extra piece of paper:  a Projected Weather Forecast. 

"Due to strong winds of up to 40 knots at the entrance of Prince Christian Sound, we will not be able to enter the Sound at our scheduled arrival time of 06:00 AM.  The wind is forecasted to drop during the morning of September 21 and the planned entrance is now amended to 1:00 PM.  This will allow us an enjoyable scenic sailing through the sound utilizing day light.  With this change in schedule, we will be unable to make our call to Nanortalik, Greenland."

Grrr!  But in the end it was actually rather fun.  Cruising the sound in the afternoon meant lots of photo op!  Here we've been sailing in open water for a week and suddenly it gets pretty narrow.

One of the things that, well, I just don't understand is how people live places like this.  I've spent my adult life in cities and suburbs.  Even now, living in rural Nevada; this isn't what you'd call empty.  There are police and fire fighters and stores.  It isn't like that some places and this had some of them.

The folks who live in this little community seem probably to be on their own.  I'm sure there is a tiny store there where you can get things or at least get them shipped in if you request them but it's not like the FedEx guy will be bringing your Amazon order in 2 days.  I want to give you another view of the town that shows a little more of the area.

That is one tall mountain! 

This is a glacier that comes right down to the ocean.  Sorry about the rain flecks on the window but we weren't being encouraged to go outside.

I was walking through the pool area and looked over to notice how close we were to land.

They have a pool grill where you can eat but on this cruise it was pretty unpopular.  It was just too cold.

The next day, day 9 of our cruise, we reached Qaqortoq, Greenland.  It was supposed to be our second stop in Greenland but it turned out to be the only one.  It is a cute little place with, of course, lots of fishing boats.  The houses must be in some order with roads, etc. around them but it sure doesn't look like it.

They do believe in color on their houses.  There is a fountain in the 'center' of town that was pretty cute.

A few years ago a group of sculptors decided to make the town their own and there are little pieces of artwork all over the place.

It was just a very cute little place.  And if you are there and need to meet people, there's a place for that.

 We, however, got back onto the ship and headed off for Canada.  Monday, our 10th day of the cruise, was another 'at sea' day.  On Tuesday we reached L'Anse aux Meadows, Canada.  It is thought to be the first Norse landing in the Americas.  There were two things we were visiting:  a reproduction of the village and the location of the actual village.  Apparently people have thought this was the place where Leif Eriksson landed for many years but there was no proof.  Then in 1960 the remains of the original buildings were found perhaps a mile from the reproduction village.  So first we visited the reproduction village.  The houses were all sod covered, this happens to be the church.

Some of the buildings were rather large.

Inside they had people doing what Viking settlers might have done:  weaving, iron working, etc. 

After checking out the village we went over to see the 'real thing'.  The Canadian park system has an office on a hilltop then you walk down towards the water.  What you find is this.

The archaeologists dug into the little bumps and discovered proof of the Viking origin then covered it up again simply to preserve it.  They had little plaques saying this place was a forge or that one a home.  Still, it was a nice place to visit.

Well, after all that excitement, we had another 'at sea' day getting us to Saguenay, Canada.  There was supposed to be a stage show for us to learn all about fur and timber trading back in the day.  It was rainy and the ship was docked quite a distance from the theater so we made an executive decision and stayed on the ship!  Saguenay is only about 240 km from Quebec City so it's pretty much a city.

Our 14th day on the cruise was a stop in Quebec City.  We took the included tour that was the worst tour we've ever been on for one simple reason:  there were at least five other ships docked in Quebec City and each one had a tour going over the same places!  There were tourists EVERYWHERE!  What little bit we saw of the city we liked but there has to be a time when the place isn't overrun by tourists.  The photos we got were just awful so I have none to share here.  I mean it was just stupid. 

The final stop on the cruise was Montreal and we visited there just last fall so our version of seeing Montreal was getting long-hauled by a cab driver to get to the airport!  Honestly, we got the same treatment last fall so I'm over Montreal.  But the airport was nice.  We had a short flight to Detroit then another home.  Las Vegas looked pretty good and it wasn't cold!

That's the end of the trip.  Hope you've enjoyed hearing about it and maybe you'll go check out some of these places.  We love traveling so there will be more.  Take care and thanks for stopping by.