Phannie and Mae

New Stuff for Phannie

2012-01-28T00:26:00.000-06:00

As I get older, I'm finding that I give a good deal more consideration to those persons, activities and things that make me comfortable or at least that reduce stress and strain. The last several posts are replete with examples of creature comforts we have added to Phannie, and I've just acquired a couple of new ones.

In terms of relieving stress, my recent acquisition of a TireTracker tire pressure monitor was essential.

This replaces my PressurePro system, with which I've had nothing but trouble. I know many folks swear by that brand, but I just could never get the thing to work right. I've made one trip with the new system with the sensors installed only on the wheels of our toad, Mae. I must say, this thing is a jewel! Not only is it the least expensive of all the monitors I've seen, it is no larger than an iPhone, easy to operate, wireless, and it requires no booster to display Mae's tire pressures, even though she's WAY back there behind Phannie! It monitors temperature in addition to pressure, and I'm now going to order six more sensors for Phannie's tires.

This was a great stress reliever, as I had become increasingly worried about pulling Mae with the Pressure Pro system inoperative. I figured it was only a matter of time until one of her tires would go flat, and it is doubtful that I would know it way up in Phannie's cockpit without a tire monitor alarm. The rear TV camera was of little help, as Mae's wheels are not visible on the monitor screen in the cockpit. I knew that Phannie's powerful engine could drag Mae for miles--probably even with a wheel missing--and I would never know it unless another driver alerted me. I feel much better now about this.

The other purchase was an LED light fixture to replace the cheaply-constructed one over Phannie's entrance door. The old fixture was the el cheapo kind with the orange plastic lens that you see on, well, 487,000 other RVs. These flimsy things have been installed on every RV I've owned and they have been an unending source of irritation. The model originally installed on Phannie was a slightly heftier metal version, but it was no less cantankerous because of its frequent jettisoning of the stupid plastic lens cover! I had bought a couple of cover spares before it dawned on me that they were probably designed to pop right off any time you run over a bump in the road bigger than an acorn. I'm sure there's some dude sitting on the beach in Key West right now, watching the sunset and thinking about his good fortune in inventing those pop-out lens covers.

I ordered this fixture from Camping World, and I love the cool light and modern look, and the LEDs will last a very long time. It was easy to install and, best of all, it has no plastic cover to lose!

Motor Home...Airplane--Same Thing!

2012-01-20T01:16:00.003-06:00

One is wise to perform a degree of introspection before entering the world of RV ownership for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the degree of tolerance one may have for annoyances like dealing with mechanical stuff that breaks down.

RVs--especially motor homes--are, by design, fiendishly complex because of the difficulties in marrying a house and a vehicle. In terms of opportunity for things to go wrong, you get the worst of both worlds. The degree of complexity follows a general formula: The more expensive the RV, the greater its complexity and the number of things that can break. There is also another irrefutable fact: Breakdowns will occur at precisely the most inconvenient time and at a location that has been devoid of human beings since the Mesozoic Period.

The fact is, motor homes are marvels of engineering and, in terms of reliability, are much like airplanes, in that there is almost always something wrong with them; and I know a few things about airplanes, having flown them many thousands of hours in my flying life. The difference is that the large passenger-carrying airplanes I flew are built with redundant systems, so that when something critical fails, there is a backup to lessen the likelihood of a catastrophe. In fact, airlines are permitted to operate their aircraft with certain components inoperative, but these are tightly controlled through the use of a Minimum Equipment List, approved by the FAA, that sets forth those things that are "go" or "no go." Most passengers would be surprised to learn that the aircraft on which they are flying is more likely than not to have something wrong with it. This appears to be true of motor homes, as well.

Now, you may be thinking something snarky like, "Well, duh! What exactly did you expect in buying one of these mechanical monstrosities?"

Actually, I was fully certain there would be more maintenance issues when we traded our fiver for Phannie, and this has proven true. However, I still think the positives outweigh the negatives if traveling comfort is the primary consideration and, of course, it is, as I was definitely built for comfort and not speed.

Lately, Phannie has suffered a couple of additional mechanical discrepancies (that's aviation industry terminology for mechanical things that are broken; a pilot knows that it's much less alarming to tell passengers there is a "mechanical discrepancy" than to say something is "broken" or "busted" or "crapped out" or "tango uniform"--an impolite pilot term that I probably never used). It's for that same reason that, as an airline passenger, you may hear an announcement from the cockpit asking if there is a doctor on board, but you will never hear a pilot asking if there is a mechanic on board! But, I digress.

I'm a little reluctant to chronicle all of Phannie's mechanical issues, lest someone gets the idea I consider her a "shop queen." Well, I don't but, because she is a 2006 model, it would be unrealistic not to expect some problems to be appearing. On the positive side, there have been no issues with the high-cost items like the engine, transmission, chassis, appliances, etc. Besides the one broken wire that affected the engine's computer, most of Phannie's "discrepancies" have been related to convenience items.

Except for one instance--the broken wire that required a tow--the repair costs have been sufficiently low that they have not reached the level of the insurance deductible. So, I've decided that, by blogging about these hiccups, I'm not complaining, but figure I may provide a little insight that may be useful to someone considering the acquisition of a motor home: Here's the bottom line: Mechanical problems are inevitable; it's all about how you deal with them and whether you have a history of being arrested for assault.

I drove Phannie down to Vogt RV in Fort Worth to have the slides inspected (recommended by Tiffin every six months) and a repair done to the electronic brain that controls the coach levelers. This brain--actually a black box--is located in one of the forward cargo compartments. The mechanics found that the levelers' control box had not been properly secured to the ceiling of the cargo bin and it was hanging down, held at a crazy angle by its wiring bundle. This was creating problems with the levelers, as the electronic gadgetry had no internal reference as to what "level" is because of its cockeyed position. The Vogt mechanics did a great job securing the box back to its level position, and all the levelers work fine now.

Soon afterward, I found that the power awning would not extend. At the same time, a faint beeping noise began sounding from inside the cargo bin where, among other electrical components, the black control boxes are located for the levelers and the awning. I didn't connect the awning failure and the beeping, but I could tell that it was in the general area of all the electrical stuff I mentioned. Because the beeping was not very loud, I elected to shut the cargo door let it beep until I could get a mechanic to look at it. By the time I got around to calling Jesse Sees, my favorite mobile RV repair guy, the beeping had sounded for a couple of weeks! When people came over, they would invariably ask, "Why is your coach beeping?" Embarrassed to tell them I didnt' know, I made up answers like, "It's the alarm system," or, if it was an older person who asked, I would say, "What beeping?"

When Jesse arrived, he quickly found the problem. The wind sensor had failed (retracts the awning automatically when its gets windy), and the beeping was a fault alert. Because the awning's brain was located in a corner, I did not notice the little switch on the outside cover that disables the alarm.

Since the wind sensor was not something I considered worthy of repair, I told Jesse just to turn off the switch, and he collected eighty bucks for his mighty effort and the service call.

The culprit...see the little switch on the left just above the screw?

These are the little revelations that come my way as I get used to Phannie. Let's hope the learning phase is done before my cash supply is done.

Shades of Glory

2011-12-18T10:53:00.000-06:00

A couple of posts ago, I vented my frustration with the window shades in Phannie, and I really don't think I wish to revisit that rant except to include a few photos that precipitated our visit to McKinney last week and the acquisition of new custom shades:

We had made an appointment with MCD Innovations after reading about other RVers' experiences with this firm. Upon our initial telephone inquiry, they gave us an overview of the installation process, and we settled on an appointment that would be available in about a month. (Apparently, they have plenty of RV business.) They also mailed us a packet of information about the product and the installation and pricing plans, along with some samples from which we could choose shade textures and colors.

The normal installation scheme involves showing up at MCD's headquarters on a Monday morning with your RV, being prepared to leave it there until 5:00 p.m. the following Friday. They can easily accommodate fulltimers, as they have 50-amp electric hookups serving about 20 spaces in a large concrete parking lot alongside their factory. (There is no water or sewer, though; you would need to show up with a full water tank and empty black and grey tanks.) Although McKinney is only about an hour's drive from our house in the D/FW mid-cities area, we elected to drive up on Sunday and spend the night in Phannie, to avoid the Monday morning demolition derby that is rush hour in the D/FW Metroplex.

MCD Offices in McKinney

We arrived late Sunday afternoon and, although MCD's headquarters facility was clearly closed, we were soon met by a friendly gent named Mac, I think, who directed us as we backed into our preassigned spot #11 among perhaps ten other RVs. Mac lives in a motor home near the entrance to the parking area and apparently serves as a greeter and host. From his vantage point, he can easily see the flow of RVs into and out of the parking area.

RV Parking Area at MCD

All settled in for the night...

After getting settled, we went to Shogun, a Japanese hibachi restaurant for a nice dinner, then came back to Phannie, where we watched a movie and turned in for the night.

On Monday morning, the order taker, a pleasant young lady, made her way to every coach to finalize the orders and receive the initial payment, which was for the materials ordered. The installation fee would be paid on Friday, as it is calculated by the hour and based on the amount of time required for the work involved. We already had our fabric selections picked out (the really attractive ones are more expensive--imagine that!), so it was only a matter of deciding which windows were to be done. Because of the large number of orders that day, we were among the last to place our order, so we had some time to kill well beyond the 8:30 a.m. time that we were told to expect the order-taker's visit.

After our order was taken, a young man showed up to do the measurements, which took only a few minutes. Then he disappeared into the factory, and soon the order-taker reappeared with an invoice, which we paid by credit card. She said we would pay for the installation on Friday, at which time the installation charges would be known. We told her that we were planning to pick up our coach on Saturday, so she said we could do the credit card transaction over the phone on Friday. We left the keys with her and hopped in Mae for the drive home, but not before stopping for lunch at Baker's Drive-In, a legendary local burger joint.

Upon our return the following Saturday, there were only a few RVs in the parking area, and no one appeared to meet us. We picked up Phannie's keys from the agreed-upon hiding spot and went inside to inspect the new shades. We were not disappointed; these are the American Duo models with two rollers, one for the day shade and one for the night shade. The shades operate much like the old-timey roller window shades in that you pull them down to the desired level, then pull again and the springs in the rollers roll them up. However, these are much improved in that when you pull down on the shade to retract it, you can release it and it will gently rise to the fully retracted position. Pretty neat! A motorized, remote-control version is also available, but Sandy and I thought we would probably not wear ourselves out by raising and lowering the shades manually.

BEFORE

AFTER

Comparison Night Shade (Left) and Day Shade (Right)

So, everything went just about as planned, and we're very pleased. The cost? Well, they are priced according to window sizes, and we had large, medium and small windows to cover which, I suppose, would be the case with most rigs. For these particular day/night shades (with an upscale fabric choice), you can figure an average of slightly less than $300 per window, including the removal of the old shades and installation of the new ones.

And the end of my frustration with Phannie's old window shades? Priceless!

We Meet Boris and Natasha!

2011-12-14T00:28:00.000-06:00

This past weekend we had the good fortune to meet fulltimers Paul and Mary, whose exploits appear in two of our must-read blogs, Bullwinkle’s Travels and The Great RV Escape. These wonderfully friendly folks checked out of the work world at an enviably early point in their lives and are having a fine time traveling the country in their beautiful Winnebago Tour motor home, Bullwinkle, and their trusty Jeep toad, Rocky. (We like it when people name their vehicles; it makes our own similar habit seem somehow less juvenile.)

Paul, Mary and Sandy with Bullwinkle

It's always fun to meet fellow bloggers in person after having first become acquainted with them in their words and pictures. We've found that the first meeting in person is generally just a validation of what you think you know about them already and, therefore, something to anticipate with a degree of excitement. It's much like meeting a personality you've watched on TV for a long time--but one who happens to have watched you, as well! Because of this, it is a very short and easy step indeed from cyber friend to real friend. There was no awkwardness, just starting a live visit where the last blog entry ended, with the only new thing being the sound of our voices.

Like all the RV bloggers we've met, Paul and Mary are irresistibly nice people with great personalities and very quick wits. From their very well written blogs, we already knew much about their clandestine plans that led up to their retiring and becoming fulltimers. They blogged about their retirement preparations for months in advance with cloak-and-dagger subterfuge, using the pseudonyms Boris and Natasha so their imminent departure from their small company would not be discovered. They were key members of the staff, and the foreknowledge of their leaving would have caused all sorts of complications for them. It was better, they thought, to give the customary notice for the sake of a smoother and shorter transition. These episodes in their blog were among the most captivating of all we have read, as the expertly written journal was not unlike a good mystery novel that could only be read one chapter at a time.

Once notice was given and their identity revealed, Paul and Mary launched on their adventure, and who would they run into but other blogger friends we have met like Ed and Marilyn and Gordon and Juanita, along with others we hope to meet as time goes by. We were totally delighted when we received Paul and Mary's e-mail announcing their plans to visit the D/FW area; we quickly set a time to get together and visit.

Paul, Mary and Sandy inside the "Moose"

We had a nice brunch at the Blue Mesa Cafe in Southlake and then took a quick tour of our neighborhood and the little house where we keep Phannie and Mae. They were gracious in their comments, and we talked of perhaps getting together again in the summer, when we might be able finally to meet Sue and Doug and other bloggers we "almost" know. That would be a hoot, for sure!

Paul makes some yummy selections at Blue Mesa's buffet

Mary and Sandy, doing a little "grazing"

We continue to marvel at the winsome nature of those we meet in the RV world--a winsomeness that is especially prevalent among RV bloggers. I don't think I can remember encountering any RVer who was anything but pleasant and helpful. Well, I take that back...I do remember a certain lady in Kerrville who was gave us pause, but she was actually more eccentric than unpleasant. You can read about her in this post from 2005, our first year of RV travel when we had a fifth wheel named Homer. It is, by the way, a post I most enjoyed writing; I hope you enjoy reading it. I describe this lady under the subheading, "Take-It-Easy RV Park in Kerrville."

After bidding goodbye to Paul and Mary, we fired up Phannie and drove the short distance up to McKinney in order to make good our appointment to have custom shades installed by MCD Innovations on Monday. More on this adventure next time...

I Give Up!

2011-12-04T13:59:00.001-06:00

Because I am a patient man, it has taken me a while to arrive at the conclusion that the day/night shades installed in most RVs—including Phannie—are, well, of the devil. While I would not want any harm to come to the person who invented these things, I believe he needs to be tied up like a prime rib roast with these little strings that are the source of my frustration. Where would he have gotten the notion that the guide strings, upon which these shades are totally dependent for operation, could possibly be something that would work for more than four days? And the pleats--getting those to stay in place absolutely requires cuss words, and I've sworn not to swear. (Or did I just swear then? I'm not sure.)

Mind you, I think the idea is a good one: A shade that can be pulled up and down that will afford either translucence for daytime or opaqueness for night. But the strings—I have had to repair half of them on Phannie already, and I had similar luck with the ones in Homer, her predecessor. And, as those of you know who have had to repair them, the fix is not exactly easy. In fact, it is downright sadistic. If I am to be punished, and I have a choice between repairing a day/night shade and a public flogging, I would just go to the courthouse square, bend over and say, “Bring it on.”

Well, I’m throwing in the towel. I have an appointment at MCD in McKinney, Texas next Monday for a retrofit of all the shades in Phannie’s lounge. From what I’ve read in the blogs, MCD’s design seems unchallenged as the antidote for the demonic day/night shades with strings. I talked to the folks at MCD several weeks ago and made the appointment. They were very friendly and helpful on the phone, and they invited me to drive Phannie to their facility Sunday evening and stay the night to be ready for Monday’s design session, so that’s what we intend to do. We don’t think we’re going to bother with replacing the shades in the bedroom, as we never open them anyway. Besides, I’m halfway afraid to touch them for fear they, too, will break.

We’ll keep you posted on the progress.

Back to Branson

2011-11-25T13:08:00.000-06:00

Three years had elapsed since our last visit to Branson, and we thought that would be a good trip to stretch Phannie’s legs a bit and see a few shows. The Barkers—Bubba, LouAnn and BreAnn decided to join us for this escapade, so we knew we would have a good time.

We had never seen any Christmas shows in Branson, and we got word that this may be the last season for a couple of the longtime stars. Shoji Tabuchi is retiring, and Andy Williams has been diagnosed with cancer, so we thought this might be the last time we could see these entertainers. As it turned out, we didn’t get to see Andy Williams, as he was undergoing treatment in California; however, his Christmas show was still terrific. He left word that he will be performing again next year but, at 84, you have to wonder. The Lennon Sisters have now joined his show and the Moon River Theatre will be their new home in Branson. (Yes, they’re still going—well, half of them, after 50 years! Two of the sisters retired, and one was replaced by a younger sister, Mimi.)

The Lennon Sisters

Andy Williams’ show was very entertaining and professional, as expected, and I enjoyed seeing the Lennon Sisters again. These gals are really showing their age, but then, so am I! They still sound good, though! I hope Andy’s illness is short-lived and that he is able to do his show as long as he can. Gotta give him kudos for hanging in there and thumbing his nose at the aging process…pretty inspiring, if you ask me!

I confess to a bit of sadness as I see the aging entertainers with whom I grew up. I wistfully yearn for a return to the simplicity, innocence, hopefulness and national pride of the fifties and sixties. Those were great decades, and I’m afraid I don’t fit in very well in many aspects of life in this new century. While I marvel at the advances in technology, communication, transportation and medicine, I am perplexed at what passes for culture, music, discourse, justice and political leadership. Never before have I questioned if our country will survive in a form that I will recognize. But I remain optimistic that at least some of our mistakes will be corrected before long.

I also wonder if Branson will survive after all the old stars die off. You wouldn’t know it, judging by how the place is growing, but I have a hard time envisioning the next generation of gray-haired folks making the trek there to a "Lady Ga-Ga" Theatre. There’s just something not right about that.

But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Our travel legs from Fort Worth to Texarkana and then to Branson were uneventful, and I was glad to have the chance to drive Phannie through the rather benign Ozark foothills to get comfortable with her power management in an uphill/downhill situation. I was very pleased with the performance and smoothness of the Caterpillar engine and Allison transmission. I found that leaving the cruise control engaged, even on moderate inclines, resulted in very comfortable downshifting at the appropriate RPMs. Soon after acquiring Phannie, I had the Cat techs confirm that the engine computer was set to “soft cruise,” allowing somewhat flexible parameters for holding cruise speed. This helps to avoid engine lugging, hard shifting and high RPMs to hold an exact speed. In soft mode, the computer is content to allow cruise speed to vary appreciably when going uphill and downhill. Neat feature.

Going downhill required a bit more attention, as I had had the Allison techs reset the transmission to downshift only to 5^th gear instead of 2^nd when the engine brake is applied. This requires me to control the downshifting manually if the downhill grade is steep and a gear lower than 5^th is needed. I prefer it that way, however, as I was always alarmed at the huge RPM spike caused by the automatic downshift to 2^nd when the engine brake was applied. I wondered why this default setting would be used in the first place, but settled on my belief that the coach builders have designed it that way to keep inexperienced drivers out of trouble. This assumes such a driver would be unable to discern that downshifting might be a good idea when embarking on a steep downhill grade and would mindlessly let the rig achieve escape velocity or burn up the brakes instead. This is another of those dumbing-down techniques by manufacturers—much like their wholesale reliance on idiot lights—that I often rail against with utter futility.

We stayed at the Stagecoach RV park in Branson, which was not up to our usual standards and too far from the strip. We got a good deal with Passport America, but the inconvenience wasn’t worth the 50 percent price reduction. In fact, it could even be said to be silly, considering what it cost to drive Phannie to Branson and back. It just shows how much people can be influenced by a bargain, no matter how much irritation they will endure to get it. Sometimes I wonder about myself.

The girls did some shopping (surprise!) at every conceivable opportunity, and I was relegated to chauffeur’s duty while Bubba watched football to the extent possible. We got some pretty fair barbeque at Famous Dave’s and a so-so steak at Montana Mike’s. We had never tried either of these before and the one visit was probably enough. One favorite eatery was the Dessert Station, where we got a good burger and excellent desserts.

Shoji Tabuchi was a very slick and professional production with a good deal of talent variety which was needed, in my opinion. While Shoji is a talented violinist, it doesn’t take too many violin solos before I begin to yawn. It was almost worth the price of admission to see the theatre’s bathrooms, which were something to behold. Imagine a men’s bathroom so large that it has its own billiard room!

Shoji Tabuchi

On our last day, we toured Big Cedar, a fabulous lodge complex on Table Rock Lake not far from Branson. We had a wonderful breakfast at the Devil’s Pool restaurant and walked around the beautiful setting. What a find! Unfortunately, we will have to return to check out this place further. Sandy said this discovery was probably the best part of her trip. Looks like that cinches our return!

The trip back to Fort Worth had to be re-routed due to weather. Even though we missed most of the thunderstorms, we did encounter some rain in the Tulsa area. This was the first rain encounter with Phannie, and she did just fine—no leaks anywhere that I could see.

The only indignity suffered was with Mae, who looked much like a mud pie. The road spray from Phannie definitely took its toll on the usually-pristine little red car.

Tales From the Front: First Monday Trade Days in Canton

2011-11-09T00:16:00.007-06:00

Sandy and our daughter, Mindy, along with Brenda (Sandy’s sister) and LouAnn, formed the group of hens who dreamed this up. On only one other occasion, years ago, was I forced to attend the shoppers’ monthly feeding frenzy in Canton, Texas. I told myself then that it would take a team of Clydesdales to drag me there again. It wasn't exactly a team of Clydesdales, but it was a bunch of horses--about 350 of them, that would indeed take me back to Canton.

Phannie's RV Port, with all lights on preparing for next day's departure to Canton

Sandy gives Phannie's wood cabinets a drink

Mason and Sandy, ready for departure

It’s not that I begrudge my beloved an occasional pilgrimage to this vast assemblage of flea-market Bedouins for reasons that only females, I think, can fully comprehend. Most guys (with, uh, some exceptions) just don’t get it—the fascination with all things cute and kitschy. And I can assure you that is an apt description of all of the stuff these gals felt compelled to buy rather than to hold on to the money burning a hole in their purses. But money just isn't cute, and it is entirely acceptable for them to exchange it for something that is. Frankly, I would rather have squirreled away the money or spent it on something worthwhile, like the latest electronic gadget I think I might want. The problem is, I can't really use this as an argument, because I get way more of these than I should. So, I wisely keep quiet, smile a lot and keep the cash flowing. Perhaps to demonstrate her annoying selflessness, Sandy limited most of her purchases to those for our grandson, Mason. This is fine with me, and I take no small degree of satisfaction in the fact that his parents--and not us--will have to find a place to put all that stuff. (Sorry, kids!)

It’s okay, though, that we guys don’t have to understand or appreciate the female mind which, the ladies will probably tell you, has attained a far greater level of sophistication than that of the male. Male brains, according to them, have either atrophied or even regressed in the eons since we guys emerged from the primordial soup. (Yes, to hear their side of the story, it was only the male of the species who evolved from swamp slime; females, obviously, could only be a Divine creation. My reaction to this illumination was, predictably, a rather neanderthal-like grunt.) But I digress.

Main gate at the older section of Canton First Monday park

My role in this Canton escapade, which I happily accepted instead of going into the mosh pit of shoppers at the vendor sheds, was to be (along with Bubba) the bus driver, taxi driver and ATM while they shopped. No arguments here; parking would have been almost impossible on Saturday, because every piece of Canton's open land was occupied by vehicles for miles around the sellers’ sheds during this weekend and all the rest of the first Mondays. This was an especially busy weekend, as the sellers had all their Christmas-themed wares available which, for this group of shoppers, was like waving a pork chop in front of a coon hound. Saturday at the park proved to be a zoo, and our ladies claimed they were unfairly constrained by the crowds from looking at everything they wanted to see. What a pity, I thought.

Sandy and LouAnn find bargains!

Sandy with sister Brenda

We had not been able to secure RV space in our desired park—Mill Creek Ranch. This is a very nice park with beautiful facilities and some very nice park model cabins for those visitors without RVs. However, bookings are required several months in advance for trade days weekends. We stayed instead at Canton I-20 RV Park, a very serviceable facility with a friendly and accommodating staff. Warning: Reserve your spaces well ahead of time if you’re planning to park anywhere near Canton on trade weekends!

Saturday night’s restaurant selection proved quite successful--

the Red Barn at the Wills Point exit off I-20. This is a very modest joint, open only on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, serving some fine catfish, shrimp and all the fixins, not to mention some killer cobblers. We would definitely go there again. For a great breakfast at a quaint little local dive, try the Bluebird cafe in Wills Point. A word to the wise: Stay away from Juanita’s Mexican Restaurant in Canton; we’re not sure whose idea of Mexican food this is, but it’s not ours. Really insipid stuff.

The ladies’ quest for shopping treasures having remained unrequieted by the constraints of the vast crowd on Saturday, they determined that Bubba and I would return them to the melee on Sunday morning. This proved to be a much better experience, as the park was far less crowded. (I have to assume that most folks were in church and not being backsliders like us.) After picking up the girls, we had a nice pizza lunch at Jerry’s on highway 19 and made our way home. All in all, it was a good weekend trip, and Phannie’s comfortable easy chairs and HD TVs were a perfect place for Bubba and me to kick back until we received the next summons for taxi service.

Sandy, Mason and Mike arrive back at the RV port. (Mason LOVES RVing!)

Phannie's Back!

2011-10-30T01:50:00.003-05:00

Fort Worth Freightliner called and said Phannie was ready after nine days in their possession. The good news is that the problem was with a broken wire in a connector near the engine bay. The bad news is that it took them enough hours of troubleshooting to snag $700 from my wallet. Following the regular troubleshooting guide led the mechanics down a rabbit hole to the throttle sensor, causing them to replace the accelerator assembly ($1232 plus overnight express fees), only to discover that wasn’t the problem.

Astonishingly, Fort Worth Freightliner initially tried to bill me for the $1232 part that didn’t fix the problem. After a non-productive conversation with a service manager, I called up Freightliner’s corporate headquarters in Gaffney, South Carolina and let loose with a stream of invective that I struggled—successfully, thankfully— to keep clear of expletives. They agreed this was not according to their corporate policy but stopped short of any suggestion of relief, as Fort Worth Freightliner is an independent franchisee. However, my conversation next day with the local facility was much different; the $1232 charge for the ineffective part had been removed from the bill. I’m not sure if Freightliner headquarters had influenced the decision, but I’m grateful for the reversal.

I’ve already droned on in the previous post about the breakdown and what I’m learning about motorhome ownership, so I guess I could best serve the reader by describing my experience with the repair facility and the extended warranty that I purchased along with Phannie.

Fort Worth Freightliner is a very large and very busy place. It is open 24/7 and, parked on the acres of concrete surrounding the facility at any time, there are more than a hundred vehicles in some stage of repair. I had asked the wrecker driver to take Phannie to this place for two reasons: 1) Phannie has a Freightliner chassis (kind of a no-brainer), and 2) it was open on the weekend so that the coach could be secured behind a locked gate and monitored by video. (With $12,000 of new electronics, I didn’t want to leave her parked just anywhere in this urban area.) When I arrived at the facility with the wrecker, I figured it would be weeks before Phannie could get in line for service, given the huge number of Freightliner trucks parked on the property. I was surprised to see that only one other motorhome was there—an older Phaeton like Phannie that looked kinda tired.

I was astonished when the service writer said they could probably start work on Phannie in a couple of days. I asked him about all the other vehicles that appeared to be ahead of me, and he told me that most of them had already been repaired but were awaiting pickup by their owners or drivers. Intrigued, I quizzed him further, because I was incredulous that businesses could allow so much rolling stock to sit idle instead of being on the road making money. The service writer said that I would be surprised how many of the units were not being released due to non-payment of repair bills. I hadn’t expected that answer, but I guess no business has escaped the bad economy.

Fort Worth Freightliner is a facility that services heavy trucks almost exclusively, as was evidenced by the dearth of motorhomes on their property. Behind the service desk was a harried service writer, a young man in his mid-twenties who darted in and out of the small area on his side of the stainless steel counter. Behind him was a starkly bare and well-worn open area with tables against the walls where two computers were set up. Other unidentified employees, most of whom wore soiled clothing, would wander through here from the shop area, perhaps sitting at the computers for a few minutes or just stopping to chew the rag.

The distraction of this parade of unkempt personnel and the incessant ringing of the unanswered telephone gave evidence of a facility that was poorly designed, poorly managed and anything but customer-oriented. I had entered a steel door to the service writer’s office and found myself in a closet-sized alcove across the counter from him. There were no seats in this tiny space, and I took my turn, standing among several other men who, judging from their attire and conversation, were obviously truck drivers attempting to transact business with the service writer. To the young man’s credit, he made an obvious effort to be pleasant to those present, although he was clearly overloaded. This was evidenced by his occasional curtness with the drivers, some of whom were pressing him unmercifully for updates. And again, there was the constant ringing of the telephone that was hardly ever answered. The service door opened directly into a large shop area with perhaps 30 service bays, all of which contained Freightliner trucks in various states of disassembly. Customers had to make their way along the periphery of the shop area to enter and exit the service writer’s office.

Outside the building, a wide concrete apron extended to the customer parking area, and upon the apron had been placed several picnic tables where drivers and Freightliner technicians tended to congregate for a smoking break while looking out over the parking lot. I sometimes stopped by to check on Phannie after leaving the office, and I couldn’t help but feel out of place, judging by the stares of these picnic table-denizens as I arrived or departed. I guess I would have blended in better if I had changed from my business attire into jeans and swapped the Escalade for a pickup. My point is, this is a facility for trucks; servicing motorhomes is obviously a rarity, and a motorhome owner is considered, well, just another truck driver. Don’t expect special treatment from this place just because your motorhome is being serviced.

Another unpleasant surprise came as I attempted to make use of the extended warranty that I purchased at the time I bought Phannie. It seems Interstate National Dealer Services, the provider, elected to pick up only $96 of the repair after the deductible was applied. I didn’t fuss too much about this, as I guess I don’t expect much more than a ripoff with these things. That’s why I almost never opt for an extended warranty on anything I buy but, in the case of something as complex and expensive as a motorhome, I just thought I needed to roll the dice. I suppose I will just hope for the best from Interstate if something really expensive breaks during the remaining warranty period. I would be interested in hearing from others who have these kinds of contracts as to which ones perform well for them.

Sorry this was long and rather humorless, but there wasn't much about this experience that made me laugh. Next weekend should be a hoot; we’re taking a bunch of family and friends to First Monday in Canton. Look for a post after that, for sure.

At last, back home and put to bed.

Oh, the Humanity!

2011-10-23T01:24:00.006-05:00

Okay, perhaps the title of this post is a tad over the top. My alarm over the indignity suffered by Phannie last week could hardly compare to the anguished phrase famously uttered by WLS reporter Herb Morrison as the Hindenburg burst into flames as it landed in New Jersey in 1937. Even so, it was indeed painful to see the proud coach towed away ignominiously from the shop where I was having another gauge installed (you know how I hate the idiot lights). When the installation was done, I fired her up and noted that the dreaded “check engine” light was on, causing me to emit an audible gasp! For modern vehicles like Phannie, increasingly controlled by computers, this light can strike terror in the heart of the driver, much like the horror of the “blue screen of death” so well known by PC computer users. I prayed that the fault announced by the light was something relatively innocuous like a filter obstruction or that Phannie was just miffed at having been parked outside all day. Alas, it was not to be. Noting that the engine was idling smoothly, I put Phannie in gear, released the brake and pressed on the accelerator. Nothing. Pushing the accelerator to the floor failed to advance the rpm at all.

I shifted back to neutral, set the brake and turned off the ignition, hoping it was all a bad dream. Then I cranked it up again, hoping for something different. No dice; there was the nefarious yellow light, taunting me. Sure enough, there was no response from the accelerator; nothing had changed.

The longer I stared at the light, the more I came to realize that the engine computer (which I have now named Hal) had decided to lead a mutiny against me, having determined that I was too stupid to deal with whatever condition was making it uncomfortable. (While this may be true, I resent Hal's sudden evolution from what I thought to be a provider of helpful information to a member of the Gestapo.) I mean, really! What did Hal think I was going to do, take out my pistol and fire a slug into the radiator?

Since it was late afternoon on a Saturday, I knew any attempt I would make to find help on my own would be a challenge, so I turned to my membership in Good Sam Emergency Roadside Assistance to find it for me. This turned out to be a revelation in just how inept this service could be. Without going into the maddening details, I suffered eight hours of indifference and incompetence from this dreadful outfit. A mechanic showed up about 1:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, hooked up a computer to the data port, flashed Hal (I think the pervert liked it) and determined, after consultation with Caterpillar, that Hal's disablement could not be fixed in the field.

Good Sam could not explain how it could possibly have taken eight hours to get assistance to me, perched in none other than the middle of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex and surrounded by dozens of road service providers. I had planned to switch to Coach Net when my Good Sam’s contract runs out in February, and now I wish I had done it earlier. For years, I had had fairly good service from Good Sam for minor things like locked keys or tire changing, but when it comes to a big rig, I don’t recommend them at all. I'm now thinking that Good Sam is somehow in collusion with Hal. It's all very troubling.

Is this not sad?

As perhaps their last service for me, I had Good Sam arrange for a wrecker at 10:00 a.m. the next day to tow Phannie to the Freightliner facility in Fort Worth. This, surprisingly, went off without a hitch (pardon the pun) and, as of this post, the problem is still not resolved. We’re at one week and counting, and we missed an RV trip we were planning to Houston this weekend.

So, what how does this event play into our observations so far from our new relationship with Phannie? Well, let's see:

We love the ride, comfort and convenience of a diesel pusher. However, it is a complicated piece of machinery with a myriad of systems that will, inevitably, need repair at times. When repairs are necessary, they are usually expensive; that's why most owners purchase a maintenance agreement, in case there is a catastrophically expensive repair required at some point.

Fuel mileage is abysmal; you have to be prepared for breathtaking numbers on diesel fuel pumps and try not to think of how much fuel costs per mile driven.

I really resent the degree to which the manufacturers have dumbed down the engine operation. They use a computer and idiot lights instead of good ol' gauges to allow the driver to use his intelligence and determine what's going on. On the other hand, I understand why the manufacturers do it: They have to build these coaches for the lowest common denominator among the potential owners, and there will always be a few who would have no clue what the gauges could tell them and could indeed damage the engine needlessly. Even though I know all this, it still ticks me off. I suppose that is because I spent an entire career operating machines of far greater complexity--turbojet airliners--and I seem to have made the correct operating decisions when things went wrong. (And this was before the proliferation of computerized systems among modern airliners that you see today.) My flying career did just fine without Hal, thank you.

We've learned that the handier you are with mechanical things, the less expense you will have in keeping up your rig. Unfortunately, I am not particularly gifted in this area, so my wallet usually takes a hit.

We’ve also learned that RV repair facilities generally do not operate with the same sense of urgency as those that service automobiles and pickups. I suppose this is because there is a conception that RV travel is a leisure-time activity and that timeliness is not necessarily a priority. This has proven true in all the years we owned fifth wheels, and it is certainly true with Phannie. How do you deal with this if you're in a hurry? It presents a dilemma when negotiating with RV repair shops: Do you get better results from being aggressive, demanding and threatening or can you do better with smiling, stroking and charm? I think that, in most cases, the charm thing works better for me, but I’m not particularly given to polemics anyway. The bottom line is that most everything you do with an RV is time-consuming and expensive, so it may not be a good fit for folks with double type-A personalities or those with a modest travel budget.

It's really too early to determine the level of dependability of Phannie; I'm still taking a bit personally Hal's treachery (especially galling after all the praise I have lavished upon Phannie in this rag) and I'm still a little worried that Western Freightliner has not yet rendered a diagnosis. We will be standing by, however, chewing our fingernails, and we'll keep you posted.

Discovering, Uh, Our Home Town

2011-10-02T01:56:00.003-05:00

It was all due to a Groupon. I don’t know how many people use these things, but we just can't resist them. Half off of stuff is just too good to pass up, so I guess we’re just cheap. We mostly use the restaurant coupons because we eat out, well, too much. A few months ago, a Groupon popped up for admission to the Japanese Garden at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, so I bought it. I kept it, downloaded into the iPhone, throughout the summer because the weather was just too hot to enjoy outdoor activities. Since it turned out to be a beautiful autumn day yesterday, we decided to go take a look.

I am almost embarrassed to admit how long I have lived in this area without visiting the botanical garden complex in Fort Worth, but that seems to be the case regarding quite a number of attractions in the DFW Metroplex. For some reason, owning an RV seems to have given me the impression that it is necessary to travel somewhere else to enjoy new sights and adventures, so it hasn’t really occurred to me before that I may have missed something in my own back yard!

We drove Mae (our toad) to the garden complex off University Drive. Why? Well, it’s a matter of miles per gallon. Phannie gets 7, the Escalade gets 13 and Mae gets 26. (I told you I’m cheap.) We were struck by how large an area is occupied by the gardens, and on this Saturday there were many townfolk wandering around the manicured grounds. There were few parking spots left at the Japanese Garden, as two wedding parties were there holding ceremonies. We learned from the gate attendant that four weddings were booked on the day of our visit. It’s easy to see why this is a popular wedding venue: The place is beautiful! Sandy and I have always enjoyed the simplicity of Japanese gardens; I know of no others that evoke such a sense of serenity. I’ve included a few photos to illustrate:

New bride at her photo shoot

My bride, still beautiful after 35 years!

After enjoying the garden, we were (naturally) hungry, so we checked the old iPhone for our Groupon collection and, lo and behold, found Tres Jose's, a fine Mexican restaurant nearby that we had almost forgotten about. We enjoyed an excellent meal with fajitas, enchiladas and tacos, and after applying the Groupon, the bill was eleven bucks! (Yes, the Groupon cost a small amount, but we were able to knock $15 off the bill with it. Not bad!)

What a great afternoon! When we pulled into the driveway later, we noticed Phannie, nosed into her RV port, as though she had been sent to the corner by a schoolteacher. We felt, oddly, a little guilty.

A Night on the Town...in Phannie?!!

2011-09-25T00:54:00.000-05:00

Having only recently transitioned from a fifth wheel to a motorhome, it hadn’t quite occurred to me that this rolling carriage could have a use other than transporting us over long distances to places we want to go when on vacation. It was Bubba who, in an uncharacteristic frenzy of neuron activity, came up with it.

Sandy and I had been talking about a day trip to Sherman, Texas, a bit less than a hundred miles northeast of Fort Worth, to eat dinner and attend a gospel concert. (Yes, we are fans of some of the groups.) We mentioned it casually to Bubba and LouAnn, and that’s when Bubba’s pilot light was lit. He knew his mother and dad were coming to visit that weekend and that he and his family would like to spend some time with them. They all enjoy gospel music, so why not make it a two-family event, he thought.

I really didn’t clue in to Bubba’s thought process until he began asking how many passengers Phannie would hold. I knew that, as an avid RVer himself, he was dying to take a ride in our new coach, and it finally dawned on me that he was trying to conjure up a road trip for all of us in Phannie!

The more I thought about it, the more the idea appealed to me, and Sandy thought it would be fun, too. So, we ordered concert tickets for everyone and settled on a departure time.

Shortly after two o’clock, I fired up Phannie’s engine and backed her slowly out of the RV port attached to our house, up the driveway and into the street, curbside. Now it is worthwhile to explain that the departure and arrival of this leviathan is not something that goes unnoticed in our neighborhood. The houses are built fairly close together, and the rumble of the big Caterpillar diesel engine can be felt as much as heard in the houses adjacent to ours. This usually results in the appearance of an impromptu gathering of observers, perhaps out of curiosity to a degree, but more likely in anticipation of some calamity as I carefully negotiate the very tight 90-degree turn onto the street. I don’t like to think of my neighbors as bloodthirsty, but why else would a NASCAR race be so popular if there weren’t some anticipation among the fans that a horrific crash could occur at any moment?

When we built our house, it was designed to accommodate the storage of our fifth wheel under the RV port. We hadn’t anticipated trading up to a class A motorhome, so the navigation of Phannie into and out of the driveway is fraught with hazards like rocks, trees, shrubbery and mailboxes—not just ours, but our neighbor’s across the street as well. It takes very precise maneuvering to avoid these hazards, and I can truthfully say that if we had acquired a motorhome even one foot longer, it would have to be parked elsewhere.

Phannie's Snug Quarters at Home

On this day, my neighbors would be disappointed; I got the geometry right, and Phannie settled obediently at the curb with no mayhem involved.

Sandy, as is her custom, joined me in the cockpit once the demolition derby was over, and we motored over to Bubba and LouAnn’s house, which is located in a rather hoity-toity neighborhood, and whose homeowners’ association enforces a ban on RV parking longer than 24 hours. As we rumbled through the streets toward Bubba’s house, it was clear that the residents were unaccustomed to having their peaceful and manicured surroundings invaded by such a monstrosity as Phannie. People working in their yards dropped their tools, and I’m pretty sure I saw one guy pick up a rope and make a noose with it. Bubba’s house is situated on a corner lot, and I had to park in a configuration on the street that made it difficult for cars to squeeze through. Although traffic is almost nonexistent in this neighborhood, this would be the day that several cars came along, and some of the drivers vented their frustration by honking their horns at the notion of having to drive carefully for 40 feet as they navigated past Phannie. It is not clear what they expected the horn-blowing to accomplish, as the driverless Phannie paid little attention to the noise and certainly made no effort to move. Although I could not read the lips of the drivers, I could tell from their animation that I was not particularly high up on their dance card. People have such short fuses these days!

In short order, everyone piled into the coach, with LouAnn providing beverages in a cooler and trays of snacks for the road. Everyone oohed and aahed appropriately over Phannie and then settled in for the trip.

The Barkers Check out Phannie: Barry, LouAnn, (Sandy), Breann, Algene and Baby Carter Duniven

The Old Captain Awaiting a Snack

I must say, it was a great deal of fun for our group to be together in roomy and comfortable surroundings as we cruised smoothly and silently toward our destination. Being served our drinks and snacks up in the cockpit reminded Bubba and me of our former careers as airline pilots, when a flight attendant would appear on every leg to bring us food or drink. We both agreed that the flight attendants of yesteryear were somewhat more cooperative than our wives, who, oddly enough, were not inclined to pay us the same deference as that to which we were accustomed as airline captains. For example, we never once heard a flight attendant tell us to “get up and get it yourself” as we did on this trip. While Bubba didn’t have much of an excuse to stay in his seat, I finally convinced the ladies that, in order for me to get up out of my seat, I would have to leave the steering wheel unattended at 60 miles per hour. When this tidbit of information was finally processed, they reluctantly brought me my snack. (They brought Bubba's too, but only because he was wearing an arm sling after recent shoulder surgery.) Tough bunch of stewardesses, these gals.

Fortunately, we had not consumed enough goodies to shrink from eating a fine catfish dinner at Huck’s in Denison, Texas, just north of Sherman. This legendary catfish joint was almost full of patrons, even though we arrived before 5:00 p.m.

My Plate at Huck's (I'm so ashamed.)

Bubba and Catfish (Not sure which is which.)

Barry and Sandy Make Out at Huck's (She's so fickle!)

Algene and LouAnn Boarding at Huck's

Upon our arrival at the concert hall in downtown Sherman, Phannie made such an impressive entrance that the parking attendants directed us to a VIP parking spot. Do you suppose they thought we were one of the groups to perform that evening? Maybe, but we didn’t say anything and kept our spot all evening.

The gospel group we had come to see was Ernie Haase andSignature Sound. If you like gospel music and haven’t seen these guys, you are missing a treat.

After the concert, we cruised back home, driving Phannie for the first time at night. This proved to be a beneficial exercise, because I had not previously figured out all of the lighting controls on the coach. By the time we rolled in the driveway, I was an expert.

Bubba, of course, was smitten with Phannie…bigtime. My guess is that he will make the leap to a motorhome as soon as LouAnn lets him.

Things We Do Between Trips: Hatch Chiles and Hot Stuff

2011-09-11T01:42:00.000-05:00

This will appeal to all you lovers of spicy foods. I am a true pepperhead but, unfortunately, Sandy is not so much. Often when I cook spicy stuff, I make separate batches--one for me and one for normal people.

As the legendary Hatch chile harvest is in full swing, our local Albertson's had received several cases of Hatch chiles and was selling them by the case for $19.99. I couldn't resist. Snagging a case, I proclaimed to Sandy that I would roast these suckers and freeze them, and we would have Hatch chiles all winter. She was a bit muted in her enthusiasm, but she smiled sweetly anyway.

Once home with my prize and an afternoon to waste, I fired up the gas grill and my Traeger smoker and loaded up both with the Hatch chiles.

Traeger Smoker

Hatch Chiles on the Gas Grill

Now I should take this opportunity to tell you that, while I have roasted these peppers before on the gas grill, I had not previously tried to roast them on the Traeger, so this was, in fact, an experiment. For those of you who are not familiar with Traeger grills, you can only hope that Santa brings you one this Christmas. If there is a better or easier way to do outdoor BBQ, I can't imagine what it would be. You just put wood pellets in the hopper and turn on the switch, setting the desired temperature. The Traeger does everything else, from lighting the fire to feeding itself the wood pellets, keeping the cooking temperature you have selected. Amazing! (I told you I love gadgets!)

Traeger "Lil Tex" Smoker

Wood Pellet Hopper and Temperature Control

So why do I still have the gas (well, it's really propane) grill since I'm so ga-ga over the Traeger? Well, if you're looking for the kind of direct heat that will develop a sear, char or crust on something, the Traeger is not very good at that. So, what's better than one BBQ cooker gadget? Well, two of course!

All went well with roasting the peppers on the gas grill, but not so much with the Traeger. The problem was that the Traeger cooked the peppers without charring the outside (see above). This is the opposite of what was desired--a char on the outside to loosen the skin, but with the flesh of the pepper left somewhat undercooked underneath. Because of this, the peppers roasted in the Traeger were more difficult to peel and were skimpier after peeling.

Charring Desired When Roasting Complete on the Gas Grill

Skinning and Seeding the Cooked Peppers

The Final Product After Roasting, Peeling and Seeding

Chopping the Cooked Peppers in Food Processor

After roasting, peeling, seeding and chopping the peppers, it was time to prepare them for freezing in small portions. First, we chopped them slightly in the food processor, then Sandy suggested that we freeze them in muffin tins and afterward place the frozen chile "muffins" in a freezer bag. That sounded good to me, so that's what we did. When we ran out of muffin tins, we froze the last few in foil cupcake papers placed on a cookie sheet. We discovered this was the best way to go, as the cupcake papers were definitely easier to remove after freezing.

Chiles in Muffin Tins for Freezing

Well, that's about it for this chile adventure. One note of caution: We learned the hard way to use latex gloves when doing the peeling and seeding. We didn't this time, and we regretted it. Duh!

So, what will we be cooking with all these peppers? Well, we'll be sharing some recipes with you as we go along. And, of course, we'll be giving some to friends, as well.

That's enough for now; I need to find something cold to drink!

More Gadgets

2011-09-03T08:39:00.004-05:00

Okay, I admit it. I love gadgets. My earliest recollection of this addiction is from 1968, when I purchased from an office supply store a new digital electronic calculator. It was probably the first one sold in Nacogdoches, Texas, the small town where I grew up, but I had to have it. It cost me $175, which was something like $400 in today's money. Mind you, it had only the basic four arithmetic functions and no battery or printing capability, but it was so much cooler than the old "adding machines" with all the clunky moving parts and which couldn't multiply or divide. I remember being mesmerized by watching the little LEDs instantly displaying the result of the most fiendish calculation I could come up with.

Things haven't changed much. You can tell from reading this rag that I am still a soft touch for techie stuff. Phannie, for example, has a newer, techier, entertainment system and a newer, techier, mattress than we have in our house!

Fortunately, I have had the means to support this addiction over the years. I'm not sure what our family may have been deprived of if I hadn't been able to support them and the habit at the same time. Perhaps another saving grace may be the fact that nowadays, I don't always buy new gadgets when they first come out. I suppose the calculator ripoff in 1968 was indeed a teachable moment for me. Such was the case when I switched to Apple computers, HD television and Blu-Ray DVDs. These had all been on the market for a while when I jumped in. Such is the case with my latest gadget, a Logitech Harmony 700 universal remote for the entertainment system in our house.

It's not clear why I put up with using three remotes to control our TV, our A/V receiver and our DVD player for three years, but I did until one of the remotes went on the fritz the other day. A friend had recommended a Logitech universal remote to bring peace and harmony to our entertainment system, and that's all the encouragement I needed. I hopped right down to a nearby Target store and apprehended the Harmony 700 model for 120 bucks. A little pricey, you say? Well, I thought so, too, but my friend was insistent that this was what I needed. And why the top of the line 700 model? Well, it has a little video screen so that the remote can communicate with you...a techie feature that definitely pushes the buttons of us addicts!

What's neat about this remote is that it is programmable via the web. You just attach it to your computer using the included USB cable and log into Logitech's site. You supply the makes and models of the TV/audio equipment you're going to control, and Logitech downloads to your remote all the drivers needed. Simple, but effective. After one false start (I had a hard time finding the model number of the DirecTV DVR and entered the wrong one), the new remote worked perfectly. Now it's one remote for everything and the old ones are in a drawer. Oh, by the way, the batteries in the remote are rechargeable.

Phannie? Oh, yes, she will undoubtedly need one of these things for her system.

Logitech Harmony 700 Remote

Into the World of Apple

2011-08-25T01:24:00.002-05:00

I resisted as long as I could. Having lived and worked in a Microsoft-based computer environment ever since MS-DOS was invented, I knew Windows like an old friend, having upgraded and upgraded until I reached Windows 7. That one was my Waterloo! My attempts to step up from Windows Vista carried me into strange new worlds where even tech support could not go. I finally gave up, disgusted, and returned the software upgrade. Then I unceremoniously tossed the offending old HP laptop onto the computer junk heap in my storage shed. (I'm still not sure what to do with those old relics.)

I had become aware of the Apple iMac computer from our friendship with Gordon and Juanita that began a few years ago. Gordon is a rabid Apple user, and it was plain to see that his new iMac was a very different animal and super advanced over my PC. The massive, brilliantly clear screen is a marvel, but no more so than the absence of clunky parts: The screen IS the computer, and that's all there is to it, except for the small but sleek wireless keyboard. The gorgeous graphics and the speedy processor, combined with a high-quality, modern minimalist design--the comparison with my PC was...well, there was no comparison.

The worst part, however, was my perception that Apple aficionados like Gordon secretly sneer at pathetic, unwashed PC users (like me) who they probably think really need to be euthanized after their old steam-powered computers are confiscated and smashed to bits. Mind you, Gordon, who can be impish at times, has never exhibited such a mindset for a moment, but I'll bet he can't help being a little smug from time to time. Other Appleheads I know don't even try to hide their disdain for lower life forms with PCs. They make me feel like I've pulled up to the Waldorf Astoria in a 1951 Crosley. (How many of you remember those?)

Now, back to the present: I knew I needed to replace Sandy's desktop PC and my laptop, both of which had serious issues that could only be solved by Divine intervention. However, I was very reluctant to abandon my familiar Windows PC and learn a whole new computer and operating system. (News flash for other seniors: As you get older, stepping out of your comfort zone becomes less and less appealing. At this point for me, it's about on a par with constipation.)

For me, the tipping point was my recent purchase of an iPhone, whose capabilities are so mind-boggling that I have the urge to burn incense when I hook it up to its charger. I knew the other Apple hardware had to reflect the same genius, so off I went to the Apple store.

Upon arriving, the first thing I discovered was that Apple thinks very highly of their stuff. What I paid for a new iMac and Macbook Pro would probably get a post office named for me if I donated it to a crooked politician. (Sorry; crooked and politician are redundant.)

Fortunately, the transition has been much less of a hurdle than I imagined, and Apple lets you take all the familiarization classes you want for free. So, just for you inquiring minds, here are my thoughts as a new Apple user:

Ease of use: Like falling off a log; just plug it in and turn it on. Many clunky Windows-like tasks are automated with Apple, so it seems much more intuitive. However, figuring out the file manager ("Finder," they call it) and customizing menus, toolbars and screen icons have proved to be a bit of a challenge. I'm sure it would be much less of a problem had I not grown up with the PC.

Virus protection: This doesn't seem to be an issue with Apple. It is surreal not to have to do constant battle against viruses and hackers, but I still remain vigilant.

Quality and design: These, along with superior software and uncountable applications, seem way ahead of the PC. We would certainly never go back.

Since my old AT&T wireless card wouldn't work with the new MacBook, I replaced it with a new AT&T MiFi modem. This is the coolest little device, smaller than a deck of cards, that creates a wi-fi hotspot from cell phone signals wherever you happen to be. It has a rechargeable battery, so it is completely portable. Works like a charm. What will they think of next?

My New iPhone, MiFi and MacBook

Sandy's iMac

In closing, let me assure you that I will never be condescending toward users of those "other" computers. Perhaps you'll forgive me if don't make eye contact, though. (grin)

Water Droplets Falling From The Sky...What Is It?

2011-08-13T17:11:00.008-05:00

Oh wait, now I remember...it's rain! I can forget a lot in two months, and that's how long it's been since any of it fell here. And, I might add that it hasn't been particularly helpful to read the blogs of you folks who are writing about your adventures in picturesque places while enjoying near-perfect weather.

Oh, yes, the majority of you are blissfully unaware that your photos of mountain scenery and your reports of "chilly" mornings cause my brow to wrinkle and my eyes to narrow while I read. You are forgiven. But there are a few out there who know me and delight in posting about their idyllic settings entirely too often, seemingly just to needle me. I know who you are, and I will get even. (grin)

Then why do I keep reading, you may ask? Well, it's sort of like watching Sandy parallel park; I know nothing good will come of it, but I feel compelled to watch the carnage anyway.

One thing this summer in Texas has instilled in my mind is that I'm going to try my best to be elsewhere when the next one comes along, so I can taunt with my blog the other poor slobs who can't escape.

RANT WARNING: And just for the record, I don't attribute any of this weather to global warming, which I think would be a laughable hoax if it were not for the thievery its proponents are exacting from us in the name of saving the planet. The crowd promoting this lunacy seems mostly represented by smelly young indolent and vacuous malcontents with too many pierced appendages, influenced by too many Marxists in academia and courted by guileless politicians who need their votes to ensure further perpetuation of the nanny state. They seem conveniently to forget that it was only a few decades ago that the big worry was that a new ice age was coming! I don't deny that climate changes occur over the millennia, mostly due to natural effects, and I don't doubt that man's activity may affect localized conditions to a degree, but I would not be so full of hubris as to espouse the notion that we mere mortals could actually thwart with a few smokestacks the power and perfection of what our Creator waved into existence. Give me a break.

Bathroom Checks Out Okay

2011-07-31T23:46:00.004-05:00

It had to happen. In six years of RV travel, we have been fortunate in avoiding a debilitating illness that would disrupt our plans. Until now. On our planned day of departure from OKC, I awoke with terrible stomach cramps and began the series of, uh, rituals that are generally associated with gastric distress. After thinking back over the previous day's food ingestion, it seems likely that I picked up a bug from a real dive featured in a segment of Food TV's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. There were a couple of items I ate that Sandy didn't, and we suspect one of those was the culprit.

Anyhow, I was in no condition to drive, so we advised the park that we would be staying an extra day. Although I felt quite weak the next morning, I decided to drive Phannie home, and the trip was completely uneventful, thankfully.

At one point, Sandy sweetly offered to drive, but she quickly withdrew that suggestion, perhaps upon noticing all the color drain from my already pale face. Now, my dear Sandy has many gifts and talents, but dealing with machinery, especially vehicles, is not one of them. She will be the first to admit that she hates driving and has no sense of direction, and I'm pretty sure she has avoided a significant accident this long because of the many prayers that go up when people find out she is driving somewhere.

Garages are particularly challenging for her, and it should be noted that she has managed to collide with a center post, a side post, a freezer (twice), and she has even collided with a vehicle I was driving! Some time ago, she called my office in a panic because, in attempting to back out of the garage in our Suburban, she had struck the right side of the garage door frame and tore the tail light assembly off the car. When I arrived at home and raised the garage door, I found the Suburban parked sideways in the garage, a configuration she somehow attained while trying to maneuver farther away from the side of the garage. After sitting immobile in my car for some time, staring at the image before me, I finally strode over to the Suburban and extricated it from its position. Sandy appeared at the door about that time, visibly miffed--not because of damaging the car, but because she had missed her hair appointment. She quickly called her hairdresser and explained what had happened, to which the hairdresser replied, "Oh, this is not good, girl; you need to find a way to make it your husband's fault! That wasn't difficult at all, as I heard Sandy say back to her, "Well, it WAS his fault; he parked too close to the wall!"

You may now have discerned that it is not entirely necessary to feel sorry for Sandy as I relate her escapades in this blog. She gives as good as she gets, and I get away with less than you think.

Perhaps now it is clear why it might not be the best idea to put Sandy behind the wheel of a 40-foot, 32,000-lb. motor home. The things that could happen in such a circumstance are limited only by one's imagination.

We had only one other hiccup while we were in OKC. At one point, we lost power to all the AC plugs, and when I attempted to reset the circuit breaker in the coach, I found none of them tripped. An RV tech happened to be in the park that day and showed me where to reset the inverter circuit breaker in the battery bay. I guess the PDI was not as decent as I thought when we picked up Phannie.

How did Sandy occupy her time when I was attending training classes? Well, she has some favorite TV shows, and she's reading Laura Bush's memoir. She also likes to keep up with friends and family with e-mail and Facebook.

Sandy checks Facebook

So this closes out the shakedown cruise. We got to know Phannie a good deal better, and we think we're going to be great friends.

In OKC

2011-07-25T18:42:00.003-05:00

The 220 miles to OKC were smooth, comfortable and uneventful, but the temperature outside proved to be even hotter than in Texas! Much to my delight, Tiffin installed a high-volume dash a/c on the Phaeton, and we didn't have to augment with roof air until the last hour or so of the trip. If it hadn't been so miserably hot, we probably wouldn't have needed the extra boost.

We pulled into the Twin Fountains RV Park, recommended by Ed and Marilyn, and got a nice level pull-through spot with good satellite TV reception. Then we went about getting things organized in Phannie, moving our stuff around as we found the right place for the household items we use.

Twin Fountains Office

Nice clean park with level paved site

While Sandy was taking care of "pink" things inside (where it was cool), I did the "blue" things outside, breathing only as absolutely necessary so as to not parch the inside of my lungs in the oven-like atmosphere. Yes, I suppose I am a little spoiled due to my almost total existence within air conditioned surroundings, but I don't care. When autumn weather gets here, I think about breathing again.

One of the recurring themes in changing to a motorhome from a fifth wheel has been to reduce the physical demands of RV travel. To that end, I added a purely "blue" accessory: A motorized rollup reel for the electrical shore power cord. This thing is so handy! No need now to crouch on bad knees and roll up the heavy cord on the spindle provided by Tiffin inside one of the cargo bays. Just press the switch on the electric motor and the cord rolls up quickly with no exertion.

We discovered a burned-out halogen light bulb in the bedroom, and I was then able to initialize my plan to replace all of these halogen bulbs with LED lights as the halogens burn out, one by one. I had a spare LED, and voila! Brighter light with none of the heat put out by the halogen bulb--another great example of modern technology improving our lives. These LEDs will far outlast the life of this coach, and they will use much less electricity while providing better lighting. The only problem is that they are currently about six or seven times more expensive than the halogens. Thankfully, I won't have to replace them all at once.

Halogen Lights

Burned-out halogen bulb

New LED bulb

We had some good Thai food for dinner and relaxed in Phannie's new recliners while we watched TV before turning in. By the way, we love the great new I Comfort mattress. The first day of the shakedown cruise comes to and end as a success!

Shakedown Cruise: Departing for OKC

2011-07-25T11:00:00.005-05:00

As much as we hate to do road trips in Texas (or anywhere in the South, for that matter) when the weather is so miserably hot, the three-day FAA training session at the academy in Oklahoma City seemed a good opportunity to launch the dynamic duo of Phannie and Mae and see exactly what our efforts--and cash--had brought us.

True, we had driven Phannie and Mae home from Nacogdoches when we completed the purchase, but that didn't count, because we really didn't know what we were doing. Even though we had had a test drive and a pretty decent PDI, driving Phannie solo was much like trying to fly a new airplane without reading the operating manual and making only one flight around the airport traffic pattern. I felt pretty uncomfortable fumbling for the myriad of switches and controls; at one point, I accidentally hit the air horn and startled the heck out of both of us.

Once home, I pored over the owner's manuals (there are many of them--for the coach, the chassis, the engine, the transmission, the entertainment systems, the appliances, etc., etc.), and slowly I began to be more comfortable with my knowledge of the systems and operating limitations. Following that, I drove Phannie to the local Allison transmission and Caterpillar engine shops for some tweaking. (Warning: Techno-speak ahead; if you're not into that, you might want to skip the rest of this paragraph and a couple that follow it.) I had the transmission downshift reprogrammed to fifth gear instead of second gear when the engine exhaust brake is engaged. The automatic downshift to such a low gear seemed entirely too radical for my liking and caused the engine to speed up over 2500 RPM unnecessarily. The tamer downshift to fifth gear is much more reasonable and, if I need a lower gear, I'll simply select it myself.

At the Cat shop, I had the technicians set the engine computer to soft cruise and latch mode. Soft cruise allows a gentler automatic throttle control when in cruise, making for smoother speed and power changes when going uphill and downhill. Latch mode causes the engine exhaust brake, if selected on, to actuate any time the throttle is closed above a certain speed and to disengage whenever the throttle or braking is applied, adding a desirable degree of automation to exhaust brake usage. After this, I asked the Cat technicians to do a computer download for me, and I learned that that was the first time a download had been done on this engine. There was a lot of information on the printout, and I was careful to include it in the maintenance record after studying it for a while. I was happy to learn that the previous owner seems to have taken good care of the engine, as everything looked perfectly normal. By the way, I learned about these adjustments from reading the Tiffin and Caterpillar forums, and I'm very pleased how useful the information was. Phannie is now a smooth driving machine with excellent manners and easy power control.

In preparation for the OKC trip, I did my usual check of fluids and filters, washed the windshield and checked the tire pressures. I made good use of the heavy duty truck tire inflator/guage that I had purchased earlier. It's the kind that has a forward/backward valve necessary for dual wheel installations. Fortunately, I already had a 150 psi air compressor, which now couldn't be considered overkill. (End of technospeak.)

Next came the checklists, which I fashioned from note cards and taped to the left driver's console. If I learned anything from thirty years of flying, it was that checklists are indispensable as a means of self-preservation; those pesky airplane crashes usually don't turn out well. And, since all sorts of ugly things can happen if a motorhome launches without ensuring all its appendages are tucked in and its systems ready to go, it would be foolish not to use a checklist. The thought of Phannie's expensive satellite antenna being left up and getting taken out by a tree limb sends chills up my spine and down into my pocketbook. So, I use a checklist for loading the coach, a pre-driveoff checklist and a checklist for using the leveling system, which is not particularly user friendly.

Homemade Checklist Added

With all the pre-departure stuff done, I backed Phannie with great care out of her snug RV berth and parked at the curb to hook up Mae. Having previously only observed the dealer's employee hooking up the Blue Ox towbar between Phannie and Mae, I was a little uneasy about performing the process myself, a task that must be done correctly if I indeed want Mae to arrive at the same destination as Phannie. So, what do you do if you need a quick primer on something? Bring up YouTube on your computer, of course! A quick search on "Blue Ox" brought a very informative demonstration video that lasted about five minutes. Perfect! Armed with this refresher, I nudged Mae up to the towbars behind Phannie and, in a few minutes, everything was connected and the lights tested, just like on the video. Is there anything you can't find on the Internet? What a great time to be alive for information junkies like me!

All Hooked Up!

Next came the final chore before departure: Making sure Phannie was suitably cool and comfortable when the lady of the manor herself, the lovely and gracious Sandy, made her way out to Phannie and ascended the stairwell to her oh, so comfortable throne--the luxuriously soft leather Flexsteel power recliner that is the copilot's seat. Knowing that Sandy recoils from summer heat like a vampire from a crucifix, I cranked up Phannie's diesel generator and turned on all three air conditioners to the coldest setting to precool the rig. It didn't take long for the coach to cool down to a temperature which you would expect in, say, Anchorage.

In due time, when Sandy finished all of her own little rituals in the house, like triple-checking each door lock and closing the shutters, she strode out to what was now about fifty feet of connected rolling stock and climbed aboard. Feeling the cool air rushing down the stairwell brought a smile, and when she kicked back in the recliner with an iced tea in her hand, I'm pretty sure I heard a contented purr. Life is good, and we're off to OKC!

Making Phannie our Own–Creature Comforts

2011-07-23T17:18:00.002-05:00

We humans are really programmed differently, aren’t we? The comments on my recent posts—which I love getting—reflect the diversity of thought and opinion that makes us all part of a fascinating mosaic. For example, it hadn’t occurred to me that some folks would have a disdain for air conditioning and consider it a necessary evil, but I can certainly understand the desirability of enjoying fresh air when you can.

For us here in Texas, it’s hard to remember what cool, fresh air is like. The problem is that there isn’t any during the five months that constitute the main travel season. The reason it’s not fresh is because our wind is first routed through hell and then out over the landscape, parching it like a giant hair dryer. That’s why Amarillo isn’t a port city on the Gulf of Mexico—the hellish wind has dried it up! And that explains why we added the third air conditioner to Phannie and why we would probably call a wrecker if it went out.

We actually admire those rugged folks who ignore the harsh elements and do things like drive with their windows down on a July afternoon in Texas. There is a certain cachet, I suppose, in leathery skin and crow’s feet that imply durability--like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the Old Testament, for example; they certainly could have used some cool air! I suppose we would have survived had we lived before Willis Carrier invented air conditioning in 1902, but who would want to?

That brings me to some other creature comforts that we added to Phannie. When the coach was built, Tiffin installed two sleeper sofas that faced each other across the center aisle. This configuration is great for visitors, who could look directly at each other while chatting, but not so great for watching the TV, which is installed in the front end of the coach. Being prone to getting a stiff neck, I instructed the dealer to remove one of the sofas. Then we found, at Dillard’s, two euro-style swivel recliners—perfect for TV watching and snoozing (something we seem to do more and more often). They’re very comfortable and easy to move around as needed.

In this photo, the slides are in; when they’re out, it’s much roomier for the recliners.

The next item to be dealt with was the mattress in the bedroom. It’s hard for me to imagine why Tiffin would put such a sorry mattress in a multi-hundred thousand dollar motorhome! It’s even harder to imagine how the previous owner endured it during the time he owned it. In readying each of the RVs we’ve bought, one of the first things to go has been the mattress; it was no different with Phannie. We found a newish technology Serta I-Comfort king to our liking, and the store delivered to Phannie and took away the thing that it replaced: You really couldn’t call the old one a mattress; it was merely a rectangular object upon which you could place a bedspread to give the appearance that a bed was underneath. I'm fairly certain that sleeping on it would have been fatal.

Finally, there was an issue with the, uh, toilet. Shockingly, the factory had installed a model whose bowl could not be filled with water after flushing. We had never seen that before and, well, let’s just say that’s not acceptable and let it go at that. We ordered it replaced with a top-of-the-line porcelain unit that works as one accustomed to indoor plumbing would expect. We’re still scratching our heads over that strange toilet installation, wondering if it had something to do with the fact that the Tiffin motorhome factory is in Alabama. (Just kidding; we love Alabama and Alabamans!)

We are readying for a shakedown cruise on Monday; I have an all-week training course in Oklahoma City, and we will let Phannie and Mae stretch their legs as we get more familiar with them. I'll be posting a bit more often for the next few days during this trip.

Making Phannie our Own–A/C Rules!

2011-07-17T08:05:00.001-05:00

Mel, our salesman, blinked when we told him a third air conditioner would need to be added to Phannie. Apparently, he had not often heard that particular request, but it took only a couple of seconds to respond with, “Sure, we can do that!” (His ‘customer is always right’ sales training must have been successful.) And they did; the technicians dropped that puppy right into one of the roof openings formerly occupied by a vent fan and voila! The need for a refrigerator in Phannie is now questionable!

Why a third air conditioner? One word: Texas. As much as I love my state, I hate her summers. There is no escape from the Hades-like heat. We are virtual prisoners from June through September, hopelessly confined to whatever air conditioned space we can find. We’re so looking forward to retirement, when we can simply escape in June and go north until October or November.

I suppose we could get a break somewhere out in the Davis Mountains in west Texas, but I don’t think even they are high enough to make much difference. We have survived by air conditioning everything—perhaps even over-air conditioning. Our SUV has a/c in the front and in the rear; our smallish house has six tons of air conditioning. But when we crank the thermostat down to a daytime temperature of 73 degrees, where we’re comfortable, we expect 73 degrees and we expect it relatively quickly. Such was not the case with Phannie (or with Homer, for that matter). On the hottest days where there was no shade, the two a/c units would struggle, and we found that to be the case with virtually every large coach we’ve seen with only two air conditioners.

So, dropping in an extra unit was a no-brainer, and the problem is forever solved. Furthermore, if one of the units happens to fail, we can still be relatively comfortable with the other two.

Now, before you classify us as energy hogs, you should know that we spent quite a bit extra for foam insulation, double-pane windows and energy-efficient appliances when we built the house. As a result, our energy cost is incredibly low—sometimes less than our water/sewer bill! With this in mind, we don’t apologize for having a cool Phannie! (Grin)

The new a/c is toward the bottom of the photo.

Making Phannie Our Own–New TVs

2011-07-10T19:34:00.001-05:00

After five years with Homer, Sandy and I had become intimately familiar with our fifth wheel and all of its furnishings and systems. While it was by no means a top-of-the-line RV, it was comfortable, and we pretty much knew where everything was and how it all worked.

Then, along came Phannie! Well, the differences are staggering! It will take us quite a while to get comfortable in this behemoth. Before we even took delivery, we decided there were certain things about Phannie that would have to change. Perhaps the most ambitious of these was scrapping the old (2006) television sets and replacing them with new Samsung high-definition LCDs—one for the main lounge and another for the bedroom. We also replaced the old DVD players with new Samsung Blu-Rays. This required some modification to the cabinetry, which was expertly done by Motorhomes of Texas in Nacogdoches. To get the hi-def signal into the coach, we had the dealer install a new Winegard automatic hi-def satellite antenna.

Why all the fuss and expense? Well, we have gotten used to our hi-def TVs at home and, frankly, we now find it hard to watch the old non-high definition blurry screens. Since Phannie will be our home away from home, we don’t think our entertainment experience should be diminished. Fortunately, the factory-installed surround sound system seemed fine, so we kept that in place.

Pop in a DVD and Julie Andrews sings, "The Hills are Alive..." on the main lounge TV

New bedroom TV

With all the fancy new electronics, I decided it would be a good idea to install a Surge Guard electrical power monitor. If you do much RVing, it’s only a matter of time until you hook up to shore power that has voltage or polarity problems, and the Surge Guard will only allow power it likes into the coach. It has already shown its worth by rejecting a hookup at the dealership, where a 50-amp receptacle had a loose wire and sporadic electricity flow.

Surge Guard Electric Power Monitor

I mentioned in the last post that I had decided on a frequency for blogging. I've come to accept that, until I retire, I just can't be as prolific a writer as many of the daily bloggers I read. On the other hand, six months between posts is a little difficult to explain. (I thought my excuses in the last post were pretty good, though.) Lord willing, I’m going to try to update this rag about once a week if at all possible.

We’ve a lot more to tell you about getting to know Phannie, and that will continue in the next installment.

Overcome by Events and A Blog Name Change

2011-07-03T17:01:00.001-05:00

“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.” – Benjamin Franklin

What has happened to Homer and Lucille and their owners? Where shall I begin—my medical problems? My daughter’s wedding? The new RV?

With all that’s been going on, something had to give; blogging was the loser. I have also used this time to decide what kind of blogger I’m going to be and how frequently I plan to post; more about that in another post.

I’m going to try to condense into three paragraphs those things that have kept me in a blogging strait jacket. Here goes:

The medical problems involve a couple of episodes of atrial fibrillation and an arthritic hip. Medication seems to have solved the afib, and eventual surgery—when I’m good and ready—will hopefully resolve the hip issue.

Mindy and Tyler, our daughter and son-in-law, after getting married in a civil ceremony a couple of years ago, decided to hold a commitment ceremony at their large church here in the mid-cities. Whatever it was, it was still a big church wedding with the substantial price tag that fathers—including this one—underwrite. Mindy and her mother, as would be expected, jumped headlong into the whirlwind of wedding planning and I was caught up in the vortex much more often than I wished. On those occasions when I was tossed mercifully, if only temporarily, out of this tornado, I dutifully followed the advice I was given: Shut up and write the check. It was a lovely wedding, and Mindy was very respectful of our budget. She made many of the decorations herself, and we marveled at her creativity!

The new RV? Well, thank Mr. Arthritis for that. While we enjoyed our fifth wheel, tending it was somewhat demanding, physically, and I was getting to a point where all the hitching, unhitching, kneeling and bending was becoming a bit much for me and Arthur (Itis). So, we bade farewell to Homer and Lucille and now own a 2006 Allegro Phaeton QDH motor home. It is quite new to us, as we have driven it only from the dealer’s lot to our home near Fort Worth. We will devote many other posts to our getting to know Phannie. (Yes, the first order of business was to give her a name—“Phannie” Phaeton. We also acquired a dinghy, a bright red 2009 HHR, that we have named “Mae,” as in Fannie Mae. Get it? Okay, maybe it’s a bit lame, but I’m hoping they will not acquire the infamy of their failed namesake that helped create our national financial crisis.)

With the arrival of the new vehicles, the name of the blog must also change once again. Ergo, the reason you see Phannie and Mae instead of Homer and Lucille. (See, there’s yet another change; you can’t get away from them!) As if this were not enough, I’m changing the blog template as well—may as well go for a trifecta.

Strolling Salado

2010-12-13T14:05:00.004-06:00

Salado, Texas (pronounced Sah-Lay-Doe) is a quaint little community on I-35, about 50 miles north of Austin. It is bisected by Salado Creek that, before a recent devastating flood, formed a bucolic setting for dozens of shops selling artsy-crafty things at mostly hefty markups. The flood didn’t wash away any of the structures, but the creek bottom, once a wide grassy area perfect for picnics, is now uninvitingly strewn with pebbles and rocks. I don’t know if it will ever recover.

The blemished creek bottom didn’t seem to bother the folks who, like us, were participating in the Salado Christmas Stroll, an event held on the first two weekends in December of each year. The Stroll, of course, is sponsored and promoted by the merchants and community leaders to attract shoppers to the stores and restaurants. It is a very popular event, especially among the ladies. Luckier husbands may have been allowed to spend their time at the Mill Creek golf course, a golfing venue of some significance, I’m told. Since I’m not a golfer, I’ll have to rely on others’ judgment about a Robert Trent Jones golf course; I have no clue who he is—or was. Those who take the stroll encounter extra vendors of all kinds and multiple performances by carolers and other musicians.

Perhaps most well-known in Salado is the Stagecoach Inn, built in 1861 as a stopover for stagecoach passengers. Expanded many times, the inn and restaurant have had a loyal following, enjoying home cooking served by waitresses who recite the menu by memory at each table. The place was looking a little tired on this visit, however. Perhaps the bad economy has caused some maintenance to be deferred.

Stagecoach Inn

Several of our friends, Marty and Cathy, Jim and Terri and Bubba and LouAnn had decided to accompany us on this little odyssey from the DFW area, and we all had a good time. Marty and Cathy drove down for the day, and Jim and Terri stayed overnight at a hotel. Bubba and LouAnn brought their fifth wheel to keep Homer company. We parked at the Cedar Ridge COE campground at Lake Belton, one of our favorites. We love this quiet and beautiful park, right on the waterfront at Lake Belton. It’s fun to watch the many deer that wander around; they’re quite tame, obviously since no hunting is allowed in the park.

Bubba strings kitschy lights at the campground. Very risky behavior.

Homer (left) and Bubba’s coach

Waterfront spot at Cedar Ridge COE Campground

Mercifully, Sandy didn’t buy anything in Salado, and my job evolved into shuttling our friends back an forth from one shopping area to another along the main drag. Jim and Terri found a beautiful framed print that will look great in their new home. We all had a good time, however, with lots of laughing and carrying on.

What is it with Black Friday?

2010-11-26T11:48:00.005-06:00

This was the first Thanksgiving during which we took an RV trip. We pulled Homer from Ft. Worth to Houston on Wednesday and set up at the Lake View RV Park on South Main, a very nice park with modern facilities and friendly hosts. The trip down here was uneventful, except when I turned on the rig’s running lights, I noticed the trailer lights worked only intermittently. I checked the cannon plug in the bed of the pickup and didn’t notice any play, so I’m not sure what the problem might be. Fortunately, we don’t find ourselves on the road that often after sunset, so the fix is not urgent.

On Thursday, Sandy and I met her sister, Brenda, and our daughter, Mindy, and son-in-law, Tyler, and our grandson, Mason, at Brenda’s new apartment in River Oaks. This place is beautiful, with great views from floor-to- ceiling windows—high rise living at its best. Brenda had gone all out in providing a Thanksgiving feast for us, all of which was acquired from gourmet venues in her local area. We had smoked turkey with all the trimmings and scads of appetizers, imaginative sides and desserts that clearly showed the pride of the professional chefs who prepared them. Frankly, this was a first for all of us; never before had we cooked, well, nothing, for Thanksgiving dinner. However, this could signal an ominous trend, as the womenfolk all agreed this was an idea whose time had come. The men looked at each other with worried faces, as if to say, “What have we done?”

As much as we would like for our wives to be freed somewhat from kitchen chores, I think I can speak for the other guys in saying that we missed all the homemade goodies that have become synonymous with Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. I allowed my good judgment to lapse for a moment and mentioned to Sandy how much I missed her homemade cornbread dressing, sweet potato casserole and pecan pie and, without missing a single bite of smoked turkey, she pointed to a three ring binder, yellowed with age and stained from its proximity to hundreds of episodes of meal preparation, and said something like, “The recipes are in there.”

It wasn’t clear why she had brought her personal recipe book with her on this trip; I suppose she would have cooked something if asked by our hostess. I took this as an indication that a paradigm had shifted, at least for now. I'll approach this minefield from another direction in the future.

After an obligatory nap, enabled because cleanup was such a breeze (we ate on paper plates) the ladies began planning a Black Friday frontal assault on certain of their favorite stores that was set for a zero hour of 9 p.m. this very evening! Yes, Toys ‘R Us was planning to open for Black Friday sales at 9:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving day! What’s up with that? This is just not Biblical, at all! Sure enough, they all piled into Brenda’s BMW SUV around 8:00 p.m. and roared off, waving purses, credit cards and singing some kind of shopper’s battle cry like a bunch of drunks. These women had obviously done a mind-meld with the bargain flyers sent by the stores to lure them in for a shopping spree. Never let it be said that advertising doesn’t work!

Around 11:30 p.m., there was a knock on Homer’s door, and there they were, having returned to unload into Homer the spoils of their crusade. As I type this, I’m looking at a giant box containing a Little Tykes Prep ‘n Serve Kitchen that is occupying most of the area where guests normally sit. The rest of the haul, hopefully, will fit into the cargo bays. I still don’t know how they stuffed it all into the Beamer when they left Toys 'R Us.

This was not to be the last of the Black Friday battle plan, however. Brenda found herself at a Gap store at 5:30 a.m. the next day, hopped up on a pot of coffee and eyes dilated by Red Bull energy drinks. Sandy and Mindy didn’t join her, however, perhaps having had a moment of clarity. Even so, that didn’t keep them from supplying Brenda with their credit cards and a list, so that they could engage in Black Friday by proxy!

I will confess that these ladies were able to get a good deal of their Christmas shopping done at big reductions in price, but I just know that guys would never put up with the hassle. I haven’t seen the newspapers yet today, but I’m sure there is probably mention of some casualties from the melee. This Black Friday thing has gotten completely out of hand, the womenfolk having left earth orbit and clearer heads (guys) behind. These gals are headed into uncharted territory, and it’s a place none of us guys wishes to go.

Preparing for Thanksgiving Trip

2010-11-22T00:51:00.005-06:00

It has been a balmy weekend here in Fort Worth, but an arctic front is due on Thanksgiving day. We're going to try to outrun it by dragging Homer down to Houston on Wednesday. Sandy's sister, Brenda, lives there, and we're planning to have Thanksgiving dinner with her and her family.

Although the weather was kinda inappropriate for it, I decided to make a pot of chicken chili, using a recipe that I had been kicking around in my head. We have a small farmer's market in our neighborhood that carries Hatch chiles (roasted and frozen), and I had been wanting to use those in chicken chili. If I say so myself, it was wonderful! Now, I'm not convinced that the Hatch chiles had anything to do with it, but these chiles, grown in Hatch, New Mexico, have quite a following. Their cachet may be justified, but I'm always suspicious that such notoriety is more likely an opportunity to inflate prices. I mean, really! Could there possibly be that much difference in a chile grown in Hatch and one grown elsewhere? On the other hand, I'm sort of okay with it, because I like the fact that it puts Hatch on the map, complete with a festival. I think every town should have a claim to fame.

The recipe? Okay, here goes:

1 large onion, chopped
6 medium tomatillos, chopped
6 Hatch green chilies, roasted, peeled, seeded and chopped (Note: Use mild variety if you're not a fan of very spicy chili.)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. butter (oil or bacon fat can be substituted)
2 cans chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup, undiluted
6 chicken thighs, deboned and chopped slightly in food processor
1 can white hominy or white beans (great northern or navy), drained (Note: the flavor of the hominy will be more distinctive than the flavor of the beans. I sometimes add a drained can of white beans along with the hominy.)
1 T. cumin
1 T. McCormick Montreal chicken seasoning
1 T. Badia Complete Seasoning (found in many Latino markets)
1 T. Los Chileros Salsa Santa Fe Seasoning (http://www.888eatchile.com; this is a favorite mixture of dried New Mexico chilies that I use in all Mexican dishes.)

Note about dry seasonings: I like bold and spicy flavors in Mexican food, so I use plenty of seasoning. Consider using teaspoons of these seasonings if you are not so inclined. Warning: The Los Chileros seasoning is VERY spicy; one tablespoon gives a hefty burn to this dish. You may want to moderate this a bit.

In a medium pot, saute' the first four ingredients in butter until softened. Add one can of chicken broth and bring to a low boil. Add the processed chicken thighs, cream of chicken soup and the dry seasonings. Add chicken broth from the second can to the desired consistency, if needed. Simmer, covered, for at least 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the hominy or beans during last 10 minutes. Serves 4-6.

Well, let's see...you're probably thinking about President Franklin Pierce, aren't you? You should, because his birthday is coming up on November 23. What? You're not exactly up to speed on President Pierce? Neither was I, until I did a little research after I happened upon a reference to him. After reading his bio, I was struck by the similarity between Pierce's presidency and that of our current president. In an effort to suppress political partisanship in this main blog, I have included a comparison on a separate page that you can find here. If you don't want to get into politics, don't go there.

194 days to retirement!

Countdown to Retirement

2010-11-15T16:13:00.005-06:00

Feeling the need to accomplish some profound preparation activity today, I added Sandy to the insurance plan that I will retain after retiring as a federal employee. We’ll be dropping the separate coverage she has had since she retired from teaching. That change will save us about $140 per month in premiums, which I’m sure she will let me use to buy more toys…uh, for Mason, our grandson. Yeah--that’s it--for Mason...not for me. Really.

We’ve also found that we are simplifying our meals and cooking less. That isn’t the result of retirement planning, it just sort of happened, but it’ll be a good thing when we’re on the road. When we became empty nesters, the need to prepare multi-course meals diminished greatly, and we discovered that abandoning the practice freed up a lot of time and effort, not to mention avoiding making a mess in the kitchen, something for which I am notorious. (I should mention here that I generally cook the meals at our house, and Sandy generally cooks the desserts; she is very good at desserts, and I am very good at eating them.)

We’ve found that it is often cheaper to eat out, if we are careful, than it is to buy groceries and cook for two. Because most restaurants seem to go overboard on their servings, Sandy and I often split entrees. We tend to choose modestly-priced mom and pop joints where we know the food is good. One of our favorite places offers a fajita dinner with all the extras for $9.99, and the serving is ample for two. It’s hard to fix a complete fajita dinner at home for that price.

When we’re traveling in Homer, we almost always cook a hot breakfast and sometimes one other light meal or snack in the coach, but we typically eat out for at least one meal at a restaurant favored by locals that we’ve researched beforehand (the Internet is a wonderful thing). It wasn’t always that way; when we acquired our first RV and prepared for our first trip, we stocked its kitchen in much the same manner as the kitchen in the house was stocked. We loaded the same staples, canned goods, spices, meats and vegetables that we were accustomed to having on hand, spending a great deal of time and effort finding places for everything and filling up the refrigerator. Imagine our surprise when we found that almost all of it came back home with us, unused! One would think that we knew ourselves a little better than that, but I guess we didn’t. One thing we’ve learned about RVing is that after you get one, your likes, dislikes and habits don’t automatically change. If you really enjoy eating out before you get an RV, you’ll still really enjoy eating out afterward.

After traveling by RV for five years now, we think we have the food thing figured out. Homer’s kitchen is stocked with a limited supply of cookware—among which an electric skillet and Crockpot are essential--and a few basic condiments that don't require refrigeration. We use unbreakable dishes, glasses and cups, and we carry a portable icemaker. (Thanks to Gordon, again, for this idea.) Just before departing on a trip, I carry a large Igloo-style cooler into the house, empty the icemaker bins into it and then load it up with any refrigerated items that might spoil during our absence—like deli meats, eggs, bacon, milk, etc. Then I put in any refrigerated condiments that we’ll be using, along with a few soft drinks. That’s it! To save time stocking the fridge (we are notoriously late on departure day), I load the cooler into the trailer’s cargo bay, and when we reach our first stop, I turn on the refrigerator and unload into it the items from the cooler. The fridge stays on for the rest of the trip, then we unload everything when we get back home. Anything else we want to eat, we buy as we go. It’s quick, simple and, most importantly, low impact.

I mentioned toys while ago. I have learned to try to be thoughtful (to the degree possible) when buying “toys” for me, as I am sometimes suckered into purchasing something whose usefulness may not be as compelling as first thought. Well, I ran across this thing, which I think could actually be useful for those of us who spend a lot of time on wireless connections to computers. This may be my next toy.

At Home and Counting the Days

2010-11-13T23:41:00.003-06:00

I’ve read numerous blog posts about the experiences of folks during their last year before retirement as they prepared for full- or part-time RV living. Most appear to make the transition in a fairly well-ordered way, having decided on their goal and exhibiting little indecision as they moved forward.

I don’t think I like those people.

Yes, I’m jealous. Jealous, because I’m not doing this as gracefully as they did. I am, at the same time, excited and apprehensive, euphoric and depressed, focused and distracted, self-confident and paranoid. Having had a long career requiring good judgment, focus, logic and responsibility—even for the very lives of other people—I am not comfortable in this state of being.

The notion of not working at a job, as I have done for, let’s see, 43 years, seems strangely incomprehensible. I’ve been trying to imagine what it will be like to start out on an RV trip without any consideration given to the need to race back home and go to work. That’s got to be a little like Heaven.

The hardest part has been deciding what retirement would look like—full timing or part timing. This is probably the principal source of the uncertainty that has been hanging around. The fulltime lifestyle is incredibly attractive, as the bondage of owning and maintaining a stick and brick house evaporates, allowing the freedom to roam from place to place, staying as long as desired and doing whatever we want.

On the other hand, we have some pretty deep roots here with our church, family and friends, not to mention the house we built specifically to accommodate an RV.

Then there’s the financial thing. Are we sufficiently prepared to live on something less than a rather substantial salary? I think so, but are my calculations too optimistic? Does the economic climate today place our investments in jeopardy?

See what I mean? My prognostications have all the reliability of a blind fortune teller, but things seem to be pointing to part-timing until clarity returns.

There’s also Homer; it’s been a good rig, but it is hardly up to snuff for fulltime or even part-time use. Besides, we think we want a higher-end fiver that will include all the bells and whistles we have grown to covet. We’ve been looking at Mobile Suites and Carriage products and like them both, except the closest Mobile Suites dealer is in Granbury, some 50 miles away; that pretty well nixes it as a contender.

So, a little sympathy would be in order from those of you who have entered and exited this tunnel with your dignity and reputation intact. As for me, you may just find me in the same condition as Yossarian in Catch-22—sitting naked in a tree.

Veteran’s Day

2010-11-11T09:37:00.001-06:00

To all the brave military personnel who have served our country without rejoinder to the traitorous politicians who have shamefully denigrated you, I offer my undying respect, admiration and gratitude. The republic still stands because of you and in spite of them.

This is what our veterans have preserved for us and those who follow.

Blogging, Unwrapped

2010-11-06T23:22:00.006-05:00

I was sort of shamed into doing an update to this blog after reading Jay’s blog post from November 3rd. (http://jayandstellasadventures.blogspot.com.) He was explaining that he hadn’t been posting daily because there wasn’t much going on but, to put things in perspective, he quickly mentioned other RV bloggers he reads who haven’t posted in a much longer period of time—one of them back to July!

Now, I’m not sure I am the blogger to whom he referred, but that spitwad certainly found its target, since July 26 was my last post.

If you’ve read my previous posts, you may have noticed that I’ve been struggling with the posting frequency issue, although I’m fully aware of the reader psychology involved. Reading a daily blog, if it’s written well enough to hold my interest, is much like reading a good book or watching a favorite TV series. Each episode ties into the next and, after a while, I get to know the characters and get caught up in the story.

I know I enjoy reading a daily blog that’s interestingly written, even when not much is going on with the writer. Oddly enough though, I still find it excruciatingly difficult to write when my day is unremarkable, like those when I’m chained to my desk at work. And yes, I’m sure that my disdain for the remaining 209 work days could have some bearing on my recalcitrance. This excuse is a little lame, however, as other bloggers mentioned below, like Dee and Jim, Boris and Natasha, John and Bridget, Randy and Pam—it didn’t deter them! They blogged almost daily before they retired. (I probably need a good therapist.)

Many of the blogs I read (like Jay’s) reveal the writers’ ability to overcome any pre-retirement writer’s block by, well, writing, I suppose. Not only writing, mind you, but writing, as in Jay’s case, in a highly personal way. For example, Jay was very candid about his last months as a police officer, compelling me to read his entire blog—something I do only when I find a favorite. I found his story engaging and highly revealing of his personality and the way he and Stella handled the big changes for them and their family members as they transitioned into retirement and fulltime RVing.

Jay, like others I follow, has a natural ability as a writer and knows instinctively that the essence of holding a reader’s interest is not to recount merely what he sees or where he goes or what he experiences, but how he and the other characters feel about those things. Nothing will make me click out of a blog faster than viewing a bunch of photos with the writing amounting to little more than photo captions. If there is no story and no characters, I’m outta there. Blogs that are interesting to read don’t require professional writing skills, either. The ones I mention below show various levels of facility with language, but that doesn’t matter nearly as much as telling the story in a way that causes the reader to feel he or she is there, using all the senses—seeing, talking, hearing, touching, smelling—experiencing it in person.

Besides Jay’s, here are a few other favorite blogs by great storytellers:

http://bullwinklestravels.blogspot.com/

http://www.mytripjournal.com/Dray-TheHappyWanderers

http://www.mytripjournal.com/USAChevrolet

http://rvingwithpoppa.blogspot.com

http://thebayfieldbunch.blogspot.com

http://travelsofjohnandbridget.blogspot.com

http://tumbleweed-jimdee.blogspot.com

http://wanderingamerica.blogspot.com

http://warnerrvnews.blogspot.com

http://www.mytripjournal.com/werewinginit

http://bobandjotravelblog.blogspot.com/
http://2takinga5th.blogspot.com
www.gypsyjournal.net/blog

There are others, of course, that are very good, but I think these are among the best. I’m always on the lookout for interesting bloggers.

So, what does all this analysis have to do with me and (the infrequent posts in) my blog? Well, just bear with me; I’m working through my fear of being criminally boring, so I am going to start slowly—maybe posting once or twice a week when not traveling. We’ll see how it goes.

Trip Reflections and What’s Next

2010-07-26T00:33:00.007-05:00

The leg from Big Spring to Fort Worth was an uneventful slog along I-20, with a stop in Sweetwater for lunch. Our intention was to visit Allen’s Fried Chicken, a local family-owned joint of longtime notoriety in Sweetwater. Bubba had strongly recommended the place, but upon our arrival, we found an empty parking lot and a sign on the door indicating that the proprietors had gone on vacation.

Having anticipated this stop for, oh, several hundred miles!, we were sorely disappointed, to say the least. Sandy immediately sent a text to Bubba regarding the status of Allen’s, along with a good deal of invective that was not exactly deserved by poor Bubba. However, he was wisely restrained in his response, allowing Sandy to vent harmlessly, as it turned out.

Since we were parked already, we strolled over to a local eat-a-bite next door and had a thoroughly substandard lunch. I can’t remember the name of the place or what we ate, because I successfully blocked it out of my mind.

The featureless grind along I-20 gave us time to reflect on this trip and to begin to make plans for our first 'breakaway’ adventure after retiring next June. Now you might have learned from an earlier post that I am not much of a planner, but leaving the work world will be such a momentous event, I can’t help but do some imagining as to what that will be like. That seems like planning, and it’s only 313 days away!

Our initial hack at this ‘planning’ thing is to head back to Colorado next summer then continue northwest to Yellowstone. (Sandy’s never been, and I was ten years old when I last visited, so I don’t remember much.) After that, we would make our way eastbound through the Dakotas to check out Mt. Rushmore (neither of us have seen it). Then we would continue east to arrive in Wisconsin and upper Michigan in the early fall. From there, we would make our way back to Texas.

I’ll have to give a nod to Gordon and Juanita, whose posts of their meanderings in that area have kindled my desire for this to be our ‘maiden voyage’ as new retirees. We will certainly be reviewing those sections of their blog.

We’ll have to figure out just when to leave Texas in order to complete, in a fairly leisurely pace, this journey we’re planning. We want to be able to arrive in Wisconsin and Michigan in time to enjoy the fall foliage.

We’re going to have to do a good bit of research in order to capture all the ‘can’t miss’ things to see on such a long trip. If you who read this have suggestions, we would love to get them.

There are other possible changes in our thinking that we’ll talk about in future posts. For now, this is enough to make our heads spin…

The Home Stretch

2010-07-11T09:29:00.002-05:00

The relatively leisurely pace of our travel picked up considerably after Silver City. Looking at the miles in front of us versus the days available to travel them, we knew we were not going to be able to stop and smell the roses along the way as we much prefer to do. Those of you who have retired may have forgotten what it’s like to have to show up back at the salt mine after the last day of your vacation had expired. You have forgotten? Well, I don’t blame you; I intend to obliterate it from my memory, as well, when my time comes.

We stopped in Las Cruces only long enough for a forgettable hamburger and a tank of fuel, then on to Ruidoso for the night. We liked the looks of Las Cruces and decided it was a place we’d like to spend a little more time—whenever that may be. It goes on our “redo” list.

It was a long uphill climb from Las Cruces northeastward past the Organ Mountains to Ruidoso, where we arrived very late at the Circle B RV Park, located on the side of a hill and whose parking sites were much too close together for our liking. As it was a weekend, the place was almost full, but the staff was nice enough in accommodating our late arrival. The after-hours attendant was Jimmy, an ebullient and highly energetic older man from Texas, who was almost more helpful than necessary in getting us parked, sardine-like, between two other rigs only inches away. Since time there was so short, we decided not to unhook Lucille from Homer and go foraging as we usually do. We merely extended Homer’s front legs and the rear stabilizers and called it a day. Sandy made some fajita nachos for dinner, and then we watched a little TV and retired early. Thankfully, highway 70 through Ruidoso is a wide thoroughfare, unlike the hilly and curvy road from Show Low to Silver City. It was a long enough climb in lower gears to reach here, but the excellent highway will prove to keep our speed up downhill from Ruidoso.

Our impression of Ruidoso, from the standpoint of just passing through, was that it was a nice enough place, nestled in the mountains in the cool air, but if you aren’t a horse racing enthusiast or a casino gambler, there’s not much to do there. And, since we’re not either of those, we probably won’t put this on our “must redo” list.

Approaching Roswell and the Pecos valley (and the Texas state line beyond), we rediscovered the meaning of “flat.” Again, we had time only for a lunch stop at Roswell, with a little extra time thrown in for Sandy to do a little shopping. She wanted to get a few souvenirs with an alien theme (did we tell you we have a grandson?). The alien obsession here, of course, is due to the “incident” that happened near here in 1947, wherein some folks discovered in the desert what they thought to be a crashed alien spacecraft, a discovery said by the government to be the remnants of a spent weather balloon. The discoverers insisted, however, that the craft was not of earth origin, and various conspiracy stories spun wildly afterward that the craft and its deceased or dying occupants were spirited off by the authorities to a secret location and any existence of such denied to this day. The conspiratorial climate around Roswell has endured since 1947 and is only exacerbated by the presence nearby of Area 51, a super-secret military facility used for research and development of futuristic weaponry and craft for use in air and space combat. The Conspiracy is now a cottage industry, worth untold millions to the city’s economy over the years.

We ate lunch at the Cattle Baron restaurant, easily the nicest eatery in town and one of a regional chain of steakhouses. They had a huge salad bar and an extensive menu, but we were totally unimpressed with the food. The steaks were tough and flavorless, and I left most of mine on the plate. For the fifty-dollar price tag, we thought it was a total ripoff, and we wouldn’t think of returning.

We rather liked the town, however, and we were surprised in that it was larger and more bustling a place than we expected. We especially liked the alien themes in some of the more touristy places. We would have liked to visit the alien museum, but we just didn’t have the time. The city sponsors an “alien” convention during the first weekend in July each year. This attracts scads of visitors who gather from all over the world to dress up like aliens and act silly. These sound like my kind of people; I must join them some day! We are putting Roswell on our “redo” list for sure.

From Roswell into west Texas, we entered the vast flat farmlands surrounding Plains, Brownfield and southeastward to Big Spring. The highways are endlessly straight here and were almost totally devoid of traffic on this Saturday. We set Lucille’s cruise control and didn’t touch it for hours on end. This was a good place to listen to CDs and marvel at what a huge place Texas is. In fact, if I were pressed to articulate one overall impression of this trip, it would be that I was reacquainted with the incredible vastness of the open spaces of the West. It is so different from say, Dallas/Ft. Worth eastward, where a traveler encounters a city, town or village seemingly every few miles. Out West, the harsh topography serves as an effective deterrent to development, and you can still see the pristine beauty of the land through unpolluted air, much as the Indians saw it before white men arrived. It is a place so remote, so spectacular in its immensity and over-the-top topographical features, that I feel very small and insignificant, awestruck and reverent in beholding God’s creation.

We bedded down for the final night in Big Spring, arriving late again, at the Whip-In RV Park a few miles east of town on I-20. This was a small place, nicely kept with gravel roads and spaces (ours wasn’t very level), and very close to the noisy interstate. Without a noisemaker like the air conditioner in our bedroom, it would have been very unpleasant, I’m afraid. We were met, graciously, after hours by the manager, a gangly lady with weathered, leathery skin and no evidence of teeth, and who was probably quite a bit younger than suggested by her high-mileage visage. Her speech was rather tragically hampered by the absence of her teeth, and I could only guess at much of what she was saying. She was accompanied everywhere by a vanilla-colored Chihuahua and, once we were inside the office, a friendly gray cat hopped up on the counter in order to be more accessible for petting by the new visitor. I obliged the cat’s gesture and asked the manager, as I usually do, about local restaurant recommendations. She mentioned several names, the only discernible one of which was “Furr’s Cafeteria.” I elected not to ask her to repeat what she had said, as it would have called attention to her manner of speech. Armed with this sparse information and the somewhat alarming notion that Furr’s Cafeteria could be among a list of highly recommended restaurant venues, Sandy and I decided once again to raid Homer’s refrigerator, settling in with a ham sandwich for the short evening. We left Lucille and Homer hooked up, ready to launch at the break of late morning the next day.

I couldn’t easily get the woman with the Chihuahua out of my mind, wondering what sort of circumstances she had met in life and what choices she had made to arrive at this juncture in her less-than-winsome condition. Was now a good time or bad time for her? I’ll never know, of course, but it makes me thankful for God’s favor in giving me good parents, good upbringing, a good mate and the wisdom to have made more good choices than bad in my life. So many people can’t lay claim to that, I think, and therein lays the cause of many of the problems we see today.

Silver City, New Mexico

2010-07-09T22:48:00.001-05:00

The drive from Show Low to Silver City was tiring, as it was almost all in the mountains. It was a beautiful drive, but towing a heavy trailer is much more difficult here than, for example, on Interstate highways, where you can just set the cruise control and forget it. Even with the powerful diesel engine, climbing and descending steep grades is a challenge; the 11,000-pound Homer demands much of the engine and transmission, and careful monitoring is necessary to ensure the engine exhaust and transmission temperatures are not exceeded. This often requires manual shifting to lower or higher gears, as the transmission is not designed to monitor and control precisely these limitations. I know that some folks don’t install the extra gauges in their trucks, but according to some experts I trust, drivers ignore these parameters to the peril of their transmission and engine, especially when pulling heavy loads in the mountains. Some trucks, including Lucille, have warning lights to indicate, for example, excessive transmission temperature. The problem is, by the time the light illuminates, the damage has likely already been done. I hate these idiot lights—I suppose because of all my years flying airplanes, where we have gauges for everything imaginable; I am not comfortable not knowing what is going on with the engine and transmission.

By the end of this leg, I was exhausted, so we selected the Silver City RV Park (another imaginative name, isn't it?), and were escorted to a shady pull-through spot by a very officious, if not brusque, older gentleman. When I pulled out my credit card to pay for the night, he advised me that he didn’t take credit cards, as it wasn’t worth it to him for the $23.00 per night fee. I thought this was a good enough bargain, and happily handed over the cash without further comment. I asked him for a nearby restaurant recommendation but, instead of answering, he gave me two brochures on Silver City, one of which showed all the restaurants in town. Perhaps he was a bit grumpy because it was a little past closing time, but I don’t think it would have taken much effort for him to have been ever so slightly friendly.

Lots of nice shade in the Silver City RV Park

Since the park manager was of no help in our finding a good restaurant, I went back to Homer and fired up the computer. A quick check at http://www.yelp.com yielded recommendations for several restaurants in downtown Silver City. We selected Jalisco’s Mexican Restaurant, which was within walking distance of the RV park.

We had a very pleasant walk of some 10 blocks, during which we were able to observe an oddity in the layout of downtown Silver City. When the streets were laid out in 1870, the principal north-south thoroughfare through the business district was named, as you might expect, Main Street. The street one block to the west was named Bullard Street, in honor of the founder of the town. A couple of decades after the downtown buildings had been erected facing Main Street, a flash flood roared through the town and demolished many of these structures. To prevent a recurrence, the city fathers decided to replace Main Street with a canal that would carry the runoff harmlessly beyond the city proper. This had the effect of rendering the storefronts unusable, as no vehicle or pedestrian traffic was possible. As a result, Bullard Street, to which the rear store entrances faced, became, in effect, the new Main Street, and patrons would simply use the rear doors as the main entrances to the buildings. Newer buildings were constructed with their fronts facing Bullard Street but, to this day, a number of the older downtown buildings have their more elaborate and unused front entrances facing a dry ditch. This canal is referred to by the locals, appropriately, as the Big Ditch.

This is one of the old buildings fronting on Main Street, now a ditch.

The same building from a different angle; the ditch that was Main Street is just beyond the iron fence.

We had a terrific dinner at Jalisco’s. Sandy had combination tostadas and I had green chile stew, made with the famous Hatch chiles—scrumptious!

Afterward, we enjoyed the cool breeze as we walked back to the RV park. Like Flagstaff and Show Low, the high altitude here makes for mild summers and cool evenings—very pleasant, indeed.

Silver City, so named because of silver deposits discovered in the vicinity, is the home of Western Arizona University, and many of the town’s residents are employed by Phelps Dodge in a nearby copper mine. The company has given the city notice that the mine will play out within a couple of decades, so the growth prospects of the city seem a bit limited, at least in the short term.

All in all, this was a pleasant and restful stop. Tomorrow, we’re off again, headed toward Texas.

Show Low

2010-07-08T12:13:00.002-05:00

Our route back to Texas consists of overnight stops at places we’ve never been before. Show Low, Arizona is such a place. We really had no idea what to expect, especially after traversing the bleak landscape southeast of Flagstaff. Happily, however, within 25 miles of Show Low, we began to climb from 5,000 feet elevation back to nearly 7,000 and encountered some very picturesque forested mountains as we approached Show Low.

According to local legend, the town was named after a marathon poker game between C.E. Cooley and Marion Clark. The two men decided there was not enough room for both of them in their settlement. They agreed to let a game of cards decide who was to move. According to the tale, Clark said, "If you can show low, you win." Cooley turned up the deuce of clubs and replied, "Show low it is." The stakes were a 100,000 acre ranch. Show Low's main street is named "Deuce of Clubs" in remembrance.

We were surprised at the size of the community—larger than we expected—and the bustling commercial activity here. They have a new Walmart, Home Depot and Lowe’s and a very large community of resort home developments, including Venture In, an RV/Park Model development where we are staying overnight.

We’re told that, besides a significant number of retirees who live here year round, a good many of the vacation homes we see belong to residents of Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tucson who flee those cities in the summer for the Show Low area and the much cooler White Mountains.

We had a very nice prime rib dinner at the Branding Iron restaurant last night and breakfast at Aunt Nancy’s, a local favorite operated from the former home of a local resident.

Aunt Nancy's Restaurant

We didn't eat this; just ordered it for the photo.

Many park models in the Venture In community. There is a retirement/recreation home here that will fit anyone's budget.

Flagstaff

2010-07-07T09:56:00.002-05:00

After an uneventful drive from Monument Valley to Flagstaff, we decided to take a day off before beginning the long trek back to Texas. This is as far west as we will travel on this trip, and we think a break will be good preparation for the long driving hours ahead of us. Besides, Flagstaff is a nice town, nestled among forested mountains at 7,000 feet elevation and, therefore, relatively cool—especially at night. I cannot stress enough us Texans' appreciation for a cool climate in the summer.

We are at the J&H RV Park north of town on

U. S.

89, an older park that is well kept and appears to be popular with older folks. The owners make a big deal out of potential noisemakers; I was asked twice if we had dogs (allowed) and three times if we had motorcycles (not allowed). What I’m inferring from this is that older folks don’t put up with much noise, and I guess we fit right in, because we don’t like noise, either. Anyway, there is a cost to all this quietness—forty dollars a night at this park, even with a Good Sam discount! Cost doesn’t seem to be a deterrent, however; the park was full both nights we were here. It is located adjacent to a busy highway, but we didn’t notice any significant noise from traffic. Perhaps the owner doesn’t allow that, either.

We explored the old downtown area, which was surprisingly vibrant, with a lot of young people hanging out among many mom and pop shops and restaurants. Understandable, I guess, considering this is the home of Northern Arizona University. We had intended to tour the old Riordan Mansion, a 13,000 square foot circa-1900 residence built by one of the founding families of Flagstaff. Unfortunately, the house and grounds—now a state park—are closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We’ll just have to catch it next time.

Foodies that we are, we were delighted to find a couple of good restaurants. We had Cajun shrimp tacos—perhaps the best ever—at Salsa Brava and some killer Thai food at Swadee Thai restaurant downtown. I highly recommend these if you are in the area.

We did a little window shopping, Sandy at a women’s apparel store and me next door at Best Buy but, to my amazement, neither of us bought anything. (I felt Sandy’s forehead, but she didn’t appear to have any fever.) In Best Buy, I marveled at a new Samsung LED TV display; I guess this is the successor to plasma and LCD in the manufacturer’s unending quest to increase the high definition of television sets to the point where the TV image is sharper than real life! Frankly, I think it already is.

In the late afternoon, we decided to drive to Sunset Crater, located in a national park just north of town. I didn’t know much about this now-extinct volcano, and I was surprised to learn that it erupted only a thousand years ago—very recent, in geological terms. There was a very nice visitors’ center, where we perused the highly informative displays regarding the eruption. While we couldn’t drive to the top of the crater, a paved road took us past the base of the cone, where we were shocked to see how little vegetation had returned to the lava flows and cinder cone after a thousand years! If asked to guess how long ago the eruption took place, based on what we were seeing, I would have offered maybe ten years as a guess!

I’m including a few photos below, but they really don’t show the dramatic sharp edges of the lava rock and the total absence of erosion that I would have expected after a thousand years. Compared to the lava flows of, say, the Hawaiian Islands, many of which are millions of years old and completely overgrown with vegetation, this really underscores the shortness of a thousand-year span in geological time and the mere blink of an eye that we humans are here. (I don’t need too many reminders of the brevity of life; time is passing ever so much more quickly as I get older, and I’m really not all that happy about it.) However, now that they are getting so good at replacing body parts that wear out, perhaps 60 years old will be the new 40, who knows? Sandy is doing so well with her new knee, she may rival the Sunset Crater in still looking young when she gets all the rest of her parts replaced! (I can't figure out if that is a compliment or not; I'm sure she'll let me know.)

Sunset Crater, as seen from nearby lava flow.

Lava rock shows little erosion and little vegetation, even after 1,000 years.

Photo doesn't reveal the length of the lava field--more than two miles and 100 feet thick.

The cinder cone looks much as it did 1,000 years ago; note the pieces of lava rock that pelted the area.

Irrepressible life: From the devastation springs a wildflower; this plant is growing from the cinders through a thin layer of straw.

Monument Valley

2010-07-05T11:23:00.007-05:00

After leaving Durango and the delightfully cool mornings in the San Juan mountains, it is a relatively short distance westbound on U. S. 160 to a jarringly abrupt change of scenery. In the short 42 miles to Cortez, Colorado, we were finished with mountains and looking ahead to a foreboding and bleak landscape, almost devoid of vegetation. We were a little uneasy leaving the security of Cortez, because we weren’t sure we would be seeing civilization again, based on what we were seeing ahead of us.

We decided to eat lunch at Cortez, stopping at a tiny mom-and-pop diner named Popillo’s. I had a Navajo taco with some extremely tasty green chile sauce on top, and Sandy had a burger and fries. All of it was cheap and delicious. We sort of lingered over our meal, probably due to a subconscious uneasiness over what was “out there.”

We finally mustered our courage, and I took special note of the amount of diesel fuel showing on the gauge. It was nearly full, as I had refueled in Durango, and I had already calculated that I should have plenty of fuel to reach Monument Valley. Nevertheless, Sandy questioned me several times about the fuel supply, nervous Nellie that she is about such things. After several reassurances, I finally talked her into giving me the keys. (Not really.)

Since we were about to enter no-man’s land, we decided we didn’t have enough provisions! I should modify that to, “we didn’t have enough JUNK FOOD provisions.” Now bear in mind that Homer’s refrigerator and pantry contained sufficient foodstuffs to take us to Monument Valley even at wagon train speed, but we were very uncomfortably low on carbs! A stop at a local corner mart solved that problem, as I picked up a collection of favorite “sin” foods and, for Sandy, a glass of iced tea large enough to fill a wading pool. With this in mind, I felt lucky that Homer’s restroom was following along behind us.

We past by the Four Corners area (where the states of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah join at their respective corners), but the actual marker was not accessible due to construction. This wasn’t particularly bothersome, because we had visited this place before when Mindy was a kid, and we took her photo lying at the four corners marker with her hands and feet all in different states.
After four corners, the landscape became even more barren, with the ribbon that was Highway 160 stretched straight ahead as far as the eye could see. There was no cell phone signal, of course, and Sandy was getting increasingly fidgety. She turned toward me, her eyebrows a little higher than usual, and said:

“Do you suppose there are any buzzards out here?”
“Why do you ask?,” I replied.
“I was just wondering how long our carcasses would last for identification purposes.”

Bless her heart; Sandy really hates desolate, isolated spaces, and she is a trooper for enduring all she does to satisfy my wanderlust.

After what seemed like a week in suspended animation, we finally reached Kayenta, Arizona and our turn onto Highway 163 to take us to Monument Valley. We filled up with fuel, of course, and I thought Sandy would hug the diesel pump at any minute.

After refueling, we set off on the final leg, and it wasn’t long until the unmistakable buttes of Monument Valley appeared before us, instantly recognizable from countless photographs. This was the fulfillment of a bucket list item for me, and there truly is nothing like “being there.” The movies and photos just don’t due justice to the grandeur and breathtaking vastness of this area. Of course, one has to appreciate the clear desert air that allows the impossibly long vistas, resulting in unrealistically long travel times to reach a point that you can clearly see 70 or 80 miles ahead.

We pulled into Goulding’s campground in late afternoon, with the Mittens (famously named buttes) clearly visible from our spot in the red sandstone hills. I don’t know how the Gouldings were able to assemble such an enterprise as they have here for tourists, but they are about the only game in town other than the Navajo tribal facility, which isn’t nearly as significant. If you can think of an enterprise that would be used by tourists, there is a Goulding name on it: Goulding’s Lodge, Goulding’s Restaurant, Goulding’s Campground, Goulding’s Tours, Goulding’s Grocery Store, Goulding’s Car Wash, even Goulding’s Airport. This family simply has a gold mine here.

The famous formations around here are what’s left of vertical sandstone rock areas that have eroded more slowly than the softer sandstone shale areas around them. This erosion has been taking place over tens of millions of years, and one day, they will finally be gone. (Don’t worry, Bubba, it won’t be on our lifetime.) These formations are said to constitute the most photographed landscape in the world.

Of all the photos I took, the two above are my personal favorites.

We had a nice steak dinner in Goulding’s Restaurant overlooking the valley, and afterward, a nice Fourth of July fireworks show.

Goulding's Restaurant overlooks Monument Valley.

Only foodies take photos of their meals. (This was quite good, and we don't apologize for being foodies.)

Lucille just had to get into the act. She's pretty fetching, don't you think?

View from Goulding RV Park at dawn

A view of our parking spot with Lucille and Homer in the foreground

I can’t help remembering the countless photos and movies I’ve seen with this area as the backdrop, and it’s hard to believe it’s taken me so long to see it for myself. I am truly humbled with gratitude that God gave me life, eyesight and a perfect companion with whom I can behold what must be some of His best handiwork.

Train Ride to Silverton

2010-07-04T07:18:00.008-05:00

If you are a railroad buff (or even if you’re not), taking the narrow-gauge rail trip between Durango and Silverton, Colorado is not to be missed. It is one of the truly iconic train rides in the country, the railroad having been in business since 1882. The ancient coal-fired steam engines are throwbacks to an era unknown to the last three generations or so of Americans, and the fact that these 1920s relics are still operating reliably is an engineering wonder. Parts for these locomotives have been nonexistent for decades, so the Durango and Silverton Railroad rebuilds them or manufactures new ones themselves in their state-of-the art shops.

I had ridden the train in my childhood, so my memories of the trip were very hazy. Sandy had never experienced it at all, so Bubba invited us to meet them in Durango and make the trip with them today. He made reservations months ago, and if you intend to take this trip, you need to do the same. Don’t bother to show up on the day of departure and expect to get a seat.

We were to meet at 8:00 a.m., to arrive at the station and get parked in time for the 9:00 a.m. train and, almost as amazing as the locomotives, Bubba and his group were on time!

Sandy had been a little nervous about the trip, as she has some degree of acrophobia and feared the train would be negotiating hairpin curves overlooking deep chasms, a situation that would be very uncomfortable for her. Unfortunately, I didn’t remember enough about my childhood ride to offer her much assurance that the route wouldn’t be a challenging in this way. However, as the train made its way up the Animas River valley, it became clear that there would be no hairpin curves overlooking deep canyons, except for a short stretch near Rockwood that was relatively benign but simply too picturesque for her to be apprehensive.

The vast majority of the route followed the Animas River, a gorgeous clear stream cascading over millions of rocks and through calm eddies, as well, making its way south to Durango and beyond. The water flow is substantial enough to offer a good ride to countless rafters and tubers, and such an adventure seemed really appealing due to the picturesque setting in the cool mountain air.

Typical scenery en route to Silverton
The train travels quite slowly, taking three and one-half hours to reach Silverton, a charming old mining town at 9,300 feet elevation, at which point a layover of a couple of hours was provided for lunch and sightseeing before returning to Durango.

Main Street in Silverton
A popular option for riders is to omit the return trip in favor of a much faster bus ride. We chose the bus for the leg back to Durango, and we’re glad we did. The road trip was through gorgeous mountain scenery, and the driver, who gave an excellent touristy narrative, pointed out that the San Juan Skyway, a part of which is the route between Silverton and Durango, is one of the ten most scenic drives in America. We would have to agree and vowed to return sometime to make the entire 126-mile trip.

Is this train trip one that I would do again? Probably not. Once you get past reliving the rich history of the railroad and the novelty of passenger travel on a steam train, the trip is really little more than spending three and a half hours looking at the Animas River at the bottom of picturesque, but not dissimilar, canyons. I think one hour would have been enough.

After our return to Durango, we drove about ten miles north to Hermosa and visited Honeyville, a purveyor of honey, jams and jellies and other novelties since 1950. We got quite a few samples before deciding on six jars of tasty, but rather expensive, honey butter and jellies.

We then came back to town and toured the Durango and Silverton Railroad’s museum (free with your trip ticket), housed in the old roundhouse, still in use by the company to perform maintenance on its rolling stock. We enjoyed this interesting exhibit and then walked to a nearby Thai restaurant (named the Sizzling Pot, I think) for what turned out to be some really second rate food. We won’t be going back to this one.

Returning to the RV park, we stopped by Bubba’s trailer and spent a couple of hours sitting outside chatting with the group. We laughed a lot and finally broke up the merriment as the warmth of the day yielded to the growing coldness of the night mountain air.

It was a good day--a very good day--and tomorrow we will be leaving for Monument Valley.

Cool Colorado

2010-07-03T08:35:00.004-05:00

It was a beastly drive to Durango from Clovis--some eleven hours to travel the 430 miles, including fairly long stops for fuel and lunch and another shorter stop to make a sandwich to eat while we drove. Lucille’s computer showed 12.9 mpg, which I thought was quite respectable. I’ve paid between $2.79 and $3.28 per gallon for diesel, usually around $3.08 in this area.

We hate driving such long distances but, we were behind schedule, and my days off are not yet unlimited, like you lucky retirees! Grrrrr. The journey was unremarkable, but Sandy’s knee was beginning to bother her due to the long sitting spells that deprived her of the movement she needs for optimizing the healing process. We shouldn’t have any more of these long driving days; I’m trying to keep the legs below 300 miles.

Bubba met us at Lightner Creek Campground in Durango around 10:00 p.m., and boy, was it dark—country dark! We didn’t even attempt to unhook Homer from Lucille, because setting up in the dark is not only a struggle, but it’s noisy, and the other campers don’t appreciate all that racket so late in the evening. We just hooked up electricity and water and went to bed, dog tired. We would finish setting up in the morning.

We awoke to find ourselves in a very nice campground that followed the banks of Lightner Creek, a clear, gurgling stream that flows down a narrow mountain valley about five miles west of Durango. The place is full this July 4th weekend, and we roamed around until we found Bubba and his crew.

Bubba, LouAnn and Sandy in front of their trailer

We then went out on our own for a little shopping, during which we ate lunch at La Margarita, a fairly good Mexican restaurant, but certainly not up to Texas standards. I’m not sure why we keep trying Mexican restaurants outside Texas; so far, it hasn’t yielded very good results; I guess it’s because hope springs eternal. By the way, the worst Mexican restaurant we have ever patronized, and the one by which all other bad Mexican restaurants will be judged, is the one in London, England. I can’t even remember the name now, as I have attempted to obliterate it from my memory. Suffice it to say that it truly deserved to be dispatched to the dustbin of history by a talented arsonist. Sandy enjoyed looking in all the shops in the bustling downtown area, she bought some very handsome earrings in the shape of a Suguaro cactus, which I thought appropriate, given the area in which we are traveling.

Durango is a vibrant, busy town that is very clean and well-policed, appearing to be almost devoid of the kind of blight we saw in Clovis. I’m not sure how they manage that, given today’s economy, but it reminded me of towns we have seen in Switzerland and Austria that appear to have no citizen underclass. Amazing. (Post-publishing note: We found the, ah, more modest residential area some distance north of the city, in the Hermosa area.)

On tap for the evening’s entertainment was dinner and a show at the Bar D ranch, serving a barbecue dinner to about a thousand folks, who remained for music from a talented quartet singing mostly western songs including, to our delight, the iconic “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” which I’m sure the group has done every night since 1969 when the place opened. The dinner was forgettable, but the guys were superb instrumentalists and singers, and we enjoyed the show very much. We got back to Homer quite late and slept well, enjoying a short rain shower peppering down on the roof.

Bar D Ranch audience pavilion covered due to brief shower

Bar D Ranch singers and the Barker Family

Barry and Algene, Bubba’s mom and dad Pavilion cover retracted after rain

Ain't Lovin' Clovis

2010-07-01T05:51:00.004-05:00

We got a late start from Wichita Falls due to my failed attempts to get the new Pressure Pro tire monitor to work. It never would initiate as the instructions describe, so I think I’ll have to send it back for a replacement. The leg from Wichita Falls to Clovis was just 300 miles, but we were pretty tired when we got there and decided to stop for the night. The next leg to Durango will be a fiendish 430 miles, so I’ll have to take some Geritol or something, I guess.

I really hate to disparage communities, because every town is someone’s home town. But Clovis seems to go out of its way to invite criticism. U. S. highway 84, the main east-west drag through town, has been allowed to deteriorate to the extent that it could possibly damage your suspension. Pulling Homer through town gave the new Air Safe hitch a workout as the pin box gyrated around wildly on the air-suspended hitch head. Even with this marvel of a shock-dampening hitch, we found a few things tossed around inside the trailer when we stopped for the night. The city fathers should be flogged for allowing a main artery to get in this shape. Even for the streets that had been resurfaced, the work was inferior. The asphalt overlay had not been applied to cover the entire street, but only those portions that had deteriorated. While this fixed the potholes, the uneven surface made for a terrible ride everywhere we went. Except for the newer, more affluent north end of town, the area along U. S. 84 looked very bleak, impoverished and worn. This was certainly one of the least appealing cityscapes that I can ever remember seeing in all our travels in the U. S.

Traveler’s World, the more desirable RV park, had no 50-amp site available, so we stayed at KC Campground, a pretty low-rent place with dusty and unkempt dirt and gravel (mostly dirt) sites and no shade anywhere. It was priced pretty well at $24, and the proprietor was friendly. After parking and exiting Lucille, we couldn’t help but notice in the breeze the unmistakable odor of the stockyards south of town. After retreating into Homer, we elected not even to unhook, as there was not really any more of this place we cared to explore. We made a very tasty Caesar salad with grilled chicken, watched a little TV and turned in fairly early.

Sunrise at Clovis

View from our window:

Rain Delay

2010-06-30T08:59:00.006-05:00

Oddly enough, it has never rained before on a day we departed on an RV trip. And perhaps never before had we been so fully prepared for an early departure yesterday, but it was all for naught. It came a gully washer there in Fort Worth, and I wasn’t about to try to hook up and drive while that was going on. There are enough crazies on the road as it is, and they get even crazier when the road is wet.

So, we didn’t launch until mid-afternoon, and that allowed us to get no farther than Wichita Falls before time to quit for the day. This puts us way behind in our schedule, and we’re going to have a couple of long and grueling days getting to Durango. RV travel during a defined period of time off from work is often frantic for us, and we can hardly wait for retirement so that it won’t matter if we take a delay for rain.

Here are some photos of our departure from Homer’s little RV port beside our house near Fort Worth:

(In case you’re wondering, backing Homer into this RV port was a little challenging until I had done it a few times. Nowadays, I rarely hit anything.)

About halfway to Wichita Falls, Sandy began chanting and meditating, zen-fashion, getting herself mentally prepared for the long trek across west Texas and New Mexico. She is less than enthusiastic about traveling through desolate and featureless landscape, and there is plenty of that along our route. Unfortunately, there is just no way of avoiding it if you’re going west or northwest through Texas. I do love my state, but God was not particularly slavish to topographical appeal in some areas when He designed it. One fable has it that God, when putting Texas together and beautifying it, became tired because of the hugeness of the state. He decided to rest when he was about half-finished but never got around to completing west Texas. Other Texas lore says that when God was creating west Texas, he tossed all the leftover rocks into Big Bend. We would agree with that, but at least in Big Bend, you’ve got the rocks to look at. In much of west Texas, you’ve got nothing to look at but, well, nothing.

We stayed at the Wichita Falls RV Park (wonder how long they agonized over what to name it?), an older park that was nice enough, with lots of trees and not very crowded. It was very quiet, and the wi-fi was free and working pretty well.

Upon a recommendation from a local denizen, we tried McBride’s Land and Cattle Co. for dinner and found it to be a little above mediocre.

After the obligatory stop at Wal-Mart, we returned to Homer, watched a little TV and turned in for the night.

A Trip is in the Works!

2010-06-22T23:47:00.005-05:00

For the past several months, Bubba has lobbied for us to join him and his family in Colorado over the fourth of July holiday. We finally gave in, not because we didn’t want to visit with them (they’re quite a hoot to be around), but because it is so disagreeably hot in July and August if you’re south of, say, Nome.

Sandy and I are hopelessly dependent on air conditioning during the summertime here in the hell simulator we call Texas. When we built the new house, we demanded a higher capacity a/c unit than was recommended. As a result, all the lights in the neighborhood go dim when we fire up that sucker. (Not really, but it does keep the house frosty cool.) We even added a separate a/c unit for the master suite, which we keep at 68 degrees while sleeping. And no, our electric bills are quite low, thankfully, due to extreme overkill in insulating the place. It’s actually more like a huge Styrofoam cooler than anything else.

Bubba, LouAnn and daughter BreAnn have a head start. They departed a few days ago for the Grand Canyon, after which they will make their way back through southern Utah to Durango, where we’ll meet them on July 1.

We’ll leave Fort Worth next Tuesday and stay overnight at Lubbock and Santa Fe en route to Durango. While there, we will ride the old steam train up to Silverton through some really gorgeous mountain scenery. I made that trip when I was a kid, so I don’t remember much about it, and Sandy has never ridden the train. I got a note from Ed Dray today, giving us some suggestions about where to sit on the train for the best view and a line on a good Mexican restaurant in Durango. Wish he and Marilyn could be there with us, but schedules just didn’t match up this time. We hope to see them in the fall when they head back to the RGV.

We’ll bid farewell to Bubba and family at Durango and continue into the southeast corner of Utah and Monument Valley. This is a bucket list item for me, and we’ll be so close at Durango that I can’t pass up the chance to go there. In this setting for so many western movies, we’ll be prepared for an Indian attack at any time in Monument Valley, but confident that John Wayne will ride to our rescue if we get in trouble!

After Monument Valley, we will turn south to Flagstaff, Holbrook, Show Low, and back into New Mexico, where we’ll go through Silver City, Las Cruces, Alamogordo and Roswell—all places we’ve never been--before re-entering Texas and making our way home. We’re going to pray that Lucille’s air conditioner holds up in this sun-drenched part of the country, lest we have to call a wrecker to drag her to an air conditioner repair shop! If any of you dear readers have suggestions for interesting places to visit on this route, we’d be delighted to hear from you.

In preparation for this trip, I’ve acquired a couple of new gadgets. One is a Pressure Pro tire monitoring system, and the other is Microsoft Streets and Trips software. The Pressure Pro will give me some peace of mind with Homer’s tires, which are hardly worn but have been on the trailer four years. The conventional wisdom is to replace tires at five years, irrespective of the amount of wear they’ve seen, so this will probably be either the last summer for this trailer or the last for the tires. I’ve begun to fiddle with Streets and Trips, and I like what I’ve seen so far. However, I need to investigate extra databases I might acquire to show even more cool stuff while planning trips.
This weekend will bring about the final trip preparation and making arrangements for our mail pickup and house monitoring, things you full-timers don’t have to worry about any longer. Grrrr.

We’ll keep you posted along the way, so TTFN! (Ta-Ta For Now!)

346 days to retirement, if anyone is counting!

Lucille Gets Hitched!

2010-06-16T00:49:00.002-05:00

Well, I have a new respect for bloggers who post every day; I don’t think I’ll be able to do that as long as I’m still working. For me, it’s just so difficult to carve out enough free quiet time to construct a thoughtful piece that I think might be worthy for someone to read. Sandy says I am way too obsessive about the writing process. (I admit to a certain preoccupation in this area, as I may revise my copy a dozen times if I deem it to be imperfect in any way.) I think she’s right; this is hardly the great American novel, after all, and I know I need to lighten up. Old habits are hard to break, however, and it would be so painful for me to discover that I had split an infinitive or ended a sentence with a preposition and not caught it before publishing a post.

Last weekend went by much too quickly; Saturday involved a few minor projects and dinner at the Flying Fish, a favorite seafood joint in Fort Worth, to celebrate Sandy’s and my 34^th wedding anniversary. Bubba, and old friend of many years, joined us, along with his daughter, BreAnn. (I’ve written about Bubba and his family a number of times in earlier posts.)

The Flying Fish - A Ft. Worth Fave

BreAnn, Sandy and Bubba (and Lucille, of course)

Bubba approves of the new hitch.

This thing reminds me of a lunar lander or something!

Four air bags, two struts...Homer thinks he's riding on a cloud!

I was asked to be a front stage singer at church on Sunday, and that involved a sound and camera check at 7:00 a.m. and three services to follow, ending at 7:30 p.m. It’s getting pretty exciting at First Baptist Dallas, as we are about to embark on a $120 million building program. I’m told that’s the largest church-related building project in history. (See a remarkable animation video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5_EifcV1eE)

Monday brought Lucille’s first experience pulling Homer since I acquired her a few weeks ago. I must say, I was excited to see what the difference would be with the Dodge 3500 dually versus the old Hornet, a 2500 SRW. Of even more interest was the function of the new Air Safe 25K hitch just installed by United RV Center. I swallowed hard writing that check, but I was sold on the hitch after reading recommendations on several forums and after watching the convincing video on the Air Safe website. http://www.airsafehitches.com/videos.html

Lucille proved very capable of her new assignment, purring happily along S.H. 121 to our house; the tow was a short one—about 10 miles—and the dual rear wheels seemed to add a good deal of stability under Homer’s 11,000 lb. load. The star of the show, however, was the Air Safe hitch! I set my rear view mirror to get a good view of the hitch and pin box, and I was utterly amazed at the oscillations of the pin shoe atop the Holland Binkley head floating on the air bag/strut assembly—oscillations that were absorbed entirely by the hitch’s air bags and not transferred to the truck chassis at all! This should make for a far less fatiguing ride when towing, and I couldn’t be more impressed.

This marks the end of our progression from the original Reese hitch, with which we pulled Homer I and which nearly jarred our teeth out of our mouths, to a Pull-Rite Super Glide hitch and Fifth Airborne pin box used to pull Homer II (a really fine combination, by the way), to the current Air Safe hitch, an absolute marvel of engineering that, in my view, is probably unrivaled and worth every penny. How much, you ask? About four grand, installed. (I told you I swallowed hard.)

The outfitting of Lucille is going nicely. The Air Safe hitch was easily the most expensive of the upgrades so far. I just finished installing shiny new step tubes underneath the pickup’s front doors, along with some mud flaps to protect Homer and other following vehicles; then I added extra gauges for EGT, turbo boost pressure and transmission temperature. (A pilot can never have enough gauges.) Next will be a new satellite radio/GPS system, an exhaust brake and some engine intake/exhaust modifications.

Yes, I’m planning for Lucille to be with us for a long time, and I want her to have all the bells and whistles. That’s the reason I bought this particular truck with its legendary Cummins engine. The darned thing will probably outlast me if I treat her right!

Only 353 more days until we say goodbye to work and hit the road; the time is passing quickly, and there is much to be done!

Mason's First Birthday Party

2010-06-08T17:40:00.010-05:00

The past week was pretty much a blur, as Sandy and I were preparing to play a support role for grandson Mason’s first birthday party on Saturday, June 5. Mindy, his mom, has been nothing short of a dynamo in planning this thing, ordering all kinds of personalized party decorations from the internet, a custom-decorated cake, food, punch, party favors, balloons, streamers and the like, and all of it coming to my house! Yes, our smallish new retirement home, kept lovingly in immaculate condition by Sandy and never remotely envisioned as a party barn, was to be invaded on Saturday afternoon by (gasp!) the Sweaty Masses. It was not clear that it would ever look the same again.

I certainly didn’t mind helping host the party. (It wouldn’t matter much if I did, as such things are normally decided at a higher levels of authority—namely, Mindy and her mother.) It’s just that this house is not particularly well suited for entertaining a large group.

I couldn’t help but marvel at the elaborate preparations Mindy had undertaken for this event. Everything had to be just right, from the invitations to the color of the punch.

I told Sandy that I hadn’t yet figured out why Mindy went to all the trouble when Mason, barely a year old, will have absolutely no recollection of any of these festivities.

Sandy, never reluctant to explain all things unknowable to a man—which, in her view, is just about anything not classified as machinery—informed me that the party was not for Mason! As I scratched my head, she put her hands on her hips and, with her nose angled upward, made that familiar sniffing sound that she usually reserves for people who have had their brains removed but still try to engage her in conversation.

“It was for Min-dy,” she explained, drawing out the name as though she didn't expect me to understand words of more than one syllable.

“She so loves that baby, and she’s ready to celebrate having raised Mason through a thriving first year while going to college and working part time—all without any meaningful sleep.”

Finally figuring out the mysterious polysyllabic name of our daughter, I agreed that she had a point. We are very proud of Mindy and the very positive spiritual and family growth that she and Tyler have experienced with little Mason over the past year, and we think she deserves whatever kind of celebration she wants.

All in all, it was a grand and happy occasion, and everyone seemed to have a good time. Nothing else really matters, does it?

Proud Grandma (Mimi)

Proud Grandpa (Poppy) will teach Mason how to make the perfect salsa.

Great Aunt Brenda (Sandy's sister)

Good friends Marty and Cathy (well, Cathy anyway)