A Rolling Phannie Gathers No Moss

At Tranquil Gardens RV Park, Salado, Texas...

After a week's stay at our home port, our doctor and dentist visits had been accomplished, and we had reconnected with friends, trimmed some trees, had the garage door fixed, and I gave Phannie and Mae a wash job. On our way back from Houston a few days earlier, we had driven in the rain for a while, so both vehicles needed a bath. I ran Mae through a nearby car wash, but I washed Phannie myself, which is a lot like w*rk, something that I usually go to great lengths to avoid. I guess my principles have their price, however, as I saved about a hundred bucks in the process. 

Russ, my crackerjack electronics guru, also came by to take a look at the new Kenwood radio/disk player he installed in Phannie. I had been having a problem now and then with Sirius/XM reception, so he decided the satellite antenna had been placed too close to one of the air horns on Phannie's roof, so he moved it to a different location.

Once these things were out of the way, Sandy and I began to ask ourselves, "What are we doing here when we could be on the road?" We had been planning to visit another rally, this time of Tiffin motorhome owners next weekend in Galveston, so we decided to leave a bit early and take a detour to see some friends and relatives in central Texas.

Our first stop was in Waco, where we met Eddie and Jan, some really nice Wacoans who are mutual friends of Ed and Marilyn, Bob and Janet, Jesse and Ginger, Mike and Marian, et al. This cabal of RVers run around together when their paths cross--usually in Colorado in the summer and the Rio Grande Valley in the winter--and a good time is had by all whenever they do. It continues to amaze me, after all these years, how common it is for RVers to be very personable people whom we would be happy to call friends. Eddie and Jan were no exception, and we had a great time over lunch swapping stories about each other and some of the other characters among the cabal regulars.

After saying goodbye to new friends Eddie and Jan, we drove to Salado, where we stopped at Tranquil Gardens RV Park. This little park, in its very rural setting, was hardly one of the "best of the best," whose amenities we tend to prefer and which we highlight via a link on the home page of this rag. While the sites are fairly level ones with full hookups, including 50 amps, the whole place is gravel and not what you would call picturesque. 

I told you it wasn't pretty. But cheap trumps pretty.

Earlier, when we first arrived at the office, consisting of what appeared to be a well used manufactured building, we were met with many signs and notices on the windows, including some exhorting us to drive no more than five miles per hour and insisting that we have insurance, as the park is responsible for, basically, nothing bad that could happen. Ours was the only big rig in the park, and there appeared to be several relatively permanent residents. So what seduced us to stay here? Well, once again, it appears my standards are for sale; a stay at Tranquil Gardens can be had for a dirt cheap $20 a night with Passport America. 

The name Tranquil Gardens is partially a misnomer, as I could identify nothing that resembled a garden. However, the "tranquil" part was accurate; the park was quiet--very quiet, probably through the insistence of its slightly irascible owner, who patrolled the area frequently in his omnipresent golf cart. I learned through the locals that this guy was legendary in enforcing his five-mile-per-hour rule among his guests. This, of course, gave me pause to ponder exactly how he gauged the speed of vehicles, given the absence of a speedometer or radar gun on his golf cart. At any rate, I am not inclined to test the rule since my pace is relatively slow these days. (Since I retired, I have made a conscious effort to dispense with all the activities possible that require me to be somewhere at a specific time--especially if that time is in the morning.)

As depicted in the photo above, the owner is a bearish man with whom I wouldn't necessarily wish to tangle. Wearing a long sleeved khaki overshirt, he seemed much too warmly dressed for the 88-degree Texas afternoon. He was more firm than gruff, but his no-nonsense demeanor was not necessarily off-putting, as he was obviously not going to put up with any monkey business in his park, and that's fine with me. I also appreciated his prominent display of the American flag. I mean, what's not to respect about a patriotic guy who doesn't suffer any rabble-rousing in his park? Good for him.  

When we arrived at the park around 4:00 p.m., I went inside the office to register and found it unoccupied. Looking around, I noticed several more handmade signs giving instructions to patrons finding themselves alone in the office. One of the signs indicated that I should "ring the bell." However, the location of the bell was not immediately evident, so I began to look around the room. When my scan reached 180 degrees behind me, I saw a button on the wall beside the door through which I had entered. Pointing to the button were a couple of dayglo arrows that had obviously been fashioned so as to highlight its location. As I extended my index finger toward the button, I was startled by a rather loud voice from a speaker on the wall behind me. 

     "I see you," said the disembodied voice."I'll be there in a minute." I quickly withdrew my finger and busied myself by thumbing through one of several old magazines on a nearby table.

Then I noticed a video camera in one of the corners of the room near the ceiling, so I knew that I was being watched. The imposing owner soon appeared in his golf cart in the driveway behind Phannie and Mae and methodically recorded the numbers of their license plates. Then he came inside and greeted me in a friendly but businesslike way, where we completed the paperwork and he reiterated the rules, most of which I had already memorized from the ample display of signage outside and inside. Hearing no pushback from me at the end of his recitation, he seemed satisfied that I would not likely be a troublemaker and collected the rental fee in advance. 

     "Cash only," he said, since I was using my Passport America discount. (The only other option was to write a check; he doesn't take credit cards.)

I suppose some folks might resent the somewhat brusque officiousness of the owner, but I didn't, probably because I found him to be an interesting character. I almost wish I had learned more about him.

Later that evening, we joined a number of relatives on Sandy's side of the family for dinner at Jody's, a longtime Temple restaurant specializing in all things fried. My chicken fried steak and onion rings were, as expected, delicious, even though I could just visualize my doctors waving their fingers at me for being naughty.

Here are several family photos that will be interesting only to, well, family, whom we do indeed revere:

Betty

Bill and Linda

Lloyd, Nettie, Paula, Frank and Carolyn

Greta, Shorty and Janice

The next day, we stopped at Cracker Barrel in Killeen to catch up with longtime friends Linda, Darla, Jody and John, who is a pastor at a local church. We had a great time and literally closed the place down. Thanks to all for meeting up with us!

Sandy, Linda, Darla, Jody and John

Tomorrow we leave for Galveston.

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough each day.

We Followed Them Home

At home near Fort Worth, Texas...

I suppose we hadn't quite had our fill of the kids after our long time away, so what do grandparents do when they're retired? Well, just about anything we want, I guess. In this case, we decided to follow them home!

We know that the common response of most young folks faced with the prospect of such an invasion by grandparents would be something other than positive; it might even be laced with epithets of some kind. We have been blessed, however, in that Tyler and Mindy have always been solicitous of our presence, even for extended periods of time. We do go to great lengths, however, to remain on the periphery as much as possible, and we do our best to provide support for them as they go about their busy lives. We like to do grocery shopping for them and prepare and take them meals they like, then we fade away back to Phannie in the evening so they can still maintain their family time.

As far as Mason and Pryce go, we can do no wrong in their eyes, as we always have surprises for them and find little need to say "no" to anything they want unless we get busted by their parents-- something that happens fairly regularly.

In Houston, we stayed at Northlake this time, as it was a little cheaper than Rayford Crossing, which has obviously been discovered and whose rates are now in excess of $50 a night. Even though it's a very nice park, we think this is a little over the top.

Although it's a little out of the way for us, Northlake has many of the features that make it a premium park:

See Phannie in the background?

We have found that since it rains so often in Houston, a concrete pad is the only way to go to avoid tracking mud into the coach.

Before we left Marble Falls, we noticed one morning that we had no hot water. I checked everything I knew to check in regard to the water heater and found that it was operational on both electric and propane, but the water from the hot faucet was nothing more than a small trickle. I went online to the Tiffin owners forum and quickly found that the likely culprit was the check valve in the hot water line exiting the water heater. I removed the panel that separates the water heater compartment from the middle cargo bay, spotted the check valve and tapped on it with hammer. The valve obviously opened, as we suddenly had hot water again. However, it didn't last for more than a few minutes before it shut off. Because I could not contort my arthritic body into a position that would allow me to replace the valve myself, I elected to call for help. We arranged to meet up with a mobile RV mechanic on our way through Austin. We met up as planned, and the very personable mechanic had the valve replaced in about 20 minutes. We're glad to recommend RV Specialists in Austin. Their number is 512-470-3070.

Another thing I noticed that had the potential for giving us trouble was the electrical cable that provides power from Phannie to Mae, operating the taillights, brake lights and turn signals of our little red toad. The cable was beginning to show signs of wear because of its heavy use, and I was reminded that the current cable was a replacement for the original that was installed in 2011. The failure of the original cable occurred on the road, and we didn't discover it until we went to hook up one morning and noticed Mae's lights were not working during the light check that I always accomplish before each departure. This meant that Sandy had to drive Mae and follow me until we reached an RV parts store that had a replacement cable. Now you must know that, although she is a good and safe driver, Sandy is not fond of driving at all, especially in unfamiliar territory. So, I thought I would save myself some future ridicule by ordering a spare cable:

I thought this was a wise addition to my "fly away kit." (This is aviation lingo for a cache of critical spare parts and specialized tools carried aboard mostly charter aircraft that will enable a quick repair in a remote location. During my career as an airline pilot doing many charter flights, the fly away kit proved indispensable for avoiding expensive delays.) Phannie's fly away kit contains things like oil and fuel filters, a spare fan belt, extra bolts for slide torque tubes, extra towbar ring pins, special outsize wrenches and a small high-capacity air compressor, in addition to an assortment of other bolts, screws, washers and other kinds of fasteners and other small parts.

By the way, Amazon has these Blue Ox cables for about a third less than RV retail stores I've checked.

So what do we do while we're around the grandkids? Well, perhaps this gives you some idea:

We hope you do not infer from these photos that taking the boys to get smoothies, frozen yogurt and ice cream would be considered spoiling them. Nothing could be farther from the truth. At least, that's the way we see it!

After a week in Houston, we came back home for (what else?) another doctor and dentist appointment. But we won't be here long...stand by!

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough each day.

And...We're Off Again!

At Sunset Point RV Resort, Marble Falls, Texas...

Okay, enough of the downtime and chores; we're off again! 

This won't be anything like the epic tour of the western U. S. that we've just completed, however. We've been away for a long time, and we've got to see the grandkids before Sandy has to be institutionalized. I'm not much better, but someone has to remain stoic.

We have decided to meet Mason and Pryce along with their expendable parents (not really) in Marble Falls. Then we will travel to the little town of Burnet, Texas, where we will ride with them on the Thomas train under the auspices of the Austin Steam Train Association. Mason, like so many of his contemporaries, is completely ga-ga over everything Thomas. (If only I had thought of such a cash machine as the Thomas franchise.)

Sunset Point is a jewel of an RV park right on the shoreline of Lake LBJ near Marble Falls. We always enjoy the pristine grounds and relaxing views of the lake.

After their arrival, we treated the kids (as we call all of them) to lunch at the Bluebonnet Cafe, an institution in Marble Falls since 1929 and where patrons are almost always lined up to enter. 

I know my standards are higher than most, but I couldn't find much that was special about the place. The food was okay, about what I expected from a local cafe, but it was by no means exceptional. But it is popular. One caveat: I didn't try any pie, which is supposedly a mainstay.

Riding the Thomas train was a big deal for us and the boys, and we had a lot of fun seeing their excitement.  Here are a few photos:

If you have grandkids and they're into the Thomas thing, be sure and take them to one of the Thomas train rides. They will love it, and you will get all the credit.

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough each day.

Hitch Itch, a Visit With Mike and Marian and Other Stuff

At home near Fort Worth, Texas...

I'm not sure that "hitch itch" is the correct term. It certainly was applicable when we had a fifth wheel, but now with a motorhome? I suppose Phannie does have a hitch, however--the Blue Ox one that tethers Mae as she faithfully follows us wherever we go. So, until I'm aware of the lingo describing the lure of the road for motorhome owners, "hitch itch" will have to do. Anyway, we have it, so we're about to head out again.

We have been nesting here at the home port for about three weeks since we pancaked in here after leaving hurriedly from Las Vegas, thoroughly singed and heat-soaked after our ill advised passage from Southern California through Barstow and the Death Valley environs. We had intended to spend some time at the Grand Canyon and Santa Fe, but we just didn't think we could enjoy ourselves unless we tried again at a cooler time of year. Who would have thought that we would race home to Texas to get out of the heat in August?  The truth is, we didn't help ourselves very much by doing so. The temp here has been in the nineties almost every day since we returned so, of course, we have been prisoners of the air conditioner.

Escaping the hellish August inferno that constitutes the great Southern California/Nevada desert was not the only reason we had to get back home. There were the never-ending appointments with the medical, dental and optical professionals who tend to our seemingly endless infirmities. We must do our part to complete  this necessary balance of trade: We get new or repaired body parts, and they get a new Lexus or Mercedes. I think we have largely completed their inspections of our current medical discrepancies and, of course, there are other chores that always befall us when we transit our home base.  These include, but are not limited to, the following:

Retrieving and performing triage on a pile of mail from our UPS mail drop, trimming hedges (there aren't very many, but since the goal of xeriscaping was the avoidance of yard w*rk, why did we plant these infernal things?), cleaning up the leaves and twigs blown from the trees, sweeping the porches and the garage and RV port, replacing bulbs and batteries, changing the A/C filter and cleaning the carpets (not us--professionals--way too much like w*rk).

Another project that was a bit more interesting was my installing a new gadget. (I do love gadgets.) This one is a Ring video doorbell that will alert us on our cell phones when someone rings our doorbell or even if they step on the porch and don't ring it. (It also has a motion sensor.) Once we get the alert, we can punch up a live video feed on our phones and converse with whoever is there--no matter where we may happen to be:

Yes, I know; I'm a bit obsessive about security, what with cameras and alarms everywhere, but after a break-in at home and in Phannie, I think I might be given a little slack. I have to admit, this thing is way cool, though, and it's fun to watch visitors' reactions when my disembodied voice greets them from the doorbell!

The computers in the house needed updating, of course, when I fired them up after their long sleep and, while I was shepherding that, I also purchased and installed a really neat program that is utterly amazing in the simple way that it removes undesired objects from digital photos and fills in behind them with what seems normal to appear there. I can't imagine how they do it, but it is light years simpler than anything else I've used. It's called In Pixio and here's the link: In Pixio

Since we're talking about it, let me give you an example. Below are two photos of the Ring doorbell I just mentioned. The top one  shows a round smear of masonry mud left by the bricklayer just to the left of the doorbell unit. (It's actually the style; it's called "messy mortar." Oddly, we paid them to do that.) The photo beneath shows the brick with the smear removed. (It would have been perfect if I had taken the time to highlight it carefully.) All you do is click the brush tool, highlight the smear and click "erase" and voila'! (No, the program isn't free; it's about 50 bucks.)

Some of the chores also involved Phannie, and that seemed somewhat less offensive, for some reason. For example, she needed another oil change and a wash job after the long trip just finished. Since she had an oil change in July during her yearly service visit, I got Speedco in Irving to do this one, which was fast in, fast out and about $179. The truck wash next door near Loop 12 and Grauwyler did a fine job on the road grime for about $75. Ready for the next trip! Once this was done, I took care of a few more things inside Phannie, like replacing the filter elements in all three roof airs. These had been cleaned several times and had a few torn places. So this involved getting some filter material from the hardware store, cutting it to the correct dimensions and throwing the old ones away:

  
Of course, it was time to upgrade Phannie's computer to Windows 10, which is a vast improvement over 8.1, I must say:

When I wasn't doing all that, I found time to cook up a huge batch of my famous spaghetti sauce, which I froze and will take to the kids, who are constantly hitting me up for it.

Mindy likes to serve it to Mason and Pryce because they eat it so well, and it is a sneaky source of meat, vegetables and other healthy stuff. Plus, it is very slightly on the sweet side which, of course, is probably the reason the kids wolf it down so readily. The sweetness is provided by a healthy addition of Merlot, which may be why the grownups also like it.

If you've read this rag for a while, you may have noticed several posts about the tools I use to clean bugs off Phannie's windshield. The one I have mentioned most is the flexible squeegee shown on the left in the photo below and made by Shurhold Industries (available from Amazon).  In my opinion, it is utterly indispensable to a motorhome owner. Why? Because cleaning a big motorhome windshield is a daunting task, due to its frequency and the huge real estate of glass that is involved. This squeegee on its long handle is simply far superior to anything else. Well, now I'm going to tout the other tool, a Bug Buster brush on the right in the photo below, available at most RV outlets for about 20 dollars and excellent because of its stiffer mesh. And last but not least, a spray bottle of Bug Bust, made by Thetford, also available at many RV outlets (probably cheaper at Amazon). It is by far the best dissolver of dried bug guts I have seen.

If you have a motorhome and you get these three things, you'll be happy, I promise.

Now, to cap off our stay at home, we had the good fortune of having dinner at Carabba's, a good Italian restaurant, with friends and fellow RVers Mike and Marian, who were visiting family nearby.  After dinner, we had them over to our humble abode for some pecan pie and ice cream, and we had a good time laughing and visiting. These are delightful folks whom we've had the privilege of getting to know by virtue of our friends Ed and Marilyn, whom we also enjoy visiting when our paths cross.  We were so excited about visiting with Mike and Marian that we forgot to take a photo, so we'll reprise one from a previous visit. We can't let this post fly without showing you what a good looking couple they are--well, Marian, for sure:

We are about to launch on another much shorter trip, so we'll be posting quite a bit more, in case you were wondering what happened to the blog (surprisingly, some readers did ask where we've been).  We've been taking a break, that's all. See you on the road!

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough each day.

Last Leg

At Oasis RV Resort, Amarillo, Texas...

Tomorrow we will be home.

It has been quite a trip--seven weeks and 6,000 miles in Phannie, dragging Mae behind, plus the Alaska cruise. We had the grandest time seeing old friends and meeting new ones that we previously knew only through their blogs. We traveled many new roads and saw many new sights, some of which were far more grand and inspiring than we expected. Although we thought this a "bucket list" trip of places we had to go, it had the effect of whetting our appetite to see more than our fast and superficial sampling provided.

We will be very busy when Phannie is tucked away in her RV port at the side of our house. Besides the household chores and other personal business awaiting us, there is some reorganizing we want to do in Phannie's storage areas. Living seven weeks in an RV while on the road has illuminated some ways in which we can make better use of her space. We'll keep you posted on all of this, but the blog will have more gaps for a while now that we're going to be off the road.

As I am reflecting on the trip  now ending (thank heavens for the blog to help me do that), I am trying to think of  "a few of my favorite things," as the song goes. That is proving to be much more difficult than I thought. Scrolling through the many posts, I think I see something that I could call a favorite, only to have it eclipsed by something else closely in sequence. I think I will have better luck naming a least favorite. That's pretty easy--the trip from southern California through the Mojave Desert and our visit to Las Vegas. I'm not going to revisit that because I have more than exhausted my readers and myself whining about the experience. Besides, it's my own fault; a light bulb should have illuminated when traveling through the Mojave in August became a consideration. What's even worse is my carrying on as though we were stranded somewhere in Death Valley with the buzzards circling! Why, we weren't even uncomfortable 95 percent of the time, thanks to Phannie's air conditioning overkill. I think what got to us was the shock after spending so much of the trip in cool climes, which, of course, was our goal in getting ourselves out of the Texas summer heat in the first place! Basically, we traded the witch for the devil, and it was I who was on the bridge.

Yes, I could have planned this part better, but then I wouldn't have had learned from the experience. And perhaps you wouldn't have read about it and felt a good deal of satisfaction in knowing that your choices would have been so much smarter. 

And although I am reluctant to brag on Phannie and Mae just before the last leg, these two have taken us through drought and flood, biting cold and searing heat, fog, dirt, mud, to say nothing of dust and smoke. They have wound themselves around innumerable hairpin curves and climbed and descended some of the steepest passes in the country. To keep the old girl from running away or bogging down in the mountains, I have downshifted and upshifted Phannie's transmission so much that I can now play it like a piano. All of this, and not so much as a whimper from any part of their drive trains. Had it not been for a small hole in an air hose in Fresno, all would have been perfect. I am so pleased with these two vehicles that seem not so much like machines as family members.

Let me pause here and give you a little tip: On the recommendation of a trusted diesel shop owner, I have used Stanadyne diesel fuel additive religiously as prescribed on the label in all the diesels I have owned. In ten years, I have never had a single hiccup...not even once...from any of these engines. Coincidence? Maybe, but I don't think so.

 

Of course, I must give kudos to my best friend and partner, Miss Sandy, with whom I had the privilege of sharing this adventure. It was even better than I always thought it would be once we were free from the w*rk world.

 

And most important, thanks to the Almighty for good health and protection as we had the opportunity to see just a little of His fabulous handiwork. I try to acknowledge Him with the closing note at the end of each post, used by permission from longtime friend, Martha Jo:

 

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough each day.

 

 



Making a Run For It--to Gallup, New Mexico

At USA RV Park, Gallup, New Mexico...

We were pulling out of Las Vegas at 10 a.m. this morning. That may be a new early record for a departure! We were ready to escape the desert heat, and we didn't stop except to gas up at Kingman, Arizona. We made about 400 miles today, twice as many as we usually drive. We stopped here at Gallup because it was getting dark, and I really don't like setting up at a parking spot in the nighttime. Here in the high desert, it was very noticeably cooler outside and, after the sun had fully set, it got cool quickly. Now this is more like it!

We had a nice dinner at Jerry's Diner, and old time Gallup dive that was totally devoid of charm but the food was good. My Mexican combination was covered with their green chile sauce that was unusually spicy, just the way I like it. It was very, very good and very cheap. Winner, winner!

Historic Route 66 provides the main drag through Gallup, and we decided to drive the length of the town, taking in the old motels and restaurants that were obviously built well before I-40 was conceived and Route 66 was abuzz with Buick Roadmasters, Pontiac Chieftains and Lincoln Premieres. Of particular interest was the El Rancho Hotel/Motel, an imposing two story hotel built in 1937 by the brother of film director D. W. Griffith as a headquarters for moviemaking and lodging for movie stars.



Fireplace in the Lobby of El Rancho

This part of New Mexico was very desirable for making western movies back then, and this hotel hosted production crews and stars for movies like these:

The Bad Man 1940

Sundown 1941

The Desert Song 1942

Song of the Nile 1944

Four Faces West & Colorado Territory 1947-1948

Streets of Laredo 1948

Rocky Mountain 1950

The Big Carnival 1950 (AKA Ace in the Hole)

New Mexico 1950

Fort Defiance 1950

Raton Pass 1951

Fort Massacre 1957

A Distant Trumpet 1963

The Hallelujah Trail 1964

Just about every major movie actor of the era was housed in this hotel at some point, and their photos line the walls of the hotel loggia. We stopped and toured the lobby, finding it fascinating and surprising that so many of the old movie stars had stayed here. The rooms were even named after them.

Well, this was a pleasant stop, for sure. Tomorrow, we're off for Amarillo and the first time we've set foot on Texas soil for nearly two months!

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough every day.

Vegas: Not Like It Used to Be

At Oasis RV Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada...

To avoid any chance of heatstroke, we're making a run for it--back to Texas. There will be no detours or stops for sightseeing, as we've pretty much seen all of the sights on other trips between here and there. Besides, it takes some of the fun out of it when paramedics have to be called when we set foot out of the coach in the heat. We also have chores, appointments and obligations at home, and the longer we lollygag around, the more of them there will be. (You can stop gloating now, fulltimers; it's not very nice.)

The passing of years has dimmed the excitement we used to have for visiting the old Las Vegas. It has morphed into a series of monster hotels, casinos and parking garages that all seem to be joined together into nonsensical theme park-like subsections, as though the mishmash was conceived by someone doing LSD. There are vast throngs of people everywhere, traffic on the strip is a mess and drivers are rude.

All of the gigantic buildings in this alternate universe are funded by the hundreds of thousands of folks who happily come here and push money into machines and onto gaming tables where the house will gladly take it, secure in the knowledge that it will always win in the end. We came out here mostly for the shows in the old days, enjoying immensely the crooners and the big orchestras that played the old standards we loved--you know, the ones that had a melody?

Today, we recognize almost none of the entertainers whose faces appear on the billboards advertising their shows. And, with few exceptions, the orchestras are gone, replaced by keyboards and thumb drives in computers. We don't recognize any of the music, either. It mostly sounds like some kind of primal chanting and thumping while someone is clearing his sinuses--and that's just the rap music. I don't get it, and I never will; I'm just glad to have been around when music was music.

As I mentioned in the last post, we went to see the Australian Bee Gees, and we wish we hadn't. It was a seriously ham-fisted tribute with deafening amplification that made the inadequacy of the performers unbearable. We haven't walked out of very many shows, but this one we did. The next night--again, looking for some music we might recognize--we took in the show "Hitzville," a Motown revue. It was actually quite good, the performers being very talented. We thought this one was well worth seeing.

As far as our restaurant experiences go, I already mentioned Sonio's, a place on Charleston where locals go for good food on the cheap. On our last night, I took Sandy for a birthday dinner to the nightly seafood buffet at the Rio Hotel. It was probably the best buffet we've found anywhere, considering the number of items--no fewer than 160, not including the salads and desserts--and the freshness and expertise shown in their preparation. It's pricey, but you can get discounts at the ticket brokers. Well worth it, in our opinion.

Okay, that's it for Vegas. We hardly knew ye this time. Not sure we'll be back.
Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough every day.

Karma in Vegas

At Oasis RV Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada...

Karma, as expressed in Buddhism, is an action taken in this life or in a previous incarnation that brings about an inevitable result, for good or bad, that has an impact on one's present situation.

While I'm no adherent to Buddhism, I do believe the fact that Las Vegas is currently having a record heat wave (it was 109 degrees today) may have something to do with my insufferably smug reporting to friends and family of our enjoying the cool weather when we were in the Rockies and in Alaska. I am a victim of my own karma!

Readers of this blog probably get tired of hearing me whine about how much I despise hot weather. So what, other than karma, explains why I find myself in this pit of fire and brimstone here in the Nevada desert?

It sounded good in theory: Since we had to travel across the vast desert southwest to get back to Texas anyway, why not just accept a little discomfort outside occasionally and stop at some places we haven't seen for a while?

I already recounted our trek of insanity across the Mojave to get here, but I didn't expect the blast furnace to follow! Another odd thing: This was the first time there were no bugs on the windshield after a long leg like that one. I suppose they all died of heatstroke before they could commit suicide by crashing into my windshield! Karma for the bugs, too, it seems.

This might be a good place for me to insert a photo or two from our Alaska cruise, so I can remember our wonderful cool surroundings before we decided to come here to see what hell is like.

This is me, standing in front of a stuffed bear in Sitka, Alaska. Notice my jacket; the temperature was in the fifties there. Those were the days!

And this one is of Sandy on the cruise ship at the glacier in Tracy Arm Fjord in Alaska. It was cold out there on the deck!  There, I'm feeling better already. We really were there! (Too bad we couldn't have stayed.)

I didn't bother to take any photos of overheated people here in Las Vegas, as most had shed as much clothing as they could to help them cope. For most of them, however, taking their photo would not exactly be a kind thing to do. 

In our earlier life when I was with the airlines, Sandy and I flew to Las Vegas occasionally to see some shows, and we always enjoyed the big productions starring our favorite performers. The place has changed a lot since then, and I'll have some more observations about that in the next post.

For today, we managed to get up and get ready by the crack of noon (no, we don't drink, so we weren't hung over). I did a little quick research on the computer and found a lunch joint, Sonio's, where the locals go for a good meal on the cheap. It was as advertised, and we enjoyed some excellent chicken tacos and an Italian beef sandwich au jus with French fries. So delicious, and a steal for fourteen bucks! On the strip, our bill would have been at least twice as much.

After that, Sandy did some shopping (what else?), and we decided to see a show later at the Excalibur where the Australian Bee Gees were performing. We hadn't heard of this act before, but the real Bee Gees were popular back in our younger years, so we thought it would be pretty good, as we would probably recognize their music, unlike most everything else that passes for music these days.

One thing we noticed about Las Vegas this time was that there were no shows featuring music from our teenage years, the fifties and sixties. Then we looked at each other and realized that no one from that era comes to Las Vegas anymore--they're too old! Can you imagine how many handicapped parking spaces would be needed? Suddenly, we felt out of place. I guess Branson is more our speed now; at least you can find music there with classic lyrics like this: "It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater..."

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough every day.

And We Thought Texas Was Hot!

A Oasis RV Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada...

Okay, maybe this wasn't a good idea--going to Sequoia and Kings Canyon, that is. The reason? Well, the only way you can get to Texas from there, if you don't want to do a lot of backtracking, is to bite the bullet and go through some really hot landscape from southern California to Nevada. And that's what we did today. Let me just go ahead and get this out of the way: Driving from Bakersfield to Las Vegas in August in a motorhome is just plain dumb!

Thankfully, Tiffin did a good job with the dash a/c in Phannie, as we have six nozzles blowing good cold air--four of them on Sandy, as it should be in this, ah, time of her life. This is almost always plenty of air conditioning for us without firing up the generator and running the roof airs. Until today.

We did pretty well until reaching Barstow, a town that will surely serve as Satan's headquarters some day, as it could only have been conceived in some hellish hot place in which he would be comfortable. When we opened the door and stepped onto the parking lot pavement at a local burger joint, we were instantly hit by a wind so hot that it must have come from a convection oven. It was almost impossible to breathe as we gasped for air, not really caring about food any longer. It was easily the hottest place we have ever been.

The air conditioning in the café couldn't possibly keep up with the  furnace outside, so I tried to pick a table underneath a ceiling fan, which was also quite inadequate. We didn't much care for the burgers, so we scurried back to Phannie and started her up quickly. We had left a couple of roof airs running when we went to the restaurant, and we didn't bother to turn them off for the rest of the trip.

It was just as we passed the south end of Death Valley that the outside air temperature gauge reached 121 degrees. I-15 was quite busy during this leg, and we saw a number of trucks that had just given up on the side of the road near the long inclines leading east from Bakersfield. Fortunately, we were unfazed by the heat, as Phannie's cabin was almost chilly with the dash air and both forward roof airs going. During part of the trip today, we were on the phone whining to friends about the heat, only to get precious little sympathy, given the number of posts we made from the Rocky Mountains and Alaska reveling in our cool surroundings there. Having no one to commiserate with us made our plight even worse, but I guess I understood.

We reached Las Vegas without incident, thankfully, after some 240 miles of some really unattractive landscape. Just to be clear, we're pretty sure we won't be doing that route again in the middle of summer or maybe--ever.

Oasis is a very large and nice RV park in Las Vegas, and we plan to stay here for a couple more days. As a bonus, it's also a Passport America park, for which we pay half price for three days. It's nice enough, in fact, to put it on my "best of the best" list.

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.

Sequoia: Can't See the Forest for the Trees

At A Country RV Park, Bakersfield, California...

Yes, my posting is a trifle behind; Phannie's little air hose problem sorta threw me off my game. After that experience, we took a day and drove out to Sequoia National Park to see the big trees.

 Neither of us had been there before, so seeing these giants was truly amazing. The photos we've seen in books and magazines definitely didn't do them justice.

Can you see Sandy at the base of the tree on the left?

The sequoia trees are sometimes confused with redwoods. The sequoias are related but larger, and the redwoods grow on the coast, while the sequoias grow inland. The redwoods are well suited for lumber, but the sequoias are less so because of their tendency to splinter easily.

The star of the park and drawing the most crowds was the General Sherman, the largest living tree on earth. We could not approach the tree, but you can get an idea of its size from the people on the observation platform to the right in the photo.

The General Sherman

It's not the tallest, but its record is established by virtue of its trunk volume, estimated at over 52,000 cubic feet. Other measurements are equally impressive: The diameter of its trunk is 36 feet, and it is estimated to weigh over 2,700,000 pounds. At 2,200 years old, it may have been a mere seedling at the time of Christ.

Here is yours truly, standing in a tunnel hewn through one of the smaller sequoias that had fallen:

On our way back to Fresno, we stopped at an overlook in King's Canyon National Park, where we saw smoke from one of the many forest fires currently burning in California:

One of the things that struck us here in California is the devastation caused by the long drought. So many of the trees and other vegetation are dead or dying, it is tragic and disturbing. Take a look at all the dying trees in this photo taken between Kings Canyon and Fresno:

Of course, this post wouldn't be complete if I didn't include a photo that I can add to the Oddities and Imponderables category. I don't even know where to begin speculating about this, which we saw near the small town of Three Rivers, California on the way to the park:

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough every day.

Phannie Gets a Hole in Her Hose

At Blackstone North RV Park, Fresno, California...

It never fails. A couple of posts back, I was doing some bragging on Phannie for her almost trouble-free reliability in the four years we've owned her. I was reluctant to do that, but I knocked on wood, and I thought that gesture would somehow cancel the jinx that I knew might result. It didn't.

As we were approaching this RV park in Fresno, I noticed that both air pressure gauges were reading lower than normal. I dismissed this at first, because I had been on the brakes a good bit in the stop-and-go traffic. However, upon turning into the RV park driveway and setting the parking brake, I noticed the air pressures were even lower, and suddenly the low air pressure annunciator light illuminated along with the very annoying buzzer that accompanies such warnings. Now it was obvious something was wrong.

It was too late in the day to make any repair arrangements, so we drove ahead to our site after checking in. We had plenty of pressure for braking, as it increased above the minimum 65 psi when the engine speed increased beyond idle.

I pulled up my trusty Freightliner 24/7 app on my iPhone and queried for a nearby service center. Fresno Truck Center, a bigtime Freightliner facility, popped right up. The next morning, we hopped in Mae and drove there, as I figured a meeting in person might convince the service manager to work me in the same day. I didn't have much hope for that, however, when we reached the facility and noticed perhaps a hundred trucks were in the shop or parked outside.

Undaunted, I went inside and strode up to the counter, where I described the problem. I also asked when I might expect repairs to be made. The service writer smiled and said, "I have only about five rigs ahead of you, so we should be able to get to you sometime this afternoon." I was a bit taken aback, but I didn't dare ask how we managed to get ahead of a whole parking lot full of Freightliner trucks.

So we hot-footed it back to the RV park and began preparing Phannie for her journey to get well. Since I was able to keep the RPM up during the freeway travel, we retained plenty of pressure for the brakes to work well. After dropping Phannie off, we went to lunch, and then Sandy went shopping while I played chauffeur for her.

When we returned to Freightliner, we noticed that they had pulled Phannie into one of the bays, and a technician was on a creeper looking underneath. He saw the problem right away: Two of the rear air hoses had apparently been misrouted at the factory and had been rubbing together since the coach  was new. Finally, a hole appeared in the heavily-worn flat spot on one of the hoses. That's where the air was going.

Fresno Truck Center had the hoses on hand and they installed them rather quickly. Problem solved, and we were out of there before 5:00 p.m.  Oh yes...and we were $481 poorer.

I noticed a truck wash business nearby, so we drove over there and got a very nice wash job on Phannie, complete with towel drying and tire dressing, for $80. What a deal, and they did a great job!

Because of the positive experience at Fresno Truck Center and Fresno Truck Wash, I heartily recommend these places if you're ever in the area.

As for Phannie, I don't take back a single word of my praise for the old gal. A rubbing air hose is something that could happen on any coach, and that is no indication of a chronic problem or flawed design. She's still like an old friend on whom we can rely. I might mention, though, that I'm currently knocking like crazy on my wooden computer desk.

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough every day.

Crater Lake and Almost Off the Grid

At Durango RV Resort, Red Bluff, California...

After leaving Canyonville and the Seven Feathers RV Resort, we set the GPS for Crater Lake RV Park in Prospect, Oregon. Since Phannie had up a pretty good head of steam on that straight piece of highway 62, we nearly blew by the RV park--and the town, for that matter--before we realized it. Prospect is a really, really tiny place. So tiny, in fact, that we figured it didn't have cell service. We were wrong--it did. But the RV park, a very short distance from town, didn't. This would prove to be an enlightening experience for us.

You know how I like to post photos of oddities and curiosities. Well, here is a bit of artwork that we noticed in Prospect that added a certain flair to the curb appeal of one of the residences in town:

In case you're having a little trouble with what you think you're seeing, this is a wooden fence upon which have been affixed work boots, into the top of which an artificial flower has been inserted. The wooden framing in the diamond shape makes the décor pop and adds to the curb appeal, don't you think?

We set up in our space in the RV Park, which was heavily treed. Even so, I thought the satellite dish on Phannie's roof would find the Direct TV signals, as there was a small break in the trees toward the south. Well, it didn't, so I finally pushed the button to stow the dish. Then I had to share with Miss Sandy that not only did we not have cell service and therefore, no Internet service, but we now had no Direct TV. She plopped onto the couch and looked at me with her face turning clockwise and back, much like a puppy that tilts its head from side to side as if trying to understand the indecipherable language of a human who is speaking to it.

As odd as it may seem, we almost never find ourselves with any part of our technology inoperable. When these eye-popping inventions came along, we didn't dismiss them as new-fangled things that would never catch on. We embraced them. No, we belly-flopped into them, wondering where they had been all our lives. I recall that we had the first VCR in the neighborhood, an old RCA Victor VHS behemoth whose blank videotapes cost something like 30 bucks. Whenever an improvement came along, we got it, and that hasn't changed. So, with Phannie nearly capable of receiving signals from a distant planet, being incommunicado like this was incomprehensible, much like our having to get up before sunrise--an event that happens with about the same frequency as the arrival of Halley's comet. Perplexed, we found in an overhead bin a rectangular stack of printed papers bound by a hard cover, which we vaguely recalled was known as a "book." Then we laughed hysterically, put it back, and watched some programs we had already recorded.

Okay, enough silliness. It wasn't as bad as all that, but we definitely missed our communications--more than we thought we would. We busied ourselves by driving Mae up to the rim of Crater Lake. The drive and the lake were beautiful, of course, although the air was a little smoky from the several forest fires that were plaguing southern Oregon and northern California at the time. It often gives me a bit of a shudder when I see for the first time some iconic landmark like Crater Lake that I had read about all my life. Fortunately, there weren't many visitors on that day--a Wednesday--so we had no trouble looking around to our heart's content and taking photos with no one in the way. And yes, it looks just like the photo:

It was also inspiring and humbling to contemplate the forces of nature at work in the volcanic action that formed this caldera. It was a fine time of inspiration and awe, and we felt privileged to be here in person to see it.

Not to diminish the moment, but you know how I like to take pictures of odd things. Here's another photo of something we saw parked at the rim of Crater Lake:

Now I don't know about you, but this was just about the last thing we would have expected to see at this place. I suppose it was genius, however, because it was probably photographed by every person there.

On our way back from Crater Lake, we stopped at the Natural Bridge over the Rogue River. After a brief walk from the parking lot at the viewing area, we saw the river flowing through an ancient lava tube that had formed during the active volcanic period. The river, which was quite significant in volume, disappeared into the tube about 200 feet upstream and emerged, leaving a natural bridge over the river:

Here's the downstream end of the lava tube with the river water emerging. The natural lava bridge above provided a walkway across the river.

And now, for the piece de resistance: On the same walk, which we took in the late afternoon, we happened upon a scene that photographers love--one that you know right away is going to be a beautiful shot and one that will be a source of delight as we look at it and remember the moment. I got the shot, and it was a good one--but through no great effort or skill on my part. The camera was on auto and I merely pressed the shutter release, and here it is:



The Rogue River, looking west at sunset near Crater Lake, Oregon
(C)

That night, we slept well after a very enjoyable day and were on the road again the next morning at the crack of around ten a.m., I think. As soon as we returned to civilization, our cell phones began an incessant series of dings and warbles as pent-up messages and emails began announcing their arrival. Miss Sandy purred as she began her usual triage, catching up with the goings-on of her peeps after a whole night of, well, what it must have been like on the frontier.

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough every day.